Green mansions are under construction above the shoreline outside the window of my Creatorium (no “m” in the middle, please). I refer to the emerald budding of the trees. A view of the lake winks between each stir of new leaves, while hawks and eagles vie for occupancy of the highest turrets as regularly as posting sentries. Closer to me, a Crimson King Maple cascades with deep purple unfurlings flirting garishly with every turn of the breeze.

People too seem to be in bloom as spring warmth heals winter’s pinches. How about you? If old aches and stresses dictate drab colors in your mind, it’s time to go rainbow hunting. No hunting license required. That’s because the black-and-white conformity of society hasn’t figured out how to invade your Technicolor imagination yet. Feel free to be honest and true to your unfettered dreams in full color.  Otherwise you may lose yourself to the gray blur of the herd and the tedium of the masses.

Don’t get me wrong. Nature invented conformity because masses and swarms do one thing very well. “In union there is strength.” The strength of numbers can protect, can achieve, can better the odds of survival – especially of societies as a whole. Which is my point. Because living lockstep with the aims of a society doesn’t say much for the individual. To be a pawn, a social insect, a cog in the machine of mere existence, sort of obliterates one’s identity. To whatever degree you are instincts, hormones and reflexes, I guess the destiny of society is good enough. But to the degree that you have uniqueness of the heart/mind/soul, your individuality is clamoring for air. You are not a clone, not a pre-programmed hostage to the herd and the swarm. Can 18 trillion mayflies be wrong? If you are suffocating in a pre-fabbed life whose blueprints are one-size-fits-all, the answer is “yes.”

So, go rainbow hunting. Let the sameness of those species geared to involuntary reflexes make you tremble with gratitude for your freedom and choice as a human being. Let freedom and choice keen your hunger to search. Finding one’s destiny, be it soulmate or knowledge or simply the search itself, turns palpable when you open up to the thrill of all you really are. Anticipation brings you fully alive. Taste buds salivate and the heart surges warmly. The faceless overlords of conformity melt away, and you may search the past and present for the magic of the future. Life is what happens while you are planning your future. In fact, the future can never come. If it did, it would be the present. And therein lies the great lesson: live your future now. 

That’s my song and I’m sticking to it. Hope your song is flooding your heart. The worst thing to do would be to hear only silence inside you and to sleep without dreams.

Many responses/questions about last month’s Sullygram, so a couple of footnotes: The fairy penguin in the photo is actually an adult that swam up to Pete when he was boogie boarding in the ocean. It was apparently ailing and he gave it to a rescue person, but it lost all the feathers on its head and died of pneumonia eight days later. Also, regarding the “clay” tennis court my buddy built on that remote beach in Tasmania, he tells me it’s actually synthetic grass. Despite having knee replacements which will keep him from being fully functional for a while, Pete plans on building a swimming pool. He’s going to weld two half pipes into a 24 m long pool, 8 feet wide, naturally filtrated through reeds…

About the time my free subscribers to this newsletter are reading this, I expect to be sharing some quality company with another life-long swimming alum, Bruce Norvell. Yeah, THAT Bruce who along with his dog Ziggy Leigh has hosted me in the mountains of Heidi-ho (Idaho) where he has a small ranch outside Sun Valley. The venue this time will be my home in Minnesota, and he has expressed a desire to return to the enchanting twilit marsh of his last visit here. That was a memorable canoe adventure because of something he said. “Did you ever bring the love of your life here?” he asked in a reverent voice. I’ve written so much about my inamorata, but few people have ever connected her with the discoveries of my idealized life. Alas, she never had the pleasure of this one. And yet my friend understood the significance of one of my magical sanctuaries.

As always, life’s most kinetic happenings and magical moments allow no time for photos. But at least that leaves some passive ones which are happy to pose at my leisure. This month’s photos: #1 that’s my astonishing daughter Colleen and her equally astonishing son, Seamus, which makes me his…um, cousin twice removed – no, no…great uncle (nah, never been great) – by Jing, I’m his granddad!; #2-8 some shots from the many sojourns not that far from Sully Manor; #9 like an Amish barn-raising, good people gather at Norby Nation’s house to replace a deck; #10-12 and there it is my Castle on the Lake framed in fragrant lilacs whose innocence masks the ogre within.