My Bredren!

If you dislike 'soppy' postings...then read no further.

Ok, so this is cheesy, sentimental & very weird maybe...but I can't find the words to explain how i feel after spending time at Neil, Sarah & Clive's place. Neville was there too so it was partly an ex peeb gathering but quite a few friends joined for the party on Friday night, and rejoined again on Saturday night.

I don't know if it's the ex-peeb connection thing(having been through the same shite, no need to explaina thing), or the fact that Neil and i grew up together (literally lived a block apart) or that they're just a wicked bunch...but it is seldom that i feel so completely comfortable and relaxed. And seldom that i feel like i'm leaving home everytime i leave their house, to catch that damn mega bus back from Bristol to London. Honest, tears well up in my eyes every time and i have to blink fast and hide my face so no-one can see what a baby i am...ha ha!

No need to go into the details of the weekend...the photo's say it all! Instead of me continuing to worship the ground that Neil, Sarah, Clive, Nev & their wonderful & wacky friends walk on, I'm going to this poem.. partly because it involves dance (and we did a lot of that) partly because this is how i feel about my connection with this bunch and mostly because it is one of the best poems ever, in my opinion...enjoy!

The Dance

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I have sent you my invitation,

the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.

Don’t jump up and shout, “Yes, this is what I want! Let’s do it!”

Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires,

spiraling down into the ache within the ache,

and I will show you how I reach inward and open outward

to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, every day.

Don’t tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.

Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid

of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,

and see who I am in the stories I live.

And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.

Show me you can risk being completely at peace,

truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment,

and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.

Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,

the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will.

What carries you to the other side of that wall, to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other,

let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance,

the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.

And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make my heart whole

again and again.

Show me how you take care of business

without letting business determine who you are.

When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul’s desires have too high a price,

let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world

the stories and the songs

you want our children’s children to remember.

And I will show you how I struggle not to change the world,

but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,

knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging.

Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words,

holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest

intentions has died away on the wind,

dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale

of the breath that is breathing us all into being,

not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don’t say, “Yes!”

Just take my hand and dance with me.

Dave, Sarah, Matt, Matt, dancing boys, Sarah, Lofty, Matt, Trev, Neil, Dave, Jane.