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I supposed you are always tempted to make that claim this time of year, but when you start the year unsure of whether you'll survive a Colorado snowboarding excursion gone horribly wrong, end the year with a home refinance that was 7 months and 4 phone calls a week in the coming, something that saves you financially, and in the middle have a beautiful baby—well, that outlines a year unlike I've ever had.

Oh, where to start. As I wrote here, amidst exhaustion of physical, mental, and spiritual varieties, I almost passed out at the very tippy top of the Beaver Creek ski resort just after last new year. The physical part was because I was drastically out of shape, and snowboarding is an unforgiving sport to such fatties. The mental had entirely to do with the tough last 3 months as I dealt with the matter with integral institute that led to my resignation. Which fed into the spiritual part because my Will never felt freer after I resigned from i-i, yet here I was on Beaver Creek in Colorado (home of i-i), again in a high-altitude place (intellectual altitude of i-i, geophysical altitude of the Creek), and I needed to so the same thing in each situation. I just needed to quit, cut my losses, and go home to set out on a different direction.

That different direction was of course the pregnancy of Hannah and the eventual birth of my daughter. I can't begin to tell you of the ride of this (I suppose many of you either get it already, get a sense of it from the past years' blog entries, or don't much care anyway) but let's just say if enlightenment isn't becoming a father (or mother) then I'll choose fatherhood every time.

All the research, reading, talking with Hannah. All the birth books (especially Dr. Sears' collection), the amazing Bradley Birth classes with our teacher, Denise Ffrench. All the laughter, the awe, the amazement that she was pregnant. The slowing growing size of her belly. The walks we took, hand in hand, waxing about baby names. Being a father is an enormous meditation on love. It is not a silent meditation, particularly, though I continued to silently meditate this year (my 8th of doing so). No, fatherhood is an entirely awake, active meditation that involves people, your habits, your ego, your patience, your acceptance, your ability to listen and be humble, your ability to act and offer unconditional love. It is a version of "Who Am I?" but with implications on many others, not the least of which is that tender, precious life that is your baby, that beating soul that bears my genes, and the genes of Hannah, and all of our ancestors. Being a father means taking on the role of Steward, to a force within yet beyond the three of us, me, Hannah, and Twyla. The Dallman 3. D3 is in the house.

One of the biggest aspects of our pregancy is the fact that we found out about it when we did not have any health insurance. For 6 weeks, we were on the phone with various insurance companies, only to find out that pregnancy is considered a pre-existing condition if you try to purchase an individual policy. I hate the insurance companies, and I hate the system this country has found itself in to provide health care. Here I've written about this before. Health insurance in America must change, and change quickly.

The good news of that ordeal is twofold. One, we found Martha Kaempfe, our nurse-midwife, because she worked at a local hospital, St. Elizabeth's. She is angel, grandmother, and healer all wrapped into one. That is what "midwife" means to us. The other good news is that St. Elizabeth's offered a "flat fee" payment plan. The entire prenatal care package, midwife included, for $2500. Awesome, huh? We jumped on it, to the benefit especially of Hannah, because she rightly needed the stability that Martha and St. Elizabeth's provided.

The birth of Twyla was such a beautiful, ferocious, cathartic event that forever imprints me. Hannah called a strength from inside her that I've never seen before, from anyone. Check out her Birth Story (in PDF). As Hannah makes clear in it, Martha was such a wonderful guide for Hannah. Our two doulas were irreplacable. Our family and friends before and after so supportive. I've thanked you all and I thank you again. My mom came to stay with us for 10 days after Twyla was born, which was so special and helpful. And Hannah and I wrote Twyla's Welcoming Ceremony, which was attended by over 40 family and friends, and during which we named Ben Rogerson and Arielah Moskow to be Twyla's godparents.

I also was productive as a artist and as a writer, during and after the pregnancy, something that I'm proud of. In May, I released I Am Sound, my third album. I was able to make it available through CDBaby.com as well as iTunes. I also re-released my first two albums, now online for free listening, as Flash Albums. I created three Flash MP3 pieces (here, here, and here). I also made eight short films, and took over 500 photographs with my cellphone, manipulated and presented as Cellph Shots. And I, well, blogged. A. Lot. With words, photographs, music, animations, and films, all in my place, my art project, "The Daily Goose".

As a writer/philosopher, I authored over 25 new essays, starting the year with "A Planet-centric iPod" and ending the year in my emerging area of artwork semiotics, such as described in my essay "Polysemy". A piece I'm particularly proud of is my ode to New Orleans, written just after Katrina, because it combines words, music, and images. I also wrote an extended interpretation of the new Star Wars that touches on quite a bit. Overall, I continued to develop my own integral art philosophy, and revised most of my existing work. I recently wrote a new introduction to my art philosophy and continued to make progress on my first book, tentatively titled A River Of One's Own.

I'll finish with a run through of other fun stuff that happened this year, in no particular order:

Hannah's film A Whirling Tango (with my music) was accepted into the 2005 Chicago International Film Festival. It had five screening overall, and Hannah did five question and answer sessions about the film.

I studied with W.A. Mathieu, and wrote several pieces for piano. This was the year, in fact, that I decided to recommit to piano as my primary instrument, after a 14-year study of guitar, and W.A. played no small role in that decision. I am truly lucky to have such a brilliant, loving man as my teacher. He is the best teacher I've ever had, and certainly the most intelligent since college when I studied poetry with Carter Revard and Yusef Komunyakaa.

I got my best job ever, with a Chicago advertising agency called Bagby and Company. Never before have I ever even liked my job; my ongoing stint at Bagby has changed all of that. I look forward to going to work and to fulfill my role in that creative environment. In fact, I wrote and directed a :90 "mock-ad" spot, internally as an assignment that all employees fulfilled.

I attended a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field, two Milwaukee Brewers games at Miller Park, and two Milwaukee Bucks games at the Bradley Center.

I trained for the marathon, but broke my ankle and wrist in two places each on one fateful morning when I jogged in my Logan Square neighborhood. I still had casts on when Twyla was born, but I was able to participate and support Hannah in nearly every way I wanted to, and she needed.

Our Pontiac Grand Prix died, a week before Twyla was born. It smelled of coolant quite bad.

We purchased a Toyota Camry, and finally had a car with A/C, with no coolant smells.

I bought investment real estate property, a 3-flat apartment building.

We traveled to Philadelphia in May to see Hannah's sister Maggie; we went to the Philadelphia Art Museum amongst other fun things.

We decided that we will move, in 2006, to the outskirts of Chicagoland, namely Kenosha, Wisc. (very southeast Wisconsin), so as to be able to continue as artists/parents given the ever-increasing costs of owning a home in Chicago. We will continue to work, study, and play in Chicago, and thus will continue to be Chicago-based artists.

Lastly, I began work to start a magazine about art. It is called Polysemy. I recruited 6 other artist/writers to be the staff. I am very proud of what we've accomplished so far (internally) and the plan is to ship the first issue, in print, starting February. You will hear all about this in the coming weeks, but we need subscribers, and we hope the price is right for you to be part of a real first -- an art magazine for working artists, by working artists. It is about artistry through perspectives.

Stay tuned for more, for all about Polysemy will be revealed at the right time and place.

Happy 2006, y'all! Thanks for reading my blog and for checking out my site! Readership hit new highs this year, now averaging over 2000 unique visitors a month. I could NOT do this without y'all. My harmonic bows.

I wish everyone intuitions new and old, as well as the courage to face the trials of fear that stand in the way of your intuitions, realized in form, and offered as love to every soul of this earth. Be strong! I'll return shortly after the new year.