I’m not sure if I’d seen this picture before yesterday. I am sure I didn’t see Isaac’s arms wrapped as far around Michael Franti as he could manage. I didn’t see Franti’s hand pulling him in to soak up the love. Nor Franti’s smile as he reached out to share more love with our new friends.
My late wife, Mary, adored Franti. She was there in that moment. The hat was from her costume box and Isaac’s arms are full of her love. Now I see Franti’s bandana, a favorite Mary accessory on cleaning or camping days, in her favorite color.
Just a couple hours earlier I had channelled Mary’s bravada to sneak us into a VIP performance by Franti. We “owned it,” as she would say, and sat right in front of a small stage as credentials were checked and folks were ushered out. Franti talked about how his father had healed after years, likely generations, of trauma. We shared in the healing. These joyous, adventurous, wild moments always push up against our pain. It can feel like poison in a happy place, but I’ve learned that the dark colors spill into the bright ones to complete the spectrum, to make us more whole than before. The rainbow needs blue, indigo, and violet. It also needs all those unseen light waves, the ones that affect our world outside of our perception.
Mountain Jam was bigger than Mary, the circumstances, or our own exploits. God put innumerable pieces together for us and we bathed in blessings.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason