I do believe that the moon was smiling.

As we approached Amma's ashram in San Ramon this evening, one of the people in the car noticed the new moon. Someone else said, "it's smiling." For me that was a portent of chuckles--and tears--to come.

It has been a quite insanely difficult year for many reasons. In December of 2008 I was not only mourning the loss of a relationship I had had with a tattoed, university-educated guy from Mexico, but I also had to deal with being forced to move out of a place in San Francisco where I felt very grounded; this place also had as a resident one of the most unique cats I've ever known, Buddy Budders. He still lives there, I think. He was jet black like a seal and just as fat with huge green saucers for eyes. Every time I had a nightmare in which I woke up not knowing who I was, Buddy was there on my bed staring at me saying, "You're back. You're here." I still miss him.

For six months thereafter I was losing my mind, piece by piece, in a living situation in which I had NO privacy. I had heard the song "Ticky Tacky Boxes" but I had never thought I would be living in one. How I survived that one was to rely on my kitten Joaquin, a raccoon-striped Maine Coon, to keep me in the present. His little striped face would scrunch up into a tiny kitten-head ball every morning when we had to wake up at seven so I could go to work.

By June I had, through friends, found a huge sunny room in the upper Haight. Work was done and I was free...I painted the walls the color called "hot kiss" and green and yellow... With no money, I couldn't go anywhere. I can't even remember how I spent my days. By August my cousin called, crying, to say that my aunt had a huge tumor in her lungs...So I went to visit her--a three-hour drive and having to pay for a hotel. My aunt was staring at my Tibetan mala I wore around my neck and when she asked to look at it, I handed it over, literally...she put it on her neck! She died a week or so before Thanksgiving.

In September, on Amma's birthday, my friend Margaret died of cancer. The father I never had, Bro Jud Presmont, died almost a week ago. I could go on and on about how much he meant to me and how much I will miss him. I will write a poem to him instead.


"Nice is nice," was one of yours.
Also: "if it ain't fun it won't get done."
We used to talk about the "Cosmic Opera"
And "Theatre Verite." Of course there
Was Kerista and polyamory and the
University of Utopia and W.A.K.E. ,
The World Academy of Keristan
Education. No one can forget
Your desire to eliminate poverty
And homelessness, with "love
Energy" guiding us "on to the
Next thing," I will miss your
Overriding optimism...a kind of
Sagittarian trait I shared but often
Forgot about, drowning in
Scorpionic desire for liberation.
Sweet angel, Jud, I am happy
You are liberated from this body
"We are trapped in." Now when
I call you up, seeking a confidant,
I will watch the candles burning
Softly with your significance.