Lake County's new poet laureate Mary McMillan will hold her first event, a celebration of St. Patrick's Day, Irish writers, and international women's history month, Sunday, March 16, at the Lake County Arts Council's Main Street Gallery.

       The event will be from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Light refreshments and non-alcoholic beverages will be served.

       She said there will be readings of Irish prose and poetry, with an emphasis on work by Irish women. She is being assisted by immediate past poet laureate Sandra Wade and Cherie Holden of watershed books.

       The public is invited to bring favorite Irish poems to read, especially those by women, with a maximum length of about three minutes per reading. There also will be a selection of poems available to read.

For Embrace the World is a musical group that encompasses and melds all of their influences, Western and Eastern, North and South, into one music. True, there were songs in English, Spanish and Chinese. There were many tunes with exotic Latin beats. Zarfad, the Iranian violinist, clearly has immense classical chops. KC Jones, the leader and one of the keyboardists, formerly with Santana, can obviously get around in a wide range of musical styles. Lin Cheng, the leading popular singer in China, is exquisite playing her erhu, the "Chinese violin." Leonor Dely and Millero Congo is a Latin family act with mother singing and husband and children on drums and flutes, clearly talented and seasoned performers. And more, too: a base and highland pipes player from Scotland, a rock and jazz guitarist from New England, another keyboardist from Iran.

It was the integration of these styles in the hands of masters that made the concert so moving. And that was what the concert was all about, embracing and unifying the world through art.

On Tuesday night, at the Robinson Rancheria, there was only one world, in joy and peace, and the audience was dancing in the aisles.

Perhaps I should mention a couple of things. First, these musicians are unified by their spiritual beliefs, and seriously mean to unite the world through their music. This concert was brought to us by the Bahai faith, but aside from a few quotes from Bahullah you"d never have known that. Second, they took their week off between weekend gigs to come to Lake County and do a benefit for the Lake County Arts Council, and in the spirit of full disclosure I should mention that yours truly is the Executive Director of the Arts Council, and I am profoundly grateful for their generosity. But that isn't what this review is about.

This review is about the heart. We were moved. We were on the edge of our seats, when we could sit down. We were moved to our feet by rhythm, and moved to the center of our beings by beauty. I've never heard music like that before. In the old Bebop language, Embrace the World is a solid sender.

So if you missed it, you missed something astounding, but they may be back next year. If you are good, and don't look down on your fellow human beings, and keep your ears open and your heart warm, you may be seeing a notice in the paper that Embrace the World is coming to Lake County on their Around the World Tour once again. Don't blow it. Catch their act when you can. We're talking very rare gems here, folks.

Xian Yeagan