happy christmas!!

as we chill here at casa de lopez/bronson, waiting for the rain, which is expected to fall in about 20 minutes [for i do so love the rain, its sounds & smells], waiting for christmas dinner this evening.  to say this year has been challenging is one of the greater understatements.  what a time to be alive.  i am an unbeliever, yet i think we do need holidays & ceremonies that bind us together as we remind each other of our humanity.  times are dark, & still i am grateful for my family, my friends, my brothers & sisters in the art.  instead of dwelling on the darker parts of our species i think it is useful & instructive to remember that we are beautiful, & capable of great kindnesses.  i do not pray.  i don't think there is anything to pray to.  but still, let me say on this day, a wish, for us to know that we all share the same water & air; that we all live on this same muddy rock orbiting an ordinary star in an average galaxy; that we are all possessed with beauty as well as ugliness; & that all things come to pass.  what seems permanent is just temporary.  one human lifetime is enough.  & as the poet said, to live comes from the full knowledge of death into life.  we are here just this once.  my wish is for us to know it.  we are magnificent because we are insignificant.  we are beautiful because we are finite.  we are alive, right now, at this moment, in an extraordinary time.  make of it what you will.  despair & joy.  i want all of it.  i want to live into death.  i wish for all our species to practice humility & gratitude of our human being.  for we are all brothers & sisters & non-binaries, together, on this beautiful, ordinary planet we call home.