It can be hard to bridge the realms.

Yesterday I stood with headphones and a microphone in the studio of Kauai Community Radio asking every listener to make a phone call and donate money to the station.  Across the board from me was the host of an eclectic show that features music, musings, poetry and inspired words to enlighten.

This DJ is ringing bells and calling in the angels while I’ll repeat the phone number to call.  Usually, this radio show is stretching toward the realms of the Divine.  Today, I’m grounding the conversation in tallies and cold hard cash, making requests for thousands of dollars.

The host reads Hafiz, reminding listeners of the The Friend.  When the poem is complete, he mentions that inside the book jacket, the translator, Daniel Ladinsky, has made a dedication to avatar, Meher Baba.  As we’re live, on the air, he hands me the 1937 photograph of the guru, standing in Cannes, France.  He is by a tree, smiling in white, hair flowing.   So often when I gaze upon photos of this man, waves of sensation run through my body.  A visceral reaction that defies rationalization, one I have never fully understood.

I stand looking at the saint, reverberating in the high prose of Hafiz, and I repeat into the mic that the radio station has less than two hours to reach its goal of $50,000.  I announce the phone number again.  I mention the tax-deductible aspect of their donation.  I try to bridge the worlds of the practical and the ethereal as the host rings those om-engraved chimes one more time.

He cuts to music and I stand with Meher Baba, black and white, in France.  The phones are ringing in the studio and volunteers are bustling about.  What is it about this man?

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Rex had been staying at his ashram in India for months before landing back on the island into my arms, so many years ago.  Like many devotees, he carried multiple photographs of his guide and I was surrounded by pictures of the man that gazed at me through the rose and sandalwood incense Rex burned in his honor.

On Rex’s second day back home, the day we conceived Jeb, it was Meher Baba that gazed at me from a necklace around his neck, smiling in unconditional love as spermatozoa met ovum.

The phone rings again in the KKCR studios and this time I answer.  A woman with the last name of Amsterdam calls to say that she wants to donate to the station because we mentioned Meher Baba’s name.  I take down her address, phone number, email and the amount of money she wants to give, filling out the appropriate form.  Is this what it looks like to bridge the worlds?

At high noon, the radio station’s fund drive has officially come to a close and in about 2 hours we’ve raised over $2,000.  Peter Gabriel is singing that in this moment he “feels so connected” and the program host’s spirits are soaring as he lip syncs along, rejoicing in the accomplishment.

Next week it will be back to Persian poetry and excerpts from the We’Moon Calendar.  He can gaze upon the face of Meher Baba or any other saint with no need to mention monetary sums.

As for me, I’m usually at home with Jeb on Sundays.  Not always listening to the radio.  Often cleaning the bathroom or building Legos.  Making bridges of my own between that ecstatic day of conception – March 13, 2003 – and all of the practicals necessitated to live the fruit it bore.  One of Meher Baba’s more well-known quotes comes to mind as I ponder living this link.

Don’t worry, be happy.