All I am doing right now is writing these words to you, small helium- filled balloons I offer for all your birthdays I missed. I do not know exactly where these balloons -- some red, some purple -- will take you. It all depends on you -- the way you hold onto the string (or maybe there is more than just one string). Well, of course there are -- we're talking about balloons, multiple, not singular -- lighter-than-air-transportation devices for you.

They may SEEM to be words, but they are actually balloons -- or could be, at least for this moment in time.

Go for the ride! Wherever you are or end up is the right place to be at the right time. It is! Always remember that and the way butterflies move in a breeze, and, please tell me, kind madam or sir, how in the world did butterflies ever get created in the first place and am I still expected to pay my taxes? What if I forget my name and wherever I go gardenias spring up all around me, hoping as only gardenias can hope, that one day the one they call the "Master" will find his way there for no particular reason at all, he being completely "of the moment" or perhaps I should say (and please forgive me if I mess up the translation, but it goes a little something like this:)

"You were made in the image of God. You were. You are. Of that you need not have any doubt. As you are you are. How great is that! How simple! As you are you are. I may even have to make a t-shirt with those words on it, an advertisement from our sponsor -- both yours and mine. Nothing has to change with you. You don't need to get better... or work smarter... or be worthy of anything. As far as I can tell, you are worthy of EVERYTHING, though if you recall George Carlin's perspective on it: "If you had everything, where would you put it?"

And now, one last thing (though I do intend to return to this space later on), the best book I've read in quite a while is Hear Yourself: How to Find Peace in a Noisy World by a man (Prem Rawat) who is the most astounding human being I know (but more about that another time).

So much love! So, so, so, so much love. Heaps. Buckets full. Mucho, mucho love. What Rumi, Hafiz, Mirabai, Kabir, and YOU on a good day are plugged into full-tilt boogey, hang ten, high five, walking the high road home to the essence of who you truly are. Welcome to the fountain of laughter and tears! Welcome to remembering and forgetting and then remembering again, opening like a lotus or a clenched fist.

And with that, dear brothers and sisters, daughters and brothers, wizards, fools, home run hitters, flash back Frankies, little Joey from Brooklyn! Yo, Joey, how did you find your way onto my blog post? But I know why. I do. I really do. This massive, bodacious love and presence is who and what you are. How could you be anywhere else?

Praise the Lord! And praise the praisers, too!