Notes From a Gentle Heart

What I Learned Down on the Farm

2012-01-09T10:06:00.000-05:00

Most of my friends know how girly I am (swirly skirts, jewelry, makeup, perfume) but they also know I like to be hip-deep in the garden and am perfectly capable of repairing a fence or building a cold frame. I’m definitely not allergic to dirt or hard work. This combination confuses people, sometimes.

Over the holidays I did a lot of reflection about how I came to be the person I am now, and I realized something: Though I officially grew up in darkest suburbia with my parents and sister, I learned my life values from my grandparents in the time I spent on their farm.

How much time was that? If it wasn’t a school day, I was there. As a family we spent weekends and school holidays at the farm. My mother sent me out there for long stretches during the summer as well. (She once even tried to give me away to my grandmother, after my sister was born and Mom decided she liked the new child better. Grandmother declined; that’s the only time in my life I ever heard her raise her voice to anyone.)

A small family farm is hard work with little room for frills or foolishness, though there was usually time for play (I was a kid, after all). I spent my days wearing blue jeans and covered in dirt, hay and manure. From my grandparents, especially my grandmother, I learned most of the values that have carried me through life. Those values helped me get through all sorts of things that, at the time, I didn’t believe I could survive.

This blog post is dedicated to my maternal grandmother, Noreen Crews, one of the wisest people I’ve ever known. She passed away a few years back but her common-sense approach to life, and her unconditional love, still live on in me.

In all the time I spent with her, all the dumb things I did, she never framed any experience I had with, “And the moral is…” In fact, she rarely talked about lessons learned at all. She simply lived her values every day and encouraged me to do the same.

I’ve collected up a few of the things I learned on the farm, to share with you. Perhaps you might find them useful, too.

-You have sense. Use it.

-Everyone has limitations; some are just more obvious than others. Don’t let your limitations define you and never use them as an excuse, only as an explanation.

-The difference between people and trash is not what you have but how well you take care of it.

-Don’t stand there waiting for someone to tell you what to do. Figure out what needs doing and do it.

-Assume you’re capable of doing (or learning to do) whatever needs doing until proven otherwise.

-If you choose to have children, do not behave as if they are a nuisance, a bother or something to escape from. You chose to have them. You are an adult. Act like it.

-If you say you’ll do something, do it. Your word is your bond.

-Dream all you want but take care of the real-world stuff first.

I wouldn’t be here today - literally - if it weren’t for the values Grandmother taught me. The best tribute I can give her is to share those values with my own daughter, and be thankful for the time I spent on the farm.

New Year's Resolutions? Try something different this year!

2011-12-08T09:36:00.001-05:00

New Year's resolutions? I don't do them. Never have. They just don't resonate with me. But there is something I've done for years, something a little different, and I'd like to share it with you. If you like, you could give it a try.

One holiday season, back in the Stone Age (all right, it was really about 20 years ago) I came across a short saying that just stuck in my head. The words: All life is one life. The result: I spent the whole next year contemplating it, keeping it in the back of my mind all the time, mainly because I just couldn't get rid of it. I guess you could call it a long-term meditation, though not exactly a voluntary one.

The results were profound. It really did change my life.

So I decided to do it again, only by choice this time.

Throughout the holiday season, I remained alert for another phrase or saying to appear and nudge me in the ribs. And one did. So I repeated the process, with equally amazing results. I've been doing it ever since.

Some years, as January rolled around, I worried that my Saying of the Year wouldn't show up. It always did, though I found I couldn't rush it. I also found I couldn't just pick a saying that I heard or read somewhere. It had to come to me, not the other way round.

This year it showed up a little early, about a week ago. It's like a snippet of catchy song lyrics, stuck in my head and refusing to budge, so it must be The Saying of the Year.

It's an Eckhart Tolle quote: You do not live life; life lives you. Life is the dancer. You are the dance.

This should be an interesting year.

Gotta Love Those Pigeonholes

2011-10-31T09:16:00.000-04:00

We sure love pigeonholes, don’t we? I mean, as a species. We like to generate tidy labels and categories for everything from amoebas to divine beings and then force whatever we’re thinking about into those categories. We’re so great, we’ve figured all this stuff out and can demonstrate our control by labeling it all.

I’m pretty sure life isn’t really that simple.

I can see where it comes from, though. On a basic level, being able to tell self from other, one-of-us from not-one-of-us is helpful and might even be life saving. I’ve read some anthropology journal articles that address this issue in pre-modern human societies. It’s an uncomfortable subject, but the fact is, most (possibly all) groups of humans at one time or another in the past were cannibals. Here’s the thing, though - they didn’t prey on members of their own group. Only people outside the family, tribe or clan were fair game.

I’ve noticed that many cultural groups have names for themselves that mean, simply, The People. In other words, “We’re people and all those other folks aren’t.” If they’re not people, then they’re fair game. Us Versus Them on a very pragmatic level, with each group’s survival depending on it.

But our survival no longer hinges on dividing the world into our own group (predators) and prey. Life is far more nuanced than that, but I’m not sure our brains - or our cultures - are keeping up with those nuances well enough. And it’s not just Us Versus Them.

Back to those pigeonholes. They have served us well in the realm of the sciences. We now have vast organized collections of nomenclature for living things - Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus Species. We label and categorize chemical elements, atomic particles, stars, planets.

We use those labels to feel comfortable with the information, to separate out small bits that we can get a handle on. That primitive part of the human brain still tells us, “Label everything so you don’t get eaten.”

But what about the things that don’t fit so well into the pigeonholes? As hard as we try to force them into tidy categories, spiritual beliefs don’t really fit that well under discrete labels. Political ideologies don’t sift out that well, either. And human sexuality - I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard my friends say there isn’t a label that fits them exactly. I’ve talked with a few scientists whose experience tells them the distinct groupings we sort bits of the world into aren’t as clear-cut as we’d like to think. And it’s pretty obvious by now that Us Versus Them doesn’t serve anyone any more.

Maybe it’s time to move on from the pigeonholes. Sure, you put your sweater and your lunchbox in a cubbyhole when you were in kindergarten, but you’re not in kindergarten any more. So what to use instead, to get a handle on the world?

How about a rainbow?

No, I’m not about to go all goodness-and-light on you. I think the rainbow is an effective symbol for the nuanced, one-thing-merging-into-another property that real life demonstrates. Bear with me here.

You might have memorized the colors of the rainbow as a child - ROYGBIV - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. I’ll bet you drew rainbows with your crayons, each color a tidy, distinct stripe, separate from the next.

But those colors aren’t tidy and distinct; it’s only our labels that make them seem so. Look closely at a rainbow and you’ll see each color merging into the next with no specific demarcation where one ends and the next begins. That’s the way the spectrum of visible light is. Sure, we can generate fancy scientific labels that say one color stops and another starts at a particular frequency, but the fact is, it’s a continuum.

If you look carefully, you’ll see that most of life is a continuum in one way or another. The lines on the map exist only on the map, not in the big world. Ask an astronaut.

Continuums are scary. It’s hard to tell where one thing ends and the next one begins. It’s hard to tell who you’re supposed to like or dislike, how you’re supposed to think, what you’re supposed to do. How on earth can you get a handle on a continuum?

But that’s what happens when you graduate from kindergarten - you have to deal with the world without those cubbyholes. Maybe it’s time for the human race to move on to first grade.

Who deserves it?

2011-09-27T09:15:00.000-04:00

For some time now I’ve been trying to figure out the phenomenon that makes some people go absolutely ballistic at the thought of government programs that help the poor. This includes not only the traditional welfare, food stamps and disability payments but also universal health care. I’ve read dozens of blogs and hundreds of news articles; I’ve had countless conversations with people, in person and online, about it. Yesterday I finally had an epiphany.

The first thing I realized is that the emotion driving these reactions is fear. When the terms welfare state and socialism float around in a conversation, people begin to shriek in terror. It’s a primal emotion, easy to identify. So what are they afraid of?

I started looking for details in blogs, articles and conversations - tiny clues that might help me figure out where that fear is coming from and what the heck it has to do with these political issues. First I realized that the issue of government-vs.-privatism is not really the problem. The same people who scream in terror at the thought of food stamps and nationalized healthcare don’t mind having their taxes support the interstate highway system or the military, or local schools and public works.

Likewise, the issue of church-and-state is a smoke screen. Some people insist that it’s the church’s responsibility to take care of the poor but they have no problem with non-religious charities doing so as well, and may give their money to them as well. So it’s not about actually giving away the money, either. Then what is it about?

What is at issue here is control. If support for the poor and needy is in the hands of private institutions, they get to pick and choose who gets that support and they get to put conditions on it. If that support is in the hands of the government, the only requirements will be ink-and-paper financial statements. So what does that mean? What are people really scared of? They’re afraid this will happen:

Someone who doesn’t deserve it will get something that was paid for with my money.

That’s it, in a nutshell.

When that realization hit me, I was immediately transported back to Mrs. Weber’s 10th grade English class and a discussion of George Bernard Shaw’s work. Mrs. Weber introduced me to the concepts of the Deserving Poor and the Undeserving Poor, first enshrined in Queen Elizabeth I’s Poor Law of 1563. I still recall the lurching feeling in my stomach as my innocence crumbled away. I was crushed by the sudden awareness that many people used to believe, and many still do believe, that some of their fellow human beings don’t deserve to be helped.

I didn’t have to read between the lines in My Fair Lady to figure out who the Deserving and Undeserving Poor were in Victorian England. And I don’t have to read between the lines today to make that distinction, either. Of course, it varies from group to group and person to person, but from the comments I’ve seen in articles and blog posts, the greatest fear is that the following groups will receive government money: urban African-American and Latino people; immigrants, both legal and illegal, but especially Latinos; alcoholics and drug addicts; and Muslims. There is also a fear of supporting unwed mothers, particularly non-white ones. I’m sure there are other groups, as well, that some people don’t want their money going to.

Bear in mind, I’m no Mother Theresa. I have my own biases and prejudices. But I try to be conscious of my tendency to prejudge others who are different from me and not let that emotional response enter into my decision-making process. I don’t recall any of the great spiritual leaders saying you should ask for certain credentials before helping people.

I suspect that many of the people who are against these government aid programs can’t even admit to themselves why the idea frightens them so much. It’s hard to face our own prejudices, especially if we have strong spiritual or ethical standards which we publicly follow. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll look into that darkness and shine a light that dispels the shadows of bias and fear.

So where does this excursion into the unpleasant depths of the human psyche leave me? I’m not sure. It took enormous societal changes for some people to allow their tax money to pay for poor African-Americans to attend decent public schools (and many of them still don’t like it). I suspect it will take similarly profound changes before people are willing to consider certain ethnic and social groups worthy of aid and support.

But I have hope. That voice that said, “Love your neighbor” also whispers: “They are all your neighbors.”

Editing Ourselves

2011-08-26T15:48:00.000-04:00

I’m an editor. Sure, I have hopes of being a novelist one day, but while I wait for that magical phone call from my literary agent I spend a lot of my time fine-tooth-combing other people’s writing. And my mind plays its chronic free-association game in the background as I work my way through all those words.

One thing I’ve discovered over the years is that you can tell a lot about a person by what they include and what they leave out in their writing, how they word things and which images they choose. We all have unwritten rules that we live by and they do a little editing for us unconsciously before our words ever hit the paper.

These same ‘internal editors’ also affect our interactions with other people, our conversations and relationships and careers. The main problem with these internal editors is that we don’t realize when they’re at work. And most of the time we don’t want to, because looking at them is uncomfortable. We all want to think we’re unbiased, don’t we?

Just as I sit at my desk and go over someone’s writing, correcting or deleting the bad parts and saving the good, our internal editors tell us what to esteem and what to ignore or scorn. Some of these values come from our culture and some come from personal experience.

I grew up with a particular set of unspoken biases, instilled in me by my parents and teachers. I always took it for granted that I would go to college and get not only a four-year degree but probably something advanced as well. I never questioned this assumption. What’s more, I never looked at the set of other beliefs that were attached to it, hovering there in my subconscious, flavoring every decision I made in life. In fact, I didn’t face what my internal editor was doing to my life until I had a B.A. in Russian and was halfway to a doctorate in linguistics.

When I finally confronted what was really going on in the back of my mind, I was shocked. Behind the idea that of course I would earn a college degree, my internal editor was telling me other things that weren’t so savory: I don’t have any value to society without a degree. I can’t get a good job without a degree. Not earning a degree would make me an embarrassment to my family. Of course, my internal editor also told me that these values apply to everyone, not just me.

Boy, that’s a load of classist crap, isn’t it? But I was nearly 30 before I realized I had built my worldview on exactly those elitist grounds. It took a lot of uncomfortable soul-searching to even face what was going on in the deep dark recesses of my psyche. And what did I do after all that soul-searching, when I realized I needed to take my life in a new direction? I went after another degree! Granted, the N.D. wasn’t at all mainstream and was something of an embarrassment to my family, but still, it was a degree. Nothing like rebelling while staying in the box. Thankfully, I've gotten a clue since then.

This just goes to show how hard it is to escape from our internal editors. To a great extent they really do run our lives, whether we like it or not. I still find myself expecting certain sets of behaviors from people based on my first impressions of their dress, demeanor and accent. At least I usually catch myself doing it and don’t let it slide too far into the background, but it’s still there.

I’m afraid I don’t have any glib advice to give you about that pesky internal editor; I still struggle with it myself. The old cliché of first admitting the problem applies here, I think. We’ve all got some sort of programming running in the backs of our minds. Knowing it’s there is a good start toward becoming aware of the ways it biases our thoughts and attitudes. The more conscious we make each of these assumptions, the more power we have to choose whether or not to allow them to edit our lives.

Editing on purpose is a good thing; it improves writing and generates a more valuable finished product. The unconscious editing from our hidden assumptions, however, is valuable only when we bring it into the daylight and discover the ways in which it influences (or railroads) our lives.

I was delighted to discover recently that I’m not the only person battling against that infernal internal editor. For an interesting discussion of what kind of biases and hidden assumptions we all carry and how we can work to get around them, have a look at Ramit Sethi's blog. It's a good thing the human psyche is so fascinating, or we'd all go crazy!

Why Be Normal?

2011-08-19T10:19:00.000-04:00

Normal: It’s such a highly-charged word these days, what with everyone trying to come up with politically correct or (we hope) compassionate terms for people who aren’t…you know. My first child was born with severe orthopedic problems and I struggled to find ways of talking about her that were compassionate but still accurate. The truth is, she wasn’t normal. That’s a hard thing to face, especially with that word.

Then a couple years ago I did some work for my father-in-law that transformed my understanding of the term. He was compiling the history of a school in Wilmington, North Carolina in order to publish a book about it. He called it the Tileston School, as did most folks in Wilmington in recent times. But as I went through the old newspaper clippings about the school, I discovered its original name: Tileston Normal School. My first silly thought was, “Did Wilmington have an abnormal school as well?”

My ensuing research into schools in 19th-century America led me to an interesting discovery about the word normal. We’re all familiar with the image of the one-room schoolhouse in which a dedicated school-mistress instructs a collection of students ranging in age from 6 to 18. This was the standard in many parts of the U.S. until the early 20th century. And it is this multi-age schoolhouse with which the normal school contrasts.

The word normal simply means conforming to norms. In the case of schools, the norms are ages; a normal school separates the students into classes based on age rather than putting them all together in one big group. That was a smack-myself-in-the-forehead moment. I got out the dictionary and looked up the word, just to be sure I was getting it right. Besides the specialist meanings in mathematics and engineering, the word normal means “according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule or principle.” And of course, those norms, rules and principles are made up by people.

My philosopher-daughter caught me with my nose in the dictionary and asked what I was so interested in. She pointed out to me that what’s normal has changed over time, and is even different from culture to culture around the world today. Of course. We aren’t head hunters like our Celtic ancestors were and we don’t drive on the left side of the road like the Brits do. Each society has its own set of norms. If you don’t conform to your society’s norms, you’re not normal. It’s as simple as that.

Change occurs in a society when a portion of the population decides that the norms are wrong. The suffragettes weren’t normal. Neither were the supporters of the labor movement in the 1920s and 1930s. But now, women who vote and workers who have rights in the workplace are the norm in the U.S. Journeying to the stars to heal fellow tribe members was completely normal for the ancient Siberian shaman; seeing visions of the divine was normal for medieval Christian mystics. Neither of these activities is normal in western society today, unfortunately.

Some people choose to violate the norms of society on purpose; artistic bohemian types have long done so, as have independent folks who don’t want to be constrained by someone else’s rules. And that’s all norms are - an agreed-upon set of rules (agreed upon by most of us, anyway).

So now, when I hear someone labeled not normal my immediate thought is, "Did they choose to step outside the lines?" Obviously my daughter didn’t choose to be born abnormal, and people with mental illnesses and severe injuries don’t choose that either. But many of us decide that we don’t like where society’s lines are drawn. We don’t agree with the norms. The fact that many people disagreed with those norms created the changes that allowed me to take my wheelchair-bound daughter out in public without shame and without having to confront physical barriers in buildings and public places.

Maybe the most important thing about normal is that we all have to agree on it. And when enough people disagree, we have no choice but to redraw the lines.

Define Yourself

2011-07-23T09:20:00.000-04:00

Recently I’ve been a spectator at a number of online arguments, watching people ‘virtually’ yell at each other, each insisting the other is wrong. I do get tired of it. And guess what? They’re all wrong.

Years and years ago, I took training as a mediator in order to help fellow parents of disabled children work out their differences with schools, medical personnel and bureaucrats. Parent to Parent of Georgia and Parents Helping Parents of Tennessee (no longer in existence) were my saving grace during that time, providing me with support and pointing me toward the mediation training as well as training as a grief counselor. I proudly used those skills on a volunteer basis for families who needed it. After my daughter died, I turned down an offer from her school system to act as a mediator on behalf of other parents of special needs kids - I needed to make a change, shift my life around a bit. But those mediation skills hung on and have turned out to be very helpful over the years.

One thing that struck me about how mediation should work is that a good mediator requires the participants to define their terms. I continue to be amazed at how many arguments go on and on because the people involved have either failed to define their terms with each other or failed to agree on a common definition.

One lengthy disagreement I’ve been watching online involves religion. The thing is, the two main participants in the argument have very different definitions of the word ‘religion.’ One insists religion involves any sort of spiritual belief a person has, regardless of whether it fits in with any named tradition. The other person holds that religion must necessarily mean institutions and formal traditions, and that anything else is faith, belief or spirituality but not religion. The point is not which of them is right or wrong. If they were to define their terms and agree to discuss the same thing, regardless of what they call it, the argument would end. In many cases it really is that simple.

A number of years ago, two friends (a married couple) were having some problems in their relationship. They knew I had mediation training and asked me to sit down with them one evening and help them work things out. I was hesitant to do so; the instructor in my mediation course emphasized the fact that a good mediator tends to make all parties equally angry at her. But my friends were desperate so I agreed.

Their disagreement was simple on the surface: She said he didn’t respect her, and he insisted that he did. After a great deal of discussion, we discovered that they had two very different definitions of respect. I tried to get them to narrow the discussion to the same actual topic, regardless of terms, but each one stuck by their original definition so the argument couldn’t be resolved. And yes, they were both equally angry with me.

Our session ended with them deciding to go to a professional counselor because I obviously didn’t know what I was doing. When they came back from their counseling appointment a few days later, they acted uncomfortable and didn’t want to make eye contact with me. Finally they admitted that the counselor had said the same things to them that I did. They were maintaining the argument by refusing to agree on terms and definitions.

I don’t know why we cling so tightly to our personal definitions of certain words. Of course, everyone has different life experience and so will have individual nuances to standard definitions. But when it comes time to discuss meaningful matters with other people, it stands to reason that we should make sure we’re actually talking about the same thing.

For heaven’s sake, if you can’t agree on the definition of a particular word, scrap and it use some other term. Make up a word if you have to. But having an argument in which one person is talking about one thing and the other person is talking about something else is just plain stupid. If it’s power struggle you’re after, you’ll get it if you refuse to agree on definitions. But what a waste of time. Life is far more valuable than that, if you ask me.

Following Your Bliss

2011-07-08T16:47:00.000-04:00

Joseph Campbell’s famous advice rings true: Follow your bliss. Sounds great. The only problem is, how do you figure out what your bliss is? Then how do you deal with all those people who freak out when you finally head down that path?

Like many people (women especially) I spent all my childhood and most of my young adulthood listening carefully to other people’s ideas about what I should do with my life. These were authority figures - relatives, teachers, clergy - people with more worldly experience than I had, people who told me they knew what I should do. I was a good girl. I did what they told me to. It wasn’t my bliss.

It took me nearly thirty years to develop enough guts to tell all those people that I didn’t want to follow their advice any more. It still amazes me how difficult that first step was. We’re so strongly conditioned, from childhood onward, to listen to good advice from respected elders and then do what they say. Most of them mean well, but they’re not inside our heads and hearts. They don’t see the world through our eyes. They can’t.

My eleven-year-old daughter recently figured out that everyone experiences the world differently. It took me years to understand what that really means. The ultimate result: It means you’re going to make people angry.

It took me thirty years to figure out that all the stuff other people told me to do wasn’t my bliss. Then it took me almost another decade to determine what my bliss really is. Beware: The fact that you’re good at something doesn’t mean it will make your soul sigh and your heart sing. If you’re good at more than one thing, prepare to experience repeated disappointment until you figure out what you really need to do with your life. Just don’t give up, that’s all. You’ll find it.

The funny thing is, once you figure it out and head down that blissful path, people will get mad at you. They’ll say you’re not doing the right thing. They’ll assure you that you’re misguided and aren’t really following your bliss. It’s funny for this reason: They’re sure your bliss is the thing THEY told you to do.

The French teacher who wanted you to be an interpreter. The great-uncle who wanted you to be a professor. The minister who wanted you to be a counselor.

Some of them will be diplomatic and polite about it, but the fact is, you’ve wrecked their version of the universe. You’ve chosen to follow your rules, not theirs.

That’s the bit that Joseph Campbell never talked about. I wonder who cursed under their breath when he decided to spend his life teaching mythology at a women’s college. Whoever they were, I’m glad he ignored them.

To Monarch or Not To Monarch

2011-05-09T12:09:00.003-04:00

That is the question that has spurred a great deal of conversation, debate and argument (polite and otherwise) for the past several months. The inspiration for the subject, of course, was the much-publicized wedding of Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton, now HRH Princess Catherine. I have read a lot of opinions, participated in a lot of discussions and done a lot of thinking about this subject in the past few weeks. Now that the furor has died down a bit, I can step back and reflect on what I’ve learned.

First of all, I’m American so from my earliest school days I was taught that monarchy is a backward thing, a type of government that the world has evolved beyond. In other words, we’re grown-ups now and don’t need a king to tell us what to do. Why is it, then, that so many Americans were glued to their TVs for the royal wedding? In fact, a number of reports suggested that there was more interest in the event in the U.S. than in the U.K. What on earth is going on here?

Of course, there’s the romance-and-fairy-tale factor. What little girl didn’t dream at one time or another of growing up to marry a handsome prince? Let’s not get into the feminist angles of this bit right now, just admit that it’s there. But dreaming-of-princess-ness alone isn’t enough to account for the fervor, and fervor it was.

An article in the U.K’s The Guardian about this very subject noted that for more than a thousand years Britain has been ruled by monarchs, so it’s a long-standing tradition without which the country just wouldn’t seem itself, or so the writer insisted. I think, however, there’s more to it than that.

When someone mentions Britain what images come to mind? The Queen; Buckingham Palace; those guards in the black-and-red uniforms and ridiculous bearskin hats. The monarchy and all its trappings are living symbols of the nation itself, its identity, symbols of the national soul, if you will. That same Guardian article suggested that if Britain got rid of its monarchy, the symbolism would then rest on the nation’s elected leader (the article offered a horrified vision of the Brits bowing down to ‘President Blair’). But I’m not sure that would be the case.

You see, in the U.S. we don’t have a monarchy, so we don’t have that particular symbol to encapsulate the concept of our nation. But President Whoever-it-is-this-year doesn’t fulfill that function, either. Sure, the presidency (the institution, not the particular person who holds the job this term) is something of a symbol, but it’s not the whole thing. In fact, I’d say we don’t really have a coherent soul-symbol for America. Because of that lack, we end up practically worshipping movie stars and professional athletes as if they were royalty. And watching endless hours of TV coverage of the real thing. Obviously, there’s an unfulfilled need here.

So I got to thinking about what might symbolize my country, or any country, for that matter. Indigenous populations and their cultures might be a good choice if they hadn’t been marginalized and/or exterminated around the globe. And I can’t honestly expect Joe Blow, the very modern descendant of European immigrants to New York City, to identify with those native populations or their ways.

In fact, I’m thinking that people, or even institutions filled by people, ought not to be used to symbolize nations. People are, well, human. Not always as brave, kind, honest and so on as we might like them to be. And undeniably mortal.

Where does that leave us? Where could we possibly find an enduring image, something powerful that symbolizes a nation effectively for all the people of that nation, from new immigrants to generations-long natives?

How about the land itself?

I am continually amazed at how great an impact place has on people and to how great an extent they don’t consciously realize this impact. Think about it. How attached are you to the area you grew up in or the area you now live in? How strong an image do you carry in your mind and heart, of your favorite places in your country? Are you a Southerner? Northerner? I bet you’re proud of it.

Every nation is rooted in the land beneath its people’s feet. That land molds the society, the way of life, the traditions that become secondary symbols for the nation. But the land is really the primary symbol, underneath it all. If you’re American, recall for a moment the song America the Beautiful: ‘O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain’s majesty above the fruited plain.’ If you’re British, how about Shakespeare’s famous speech about ‘this sceptr’d isle’? I’ll wager those images have a more powerful, gut-level impact for you than any human institution, elected or monarchical.

Consider also that there might be a few positive side effects to focusing on the land itself as a nation’s primary symbol. If the land IS the nation, might we not tend to treat it better, with more reverence and care, rather than as an expendable commodity? I can hope.

So there’s my answer to The Monarchy Debate. Let us return to the true, underlying, primary symbol of every nation: The land beneath its people’s feet. Then it doesn’t really matter whether you have a monarchy or presidency or Grand High Poobah. The government can shift and change as it needs to without endangering the nation’s identity. Because every time you take a step, you connect with your country.

Us versus Them

2011-04-16T08:51:00.000-04:00

One of my cats brought a sparrow in this morning, still alive, and proceeded to play with it for a few minutes before eating it. Yeah, I know, not the way I wanted to start the day. But it got me thinking. This same cat acts terribly distressed if either of the other two cats in our household is sick or injured, but he didn’t care a whit about the bird as he tormented it and then bit its head off.

Numerous studies have shown that animals feel empathy for members of their ‘families’ - parents, offspring, members of the same pack or pride. If one of those ‘family members’ is sick or injured they are distressed. If one of them dies, they grieve. They’re just like us. Or perhaps, we’re just like them.

The thing is, though, animals apparently feel no empathy whatsoever for their prey. They not only kill and eat with impunity, but many animals, from big cats to orcas, have been seen to play with their prey, often cruelly, before finally dispatching it. For these animals, family is family and prey is prey, and never the twain shall meet.

And I began to wonder if this isn’t something we do, as well, though we’re loathe to admit it. Around the world, most groups of people have names for themselves which mean, essentially, ‘people.’ In other words, we’re people and everyone else is not. They’re enemy. Or prey.

There is a great deal of evidence showing that human societies were cannibalistic, at least occasionally, for much of prehistory and occasionally into historical times. I suspect that cannibalism was a hedge against hunger in times of drought, animal population crash, natural disaster and so on. But we’ve moved on past that stage in our grisly history. Or have we?

We still have Us versus Them. The military teaches its soldiers that the enemy is just ‘an animal walking upright on two legs.’ Not human. Not people. Prey.

We create divisions among ourselves all the time based on beliefs, nationality, physical characteristics, ethnic origins, lifestyle choices. There are people like us, and then there are the Others. They’re different. Not us. Somehow inferior.

Sure, we’re more socially evolved now so we don’t call them subhuman the way the slave owners talked about the slaves, but the underlying current is still there. And what does this division do? It allows us to feel less empathy toward those who are different. It’s the same as classifying the world into Us and Prey. We care about our own. We feel nothing toward prey.

I’ve been conducting a little experiment lately. Having grown up in this divisive society, I’m as guilty as the next person of mentally dividing the world into People Like Me and Others. But I’m doing my best to deprogram that divisive, destructive mentality. When I catch myself thinking about ways in which someone is different from me, I remind myself that we’re both human beings. My fellow humans are all around me. My family.

Every single person on this planet is different. If I wanted to, I could keep dividing it down until Us versus Them became Me versus Everyone Else. I’ve seen some people do that. It’s sad and scary.

I enjoy all the differences. They make life interesting. But I refuse to let them divide me from the rest of humanity. The interesting thing is, once I started doing that with people, I found myself doing it with other living things as well - animals, trees - and even things that modern science doesn’t consider to be alive - stones, bodies of water. Once you start making connections, it’s hard to stop.

To all my relations, I greet you.

Gadgetry to the Rescue!

2011-02-07T09:05:00.002-05:00

Over the past couple years I’ve read the news reports and listened to the commentary about the airport security systems in the U.S., how they invade everyone’s privacy and work on the assumption that technology will do a better job than the human eye and experience at picking out potential terrorists. It occurred to me that the TSA isn’t alone in this attitude. In fact, it pervades our society. I’m still trying to decide whether we’re better or worse off for it.

I saw it in medicine years ago, when I was studying to be a naturopath. I learned how to look at a person, watch their body and their movements and their speech, as well as study their detailed medical history, to find the source of their health issues. I had a friend in med school at the time. He complained of having to memorize all the ‘normal’ numbers for a scad of blood tests, so he could look at a printed paper from a laboratory and tell what was wrong with his patients before he ever met them. He also took a class in which he learned how to stack as many patients as possible into an hour of appointment time so as to maximize profits. I’m not kidding. Mind you, he’s a good doctor, one who actually wants to help people, but still…

I keep seeing ads for cars that will keep you from swerving into another lane or hitting the car in front of you, in case you’re too tired to pay proper attention to your driving. I’m glad to know that we have the capability of making people safer in an automobile, but concerned that some folks will take the new technology as an opportunity to drive when they’re fatigued far beyond the limits of safety. Last I heard, most highway accidents were caused by lack of sleep. We’re past the days when the horse knew the way home even if you nodded off in the wagon.

We love our technology, our gadgets, and I include myself in the ‘we’ of this sentence. Computers have made my life as a writer and editor much less difficult (I wish I could say effortless). They make it quick and easy to diagnose what’s wrong with my car. Technology made my gallbladder surgery almost a minor occurrence, in comparison to that of a friend who had the same surgery fifteen years before I did and spent a week in the hospital, recovering from being slit from stem to stern. Technology has saved lives around the world through weather forecasting, medical advances, transportation safety. So I’m not knocking it. But I do wonder if we put a little more faith in technology than we should.

Ah, there it is. Faith. That’s the kernel I’ve been looking for. We’re looking for something, or someone, to save us. God. Goddess. An authoritarian figure in a white lab coat. A computer that knows everything, including the questions we need to ask. Like little children, we want a power outside ourselves to take care of everything. If that power isn’t forthcoming on its own, we’ll invent it and then give ourselves over to it.

We even put it in so many words. In the Middle Ages God was going to save the world , or at least particular parts of it who behaved according to a specific set of rules. Then much later, antibiotics and vaccines were going to save the world. So was the atom bomb. (Irony, yes, but they did actually say it.) Then computers. Have you noticed, though, that the world hasn’t changed much in its essentials in spite of all this? Perhaps that’s because we’re looking in the wrong place.

Technology is only a tool. How we approach various technologies and how we use them makes all the difference in the world. No computer, no matter how powerful, is going to step up and save us from ourselves. It’s a nice fantasy but it simply isn’t going to happen.

Instead of putting our faith in technology, how about we put that faith in ourselves? Yes, bad people do nasty things; they always have. But there are plenty of good people in the world as well. Instead of hoping and praying that some fantastic invention will magically solve all our problems, how about we take what we’ve already got and figure out how to use it for good? There are already folks out there doing just that, but they don’t often make the headlines the way the gadgets do. Maybe it’s time to do something with those gadgets that will make headlines, the good kind.

As my grandmother used to say, it ain’t what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it.

Oh no! Who am I? Help!!!

2011-01-17T08:33:00.000-05:00

I can't help but laugh at all the hubbub going on right now about the 'surprise' discovery that traditional astrology charts are wrong. Bear in mind, I first started casting charts by hand, on paper, with a calculator, in the late 1970s, so I have a clue. Since that time I've watched people perform all sorts of mental acrobatics regarding astrology. We do take ourselves terribly seriously, don't we? Maybe the whole human race should just take a deep breath.

The big flap is all because someone realized that tropical astrology (the kind most people are familiar with) doesn't place the constellations in the sky where they actually are these days. That's due to a phenomenon called Precession of the Equinoxes. I hate to break it to you, but this is old news. It's not some conspiracy in which occult information has been held, hidden, for centuries by some secret organization in order to mislead the people. It's simply due to the fact that tropical astrology is based on the sky as charted in Babylonian astrology from about 2000 years ago, give or take, and sidereal astrology isn't.

Now, we could spend all day debating which one is better, more accurate, more in keeping with what the ancient astrologers meant when they set up the system. But to me, that's beside the point. What really bothers me is the extent to which people have wrapped up their egos and identities in these bits of celestial information. This goes way beyond the cheesy pick-up line, "What's your sign?"

I can't tell you how many people I know have decided who they are and how their psyches work based on astrology. Many of them don't even bother with a full chart; they live for those little horoscope tidbits in the newspaper, which often turn out to be self-fulfilling prophecies, like the med school students who come down with the symptoms of every new disease they study.

Maybe it's a comfort to have someone else tell you who you are, so you don't have to do any self-reflection. It's certainly easier to say, "I'm not capable of [action] because I'm a [zodiac sign]." Or, "You'll just have to put up with [annoying trait] because my [planet] is in [constellation] and I can't change that."

I once had to fire a woman who refused to do anything that could be construed as 'starting a new project' when the moon was void of course. The moon is void of course about every third day. Guess how helpful she was, as an employee? But she was dead sure that any new project started during such times would be a dismal failure, so she wouldn't even try and I had to fire her. Perhaps she started the job when the moon was void of course, and that explains her lack of success at it? Yes, that's sarcasm.

People also seem to forget that astrology was invented for the purpose of helping the kings of Babylonia make governing decisions. The old-time astrologers figured the stars were only interested in the bigwigs, not the ordinary people. Kind of like how Egyptians, in the early days, believed that only the king got to hang out in the afterlife. Sure, later on these beliefs trickled down, first to the aristocracy and eventually to the common people (that's you and me, by the way). But that's not how it started.

So take a deep breath. The universe didn't suddenly tilt sideways without warning. We're still the same people we were day before yesterday, and no amount of calculation or re-calculation will change that. What can change, however, is that we can try paying more attention to our inner selves, to identifying who we are and what our life purpose really is, without relying on any external system of any sort.

If what you seek you find not within you, you will never find it without you. So it is and so we let it be.

Brave New Year

2011-01-04T13:48:00.000-05:00

I was recently asked to come up with a short list of adjectives to describe myself, and to my surprise one of the words that popped into my mind was ‘courageous.’ That’s not how I usually see myself, and I wondered how that particular term managed to weasel its way to the top of my thoughts. I began by attempting to define the word.

First of all, courage isn’t the absence of fear. As the old saying goes, only a fool is never afraid. Courage is simply this: The ability to do whatever needs to be done, regardless of fear. Just do it, as the commercial says, no matter how many knots your gut is tied in, no matter how shrill the voice of terror that shrieks in your head, no matter how hard you shake.

Well, I certainly experience my share of fear, all the usual mother/wife/businessperson/member-of-the-modern-world type stuff. So I’ve got that part sewn up. But what about the other bit, the doing-it-anyway part?

When I was a child and someone asked me to define bravery, I would describe a firefighter or police officer doing their job, facing daily peril, knowing this call could very well be their last. That’s courage embodied, no doubt about it. But what about us ordinary folk, the ones whose daily lives don’t involve the risk of grievous bodily harm or imminent death?

I thought back to the first award my daughter ever earned in Girl Scouts, when she was a Daisy: the Courage petal. She earned it the same way the other timid, fidgety 5-year-olds in her troop did: by reciting, by heart, the Girl Scout Law, in front of a room full of adults. Courage indeed. Just do it.

I suspect we’re all a good bit braver than we give ourselves credit for. Just thinking back through my own life, I can count off many instances of courage: Telling my first husband I wanted a divorce. Fighting for the medical care my disabled daughter needed. Running my first big natural health workshop. Sending my manuscripts off to publishers and agents, again and again, in spite of a pile of rejection notices. And of course, the big one: Admitting I’m wrong.

So yeah, maybe I am courageous. Maybe you are, too. How many times have you gritted your teeth and done whatever needed to be done, regardless of the butterflies in your stomach? How many times have you faced a person or situation that scared you, right to your bones? A lot, I’ll bet. More than you think.

In the end, I added the word ‘courageous’ to the list of adjectives I used to describe myself. I hope you’ll do the same. Sometimes, just facing life every morning is an act of courage. Give yourself credit for it, and have a brave new year.

The Three R's, Revised

2010-12-16T14:12:00.000-05:00

When my daughter was 6 (she's a very grown-up 11 now) she came to me one day, huffing with indignation. She had discovered that only one of the fabled Three R's starts with R, and she wanted to know what kind of idiot was teaching this sort of thing to children. I had a good laugh then spent some time explaining my own version of the Three R's to her, a set of three concepts I had put together for my earth-centered spirituality students a few years earlier. For some time now I've been meaning to blog about my take on this time-honored set. Well, I'm finally getting around to it.

First of all, unlike the traditional Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic, my Three R's aren't skills so much as values, ways to approach life. And yes, they all actually begin with R. My choices? Respect, Responsibility and Return.

Respect. That's a tough one for many people, because it starts with respecting yourself, and that's hard when everything from TV advertising to religious dogma tells you that you're inadequate, insufficient, broken. It took me a lot of years of soul-searching and emotional work to reach the point where I truly respected myself. The funny thing is, once I saw myself that way, I found it much easier to turn that respect outwards, to respect other people, their beliefs and opinions, their differences. I don't have to agree with them, but I feel I must go beyond simply tolerating others and honestly respect their ways and attitudes.

Respect also extends to the environment, the biosphere of which each of us is a living, breathing part. Sure, recycling is fashionable, but beyond that, we must see ourselves as integral components of the system. The Golden Rule applies here; if you were that forest, that lake, that mountain, would you want those things done to you? Respect, that's all.

Responsibility. We hear this word a lot in the media, mostly misused as a synonym for 'blame' or 'fault.' But that's not what it really means. It means that you do what you need to do, you own up to what you've done, and you think and act like a grown-up. Responsibility involves paying attention to the effects of your actions, preferably by considering the possible consequences BEFORE you do anything. I tend to think that the world would be a much different place if people focused on personal responsibility for their actions rather than hoping they can get away with whatever they're trying to get away with for just a little longer.

Responsibility also points toward that famous quotation about our actions affecting the next seven generations. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Everything you do changes the world, for better or for worse. Responsibility means doing your best, always. Granted, your best will vary from day to day, even from moment to moment, but if you always do your best, then you'll have no regrets.

Return. That's the one that always got me the quizzical looks from my students. Return is easy: What goes around, comes around. You get back what you put out there. No, I'm not talking about the twisted, punishment-and-reward misunderstanding of the Hindu concept of karma. I mean simply this: Everything you do generates an atmosphere around you, an energy if you will, that creates the 'vibe' of your world. (I know, I'm a child of the 70's; I can't help it. I say 'far out' and 'groovy,' too.) You will draw toward yourself the same sorts of stuff you exude. Misery loves company, remember?

'Return' doesn't mean you have to be a cheerful Pollyanna all the time. But it does mean that you should be mindful of the overall focus and direction of your life, and how that focus and direction drive your values and energy, and attract or repel people and opportunities. Use the first two R's - Respect and Responsibility - to help you judge what kind of Return your life will have.

As I discovered when I first introduced these Three R's, they can become the subject of hours and hours of discussion, even debate (but hopefully not argument). I think that means they have some meat to them, some meaning. I hope you find some value in them, and take the time to contemplate what they mean to you.

The Thankfulness Experiment

2010-11-24T16:40:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again, when we are asked to comment around the table, or on Facebook, or in school, about all the things we're thankful for. Little kids will list toys, pets, favorite foods. Adults will offer the usual - good health, family and friends, a safe place to live. And then, of course, everyone bemoans the fact that we aren't this mindfully grateful the rest of the year.

Well, I'm here to tell you, thankfulness (at least the way it's seasonally marketed) ain't all it's cracked up to be. And I think that's because we're going about it all wrong.

Before you decide I'm a spoiled, ungrateful brat and quit reading, let me tell you that I've spent the past year working on constant, mindful thankfulness. Yeah, I do stuff like that. I began The Thankfulness Experiment last year at Thanksgiving and it's coming to a close now. The experience was not at all what I expected.

First of all, I have to admit that my life is pretty good. I have a happy marriage, a lovely daughter, good health, great friends. I figured it would be easy to spend a year focusing on all the things I'm thankful for, thereby increasing all the positive energy in my life and improving my overall level of joy. Sounds like it would work, right? Well, the human psyche is a strange thing.

The more I actively, consciously worked to focus on things I'm honestly grateful for - everything from the smell of a spring breeze to a collection of wonderful friends to a hug from my daughter - the more I also noticed all the things I don't like about my life, things that are annoying, stressful, even downright dangerous. It's like, once I started paying closer attention to a few things, I could no longer choose what I paid attention to. Everything stood out in greater relief, both good and bad.

I began assessing this year-long experiment in the a few weeks ago, as Halloween passed and we began to prepare for another Thanksgiving. The more I thought about my experiences, the more I was reminded of the Kahlil Gibran quote: "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."

I really think that's what I experienced, sort of the opposite of the 'flattening effect' that anti-depressants have on the emotions. I chose to focus on just one aspect of my life but in the process the whole world became much more alive, more three-dimensional, more real. Including the ugly bits.

And you know what? As I reflected on the experience, without intending to, I found myself honestly being thankful even for the unpleasant stuff. No, I don't enjoy the darknesses in life. But somehow, in paying attention to them, I've discovered a kind of appreciation for them. Sure, I always understood (at least cerebrally) the idea that the brightest light casts the darkest shadow. But now, on a gut level, I really get it.

After reflection I also realized that, for me at least, the best way to do what I originally intended to do - be truly thankful on a regular basis outside the holiday season - is to just relax. The harder I work at being thankful, the more difficult it gets. So I've quit working at it, and the change is astounding.

I think most of us are naturally appreciative of the world around us and the many wonders it contains. Children certainly are; the good stuff stands out in their minds, in their hearts. If we just quit worrying so much about 'doing it right' - being appropriately, socially-acceptably thankful for the appropriate, socially-acceptable things - the world flows gently around us and we naturally respond to all the good things, the things we instinctively feel gratitude for. The good stuff.

So I've ended my experiment. I'm no longer working at being thankful, just allowing myself to be. And you know what? The bad stuff recedes into the background while the good stuff floats up into view. Even when I was standing in line this morning at the DMV to renew my driver's license. Now, if that's not true positive power, I don't know what is.

So this Thanksgiving I'm thankful for the opportunity to allow myself simply to be, and not require myself to be thankful for any particular tangible or intangible thing that people might expect me to express gratitude for.

Breathe in. Breathe out. So it is, and so we let it be.

The State of the System

2010-11-03T10:22:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was election day. I voted by absentee ballot a week early so, with that out of the way, I got to spend election day and the few days leading up to it listening to other people comment about the State of the System - their worries about how bad things are and how bad they might get, depending on who is elected and which referenda pass.

Well, the election is over and we have a bunch of new folks in office and, as usual, everyone is complaining. Some people are even suggesting that the form of government we have is the problem; it encourages behind-the-scenes shenanigans, abuse of power, you name it.

I’ve thought about this subject for a long time, in fact, since I first registered to vote at age 18. I’ve studied the various forms of government people have had, around the world and over the millennia. And I’ve come to one inescapable conclusion: The problem is not with the systems, but with the people.

Here’s the thing: Pretty much any system of government will work well if all the people are ‘good guys’ - fair-minded, responsible, unselfish, not greedy or power-hungry. In fact, if everyone is a Good Guy, you probably don’t even need a system of government. The problem is, the human population has always had a sizeable proportion of Bad Guys. And they’re really good at finding ways to subvert the system, any system, for their personal gain, regardless of the consequences to everyone else.

This reminds me of a conversation I had years ago with the man who lived across the street from us. He spent about twenty years as the town chief of police, then did a couple terms as county sheriff before retiring. He asked me why we had laws. I suggested that the purpose of laws was to make people behave. He laughed. Then he pointed out something that staggered me, and that still rocks me when I really think about it.

The Good Guys don’t need laws; they’ll generally do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing. The Bad Guys ignore the laws and do whatever they want, regardless. About the only thing laws really do, in the grand scheme of things, is define which line the Bad Guys are crossing in a particular situation. Whoa.

Believe it or not, I’m not a cynic. I do think human nature has a powerfully positive side to it. It’s just that, throughout history (and probably through prehistory as well) the nasty bits of human nature have tended to float to the top, like so much greasy scum in a city puddle, and take over, simply because the nice bits of human nature tend to let them. Because they’re nice. Catch-22.

What’s the solution? Beats me. Maybe invent a better human being? I’ll check with God and get back to you about that. In the meantime, I’ll continue to surround myself with people who radiate those positive traits I mentioned earlier. I can’t change the world but I can sure as heck build a buffer between me and it.

First Day of the Season - NOT!

2010-10-07T18:22:00.001-04:00

Four times a year I watch my daughter get hopping mad about this. She thinks it should be 'taught properly in school' but I figure, if the professional meteorologists can't get it right, the school system definitely won't.

I'm talking about the solstices and the equinoxes. I'm talking about how the Professional Weatherpersons announce, four times a year, that it's The First Day of the Season. It bloody well is not. And yes, I'll tell you why.

First, did it ever occur to you to ask why, if Winter Solstice is the first day of winter, the other common name for the occasion is Midwinter? How about Summer Solstice and Midsummer? There's a reason that calling something 'Mid-Season' collides directly with the concept of its being the first day of the season.

This big wad of confusion stems largely from the fact that over the course of the centuries, the four other seasonal festivals, the ones that fit in between the solstices and equinoxes, have been lost. Did you know there are four other seasonal festivals? If you're pagan, you probably did, but they've fallen off the Official Western Calendar over time because the astronomical settings they mark aren't as obvious as the four points in the solar cycle. In other words, the four in-between dates (pagan holy days, all) could be squelched but the solstices and equinoxes had to be given at least lip service.

So what are these elusive, missing calendar bits? They're called the Cross-Quarters Festivals and they fit into the calendar like this:

Samhain (October 31-November 2, Halloween and/or All Saints and All Souls Days)
Winter Solstice
Imbolc (if you're Catholic, it's Lady Day, February 2)
Spring Equinox
Beltaine (May Day - maypoles and all that jazz)
Summer Solstice
Lammas (August 1, First Harvest or Harvest Home)
Autumn Equinox

In the old European calendar, the Cross-Quarters Festivals were the beginning/ending days of the season. Samhain is the first day of Winter, Imbolc the first day of Spring, Beltaine the first day of Summer and Lammas the first day of Autumn. The solstices and equinoxes were the high points of the seasons. Yes, I said high points, as in Midsummer and Midwinter. Get it? Personally, I think it's pretty nifty.

Why have the Cross-Quarters dates disappeared from our calendars? Simple. They're pagan holy days and the Christian Church, in its many manifestations, prefers that they disappear. The Powers That Be spent centuries stamping out the pagan seasonal celebrations and erasing them from the calendar. As I noted before, the Cross-Quarters were easier to expunge than the solar quarters. If you're Catholic, you'll find the dates still on the calendar as various holy days, but they certainly aren't given the precedence they were in ancient times.

So there, I've done the teaching that my daughter wanted. I hope I've enlightened you a little. Now, if you'd just send an e-mail to the nice folks at The Weather Channel, maybe we can get them to announce it correctly next time.

What Supports the Visible?

2010-09-28T16:06:00.000-04:00

I’ve been reading Joseph Campbell again; maybe that’s to blame. I tend to go all mystical and inward-looking when I’ve been reading his wonderful works.

If I’m honest, though, what triggered this particular round of contemplation was a question from a friend: How did I go from almost becoming a nun, to Wiccan, to ‘don’t-label-me-but-I-guess-you-can-call-me-pagan’?

Yeah, well, I’ll have to think about that one for a minute. Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for days now. It sounds like quite the amusement park ride, doesn’t it? My spiritual life has definitely felt like a roller-coaster ever since I was old enough to contemplate the concept of the Divine and pose embarrassing questions to my elders.

I was raised in a Protestant family; seriously studied Catholicism as a teenager, to the point of considering entering an abbey and taking vows; discovered Wicca as a young adult and worked my way through its three degrees; and finally emerged as a no-name pantheist with mystical and shamanic tendencies. Yes, I know there’s professional help for that kind of thing.

The weird thing is, I’m finally happy, spiritually speaking. I’ve found what I was looking for, even though for years I couldn’t articulate exactly what that was. Obviously it wasn’t a formal religious tradition; I’ve run through enough of them, heaven knows. But it was a definable something, and in order to answer my friend’s question, I had to find that definition.

Joseph Campbell talks about the invisible world that supports the visible one, the numinous eternity that all religions try to describe but inevitably fail, simply because words are inadequate. The human brain, in fact, is inadequate. As soon as we start to think about It, we limit It. But It was what I was searching for: that fateful point at which the invisible world and the visible world touch each other, interpenetrate, and allow us measly humans, caught in the linear time-stream, to experience timelessness. It is that point which we reach in ecstatic states, profound ritual, deep mysticism.

As I thought back over my own journey through spiritual experience, I began to think of the general restlessness of society today, of people’s need for meaning and purpose and their often-disappointing search for it in a wide variety of religious traditions. I remembered the first time I realized, somewhere in middle school, that a typical Protestant religious service didn’t ‘do it’ for me. I tried lots of different flavors - Methodist, Baptist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, UU, Unity - but none of them provided more than a social experience combined with a touch of teaching.

I shifted to Catholicism; my Protestant relatives had derogated it as ‘practically pagan’ so of course I was intrigued. But by the time I went to my first Mass, the liturgy had been translated out of Latin and the priest had turned around to face the congregation, ‘like Julia Child doing a cooking demonstration’ as Joseph Campbell put it. I could still feel the remnants of power, of the ability to push through the veil, but it just didn’t happen.

So I entered fully into paganism, first Wicca and then, following ancestral cues, into Celtic and Norse history and spirituality. Every now and then something would feel ‘just right’ and I would think I had found The Right Brand of Religion For Me. But then the feeling would fade and I would be left wondering what happened.

Well, it turns out it wasn’t the brand that was the problem. It was that point of Two-Worlds-Touching that I was seeking. I think, underneath it all, it’s what everyone seeks, whether they realize it or not. The experience of the numinous, the eternal, the Bigger-Than-We-Are (or perhaps, Bigger-Than-We-Can-Even-Comprehend). In the process of figuring out what I was seeking, I found it. And stayed in it. For a long time. Wheeee!

What really knocked me for a loop was the realization that I don’t even need a religious tradition to find that point. I have it within me to find it, through contemplation, shamanic journeying, standard traditional mystical practice. Oh, sure, ritual helps, I won’t deny that. But it no longer matters what kind of ritual, what flavor, what ‘brand.’

I think we all have that ability within us. Maybe it’s in our DNA or our souls; I don’t know. I just know it’s there. For some people, a formal religious service will ‘click’ and shift them to that point. For others, being in nature, or meditating, or dancing. As my uncle used to say, whatever blows your skirt up.

As long as you do it. Go there. Risk finding out what it is that underlies everything that we are, everything that is. I dare you. I’ll meet you there.

The Instability of It All

2010-09-04T10:11:00.000-04:00

As we head into Autumn, with the holidays looming not too far away on the calendar, I’ve started thinking about how much I miss being part of an organized spiritual group. I’ve had several conversations with friends lately about the volatility of informal groups such as covens and collectives, and the inflexibility of formal groups such as churches and temples, and I’ve come to one conclusion: Nothing is as stable as we’d like to think it is.

I grew up going to church (first Methodist, then Episcopal, then Lutheran) and always felt that those organizations, both the local congregations and the over-arching institutions, were somehow permanent. Enduring. Stable. That gave me a sense of security, even if I didn’t really agree with the concepts and beliefs the churches taught, even if I felt more than a little stifled by the rigidity and dogma.

Then I discovered the pagan community, that joyful disorganization and chaotic clamor of people following their hearts. Oh, what bliss! To be myself, to enact my true beliefs in concert with so many others who were delighted to enjoy the same experience. But there was no security, as I discovered when group after group crumbled due to personality conflicts, life overload, yes, even dogmatic disputes.

So I sat back and sighed in sadness, watching the two worlds of faith and belief go by, wondering how - or whether - it would be possible to combine the stability of institutional religion with the liberty of informal worship. I thought, surely there must be a way. But as I examined the details of organized religion more closely, I discovered that nothing is as stable or secure as I thought.

I reflected back to the Primitive Baptist church my great-grandfather founded in north Florida more than a century ago, and to the horrible, heart-rending dogmatic split that broke its congregation in two when I was a child. I recalled the dispute that tore apart a friend’s Methodist congregation a mere decade ago, right here where I live. I turned on the TV and watched as Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims aimed deadly weapons at each other, people whose ancestors had knelt side by side in worship of a God who loved them all.

So I took some time to look back through history at every major religion, not just Christianity. Where I thought I might find security and stability, instead I found case after case of division, discord, rupture. Sure, the edifice of the church or temple or mosque provides the illusion of constancy and permanence. But it’s only a building; the living beings inside it move, change, argue, leave. Once the dispute is over, the building still stands, giving once more the false impression of durability. Giving, also, a focus for the reconstruction of the congregation, but not the same people who were there before, and probably not the same beliefs and practice, either.

Nothing is as stable as it looks, at least not where human beings are involved, and especially not when people’s beliefs come into play.

Well, that’s a fine how-de-do, as my grandpa used to say. Sure, I have my personal faith and my private connection with Deity. That endures, always. It supports me and holds me up through the worst of times.

But being able to express that faith, that connection with Deity, with my fellow human beings, to celebrate it in an atmosphere of love and trust, that’s a good bit harder to come by. The decision between formal rigidity and informal chaos doesn’t look like much of a choice. But then, maybe I’m being too picky.

Yes, we all carry that spark of the Divine within us, that glowing core of perfection that inspires us to incredible heights. But we’re also human, fallible, imperfect. How can I expect an organization designed, administered and peopled by ordinary human beings to be perfect? I can’t. I can agree or disagree, join or depart, inspire change or leave it alone, but I can’t require something that can’t be delivered.

What it comes down to, then, is that I must regard religious organizations the way I deal with my fellow human beings: With compassion. With patience and forbearance. All those things the great religions teach us about, even while they’re fighting each other over footnotes and details.

I can expect more, hope for more, pray for more. But when what I get is less, I have to accept that as well. Because we’re all every bit as human as we are divine. And no, that’s not a contradiction.

Thou art Goddess. Thou art God. Go in peace.

True Abundance Begets More

2010-08-16T08:55:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about the concept of abundance lately. We just passed Lammas (August 1) which, in the old European calendar, is the date of first harvest. Abundance is often a theme at harvest-time, and it's quite a concrete concept to those of us who have gardens overflowing with produce right about now. But then I thought, is that what abundance really means?

Well, to pre-modern peoples, it sure was. A huge harvest with plenty of grain sheaves, lots of fruits and vegetables drying in the rafters, meant a comfortable winter and the knowledge that you could make it without worry until the first spring greens pushed up out of the earth. Until recently in human history, abundance was food, pure and simple. The Irish goddess Tailltiu teaches us this; she was the foster-mother of Lugh, the god of light, and she provided her people with incredible abundance so they could be secure.

But over the course of the past century or two we've weaned ourselves away from the land and developed a complicated system of food production and delivery; few of us feel the power of row upon row of filled canning jars, the glory of a field full of wheat sheaves, any more. So what does abundance mean today?

I remember one of the first lessons my parents taught me about abundance, and over the years I've come to realize how wrong it was. It was simple, really: I wanted a big piece of cake and my mother demonstrated that if I chose a larger piece of cake, that meant my sister would get a smaller one. A cake is finite and concrete; its division follows the basic laws of classical physics.

Throughout my childhood my parents reinforced this concept over and over, the idea that if one person got more, other people got less. As I grew older I learned to feel bad when I did well financially because I was sure that meant that some nebulous 'other person' somewhere was doing worse because of me.

When I became an adult, I did reasonably well for myself. I worked hard, I behaved responsibly and I ended up with a lovely family and a beautiful home on a big piece of land, right next to a farm. And one day I found myself feeling bad that I had such a nice home, because that surely meant that someone else, somewhere, had to take something lesser.

And then Tailltiu thumped me in the head, and I realized how inaccurate that point of view is. I understand where it came from; my parents both grew up in poverty-stricken households. I'm sure everyone in their families looked at the wealthy and thought, "Look at how much they have. That's why we have nothing. They took it all."

But that's not really how it works, is it? Because that's not what real abundance is about. Abundance isn't a measure of concrete objects, whether it's piles of pumpkins or stacks of dollar bills. It's not a function of 'taking from others' - true abundance can't be like that, because it is a divine gift. A gift is not something you take; it is given, and you accept it. With gratitude.

Slowly, over the years, I've learned Tailltiu's lesson. It doesn't obey any of the 'laws' of physics or mathematics that we puny humans have invented, but I find that it is true nonetheless: When I open my heart to true abundance, I receive incredible gifts. And so do those around me. Everyone I touch, who also opens their heart to true abundance, receives more. Abundance pays itself forward generously.

We're not taking away from anyone. The underlying lesson of true abundance, its magic if you will, is that it is very closely akin to love: True abundance always begets more for everyone. It is infinite, and ever-increasing.

May you be blessed with true abundance in every aspect of your life, and may it radiate outward from you, like the divine love of which it is a blessed gift.

Oh No, Politics Again!

2010-07-19T09:04:00.000-04:00

That’s the thought that runs through my head about this time, in even-numbered years, when hundreds of political advertisement signs sprout up along the roadsides near my home. This sudden ‘fruiting’ of the world of politics means I have some work to do. Our local primaries are tomorrow, with at least two runoffs expected, and then of course there’s the big election in November.

On a personal level I’m not too fond of politicians, and I’ll tell you why. When I was in high school I had to take an American Government class; your school might have titled the same class ‘Civics.’ One of the requirements for passing the class was to work twenty or more hours as a volunteer in a local political campaign. My parents were friends with a county commissioner who was running for re-election so I joined his campaign. Silly me, I thought I was participating in honest democracy.

My twenty hours of volunteer work had exactly the opposite effect my teacher had hoped. Poor Mrs. Landry, she just wanted us to experience the electoral process. Instead I discovered that politicians will say whatever they think the people want to hear in order to get elected. The guy whose campaign I was working on actually bragged about how smart he was and how stupid the voters were to believe him. He got a friend to join the race in order to draw votes away from an opponent. He had his volunteers go out under cover of darkness and pull up opponents’ signs. And it went downhill from there. I have to admit, one night after I came home from working in the campaign office, I just sat there and cried.

When I turned eighteen I dutifully registered and voted, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I realized that what I had seen at the local level only magnified as it moved up into state and federal politics. Thankfully, over the years I mellowed a little and the readings on my Disillusionment Meter dropped back into the normal range. As I learned more about human history, going back into ancient times, I discovered that people have always been this way. It’s nothing new. It must just be human nature. So I determined to outwit the politicians.

Some of my friends think I have an odd attitude about politics, and maybe I do. Here’s the thing: I never listen to what the politicians say. I learned, way back in high school, that politicians will say whatever the hell they want in order to get votes. So I don’t listen to advertisements, I don’t watch debates and I ignore the roadside signs. What I do is research.

I figured out that a politician’s previous voting record is a remarkably accurate indicator of how they will behave in the future. I also figured out that where their money comes from is the main indicator of how they might change their voting behavior (or maintain it). I find these two pieces of information to be vital to making a choice on election day. How do I find this information?

Project Vote Smart. It’s the single best source of accurate information on U.S. elections out there. Type in your zip code or browse through the levels of government (President, Congress, Federal, State, Local). Vote Smart is always my first stop when I’m researching candidates.

When I can’t find what I want on Vote Smart, I google the candidate’s name plus the words “voting record” or “financial contributions.” That usually gives me what I need. This works for any political race, anywhere in the world. OK, maybe not China.

I also discovered another trick to outwit the politicians-vs.-the-people system. In the 2008 election I had over thirty different offices to vote for, from local up to federal level, plus several local and state referenda. There’s no way I can memorize that many choices. So I ordered an absentee ballot.

Most U.S. states now allow you to order an absentee ballot without having to specify a reason for needing it. Check Vote411, a website run by the education fund of the League of Women Voters, for information on how to get an absentee ballot in your state (and how to register to vote online, find your polling place, determine election dates and more). Many other nations now also allow absentee balloting without having to justify your need for one; check with your local election officials.

Here’s what I do: I order an absentee ballot well in advance of the election so I’m not pressed for time. I sit down at the computer with the ballot and start researching the candidates using the methods I outlined above. In 2008 it took me just over an hour to find all the information I needed and make about three dozen voting decisions (VoteSmart was a big help in this regard). I figure, that’s time well spent. Just an hour every two years to make informed decisions that will affect my life at all levels.

When I’m done I simply mail in my ballot. Actually, I have to admit, I don’t mail it in right away. My husband copies my choices onto his ballot as well - now that’s real marital trust! But then, we have very similar political views, so it works out well.

I hope you can find encouragement here and do your own research for the upcoming election. It doesn’t matter what your political views are. The important thing is to find out what the politicians are really going to do once they’re in office, regardless of what they say on the campaign trail. That’s real, nitty-gritty information that will help you make decisions you won’t regret once the polls close.

All Change Is Loss

2010-07-10T09:25:00.000-04:00

That’s a really depressing title, I know, but it’s something I’ve been contemplating for a couple weeks now. At first I was afraid I was guilty of “if the only tool you have his a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” But I don’t think so. Here’s what I’ve been thinking.

This all started out as I watched a friend get ready to make some big life changes: Graduation from seminary, first job as a full-time minister, moving to a new home. These are all things we think of as positive - stuff we look forward to. Things she has worked really hard for.

But over the past few months, as these changes took place, my friend has been exhibiting many of the common symptoms of grief. I’m very familiar with these symptoms, and with the classic stages of grief as defined by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross because I’ve been through them myself as well as learning about them formally when I took training to be a grief counselor.

You see, when my first child was born, she had severe physical disabilities, a condition called arthrogryposis. In my case it was caused by a bout of staphylococcal food poisoning I had when I was seven months pregnant. The toxins from the bacteria damaged my daughter’s motor cortex so she couldn’t move properly - her muscles simply didn’t respond to her brain. She was confined to a wheelchair for the five short years of her life.

When I took grief counselor training from Parents Helping Parents in Tennessee (Parent to Parent of Georgia is another great support group) I learned that the gut-wrenching, raw emotions parents of disabled children experience really are grief. No, your child didn’t die, but the child you expected to be born is gone, replaced by something you never expected. If your child (or any other close family member) develops a serious medical condition later in life, or is disabled due to an injury or illness, the same applies: You don’t have the person you expected any more, and you grieve for that loss.

Of course, when someone we love dies, the loss is obvious and the grief is expected. But what about other losses, big and small?

The more I think about it, the more I understand that any change, even a positive one, is a loss, in the sense that we’re losing the status quo and having to adapt to new circumstances. That’s why the Holmes and Rahe stress scale that I used for years with my naturopathy clients includes such ‘happy’ changes as marriage, marital reconciliation, pregnancy and outstanding personal achievement.

It’s funny how we humans cling to the status quo and are afraid to change, even when the change is a positive one. I guess that’s where the old saying, “Better the devil you know” comes from. When we make a change, we’re walking through a doorway and we can’t know for sure what the world will look like on the other side. That’s scary. We’d rather be miserable than lose control.

The Death card in Tarot encapsulates this concept: Life change means walking into the unknown. Robert Heinlein’s character Valentine Michael Smith called these points in life ‘cusps.’ They’re like crossroads, where we have to make a choice, and that choice will change everything from that point on. That choice, and that change, can be so scary that we freeze and get stuck at that crossroads, unable to move on.

My sister-in-law, a substance abuse counselor, has told me that this is a common problem among her clients. They’re already miserable, often in abusive relationships in addition to having to deal with their addictions, but they’re afraid to take that step, to choose which way to turn at the crossroads, so they just hover in that one spot, unable to move. In order to make a change to health and safety, they have to give up all they know. They have to let go - incur a loss - before they can move on.

I can’t think how many times my various spiritual mentors have recited to me that well-worn cliché about having to empty out your cup before you can fill it up again. Yeah, I’m right there with everyone else, not wanting to let go of the ol’ status quo. But what I hadn’t realized until now was why it’s so damn hard to empty out that cup in the first place. It’s a loss. It evokes grief. And no one wants to feel that, to go through that. No wonder it’s so hard.

But now that I understand what’s really going on inside me, why change is so hard - even positive change - maybe I can work my way through it with a little more ease. I can give myself the room to recognize the grief and honor it. And move on.

Winning the Argument Doesn’t Mean You’re Right

2010-06-25T08:52:00.000-04:00

We all know someone who needs to get this message. Unfortunately, the people who need to hear it the most are the ones who will stare you straight in the face, uncomprehending, when you try to tell them. They’re right and they know it, and no amount of discussion with mere mortals will convince them otherwise.

I lived with someone like this for nearly two years. By the time I moved out, I was worn out. Why? He was good at arguing, and naturally assumed that his ability to easily win most arguments meant he was always right. Unfortunately, the two don’t follow.

I had a friend in high school, a brilliant young man on the school’s debate team. He once successfully argued that light is neither a wave nor a particle, but a technology from UFO aliens. He won the argument. Does that mean he was right?

I have recently run across several more people like this. Most of them are nice enough and mean no harm, but a few take arguing to Olympic sport level, leaving normal people strewn about the field like so many battle casualties. They have learned to listen for certain phrases and bits of information in conversation, latch onto them and launch into a (usually meaningless) argument. They use emotionally loaded wording that is inappropriate to the situation in order to goad people into joining the argument with them.

A recent example: I commented on a quote a friend put up on Facebook, suggesting that in certain ways, we really do create our own reality. One of these Arguers immediately responded, saying that I must mean that all those starving children in Africa chose to be in the predicament they’re in. It’s an emotionally loaded statement, designed to goad the other person into responding, and it’s totally inappropriate to the discussion at hand.

I have to admit, I responded. My own fault. I was multi-tasking, not paying close enough attention to what was being said, or I would have recognized the bait for what it was and ignored it.

One thing I have noticed about people who delight in arguing like this is that they all seem to have a black-and-white, fundamentalist mindset. Bear in mind, a fundamentalist in any field is someone who believes their own way is the right way, not just for them, but for everyone. In other words, whatever their viewpoint, they’re dead sure they’re right and everyone else is wrong. And their ability to win arguments reinforces their viewpoint. Not a good thing, if you ask me.

One of my favorite examples of this quality is Michael Shermer, infamous editor of Skeptic Magazine. I read somewhere that he used to be a fundamentalist Christian before he became an atheist (and a fundamentalist atheist, at that!). I can believe it.

Some of the most vicious Arguers I’ve ever met were fundamentalist Christians. They actually take classes to learn how to argue someone down - I’m not kidding. Anyone unlucky enough to end up in a conversation with these people doesn’t know what hit them until it’s too late.

All this arguing goes back to the classical Greek concept of rhetoric, a word we hear tossed around a lot during election years, usually with a negative connotation (“Don’t give me that rhetoric; just answer the question!”). Rhetoric is language carefully chosen for its emotional content in order to win an argument. That is its sole purpose: to win the argument. There’s nothing inherently evil about rhetoric. We use loaded language all the time in our daily lives, and politicians live off the stuff.

But sometimes people take it too far, like those who love to ambush someone with a loaded statement, win the argument hands-down and walk away chuckling to themselves about how superior they are. That’s a bullying action. The people who do this are bullies, though we often don’t recognize them as such because, as they’re quick to point out, they are only participating in ‘polite discussions.’

I get tired of having to keep constant watch for these people. I want real discussions about wide-ranging topics, conversations in which I might learn something new and expand my mindset and worldview. I don’t want an argument in which one person wins and the other loses. But in order to find the conversations I crave, I have to put myself out there. That means I’m occasionally spotted by these bullies, and they just sap my energy. I’ve often wondered if they don’t somehow vampirize the energy they generate when they upset people. They definitely delight in trampling us ordinary mortals in conversation, twisting our words to mean what they don’t and showing themselves to be oh-so-superior, at least in the skill of debate.

So what’s a mere mortal to do? I’ll continue keeping an eye out for those loaded statements, that bait, and do my best to ignore it, even when my gut response to these people involves words you can’t say on TV. Why? Because I like the conversation I have with people, the discussion of differing viewpoints - not to argue who’s right or wrong, but to appreciate how the world looks through someone else’s eyes. And maybe learn something from it. Not to be superior, not to win or lose, but simply to grow and share.

Making a Difference

2010-06-14T09:30:00.000-04:00

My daughter is ten years old. She wants to save the world.

All right, not exactly save it, but at least keep us adults from ruining it for her and her children. We've been having a lot of conversations lately about what she can do to make a difference, a positive impact on the future. It's hard to come up with things an individual can do, especially a child, to change the world. But as we were talking the other day, I was reminded of a story:

An old man was walking along the beach after a storm. The sand was littered with hundreds, maybe thousands of starfish that had been blown up on shore by the wind and surf. As the man walked, he stooped and picked up the starfish, throwing them back into the ocean one by one so they wouldn't die. Someone came by and saw what he was doing. They asked, "Why are you bothering. You'll never make a difference." The man bent, picked up a starfish and threw it back into the water. "I made a difference for that one," he said.

Well, there you go. We don't have to change the world, just our little part of it. If enough of us realize that fact and act on it, then all our 'little parts' of the world will join together and create big change. So we sat down, as a family, and brainstormed about how we could make a difference in our little corner of the world. Some of these are choices we had already made, but we came to see them in a new light. Others are new. Here are a few of them:

1. Switch our cell phones to Credo Mobile. If we're going to pay money for a service, we want it to go to a company that actively supports the same values we do, not to places like AT&T and Verizon that donate millions of dollars to anti-environmental lobbies. Credo members get to vote on the progressive social and environmental organizations the company donates money to, over $85 million and counting.

2. Likewise, we have chosen satellite (Dish Network, but DirectTV is good, too) over cable because the cable companies push huge amounts of money in Washington each year in an effort to limit consumer access to real information. Our roster of satellite channels includes such progressive/alternative sources as Democracy Now, Free Speech TV and Link TV. Unfortunately, the satellite providers don't offer internet service in our area yet. We're looking forward to that, so we can get totally away from the big corporations that extol 'virtues' we disagree with.

3. Grow our own garden. I've always had something-or-other growing, in pots or in the ground. But we've expanded our vegetable garden so we'll have enough produce to fill up an upright freezer at the end of the season. My husband doesn't mind if I take over more parts of the lawn - it's less for him to mow! We've also chosen the permaculture/edible landscaping route. We had two willow trees die and chose to replace them with butternuts. From now on, if we add something new or replace something that has died, the new tree/bush/etc. must be something that produces food. By growing our own, we're removing ourselves at least in part from the chemical and petroleum-laden grow/process/ship cycle of commercial produce. My daughter is actually willing to work in the garden with us, without being prodded, because she realizes the impact this simple act makes on the world.

4. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Yeah, I know, everyone does this these days. Or do they? On trash pickup day it's unusual for our garbage can to be more than 1/4 full. Our neighbors, who also recycle, have a lot more trash than we do; I still haven't figured that out. We recycle glass, plastic, cardboard, newspaper, aluminum, steel, junk mail and other paper, and phone books. Anything organic, including hair (human and animal) and paper towels goes in the compost. When I shred old bank statements and the like, the shreds go in the compost as well. We don't throw away clothes and household items; they go to Goodwill. We shop at thrift stores and used bookstores as much as possible to avoid buying into the resource stream.

We're adding more things as we think of them. Sure, we're just three people, but that's three more than were doing these things before. And my daughter figures, maybe if people see us doing these things, they'll do them as well. I'm thinking, maybe she's right.

Do you have any ideas for us? What do you do, or would like to do, to make the world a better place? Thanks for sharing.

That Part of Me Is Broken

2010-06-04T08:53:00.000-04:00

I'm writing a book, you see, a novel, and that means I have to think about things. Not just plot and characters and dialogue, but values and ethics and judgment. Just when I think I have sorted out what I think I know and understand, I have to examine why my characters act the way they do and then I get stuck in a bog.

Here's what happened: I was talking with a good friend, getting some advice and ideas about the novel I'm working on. The storyline involves a sheriff's deputy and her boss (it's a sort of inside-out murder mystery) as well as folk magic and Hoodoo. At one point the conversation with my friend focused on how law enforcement officers view victims and criminals. I found this part very interesting and started reading up on it from other sources as well.

We all tend to sympathize with crime victims, but apparently in certain circumstances detectives can come to sympathize with criminals as well, particularly in an abuse situation. You see, abusers were themselves abused. That's how they got that way. In other words, they started out as victims.

Once you understand the process, and the vicious cycle of abuse, you develop some sympathy for the abuser. The criminal. And obviously, this can cause problems for a detective who's trying to catch said criminal. So I should probably incorporate this ethical dilemma into my novel. But I have a little problem, since I like to imagine how my characters feel, and I can't manage to imagine this bit.

Apparently this part of my psyche is broken because I just can't stir up that sympathy. A number of years ago, when my mother told me how her father and uncle had abused and molested her, she expected me to sympathize with her and understand why she chose to abuse and molest me, but I just couldn't. And yes, I used the word CHOSE.

You see, I CHOSE not to abuse or molest my children. I CHOSE to break the cycle and not use my own childhood as an excuse to ruin someone else's childhood. Yes, it was hard. Damn hard. It required a lot of painful self-examination and healing work on my part. But I wasn't going to allow myself to become the kind of person so many of my family members are, doing something to their children simply because it's what was done to them. That's how 'fun' traditions like hazing manage to keep going - because no one takes responsibility.

So I'm going to drop my novel's protagonist right into this thorny dilemma. Who is really the victim, who is really the criminal, and what, if anything, does sympathy have to do with justice? She's not going to enjoy it. In fact, it's going to make her miserable. But maybe, just maybe, she'll discover where responsibility really lies.

Anonymous Behind the Wheel

2010-05-28T07:58:00.000-04:00

Have you ever noticed that some people turn into complete ogres as soon as they get behind the wheel of a car? People you like, your friends and family, who otherwise appear to be perfectly decent human beings? I have a theory about that.

When I was little and my grandmother caught me sneaking around, doing something I shouldn't have been doing, instead of yelling at me she told me this: You can tell what a person is really like by what they choose to do when no one is watching. (Yeah, Grandmother Crews was an immensely cool lady.) I think this is what happens when we drive.

Think about it. Unless you drive a convertible or live in a really, really small town (or both) the other drivers don't know who you are. They can barely see your face. They can't identify you by your license plate. So you can do pretty much whatever you want and get away with it.

I have a few friends and relatives (thankfully, only a few) who take advantage of this anonymity. I have begun to wonder about their true nature, how they really view themselves in relation to the rest of mankind, due to their driving habits. These are people who appear thoughtful and compassionate when in direct contact with other human beings but who morph into The Angry Driving Beast when they get behind the wheel.

You've met people like this on the road. They tailgate you because you're not going fast enough for them, even if you're already speeding. They cut you off. They lay on the horn when you don't zip ahead quickly enough the moment the light turns green. They speed like nobody's business, not just a little but a hell of a lot.

Here's the thing: When you get your drivers license, after you've passed the written and driving tests to prove you KNOW the law, you sign a contract. This contract says you will obey that law (you can't claim ignorance here since you've just passed the test) and will drive in a safe and courteous manner. Most people choose to do so. But there are a few who don't.

Do they think they're above the law? Maybe where they're going is vastly more important than where everyone else is going. Maybe they're angry that so many other people are out on "their" road, blocking their progress. This kind of driving behavior makes me think that these people believe themselves to be somehow better than everyone else. Otherwise, I just can't explain it - why would a decent person suddenly become indecent in the driver's seat of an automobile?

I've got to go take my daughter to a petsitting job now. Let's hope I don't meet too many of those drivers along the way.

Wrestling with Demons, or How Not to Be a Nice Person

2010-05-25T08:35:00.000-04:00

I'm a writer. It's what I do. I decided a couple years ago to shift from non-fiction to fiction. Nobody bothered to tell me that, in order to write good fiction, you have to become sadist and torture your characters.

Here's the thing: Unless you prefer overblown literary fiction, when you read a novel you want conflict. That's what drives the story, what pushes people to do things that make a difference in the outcome. Without conflict the reader might die of boredom. Or at least put the book down and never buy another title with your name on it.

Look at the classics. Huckleberry Finn. War and Peace. Wuthering Heights. Shakespeare. Heck, even going back to Homer, every good story has battles, either literal or figurative, between the characters. There's not always a clear-cut good guy and bad guy, but the central figures in the plot need to be at odds with one another in some fashion. Maybe they disagree about how to handle a situation. Maybe their values are very different, so different they can't find common ground. Maybe one of them is just a dirtbag.

So here I am, sitting at my desk, beaming over the great plotline I've thought up and tweaked with the help of illuminating conversations with friends and spouse. I've got a great main character - she's really three-dimensional, I know her backstory all the way down to her birth, and she has great motivation to do all sorts of interesting things in my story. Even though she isn't a flesh-and-blood person, I'm kind of fond of her. And in order to write the novel, I have to be really mean to her.

I have to put her in situations that encourage her to make mistakes. I have to make the other characters attack her, undermine her, plot against her. Maybe her first mistake is an honest one, something anyone could have done in similar circumstances. But what happens when we make mistakes and then panic? We make more mistakes, trying to 'fix' the situation the first one caused. The snowball effect ensues, bringing down disaster on my beloved main character. Yikes.

I hate this part. I guess I'm not really a sadist at heart (that's probably a good thing) but I know what is necessary to create a gripping story. I've read books that bored me to tears because the conflict didn't seem real or there wasn't enough (or any) of it.

So I have to allow my imagination to roam into the darker realms of meanness...if I were the bad guy, what would I do? How would I trip up an opponent, a really sweet woman who only wants to see justice done? What would I do to embarrass her, encourage her to make mistakes, push her to panic?

The good part is that I then get to figure out how she gets herself out of the mess. At least I have that satisfaction. After all, I do believe in happy endings.

Have you done enough penance yet?

2010-05-19T09:02:00.000-04:00

When I'm meditating (which I do regularly) my guides often 'pop in' and offer thoughts about whatever I'm concerned about at the moment. Usually it's just a hint to point me in the right direction, an idea that will help me move along in life. A couple days ago, however, one of my guides decided to apply the hint with a two-by-four.

Bear in mind, I do a lot of shamanic working so I'm used to talking to otherworldly beings. Yep, just like those 'invisible friends' you had as a kid, only I'm still doing it as an adult. And yes, I know there's medication for that sort of thing!

Over the past three or four years I've worked hard to heal the wounds from my childhood, forgive and release and move on. I've been putting myself back together, figuring out who I really am. I thought I was doing well with this process. So there I was, sitting in my favorite meditation spot in our art/sewing studio, which happens to be in the dug-in end of the basement, completely surrounded by Mother Earth. I began the meditation. I focused on my goal for that session and an image popped into my head.

I was in my Inner Chamber, standing between two pillars. Each one was topped with a clear box containing an item. One box gleamed and glowed, emanating a soft, golden light. Inside it lay a crown. The other box was dark. It just squatted there in the shadows, full of what looked like old, corroded hand tools. My guide appeared and told me that either box would get me to where I wanted to go, figuratively speaking. I looked at the golden box, turned my back to it and reached for the other one. I grasped the tools - they were heavy - and turned back to her, expecting confirmation of my correct choice.

She was staring at me, scowling, her hands on her hips.

"Have you done enough penance yet?" she asked.

Well, tie me to an anthill and smear my ears with jam.

Of course, I put the tools back and took the crown instead. But I realized, thanks to the two-by-four, that the ultimate healing comes not from identifying and releasing each individual bit of ick, salving each individual wound. The ultimate healing comes from recognizing our own worth, our own value. I realized that for much of my life I had chosen the old tools instead of the crown, figuratively speaking, because I believed I wasn't worthy of the crown. I've been doing penance for being imperfect, for being human. How very Calvinist of me.

Sure, I can point to all the horrible things that happened during my childhood as evidence that I had my sense of worth beaten out of me, literally. But I know a lot of people who are struggling with the same problem, people who had perfectly happy childhoods. What is it that causes us to shift from the young child's innate sense of worth, the sense of knowing they deserve every good thing in this world, to the adult's bad habit of self-criticism, of finding everything wrong within us instead of looking for what's right?

Little kids instinctively know that they come straight from the Divine, no question. They are, as the poet said, fresh from God. They don't stop to ponder whether they deserve every little thing they want - they demand it all, right now. Sure, we adults build up in our minds exactly what we want, how we would prefer our lives to be, and sometimes we even ask for those things, but there's always that little voice in the background saying, "Please give it to me only if I'm worthy." We step on our own toes all the time.

I'm pretty sure the Source of All that loved us into being thinks we're worthy, KNOWS we're worthy. So I'm going to turn around now and face who I was as a child and find that sense of value again. It doesn't come from what we've done or what other people think of us. It's built in. If you believe in a holographic universe then it's in each and every cell of your body, each and every molecule of matter everywhere, everywhen.

I'm going to go try on that crown now. I'll let you know how it goes.

Curses, Foiled Again! Plotting Against Myself

2010-05-07T12:40:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had the wonderful experience of sharing writing time with my 10-year-old daughter. We were both in my office, on separate computers, working on our stories and occasionally tossing out comments and questions to each other. I had a great time and actually got a good bit of writing done. I'm hoping these 'write-ins' become a regular part of our daily life.

What I found most interesting is that we were both facing the same issue in our writing: The Dreaded Middle Part. I can come up with a great beginning to my story and I know where I want it to end up, but getting from Point A to Point B can be dodgy, especially when I include the necessary psychological changes in my characters as I go along. My daughter's story is about elves and fairies in a made-up galaxy. Mine is about human beings in North Georgia. But we faced the same dilemma.

Somewhere in the course of our conversation, when my daughter was sounding way more deep and grown-up than a 10-year-old is supposed to, she asked a profound question: How do you get from Point A to Point B in real life? The same process should apply, she suggested, to characters and their storylines.

Whoa.

First of all, I don't know many people who apply themselves to life with the mindfulness necessary to even identify Point A and Point B, much less figure out how to get from here to there. Sure, most of us follow the standard go-to-school-and-get-a-job plan, but my daughter's Point A and Point B included more than just the practical bits of reality - she meant, how do you get from the person you are at Point A to the person you want to become at Point B?

Sure, no problem, kid, I'll just outline the process to you in three easy steps. Not.

Thirty seconds of conversation yesterday morning has kept my mind busy for more than a full day now. I've identified my own Point A, who I am and where I'm at right now. I've identified Point B, in both practical and philosophical terms. Now I'm patiently waiting for insight as to the path between the two points. All right, not entirely patiently. But I'm filling up the time by working on those same points and the path between them for my novel's main character. I know who she is when the novel starts. I know who she is when it ends. Now it's my job to present her with situations that force her to change, to undertake the process that moves her from Point A to Point B on an inner level. It won't be pretty. Life rarely is. But I'm sure it will be satisfying. I hope I'll be that fulfilled when I reach Point B, too.

Put Down the Seat AND the Lid!

2010-04-26T08:08:00.000-04:00

I can't believe I'm really blogging about this, but sometimes life is stranger than fiction. When several people in a row ask me the same question over the course of a few days, I figure it's some kind of divine intervention pointing me toward that subject. This time the question is, "Why should I bother putting the toilet seat down?" And yes, I do think the gods have quite a sense of humor.

Of course, we all know that the toilet seat issue is a sticking point in personal relationships. Over the century or so since the commode became commonplace in people's bathrooms I'm sure it has acted as the last straw in numerous marriages and, since the Enlightenment of the Sixties, quite a few live-in partnerships as well.

Instead of berating men for not bothering to put the seat back down, I'm here to thank them for lifting it in the first place so I don't have to use a bespattered toilet seat afterward. In addition, I'm going to instruct EVERYONE in proper toilet etiquette. Yes, really. It doesn't have to do with manners so much as with hygiene. Seriously.

First, let's have a little physics lesson here. Everyone knows what a tornado looks like. It's a swirling vortex in the air, which sucks things up into it and spews them out the top. That's how you end up with the living room sofa balanced on top of the neighbor's chimney once the tornado is gone. Well, guess what? A toilet makes a vortex, too. When you flush and the water pours into the bowl from the tank, it swirls around in a watery vortex before it goes down the drain. The toilet's vortex acts exactly like a tornado: It picks up things from within the toilet bowl and spews them out the top. I kid you not.

If you're really brave, flush a clean toilet and put your hand over the bowl, level with the seat. You'll feel a cool spray. Those tiny droplets have been flung into the air by the vortex in the toilet bowl. Now, if you've just used the toilet and it's not so clean, the swirling water is going to pick up tiny bits of whatever you just deposited and spray them out. Eeeeeew. So what should you do?

Put both the seat AND the lid down BEFORE you flush. That will contain the spewing droplets of you-don't-want-to-know-what so they don't fly up into the air and blanket your bathroom (yes, they're light enough to float quite some distance before landing). Putting the lid down is also a handy way to keep the dog from drinking out of the toilet bowl, and it tends to limit unpleasant accidents like the time you were fussing with your favorite earring and it popped off, landing you-know-where.

So there you have it, etiquette and hygiene all in one. Everyone puts the lid down, everyone's happy, the bathroom doesn't look like a giant petri dish.

Oh yes, and make sure you finish up before you pass out.

Eaters of the Dead

2010-04-19T10:12:00.000-04:00

I'm a fan of Michael Crichton but he's such a productive writer, I have to admit I haven't read all his books. This week I finally got around to reading Eaters of the Dead. It was originally published in 1976, before I even knew who Michael Crichton was, but a reprint was issued last year for all of us who are still discovering the vast range of his writings. The niftiest thing about this book is that it's a retelling of the story of Beowulf from the point of view of an outsider: an Arab diplomat who is kidnapped by a band of Vikings while on a mission to the king of the Bulgars.

I read Beowulf for the first time in 9th grade. I remember thinking, "This would be a great story if it were told well." Translation is a hard thing in any case, and the poetry of the original Anglo-Saxon (yes, it really is poetic) is generally lost in the rock-em-sock-em versions in modern English. I read two more translations before diving into the original Anglo-Saxon version in grad school. Yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment, but it was really marvelous to read it out loud, as it would originally have been performed, and hear the sounds the language made, how they colored the story itself. Modern English never quite cut it after that. At least, not until I read Michael Crichton's version.

I love reading stories of cultures encountered by outsiders - a different point of view does wonders for the texture and depth of a tale. One of my favorites is Creation by Gore Vidal, and Crichton's work definitely measures up. Imagine being an urbane, educated, cultured Arab at the height of Arab civilization. You're a diplomat, used to courtly manners and world-class cuisine. Then you're kidnapped by a gang of Vikings and dragged along with them on a quest to save a Scandinavian settlement from a horrendous enemy.

Sure, there's blood and gore, but the narrator spends rather a lot of time commenting on the Viking warriors' personal cleanliness, table manners (or lack thereof) and sexual practices as well. I'm sure such a person in real life would have been continually appalled at his circumstances, but in the book his reactions act effectively as comic relief to an otherwise incredibly heavy story.

Besides the outsider-narrator, Crichton's other twist on the traditional tale is to identify the Viking settlement's attackers (the monster Grendel, his mother and a dragon in the original tale) as members of a proto-human group of cannibals living in the area at the same time. There were, indeed, many stories of 'not quite human' hominids living in proximity to human settlements throughout Europe and Asia for centuries, many of them antagonistic to the humans. There is some reason to believe that we Homo sapiens were not the sole survivors of the hominid line, at least for a while, so I don't find this plot device at all far-fetched. I am, however, uncomfortable with his association of the aggressive, filthy, primitive, cannibalistic proto-humans with the well-known headless female figurines like the Willendorf Goddess.

Maybe it's just my romantic notion of the kind of culture that would create such works of art, but I have to wonder whether a hominid group could do such a thing. Neanderthals, sure, I wouldn't be surprised if they made sculptures like that - they're really not the brutish creatures so long caricatured by modern society. But hominids? Hmmmm.

I do like that he brings up the issue of cannibalism. It's one of the more 'squirmy' bits of our very human past, something we don't like to look at. Did you ever wonder why every group's name for itself means 'The People'? You see, very early in human prehistory, each little collective considered itself to be People and everyone else to be Not People, or Animals. Fair prey. Most cultures moved away from cannibalism early on in an effort to increase cooperation with other groups of people. A few maintained at least token cannibalism into the 19th and early 20th centuries. It's not something we like to think about. Heck, even the pagan Romans thought the early Christians were disgusting with their 'symbolic cannibalism' communion ritual.

So I guess I'll go back and read the original Beowulf again. I have to, now, to compare it to Crichton's version. I'm itching to do it. That's one thing I love about his writing. It weaves so many threads into a single story, I often find myself closing his books only to open others, to follow a few of those threads further. Then I'll go back to the list and see what else he's written that I haven't had the chance to enjoy yet.

Spring Renewal

2010-04-06T09:54:00.000-04:00

Even though Spring actually begins at Imbolc by the Old Calendar (regardless of uneducated meteorologists who seem to think the Equinoxes and Solstices are the starting points of the seasons) it hasn't really felt like spring until the past week or two. For most of February and March it was cold and rainy. The buds stayed tightly furled on their branches. Birds shivered and shook off the frost. Even my plantings of cold-weather-loving veggies refused to sprout. Then someone flipped a switch and suddenly it's SPRING!! This is the flowering quince hedge along the front of our property, home to a very happy year-round resident mockingbird and his new bride:

And suddenly I'm bouncing around the house like a little kid again, with my own child letting me know in no uncertain terms exactly how 'seriously grown-up' I had been all winter. I guess the energy of the seasons really gets to us more than most of us care to admit.

In the past week I have found innumerable excuses to be outside. We've moved our home schooling out to the deck. The laptop works just as well in the fresh air as it does in my four-walled office. I find it necessary to check on the garden several times a day. Heck, I'll even empty the trash cans throughout the house just to be able to take the garbage out to the big can by the driveway.

I have yet to figure out how to cook dinner outside, though, since our gas grill met its demise a year ago. We're toying with the idea of a cob-built combination barbecue and bread oven out back - getting back to our primitive roots with this ancient building technique. I've had Becky Bee's book (The Cob Builder's Handbook) for years but never actually started a project. Now that my daughter is pushing to do something with cob, I think we'll give it a try. Of course, I'll post a write-up of the project here. If you're interested in finding out more, google the phrase 'cob building' and you'll be amazed.

But for now, that's too organized and responsible a project. I'm still feeling springy...still buoyed by the amazing appearance on Easter morning of four beautiful does in our back yard, grazing on the chickweed and deadnettle that have grown up in the unweeded garden beds. We stood and watched them for quite some time as they enjoyed their breakfast. I ached to reach out and touch the soft fur on their ears, the cool dampness of their black noses. Eventually they trotted back toward the pond in the woods, had a quick drink and bounded over the fence into the field with our farmer-neighbor's cattle.

Later inspection divulged that these particular deer are also quite fond of dandelion flowers, since they managed to nip off every single one of them in the entire garden area! Oddly enough, though, they didn't bother any of the purpose-planted veggies in the garden. I've got English peas, broccoli and broccoli raab seedlings, and full-grown kale, collards and lettuce out there. They didn't touch a bit of it - just the weeds. A little Spring miracle, maybe?

It's slated to get up to 90 degrees F today, so my outside time will definitely involve shade. And these lovely little lavender flowers, which have decided to sprinkle themselves all over the front yard. They're sneaky, too - just short enough that the lawn mower doesn't touch them, so the yard has lovely little pale purple speckles all over it.

Time to head into the back yard and peruse possible cob oven/barbecue sites. And listen to the birds sing. And inhale the marvelous perfume of crabapple blossoms. I'll get to work eventually, I promise. But not just yet.

All Life Is One Life

2010-03-29T09:37:00.000-04:00

I've had fragments of this conversation with a number of different people over the years and have finally decided to put it together all in one place. The tag line: I may be the only person in the world who quit being a vegetarian after studying Buddhism.

OK, you're either laughing or cringing in horror now (or maybe both at the same time). Please take a deep breath and allow me to explain.

I grew up in a world of violence. I was beaten and abused daily; my parents proudly supported every military action the U.S. ever thought to propose and gleefully watched horrific, bloody images on the news every evening; my relatives fought with each other constantly, occasionally escalating the battle from scathing words to actual blows. And I helped on my grandparents' farm when we slaughtered animals.

Bear in mind, this was a small family farm, not a big industrial operation. The animals were treated well, respected while alive, and killed swiftly and without suffering. But by the time I reached high school, my personal 'violence meter' had reached epic proportions. I became a vegetarian because doing so affected the only source of violence in my life over which I had any control. Of course, my decision generated even more conflict within my family (surprise, surprise) but I stood my ground.

Over the years I came to believe I was doing the right thing, choosing not to eat meat in order to respect other life forms. Friends encouraged me to expand my mindset in this direction by studying Buddhism, which has nonviolence as one of its central tenets. So I did. I learned the history of the different sects, read Buddha's teachings, practiced mindfulness. Then one day, a little fragment stuck in my head: All life is one life. What a fascinating concept.

I was so fascinated, in fact, that I devoted a full year to meditating on that idea. To say I was changed at the end of that year is a serious understatement.

That year also happened to be the year I started studying herbalism with two very gifted teachers. One of them did something that astounded me, and opened doors in my worldview that I didn't even know were there. At a weekend herbalism retreat she pointed to a plant in the side garden and said, "Go sit with it. Meditate on it. Tell me what you find out."

I have to admit, at that moment I thought she had gone off the deep end. I was used to learning about plants from books or from presenters in workshops, not from the plants themselves. But I had deep respect for her so I undertook the assignment. I felt really silly at first, sitting there staring at a plant (it was a yellow dock, but I didn't know that at the time). Then I began to feel at home with the plant, feel a connection with it. I felt its life force, so similar to mine.

On a whim I thought at it, "How can you help people? What are you good for?" Immediately it responded, "Good for the blood. Good for healing burns, too." I reeled. I was communicating with a plant and I was completely sober.

I had a number of similar experiences over the course of that weekend, then over the ensuing weeks and months as I explored the green world around me. I began to understand why the Hindus say every plant has a deva, a living spirit. I watched as a neighbor had two pine trees cut down in her back yard, one healthy and one diseased. I felt a huge sigh of relief from the diseased tree as it fell to the ground. The healthy tree, though - I still get cold chills as I remember watching the final cut, feeling in my bones that it was screaming.

So I continued to meditate on All Life Is One Life. And I started doing a little research, looking for scientific articles that might shed light on this concept (or perhaps dispel it so I could shake the uneasy feeling that kept growing in me, the feeling that I needed to pay more attention in more directions). I learned that every living thing on earth has DNA, from the tiniest bacterium to the hugest whale and everything in between, including plants. I learned that the only difference between a chloroplast in a plant and a hemoglobin molecule in a human being is that the chloroplast cradles a nitrogen atom at its center while the hemoglobin holds iron. I learned that plants have something that looks like a nervous system (http://ds9.botanik.uni-bonn.de/zellbio/AG-Baluska-Volkmann/plantneuro/neuroview.php) and they respond to stimuli as if they could sense temperature, pressure and pain.

All life is, indeed, one life. I had to examine my choices, then, everything from what I ate to what clothing and household goods I preferred, my mode of transportation, everything. I came to a single conclusion: Any choice I might make is a value judgment. Choosing to eat plants but not animals says that animal life is more valuable than plant life. Choosing to eat grain-finished beef rather than grass-finished beef, or to eat any meat in large quantity, says that my tastes are more important than the natural cycles of the land I live in. Choosing to buy new, sweatshop-produced clothing rather than gently-used clothing from a consignment or thrift store says my fashion desires are more important than the health of the environment and the well-being of my fellow humans. Choosing to purchase a packaged CD, made from petroleum and trees, rather than downloading an MP3 says the same thing. And on and on it goes, with the embedded refrain of personal responsibility echoing throughout.

So I started eating meat again, but with a different attitude, a gratitude I'd never felt before. I began truly to understand what my Native American ancestors meant when they thanked the spirit of the deer before they ate it, and why they also thanked the spirit of the corn just as sincerely.

Some of us may decide to eat meat, others not. That's a private, personal value judgment and one I won't argue with either way. But the aftermath of that year of meditation has stuck with me, even gained momentum over time. I see connection everywhere; I feel communion all the time. All life is one life. And you are my other self.

Juicy Wildness

2010-03-24T09:24:00.000-04:00

I spent several hours in the garden yesterday, pulling weeds and otherwise getting a couple of garden beds ready for planting with lettuce and spinach. As often happens when I'm working quietly in the garden, I started thinking about all sorts of things, especially how we place value on various parts of our world. And, as also often happens, I couldn't stand to toss out a lot of the weeds I was pulling, so I saved them for food and medicine.

Then my ten-year-old daughter joined me in the gentle spring sunshine, wanting to help out with the garden chores. I explained that I was pulling weeds. Sure, no problem, she would help. The catch: The two garden beds we were cleaning out still had cold-weather crops in them (kale and lettuce) that shouldn't be pulled up. Her question: How do I know if something is a weed? Should I throw away everything except the cultivated crops? She cast a suspicious glance at the clumps of chickweed and yellow dock I had carefully piled at the corner of one garden bed. Gee, kid, you sure know how to turn a bit of yardwork into a philosophy debate.

What's a weed? Well, there's a can of worms. Most people will tell you a weed is a useless plant that's making a pest of itself. Some gardeners insist that a weed is any plant growing where you don't want it. By that definition, a prize rose bush is a weed if it's sticking in the middle of your pristine lawn. But to most people, weeds are simply the garbage of the plant world, whose only purpose in life is to be dug up and tossed aside to make way for more worthy plants. To many herbalists, however, especially those with a more (ahem) feminist or militant bent, weeds are valuable food and medicine and powerful emblems of the bits of modern life that civilization has got wrong.

I ran across numerous examples of this dichotomy of values in my naturopathic practice. Take garlic, for instance. It's a fabulous internal and external anti-infective, lowers blood pressure and cholesterol - it's the one herb I would want with me on the proverbial deserted island. But suggest to a client that they chop up and swallow a fresh clove of garlic, purchased from the produce section of the supermarket for mere pennies or dug from their own garden, and they recoil. No, they want a pill, a processed, sanitized, colorfully-packaged pill. Which brand, they ask, is the best? The one that costs twenty dollars or the one that costs thirty?

I soon learned not even to consider suggesting 'yard salad' to clients. Sure, a fresh bowl of chickweed, violet leaves and blossoms, young dandelion and hawkweed leaves and onion grass will give you more vitamins, minerals and micronutrients than you can shake a stick at (tasty, too!). But no, they want something from a store, something processed and extracted and labeled, preferably a pill, though those odd liquid tincture thingies might do in a pinch. Sigh.

When did we learn to value human-processed items over unprocessed ones? Packaged over unpackaged? Cultivated over wild? I've watched people in the grocery store - they bypass the loose produce and pick up the stuff wrapped in plastic. That is, if they buy fresh produce at all.

I have to admit here that my values may be skewed by the fact that I spent much of my childhood on a farm. We picked and ate, out of hand, whatever was around when we were out in the fields or woods. I realize that these days that's an unusual experience, but maybe it's something we need to get back to, for the health of our bodies and the health of our values. You know, eat outside the box. Literally.

Of course, I wouldn't recommend picking a salad from a roadside where the plants have soaked up exhaust fumes and heavy metal-laced runoff. But what about that chickweed in your chemical-free lawn? Or the dandelions and violets in your flowerbeds? Did you know that the entire daylily plant is edible? When did we become afraid of anything that hasn't been sanitized and packaged and presented to us with a slick marketing campaign?

I have to wonder if we're not losing an essential, wild part of ourselves by denying the value of wild stuff in our yards and gardens. Life isn't neat and tidy. Why should our food be?

We had a delicious yard salad with homemade pizza for dinner last night. After dinner I scrubbed the yellow dock roots I had dug from the garden, chopped them up and jarred them with vodka to make a mineral-rich tincture that will save me having to buy iron pills. I'm keeping an eye on the baby burdock plant that volunteered behind the side deck, eager for the day this summer when I can dig it up and cook its delicious root in some soup. That will be about the same time that the wild elderberries and blackberries are ripe. Then, in the fall, I'll dig up some of the arrowhead roots from the pond out in the woods and cook them for dinner, along with some sumac lemonade or maybe goldenrod tea.

Weeds? Yeah. Juicy wildness.

You're Planting WHAT, WHEN??

2010-03-11T09:31:00.000-05:00

I thought I got a lot of weird looks when I told people I like to weave, spin and cook over a fire. Turns out, I get even weirder looks when I tell them I'm planting by the signs this year. "You're doing WHAT?" they say.

First of all, I need you to understand that I've been gardening since I was a kid. I spent much of my childhood on my grandparents' small family farm and my parents always had a big garden in the suburbs. Once I was grown and on my own, I gardened in containers on apartment balconies and then in the yards of the various houses I've lived in. Vegetables, herbs, flowers, you name it. I feel naked without a garden. But my gardening hasn't always been uniformly successful.

For some reason I've been unable to fathom, my gardening has always returned mixed results. Sure, something does really great every year. My freezer is still half-full of the green beans and tomatoes that grew like wildfire last summer. But no pumpkin in that freezer, because the pie pumpkins absolutely failed to produce a single fruit. And some of the marigolds came up like crazy, while another planting of them petered out to nothing. One year the corn grew 14 feet tall (really, I have photographic evidence) and other years it stopped at 5 feet and hardly produced a thing.

I do all the right stuff - organically amended soil, plenty of water from a rainwater catchment system, garden beds situated for optimum sun - so I tried to figure out what was missing. And I started thinking back to my childhood, those days on the farm with my grandparents. They always had a calendar on the wall of the living room. It was a freebie given out by the local feed store during the holidays every year. It had all the usual info - dates, holidays, moon phases. But it had something else as well: the zodiac sign the moon was in each day. My grandparents used this information to time the planting of their seeds, both for cash crops and for the family garden. They swore by it.

As a child I never did quite understand my grandmother's explanations about planting by the signs. Then as I grew older and began to study esoteric subjects, I questioned the accuracy of modern tropical astrology. After all, it's frozen in time, based on the positions of the planets thousands of years ago when the sun did indeed rise in the constellation of Aries on the Vernal Equinox. I've found sidereal astrology (based on the current, correct positions of the planets) to be astonishingly accurate but hard to come by. And what about this moon sign issue - how might it affect my gardening?

My grandparents were hardworking and, as is so often the case with small family farmers, never particularly well-off as far as cash was concerned. But by golly, their crops always did well. Sure, there was the occasional late frost or insect infestation, but as far as the stuff actually growing vigorously and producing copiously, you could count on it. When I asked my grandmother about her gardening success she always credited planting by the signs.

So I did some research. Hauled out my Old Farmer's Almanac and my Foxfire books. Noted all the correct signs for planting each different kind of herb, flower and food crop. Checked the ephemeris and figured out dates for each type of seed. So I now have a date book of sorts, a list of days I'm obligated to go out into the garden and plant things, regardless of the weather. I still remember Grandmother fussing about having to plant in a storm, because it was the right day for it.

And we'll see how the garden turns out. Maybe it won't make a difference. Or maybe I'll have more uniform success. I've already planted broccoli, broccoli raab, English peas and leeks. Next weekend I'll start the carrots, then a few days later the lettuce, spinach and coriander. I'll let you know how it turns out. If it's a success, would you like a few zucchinis and tomatoes in about July or so?

Don't Believe It If It's on the Internet!

2010-03-08T12:04:00.000-05:00

Recently I mentioned to a friend that I had taught my 10-year-old daughter how to look things up on Wikipedia when she wanted to find out more about a subject and had exhausted our home library. He commented that I should have directed her toward a 'more reliable source' and that Wikipedia was known for its inaccuracy because it 'isn't written by experts or published for real.' By a more reliable source he meant something like the Encyclopedia Britannica, that half-ton, multi-volume bastion of elementary school research reports.

That conversation got me thinking about the accuracy and reliability of any source we use for research (online or offline), especially given some things I've read in the EB over the years that are patently inaccurate but that the publishers of that esteemed work wanted people to believe. For my pagan friends, look up Wicca in any but the most recent edition and you'll see what I mean. Even the most recent edition says Wicca's followers 'see it as a religion' (I know, I know) but at least they put it in the religion section of the EB and don't call it a cult any more. And of course we have all the authoritative published sources, from encyclopedias to textbooks to medical journals, that have told us for years that women are weaker, less intelligent and less competent than men. But I digress...

Some people have a notable bias against anything posted online unless it's by one of the old, established in-print names (Britannica, Webster's and so on) since it is assumed that Joe and Jane Public don't know what they're talking about. After all, they usually don't have advanced degrees. They're not professionals in the subject. They don't work for a big corporation that can afford to print warehouses full of books, advertise them all over the place and store them until they get around to selling them. Therefore, the usual logic goes, they must be wrong. There are two hidden, implied 'truths' in this argument and I don't agree with either one of them.

First, there's the assumption that anyone who isn't an expert (that is, a professional) can't possibly have accurate knowledge about a subject. Second, there's the assumption that anyone who is an expert, a professional, an authority figure, must necessarily be right. Do you agree with these two assumptions? I'm betting you don't. So why do we continue to apply them to the information that is disseminated in our society, regardless of its form or source, but especially online?

OK, before you burst a blood vessel, let me assure you that I don't assume everything posted online or printed between two covers is correct. But neither do I automatically assume it's wrong. Do you believe everything in corporate statements, newspapers or government press releases? Me, either. Then again, I don't discount it all out of hand. These bits of information are generated by people and people aren't perfect. They have agendas, conscious and unconscious biases, spoken and unspoken goals and desires that influence what they say and how they say it. This is true of all of us, you and me included.

We've all heard the research about how two different people witnessing the same event will have different 'takes' on it simply because they're two different people. They have different backgrounds, life experiences, attitudes. I run into this frequently when I'm researching a book. My first two books were non-fiction, one centered around earth-based spirituality and one around holistic health. You can bet I found plenty of conflicting information - in print, online and in person - when I was doing that research. Every single person I talked to, every single author I read, was certain they were right. I began to wonder if there is such a thing as an uncontested fact that no one will argue with. I've come to believe there isn't.

I'm working on fiction right now and I'm running into the same issues. Since I'm setting my stories in the real world (not fantasy or sci-fi) I have to do some research about locales, professions, spiritual traditions, even the psychological makeup of my characters. I have a little more latitude in this regard since I can simply choose whichever set of information works best for my story, but still, I have to sift through all the different sources and opinions, and you can bet someone's going to criticize my choices somewhere down the road.

For a while I felt really overwhelmed by all the conflicting information, annoyed at the self-proclaimed authorities and a bit depressed that there didn't seem to be any single source of accurate data. But lately I've come to see this issue as a reflection of the wonderful variety within humanity, the incredible ability of the human mind to form a unique worldview based on experience.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing that there's no single authority to turn to, since I'm not sure we could trust one single source, either online or on paper - or even in person. The myriad of conflicting sources (just google global warming or women's rights and you'll see what I mean) requires that we use our inborn intelligence to critically examine whatever is put before us and make up our own minds. The fact that someone can write a blog, publish a book or buy TV advertising doesn't make them right, but it doesn't automatically make them wrong, either.

So what have I taught my daughter along with the skills for looking up information on Wikipedia or anywhere else, for that matter? I've taught her about critical thinking, about examining the source bias and the intent of the writing or advertisement. Yes, folks, kids can understand these concepts, and I expect she'll look on the world with a critical eye, not to find what's wrong with it, but to find what's right. Most important, she'll learn to gather information and make up her own mind rather than automatically bowing to any authority, no matter how many volumes they have in print.

Working Out Sore Muscles

2010-02-28T09:16:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I caught myself moaning over sore muscles - the various bits of me that had been hibernating all winter and were rudely awakened by the first round of hard work in the early spring garden. As I limped around the house groaning, my mind did what it usually does: it started to make connections of all sorts based on the sore muscles paradigm. The place where my thoughts finally ended up startled me.

First, I realized that I'd recently been working out some figurative sore muscles at the computer. You see, the freelance editing I do is fairly rote and rarely requires much imagination or creativity, even when I'm reworking someone's fiction. Mind you, I enjoy it or I wouldn't do it. Still, it's a totally different process from writing my own stuff.

My fiction composition, however, is a beast of a different order. In order to come up with something my agent will actually accept (and not laugh at, though he's usually kind enough not to laugh in my face) I often have to stretch beyond my current limits as a writer. This generates sore muscles of a different sort, especially if I haven't pushed myself in a while.

Now, I've been writing for a very long time.

When I was a child it was easy to come up with new ideas, new ways to approach a story, new characters and conflicts. Often the concepts came faster than I could write them down. Of course, my ability to compose something an adult would be interested in reading is another thing entirely. But write I did, eagerly and often. Have you ever noticed that kids don't get writer's block?

I began to wonder why that is. Of course, children don't have deadlines and bills and big-world stress, but they do have something few adults can claim: the ability to look at the world with fresh eyes. Kids aren't cynical, even when they've been through hell. They don't have to learn to think outside the box because they haven't yet realized there even is a box. They're the ultimate problem-solvers because they don't restrict themselves to a prefab, agreed-on mindset.

So as I stretched my garden-weary sore muscles, I also began to stretch the muscles of my mind. How long has it been since I've looked at the world, really looked at it as if I didn't already know what was there?

We're always telling each other to 'grow up.' Maybe, in some instances, we need to do the opposite. Sure, the bills still need to be paid, deadlines need to be met, the dishes need to be washed and the toilet scrubbed. But in among the duties of adulthood I'm planning some time to find that child-mind I know is still in me somewhere, eager to explore the wonders of existence. Won't you come play, too?

Under the Radar

2010-02-23T10:33:00.000-05:00

OK, I admit it, I'm fascinated by the 1897 Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue. I keep paging through it, finding more odd things. Right now I'm fixated on the Drug Department. You could order just about any kind of medication, including laudunum and paregoric, by mail, no questions asked. Hypodermic syringes, too. Of course, these things were perfectly legal at the time. Other things weren't. I ran across one particular item that really rocked my head back. Let me quote you the entry:

If you know much about herbalism you'll recognize this as a powerful abortifacient formula; note the postscript that says, "With useful information and instructions to ladies concerning their troubles." Troubles, indeed. Bear in mind, abortion in any form, for any reason, was illegal at this time; but here we have the Sears catalogue selling an abortifacient formula right there on the second page of their Drug Department section, in between Kidney & Liver Cure and Little Liver Pills.

Here's the thing: Herbal knowledge was much more widespread in 1897 than it is now. It was taught in medical schools, handed down from one generation to the next and considered part of a normal person's basic life instruction, sort of the way we now teach our kids to take aspirin for a headache. Most people reading this catalogue would know that "Female Pills" and "Pennyroyal Pills: The Standard Female Remedy" did not describe a benign formula to help with mood swings or some such.

I also found a copy of the Aurora Daily Express from March 1, 1901 with an ad for the aforementioned pills. Here they're described as 'a reliable and safe monthly regulator.' Indeed. I bet, if a woman took those pills once a month at a particular time in her cycle, she'd never have any...problems. Ahem. So what gives?

I'm thinking, women probably used these pills as birth control out of desperation. Technically they're not a contraceptive, since pregnancy would occur and then be terminated. I've seen modern instructions for using cotton root as birth control in much the same way these pills would have been used. It would awfully hard on a woman's body, but not as hard as repeated unwanted pregnancies, I suppose. Upwards of ten children wasn't at all unusual in 1897. Poor women; no wonder they died young. In an era when most information about birth control (condoms, pessaries, the rhythm method) was ruthlessly suppressed, this might have been the only available choice for many women. Wow.

The Dissatisfaction Dance

2010-02-15T19:21:00.000-05:00

Why is it that so many of us are dissatisfied with our bodies, our hair, our skin, our jobs, our homes? Is this some sort of perverse training society secretly instills in each of us to keep us from being happy? Is it a species-wide case of the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence - or over the septic tank, as Erma Bombeck so helpfully pointed out?

What triggered this line of thought? An NPR article that showed up in my Facebook feed: Fashion Week's Latest Trend? Plus-Size Models. At first I weighed (pun very much intended) the various aspects of the thin-vs.-fat, healthy-vs.-unhealthy debate. Then I realized that for virtually any point of view you might find, there is someone who can reasonably argue against it. In other words, if you listen carefully to the discussion, you’ll be dissatisfied with your body no matter what size you are. And don’t even get me started on the long list of friends and relatives, male and female, who spend tons of money to perm straight hair or straighten curly hair. Or the ones who are always looking for a new job - or romantic interest - because the current one isn’t good enough.

At first I thought this was a recent phenomenon, perhaps an outgrowth of aggressive multimedia marketing or information overload. Then I picked up a copy of the 1897 Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue. I bought it, along with the Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalogue & Buyer's Guide 1895, as resources for our family’s living history activities and also to supplement my daughter’s home schooling. And guess what? It’s full of stuff you can buy to fix the things you dislike about yourself, your clothes, your house, you name it. You were expected to have lots of these bits of dissatisfaction, apparently, more than a century ago.

My daughter, a tender 10-year-old, was at first distressed at the ad for The Princess Bust Developer and Bust Cream. Then she laughed a lot. There’s also the Princess Tonic Hair Restorer, a wide variety of corsets (for men, women and children!), arsenic wafers to lighten the skin, and all variety of stuffed pads for men and women to tuck under their clothing and fill out various problem areas for a more fashionable figure.

Then I picked up another book and discovered the fad diets of the 18th and 19th centuries; these were mostly to gain weight, not lose it, since plumpness was fashionable and considered healthy at the time. Soon after, I discovered that ancient Roman men and women plucked body hair (ouch!) and dyed the hair on their heads to cover gray. The Romans also had a thriving market in anti-wrinkle creams and potions to fade age spots and freckles. I wonder, did prehistoric peoples dye their skin and hair with powdered pigments because they were dissatisfied with their looks?

This twisted history lesson really gives me pause. Maybe it’s inborn. Maybe there’s some sort of genetic glitch in humanity that makes us want what we don’t have. I have to admit that it took me 40 years to learn to like my hair and quit perming and dyeing it. I’m learning to be happy with my body, to accept what I have in life at the moment and appreciate it. But there are still those little, creeping, nagging thoughts of “wouldn’t it be better if…”

What does all this dissatisfaction do to us over time? It’s got to have a negative effect, a sort of quiet gnawing at our insides. I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions this year on January 1 but I’m taking the opportunity now, at Chinese New Year, to make a single, simple resolution: to allow myself to be satisfied. I’ll probably be fighting against eons of human tradition and millions of bits of genetic code, but I’m going to put my heart in it. We’ll see how it turns out.

It's That Time of Year Again

2010-02-11T10:10:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again. I mean the time when it's still freezing cold outside but the crocuses are starting to poke their colorful little heads up through the frigid earth beneath the crabapple tree. The birds chatter excitedly as they pluck the last crabapples off the aforementioned tree, a favorite stop on their way back to their northern summer grounds. (Yes, this really is a photo of our ornamental crabapple tree at this time of year - no leaves but still plenty of fruit for little birdie snacks.)

I spend whole days at a time planning my garden, deciding which veggie will go in which plot, when I need to plant them, which seeds I need to buy and which I still have saved from previous years. And according to my family, I become annoyingly bouncy and cheerful and plaster way too much insipid cuteness all over the house (baby kittens peeking out of overall pockets, anyone?).

What is it about the tender reappearance of life out the quasi-death of winter that turns otherwise normal (give me the benefit of the doubt, OK?), responsible adults into fizzy-headed, giggling schoolchildren who skip around humming happy songs? I mean, this is the 21st century. We know that the world isn't going to end in winter. We know spring is coming every year, like clockwork. What gives?

Maybe it's just instinct. Sure, we carefully condition the air in our homes and cars so we can't tell whether it's winter or summer until we step outside. We use electric lights so we can't tell what time of day or night it is without looking at a clock or out a window. We cover our windows at night and ignore the changing moon (can you tell me how many days away from new or full we are today?). We take advantage of every imaginable kind of modern technology to obliterate the cycles of day, month and year - to pretend that everything is the same all the time. But it isn't, and something deep within each of us still knows that.

Sure, we can tell the change of seasons these days pretty easily by the changing displays of consumer goods in our local mega-marts: first pool toys, then Uncle Sam hats and sparklers, school supplies, purple glitter cats in witchy hats, then plush reindeer with ornaments hanging from their antlers, followed by the current display of chocolates in red heart-shaped boxes and greeting cards with lewd jokes in them. In a few more days the shelves will be stocked with multi-colored plastic eggs and wind-up walking chicks. I stand in those aisles, staring at the overwhelming display of 'seasonal goods' and wonder, "Isn't there something more?"

Of course there is.

No matter how hard we try, we can't extinguish the tug of the cycles on our bodies, our psyches, our innermost being. Close the curtains, turn up the air conditioner, turn on another light, it doesn't matter. Like it or not (and I happen to like it), we're all inextricably linked with those cycles. We're a part of the system, not apart from it. Call it Gaia, quote Ecclesiastes (to every thing there is a season...), however you want to frame it, you can't deny it.

So every summer I'll laze around, feeling luscious. Every autumn I'll become energized in an almost desperate way. Every winter I'll go a little quiet and soft. And every spring I'll stick pastel fairies and cute little kittens all over the house.

Adventures in Homemade Laundry Soap

2010-01-31T18:15:00.000-05:00

At the intersection of a tight budget, environmental awareness and a desire for simplicity comes...homemade laundry soap. Yep, you read that right. Here's what my 10-year-old daughter and I did, how we did it and what we think of the result.

First, the ingredients:

1 bar Fels Naptha laundry soap
1 cup washing soda (Arm & Hammer)
1/2 cup borax (20 Mule Team)

In our area Publix consistently carries all of these. Larger Wal-Marts generally carry the washing soda and borax and sometimes the Fels Naptha. Old-fashioned hardware stores are also likely to have all three. In a pinch you could use simple soap like Ivory, but I'd sub 2 bars because a single bar of Fels Naptha is 5.5 oz (155 gm).

Next, the equipment:

Five gallon bucket with a lid (we re-used an old pool chemical bucket, thoroughly washed, of course)
4 quart or larger saucepan
2 quart saucepan
Grater or vegetable peeler
Regular mixing spoon
Really long, sturdy spoon

The procedure is pretty simple but requires some patience. First, put 2 quarts of hot tap water in the 4 quart saucepan and set it on the stove to heat. You want it to work its way to very, very hot while you do the next step.

Next, put one quart of hot tap water in the 2 quart saucepan. Set it on the stove over low heat. While it heats, grate the soap into the water, stirring occasionally so it melts into the water and dissolves. You can use a kitchen grater or a vegetable peeler. In a pinch you could probably chew it up in a food processor but we really enjoyed the grating-the-soap part. Maybe it's a Zen thing.

Make sure the soap is completely dissolved in the hot water before you move on to the next step, and also DON'T let the soap-water mixture boil. It will foam up and take over your kitchen. Turn the burner off for a minute if you have to, to let it cool down.

Next, take the 2 quarts of near-boiling water off the stove and pour it into the five-gallon bucket. Follow this with another 10 quarts (that's 2-1/2 gallons) of hot tap water. You need the mixture in the bucket to be nice and hot so all the ingredients will dissolve. Pour the soap-and-water mixture in and stir it well. Add the washing soda and stir until it's completely dissolved. Add the borax and stir until it's completely dissolved. The hotter your water, the faster the powders will dissolve.

Isn't it pretty?

That's it! If you're desperate, you can toss some in the wash right away but I waited for mine to cool before using it. The dosage? 1/2 to 1 cup per load, depending on the level of soil-and-stink. Fels Naptha is incredible stuff - we always had great results with it when doing washpot laundry for living history demonstrations - so I expect 1/2 cup will be sufficient for most of my laundry needs.

Since all the ingredients are already dissolved, you can use it in cold water, though my experience tells me that warm water improves soap's chemical reaction with dirt and, especially, grease. I expected lots of suds because of the soap content but it really doesn't foam any more than commercial laundry detergents do. Also, since it's soap-based rather than detergent-based, it won't fade fabrics too badly.

The cost of this whole endeavor:

Fels Naptha 99 cents

Washing soda $3.99 (whole box) - 50 cents for this batch of laundry soap

Borax $2.29 (whole box) - 20 cents for this batch of laundry soap

So there you have it, anywhere from 48 to 96 loads worth of effective, relatively natural laundry soap for less than 2 dollars. If you decide to give it a try, let me know how it works out for you. So far we're pretty darn pleased.

Forgiving the Unforgivable

2010-01-28T10:15:00.000-05:00

Every spiritual tradition I've ever studied teaches forgiveness. It's a subject I've contemplated and worked at over and over, releasing layer upon layer of hurts and grudges and miscellaneous crap I've held onto for way too long. I've read dozens of self-help books, attended workshops, written journals, meditated, prayed. It has taken practice (more practice than I'd like to admit, to be honest) but I've finally learned how to really forgive and let something go. At least, I thought I had.

First, let me clarify what I mean by forgiveness. To me, forgiving doesn't mean I condone whatever harmful action the person committed. It doesn't mean it's OK for them to do it again. It does mean that I release the emotion associated with the situation - it no longer upsets me to think or talk about it, I no longer base my responses to the experience in reactionary feelings and I can move ahead in my life. I let it go.

Now, most of the things I've worked my way around to forgiving are small. Some are stupid grudges I held for unintentional harm someone did to me. Others are hurts people intended but that I've managed to release and move on. I'm left with a single large wad of related wounds that I know I have to forgive. It's not going to be easy but I have to do it in order be healed and whole.

Warning: If you're squeamish or get upset easily, skip the following paragraph. There are some things I have to say in public, 'out loud' if you will, in order to finally deal with them, in order to finally forgive. I have to make it real before I can let it go.

Few people know this about me, but I was abused as a child. Both my parents molested me beginning when I was 2. My mother tried to kill me four times, the first when I was an infant. She systematically starved me, locked me in a windowless utility room for whole days at a time, pushed me down concrete steps, beat me unconscious. My father knew and ignored it.

I told other family members but they didn't believe me. My paternal grandmother called me a 'filthy little liar' for suggesting that such a thing could occur in her family. My maternal grandmother did believe me - she grew up in abuse and married into it so she knew the signs - but she said, 'We don't talk about those things.'

Most of my life has revolved around these experiences, one way or another.

I spent years in denial. After all, my parents insisted I had a perfectly normal childhood. Sometimes I tried to convince myself I had imagined it all, that it wasn't real. But I knew better.

Then I spent years in anger, that such a thing should happen to me, an innocent child, and that it continued into my adulthood in the form of verbal and emotional abuse. Eventually we had to cut off contact with my parents when it became apparent my daughter wasn't safe around them. Of course, the rest of the family ostracized us as well. No one wants to admit that their own relatives might do something so nasty.

After all these years I've finally moved out of the anger. Life isn't fair; it isn't meant to be. It's meant to be a learning experience. As my maternal grandmother said, 'It's not what you've got, it's what you do with it.' So what shall I do with it? My choice now is to forgive. All of it. Without reservation. It's time to let my life revolve around something else now, something positive, something worthwhile.

I expect the next few days, and perhaps weeks, will be rough. But I will succeed. I will forgive, and let it go, and move on.

Welcome, Friends!

2010-01-23T11:21:00.003-05:00

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, I've started a blog. I'm looking forward to sharing my journey through life with my fellow human beings: you. Thanks for reading and please feel free to post comments - I will actually pay attention to them, I promise.

Oddly enough, the hardest part about setting up this blog was deciding on a name for it. Friends and family offered helpful suggestions. As I sifted through the possibilities, I reflected on what I've been called throughout my life and the recent journey I've made back to my birth name.

Although I dabbled in paganism beginning in my teens, only in my mid-twenties did I finally join the wider pagan community. At that time a new name descended on me with alarming force: Arachne.

That time in my life was both painful and enlightening, not least because I was fighting to survive as the single parent of a profoundly disabled child. Arachne gave me strength during those years, a strength that was reinforced every time someone spoke my name.

Soon after that time I was also gifted with a second new name, one I rarely used other than as an afterthought, but I'll get back to that in a minute. Right now I want to tell you about the name I avoided using for years, the one that made me profoundly uncomfortable all the time: Laura Perry. No middle name. I hated it.

Not only was it a terribly boring name but everyone always got it wrong. They spelled it Lora or Lara. They pronounced it 'Laurie.' My last name became Parry or Perrie or anything else incorrect you could think of. Very frustrating. You can see why I was thrilled to be known as Arachne.

Then, when my daughter died my life changed profoundly. The name Arachne no longer fit no matter how hard I pushed to use it, but I couldn't find a replacement that worked. I went back to using my birth name not because I preferred it but simply because I couldn't think of anything better. I began to ponder that name, its meanings and implications, and it slowly grew on me.

Did you know that Laura is a Greek term that means the mother house, the center of a monastic community? Or that Perry is hard cider made from pear juice, a beverage my Norman-Irish ancestors made so well it became their family name? I didn't, at least not until I began investigating. Have you ever sought out the meaning of your name?

The most interesting part is that, once I started appreciating my birth name, people began to spell it and pronounce it correctly. Go figure.

But I wanted something more poetic than just "Laura Perry's Blog" for a title. Let's face it, that phrase doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. So I turned back to that other name I mentioned, the one gifted to me at a gathering years ago, the one I used as a 'postscript' to Arachne but never appreciated on its own until now. Gentleheart.

It's been whispering to me for a while now, a quiet but persistent refrain in the back of my mind. I don't know whether I'll ever choose it as my 'main name' the way I did Arachne, but Gentleheart has worked its way towards the front of my consciousness and I can't put it away again. Perhaps it's the other side of Arachne...the quiet strength of compassion rather than the fierce strength of sheer survival. Regardless, I'm sure 'gentle' in this sense can't be equated with 'weak.'

So, after far more explanation than you probably wanted, here it is, Notes from a Gentle Heart. Shall we wend our way down the paths of life together?