Back in on December 19, 1942, at 8:02 AM, in San Antonio, Texas, I was born a few minutes before the Sun peaked over the horizon.

As luck would have it, when puppy Shadow and I left the house for our walk yesterday, we must have started out at about the same time, 79 years later . . .

On a whim, I decided to walk east (I can go in any direction from here, and for fabulous three- to four-mile walks). And wouldn’t you know, looking up, I saw the most magnificent pre-dawn display I have ever seen on the eastern horizon. Tumultuous clouds shaded red, gold, orange, all heralding the coming Sun, at its furthest arc to the southeast,  two days prior to the Winter Solstice, and the longest night of the year.

Of course the Sun would be welcomed anyhow, especially during the dark of winter. But this time, I was astonished!  I’ve seen my share of glorious sunsets, but never before had I been so astonished by the brilliant coloration of a sunrise. Never before in my entire life. And it happened to fall on my birthday, when I was born just prior to the sun rising . . . A synchronicity worth remarking on.

I’m not usually one to make a big deal of my own birthday. Usually, I tend to go into solitude, and hold a personal retreat for a few days. But I was not to do that this year. Indeed, I made such a big deal of my birthday that everybody assumed it must be my 80th birthday, but “no it’s my 79th, just entering my 80th year,” I’d correct them.

My dear friends Mariella and Roberto took me out for a fabulous breakfast at 9:00 AM, just after puppy Shadow and I returned from our walk. I told them about the sunrise. I also told them about the new initiative, to get people singing Songs to Invoke the Soul, so that we may be begin to heal the huge ideological divides caused by too much mental activity, and not enough heart. If we open our hearts through beautiful songs, we invoke the soul — and thus naturally, without even trying, bypass the mind and move into unity.

Mariella said that when she was a little girl, and separated for a long time from her homeland and her mother, she would sit by a window and sing her favorite songs. She said singing “soothed” her troubled self. Yes.

Here’s the promised video of my birthday Debut Performance, raw and uncut (i.e., complete with glitches), followed by “the song we sing,” often, and usually in a circle, holding hands. Just about everybody around here knows this song by now, one which I brought back from Crones Counsel.

I decided to have this debut performance be not “open to the public,” but just to those who live here in Green Acres Permaculture Village, or have lived here in the past, and their partners. Nine people in the audience who also, at the end also performed!

The entire evening, with dinner,  was full of the warmth that attends occasions when our hearts are wide open. May we all live to enjoy and spread such blessings during this holy season and into the new year.

http://https://youtu.be/049acpkfojs

Next up: Caroling, with small ceremony and Annie’s eggnog afterwards, 6:30 PM, tomorrow evening, December 21, Solstice! I hope other groups will join us across the world in this wonderful old tradition which has been neglected for far too long.