SoCoCo At the Toad/Bill Edelen Column/Oz

(P1) Poetical

SoCoCo Resumes as "SoCoCo At the Toad" Sunday, January 11th at 2PM

<(Click on SoCoCo image to enlarge)

Very good news! After learning that Sonoma Coffee Company had closed, I began scouting for new venues for the popular SoCoCo Readings. I found several, but my first choice was the wonderful English pub in Railroad Square called Toad In the Hole. Paul Stokeld at Toad In the Hole is excited about our using the Toad for SoCoCo. I'm going to call it "SoCoCo At the Toad." Because they cannot infringe on their nighttime dinner crowd, we're going to move it to Sunday afternoons at 2 PM and advertise, "Come and either have late lunch during or early dinner after, or both. Great pub food and drink!" See menu and other info at

www.thetoadpub.com

Come early and have lunch. Or come later for snack, a beer, or soft drinks. Stay afterwards for early dinner. We won't have to seek out a location to which to repair after the reading!

Richard Denner's Berkeley "mentor Lu Garcia will be reading along with Gwynn O'Gara, Ed Coletti, Mark Eckert, David Madgalene, and Centa Theresa.
The pub is at 116 5th Street between Wilson Avenue and Davis Street in the Old Railroad Square area of Santa Rosa.

Comment Here on any of the above or below and read the comments of others too. Log in under "Name" or "Anonymous" if you like, but please be sure to sign some facsimile of your name. Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net if you have difficulty.

(P2) Political
Comment Here on any of the above or below and read the comments of others too. Log in under "Name" or "Anonymous" if you like, but please be sure to sign some facsimile of your name. Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net if you have difficulty.

(P3) Philosophical

Joy-filled column by a great and valuable friend, Bill Edelen who I believe to be young-in-his-eighties!


MY FAVORITE THINGS


William Edelen
November 23, 2008

One of my all time favorite songs is from "The Sound of Music". It is "My Favorite Things". I never listen to that without feeling joyful. It always brings forth a smile. As I write these words at the beginning of the month for Thanksgiving I let my calendar of the soul take over and my head and heart are filled with gratitude for so many of my favorite things...that make life so good and the days so sparkling.

# Great hugs from those you love...and who love you. (this also lowers cholesterol we are told. It beats Oak Bran).

# The wild flowers of a rainy Spring...and the grasses of a showery summer. The solitude and silence of the winter months when the mountains are covered with snow...and our Mother Earth sleeps a while.

# Choosing a great book for morning reading with the winter rain falling outside my study window...and a hush covers the earth.

# Sitting mesmerized at night in our living room before a wood burning fire that draws me like in the days of the Cro Magnon caves when the fire kept us secure and safe...I have never understood how anyone can have an artificial fire with fake logs.

# A freshly opened bag of Peets coffee in the morning to start the day on a high and noble plane.

# Or a freshly opened bag of pipe tobacco to follow the coffee and fill my study with aromas that are simply beyond description.

# The Bougainvilleas outside our home...in full and spectacular bloom.

# The Desert rains when the fragrant odors...the rich aromas of an earth moist and alive. The rolling sounds of thunder waking the earth from its restful slumber, as they say in the Taos Pueblo.

# Dazzling rainbows receiving a standing ovation from the little red flames on the tips of the ocotillos.

# The Candle of the Lord, the eloquent creamy white blossoms shooting up high on their great spike of the Yucca.

# Turning the stereo up and flooding my study, or the house, with Bach or Brubeck....or Count Basie...or Kiri Te Kanawa....or Barry Manilow with the "big bands".

# Being a member of the loving...caring...extended family of my Sunday Symposium...a family that extends into dozens of other states when the winter people are here. for their 4 months in the sun.

# Freshly baked bread.

# A world class, medium rare, hamburger...smothered with onions...tomatoes...pickles...mustard...and "pardon me...but would you have any Grey Poupon?" My love for Julia Childs who also said this was her favorite meal.

# Returning home and being greeted with pure...non-judgmental...love and tails wagging like pom-poms from dancing dogs...who are always dancing with the joy of the cosmic dancer, Shiva.

# The Mourning Doves and Quail that fill my backyard for breakfast.

# Turning back again and again , day after day, month after month and year after year to enrich my spirit with the brilliance of Thomas Jefferson....Robert Ingersoll...Carl Jung...Learned Hand...Bertrand Russell...Joseph Campbell...Frank Waters...Octavio Paz...Voltaire...Erasmus...and all the giants of human thought and the free mind that fill the four walls of my study with this inexhaustible legacy...knowing that it is our nourishing mother and our lasting life.

# The joy of the dawn hours of first light for quiet thought and meditation, remembering that it was Erasmus who reminded us that "The dawn is always a friend to the muses."

# Experiencing the Mystery that moves and flows within relationships and events and destinies...and "shoes and ships and sealing wax...and cabbages and Kings..." or in the words of Wordsworth..."In the blush of every dawn...in the evening breeze...in the leafs low murmur...in the swell of the ocean and seas...the rising and ebbing of tide...the mote of the sunbeam...rest here, I whisper to the atom...I call to the orb...roll on...the link...the chain of existence..."Artist of the solar spaces...and of human faces...though all human races claim Thee...thought and language fail to name Thee...mortal lips are dumb before Thee...Silence...only silence...can stand in awe before Thee..."

To leave the Mystery alone and un-named is not to lose...for silence names as well as sound...and it is enough...

It is this Mystery that fills my days and nights with joy and reminds me that all of my "favorite things" are a revelation of that same Mystery.

Comment Here on any of the above or below and read the comments of others too. Log in under "Name" or "Anonymous" if you like, but please be sure to sign some facsimile of your name. Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net if you have difficulty.