04/15/2006

REBECCA'S APRIL FULL MOON GREETINGS

April 13, 2006

Dahlins--

Happy, Happy, Happy Spring!

I know that Spring comes every year, but I forget how beautiful this season is until I witness its beauty once again. Outside my bedroom window, the magenta-colored azaleas are blooming madly. On either side of my St. Francis of Assisi statue are grasses and yet more azaleas.

The red-winged blackbirds wake me with their mating calls, and the bird feeder needs filling twice a week because the band-tail pigeons crowd in with smaller birds, almost tipping the feeder over!

La Luna brought with her the joy of seeing YA-YAS IN BLOOM come out in paperback this week. For me, although the hardback came out last year, the paperback is like this book's virgin outing. I was so ill last year that I missed the excitement of having a book published. Basically, I was happy if I could make it to the kitchen without falling down!

This year I joyfully made an appearance at our local bookstore where a Ya-Ya party was held. It was so sweet to dip my foot back in the pond--my first professional public appearance in six years!

I've asked Brenda to post a photo for you of the event. I only wish you all could have been there.

Afterward, a small gathering of friends went out for dinner and toasted YA-YAS IN BLOOM, proclaiming the words: "Go forth and multiply!"

It was hand-to hand grass roots word of mouth that made DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD a bestseller. How I'd love it if y'all did the same for YA-YAS IN BLOOM: buy paperback copies not only for yourselves, but also copies to share with friends and family! Spread the Ya-Ya Sisterhood to those who are new to the community that we cherish. Books are birthed into the world by the ushering, the uttering of each to the other: "You've GOT to read this." Your strutting forth and talking my new book up can make YA-YAS IN BLOOM "go forth and multiply!"

This is a time of both death and rebirth. La Luna shines on me tonight and reminds me that the passing of a human being from the physical realm to the other side is something not just to be mourned, but also to be celebrated.

Yesterday, Rev. William Sloane Coffin passed. He was my minister at Riverside Church when I lived in New York City. He was one of the most powerful white clergymen in this country to embrace the power of civil disobedience to bring about social and political change. He was arrested as a Freedom Rider early in the sixties while he was Chaplain at Yale. He opposed the Vietnam War, and, along with Dr. Benjamin Spock, was convicted on charges that he had engaged in a conspiracy to counsel draft evasion. Indeed he did counsel young men who did not believe in becoming warriors, but there was no conspiracy. The young men who came to him were already against fighting in the war. Eventually the verdicts were overturned, and by that time Rev. Coffin had become a national figure of protest.

By the time I encountered him at Riverside Church, he was using his position to draw attention to the plight of the poor, to question the use of American military might, and to campaign for nuclear disarmament.

His influence on me is inestimable. At the time I was involved with Sane/Free, an organization that campaigned against nuclear arms and nuclear testing. Rev. Coffin taught me that it is crucial to "speak truth to power." He taught me that Ghandi and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King were right in using civil disobedience to bring about change.

And he taught me--to use his own words: "Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never. Let us love our country, but pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports--one planet indivisible, with clean air, soil and water, with liberty, justice, and peace for all."

As La Luna shines down on all of us, I send out a prayer of thanks that I was blessed to be in the powerful presence of Rev. Coffin. I send out a prayer that those suffering from war, starvation, malaria, and AIDS might be comforted and helped to become whole again. I send out a humble prayer that my own work might contribute to even the tiniest bit of healing in readers, one by one. For that is how we make peace: within ourselves, then one by one, loving each other, and loving this world.

Take care, keep in touch--I'd love to hear what you're up to--and remember: keep dancing in the kitchen!

84,000 Blessings,

Rebecca

Copyright © by Rebecca Wells