Feathers, Imaginary Lines, and New Things in the Wind

photo credit Thomas Lloyd Qualls

Fall is in the air. It rained today for the first time since anyone can really remember around here. And even though us West Coast folks feel like we were sort of robbed of summer, the cooler nights and shorter days are somehow welcome.
 
We’re ready for something new.
 
In that spirit, I have more good news. The seasonal winds of change have brought two more gifts to add to the Fall list:

1. A new book to cozy up with! (An anthology of sorts of observations, ponderings, meanderings, and other musings;

 
        2. A colorful companion Oracle Deck to go along with the book.
 
Details:
 
New Book.
 
Happiness Is an Imaginary Line in the Sand is a down-to-earth oracle to help decipher the riddles of modern life. (Hence the companion Oracle Deck.)
 
Part field notes from a seeker’s journey and part teachings of a would-be monk who doesn’t get to live on the side of a mountain, Happiness Is an Imaginary Line in the Sand is convincing in its stubborn insistence that a better world is not only possible, but within our grasp.

Best part, it is available now for pre-order! The release date is October 26, 2021. From any of these places: The publisher https://bit.ly/3zXWITI, IndieBound https://bit.ly/2XcgGeM or Amazon https://amzn.to/3zXCGc1 -- or indie bookstores everywhere.
 
Oracle Deck.
 
An Oracle Deck designed as a companion to Happiness Is an Imaginary Line in the Sand. Sixty-six unique and colorful cards that correspond t0 each of the 66 essays. Hand-crafted design and available for purchase just ahead of the release date … stay tuned!

photo credit Thomas Lloyd Qualls

Here’s a sneak peek of the book with Essay # 65 Feather in the Wind:
 
Some days we are the wind. Some days, the feather. Nothing is guaranteed from one day to the next.
 
To be the wind requires a strong will, a sense of purpose, a willingness to affect change. To be the feather requires a lightness of heart, an act of faith, the willingness to let go.
 
Life does not come with instructions. No matter what they teach you in church. No one can tell you what is right for you, where your path will lead, how to find your way home.
 
There are times in each of our lives when we simply get lost. Because that is life. And I don't know about you, but when I am the most lost, there has never been anyone on the horizon with a flag waving me to shelter.
 
The older we get, the more we realize how little we know. Our knowing turns from youthful certainty towards things like the realization that nothing is forever. That everything is on its way to someplace else, something else.
 
But I know this one thing: Your wound is your strength.
 
Like the feather in the wind. Its strength is its ability to let go. To float. Viewed differently, its strength is its inability to stay fixed, stationary. This condition ensures it a life of beauty, grace, adventure.
 
We should all be so lucky.
 
Like many other times in our crooked-path of history, these are challenging times. But I want to urge you to take up the challenge. You are more up to it than you think.
 
Be the feather in the wind. Tossed about by the daily news, the disheartening knowledge of how much fear and hatred is out there, the vicissitudes of fortune. And bring others joy by the beauty of your lighthearted dance.
 
Because beauty will save us. In the end, light-heartedness, joy in the simple act of living, and the brave act of loving, these things will give us back to ourselves. They will remind us who we are. And what we can do together.
 
There are no certainties except uncertainty. Tomorrow I may not be here to write any more essays. It is likely far worse and far better things will happen. Still other things will not happen at all. Or at least they won’t happen as we think.
 
And even the bad things may not be the tragedies we imagine. Because all this uncertainty is the compost that creates the fertile soil of imagination, of creation, of beauty.
 
Life is built on top of death. Light depends upon dark. And up upon down. Wholeness is just that. It is not the half moon.
 
In order for us to truly evolve, to move beyond this phase of us versus them, to create the brotherhood of man that Lennon imagined for us, we must let go of our ideas of what we thought life should look like. We must imagine all of the things it could look like.
 
We must be brave enough to allow life to change us. And to keep kindness in our hearts as we float upon the winds of change.
 
Every time I sit down to write I am trying to change my life. And the lives of others. And even though it doesn't always work -- even if it almost never works – it is still worthwhile. Even if the words are simply feathers in the wind, maybe they will delight a few people with their dance.
 
And somehow those words -- even the ones that are feathers in the wind -- they still have the ability to become bridges between me and you.
 
I think that’s important to remember. That your words, even the ones that are tossed into the wind, they are the bridges between you and everything else.  
 

cover design by Leslie M. Browning