Nothing to hold onto

Spend time every day listening to what your muse is trying to tell you. Saint Bartholomew

Early morning slips into late. I cling to sleep. The day beckons. I arise.

Two ferry rides, a missed connection a stalled drive off the ferry because of a car that wouldn't start (not mine but the one car that needed to move for my car to move along too) and I am back on the mainland.

Beside me, C.C. sleeps. He flew in yesterday to join me for the weekend in Vancouver. Upstairs, on the main level of their home, my sister and her husband putter through their morning ablutions. Alexis made a brief appearance from where she was sleeping and has wandered back to bed after declaring, "Im never hanging out with C.C. again!" I had left the both of them at a bar around ten pm, after sharing a wonderful dinner at the Water Street Cafe. I stirred only slightly when they rolled in at 2:30 am.

Outside, a hear the grating of gears as a truck drives by. I hear the distant hum of 'city'.

It is hard. This immersion into 'real world' mode. I want to hold back the data stream. I want to stup up 'island life' and carry it within me like a vile of magic elixir into which I can dip when 'life as it is' streams into the soul-full living I experienced at The Haven all week.

When I'd taken the ferry from Gabriola Island to Vancouver Island yesterday I dreamt of going west again, across the Island's back to the far western shore to my favourite place on earth -- Tofino.

But love awaited in the city. And love's call is greater than any place I've ever known.

And still, this morning, I feel it. Thepull of the tide, the lap of the waves calling me, like the voice in the song we wrote -- Come on home.

It was an intention of the course, Eric said on Sunday evening when we first convened. "I'd like for all of us to write a song. Together. Are you open to is?" he asked.

We all said yes, and so, interpsersed with discussions of music and musicians, of lyrics remembered, and the ones that got away, we 'noodled' at the song.

"Let's start with the chorus," Eric said. "It will lead us to the song."

And the chorus began to appear.

I feared I'd have little to offer. But no one had heard of mindmapping and I lead them into the lure of calling words and thoughts and ideas into a web of inspiration.

I did have something to offer!

And the chorus began to appear.

hesitantly at first, but gaining confidence, the collective muse appeared on the whiteboard. There was no idea too small. No thought unworthy. Eric, a master at inclusivity, insured every voice was heard, every word noted. Every thought captured and measured on the whiteboard as it sought its place in our song.

By the end of the first morning, the lyrics and the notes of the chorus took voice.

Come on home. Come on home.
The air is clear. Door's wide open.
Whatever path your spirit's chosen.
You're not alone. Come on home.

It was pure magic. Undistilled wonder to sit amidst a group of strangers and feel the muse weaving in and out of our presence, wrapping us in the delicate weave of her beautiful voice connecting us through a song none of us knew we held within and in which we now all share.

Pure magic.

It is that feeling of connectivity, of being part of something very, very special that I cling to.

That moment in time when spirits met and flowed in and around and together, drawing out the voice of a song that must be sung. that must be shared.

I have been blessed. With a song. A voice. A place. A name. A connection.

I have been blessed with five days by the sea floating in the waters of beautiful souls singing together.

After the concert Wednesday night, Eric told us he was 'beyond words', afraid that to put something so beautiful down on paper would distill it to a mere idea.

It is beyond an idea.

Beyond the moon and the sea, the waves lapping, the stars glittering all above.

It is beyond all of this.

And yet it is within me. Of me.

It is me.

And you.

And you.

And you.

It is not us and them.

It is all of us. Connected.

I do not struggle to hold onto it. There is nothing to hold on to. And everything to hold when I let go and surrender to fall, in Love.

Always, in Love.

Where ever I am.

Where ever I go.

Whatever I do.

In Love.

Forever.

Namaste.