Marvelous Times

When I asked a friend if they could recommend any good hip-hop/rap music with positive and meaningful lyrics; instead of guns, booty, and bling, they suggested Mos Def. So I picked up the cd, The Ecstatic, over the holidays. In the song "Life in Marvelous Times", the narrator is looking over his difficult childhood and challenging growth years with that sacred detachment that helps us stay present. The song culminates in a wave of gratitude:

wherever you ride, whatever your name,

this road called life is a beautiful thing

and we are alive in amazing times

delicate hearts, diabolical minds

revelations, hatred, love and war...

it's scary like hell, but there's no doubt

we can't be alive in no time but now.

And when I heard the phrase "marvelous times" sung in repetition... it revealed itself as a perfect catch phrase for that phenomenon called "staying present". This moment, right now, is marvelous times.

Art as Witness

Elka Amorim, Ink and watercolor

Inspiration, joy, loneliness, anger, fear--as well as we can understand these in ourselves, we can begin to act compassionately in our relationships with others; this is divine witness... which is one of the gifts of any art form, enabling us to glimpse something in ourselves we might not otherwise have noticed. I am grateful that people (artists, dancers, writers, musicians,...) take risks every day to dive deep into the Unknown and see what they find there, then share it with the rest of us.