hi beloved,

 

i’m glad to hear from you! such a busy time, not just the holidaze, but … this life of ours! everyone is so busy, and that’s good, but i must always take time out to stay in touch with my beloveds.

 

ahhhh, the storms and the troughs of life, especially family life.

right now carter and i are in the pleasant place of having-finished-one-crisis and not yet involved in the next, soon-to-come. because that’s what life is all about, isn’t it? one “challenge” or “crisis” or “break-through” or “life-turn” or … “coincidence”… so many ways life can happen to us and it changes us. throws us off our center.  or — challenges us in how well we’ve been practicing keeping centered, within.

 

for me, i find i can’t believe i’ve earned such bliss.  truly hope this doesn’t sound corny, and i know the shoe is probably gonna drop as soon as I verbalize my inner feelings (just as whenever i “used to” say to a friend, “oh, i haven’t been sick for years”—blam!–right then, i get sick. so i’m whispering this … but i have to say it … that all the work i’ve done has finally paid off. whatever happens around me, be it wondrous or horrendous–i seem to be able to maintain my center, my equilibrium, or, as we say in yoga, “equipoise.”

 

our xmas was the mellowest we’ve ever had! why, you ask? because we had no kids around … yeah! no, i’m no scrooge, we just needed a break after 20+ years of kid-raising, and now they’re off on their own (phew!). we had absolutely no company staying over, and it was just us for xmas dinner, carter and lordflea, doing what we love to do, and sharing it with my mom and a couple relatives we never get to see, my cousins Jean and Bill.  mom, who has recovered very nicely from her scary TIA, picked our Christmas feast guests, as she is, after all, the matriarch of our family. i had had 16 of my friends over for thanksgiving, and mom almost didn’t show (“i don’t know any of those people!” she complained and hurrumphed and tried to get out of coming). so this xmas dinner, her 90th on planet Earth, and to be served at our woods-surrounded house, which i named upon moving in: “Veritas Shambho”–mom was the one to delegate whom was invited.  so…we had a mellow xmas by design of there being only a few relatives living around here, in st. augustine.  we were 5 adults, not a single child (Xmas is for kids! that’s my gift-giving mandate!).  we had no razzle dazzle tree or any other kind of decorations up, but we always have xmas lights up outside, all year round. because to me, everyday is the celebration of a Great Being (me! you! everyone!), and everyday is about sharing Love, demonstrating and expounding on friendship, trust, hope.  our turkey and fixin’s, collard greens and apple pie dinner this year was tenderly sweet and calm. Elvis sang to us in the background. being together was all the good things a ritual of peace is supposed to be.  and for that i am grateful.

 

this year, calm. we soaked in the silence of bells and carols and elvis’ blue christmas, and loved every second of it. it’ll probably be our last quiet xmas for years to come, as fonya, our daughter, is moving back east from montana this june for chiropractic school, with kurt her new husband and maya, their new labrador pup. we’ll have tons of family from now on, for both thanksgiving and xmas, and every other event in between. but i’m going to continue to invite my “distanced-from-family” friends for one of the fall-winter feasts, probably thanksgiving. we had a very celebratory event in our house.

 

cully, our son, is moseying his way up to our house, or maybe not, the 28th. we’re leaving it very loosey goosey with him, to visit or not. he’s busy with getting the best grades of his life in school, his wigged-out bio-mom he spent xmas with, and now is camping out somewhere with friends. he needs to chill. he doesn’t need to visit us unless he wants to, we keep telling him. but i hear when he shows he’ll be lugging with him about 300 pounds of wild hog that he killed down in the woods of Hardee County, and is taking up to his college (u. of fl. in gainesville) to provide the meat for a Wildlife Club bbq.  ahhhhh, cully boy….such a woodsman, and a hunter with a heart. we need wildlife biologists like him to help us protect the species of our endangered wilds.

carter gave me a string of delicious looking “chocolate pearls”…. for my b’day, the week before xmas! i might eat them instead of wearing them, being a choco-holic. yes, i’m a sag, how did you guess? wow, are these little glow-orbs gorgeous. of course i picked them out, and told hubby darling where to go and buy them. and for the record my age is sexy-one, having been born in the auspicious year of  ’47 (india freed from briton, israel created by UN; my teacher’s teacher, Baba Muktananda, received initiation from Nityananda; and–let’s not forget! we had visitors from “somewhere out there” in Roswell, New Mexico, when the great cover up about extraterrestrials began in ernest). carter and i didn’t exchange gifts for this xmas, because we agreed ahead that this year was special. we wanted to just celebrate the Love, the Spirit, and not the gift-giving of the season. we did give each other promises of fantastic massages to come, in the future (we do ourselves, have since marrying 17 yrs. ago!). and at the beginning of xmas morning– this day when Christians around the globe, and anyone else who wants to join in, celebrates the birth of the Great Being who brought Love instead of hate, forgiveness instead of retribution–carter and i spoke of our love to each other, and our ….blah blah blah. i know, you think it sounds corny. well, it may to some, but we are addicted to love. we’re also in the habit of vocalizing our love for each other most days, as a reminder of our Great Good Fortune at first having found love, and secondly, to continue to nurture, protect, and honor our love, our marriage. 

on xmas morning we both felt utterly filled with the spirit of celebrating the birth of a great being. who brought LOVE to the world, as a reminder in that dark time. and we try to emulate Christ, as we do all Great Beings.

 

yes, i am absolutely positutely so excited about the thrill of obama-rama. i’m just jumping out of my skin with hope, and believe this is the beginning of a new era for all humankind. glory be!

 

love and Light to you and yours, teZ

ps. oh….we’re into the second day of a 10-day cleanse, so eating is not big on our minds for the beginning of the year. as always, i try to begin the year as i want it to go…prayerfulness, mind-ful, creative, friends! we’re dancing with friends tomorrow night, and for new years’ day i, as always, get together with my siddhayogis and listen to the lesson we’re to concentrate on, directly from our teacher. it’s a longstanding siddha yoga tradition. come join our circle!

another gift from me to you, to think about at the ending of one thing (a year) and the beginning of another (the next):