Well, it's officially cold. Totnes market was warm at first but WAY too many people, it was like a mini-Glastonbury at times. Still, a spot of freezing drizzle cooled the collective ardor and people soon scattered into the surrounding ditches, brothels and prisons and palaces they normally abide in. Chips on the way home and chauffeur to a car of many twinkled-eye kids.

I am deliberately not thinking about 2010 much as if it is busy as i think it is going to be i would be best off getting some form of rest when i can. Very pleased to be teaching alongside LEWIS HYDE of 'the Gift' and 'Trickster Makes This World' fame at Robert Bly's Great Mother Conference first week in June, over at Maine, U. S. You have just got to get to this conference-the folks who go i carry with me like some anarchic, invisible army of supportive hooligans of all that is truly beautiful. Tear open the piggy-bank and GO.

I'm bringing over stories of the Celtic ecstatic Taliesin and the fact that all countries, underneath the soil,arrowheads, crustations, memories and roots are secretly ANIMALS that require certain coaxing songs to be sung to their limbs and earthy veins before any eco-treaties can fully work. and i know Coleman Barks has some great medieval Welsh translations he could be encouraged to read with just a murmur of encouragement. Caroline Casey will be wrenching befuddlement
from the jaws of slumber and turning it into intensely coloured arrows of whiskery beauty which flies from the tigerish bow of all true and mischievous souls. Phew.

The deepest gift though is the assembled tribe-every conversation is some kind of learning curve of love.

I will be making a big 1-2 month trip over to the states from then onwards (with family)that will certainly take in both coasts and Minnesota. If you know of wonderful spots that might suit the work let me know as i'm putting the plans on the table right now.

Well, i should start wishing us all a merry christmas. Waitrose are doing Lagavulin whisky on special at £33 per bottle rather than £40 so jump-spend the money-its God's own cough medicine. All bottles ecstatically received at Tregonning House.
I wish us all cosy glows and slap and tickle and beautiful old hymnals of shepherds and the moon and the boy with the scent of hay. Stay up late and look for Pan and his piping at the gates of Dawn on Christmas day. I think him and JC are better friends than many of us suspect.

I am saluting the life of RUMI with Sufi mystic Reshad Feild over at St. Johns Church, Bridetown, Totnes at 7.30 on Thurs 17th Dec-its free-love to see you there.


So bless you into the new year and the life you are meant to have. Its wonderful to know that people actually read these animistic mutterings.

I will leave you with something from the poet Bhartrihari

let's discount envy to start with
You high minded men, tell me what
you think. What is best: the sloping
sides of hermit mountain
or the sloping thighs
of a woman fond of lovemaking?

Slange! x