Hello everyone. Happy New Lunar Year. May the wood dragon be with you in a benevolent capacity. Above is the wondrous Meryl Streep speaking of her role as Mother Courage, including the lullaby for her children.
I have a job tonight so I will be brief. On Sunday Founding Members and Subscribers will receive The Jerusalem text. Happy year of the wood dragon, happy birthday to Bertolt Brecht. The new moon cannot be seen but is there smiling upon us all.
Thank you so much for this post and the clip from Meryl Streep. Her reference to mothers crying over their children...oh so much of this very historical moment we are in...
Happy New Lunar New Year to you! This is going to be a year full of challenges for many people. The Wood draggon is already here
Thank you, Patti for talking about the New Moon and particularly about the year of the wood draggon, many blessings
🐉 ♥️
Thank you, Patti!. I think we all agree with Meryl Streep...Why! Why!!!
Thanks for your message Patti. Meryl Streep. Lullaby. Heartbreaking. Just as it is
Happy New Year of the Dragon Patti! Thank you for tending to the garden of humanity's capacity for love; we live in a world capable of infinity, restrained by those who believe in control and possession.
It is warming to my heart to know that loving will always out-live and out-do hatred. I may not be there to see it, but I know in my mind that change and the opportunity to love are the only constants in this universe. 💙
Happy Losar Tashi Delek to you!
Thank you for sharing your time and good wishes with us.
What a powerful piece of theater and reminder of how war spares no one, not least of all the children.
I wish this lunar New Year for an end to war.
Happy New Lunar Year 🐲 and how l would love to hear you sing Puff the Magic Dragon. Let’s hope The Wood Dragon brings good luck to all especially the children who are much in my mind these days. Love from London 🙏
What would we do without the translators and all those gifted readers?They open up the past for us and help us travel the world? Thank you Patti. xx
Happy Lunar New Year, Patti! May the Wood Dragon bless all of our hard work in the days to come!
❤️❤️❤️ Thank you for this, Patti!
Happy Lunar New Year !!!
Happy Lunar New Year Patti and everyone! There was quite a bit of celebration going on for the year of the Wood Dragon here in Liverpool Chinatown. Just came back home from there.
Thanks for the hints on the Wood Dragon, I really hope it’s a good year bringing some good things and successes :-)
Ps: there was a very tiny sliver of the waxing moon to see here today in the afternoon. Very beautiful.
Happy Lunar New Year, dear Patti! Thank you for your show last night at the Bowery Ballroom. What a treat to see you and hear you, and your top-notch band.
I very much appreciate you acknowledging the effects of war on the ground as you did in the video and for including the powerful short of "Mother Courage". War is so often framed in the context of politics but to strip down to most base of the reality torments us with the humanity, or lack thereof. It is brutal but so very important to not turn away. We all have to speak for the dead but there is surely no pain like a mother to lose a child. I believe we all absorb these souls and take on their struggles over and over til we can learn. This is a time of awakening and heightened consciousness that we are all a part of right now. White crow has blessed Anchorage with it's presence lately and is a powerful omen of just this. It may not be a dragon but absolutely is Puff in spirit; all white feathers and bright blue eyes, total embodiment of crow trickster too, scarfing Ben and Jerry's, dancing around, preening for the cameras. Quite a show of joy and new hopes for this present day history of change that is becoming. What a blessed time to bring about change!
Darn, I can't afford to subscribe yet but hopefully some day.
NYC is so wonderful for accessible outdoor plays and music in the steamy summer months.
Brecht is always relevant, thanks for the clip of Meryl Streep, I'd never seen it. What you say about children and war is so damned true.
I doubt that any age group of human suffers the wars of the humans more than nature itself, still happy Lunar New Year and looking forwards to seeing the moon again as always. Puff the Magic Dragon was indeed my most favourite story as a child, perhaps it still is.
Losar Tashi Delek, one and all! The Tibetan Buddhist interpretation of the Year of the Wood Dragon is as follows: "The year of the Dragon will bring surprises, celebrations, renewed energy, and new beginnings. The element governing this year is Wood, which symbolizes awakening, vitality, growth, and creativity." One of my "resolutions" for this year is moving my blog to Substack, writing a lot more, and taking a writing course (memoir/haiku/poetry/other), either here in Eugene or online. Any suggestions? Patti, may you have renewed energy and may your vitality and creativity continue to thrive in this new lunar year.
So many gifts from you today…your smile, Meryl, the children, your book, the Moon, Hope for the world, the Lunar Year wishes. You can speak to us in so many ways even if you don’t know us. You are a gifted human being. I can only say from the bottom of my heart Thank you. May all the positive energy flowing through this community spread to the world ✨✨✨🕊️
Patti,once again, a brilliant choice to share with us. The sensitive ones. A simple yet deeply moving expression of grief of the mother during war. The why of the mother and all of us. Courage bravery, these are the words I chose this year to inhabit as my work. Finding out what does it mean to be brave to carry on to face the world. To be vulnerable in my work or self. These are the pillars of truth and beauty that sustain the good. Here is to the wood dragon! To carry us forward, to keep us steady and grounded to offer us strength and instill us with courage to be brave and forge through the day and to be free and to be joyful. 🐲🐲🐲
Thanks sister for being here for being brave for being forthright and for being genuinely kind. Puff the magic dragon 🐉
Happy Lunar New Year, Patti! Thank you for you generosity, as always. May your efforts and ours produce positive changes in our lives and the world this year. 🐉
Mother Courage was a gift from Brecht’s genius. George Woolf interpreted Tony Kushner’s translation with razor sharp focus Streep was breath taking. I mean I was transfixed by the talent on stage. Imagine. It was free theater in Central Park!. Her voice left me shuddering in the reality of the fact Bush was bombing Afghanistan. Never ends. Thank God Love never ends as well. Thank you for posting Patti Happy lunar Year of the Wood Dragon. Sending you endless gratitude
May the year of the Wood Dragon spread its positive energy on us all and may it be a force for good in our fractured world! Wishing you Patti and everyone in this special substack space a very Happy Lunar New Year ! 🐲 🌕 🐉
Wishing you a very Happy Lunar New Year in the year of the Wood Dragon. May it bless your writing and bring Peace and joy to the world.
Bonjour très chère Patti,
Voici de la poésie par Rudy Meskine « C’est un cas de conscience ».
Rudy Meskine à la particularité d’être autiste avec une sensibilité à fleur de peau. C’est très touchant et à découvrir.
Here is poetry by Rudy Meskine “C’est un cas de conscience”.
Rudy Meskine has the particularity of being autistic with skin-deep sensitivity. It's very touching and discovered.
https://www.cultura.com/p-c-est-un-cas-de-conscience-9782373559637.html
Lots of “dragonny” things happening —scary, awesome dragonny things. Hope is paramount right now. Thank you Patti for being so you and being brave enough to share you with us. Happy Lunar New Year everyone 🐲🌕🌾
Happy lunar new year to you, Patti. I enjoyed seeing your face tonight. Thank you for sharing the brilliant performance by Meryl Streep, and for keeping the children of the world in your heart. Just 4 mins with you, and I feel at peace.
Late to the party. But as mediocrity would say "better late than nevah nevah." Your posting of Streep's MOTHER COURAGE just a token reminder of how subtly powerful one voice can be ... one voice can resonate what so many Mother's would cry out upon the death of their sacred children. I sit in gratitude for you giving us a sliver of this performance that should remind us of the ephemeralness of life itself. Namaste Sweet Muse...
Happy Year of the Dragon to everyone!
We happened to be catching up on season 3 of Only Murders in the Building tonight and heard Meryl Streep sing Look For the Light from the fictitious Death Rattle the Musical. It made my girlfriend cry.
I was fortunate to see the great Kathleen Turner play Mother Courage around 30 years ago.
As Streep says in the clip, why? Why indeed.
XX
Happy New Year Patti & thank you for sharing your thoughs and feeling and also for that riveting clip fo Meryl Streep. xo
Happy New Lunar Year.
Some Vietnam veterans may still have painful memories of the 1968 Tet Offensive. Please take care of yourselves.
Turns out, there were a few of us in wheelchairs there tonight. Aging fan-base, I gues. One of the other wheelies was totally cool; the other, however, was a right royal bitch! Didn't prevent me from enjoying the show, even though she pushed her way in front of me, and ran over my feet multiple times. She ran over my companion's feet, too.
Yikes! I hope you got home safely. Even while I'm able bodied, I find it daunting enough getting to events. I'm glad you could enjoy the show despite this debacle.
Streep doing Brecht's "Lullaby" was moving. But her plaintive "Why" during the interview evoked a more visceral reaction. It was real-now. Not spoken by a brilliant actress, but by a mother - a mother's question echoing mothers across time.
Thankfully, you brought me back to "hope", which is hanging by a ragged thread, with
the wood dragon, and your determined (for lack of a better word) optimism.
A happy, hopeful year of the wood dragon to you and all here. Thank you, Patti.
Happy Lunar New Year to All. 🐉
. Hey Patti . . . HappY drÅgon LunÄr NeW YeÅr to YoU Too . MannnnnY thanks frØm me to YoÜ .(:). BeijinhÖ from Lisbon moon :)) ObrigadO .
Happy Lunar New Year to you! I was born in the year of the dragon. So it feels extra special. 🐉 I look forward to The New Jerusalem text. Thank you for your kindness! Hope your night went well. 🕊💙📚🎶
Happy Dragon Year to all, may we fly high, renewed and supported. Such a beautiful little community you’ve founded here Patti. Thank you
🔥🎏🎊🧡🙏🏼
Love from San Francisco Patti, everyone!
Patti- I feel each of your post is like a wave on the ocean … momentarily sweeping bring ing something foreword illuminating then receding again
thank you thank for all you do and give
It was a rain-soaked night when Meryl Streep carried the staggering performance we witnessed in Central Park.
Several times the actors disappeared so the stage could be squeegeed and the puddles of water cleared away.
It was the most righteous event l have ever witnessed and l have made it a practice to actually participate in historical movements in the US and abroad.
Thanks for sharing this important staging of Brecht’s riveting play. This man who fled Nazi persecution in 1933, and made it his business to elevate Theater in the interests of the common good! Drama with a reflective purpose; the pursuit of truth in the interests of humanity!
wow! Sounds like an astonishing performance! Events like this give courage to continue to struggle as will continue the Freedom Theater in Jenin refugee camp, despite israeli army trying to destroy it. ART WINS, EVERY TIME!
I prefer to avoid war zones, despite having strong opinions.
Theater is cathartic, but safety is a priority.
Searched it out early (The New Jerusalem) and found one at Abebooks. Paid a pretty penny for it! Autographed first edition!. So cool! Look forward to receiving your text. Thank you, so much!
Chills and goosebumps from Streeps talkback of her Mother Courage-thank you for this, and for always keeping us on track. Green wood dragon blessings...
Benevolent dragon's breath sounds very good! Happy Lunar New Year, and thank you!
Amazing Meryl Streep! Thank you.
You make me HAPPY!
Happy Lunar New Year, Patti! I'm excited to hear that the Wood Dragon rewards hard work. That fits in beautifully with the fact that my first solo exhibition of my staged self-portrait work opened on Feb 2. I feel like I graduated after an intense 4 years of hard work on this. Your videos are so happily anticipated so I made one of my artist talk last week in my Substack. Thank you for all your inspirational work and chats.
Happy Lunar New Year to everyone here in this community. Thank you Patti. Puff!
Fire monkey would be so happy with payoff
he would love peace and no war
no more war
no more war
Much Luck in this Year of the Dragon: “ Be WATER, my friend..” (Bruce Lee)🌊🐲🐉🧧💦
♥️ 🐲
Dear Patti,
good health and good fortune to you always, and for this Dragon Year 🥮🐉🧧
thank you for the sharing of your wisdom and knowledge over these last days, which is breathed in by our spirits, culminating now in the lunar influence of this auspicious year-the Dragon holding the place as the mythic animal in the Chinese Zodiac.
your readings have enabled a sacred way to prepare for the year ahead, with renewed courage and hope.
and thank you Patti, for the generous gift of sharing with us the text of The New Jerusalem.
it has become a holy book, which will often be returned to, and just as in the Sun-forces of the Holy Nights, this Moon cycle will be forever honoured - the days before the second new moon after the winter solstice. i will read The New Jerusalem, and remember this special time and magical atmosphere you have created.
“ All our capacities are offshoots of our capacity for community. Capacities are the capabilities of uniting with the things, tasks and goals they turn to. Their mandate and talent is to live in things and beings and let them live in us. And the measure of these capacities is the degree of this turning about of inner and outer. The archetype of the unifying capacity, however, and consequently of all capacities, is the human encounter. This is the origin and goal of all ability.”
You have done this in many ways, and in doing so have given us the chance to be truly human, experiencing the beauty and artistry of you and the work.
happy dragon lunar new year, patti! i have a dragon tattooed on my right upper bicep. i always enjoy listening and seeing you. it's been an overcast and rainy day here in northern maine but now you've provided a bright moment. your photo entry this morning of iceland was a gray day you could say but intriguing none the less. i just recalled a poem that was the last track on fleetwood mac's "bare trees" album. "thoughts on a grey day" was written by an elderly woman named mrs. scarrott. she lived in "benifold" in southern england near the band's communal home. it seems i connect with things from you in one way, shape, form or other. thank you for your energy. i'm grateful for you. have a wonderful evening.
I have been in Africa and am just now beginning the New Jerusalem posts. Thank you so much! I love the first reading! I also know you are at the Bowery tonight. Some of my friends are there but I’m jet-lagged so I’m here in the middle of nowhere watching deer by the lake in the dark. Thank you for all you give to us, your subscribers. May the Wood Dragon protect and defend you ! Love and gratitude…
Happy Dragon Year Patti and to everyone here, who Patti has gathered, our little corner of sanity and poetry in the maddening world. The inimitable Meryl Streep is always such a joy.
In this terrible human society where people lose their livelihoods for speaking out against genocide, can we remember please that the Year of the Dragon, in fact all of the lunar-solar new years (its a lunar-solar calendar, complex in it's reckoning) is a Chinese. tradition, stemming deep in ancient Chinese history, and the Chinese dragon is a benevolent (usually) dragon of water. Dragons rule the seas, rivers and clouds in the Chinese tradition.
Happy Dragon Year everyone! :)
But we continue speaking out and will continue, over and over, with more and more joining in each and every time until, just as the hundredth monkey, there is healing and a change in the world. Sanity is hard to come by today so thanks for sharing yours!
“Our little corner of sanity and poetry in the maddening world” is exactly right. Thank you for putting it so!
Two amazing women, one amazing post! ❤️
Greetings from Paju, Gyeonggi, Dearie!
https://youtu.be/Y7lmAc3LKWM?si=MhoTf3BN7PR0VP14
Thank you for this. Of course I cried.
me too
I'm reading the comments, and once again I'm amazed by the thoughtful, intelligent, caring, educated, compassionate, literate -- I could go on and on -- people you have gathered here, Patti. It says so much about you. I'm honored to be part of this group.
I agree that it’s a wonderful community. Welcome!
Happy Lunar New Year, Patti. <3
Meryl Streep portrays emotion like no other, it hits deep. One of her strongest and saddest acting parts was when she was the mother in Sophie’s Choice when she had to choose which child should live and which should die, I still get emotional thinking of it. Happy Lunar New Year Patti 🐉 from a foggy moonless night in Scotland
An unspeakable choice, and she was amazing in that too.
A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant's rings make way for other toys
One gray night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff, that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar
Love you, Patti. Happy Lunar New Year to you and yours. Thank you for these videos, your writings and your peaceful thoughts. They are a balm.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and for the clip of Meryl Streep as Mother Courage. Whoa.
This clip I am sharing is certainly nothing new, but on this occasion of the New Year of the Dragon, I thought these words from the estimable dragon Bruce Lee might resonate, as they always do with me. Happy New Year of the Dragon, Patti, for you and yours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJMwBwFj5nQ
HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR PATTI!
All good wishes to You and Your children. Dear Patti🤗🎉✨🍀
Am starting this year of the Wood-Dragon as a chance to step new paths.!
Encouraged by New Moon and lovely friends I know this will be crowned with success 🎉✨🍀💪
In the end of the year I fulfilll my 60th year on mother earth, grateful having grown up children and being part of this wonderful literature-community here!
Thank You so much for Your kind words and Your music ❤️👍🙏
Stay welland Safe and tuned!
Greets from Hamburg, Germany 💐
Thank you Again. I enjoy, so much being let just a little into your very interesting life.
新年快樂, Patti. 謝謝你所做的一切。 祝你和平與繁榮。❤️🐉
I can’t read what you’ve written, but wish you well in the year of the Wood Dragon 🐉
Hi Robin - it says (in traditional Chinese characters): Happy New Year, Patti. Thank you for all you do. Wishing you peace and prosperity.
Apologies for the slow reply, and happy year of the Wood Dragon to you as well!
Happy Lunar NY and birthday to Brecht. Streep is brilliant as Mother Courage. I saw Three Penny Opera at the Delacorte summer of 79 I think, with the late great Raul Julia and Ellen Greene. All the themes of his works ring just as fresh today as they did nearly 100 years ago, sadly. So it's perhaps hopeful that Wood Dragon may reward those of us working hard for justice and liberation from war, poverty and all related ills of society.
Happiest New Year, Patti! The brief view of Meryl Streep was amazing. Thank you. With love... Brecht's house that he lived in Santa Monica, I pass very often and send my thanks and appreciation to Him...
Thank you for this Lunar New Year greeting and for the extraordinary clip of Meryl Streep discussing her role as Mother Courage. I love what she says about why she wanted to do the play, and how brilliant of her to say that “an act of bravery is a thing that continues the carnage.” Nothing could be more true, and true too that it is a scene we see over and over again: mothers over the bodies of their children, crying why, why? The fact of it haunts me every day.
Patti, I don’t have words adequate to express the depth of my gratitude for your faithfulness in keeping the suffering of children in your consciousness.
With warmth to all in this community, and wishes for a good evening tonight, Patti.
Happy birthday to Bertolt Brecht, who said, “Don't tell me peace has broken out.”
Happy Lunar New Year. Looking forward to tonight's show and taking my Michigan born friend with me for her first ever show of yours;))
Happy Lunar New Year Patti- wishing you health and happiness.
Happy Lunar New Year the yr of the Dragon 🐲🐉my year & I hope it will be a good one for all. 🩷🕊️
🪵🐉 ✍️☕️
Happy Lunar New Year. Let's just hope it won't become Looney Tunes New Year...I'm holding my breath!
What a stunning contrast, the hope of the Year of the Wood Dragon and the lament sung by the incomparable Meryl Streep over the dead bodies of her children. When my two boys (now men) were small, I used to sing Puff the Magic Dragon to them at bedtime as a lullaby. To contrast that with the lullaby in Mother Courage is heartbreaking. Have a great evening, Patti. Thanks for sharing all these moments, the joyful and the sorrowful. May the mythic wood dragon breathe on all of us.
When I was a child, my mother sang Puff to us and then with us. Many years later, I sang it to and with my children. Lovely memory.
Amen.
Happy New Year Patti. Would love more insights & wisdom from you on discipline, should the opportunity ever arise. Thank you for all your generous offerings.
Hoping for us all that our hard work bears fruit to share in the new year 🐉🌚💕💃🏻⚡️
Amen.
Happy New Year to you too Patty - Love the clip ... I'm listening to Meryl Streep narrate "Tom Lake" by Ann Patchett... during my exercise sessions...
"We all live off the war." That is the sobering truth of it. How do we change? It feels like a huge ocean liner trying to make a tight turn. It feels next to impossible. And yet ... there are artists and there are hearts and children and there is hope.
How thoughtful and generous of you thank you for The New Jerusalem! 🐲
Happy Lunar New Year Patti ! Have a Wonderful Show This Evening. Wish I were attending. Enjoy
Life these days, so tragic ❤️🩹
Amazing clip from Mother Courage. Who wrote the score for that production? It's a terrifying lullaby.
I too would love a rendition of Puff the Magic Dragon. It would make my heart happy to hear it.
Regardless, Happy Lunar New Year- may it bring an end to all the wars.
Wow! Thank you so much for that clip of Mother Courage! That was so sad and so true and so powerful! Also, thank you in advance for the text of the New Jerusalem.. I was wishing I could read it. And of course Happy Lunar New Year!
Lovely prelude to this evening’s gathering. See you there!
Thank you dear Patti for your continued inspirations and voice. Blessings to you ❤️
Thanks, Patti! It’s lovely for you to think of us by honoring us with the new Jerusalem text! 🧡🙌
Thank you so much Patti. This is hitting me profoundly today. I'm writing a book about Sinead O'Connor's LP Universal Mother, and your reminder of Brecht's masterpiece at this moment is uncanny. Sinead the Mother lost three of her children in custody battles due to her 'mental illness'. Synchronicity. Happy Lunar New Year to you. May this Wood Dragon year bring sanity to the masters of war. ♥️
Happy Lunar New Year Patti Smith ✨🏮🐉🏮✨
Gong hei faat choy
Would love to hear you sing Puff the Magic Dragon ✨🐲✨
Here’s to clean slates and invisible smiling moons 🌑
Thank you, Patti! My wish is all good work, springing from good hearts, brings us all good things!
See you later, Patti! Not only celebrating the Lunar New Year, but commemorating the 53rd anniversary of that first show with Lenny at St. Mark's! Congratulations! Look for me in the crowd; I might be the only one in a wheelchair. ;)