The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain. They set their clocks by deathwatch beetles, and thrive the centuries. They were the men with the leather-ribbon whips who sweated up the Pyramids seasoning it with other people's salt and other people's cracked hearts. They coursed Europe on the White Horses of the Plague. They whispered to Caesar that he was mortal, then sold daggers at half-price in the grand March sale. Some must have been lazing clowns, foot props for emperors, princes, and epileptic popes. Then out on the road, Gypsies in time, their populations grew as the world grew, spread, and there was more delicious variety of pain to thrive on. The train put wheels under them and here they run down the log road out of the Gothic and baroque; look at their wagons and coaches, the carving like medieval shrines, all of it stuff once drawn by horses, mules, or, maybe, men.

It's poor judgment', said Grandpa 'to call anything by a name. We don't know what a hobgoblin or a vampire or a troll is. Could be lots of things. You can't heave them into categories with labels and say they'll act one way or another. That'd be silly. They're people. People who do things. Yes, that's the way to put it. People who *do* things.

Love is stronger than both fear and hope - if you can love the natural beauty around you, the amazing gifts and skills we have, the fact that you are alive to experience life, each moment that you have, and love yourself and those around you just as they are, then there is no need to be owned by fear, or even hope, you just live the best you can, being the truth of that love that you are being, representing the stream of consciousness experiencing itself, always knowing that you will someday return to it again, and flow as part of it infinitely on.

Loving my son, building my son, touching my son, playing with my son, being with my son_ these aren__ tasks that only super dads can perform. These are tasks that every dad should perform. Always. Without fail.

Everything that God sends us is beautiful, even though we may not understand it - and we only need to give it some proper thought to see that what God gives is just sheer happiness; the suffering is what we add to it.

We are souls, eternal and perfect, captains of our mystic ships: gods and goddesses of our universe. We are beautiful, we pearls of grit. We, the ember of everything. Our uniqueness IS what makes us special, and the expression of it is our gift to the rest of us. In order to feel happy and fulfilled, we must honour our own personal brand of creativity... let it out into the world... BE who we came here to BE.