Dear All, we are thankful for you, the minds and hearts that fly with us on a pretty daily basis, and we wish for you a good holiday, with good memories, and for thanks to come from you about various matters of your life, but also we hope others will thank you for being in their lives, as well.
This is for us all:
MAY WE LAUGH
Dear Brave Souls: For family dinners at holiday season.
May we laugh.
May we return good to good.
May we return good to not-so-hot.
May we laugh.
May we return kind to kind.
May we return kind to cruel.
May we laugh.
May we return calm to calm.
May we return calm to flagrant.
May we laugh.
May we stay long as we like.
May we stay short if need be.
May we laugh
about how we all belong
to a family by birth,
or a family of choice,
or both…
a family inevitably made
of banditos, pirates, the winged,
the clueless, the closedmouthed,
the wicked, the shy, the introverted,
the lampshade wearers, the moaners and
groaners, the visionaries and the saints,
the bums, the hags and crazy people.
May we laugh.
There is almost nothing more poignant
than holidays
to make many of us think we might be trapped
in a beautiful, horrible, brutal, wonderous,
dark and miraculous movie…
and that the last many pages of the script
are not yet written…
that we will have to wait and see…
that we will have to live forward and see…
and… May we laugh.
with kind regards from TMV and from Dr. E
for your Holiday today.
Poem “May We Laugh” from La Pasionaria, The Bright Angel manuscript, by C.P. Estés, ©2000, 2011, Creative Commons copyright: alright to copy and repost as is, in entirity, with citation of titles and author’s name and this notice in full. The book La Pasionaria/The Bright Angel, Collected Stories and Poems of Clarissa Pinkola Estés will be published in hardcover in 2014 from SoundsTrue Books who are also the publisher for her book Untie The Strong Woman [about Our Lady of Guadalupe in our times].
CODA
Many are familiar with Norman Rockwell’s famous Thanksgiving Dinner painting of folks around the table and the elders serving the turkey. This one is also by Norman Rockwell, and I prefer it, and hope you will like seeing it too, as it is a thoughtful meditation all of its own I think. It was painted in the midst of WWII, and it shows a refugee girl whom a GI has given his coat to help her stay warm in the prevailing winds of weather and of war. Let us aim strong good thought and actions –and pray for all from Congo to Philippines, from our own family to all within our reach. A kindliness, no matter how small or large, helps. Let’s.