Richmond, VA

Merry meet Friends!
Michelle here, bringing lots of love and light!

"The song of your soul is longing to be sung.  Let your own essence express itself freely." ~ Brandon Bays

"There is an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for." ~ Saul Bellow

"I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself." ~ Dr. Maya Angelou

It's that time for me again...that longing time, that restless time, that tiger in the cage time.  I don't think it ever really leaves me.  I think it just plays hide and seek; then it sneaks up on me and yells, "Tag, you're it!"  The yearning to be, to do, to travel, to explore, to live, is calling.  I do believe that it is "the song of my soul longing to be sung".  What is that song that wants to express itself?  I hear it in the same way that the sailors of old heard the siren's song.  It's distant but I keep trying to get closer.  I don't think it's leading me to destruction as told in the myth, however.  

I've been sad this week.  I know it's due in part to my friend James' funeral on Tuesday.  Many classmates have made their transition but he was a close friend.  Death has a way of causing one to think about life and living.  It happens unexpectedly even though we all know it will happen at some point.  When it hits close to home, it causes a reevaluation of, well everything.  Saul Bellow expresses it well in the above quote: "...more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are, and what this life is for."   As I've written in several of my poems, I don't want to only exist; I want to LIVE.  Nothing makes that point more emphatically than death.  

I've also been sad because of the longing.  I seem to be fine but then an un-explainable sadness wells up in me.  I get teary eyed and sometimes cry.  I have even shouted out to Spirit, "WHAT?"  I must have been a gypsy in a former life because I can't explain why I am always so restless.  Things seem to be fine then BAM, longing!  The desire to explore, have new adventures and meet new people excites me immensely.  Living among different cultures and learning from the people broadens our horizons and increases our understanding.  I believe it makes us more loving, compassionate and kind.  

There are these tiny houses being sold now.  People who don't need an enormous amount of space are buying and/or building them. They have wheels in order to travel.  I don't believe they are expensive.  I certainly would like to have one to live in and travel. That would be a way for my outward gypsy journey to continue. Dr. Angelou says that we all want "..to be at home wherever I find myself."  I think that is true; we would like to feel at home, at any rate.  The saying goes: Home is where the heart is.  I suppose if we feel at home wherever we are, then our heart is there, at least for that time.  Did Gypsies feel at home wherever they roamed?  They did make camp wherever, so perhaps they did.  They stayed until they were run off, grew tired of the place or heard a distant call.

For me, it is more about hearing a distant call.  Something beckons me to follow the sound.  I don't think I have really answered that call fully.  That's the idea of the journey; to listen to the sound of the wind and follow wherever it leads.  One of my favorite movies is Chocolat, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. She plays a young mother with a 6 year old daughter.  Johnny Depp is a gypsy. In a way she is one also, except she only travels with her daughter. There is a particular wind that she hears and it tells her when to leave and which direction to follow.  I cried when I watched that movie because it spoke to the longing of my soul.  

Until I follow the call, this longing will continue to return and return, because it doesn't ever leave really.  I may go out of town for awhile and that seems to satisfy but it doesn't.  My gypsy spirit needs to be free.  I do know that freedom is a state of mind, in the same way that we can carry home with us.  However, my heart, soul and spirit cries out for an outward expression of the workings of the mind.  George Eliot says it like this: "It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are alive.  There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them."   I feel that I am starving!

Until next Sunday,
Merry part and merry meet again, 
Blessed be,
Gypsi Mama Michelle