"127 HOURS"

Every winter I dread the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's, and yet I recently had the miniphany (miNIphany, a "mini epiphany", my favorite of my made-up words) that Winter is when I am at my most creatively charged. And productive. Within the belly of the quietness and inwardliness has lied, for the last few years at least, opportunities for a kind of "pensive directedness." Finding me quieter and more focused. Clearer and more integrated. Creative and wise. It really just hit me a few years ago that this had become my cold weather truth truth. That while I had come to dread the impending season when the darkness arrives earlier and stays longer, I simultaneously found myself also looking forward to whatever magic seems to happen when I am more Yogi Bear than Yogi Berra. When I am indoors, and within, more. How the senses, all of them, are engaged differently in autumnfallwinter. The mind, the body, the spirit. The smells and aromas, the feelings and the touches, the hearing and the listening, the seeing and the watching, the tasting and the savoring, the cooking and the eating. The seeing and the believing. I knew that we were transitioning into this time of year when I bought a serious set of cooking knives in early October at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Went in for one knife, came back with a set. The salesman didn't even need to encourage me, it was the easiest sale he ever made. On the surface, the purchase was simply wanting better tools to work with, better "brushes" to learn to paint with, in the kitchen. A step up. Yet it really was more than that...a preparation for more kitchening, more creating, cooking, feeding, comforting, nurturing. Brainstorming and soulstorming. All from the inside out.

This season's other constant for me, particularly around Christmahanukwanzakah, is going to the movies as often as possible...one of the reasons to get out when the weather might keep me inside. Finally the arrival of the season when, at least for several weeks in a row, there's never a lack in the movie theaters in NYC for something potentially wonderful to see. Indies and studio films, foreigns and even some Americans, the full gamut. Not just the shit that too often makes many of us wonder if there's anything to go see, the answer often being "no." So I have been on this year's movie-going juggernaut these last few weeks. Most of the films definitely fall in the good-to-great zone, one major disappointment (Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere" should be, in my opinion, retitled as "Nowhere"), and two extraordinary films that absolutely blew my mind, "The King's Speech" and "127 Hours." Each one for different reasons, both deep sensory experiences on multiple levels. Not just two of the best films I have seen recently, two of the best I can remember for a LONG time. I have to talk about 127 Hours though...not simply because I saw it yesterday and it's fresh in my mind, but because the film absolutely rocked my being like no film possibly ever has. It hit me deeply, on a very spiritual basis. For several years, my work/creative mantra has been "entertain and elevate", and no film has embodied my version of what I mean more than Danny Boyle's masterpiece (he is also the director of "Slumdog Millionaire," which also transformed the way I looked at the world). On each and every level, 127 Hours is a spiritual experience. Beyond simply its riveting and inexplicable story about one man's enormous spirit, each and every aspect of the film (whether the cinematography, music, editing, acting, design) was apparently championed by a filmmaker in their own right, one who knew how to tell a story, whether with pictures, sound, pacing, visuals...and, the creative alchemy served to mesh with Danny Boyle's directing, and his clear spiritual and creative awareness, to create the most inspirational, and life-affirming masterpiece that I can imagine. What better way to touch many (if one indeed aspires, or has the intention, to touch many) with so much of the good stuff, with the much needed reminder that there is wonder of all aspects of life, than through a "mainstream" film. With a brilliant actor, James Franco, who has consistently been doing powerful work in his films, a man so beautiful on the inside and out. One who, it is very obvious, is deeply in touch with his spiritual side. 127 Hours embodies mastery and vision and passion with a story whose messages grabbed me in the gut, with undying truth - that there is beauty and love everywhere, that there are opportunities for gratitude (almost) all the time, that we are all deeply connected, and we all need help and support...and, that the possibility of having someone love you, in the highest and must fulfilling and affirming way that you could most imagine, is a dream worth aspiring to, and worthy of being kept in your heart. To not lower the bar. On ourselves.