A Fresh Year, New Chances, New Choices...

Yes, we're posting another welcome to the new year!

Why?  Because the last few days runneth over with an abundance of joys, some minute, some majestic, and all magnificent:   a chilly but serene walk around the lake as the sun slipped into a gold horizon; new-found old friends; an authentic Ethiopian jebena for making spicy, molten coffee; a brother-in-law who will soon leave the hospital to greet a new year with his wife and children; the generous neighbours who haven't yet taken down their Christmas lights; the jingling harnesses of the coach-&-horses as holiday-makers make one more chance to revel; the friend who invited me to share her Christmas celebrations.  Life is good.

However you welcome your new year -- sleeping through the toll of midnight, dancing in the streets, toasting champagne, or in quiet candlelight -- here is our New Year's toast to java-pals & Twitterverse compadres.  May yours be a safe & glittering 2014!

See you on the patio in 2014! ;-)

Happy Easter to All Our Java Pals!

From darkness, Light.  From despair, Hope.  Do the Happy Dance, because we have a new beginning!

With both its somber rituals and its light-hearted frivolities, Easter refreshes me and reminds me again of my "life raft" scripture:

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11)

Rejoice!

Yo vivo bailar, yo bailo vivar!

However you find a way to dance, do it! "Yo vivo bailar, yo bailo vivar!" -- I live to dance, I dance to live.

What I can't find a way to say with words, I can express when I dance.  All the joy, the pain, the passion, the tenderness, the anguish, the sadness, the confusion and uncertainty of "what next?", is pressed out of me. As grapes are expressed to make wine, and olives are pressed for their precious oil, dancing extracts from me my essence, the voice in me that cannot speak but must be heard.  We put courage back into ourselves by dancing:  literally and physically, we are en-couraging ourselves.