Sage Woman Chronicles

Some of My Favorite Things

“People who lack the clarity, courage, or determination to follow their own dreams will often find ways to discourage yours. Live your truth and don’t EVER stop!” ~ Steve Maraboli

“There was a definite process by which one made people into friends; it involved talking to them and listening to them for hours at a time.” ~ Rebecca West

I have never written a blog post enumerating some of my favorite things even though there have been times when I’ve written reviews of books and movies I liked. Today I want to share some things I like, from television shows, to podcasts, to my new morning ritual. I hope you enjoy.

First favorite thing: I have a new pre-writing ritual. It’s this week’s assignment from Art & Soul Reloaded. I’ve never had a set ritual before sitting down to write, so coming up with something to summon the muses has been fun. I tend to over think these little assignments Pam Grout gives us every week. This time I decided not to do that and just choose some things to do that satisfy me right now. I can always refresh my ritual later.

I have two current favorite songs that I listen to often. The first is “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. He has a series of one hour YouTube videos made at different times of the day in different locations. He sings the song and dances to it the first time through and then each successive time through different people dance to his sound track. I’m not a good dancer, but I do dance to this song. It’s a good way to get my blood flowing in the morning and to remind myself that I can choose to be happy no matter what is going on. For me it’s better to write from a happy place rather than from self-torture.

The second song I love is “Evermore” from Beauty and the Beast. The composer wrote it especially for this new live action version of the movie. The Beast sings it after realizing that he has fallen in love with Belle as she is riding away to save her father from Gaston. In the song he sings, “Now I know she’ll never leave me, even as she fades from view, she will still inspire me, be a part of everything I do …” That touches me so deeply because we do need each other more than we realize. And those we love are still inspiring and supporting us even if they’re gone. So, as I sit down to write, I remember that I’m not writing alone. My ideas come from everything that has happened to me, and all the love I’ve shared. That gives me the courage to try to put into words the feelings and ideas that rattle around in my head.

Second favorite thing: I’ve never been a fan of listening to podcasts on a regular basis. My husband has several that he listens to on his way to and from work. I prefer silence when I’m driving, but a few months ago one of my Goodreads friends suggested I try Anne Bogel’s “What Do I Read Next” podcast and her blog, Modern Mrs. Darcy. After listening to an episode, I was hooked. Anne talks to regular everyday readers, who as it turns out, aren’t ordinary at all. Like the woman who owns, CW Pencil Enterprise – Purveyors of Superior Graphite. Who would have thought that someone could maintain a thriving business selling pencils, and all the accouterments that go with them? Even though this woman was a guest because of the books she loves, we got to hear enough of her story that I want to travel to New York just to visit her store. (Don’t despair, if you can’t travel to New York, she does have an online store.) Or another guest owns a bookstore devoted entirely to books about food. She sells a good number of cookbooks, naturally, but she also carries novels that center around food, or books about celebrations involving food. She even hosts book and food related events in her store. These are creative, interesting women I never would have known about if not for Anne Bogel’s podcast. I love it when people follow their passion and the universe rises up to meet them.

My third favorite thing is the television station NATGEO. When I was younger I was a television addict. I’d sit down with the TV Guide and plan out what I was going to watch during the coming week. In recent years, Barry and I have paired down our television watching and looked for unusual and informative shows rather than the same old sitcoms, or scripted dramas. Earlier this year NATGEO ran their first scripted series, Genius directed by Ron Howard. This first season was about Albert Einstein. It was fascinating. I didn’t know much about Einstein’s early life, his struggles to get his ideas published, his turbulent first marriage, or how he and his second wife eventually emigrated to the United States. It was riveting television, and I learned a great deal about physics in the process. The next season of Genius is going to be about Pablo Picasso. I’m looking forward to that one.

Another series on NATGEO I love is The Story of … with Morgan Freeman. Last year’s series was The Story of God, this season it’s The Story of Us. Morgan Freeman is on a mission, with both series, to help us understand each other better. I have found each episode compelling and even life changing, as he travels around the world asking questions and meeting people with extraordinary stories to tell. I hope you’ll check out both of these shows.

I have other favorites which I may share in future podcasts but until then, have a great weekend.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your likes and comments.

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, a historical, time-travel, magical realism, women’s novel. It’s 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.

What to We Want to Be?

“This is the United States of America. What have we become?” Social Media Meme

“One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.” ~ Lucille Ball

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle” ~ Albert Einstein

I saw the above Facebook meme the other day. Every time there’s a mass shooting, story about a rich and powerful person abusing their power, violence erupting, and massive amounts of people killed or left homeless, I see or hear someone say, “What has this world come to?” Or “This is not who we are.” Well, I say, yes this is who we are until we ask some new questions. Who do we want to be? What do we want the world to look like? How do we want to treat each other? And what steps do we need to take to create a more loving, compassionate, empathetic world?

I’ve written this before, because I’m thoroughly convinced, that humanity is in the midst of a great evolutionary awakening. It’s amazing how much of the old ways of doing things and ways of thinking are getting exposed. There are just too many to name in this short blog post, but then you already know what they are. For a highly sensitive person like me, what we’re living through right now can be crazy making. There are days when I just want to stay in bed with the covers over my head. But that’s not an option if I want to help contribute to our awakening. So I’m sharing some things I’ve learned over my fifty plus year spiritual journey that are steps you can take if you want to awaken and help make the world a better place in which to live.

First, we have to acknowledge where we are, both in our personal lives, and our global lives. Okay, things are really bad in this country right now in almost every area of life, but that’s nothing new. We’ve not been very good stewards of the planet, or been very kind to each other. It’s just that we have world wide media now. We see all the bad things that are happening, get overwhelmed and throw up our hands. But, I choose to think that everything is a miracle and that all the dark events that are out in the open now, give us a chance to make a choice. Do we live in a hostile or friendly universe? Yes, I think that choice is up to us.

I can’t say that I have always believed we could choose to see the universe as friendly. Like my sister says, “Everyone has a hole in their heart.” I certainly had some challenges, but even though I doubted, there was one part of my heart that kept whispering that life was a miracle, and all I needed to do was change my perspective.

If you look back at history, you know that we’ve always lived with fear, bigotry, misogyny, greed, hatred, disregard for life, and the desire to go back to the good old days. But, history also teaches us that humanity has been progressing. I’d be willing to bet that now more people react to the bad things that happen with shock and disbelief instead of blind acceptance. More people are saying “Oh hell no! I don’t want to live like this.” That’s a good thing. I think more people are doing self-examination which leads us to better societies.

Of course, there will always be people who don’t want to change. They either bury their bad feelings and go on about their daily lives, or they side with the haters. But if your foundations are shaken when bad things happen, it’s an opportunity to wake up and become a part of the tide of change. Looking into our dark places is not pleasant but it’s a necessary part of the awakening process. I know this from personal experience. When I could accept my darkness as well as the light inside, I was able to understand others better.

Second, accepting all of who we are leads to forgiveness of ourselves and others. This is a vital part of awakening. Each of us must find our own way to forgiveness. The methods that work for me, might not be helpful to you at all.

Forgiveness can take time. I once lost a beloved job due to nepotism. For the longest time I wanted revenge, and I got it in a way. Losing that job led me to the realization that I was meant to be a writer. I’m more happy now than I’ve ever been. But, it took me twelve years to fully forgive the perpetrators of my dismissal. I had to let go of wanting things to be different. And I had to learn that forgiving someone doesn’t mean you let them off the hook for what they’ve done. We each have to face the consequences of our actions. In my case, I had to let God take care of their karma. That wasn’t my job.

Third, after embarking on the awakening journey, our purpose becomes more clear. I think it’s easier to answer the questions I posed above once we know our purpose for being here. We see how we can help make the world a better place. But this process is a kind of cycle, or maybe it goes up and down, back and forth. We address our darkness, we accept and forgive, understand a little bit more about who we are and why we’re here, which leads to the next set of challenges to solve.

So, things look pretty bleak right now, but we don’t need to despair about that. It’s just God’s way of calling us to deeper understanding and healing. And because we have free will, we can choose to ignore the call, or get busy and do the work.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your likes and comments.

We Must Stop This

“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” ~ George Orwell

“Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating.” ~ Andrea Dworkin

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

Welcome to the new Saturday Sage Woman Chronicles posts. Thanks for joining me here.

Today I’d like to share my thoughts about the controversy surrounding Harvey Weinstein because the novel I’m working on addresses women’s rights both during the suffrage movement and now.

In Time’s Echo, both Jenna in the present and Morgan in the past are struggling to break down the barriers that women have had to deal with for many centuries. Surprisingly, I’m having a difficult time writing it, because misogyny is such a complicated issue. It’s like a huge fortress that everyone has assumed is impenetrable, but as we’ve seen in recent years, and especially in the last few months, the fortress is beginning to crumble. Part of my dilemma comes from not wanting to make my novel preachy. I’m trying to walk that fine line between showing what happens to my characters on a personal level in a truthful way, so that my readers can empathize with their struggles, while being accurate to what was and is really happening. If my readers connect emotionally with what’s going on with my characters, maybe it will help shed some light on how to move forward.

When I got the idea to tackle this complicated situation, I did some research so I could get a better perspective about what women have had to deal with throughout history. Misogyny is centuries old. One of the books I read was A Brief History of Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Prejudice by Jack Holland. The reasons for men subjugating women are extremely complicated but maybe we don’t really need to go back and look at why they felt they needed to take control. What we do need to do is examine how it works right now.

Holland says that misogyny can be summed up in four words: pervasive, persistent, pernicious, and protean. (pg. 270) And the reason breaking the back of misogyny is difficult is because men and women are linked by biological, sexual, psychological, social, economic, and political ties. If the human race is to survive, men and women must cooperate with one another. And maybe that’s the main reason women are rising. It’s high time men and women had true equality so we can break down this fortress of misogyny and reshape the world to be a friendlier, more supportive place in which to live. I’ve got some ideas about how we can help that happen.

First of all, it seems to me that some men have the idea that everything that exists belongs to them. That applies to territories they “discover” or women they meet, their children, or people they think are inferior to them, and so on. They claim the Scriptures back them up. “And MAN shall have dominion over the earth” or words to that effect. But if we’re all created in the image of God, then we ALL have the right to navigate our own paths without interference.

Second of all, I’ve been a teacher for many years now. At the beginning of every school year we are required to take refresher workshops. one of them on harassment. The law states that whether or not harassment has taken place is determined by the victim (for lack of a better word) rather than the perpetrator. That means when a person claims they are being harassed, the law says we are supposed to believe them and take appropriate actions. So victim shaming and blaming has got to stop. A woman, or any other victim, does not ask to be harassed, raped or abused in any way. People need the support of the law, not condemn the victim.

Third, people have to speak up when they’re assaulted in any way. I would be willing to bet that almost any woman you care to ask has at least one story of being harassed. We need to teach our children to not only respect others, but to have empathy for them too.

I was so lucky to have the father I did. He taught me that I had every RIGHT to say no to a boy who thought that he had a RIGHT to my sexual favors just because he paid for everything on our date. And I did have at least one time when a boy tried to play that card. I pushed him away and told him if he wasn’t going to take me home, I was going to get out of the car and walk. He drove me home and we never went on another date.

When I was about to enter ninth grade, we moved to a new small town. I was the new girl amidst a group of students who had grown up together. As a result, I was harassed by the boys of the school. They thought they were teasing me as a way of welcome. That’s not how I took it. It was the age of mini-skirts and one day when the teacher was called away from the classroom, a few of the boys decided it would be funny to put me into the tall, narrow trash can in the room. They then pushed me out into the hallway and stood by watching hoping I’d try to get out. Fortunately I was rescued either by the teacher, or the girls in my class. That wasn’t the only incident at that school. Another day a group of boys, teasing and harassing me, pushed me into the boys bathroom. When I came out, the principal happened to be walking by. Fortunately, he had been my principal at a school in another town, so when I told him what had happened, he believed me.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the last time I was faced with harassment. Another incident happened when I was in college. I had a summer job working on the campus grounds keeping crew. I was paired with a man old enough to be my grandfather. At first he was nice, but soon he began making lewd comments and eventually he began touching me in inappropriate ways. I hesitated to report the situation because often in such situations women aren’t believed. Thank heaven when I finally told my supervisor what was happening, he said, “Oh, no! I’m not going to stand for that.” I was moved to another crew. I don’t remember what happened to the older man.

It’s sad to say that women throughout the ages have had to learn to maneuver, manipulate and endure all kinds of horrible situations involving men, if they survived to grow up at all that is.

So these latest revelations about Harvey Weinstein have provoked a frenzy of discussion about misogyny. Any time there’s a big controversy about any topic, it’s an opportunity to untangle the hows and whys and make decisions about how to solve the problem. The four “Ps” that Holland talks about in his book, apply to more than just misogyny and we need to be persistent in dismantling practices that were never right to adopt in the first place.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your comments and likes.

Before You Buy Those Christmas Gifts

“Giving gifts to others is a fundamental activity, as old as humanity itself. Yet in the modern, complex world, the particulars of gift-giving can be extraordinarily challenging.” ~ Andrew Weil

“I think it would be bad for culture and the art if artists and people who develop the apparatus to support those artists don’t get paid.” ~ Lyor Cohen

“We have to support our local artists. It’s just that simple. Otherwise, we will have no art.” ~ Al Jourgensen

My husband and I are lucky. We have lots of artist friends and our house is filled with beautiful artwork, much of which my husband has created, or traded for. Yet, only recently, since I published my first book, did I understand just how important it is to buy original artwork.

Don’t get me wrong, I love getting the gift cards so I can buy the things I’ve been wanting, and the other thoughtful gifts people give me. But the most meaningful gifts are when someone gives me original artwork. On a recent birthday my mother-in-law gave me a pair of hand carved busts of an African man and woman. I cried when I opened them, they were so beautiful. And I love the handmade earrings and necklaces, and other artwork my husband buys for me from his artist friends. And, of course, I love getting books.

This past week was the annual Art in the Park in our home town. We took Barry’s parents so they could buy a gift for their neighbors who have been picking up their mail. I thought it was nice that they wanted to give them a handmade gift. After they purchased the gift, we visited a potter friend of Barry’s. He and his wife had invited us to dinner one Christmas season when Barry’s parents were visiting. It was fun for them to connect again. Alan creates whimsical figures, mostly of animals. I have always loved his horses. As I looked around the booth I saw the beautiful horse figure pictured above and I decided to buy it. I did this following advice I recently read about supporting fellow authors. It’s important to buy their book, even if you aren’t going to read it, because it supports all the hard work they put into creating the book, and it’s good karma. I think that principle can be applied to supporting local artists as well. Art is a reflection of someone’s soul. Buying those that speak to you enriches our life. Yet, often people balk at paying so much for a piece of artwork not appreciating the time and effort expended in its creation.

One day when my sister and I were talking about the situation in this country, a kind of radical idea struck me. We have been brainwashed into thinking that buying goods and services for the least amount of money possible is a good thing. That’s why Walmart, Costco, the Dollar Store and other stores of that type have sprung up all over the country. We have been encouraged to buy cheap, kitchy stuff that we don’t really need. Slowly the idea of buying cheap, then when it breaks, buying another equally cheap item to replace it, has become the norm. We’ve never stopped to think who benefits from planned obsolesce? What happened to the notion that when we need to make a purchase, we should first consider the quality of what we want to buy?

Barry and I spent last Christmas with his family, and I was happy to hear our nephew and his wife say that they were saving money to buy a dining room set made by a local master craftsmen. It was going to be an expensive purchase, but they wanted it BECAUSE it was handmade with great care and would last many, many years. I loved that!

There are certain things that are worth spending a great deal of money on. As my father used to say, “Buy the best and you will never be sorry.” So, I’ve begun to change my ideas when it comes to buying clothing, books, and other household items. Knowing that I’ve purchased the best just makes me feel good. Buying artwork to enrich my home gives me very much the same feeling. I’m not only paying for the piece, but the time the artist spent making it, and their artistic vision.

I hope to begin a trend of showing appreciation for wonderful craftsmanship by taking the time to consider giving quality handmade Christmas gifts this year. They don’t have to be expensive, but it would be nice if they were unique and well made. If you do this, you will help support an artist so they can continue to make beautiful things for us to admire and appreciate.

Thanks for reading, commenting, and liking my posts. I appreciate it very much.

Thanks Pam Grout

“Show up, show up, show up and after a while, the muse shows up, too.” ~ Isabel Allende

This week I’ve been doing the week 6 exercises from Pam Grout’s Art & Soul Reloaded. We were supposed to write seven blog posts, which was a bit of stretch for me. I’ve been posting once a week since spring or summer of 2013, yet as I put my mind each day to what I was going to write for the next post, ideas came to me. Now I won’t say that they were fantastic ideas, but since I’m in the habit of doing lots of self-reflection, I was able to come up with enough ideas to complete my assignment.

The amazing thing is that this week my in-laws have been visiting and we’ve been doing some galavanting. So, I’ve had to fit my writing in where I could. And that’s the real advantage of doing this exercise, making writing my priority. Doing that is what Steven Pressfield calls being a professional. In his book The War of Art, he explains the difference between being an amateur and a professional: Don’t fit your creative endeavors around the rest of your life, make your art a priority and do it every day no matter what.

I have to say that I write almost every day, but I’m not sure I’ve got that professional attitude quite yet when writing my novels. I am always thinking about my novel, but I’m not always sitting in the chair writing new scenes, rearranging, or revising everyday.

After doing these exercises, however, I’m going to commit to two things, I’m going to add a blog post on Saturdays so that I’m posting twice a week, and I’m going to sit down and do some work on my novel every day.

That’s all for today. We’re going on an outing again today, the last day or my in-law’s visit, so see you Wednesday.

Thanks for reading, commenting and liking my posts. I appreciate it.

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