Its day’s end at year’s end here at the end of Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro.

I’m sitting here on the big rock overlooking the ocean as the lights of New Years Eve blink on across the blue and white pastel half moon curve of Copacabana, Princess of the Sea.

I’m sitting here waiting for night to fall after a warm sweet humid afternoon here swimming in the ocean with Narcisa, the Dakini. Now I’m thanking God and all his angels for having survived another year together on the bloody battlefields of love and spiritual awakening.

She’s gone off down the beach now to join the ranks of Hari Krishna. Yes, really! I’m chilling here by the crashing waves again, listening to the noise of firecrackers and sky rockets and Umbanda drums, watching the white-clad Macumbeiros arriving, gathering in the cooling sand of night with their bundles of flowers and little blue and white boats lit with candles and laden with gifts of perfume, mirrors, fruits and bottles of champaine, offerings to Iamanja, Goddess of the Sea. Offerings of gratitude and faith.

The drums are warming up now down on the sand. Let the celebrations begin! Salve Ogum! Salve Iamanja! Two million souls are expected to descend on the beach here tonight to collectively celebrate their existance on this special spot and time. Some will be praying for mercy, some giving thanks, others getting drunk and acting like savage asses from the depths of hell.

Any way you slice it, this is a bright point on the world’s energy grid tonight. Two million tiny points of light gathering together to collectively celebrate life.

All tribes are represented in this hot and sticky madhouse. Bikers, musicians, workers of magic, light and darkness. My gypsy brothers and sisters. My fellow recovering addicts, alkies, survivors and recovering human beings… Artists, peddlers, Hari Krishnas and whores. Umbandistas and Kardecistas. Pickpockets and pimps… The whole world has come down to the sea tonight to see…

I’m sitting here now doing my little part by giving thanks.

First I want to thank Narcisa for showing me the way of unconditional love and compassion for another human being. And for all the painful, ego-shattering painful lessons she has taught me, one day at a time… If pain is the touch stone to spiritual growth, she has been shuttling me into the Fourth Dimention with all her holy crackhead antics. Thanks!

In the same breath I want to thank God and my Heavenly Father, Ogum for the guidance, light, love and protection that’s allowed me to survive the experience and transform it into whatever crooked poetry and insight I’ve been granted to spit back out into this crippled world of Sorrows and Afflictions. We all do our part. I pray to continue to do mine…

I want to thank my faithful assistant and partner in crime, Alessandra, without whose love, faith, passion, dedication and hard work, the evolving legacy of Narcisa would probably still be moldering away in some little notebook in my back pocket.

And most of all I want to thank my readers, fans, friends, enemies, supporters, detractors, advisors and well wishers all over the world for being with us on this crazy ride to hell and redemption right from the start… If you weren’t there to read this stuff, there would be little point writing it in the first place.

I especially would like to thank those of you who have shared your generous comments, advice, criticism and encouragement with me personally. You all know who you are. Thanks.

When midnight rolls around, I will be standing there with my feet in the waves, the triumphant fireworks of Copacabana exploding overhead, wishing you all the same things I wish for myself and Narcisa: love, prosperity and the abundance of miracles: The realization of all your highest hopes, dreams and asperations… Most of all I wish us all more and more Truth (no matter how much it fucking hurts!)

All this and more for us all in another milestone in our crooked march toward the light and 2012.

Happy New Year’s from Cigano and Narcisa!

It’s good to be alive.

Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2008.

NOTIFICAÇÃO: Os eventos relatados neste site são contos de ficção registrados na Biblioteca Nacional com todos os direitos autorais revertidos ao autor Jonathan Shaw. Os personagens mencionados são inteiramente fictícios. Certos eventos, personagens, lugares e relatos, foram baseados em fatos reais, porém qualquer semelhança a qualquer pessoa viva ou morta se trata de pura coincidência. As várias fotografias apresentadas se encontram com o rosto distorcido para preservar o anonimato das modelos que representam personagens fictícios.