Sundances subtly draws the reader into deep celebration of the author’s life as a reflection of the essential human experience. In these short pieces, Sun unveils remnants of his formative years in the 1970s counter-culture scene, his quest for spiritual awakening, the joys and tragedies of family life, and the ever-present call to excavate the extraordinary buried within the illusion of the ordinary world. These reflections waltz from stunning and startling to poignant and wise. This is a book to be sipped like a glass of fine wine. In the vein of Everyday Sacred by Sue Bender, these short pieces are glimpses – snapshots – each capturing a moment in time, offering shards of life’s treasures to us cradled in open hands saying “Here, hold this!” In holding these stories, we honor the entire human experience for its amazing ability to charm, disarm, and enrich our hearts.
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The Landlady paraphrases the stars: “Dicey is the new normal.” The Centenarian Matriarch declares: “The weather has fallen overboard. People are not far behind.”
The Spiritual Tutor transmits the last word: “All ideas are invalid. All thoughts are untrue. All concepts are contrived. Opinions are not worth the synapses they’re firing. Beliefs are out of the question. Only poems born of eternal nothingness are worthy.”
Excerpt from Twenty Fourteen Doesn’t Speak—It Rages
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I could get chic and declare my life is now a designer funnel pouring the real me into this moment.
Or get artistic and blame the whole thing on the Muse trying out her new harp—plucking my heart strings.
Or accuse my Magician Archetype of conjuring an outside-the-box séance.
Or get mercenary and bottle the experience for resale.
Or consort with an analyst to coach me to coerce my Inner Hero to hurl the whole shebang into the Collective Unconscious.
More likely I’ll get with the program and declare I’ve finally and officially landed in California and am getting one facet of the inside view of what all the fuss is about. Here on the legendary ledge. Where only the odd, the outlandish, or the strong, evolve.
Excerpt from Twenty Fourteen Doesn’t Speak—It Rages
