baby it's cold outside:  24º, with blankets of snow fallen yesterday; the sky is hazy like old blue jeans, faded and worn.

sunlight pours in a window where a string of tibetan prayer flags are strung.  a length of about five flags hangs straight down beyond the nail my son sank to hang the multi-colored cloths with ancient sacred texts inscribed.  a wall heater blows warm air up through these overhanging flags, causing them to slowly wave, sending their prayers into the cosmos, into our hearts.  

the skeptic in me says what a joke, what a silly religious ritual, what a perfect match with our modern self-important, narcissistic, overly stressed and busy culture:  too busy to pray (or meditate, or practice yoga, or, or, or...) we can hang up some flags to automatically do it for us.  the skeptic.

but the heart in me feels the exotic memory of climbing the long stairway to  swayambunath temple in kathmandu, monkeys and monks begging along the way, prayer flags flying all around, the warmth and humidity half choking, half caressing.  holding the woman's hand who would become my wife, the mother of our children; who would one day, on my 40th birthday, string up three lengths of these flags outside a community center in davis, california, into which i stepped to hear shouts of 'surprise!'  the flags that later hung on a porch bannister she would gaze out upon from her hospice bed one day.

o heart of mine, shine.  o heart of the world, receive these prayers - both sent effortlessly by sheets of cloth - and those sent with poignant tears from memories of long ago.