Ring Them Bells St. Catherine...

Ring them bells St. Catherine
From the top of the room,
Ring them from the fortress
For the lilies that bloom
Oh the lines are long
And the fighting is strong
And they're breaking down the distance
Between right and wrong...

I could never remember any other verse to this song when I was younger (Bob Dylan, and I heard it covered by First Call eons ago). Ring them bells St. Catherine - maybe it was just the resonance of the syllables. Either way, it was an achingly beautiful refrain I never managed to quite forget, and now some fifteen years later, I remember it again. Driftwood of the mind, ripples and reflections of truths seen dimly in mirrors.

Appropriate, in its own way, for the momentous things that have gone by in 2007.

Happy New Year, dear friends. May the new year be good, be prosperous and eventful - but above all, may it allow enough quiet to retreat to that small, inner space and be still.


Hair, bells, drifting. Just a few reflective doodles for a new year.