The luminous divine rowdy compassionate trickster wisdom of Rob Brezsny

Like a beat poet for the new millennium, Rob Brezsny delivered a ramblin', rhymin' invocation to inspire truth, beauty and irreverent, loving curiousity among all of us listening in rapt amused attention tonight, as he shared the essence of his life, work, and beliefs at Copperfield's Books in Santa Rosa, CA.

Brezsny, whose surname I rarely spell correctly unless his syndicated freewill astrology column or new book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia are sitting in front of my nose (like now), is singular in his creative compassion and evocatively humorous delivery. I can only capture an iota of it here; for a fuller dose, visit Free Will Astrology.

Part of the song/poem he sang/spoke to us included the lines:

"Breathe in the Mystery,
Breathe out the history.

We need lusty compassion and ecstatic beauty.

Breathe in the luminosity,
Breathe out the animosity.

Breathe in the generosity,
Breathe out the grandiosity."

{Kind of lends a whole new level of meaning to the idea of deep breathing, doesn't it?!}

He referred to us all as "Divine chameleons" and invited us to write our own "Glory Manifesto": an epic depiction of what's right in your life. To help get there, he taught us to do the "World Kiss," in which you send love to those you love--and those you hate; those you know, and those you'll never know. He said, "To do the World Kiss, you've got to have a heart on in each of your seven chakras." Read it aloud if you don't immediately get the entendre.

My favorite moment was when he did a riff on Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream," speech. Brezsny said he has a dream "that Oprah Winfrey will buy up all the Pizza Huts across the U.S. and convert them into menstrual huts where, for a few days each month, both men and women can go and seek solace."

How cool is that? I look forward to savoring the book.