There is nothing better than standing out there, among friends known and unknown, appreciating the pure thereness and nowness of the moment, which you experienced last year and you hope to experience again next year, a thereness and nowness that hovers over the street level of contingency and passing time, and connects you back to a place that is the ground of being itself. And maybe while you are hovering there, vibrating to that frequency, to which everyone else is tuned, too, you will hear the tambourines and drums from way down the block, the chanted refrains:
Gonna take my gang on Mardi Gras Day
Shallow water, yo mama...
Say mighty coody-fiyo get the hell out the way
Shallow water, yo mama...
...and if you are really luck it might be Monk Boudreaux, Big Chief of the Golden Eagles, dressed in glorious purple, come to meet up with Chief Bo and exchange Indian wisdom and fire water[...].