Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow?
And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind? ~Led Zeppelin -> Stairway to Heaven

Sometimes you just get a song in your head. One of the things I enjoy about movies is the sound track. It's interesting to see what music will be selected to accompany the story ... sometimes, for me, the music is the best part of a story. Sometimes, I like to pick out a song that I think goes with what's going on in life or what's going on in a picture even.

Recently, I saw a beautiful picture. It was of the sun gilding a golden veneer on clouds that seemed to zig zag a little as they ramped right up towards the setting sun. The clouds seemed to stop at a shimmering portal ... it looked like the door w to a very bright room was thrown wide open. Above the sun the sky was still blue ... that perfect French blue ...and it was laced with charcoal grey. It was already a beautiful picture, but making it super cool was a very faint sun pillar radiating up, calling out as a beacon light does.
The photo is soft, like a watercolor ... it was taken looking Westward ... a sunset over the Pacific.

You can almost see angels walking up and down the ramp ... just a fancy. But if angels come and go, this would certainly be a pleasant way to travel "between" here and there. It's like a stairway to heaven.
I can see the inspiration that builders of old must have found as they designed and constructed their sacred mounds and ziggurats. Were they trying to shortcut this process where by we come to know God. Were they reaching for the light?

I'm a bit bluesy this morning ... the song, Stairway to Heaven talks about buying a stairway to heaven and I'm thinking that is surely what we all do ...

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run." ~Thoreau

...and we buy it and we build it one day at a time, with our lives. I'm not talking about grace, I'm talking about the Refiner's fire.


O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free? ~Longfellow

Blithe is such a sweet word. I'm thinking about Zeppelin's whispering wind today ... Longfellow must have been thinking of those fair weather days when the air does seem to be blithe and free. The wind does seem to whisper on those days.


And as we wind on down the road,
Our shadows taller than our soul,
There walks a lady we all know.
Who shines white light and wants to show?
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard the tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all, yeah, to be a rock and not to roll. ~Zeppelin

I think this little bit goes here as well:
I. TIME

Yes, he is time, Lusty and blithe, Time is at his apogee!
Although you thought to see
A bearded ancient with a scythe
No reaper he that cries "take heed!."
Time is at his apogee.
Young and strong in his prime
Behold the sower of the seed. (Choral Dances from Gloriana - Benjamin Britten)

For me, this represents the idea that this life (with a few moments of intense joy, and a few moments of soul searing pain) is really not much more then the sowing of a seed. And that seed comes to fruition in eternity ... over there. Yeah, it makes me wonder.


Past time to walk my dog.