Friday, December 29, 2006

2007

He who breaks a resolution is a weakling;
He who makes one is a fool.

~F.M. Knowles


New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence amidst all of creation that acknowledges the passage of another year, and yet we humans look on this nights’ coming darkness as a marker, a new start, another chance…

We will open a new book, and find that its pages are blank. We will put our words onto those pages. That book is called Our Life and its first chapter is New Year's Day.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1850

To the family who have become friends,
and to the friends who have become family:

Beannachd Dia dhuit et Bonne Année

Translation: blessings of God be with you (Scots Gaelic) and Happy New Year (Quebecoise)
With inspirational nods to Hamilton Wright Mabi & Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

T'was The Diet After Christmas...

T'was the day after Christmas, and all through the house
Not a damn thing would fit me, not even a blouse.
The cookies I'd nibbled, the eggnog I'd taste
At the holiday parties had gone to my waist.

When I got on the scales there arose such a number!
When I walked to the store (less a walk than a lumber),
I'd remember the marvelous meals I'd prepared;
The gravies, and sauces, and beef nicely rared,

The wine and the rum-balls, the bread and the cheese,
And the way that I'd never said, "No thank you, please."
As I dressed myself up, in my husband's old shirt,
And prepared once again to do battle with dirt -

I said to myself, (as only I can),
"You can't spend the winter disguised as a man!"
So, away with the last of the sour cream dip,
Get rid of the fruit cake, each cracker, and chip,

Every last bit of food that I like must be banished
'til all the unwanted ounces have vanished!
I won't have a cookie, not even a lick...
I'll just have to chew on a celery stick.

I won't have hot biscuits, or corn bread, or pie;
I'll munch on a carrot, and quietly cry.
I'm hungry, I'm lonesome, and life is a bore -
But isn't that what January is for?

Unable to giggle, no longer a riot...
Happy New Year to all, and to all a good diet!

Sunday, December 24, 2006

T'was the Night Before Christmas


Live, Love, Laugh,

Smell the Sweet Spirits,

Dance with the Skies,

Hearken unto me my friend and

Hear my Prayer for your Happiness,

Your Safety, and Your Love this Holiday Season..

Blessed Be.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Happy Solstice!


Rejoice! The Light Returns!
Namaste


(photo credit: tenetsi, deviantart)

Friday, December 15, 2006

Food for Thought

How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares, were there a danger of their coming true?


~Logan Pearsall Smith

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

and a peace fell over the land...

I don't support the war, but a wholeheartedly support the men and women who serve in the military from all our countries...Let's bring them all home safely.

Different Christmas Poem

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.
The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.
"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!
"For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said, "Its really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand in the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas Gram always remembers.
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of Nam,
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
"I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."
"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son.
"Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

PLEASE, Would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our U.S. service men and women for our being able to celebrate these festivities. Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.

LCDR Jeff Giles,
SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq

Amen
Let there be Peace
Blessed Be.

Thursday, December 07, 2006


What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. A sunset, a mountain bathed in moonlight, the ocean in calm and in storm. We see these, love their beauty, hold the vision in our hearts. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
~ Helen Keller

Photo Credit: Suzanne Gabriel (photo.net)

Monday, December 04, 2006

Speak Friend and Enter...

I felt it shelter to speak to you. ~Emily Dickinson

Trouble is part of all our lives, and if you don't share your troubles, you don't give those people who love you enough chance to show you that love.
Some people come and go quickly in our lives.
Some come to stay, forever marking our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.