It doesn't take a weatherman...

“Blowing in the Wind”

“The land created me. I'm wild and lonesome. Even in the cities, I'm more at home in the vacant lots.”

Bob Dylan

My friend, Charlie, informed me that Bob Dylan celebrated his 74^th birthday on May 24^th. Hard to wrap my head around that. He, in my opinion, is far and away the best poet of our time; good to know he considers himself poet first, and musician second. He's philosophical about life and death, saying that the world goes on without us, with hardly a ripple on the surface. One could describe him either as cynical or pragmatic. He says the world is ruled, not by democracy, but by violence; that success is measured, not by how much money you make, but by being able to do what you want to do. “It doesn't take a weather man to know which way the wind blows,” is simply the best line ever. My favorite of his poem-songs is still, “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts;” so complex and interesting, it is practically a book in itself.

Isn't it heartening to know, from time-to-time, a soul comes along who can move our hearts toward something deeper? Whose words speak such stark truth, set to music, that we know the rightness of them in our bones, and not just in our ears. Dylan has done that for five decades. He has changed the shape of our lives with his words.

“How many roads must a man walk down,

before you call him a man?

How many seas must a white dove sail

before she sleeps in the sand?

Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly,

before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.

The answer is blowing in the wind.”

                                                                 In the Spirit,

                                                                       Jane