Frost and Fire

 

There is a waiting stillness to this morning. Waiting for what? The breath of the world is held.

Sometimes I feel as if my small human self encompasses not just the world, the planet, but all the stars that ever were or are or will be.

And every human in every pocket of every country and every continent. When I sense that, I feel such an upsurge of weeping wanting to occur.

Where are we, humanity? What are we become that there seems to be such a massive grief permeating the very molecules of the air?

At the same time, I don’t want to sink under that ocean of sadness. Braided within the sensation of sorrow is something shining and shy. A diamond brilliance that just begins to peep out from behind the curtains of gray gloom…

Such fancifulness for a prosaic December morning in Santa Barbara. The glitter of frost, and smoke from neighbors’ chimneys, breeds imaginings of cozy parlors with Christmas trees and sleigh rides à la White Christmas.

No sleigh rides around here, but frost and fire still lend sparkle and magic to our Southern California season.

*****

The waves of emotion come and go. Enjoyment of the glittering frost on the roofs. Pleasure in the nip of cold followed by return to the warm house.

Sadness when I think of the homeless troubadour, Jesse, as I wonder where he spent the night. Are there enough blankets in the world to warm someone when it’s 35° outside?

This is the conundrum of awareness. I am aware that my greatest contribution to myself (and to anything) is to experience and embody and emanate as high a vibration as I can. Joy, peace, and quiet contemplation and gratitude for the blessings I experience every day. Yes, even baking those cookies whose dough is resting in the refrigerator, ready to fill the house with the scent of vanilla and chocolate.

I reckon it’s the opposite of high vibration to imagine a somewhat elderly man with a beautiful voice and nimble guitar fingers wrapped in his car and trying to stay warm overnight.

A heartfelt sigh emits from my wounded heart.

*****

There are organizations in town to help people like Jesse. If he would be willing to submit to the evangelical exhortations of the Salvation Army shelter, he could probably stay there from 6 PM to 6 AM. Although there’s most likely a waiting list of some weeks’ duration.

Certain of the church parking lots provide sanctuary parking for the homeless, or at least they used to.

At the height of the plandemic nearly two years ago, the Peppertree Inn, which had a small hair salon where I used to get my hair done, was contracted by the city of Santa Barbara, and the homeless people were allowed to stay there for many months.

Somehow, somewhere, the city coughed up a couple hundred thousand dollars to fund several such hotel shelters throughout the city. Since travel was massively restricted, the hotels were empty anyway. 

I believe the rationale was to keep homeless people from getting and spreading covid. Cynically, I  suspect that it wasn’t so much to protect the homeless population as it was to protect tax-paying community members who would be in proximity to these folks as they panhandled. 

I’ve been wondering ever since: why did it take a worldwide crisis for the wealthy city of Santa Barbara to open its coffers and attempt to take care of its most vulnerable population?

A similar “crisis and solution“ occurred last summer. The plandemic hotel shelters had closed down with the reopening of travel. But a fast-burning wildfire in the heart of the city that was started in a massive homeless encampment prompted the launch of plans to actually “do something“ about the homeless problem. Understandably, that wildfire spooked people in the multimillion dollar homes that it threatened.

I haven’t kept up with that situation. Knowing the glacial slowness of government, maybe by the next decade or so, a small shelter in the industrial part of town might be erected for the homeless.

By that time, I suspect my homeless troubadour friend will have either succumbed to the lack of care endemic to that lifestyle, or moved permanently to where his remaining family lives in the south.

Some might say that he’s luckier than many. At least he has a vehicle and a family he could seek shelter with.

Never mind that his heart and soul resonate with Santa Barbara, that this is where he lived with his wife who passed away, that this is where the humpback whale bellied up near him on the beach and stared him in the eye, communicating something from the stars, I’m sure.

*****

I have a pleasant little fantasy that, after the redistribution of the ill-gotten wealth of the elite, Oprah‘s house in Montecito is seized and reimagined into a delightful spa homeless shelter.

I picture Jesse there, with access to all that would entail. Playing his guitar in the summer sun, sitting in a polished wooden Adirondack chair on the lawns of Oprah‘s Tara.

I could visit and we would chat in peace and comfort. I’d bring some of my home-baked cookies and maybe a book for the soul of him.

Ah, well. I don’t know what’s meant to be.

I do know that I can make the cookie part come true, and perhaps include a book with a little money gift tucked inside. If he’s at his usual spot at Trader Joe’s, I can manifest that small part of a vision of abundance for one homeless person in paradise.