Hey everybody! Happy New Year to all of you! 2004 has just begun... good luck to all of us here on earth... None of us knows what lies ahead, but still we walk in faith...

Greetings from the Northwest! Just back from the Road, about to head out for the last gigs of this year. This year has run out like water, hasn't it? Winter is on, rain or snow is coming down, Thanksgiving just behind us, and the darkest night of the year lies ahead, there in the midst of the lights, the gifts, the gathering together of family and friends. I hope all of you were able to gather with loved ones round the table, eat yourselves into a satisfied dither, and top it all off by feeling truly thankful. Off the top, I am grateful to love and be loved in return. Thanks for that.

The days of August are upon us...I just finished a phone interview with a woman in Berlin, Germany...she was born a year after The Changer was delivered into this world, and today, we spoke , among other things, of its impact upon her life. 30 years ago, and still that music rolls through people's lives in some important way!

Hi everyone...summer greetings! Hard to believe August is right around the corner. Now, I do know the measurement of the days is exactly the same as it has always been – as far as time goes, that is to say. But the older one gets, the quicker she flies, or so it seems to me. Scrambling to keep up with the chores, horses, traveling, and all that occupies my summer...little by little, I get things done, but always there are things left over, left behind, left undone. Ah, well...still there is only so much a girl can do!

The Scandinavian trip was truly a wonderful journey, the highlight of which, certainly, was seeing Meg Shambhavi Christian and singing together after such a long, long time. My girl, Judy, and I flew over the top of the world to the Copenhagen airport where I gladly paid way too much for a press-pot of Jamaican Blue Mt. coffee. Jet-lagged, we ambled around the airport, heading for our gate and next flight to Stockholm to meet up with the ship and fellow passengers.

As my dear, dear friend Teresa says: "The thing about love is, you gotta be brave." No matter the object of that love, you must entertain and embrace the inevitable: the fact of loss, a leaving, a death, a passage, as part of life, not apart from it. It's a wider embrace that is needed.

Obstacles can become gateways leading to new beginnings...I know this as a Zen axiom. I know it as a guide. So often, in the past, I would lose my patience, and my guide, with obstacles, with things I could not do, or understand, and then try and wait for "someone else" to take care of whatever was blocking my particular road. I am trying hard to break this pattern.

It is already March with its fickle weather -- rain, sun, then snow, and a great, big wind directly out of the South. Enormous damage around this area: trees uprooted, lines down, power out -- for me, 3 days dark. But I can pretty much go off the grid here, and I know from my childhood how too do this, how to live without electricity. I do not panic at the sudden quiet, the enveloping darkness. It's a good lesson in preparedness -- candles, batteries for the radio, lamp oil, firewood...