Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Blessings all, recently spent time with my friends in Santa Cruz.  Inspired to share this short poem I wrote for them:

For Danilla, Lance and Bindi 2/19/2022

My friend has a fountain

My friend has a fountain
It draws the critters
That live in her woods and seek her light

The Squirrels sit and wait
looking for seeds
no longer there

The birds
Oh the birds, flocking in droves
to drink and wash
Finches and Jays
Humming birds and Robins
Quail and Nuthatches All…

They wing in and drink
in synchronized order
No rushing, no pushing
no need to be first
They simply come and share
the life and light.

My dream for my friends
is to be like the birds
Flying in and drinking in Life
and knowing all is well.

Rhea Summer Rain


Tuesday, February 1, 2022


 What happened to the Dream?

Article I wrote for the Compass, a Jesuit Journal, March/April 1996, entitled “A Time of Reawakening:

Peace, love, freedom, happiness.  Four words, chanted, sung in refrain.  Dreams hoped for by each of us.

Peace – peace for the people of Vietnam, for the soldiers of American, young men leaving home to die or to kill other young men, women and children.  Peace for all people on Mother Earth.  Love – love for your brother, your sister, your family of human beings.  Free love, between men and women, women and women, men and men.  Love, not owning another, the feeling between beings, the feeling of love for all life.  A feeling energy allowing you to encompass your own center, radiating light and sharing it with another.

Freedom, freedom, ah freedom.  Freedom from oppression, from stereotypes, from intolerance. Freedom to be, to act, to unveil the true self within, the you in the moment.

And when you have these three – peace, love and freedom – will you not then be happy?  Happiness – bliss, radiant, smiling faces.

Yes, I remember sitting in mud in a rainstorm listening to the sounds of the Grateful Dead and Joni Mitchell, and the words of wisdom from Swami Satchitananda.  I remember passing food, water and mind-altering drugs to other people sitting in the mud at Woodstock, New York.  I remember sharing a desire to be one in bliss.

I remember placing flowers in the gun stocks of California National Guardsmen surrounding the People’s Park in Berkeley in the summer of 1970.  I remember travelling across the United States in a van with six other long-haired freaks and visiting my family in central Nebraska.  My uncle putting us to work on the farm and singing and feasting at the end of the day.  I remember thinking, “This is Nebraska?  Even if these are my relatives, I didn’t expect such a warm welcome.”

I remember a magic time when people young and old with differing views of how things should work, of how things should be done, worked together for a common cause.

In the 1960s in America we were reawakened.  We began to see how we as a people deeply affected one another and other peoples, other nations.  In the 1990s, all the chaos and apparent disorder of our age is but a stronger challenge for us to deepen our understanding of peace, love, freedom and happiness that we all long for.  I believe the Age of Aquarius lives on. We are blessed.”

This feels very apropos for 2022...much love to all--J. Rhea Harlow