If I could sing only one song, I'd sing of you

For me, this is a time for looking back, for asking myself did I live as best I could … climber, warrior, healing, husband/lover, healer, father, author – I’ve been up and down that dusty trail a time or two and the best thing about me is you.

If I could sing only one song, I'd sing of you, Leslie.

These are good times - stressful, I know for you, with retiring (again) and the changes ahead. Yet here we are, Berkeley, baking, going to the market, slowing down, enjoying, back to Cali in 6 weeks and everything still in bloom. These are the days.

I posted this somewhere else: I'm thinking there's all sorts of activism and the Dharma may or may not be in what we do. Several years ago my wife gave up an enormously satisfying (and difficult) path of helping people in difficult straits to be in charge of the environment where it was happening. She took on a lot of grief and lost a lot of joy in administering space for others to do the helping. But somebody has to negotiate the lease, buy the supplies, raise the money, etc. At some point I realized she was following a boddhisatva path, giving up paradise for the greater good. I have such huge respect for her doing this, not to mention everything else. And I think it's activism - actively making it happen - relieving suffering - Dharma.

Hear it ring, so pure and holy.