Inspiration

   The actual song itself is available only in spoken form, as requested by Philip.

Response by John:

The last GEM you heard was called The Happy Journey. And it reminds me, in my own life – and that is what is amazing about these poems and songs by Phil – how much you can relate to yourself.

I can think of a woman I once knew from Japan. This woman traveled from Scotland to Canada to see him. I met a woman from Japan. Her name was Shigiko.

I love floors that creak. There’s a power, a personality to it, as if the floor acknowledges me there, greets me, in a way. The house feels homey and lived in, in some sense imprinted.

Old houses have creaky floors and stairs, for sure. It’s not clear if it’s the personality of the people who lived there coming through or the personality of the home itself. But, to me, it always seems inviting and cozy.

It makes me mindful of the moment, more fully present with more of my senses focused here and now.

I also love doors that creak and drawers that squeak.

Introduction

John:

Matt, what do you see what you are doing. Let’s say, if you could go into the future about 5 years from now. What would you like to have happen, with all the effort you are putting into traveling to all these cities, meeting all these people, and putting yourself out so everyone gets a chance to personally, see, feel, sense, who you are and what you are about?

This story I would like to tell is about friends of mine. Friends of my husband’s and mine, who recently got refugee visa’s from the Ukraine, and are now living in Oakville, CT.

Twenty something years ago, my husband is working in the shop, and the woman who was the engineer, she was crying. He said, “What is wrong Galina?” She said that my friend Irina in the Ukraine, she lost her husband at 28 years old of diabetes, because if the was money, there was no medicine, and if there was medicine, there was no money.

I love to see things that are so tangled they defy all logic to untangle or even understand their pattern.

Near our house is a Byzantine church. That in itself is so beautiful when they play the church bells with something like a piano keyboard. Anyhow, there is a huge nettle, a giant, wild hedge with small birds darting in and out.

Hundreds of birds seem to live in there. It is so amazing that they can so quickly and accurately navigate this dense and obtuse tangle of hedge at such a high speed. They must be geniuses.

I sincerely thank whoever discovered the muffin.

There is something really irresistible about a muffin – all kinds of muffins.

Others may love their croissant, but I love my muffin.

Right away, I think of muffins wrapped in red and white checked gingham in a honey-colored wicker basket. I think of New England or charming European villages with fresh baked breads. I think of the open hearth, with a log fire, at the center of a home.

It’s so primal – food – eating – our daily bread.

It’s amazing to see the kind of plaything a child loves and craves. For example, a big empty cardboard box. A little snip here and there and presto, a small house, or a store, or a spaceship.

Their imagination is so intense and vast and immediate – that it can go way beyond the “stuff” in front of them, and “grow” their own little world.

Introduction

John:

I’m here today with Matt Del Rosario. Matt, I met you at the Newtown Senior Center. Unexpected, unannounced. I was there for something totally different, and you walked in, and invited a group of us to join you in a class. Could you please tell us about that class. It was the most amazing moment experienced in about a thousand years.

Matt speaks:

Thank you so much. So the class that you got experience is called Hula Noho, which is a seated Hula class, or a Hawaiian form of storytelling through dance and music.

Introduction by Phil

If you listen very closely, the souvenirs that you gathered over your lifetimes and placed in your home might whisper their history to you.
Can you hear them?

   The actual song itself is available only in spoken form, as requested by Philip.

Response by John

I love that last GEM recorded by Phil, entitled Something Says You’re Home.

One day I went outside and saw mushrooms everywhere. Not only was the yard absolutely full of mushrooms, but they were all so different from each other. It’s like elves and fairies were celebrating there in the night before.

Some were large and off-white. Some were small and orange. Some were dark, dark brown, thin and tall. Some were white with an orange ring at their edge. Some were tiny and delicate, the size of a dime. Colony upon colony of each kind.

There was a huge 8 inch mushroom. There were colonies of bright yellow sprouts, just stems forming, of young mushrooms.