12162012 Newsletter

I hope to give to my lad. If he shows on Christmas day, he will demand I cook chicken. So it will be pseudo Turkey, or – in the words of Yorgy Yorgenson, “…oh, I yus go nuts eatin’ chicken guts, Merry Christmas, everyone!” Very likely, I’ll be out skiing Christmas Eve and again at night on Christmas Day. You might think the trails would be crowded then, but they are always empty, and I’ve come to like that. Steam will rise off my shoulders and the plume of each breath will vanish in the crystal air like a curtain swept back. I’ll find a moment and a place to stand where the cross-trails of emotions and thoughts will allow me perspective on lights in the distance. If that sounds solitary, the funny thing is that in that instant I will feel connected with everything and everyone on Earth.

I write a lot about sanctuaries. That’s because virtually everything transcendent I’ve ever experienced has come behind-the-scenes, offstage, in the wings, tête-à-tête, under the radar…i.e. in a sanctuary. The world may be full of pretenses, hypocrisies and façades, but you can always pause the game in order to live moments of truth. In private. Because moments of truth inevitably contradict at least some of the narratives that surround us and honesty often comes at a price.

Sanctuaries suspend appearances, make no demands, and abide only by the rule of truth. Lose the world in a sanctuary, and you are apt to find yourself. Lose yourself in a sanctuary, and you just may find the world.

Last year I included some lost/sanctuary moments in a column called ANGELS IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR, and it was suggested I make it a Christmas tradition. So I have. Here’s the link to my new column ISLANDS OF THE SOUL http://storytellersunplugged.com/thomassullivan/2012/12/15/thomas-sullivan-islands-of-the-soul/ . It’s a kind of Scrooge-visitation piece in my life from a Christmas long ago and far away.

And speaking of angels, are you an Angel to someone? I’ll bet you are. They don’t have to be your angel in order for you to be theirs. In fact, maybe it’s better that way. Angels are one-way streets. Like those sanctuaries I mentioned, they demand nothing. That may be as true and as real as you can ever get.

I invite you to pick your venue from the photos below. They each have a piece of the sky, including one at night. Put them all together and you get a sense of the full-spectrum magic that powers my rainbows. Photos 1-4 are from south & west of my house; 5-8 behind my house; 9-11 from northwest of my house; 12-13 from northeast. But you don’t have to box the compass to find the magic in your own life. The coordinates are wherever your heart, your mind and your soul meet.

And I’m proud to announce another superb audio by world class reader Bob Walter of my novel DUST OF EDEN just in time for Christmas http://www.amazon.com/Dust-of-Eden/dp/B00AN5R348/ref=tmm_aud_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1355533885&sr=8-2 . To be honest, I don’t know if I would’ve discovered the pleasure of listening to Audio had it not been for my own books coming out. But now that I have, I wonder how I could’ve missed such a convenient and entertaining way to “read,” and how I could’ve lucked out with another Walter winner! Truly a gift that keeps on giving. Want to see a master actor/director at work? Here’s a short video clip of Bob reading from DUST OF EDEN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRjKboSMQ7w&feature=player_embedded

A magnificent storm set us up for a white Christmas here in Minnesota, and of course it freed me to cc ski over hill and dale. Storm skiing while it came down was amazing by itself, but the blazing white aftermath has lingered for days in the woods. How did I get so lucky? To be a human in the wild is the best of two worlds, if you can keep from going feral. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be a woodpecker banging my head on a tree all morning just so I could suck the goo out of some larvae after burning up 43,697 calories going through the bark, but to stand silently in brilliant diamond-scapes while chunks of marzipan snow pelt the trail like comets with every stir of the wind over thickly frosted branches…well, no words to describe it except heart-stoppingly serene and beautiful. Makes me ashamed to have not found someone to share it with.