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NY to Philly

My sister posted this to her listserve today, and it expresses our Thanksgiving experience better than I could:

“Hello Good People! and welcome back from thanksgiving. However you celebrate (or don’t) the holiday, I hope you were able to take time and reflect on gifts and giving – the natural gifts that we can easily identify (light, life, air to breathe, living in the world and the gift of knowing others), and the gifts we do not ask for but find their way into our lives. My small, growing family hosted my large, growing family for the thanksgiving meal, bridging traditions ranging from the deep south to the far midwest. We each reveled in each others company, in that fleeting understanding of what family can be, and what family always is.

I had the opportunity to hear music from Aaron Copland’s opera The Tender Land. Particularly a song called “The Promise of Living”, about thanksgiving, harvest, the sharing of work, and the dignity of labor, struck me with a simple hopefulness, of what is possible when humans can look at each other and understand that their living is only possible through each other, that our individual desires and dramas and dreams are only possible because we are in community with one another.

It is with these thoughts that I enter December, the welcome darkness of winter, reflection, and quiet cultivation of new life. ”

🙂

My time in NY was marvelous, connecting with blood family and ancient friends, culminating in a birthday celebration for one of the best people I have ever known last night. Love seeing people I love get the love they deserve…

Today we posted a new Ruckus video which features my talking face fairly prominently – this wasn’t easy to do, so I hope you appreciate it 🙂

Now I am in Philadelphia for a few days of work, including a facilitation this weekend of the Leeway Transformation Awards.

Ruckus is officially in Copenhagen, the US Social Forum has staff, the Allied Media Conference has track proposals, and things are afoot in every direction 🙂 Was this ever a vacation month?

Happy birthday to my dad, my sister Autumn, Sofia Santana! Angel Kyodo Williams! and Richard Pryor!!