Sage Woman Chronicles

It’s All in Our Heads

“Perception is reality.” ~ Lee Atwater

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” ~ Helen Keller

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” ~ Mark Twain

This has happened to me and maybe it has to you too. You’re going along, life is great, or not so great, but familiar and … boom … something happens and your life is turned upside down. It can be something as small as a minor car accident that disrupts your life for a while, to something big, like losing your job, your spouse, or receiving a life threatening diagnosis. The way we react or respond to these types of events is literally all in our heads.

I used both words react and respond in the above sentence because to me they are two different ways of conducting oneself in everyday life. To react, in my mind, is negative. Someone says or does something and instead of taking in the information and evaluating it, we go on the attack. To respond is to take a few breaths, look at all sides of what has happened, and then decide how we are going to proceed in that situation.

Over the years I’ve changed from someone who reacts to events and people, to someone who responds. I don’t remember the exact incident, but I do remember the feeling of relief when I accepted that I was responsible for my life. And that my nature was made up of both light and darkness. It wasn’t always easy to make the change from feeling like the world was against me to realizing that it was my attitude that had an affect on the way I was experiencing life. But little by little I stopped looking outside myself for solutions and began untangling all the junk assumptions I’d held onto for so long.

I was reminded of how I transformed my life when I read a very introspective blog post by Sam Wood titled “The Last Jedi, toxic masculinity, and showing your place in all this”

I’m a big Star Wars fan, have been since the first movie came out in 1977. It’s an epic series about light and dark, facing personal demons, and finding your path. And after watching The Power of Myth a conversation between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell, who happened to be George Lucas’ teacher, I realized that we create myths to explain our deepest fears, hopes, and dreams. Most of the science fiction, fantasy, and superhero books and movies produced today are our modern myths. They help us figure out real life issues from a safe distance.

The thing I loved about Sam Wood’s post was his examination of a car crash kind of turning point in our world, that of white male identity. Here’s a telling quote from the article: “It’s no mistake I say ‘he’. Heroism, protagonessence, being the best, being supreme is the legacy of whiteness, of patriarchy, of heteronormativity. It is the toxicity that suffuses the identity of young white men, that suffuses my identity. And before The Last Jedi I had never seen it been represented simultaneously so sympathetically, and with so little indulgence of my bullshit.”

When I read this blog post, I had seen The Last Jedi twice, and I thought his observations were brilliant. The “heroes” of the story all have a very male point of view. They think of themselves as heroes and it’s their job to save the day, or berate themselves for failing to do so. Okay Finn doesn’t accept that mantle, but people keep trying to thrust it upon him. Each man struggles with this way of seeing themselves. And what happens? Each of them fail epically. When that happens, the way they see themselves and the world is shaken, which gives them the opportunity to change their perceptions.

It’s the women, Rey, Leia Organa, Vice Admiral Holdo, and Rose, who propose new ways of looking the world and themselves. When Rose stops Finn from a Kamikaze stunt, he asks her why. She says, “We’re going to win this war not by fighting what we hate, but by saving what we love!”

Rey resists Kylo’s plea to join him in ruling the galaxy. She tries to get him to acknowledge his own light, but he refuses. She follows her own inner guidance and rejoins the resistance.

And in the end, when there are only about forty resistance fighters left, Rey asks Leia how they can turn the tide against the evil First Order. Leia says, “We have everything we need.” In other words, it’s what they have inside that counts, not the number of weapons they wield.

The story belongs to Rey and the other women. They offer Luke, Po, Finn, and Kylo the opportunity to change. They invite them to be a part of a bigger and more important effort to change the galaxy through cooperation. Kylo is the only one who doesn’t accept. He wants to ease his suffering by becoming supreme leader thinking that will solve all his problems. He doesn’t understand that his problems are imaginary, created inside his own head and emotions. That’s how it is with all of us, we create our own problems. And that’s where we have to solve them.

There are times when I look at the way my life is going and I’m tempted to slide back into blaming the fates for the things I’d like to be different. 2017 was that kind of year. But then I remember, that the world I see is the one I’ve created and I can change my mind any time I so choose. Since blaming events outside myself hasn’t made anything in my life better, I think I’ll take a step back and let go of some more of the things I thought I knew for sure.

Blessings for your new year. Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. I appreciate it.

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, women’s novel, and is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, and print-on-demand at Amazon and other fine book sellers. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

Things I Learned in 2017

“The highest virtue does nothing. Yet, nothing needs to be done. The lowest virtue does everything. Yet, much remains to be done.” ~ Tao Te Ching chapter 38

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” ~ Francis of Assisi

“Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.” ~ Theodore Isaac Rubin

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” ~ Mother Teresa

I’m not big on publishing lists. I know they’re the “thing” now. “Follow this list and/or do these 12 things to get …” Or, “These 14 books are must reads.” If you’re on social media, they float by your feed and are oh so tempting to read. Of course, for most of us, this year has been an extremely trying one with the state of politics in this country. And social media is a place where facts and opinions fly around as if they’re in a tornado. That’s why I’ve cut back on my social media time, and ignoring those lists, news reports, and opinion polls to pay more attention to my real friends has made me much happier.

Since, I’m happier and always thinking about what my experiences can teach me, I wanted to break my own rule and share some things I’ve learned this year. I’m not publishing them in a list, and you can take them or leave them as you choose. I do not profess to know what’s best for anyone. I’m still trying to figure out my own life.

I’m a slow learner. Some of the seeds for what I learned this year actually began in 2015. That’s the year I read and studied A Course in Miracles. I know, that’s the kind of book you can study your entire life and still gain new insights. So, I’m thinking of picking it up again on January 1 and studying it in 2018.

In any case one lesson I learned from my 2015 study was the whole idea of non-action. I didn’t understand that concept fully until this year, or at least, I understand it on a deeper level now. I may never fully understand it. Non-action is a concept I first encountered when I studied the Tao Te Ching years ago. It’s this paradoxical situation where, if you adopt non-action, you can accomplish more than if you run around filling every day with tasks to be accomplished. The way I understand it now is that if you have something you need to do, you wait for guidance before you act, you usually get a better solution than the one your tiny little ego would come up with.

I’m not good at this practice you understand, but when the presidential election blew up and some new attack on human rights, and the environment ensued on a daily basis, I felt paralyzed. What could I, one person, do to fight the descent into darkness? But I remembered lessons from all the spiritual teachers I’ve read over the years, and I felt really uncomfortable with that word “fight”. My understanding of non-action is still imperfect, but my experience has shown me that the statement “What you resist, persists,” is true. Practicing non-action gives you a chance to come up with a new solution to any problem. For example, I worked at a job I hated. All I could think about was how much I hated that job. And it got worse, not better until finally I nearly had a nervous breakdown and realized, I had the power to change my life if I allowed myself to get a new perspective. That was a huge turning point in the way I approached problems. But, I was still stuck in many old ways of thinking.

During graduate school, I took some playwrighting classes. I loved everything about writing, but I couldn’t see how I could make a living as a writer, so I set that aside. Money and creativity didn’t go together in my mind. Eventually, however, my desire to write became so strong that I quit my teaching job to become a full-time writer. And little by little, my thinking that money and creativity are mutually exclusive has been changing. I’m learning that writing to make money is not the goal. It most likely will not bring cash to my bank account. Expressing my viewpoint about life and working to understand myself better is now my goal. And if I can touch someone else with what I’m learning, then that might bring me some income, but more importantly, I will be adding to my own, and other people’s awakening.

I learned another vital lesson as I published my first novel this year. When working on a big project, you have to do the work in little chunks. There are definite stages to writing a book. Working on the first draft can be nerve wracking, especially if you’re someone like me who doesn’t do outlines. I get the general idea for my story and characters, but even if I plan to take the story in a certain direction, some other idea will take precedence. My characters don’t talk to me, but the muses visit me at odd times and I’m often surprised at what they tell me I need to write.

Once that first draft is finished, and that might be years after I started it, the fun part begins. At least I think it’s the fun part. Revising, reorganizing, filling in the blanks, and cutting out the unnecessary parts. After that the tedious process of line editing needs to be done. I’m not so fond of that part. But it’s better to make the manuscript as pristine as possible, because you never get another chance to make a good first impression.

And finally, when I published The Space Between Time, after seven years of work. I felt happy and satisfied. Like I had contributed something new to the world. It’s an intoxicating feeling similar to the way I feel at the end of a long rehearsal process when the play is appreciated by the audience. And no amount of money or awards can match that feeling of knowing I’ve done a job well.

I’m still working on the whole creativity, money connection, and letting go of my old viewpoint about money and it’s importance in our lives. I do know that following my creative urges has always brought rewarding experiences, and interesting people into my life. So, for now, I’m going to forget about the money part, and just keep working on developing my creativity muscles. Maybe if I do that, I’ll get to meet some really interesting people and even do some traveling to book signings and talks about my creative process. That would be really fun!

I hope 2018 proves to be a good, and enlightening year for you.

Blessings, and thanks for reading. I appreciate your likes and comments.

Creative Urge

“The people we walk by every day have untold talents, passions that beat in their chest like a witch doctor’s drum.” ~ Pam Grout, Art and Soul Reloaded

“Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics.” ~ Victor Pinchuck

“It’s impossible to explain creativity. It’s like asking a bird, ‘How do you fly?’ You just do.” ~ Eric Jerome Dickey

“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” ~ Edward de Bono

“In my experience, poor people are the world’s greatest entrepreneurs. Every day, they must innovate in order to survive. They remain poor because they do not have the opportunities to turn their creativity into sustainable income.” ~ Muhammad Yunus

Creativity is something I feel like I harp on a lot. It’s kind of a theme of my life, so, in a way, maybe that’s not a bad thing. We all have a kind of life theme that we share with those we come into contact with.

Creativity came into my consciousness again which started me thinking about the struggles I’ve had to balance my creative urge with making a living. it’s not so bad now that I’m semi-retired, but when I was young there were so many forces urging me to find a career that would pay good money so I could live the American dream. But when I took a job because I needed the money, it was soul killing. And I don’t want anyone else to have to experience that, so maybe that’s why I harp on finding ways to be creative.

When I was offered the job, I had a sickening sinking feeling in my gut. I knew I shouldn’t take it. But I was fresh out of college, married, and living with my grandparents. So, I took the job not trusting that a better one would come along. It had only been two or three months, but Barry and I needed to be out on our own. When I started working, it was great to be self-sufficient, but I groaned every morning knowing that I was going into that toxic environment for another day. Yet, I learned a great deal from going against my inner guidance. And the biggest thing I learned was never to do that again.

I know I’m not the only person who struggles to balance working and having time to devote to things I’m passionate about. Many of my former students are friends on social media, and they share similar struggles I had when I was in my twenties. I guess it’s a universal challenge. I’m inspired by the people who follow their passions in spite of the need to earn money. For the most part, they see the world in positive ways. And it seems to be that when they contribute their good energy and their work, we all benefit from what they create.

Some people would say that I’m a dreamer when I say that I would love it if our society became more like the one in Star Trek, where people have a basic income, and are encouraged to develop their interests and talents. In that society, money exists, it’s there, but no one needs it to survive. Living like that would be so fantastic.

Maybe we are moving in that direction at least in terms of encouraging creativity. You’ve probably seen the ads for master classes in photography, or film directing, or writing, or acting. Last summer I took a free class about Alfred Hitchcock and his movies offered by Turner Classic Movies and Ball State University. It was a fun class, and I learned a lot about movie making in general, and his style specifically. Those kinds of opportunities are out there on all kinds of subjects. All we have to do is take advantage of them.

As you may know, my husband and I are doing the year long course offered by Pam Grout as part of her book, Art and Soul Reloaded. One of the things about this course I love is that at the end of each lesson, Pam has a section she calls “You’re in Good Company”. It’s a little snippet about some person’s struggle to make their dreams come true. Here are some examples: “Every cartoon Charles Schulz, the creator of the wildly popular Peanuts comic strip, submitted to his high school yearbook was unanimously rejected.” Or, “Donald Sutherland has made more than 100 films, but he still gets so nervous, he throws up before filming begins.” Or, “Lady Gaga, whose hits have topped charts in nearly every category, got dropped by Def Jam Recordings a short three months after they signed her.” Or, “Actor Ryan Reynolds, once chosen as People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, said, ‘I feel like an overweight, pimply faced kid a lot of the time.” Or, “In the early ‘90s, George Clooney was being considered for the lead role in the homicide drama Bodies of Evidence. The CBS executive cast him instead as sidekick Ryan Walker after deciding Clooney was ‘just not leading man material.’”

But this is one of my favorite exercises in the entire books so far. “Important Creativity Test: Get out a pencil. Are you breathing? Yes _______ No _______, Check your score here. If you answered ‘yes’ to the above question, you’re highly creative.” The entire book is filled with those little encouragements. She wants us all to find our particular passion and nurture it in any way we can.

This week’s lesson is titled “Art Diviners”. In this chapter her point of view is that everyone we meet has something they are deeply passionate about and want to create, and we need to be aware of that fact. I love that idea. There is so much more to people than we can see on the surface. Just look at all of the innovative ideas people are coming up with to solve various problems we’re facing. Maybe you don’t see those on social media, but I do, and every time I read one of those stories it makes me hopeful that more and more people are not letting anything hold back their creative impulses. It might be difficult, they are probably scared, but they follow their passion anyway.

That’s one thing I love about teaching. I get to encourage my student’s creativity. And as Yoda says to Luke in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, “We are what they grow beyond.” We’re all teachers in one way or another. I find it comforting to know that little by little the world is becoming a more friendly place to live in because of what we’ve learned from the generations that have gone before, and that we’ll all leave something behind that generations after us can build upon.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your likes and comments.

Scrooge and Jesus

Scrooge and Marley’s Ghost from *A Christmas Carol*

“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.” ~ Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“They are Man’s and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be eased.” ~ Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you.” ~ Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate.” ~ Karen Armstrong

The other day I was visited by a couple of lovely ladies who are Jehovah’s Witness. These people come around most often at Christmas and Easter. There were actually two visits. The first time they came I said something about leaving the church I had grown up in. That, of course, was the foot in the door for them to come back. Whenever I say I’m finished with organized religion, people think I’ve lost faith in God. That’s not the case at all. God and I’ve been communicating with each other since I was eight years old and we’re doing just fine.

During the second visit they showed me a video about a man who had given up on organized religion and felt abandoned by God, but then he came into contact with the Jehovah’s Witness and his life was turned around. I was happy for him, but I didn’t leave my church because I lost faith in God. I left because I wanted a bigger spiritual life than the one mapped out for me within that church. I got a great start in my spiritual life from them, I just needed more space to expand my understanding of God.

Because God and I have been having this running conversation for most of my life, I’m always thinking and asking questions about the light and darkness within us and what purpose they serve. Christmas time seems like a prime time for those kinds of reflections. And the visit by the Jehovah’s Witness got me thinking about Jesus and what he would think about how people put him on a distant pedestal.

One of the most meaningful scriptures to me is the one where Jesus says that we can do even greater things than he has done. I always took that to mean that he thought of himself as the forerunner, an example. Worshipping him has always made me uncomfortable. It’s nearly impossible to relate to and learn from an icon.

Another thing that I have always loved about Jesus, is that he believed we can become better. He was drawn to people who were wounded in some way and needed a shift in perception. If they were open to it, he helped them get that. I think of Jesus as the light. And that brings me to Scrooge.

I’m rereading A Christmas Carol. I can’t believe I’m going to admit this, but I read it for the first time last Christmas. At the beginning of the book, Scrooge is definitely a symbol for darkness. No one wants to be around him, even the men he does business with.

I’ve seen multiple movie versions of the story and what brings me back to watching them year after year is the promise that even the most hardened heart can be softened and changed. That’s what I’ve learned from Scrooge.

Today, as I write this, we just returned from seeing Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Those movies are definitely about the battle between darkness and light. In the movie, Yoda says something to Luke that applies to how Scrooge transforms in A Christmas Carol. He says, “The greatest teacher, failure is.” And I have to say that I agree with him. My greatest lessons have come when I’ve utterly failed, or when my life has fallen apart. And Charles Dickens was a genius to put Scrooge into a position where he was forced to examine his life. He never would have done it on his own. It’s interesting that as he is forced to relive his tortured young years, he’s drawn to the people from his past who are full of light. It’s the same as he travels far and wide in the present. And more than that, his own dark and unloving words come back to haunt him.

I find Scrooge’s story extremely fascinating because at the beginning it seems that he likes the darkness that surrounds him and he’ll never give it up. Sometimes I feel the same way. I get caught up in downward spiral thinking and I kind of wallow there. Yet, it only takes a little nudging toward the light for Scrooge to able to see the pattern of his life; how he came to embrace darkness and get a chance to make a new choice.

These are just some things I’ve been rolling around in my head. I do it most often when things in my outer world appear to be so dark. Hope, light, love, compassion, listening, gratitude, generosity, those are the things that darkness cannot stand up to. This Christmas season it feels like I need to take stock and cultivate those qualities so that darkness can’t win.

I hope the light of loved ones surround you this holiday season.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your likes and comments.

Gifts That Cost Nothing

“By taking the time to stop and appreciate who you are and what you’ve achieved – and perhaps learned through a few mistakes, stumbles and losses – you actually can enhance everything about you. Self-acknowledgment and appreciation are what give you the insights and awareness to move forward toward higher goals and accomplishments.” ~ Jack Canfield

“It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.” ~ Maya Angelou

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, and a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring. All of which have the potential to turn a life around.” ~ Leo Buscaglia

Listening is one of the best gifts you can give another person. In fact, it’s so important that I think I’m going to make it my word for next year.

I learned to listen from my father. He was a the greatest listener I have ever known. When I did something wrong, instead of punishing me right off, he’d sit down with me and say, “Now tell me what you were thinking when you did that?” And he’d listen. I don’t remember the punishments, I remember that he cared enough about me to listen to my side of the story and then gave me guidance about how I might change my behavior in the future.

The other way I learned to listen was by being an actor. Countless actors have said that the best tool in the actor’s toolbox is listening. An actor listens to their fellow actors in a scene and then they have to decide how to react or respond given their character’s background and emotional bent.

Listening in real life is sort of the same thing. It’s an interaction between two or more people that involves many more layers than just the words being spoken. There are the nonverbal clues, and trying to understand the intention of the person speaking, then deciding how you feel about that.

Let me give you an example. The other day while planning to make homemade tomato soup, I pulled the bag of tomatoes out of the freezer and left them in the sink. Barry put them in the fridge later that day. A day or two later, Barry said to me, “Be sure to drain the tomatoes before making the soup,” to which I replied looking him straight in the eyes, “I’m not stupid.” Well, as you can imagine that set of a little bit of a heated discussion.

Later I sat down to think about what had happened and how I could respond differently. This is what I came up with. Barry’s intention wasn’t to belittle me in any way. He’s not like many of the men in my religious studies program, or the men who thought I needed to change my major, or men I’d worked with on my various jobs, or on projects at church. I tried to tell him that, when he said those kinds of things to me, what I heard was that he thought I was not capable of critical thinking. Of course, that’s not how he feels at all. He’s just detail oriented and wanted to be sure the soup turned out the way we like it.

After I processed those thoughts, I remembered something Wayne Dyer used to say, “We can decided whether or not to be offended.” I was allowing what had happened to me in the past affect my response to Barry, when really I should have just said, “Thanks. I thought of that.” and moved on.

I bring all this up because this week three things happened in the discourse about sexual harassment. First, Rose McGowan attacked Meryl Streep in public for not supporting other women who had been abused in various ways by Harvey Weinstein, Matt Damon made a statement making suggestions about the same issue, and Jody Foster made similar statements on Stephen Colbert.

What Jody Foster said makes so much sense. Women need to tell their stories and those stories need to be listened to and believed, but there comes a time when we need to allow men into the discussion. We need to take a look at where we’ve been, where we are now, and where we want to go in relations between women and men. And we have to do that together. From what I’ve read, Matt Damon was trying to do that, but a Twitter storm of condemnation was aimed at him. And as for Rose McGowan, I think she was wounded so badly by Harvey Weinstein that she needs our support until she has a chance to heal.

I understand what it feels like to be so hurt that you can’t see straight. It’s happened to me. And while I was in that wounded state, I was completely unreasonable. To me the world was a hostile place and almost everything anyone said to me I viewed as an attack. There are lots of wounded people, both men and women, all around the world. We have to listen to their stories, because as Oprah has said, “People just want to be heard.” And as we listen, we have to refrain from judgment. Just being a witness is sometimes enough to help a person start their healing journey.

Then, once those who have been abused have had a chance to heal and feel more safe, then we can begin to have productive dialogue about how to fix male/female relationships.

These steps can apply to any public discourse as well as one-on-one relationships. I’ve lived through the process myself. One the greatest gifts I have ever received is to have someone listen to my story with complete support and without trying to fix or judge me. I’m grateful to all those people who let me be a mess for a while and loved me anyway.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your likes and comments.