And so it is...

Tonight is about soul. Don't bother looking for new music from me tonight, none to offer you either... sorry.

Do you all know who your best friend is? Each of you think on that statement.

Have you told them so? Do you even have one? Dont be embarrassed if you dont; most people in the world, as the average goes, may not and most likely have only maybe one or two friends, TOTAL - nevermind the best or even just three or four average friends.

I interject; there is nothing wrong with just having just two or three friends of any status, even though it is even better if you have four or five friends... Cool, cool!

But this is more about the knowing that you have friends and are cared for day and night; amongst the strangers, the strange and the dark.

I could name at least three people over the years that have past, that were that to me. Friends in the least, and best friends if pressed. And yet in my true time of needing a friend, during the drama that plays out in my sleep, the one I could open my eyes to see? The Moon.

Turns out that the moon looks down upon me when I sleep. When I sleep it is there. When my eyes roll open at 3:20 am in a stir of a dream, the moon is there. Bright and big; brilliant as the description of heaven believed by those who have found religion.

Yes I have best friends. I am not pleading that I am without; I am not seeking charity for being apparently exposed as lonely. What I wish to speak on is the ability of friends to be there when most needed, without request and without demand. And so it is the Moon... for me.

My dreams are sometimes the fragments of the days passed; sometimes of the troubles ahead; all the time of something bigger than me.

I struggle and fight; I walk sideways in dreams without control over my legs and other times without seeing the faces of those I think I know. I roll forward with fear sometimes, around a corner, or because sometimes I am flying. Other times I am vulnerable and need to know (just like every other one of you) that I will be saved should I fall; that I am not alone.

It is the moment I awake from these desperate dreams in the hope of something already accepted in sleep and find more of the same old, the all awake and same old. The disease of the daily life just ahead of me... and in these times, I find the Moon.

A friend of mine Terry and I always used to see Marilyn Munroe in the Moon, smiling seductively back us; the other, the man in the moon, always to busy to say hi, digging amongst himself for his own answers; looking for his own truth and yet nonetheless still there.

Now in my own middle of time, the brightest and fullest light to shine my darkened eyes to life at night? My friend, the Moon.

Somewhere along the way I forgot the small (or potentially large) things in life. The power of simple talismans. So powerful once you let them in, and yet no wonder they have played such a huge influence in humanity since the beginning of time. But to wake up to the brilliance of an August moon shining in on you through your own bedroom window; standing beside you while you battle dragons or find your way through an immense labyrinth on the quest to the greatest chocolate chip cookie of all time; knowing you will never reach it as it is, and yet stepping back to match your own steps forward? That is a friend. The Moon, never questioning and always, always, showing me the route through my transcendental journeys; the moon does it's thang.

The sun get all the accolades. Tans, vitamin D, photosynthesis, the end of the world under a heat blanket brought on by solar flares and industry at man's hand...

Yet, just the same, the sun always leaves when the getting is good (by the way, The Stranglers were so goddamn young when they did this song, it is truly ridiculous). It is there to shine when everything is working - no breakdowns, and no intrusions that cannot be overcome by clearer heads or sun-soaked skies. All troubles easily forgotten...

While the Moon, works within the very stretch of its own boundaries. The Moon is alone; and alone in who it follows and keeps safe. No one decided for the Moon. The Moon cannot be swayed or bought; it's allegiance is not for sale. Humans swim in it's lore and swell in its legend. The very oceans breathe in its light and its passing, from one side of the globe, to the other. To solidify its interloper status, it does what it does and shines on only those who wish it to. Only to those who know. I know.

Yet the Moon, my friend, will always be the herald to me out of my dreams.

Peace!

Badstone Out!