Best year ever? Dream on...seriously!

What have we here at 2008's beginning? Rampant hope, somewhat justified. Futurist Ray Kurzweill says that by 2020 or so we'll all have nanobots inserted in our brains so when we get really, really old, say 150? we'll be able to do amazing stuff and not be bored!

Still, often General Gloom takes ahold for a bit these dark winter days, as it dawns on us we haven't learned how to stop ruining the health of our glorious planet. But the bad ecology news is always mixed with the knowledge that we live in some sort of Paradise here in Petaluma, CA where Country is just a bit down the road from City and City is a pretty little River town with a great music scene!

Flu this year could have been avoided - but somehow was a good thing. I read a lot. I now know what happens when you keep reading the Dalai Lama - he asks you to devote yourself to Others! I mean really, even waking up to devote yourself more thoroughly 3x a night when you thought you'd get a good night's sleep! This from How to Practice, a little paperback you can slip in a big pocket and carry around; good idea. Really, you'll become more good. New York Times bestseller! You go, Dalai Lama! I always find reading him makes me calmer, more resolved to do something or other.

Lying around with a slight fever, I also got to hear another idol of mine, Satish Kumar. Guy walked around the globe with no money and as a strict veggie, befriended by Bertrand Russell and Martin Luther King on the way. You know this guy? Wrote Path Without Destination, another fine tome. Not too long. I met the man once at a Bioneers Conference. Sat there all on his lonesome looking like it was a birthday party. Amazing human. An NPR interviewed Kumar while I was abed. Guy asked, amazed:
"So, you have NO stress?" Kumar (approx) "No; I am always working toward my goals, but I have many lifetimes to do what I have to do, so no worries!" Wow! What a concept. And I totally believe he believes this! Now to subscribe to Kumar's mag, Resurgence, published in Brighton, England, it is the living breathing evidence of Small is Beautiful : Economics as If People Mattered and the whole E. F. Schmacher wonder. I promise to share with those who would appreciate. You?

Also read Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way, a sweet little book that is supporting my habit of imagining making the world a better place - through the UN and being a fantastic role model globally. Ha! I'll do it! Well, maybe not, but I'll do something more because of ol' Eleanor. What a gal! Believe I'll read more of her. Inspiring for women, especially, because she wouldn't quit and her kindness made waves in the US and through the UN. She made a wake in the waters for women to follow, to make their own waves.

Another joy this New Year's season is Singing at Julie's - rediscovering Johnnie Mathis? A group of our friends gets together over and over and over and lately there is a jazz pianist, Bob Johns, who seems able to play anything, especially jazzy torch songs I've always loved and sung to myself. Fun to note that others like it when I sing to THEM! Last Sunday it was When Sunny Gets Blue (Johnnie Mathis version) and Summertime (my version loosely from Porky & Bess). Sweet music, especially as my bit was a smallish piece of an afternoon that included fine fiddlin' by pro's, wonderful traditional songs by Scott Gerber and Cori Wood - and I even stole 3 of Julie's thousand camillias on the way out for my turquoise vase at home. She won't mind? I'll ask...