Freedom Meditation / beginning with "... we carried you in our arms on Independence Day ..."

Come to me now, you know we're so alone

And life is brief

-- Bob Dylan and Richard Manuel  ("Tears of Rage," late 1960s)

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My heart is not weary, it's light and it's free

I've got nothing but affection for all those who've sailed with me

-- Bob Dylan ("Mississippi," 2001)

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I feel the holy spirit inside

See the light that freedom gives

-- Bob Dylan ("Crossing the Rubicon," 2021)

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Last night as I was beginning to drift into sleep, I heard something like gunshots and then realized that someone in my neighborhood felt compelled to celebrate the 4th of July early, knowing full well that fireworks are illegal inside city limits.  I remembered the 4th of July in 1972 when my friend, Roger, a non-combatant Navy veteran,  24 years old at the time, said, "Why do they do this? It sounds like war.  Some of us who have lived through war are traumatized by what sounds like gunshots."  Tears of rage, tears of grief.  Roger killed himself on his 50th birthday in December 1997, leaving behind his wife and two daughters, and friends who loved him.  He was fond of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, fond of this song:

Like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free

Like a worm on a hook
Like a knight from some old-fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee
If I, if I have been unkind
I hope that you can just let it go by
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you

For like a baby, stillborn
Like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me
But I swear by this song
And by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee

I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch
He said to me, "you must not ask for so much"
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door
She cried to me, "hey, why not ask for more?"
Oh, like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free

(Leonard Cohen)

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"... Well I got a hammer

And I got a bell

And I got a song to sing

All over this land

It's the hammer of justice

It's the bell of freedom

It's a song about love between my brothers and my sisters

All over this land ..."

(Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, 1949)

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And then there's the possibility of Interdependence Day.  

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We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.

(Martin Luther King Jr.)

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Sending love near and far.  Today and always.