now seems to be about endings. i face the west and call to water. i know that all will go. so how should we honour our lives? should we go on and on, steeped in suffering and the breakdown of the body? should we take our chances with the afterlife, walking calmly forward into that western light? should i help someone who wants to go on to go on? and what about me? i wish that i have someone who cares enough to help me let go if i need help, to hold my hand or push my wheelchair into the ocean, or just to say that i have the choice today. namaste, Babe. 

now is a place between the sun and the moon; i am on the side of the mountain, looking across the Valley. the sun is setting to the west and the moon is rising over sandia. she is full; i am full; i perform the ancient ritual, forming a circle and calling in my beloveds, both living and not; together we face the six directions and call forth the Powers that dwell there(and within each of us). there are few places more sacred, more lovely than this hillside in new mexico. thanks be to Elena Gallegos and her avatars who made this a place where this tired old mystic can sit and breathe in the pinon and juniper and chamisa and the night as it covers Albuquerque.  

now is a ghost from the past, someone who is worried that i might be dead:NOT. i did kill our connections,blocking your phones, spamming your emails, boxing up your letters and etc and storing them away for the archives. and then i hit the road. i am on the road like kerouac but without the paregoric. i am so glad to have unbound myself from the past, not destroying it but transmuting it into stories and more stories....remember when? i do.

now is a discovery: anderson museum of art in roswell, new mexico. one of the most eclectic and amazing collections that i have seen in the southwest. the artists are supported by a foundation that provides space to work, money to feed and house the artists, a collective of like spirits to encourage and champion the art produced...remember patronage? and the result is a building filled with paintings, sculpture, multi-media constructions, and words. make a trip there; go on line to see what is there; there is something happening in new mexico, in roswell, that refreshes the artist in me. aliens? that too. 

now is confession: it was frightening to cry at someone else's wedding. i've been saying "oh, i don't really need THAT...i am so over marriage...i do just fine alone..." and then saul and robert got married before robert's heart surgery and the sweet touch saul gave his hand as they wheeled him into surgery broke my heart. oh i do want to be with someone(Martin Sheen would do nicely), to share, to plan, to be a partner in life! so before i sink into self-loathing despair or leap at inappropriate lilypads i just need to admit it: i am lonely tonight. and i want to feed a bite of that thai salmon to someone who loves me. as i love myself. 

now is praise for real men:today is my father's 96th birthday. what he showed me: honesty, compassion, humour, commitment to family,joy in life and love. he taught me to share in the work, to lead by example, to be tolerant but still hold to my values. he would have been perhaps amused by Trump, disgusted by Cruz, but not voted for democrats, because he was an Ike man, a Goldwater man, but not a nixon  or bush man: he hated war and encouraged me to be a resister. "I will drive you to Canada myself" he told me in 1970, but he respected my decision to stay in this country and work against the War. he acknowledged my queer self but still felt that it was somehow wrong. he always wished for grandchildren and did not live long enough to see that queer people could parent, too. thanks, Daddy, for your way, the way of honor. i miss your smile, namaste,brooks lynn

now is the leaving. this time it seems more like a happy escape after a wealth of visiting: i have many beloved friends and often long to be surrounded by all their arms, but it is too much. i have come to honor my solo self, content to travel and look more deeply into me. but i will return to oz. as pj harvey sez"you will not be rid of me/lick my legs of desire/lick my legs they 're on fire" namaste,beloved #$%ches