The Morning, Brilliant Blue

In this issue, scroll on down to:

• Welcome Letter

• Kindness In A Grocery Bag

• I Should Have Been At Woodstock

• Chester, the Cat Who Loved Me

• Red Room

• A Meditation for Thanksgiving (with 12-minute meditation)

• Sacred Friendship

• My Friend Rick and All His Dogs

• My Friend Les and All His Horses

• Holiday Concert Sun Dec 15 Alive on Zoom 5pm Pacific

• Closing Thoughts

Howdy my friends, Where I sit in this photo I’m gazing out across the sea to Whidbey Island. Just a few blocks from me I can wander down the hill and walk along the driftwood on shore. This time of year in particular, it’s really peaceful. All summer the place is packed. Then in late September you can sit on a long, sun bleached log and barely be aware that anyone else is around. 

Sometimes I come down the hill like I’m in a hurry, for absolutely no reason except old habit. Do you ever find yourself being that way? Restless, wanting to get things moving, but then you pause and realize there is no reason on earth you need to hurry? That happens sometimes and I’ll walk briefly along the water, maybe sit on a log a few minutes, then think way too soon, “Well, I guess I’ll head on back.” What?!! What for? We just got here!

What that is, is my ego fearing that if I pause and let the harmonic vibrations of water and rocks, driftwood and wind, sun and islands, calm me down and settle me into a sweet trance, well, ego doesn't want that for me. It likes me a little harried. But then sometimes I’ll get just enough of a glimpse of softness. I’ll remember how beautiful it feels when the lapping water has its way with me and I’m just so glad I allowed the essence of wind and gulls and smooth driftwood to bring me back into harmony.

Twenty or thirty minutes later I’m a changed man. I didn’t do anything at all but pause. I allowed. I breathed. Ahhhhhhhhhhh. . . . And then when I finally do walk back up the hill to my place, I do it slowly, peacefully, and I walk into my place different than the way I left it. Maybe I’ll pick up a guitar and see what’s new. Or maybe I’ll sit at my laptop and write you something — like I did just now on this rainy, blustery, beautifully wind-swept November afternoon. 

Thank you for joining me and reading my collection, The Morning, Brilliant Blue. I hope you enjoy what I’ve brought to share. 

Your friend in the sideways rain, Michael

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Kindness In A Grocery Bag

ON THAT OCTOBER SATURDAY I was doing a lot to get ready for my concert on Zoom that evening. I realized I was way too hungry for a folkslinger to be, things can get out of hand if I start to gnaw on frozen veggie burgers without even cooking them. My day was too busy to go to the store, so I went online to order and have it delivered. Then I went back to work on the many things I was doing for the show. I searched for half an hour and found the thumb drive marked Autumn. Yay. It was my ambient mood video background for the concert and when those Nature scenes slowly unfold, it feels like I’m singing with an orchestra.

Shortly after that I heard my phone ding. It was a text from the person shopping for my groceries. “Your shopper is now filling your order. Please okay or reject any substitutions.” I glanced down the list and didn’t notice anything off. “A-Okay,” I texted. Over the next five minutes, another series of dings that seemed to just want to assure me that shopping was spiffy. Then, “One item is out of stock and has been replaced. Please check Approval or Not.” Within ten seconds I’d seen what it was and texted back, “No, don’t want the 96 oz Salad dressing. Just take that off my list.” That stuff is dangerous,  I’d be guzzling it like chocolate milk if it was more than the 12 oz version.

Ding! The phone was still in my hand. “Shopper has already left store. Order is final.” Well dammit, that kind of annoyed me a little. What’s the point in asking me? About ten minutes later another ding. “Driver arriving in 3 minutes.” I stood outside and waited for the driver. Tons of ferry traffic going by, it was a busy Saturday. Then an older window van came easing up the way, going the wrong direction. I knew it was her. She was a muslim woman with two kids in the back seat and she slowly went past me and pulled into a spot up ahead. The kids did it for me. I instantly spun around, darted back up the stairs and got some more money.

I’d already tipped her well online - and the store made it clear that ALL the tip goes to the shopper. But seeing her little kids with her just changed the whole picture for me. This mom was trying to make a living for her family, and the only way she could afford to work was with her kids going along. I thought of her rushing around the store with one of them in a cart and the other holding her hand — and here I was slightly irritated because one of the items was wrong. I felt foolish for that and wanted to let her know how much I appreciated her. This was her bare bones survival; shopping for people to do what she probably could never do; buy groceries online to have delivered and not worry about what they cost.

I was standing back by my entry about 70 feet away. I didn’t want to rush her. When she stepped out and tentatively waved at me, I walked over smiling. She was about to go into how she was sorry she’d left the store before I could reply, I said, “Oh hey, it’s really totally fine. That’s a huge store and I’ve spent half an hour looking for things many times.” I added, “And that has got to be a hard job, with all the busy shoppers and checkout lines and the city traffic.”

She seemed really relieved and that really touched my heart. I said, “Is there a place I can report online and give you a high rating for your delivery?” She said yes. And then I reached into my pocket for the extra money and said, “I tipped you online for the delivery, but I just want to add some more for your trouble.” She seemed completely surprised and grateful, probably as much for the fact that I wasn’t upset as for the extra money.

“Thank you,” she said, her eyes grateful and soft, her face beaming. I spoke intentionally loud enough for her kids to hear me in the back when I thanked her and told her I appreciated her. I wanted them to know that their mom was really doing great work and that people appreciate her. On her face was all the thanks I could ever ask for. That beautiful moment shifted my entire day. In fact, it made my concert better, more love came through my voice because I thought of her and her children that evening as I sang. That’s the kind of kindness I always hope flows through my music and I knew our gentle connection was no accident. ~ Michael Tomlinson

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I Should Have Been At Woodstock

THE SUMMER I FIRST HEARD CROSBY, STILLS AND NASH I was sixteen — and feeling super sad that I hadn’t gotten to go to Woodstock. I felt left out. Instead of hippy adventures, I was three storeys up in Texas wind on an aluminum ladder, spending that scorching summer day painting an apartment complex in Amarillo. While I don’t think they caused it, their song, “Marrakech Express,” was playing on my transistor radio almost exactly at the moment my wire hook broke and I dropped a full bucket of white paint from thirty feet in the air. 

What a psychedelic vision that bucket was from where I clung, twisting and tilting so slowly in the air to the joyful melody of, “Don’cha know we’re riding on the Marrakech Express?” Graham Nash’s sweet, nasally voice was in my ear and the can of thick whitewash was like a tradesman’s ballet for my eyes. In the instant its bottom edge came into contact with solid earth, the milky mess burst into a fountain, splashing a thick serving up and out, splattering the most beautiful thirty foot arch across the black asphalt and up a cedar fence. Uh-oh.

It was only after it was all over that I became aware of my long holler. The song was over, but to this day, if I hear it, I will remember my sixteen year old self clambering down that ladder and taking off running like a pin ball through the large Colonial apartment complex, looking for my boss. When I found Bob, near the swimming pool where viewing was fine, I burst out, “B-b-bob! I sp-spilled some p-paint over yonder on that n-new asphalt!” Bob Fredericks was a great boss — a beloved high school teacher who often joked that people who saw him on his summer job thought he himself had no more a second grade education. My boss raced to see the calamity.

He got to the devastation way faster than me, and was already spraying a water hose and hollering for me to grab a bunch of rags when I arrived. Hundred degree heat will cause a big splash of white paint to become a fairly permanent fixture if you don’t move quick. Me and the other young guys were trying to mop up as much as we could while Bob kept it all wet. The cleanup was only a slight success. I remember driving through five or six years later and you could still see a faint map of what I and CSN spilled during Woodstock. I will always remember what Bob said that day. He just looked at me with a little bit of a sad grin, shook his head and said, “I try not to get too upset with yew boys. I got to remine myself that y’alls jis kids.” Whew! 

The take away from that day for me was Crosby, Stills and Nash. I’d never heard of them before and their debut song was snappy as heck. As I mentioned, I was years away from picking up my first guitar or even dreaming I’d someday write songs. But all you had to be was a boy singing from a ladder to think that CSN would be one swell band to be a member of. 

And so many years later, after the invention of photoshop, I happened upon their first album cover — the famous photo by Henry Diltz — and thought, “Dang! There’s kind of a little room for somebody else in that picture!” Sure, I could’ve inserted Neil Young, but then I thought why not live out my dream for a minute and see how I woulda looked on that ol’ couch singin’ a new song to the band. 

I giggled the whole time I was doing it. In a way I was living my fantasy, thinking how much fun to join a band forty years later. I’m kind of a carpenter style photoshopper. And now that AI is the rage, you can do it far easier than I did. But it was a heart warming thing for me, the day I joined the band. I didn’t have nothing to put my feet on, so I stole a little part of a couch cushion and made it into a pillow for my cowboy boots. Just me being practical. I always did like to get comfortable. ~ Michael Tomlinson 

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Photo of Chester taken in 2017 in Seattle

Chester the Cat Who Loved Me

CHESTER IS MY FAVORITE OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD ANIMALS WHO VISIT ME. I never know when he’ll arrive, but many times I have opened my front door to go somewhere and he walks in like his nose is glued to the door. He is one with the door and don’t like to leave no daylight between him and it once it opens. More than you can tell from the photo, Chester is a somewhat husky cat. His owner two doors down told me that he was rescued and seems to feel that he must eat every time and any place there is a tidbit to be et. I tell him he is sturdy and handsome. 

Chester reminds me of a husky kid I knew when I was about 8, who would just hang out at people’s houses without an invitation. I’d try to make him feel welcome, but at the same time, sometimes I had to go in or go some place and it was awkward to figure out a way to say, “Dill, I think you have to go home now so I can go to bed, because I was supposed to 30 minutes ago.” or “Dill, we are going to a funeral now, so I guess you need to go home.” Dill would leave without saying a word, his manner the same as when he’d arrived. 

Chester is a lot like that. He constantly assumes the posture of one who isn’t sure that he’s welcome, so he kind of forces his way in before you can say no. I never say no. Last week my front door was open all day and I was doing some writing in another room. I walked into the living room and there was Chester asleep on my couch. I mean his couch.

There were two things in particular that Chester did which won me over, big time. When I would drive by his house, two doors down, to come home, Chester would take off at a kind of a gallop. I know. Cats don’t gallop, but Chester did. And as soon as he possibly could, he would crawl up in my lap and settle in. That is when the purring would reach a level you could count in decibels. 

It’s good to have a pop-in visitor who doesn’t necessarily require much of you except for some petting and kind conversation and a lap he can have all to himself. Every time he shows up, I lie down on the floor and give him my attention for a while. It’s just good to hear purring like that up close. Plus, I have this thing about head bumps with cats. I like the sensation. As for the purring, I think a recording of some good purring might make for the very best meditation. Except it would naturally be interrupted by the sound of claws being sharpened on the side of the couch and someone hollering, “No-no-no-no!” Which isn’t ideal for meditating, but an understandable necessity. I might give it a try. The recording, I mean. ~ Michael Tomlinson

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Red Room

IT WAS HER RED ROOM and it stood behind the bakery where she worked, where she’d gone with her grandma for cinnamon rolls since she was a tiny child. At six, the old London phone booth had seemed vast, a castle almost. There was room inside to dance and twirl. There was room to paint and draw and play with dolls. She’d had tea parties there and through that tiny world of windows she’d watched autumns come and go, blooming from pale yellows to fiery orange flames and eventually, to soggy brown Thanksgivings. And then to frosty, icicle-sharp blizzards of winter. 

As a thirteen-year-old young woman, it felt even more like it was the only place in the village she could be herself. To get that feeling, she needed a place to be with herself. And once the door closed she didn’t even care who saw her, who read her mind, who wondered why that quiet girl was always writing things and staring out the foggy glass of her little red room. 

Behind the quiet glass she wrote in her notebooks, whose covers changed colors with the seasons, leaves glued upon each one. Sometimes she wrote directly upon the leaves themselves. A true and natural poet will not allow foot-wide yellow maple leaves to crumple and draw up into stiff, leathery fists without first taking the soft ones and inscribing them with secrets and poems before they gradually shrink her stories into the greatest hiding place ever known — a stiff, crispy shell which would crumble to dust if anyone tried to open it. She knew secrets are best saved in the shape of poems. Why else was poetry even born, but for poets to whisper their secrets in code, in metaphor and in backward, jumbled sentences so that only another tender heart could ever read and savor such sepia stained thoughts?

She dreamed sometimes of leaving home and Vermont and floating away to some place where people didn’t act as if they knew everything about her. Her Red Room was her sailing ship, it was her hot air balloon, her safest place in the world. And when she began to work in the bakery, the fall of her ninth grade year, she took all her breaks out there in the tonal center of glorious autumnal fire.

Townspeople working, playing, shuffling through leaves, walking dogs, carrying mail, hauling cello cases, talking, whistling, mumbling or racing to not be late, would almost never see her until they were directly alongside. That was to her liking, so it was basically too late to disturb her, their windows of opportunity passed by as they looked back to see her soft face changing behind the wavy glass. The small girl inside never had to talk or explain herself. What a relief! That was one of its greatest features. She could stand there and look out upon the world through fogged glass, shivering a little as leaves ticked and chattered against the windows and tumbled to the impatient earth. There was no one to explain herself to.

By mid-November, melancholy reigned and the most eager leaves — everything but the most stubborn, rackety oak leaves — had quit the limb and settled into piles and scuttled into long furrows made by wind and feet. Her breath on the glass would smear them all into somber, soulful mounds of mystery. Her tiny safe room would fog-then-clear with each shaky exhale and inhale, the kinds of breaths that, if put under a microscope, could have been seen to start-then-stop a thousand times each. But even shaky breaths are a miracle. And they are certainly the most brave. Her sweetness and vulnerability made autumn’s creatures feel safe when she was there, and gave them the purpose of looking after her; the tender, precarious girl in the red house. Birds and squirrels knew her every expression.

When her work break was over and the cold fingers of approaching winter had frisked her and made her smell a little less cinnamony and sugary and more like drying rusty maple leaves, she would step back outside. The stolen moments had also cleared a little of the moody whorl spinning around in her chest. She didn’t know why every living thing had such a powerful affect on her — but she never wished that they didn’t, either. In that fatally beautiful, spectacular season of dying things, every magnificent explosion of gold had no choice but to accept the cold gray fog that swallowed it. Though she knew she’d never master the grace of the leaves, this is how she grew to become calm and patient with her own tumbling.

By the time she left her perfect place, quietly clicked closed the red door and slipped back into the bakery, her nose and ears were purple and her small fingers blue-white. She had become the color of leaves and stones. Had she not been required to knead dough and cut cookies, she’d have happily melded silently into the landscape. Her private hideaway had quieted her heart from its deep pounding and she was once again able to dust sheet pans with flour and greet customers cheerfully, as if she was still someone they knew.

Until her next break, when she would sneak outside into the briskness again, and with great joy slip into the welcome of her slender red house and write the pages which had built up in her over the last hours. She always sighed great relief inside her windows on the world, and gave thanks to whomever were the kindly, long-ago people of London who had sent her the house where countless pennies had been spent, calling Aunty Midge long distance, to ask if Cousin Beatrix could please come to the phone. ~ Michael Tomlinson

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IF YOU ARE FEELING A PAINFUL MIX OF EMOTIONS these last weeks, you’re not alone. Millions of others — even around the world — are slogging through the same sluggish feelings of reliving something painful they never thought they’d have to experience again. And for those who don’t feel this way, remember that people have a right to their inner processes without justifying it for others or having to get over it quickly. It’s not a personal insult to you if someone you know is struggling. Nor is it something to deride. 

Pain takes the time it takes to transmute. That doesn’t mean we have no tools to help ourselves through it. Simply because we know that depressed people have no energy, we can help ourselves and each other to come back to the wholeness of how we feel when we’re walking around with love and humor and kindness. That IS our natural state — it’s attainable again and not only by pretending. It happens from the inside out. 

When you’re in a painful place, hearing someone talk about breathing, about trying to breathe slowly and deeply, can sound like the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard. What an insult? Suggesting that in your profound feelings of loss, someone thinks that breathing will help? I know that and I’m willing to be that person who seems foolish or worse. Not because I’m an eternal optimist. But because I’m living it and have over and over again experienced deep pain, grief, disappointment, profound sadness — shift and then transmute to something beautiful. 

I know. It sounds impossible. And I would not stand before you and shove the idea at you. If I could find an opening I might say, “May I just share this small thing with you that helped me through my most grief-stricken time?” And if you allowed me to, I would say in the softest and most sincere way; “At some point I was so lost that I couldn’t say no. So I tried, I sat under a tree and I breathed into my heart and I held it a few heartbeats, and I exhaled into the sky. Was it anything? Was it nothing? I didn’t know, but something in me caused me to do it again. Was there something in it? I just did it because everything else was hopelessness. The third time I took three breaths into my heart, held them and exhaled into the sky — I felt grief and sorrow start to pour from my body, from my being. 

I don’t know fully how to explain, but I cried in relief. In compassion for my self, in relief for the tightness in my heart beginning to soften. In astonishment that this was something I could do for myself and the proof of my healing was the change in my mood, spirit, heart and mind. 

This Thursday in our Breathing/Meditation gathering on Zoom, we will seek to feel gratitude. Thankfulness in the Season of Thanksgiving. You do not have to give up anything you’ll regret, in order to feel thankfulness again. You will lose nothing. The World will gain YOU, as another dear soul stumbling mostly, but willing to lean toward love and kindness no matter what the world may feel like in this moment. I hope you’ll join us. And if you cannot, just breathe for yourself and trust what happens.

I’m offering this small gift to you, in case something calls to you too. Put on your headphones and turn the lights low and just listen and see what comes to you. Don’t worry if you feel antsy at first, that’s okay and is a part of meditating. My honest belief is that you will feel better by the end, even with this short 12-minute meditation. I always feel better afterwards.  This is Run Like the River Runs from my Breathe the Sky CD.

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Sacred Friendship

The word Friend is a holy one to me. Just say it and feel how it flows out on your breath as you speak it. As if you were whispering some ancient secret which is the key to a wonderful life. Over time I will share many stories of my friendships, the orchestral laughter, which is The Universe’s most beautiful song. The tenderness between friends. The miracle of belonging. The second you made your first friend is when you felt you really belong here on Earth. 

I think if you asked anyone who is my good friend, you would not find even one who has not received letters from me. Words reaching from my heart into theirs. If you ever wish that your friend could know your heart, tell them any way you wish to. Show them all the ways. But also, write to them how grateful you are for them. They deserve to have something which they can take out of a drawer or a wallet or a pocket, then quietly unfold and read . . . and cry . . . or laugh . . . as many times in life as they need to remember how precious and loved they are. ~ M

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WHAT A PLEASURE IT IS TO SHARE MY FRIENDS WITH YOU! 

My Friend Rick

I recently asked my long-time friend Rick Grant to write about his dog Arlo, who has magically changed Rick's life in all good ways. When a dog can knock ten years off your life, well hey! Get one! 

Rick said, “Sure, I’ll give it a try.” And then he wrote me about six different versions. I couldn’t keep up. Finally, today sent me this version, which is about ALL the DOGS of his LIFETIME! I’m pretty sure Arlo won’t even be in it till we’re a few issues down the road. But what I know about Rick is that the life he has led is rich with fun, humor, love, adventure, great friendships, great dogs, and wonderful surprises. And one more thing — my Life and my Music are a thousand times better because of him. Here is Rick Grant’s first installment, I hope you enjoy what he’s shared. The title is mine, he may want to change it for next time but I couldn’t have his story running around with no title. ~ M

Arlo, the dog I thought this was going to be about. 

Open heart surgery isn’t something I would totally recommend.  Aside from the thought that someone is popping your and hood altering the equipment that connects you to you, there’s the pain and recovery.  Far more of a struggle is the emotional surrender to the unpredictable dance of mortality. According to statistics, this shift is common when patients get put on “the machine”.  It’s almost for a time, you have an awareness that you are separated from everything that is, was and will ever be.

For many, including me, that memory lingers on in an occasional cloud of depression and the dread of losing my connection again. Getting beyond that is a daily challenge best supported by a loving family, amazing friends, a doctor with a sense of humor, good music, adventurous food, and a really great dog!

I have always had great dogs.  All of them, with one exception, have found me and I would count each and every one of them as amongst my very best friends. Fletcher was essential to my recovery. He looked and acted like the son of Lady and the Tramp. He always wore a smile, always walked with a prance and was always by my side when I called. He had a neurological twitch that gave the impression that he was nodding in agreement with everything I said, adding to the confidence that I needed to realign myself with the life I had really enjoyed.

I know that my kids, my wife and my friends could see me struggling. I was floating sparkless in a world that was unfamiliar to all of us.  What once was a beacon was now an annoying nightlight. I slept about an hour and a half in the evening and a couple of hours in the day.  The middle of the night was an endless slow-motion progression of Jesus crossing the desert, one sandaled step at a time.

My taste buds had declared a mutiny, especially with eggs and cooked food in general.  There was a large waterproof dome on my chest that made me feel like I was carrying a baby tortoise, and I had just lost my job!  My mother had always referred to these moments as rude awakenings.  I decided that I needed a distraction.  That’s the moment I got up, turned off the TV, the lights and closed my eyes and started to think about my favorite adventures of the canine friends that have graced my life. Canineatation!  There was Brownie, Poco, Kalona, Charlie, Gus, Fletcher and now Arlo.

Brownie was my first love and the catalyst for my relationship with dogs.  He belonged to my grandma who lived in a Quonset Hut in Joshua Tree, when there was only a gas station, grocery store, and a Real Estate office. It was the late 50’s and the high desert was a refuge from the growing sprawl of Southern California and about an hour north of the glitter of Palm Springs. The Hut and 5 acres were purchased for $3479.00 and sat on the rim of a canyon filled with rattle snakes, scorpions, tortoise, coyotes, horney toads and wind.  It was one long open room filled with 5 beds, some tables and chairs and a tiny stove and a kerosene heater. It always smelled fresh like high desert Yucca Trees and Cactus. The bathroom was an old decaying wooden outhouse just off the porch.  It was not uncommon to be greeted with the sound of a rattle or some other creature looking for shelter from the sun or wind or a predator like my cousin Gary.

Brownie, with his piercing eyes and long-lean frame took all this in from his spot on the porch.  He was an incredibly loving dog but was not fond of snakes.  He loved oatmeal with dates almost as much as he loved my grandma. My grandma told me that he was part coyote which explained his cunning, along with many of his other skills including his ability to keep other coyotes away. Nights were often filled with conversations on the wind that I imagined were reminders that we were here, along with some local news.

I remember the day that I saw Brownie walking along the ridge with something in his mouth. Whatever it was seemed to be moving.  I thought it was probably a rabbit, but as he got close, I saw that it was a tiny coyote puppy. Brownie was wagging his tail, but didn’t want me to get too close.  He put it down on the porch next to his water and nudged him to drink.  Our eyes met and I sensed this was an introduction. An hour or so later they were gone, and I never saw that puppy again.

Grandma was a devout Jehovah’s Witness and spent several hours a day walking the windswept sandy roads to deliver the word and pass out her Watchtower and Awake Magazines.  Brownie and I went with her when I was visiting.  I really went for the ice cream sandwich at the end of the day, Brownie went to protect grandma from narrow-minded people that misunderstood her motives. He made sure that she wasn’t mistreated. 

He bit 3 people that I know of that had tried to wrestle the magazines from her arms. One of them went to get a gun and had to deal with the grandma that I had never seen.  That was the only time that I ever saw her angry and I realized where my mom had gotten her unwavering character and strength.   Brownie had quite a reputation in the valley, but had long since become friends with Art Heydan, the dog catcher who had an eye for grandma and realized how much she needed that dog in her life.

Brownie and I would hike for hours together, and I always felt safe and that at least one of us knew the way home. He took me to watering holes, caves and taught me a lot about the desert that many people never see or experience.   At night he would snuggle on my bed until I drifted off and he would go to his post to keep us safe from the nocturnal world around us. I was moving into adolescence and frequented the desert less and less.  With each passing visit he was getting older and seemed more content to enjoy the sun on his porch and dream about younger days. I was in 7^th grade when he passed away. He was 18 and left this world much richer as a part of a grateful family and a forever friend. Then, came Poco …

to be continued by Rick Grant in an upcoming issue

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My Friend Les

After the passing of one of our mutual friends from our youth, my long lost friend Les Lewis got in touch with me a couple of years back and we began talking on the phone. We hadn’t heard each other’s voices in over fifty years. 

In the time after we were housemates, I became a songwriter and Les went on to live his dream of becoming a Music Professor. I believe it was at TCU in Dallas, for over thirty years. And he plays several instruments. I remember this small detail; Les is the person who turned me onto Jackson Browne’s first album. That’s a pretty substantial gift to turn a friend onto who didn’t yet know that he was going to become a songwriter and recording artist too.

Being in touch again after such a long time, I’ve felt like I had this bright new light in my life, a friend and brother from a very special time, someone I could share memories with and he’d remember them too. Among the many things Les is doing now, there is a purpose he’s taken on that I admire so much and wanted him to share with us. Les has rescued a total of fifteen horses and donkeys that needed a home and care. He has given them both — and most of all, made them part of his family. 

Les sends me photos and I get to hear about his horses and donkeys and my life has been made better by it. So I asked him to send us something to post in The Morning, Brilliant Blue and I’m happy he agreed. Here are some of the magnificent animals my friend Les Lewis gives his heart and soulful hard work toward making their lives better. He’s included some educational captions for us. Just knowing about all this makes my life better. ~ M

Hatching an escape plan

Wait! Where are you going? Bring us back cookies.

It rained hard yesterday and there are a few that don’t play well

with others when muddy. They got to stay inside and pout.

There’s always one in every crowd.

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MY FIFTH ANNUAL HOLIDAY CONCERT AND HOW IT CAME TO BE. . . 

FOR THIRTY YEARS when people would ask me to do a holiday album, I would just tell them the truth, “Absolutely not! We have thousands too many and most of those are awful.” I wasn’t trying to be The Grinch, I swear. It’s just that Christmas albums were created by record labels who knew they could cheaply and quickly talk their artists into doing one and it might sell for years. 

But then 2017 came and there was a lot of pain in our country and around the world. I wanted to offer up something gentle and kind, something that included Thanksgiving and Autumn, Winter and Christmas and the Holidays altogether. So I wrote half the songs and reimagined new versions of classic holiday songs. Then I had the idea to insert snippets of winter soundscapes between the songs, kids in a snowball fight, sleds coming down the mountain and past in a flurry. By the time I was through with this simple, homemade album I’d recorded on my laptop, alone in my house, I realized that something special had come of it. I called it Songs of the Season and was so happy with how well received it was. And one thing I had really hoped would happen did — something in the intimacy and flow of the songs made people want to keep listening for months after Christmas. Usually, all Holiday music stops at the end of Christmas Day. I was so happy that I recorded a second album the next fall — Winter Tales. 

And then Covid came and millions of people had to stay at home. That is why my Holiday Concerts on Zoom began. This December will be my fifth one and I’m looking forward to it. I decorate beautifully for the season. And I’ll play mostly my originals, but also some of my versions of the classics and some of my songs that are beautiful any time of year. 

The concert is early, 5pm Westcoast, on Sun Dec 15th, so that people all across the country can join us. You don’t have to drive anywhere, just slip on your jammies, snuggle up on the couch and join me. I really hope you will. ~ Michael

Michael Tomlinson’s Holiday Concert ~ Songs, Stories & Laughter

Sun Dec 15 at 5pm Westcoast

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The Morning, Brilliant Blue goes out to all of you for free for my first few months. Though of course, anyone who wishes to become a paid subscriber is welcome and I do appreciate that. 

At some point I will offer a lighter version for non paid subscribers, simply so that I give the paid subscribers something special for their support. Also, there will be ongoing perks throughout the year. After we have a few more members, we’ll offer a private FB page for paid subscribers to be a part of a community of people who are inspiring each other with creativity and ideas and stories of your own. 

Also, we will offer some free online salons, listening parties, get-togethers with paid members a few times a year, hoping to spark your desire to continue being creative and imaginative. Sometimes I’ll debut a new song or play a song or two live on Zoom as a thank you for your help in keeping me going. 

Please know this; There is absolutely NO pressure for you to become a paid subscriber. Everything I send you I send with love and good will. When you see the “upgrade to paid” buttons, if they are not for you, ignore them. I’m just winding my way through this new endeavor and my thoughts are these — that if I can make some aspect of your life lighter, happier, more harmonic, then more people will want to help me continue. I love that tradeoff. 

Thank you for reading my stories and more. And if you decide you do not wish to hear from me by way of email any more, I take no offense. Just email me mt@michaeltomlinson.com and say, “Michael, please remove me from your list.” And I’ll do that right away.

Blessings to you all. 

Your friend in the wind, Michael Tomlinson