Happy new year to you and yours joe and C99.

The phrase 'auld lang syne' roughly translates as 'for old times' sake', and the song is all about preserving old friendships and looking back over the events of the year.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPnhaGWBnys]
I love this lovely song which I sing only once a year.

From the notes under the clip...

New Year’s Eve is a moment to reflect upon the year that has passed and the hopes we place in the year to come. 2021 continued to present humanity with global challenges from the pandemic to impacts of global warming to political and social strife. But we can also choose to look for the positives and be grateful for what we have and what we hold dear in our lives. Positive milestones also occurred in 2021. For example, last year saw the largest annual generation of renewable energy (per the International Energy Agency), China was declared to have eliminated malaria (down from 30 million cases in 1940) and the Great Resignation allowed people to find a balance in their lives.

Auld Lang Syne has stayed in our collective consciousness for over 200 years because it is about connection with others. The kind of connection that binds you to someone forever: loyalty, friendship, kindness, love; even though that person might not be with you anymore. As I write this, 5.4 million souls have passed from the earth due to the pandemic. We pause to remember them and honor of their memory. Auld Lang Syne is also about the human spirit’s ability to hope for the future while enduring rough times by remembering the precious human attributes of friendship, connectedness with our fellow humans, kindness and love.

We will continue to face many challenges in 2022. I pray that we are near the end of this pandemic. As we move to the New Year remember to “Look for the helpers. There will always be helpers… Because if you look for the helpers, you’ll know that there’s hope.” (Said a sage for the ages).

So, my friends, as we look toward 2022, I encourage you to be the helpers. You to be the hope. Reach out to your fellow humans: lift them up when they are down, encourage them when they feel defeated, help them see the light of beauty and gratitude when they are lost in the darkness of despair. As we say goodbye to 2021 and enter the new year of 2022, please remember to take a cup of kindness for the days of Auld Lang Syne.

May next year bring us all a better, more just, and peaceful world!

Thanks for a great Evening Blues. Perfect mood for it all IMHO.

Apparently Betty died Friday, but I’m not just seeing the news. I’ve always loved her sense of humor and she appeared to be genuinely nice. We’ve lost a lot of great entertainers this year. Cloris Leechman and others I’ve forgotten. I’ll see if I can find the list. Christopher Plummer also passed this year. Anyone else take a school field trip to see the sound of music? I was in 2nd grade when we walked down to see it. About 13 blocks.

I read your post nearly every day, and I appreciate it more than I can speechify. Thanks.

Another year past, with hopefully a little hope left to create a better year.

[video:https://youtu.be/TKDMiyRmbik]

Hi Joe! Hope all are well! Happy New Year everyone! Better days ahead!

An XL THANKS for all the great soundscapes and musical edumacations Joe!

my very best wishes for all!

to you, joe.
I was visited by a youngish couple who came by to just shoot the breeze. The guy told us about his experience in Austin at a Marleyfest. It takes place in Austin annually, and is pretty crazy.
The fireworks will start in a few minutes, and some neighbor has a party going on with a deejay, and I can hear it from a mile away.
Oh, back to my beloved Bob Marley:

Reflections on the year
that's passed and
what I want for 2022

by Peter Caughey

As 2021 draws to a close, I am thinking how much has changed and what a year it’s been. Not many people could have seen what was coming and what the world has gone through - and is still going through. Huge changes on all levels.
The world and all of us, the inhabitants of this planet, have changed courses and are heading off on a very different tangent. Keeping up with the speed of the changes takes some effort.

From fiat to crypto and digital currencies, from the freedom to go out or lockdown, from having medication choices to medical mandates - what huge world changes. From friendships to disagreements, from accepting peoples' rights to have their own opinions to anger and judgement. From acceptance to contempt, from unity to division, from freedom to speak to censorship and de-platforming. From declaring what is right and what is wrong and from what is true and what is false.

It seems to me people have been moved further away from the centre path, the balance and the understanding of Yin and Yang and that they are complementary opposites. It seems that we are being forced to one side of the Yin or the Yang. But there is no absolute Yin and there is no absolute Yang. There is no hot without cold, there is no one side of a coin, there is no male without female or female without male. They would both eventually fail to exist. The division or the separation of Yin and Yang will eventually end in death. This world was created with this ever fluctuating balance between Yin and Yang.

My ideas aren't right and someone else's ideas aren’t wrong, they are just different points of view. Just different opinions. In saying that could some ideas be more destructive to the planet and living things on the planet? And could they have a negative effect on the survival of humans who exist on this planet? Of course. Could some ideas be more destructive for us to live in harmony with each other to co-existence on this plant? Well of course.

So why don't we do this, why don't we live in harmony? People with much greater minds than mine have been trying to work this out for millennia and we, as humans, keep evolving and changing just like the huge changes that we are going through at the moment.

Does anyone control this changing world or are we all just hell bend on human destruction? Or is it just dog eat dog and survival of the fittest? Or is it that there are people who own the factories and there are workers who work in the factories and that’s the way we are?

In 2022, let's aim to live in harmony with each other. Not in judgement and stop needing to be right, which makes somebody else wrong. We are all different, nobody needs to be like you, think like you, act like you, agree with you. You just do that for yourself and let everybody else be themselves. Let us respect each other and all our differences. This will make it a simpler world, a world of understanding and acceptance.

Let's live in a world where we have the freedom of choice. It's your life, you choose what you want to do with it.

Much care to you all and wishing you a Happy New Year.

Pete C