sea, sea puede

Bowls of beauty!

Webby glass, spilled off the ladle

Cobalt plate

A very elegant warehouse!

It is wet in Humboldt, following the quake. The Raining Baby returns…

The Courage Campaign folks have made a video out of the “don’t divorce us/our friends” images they collected this winter. It’s good. Like Milk, it comfortably normalizes the conversation - “Hey, these are real people wanting simple things.” And I think they articulate a significant piece of the picture.

But neither Milk nor Fidelity carries the punch I feel - and maybe that’s intentional, but perhaps risky too? Or maybe we just need a continuum of voices, from measured and simple to the heart-and-soul-tearing “this is how it really feels.”

We are, I think, trying to make the conversation accessible and non-threatening to straight people — too much pain and honesty unsettles folks, and can make them run. But somehow we also need to communicate the depth of what’s at stake here. Fidelity and Milk are good steps. But I think that there are other steps too, that will require soul-bearing outside of the community as well as in.

And, I think that ultimately, the community has to become everybody. Yes, I really do believe we need to queer the world, in the sense of opening freedoms and possibilities to all folks, not just those who feel far enough along a continuum that they have no choice. When the conversation becomes a question not just of whether two girls or two guys should be able to marry, but one of compassion for and the integrity of love - for all that the heart loves - then we humans can effect the sea change that will be the measure of true equality and peace.

My aunt Sue’s winter fairy, artisan unknown

The winter holidays can be a beautiful time, full of mirth and coziness, cooking and being together. They can also be tense-making and grief-awakening.

Especially in a time of recession, the holidays raise questions of how we will make it through winter and into the new year. For some in our community, winter is a long thought — they aren’t sure where or what their next meal will be. For many of us, there are questions of how to juggle bills, and whether our jobs are secure.

It can be very hard to be playful when you’re not sure how those presents will get under a tree. It can be hard to be mirthful when you are alone, and there isn’t any together to be.

Solstice (which comes a few days before the Christian holiday) is the darkest, longest night of the year. And Solstice is simultaneously the promise that earth will keep spinning, that the bounty and beauty of spring will return, nourished by winter rain and snow. It’s both a recognition of needed dark, and of relief in the light.

I hope that we all find enough mirth and joy and hope and faith and delight and strength to make it through our darkness, into the returning day. That in the unlit periods, we do not forget to dream.