Sage Woman Chronicles

Life-Changing Experiences

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“What can a pencil do for all of us? Amazing things. It can write transcendent poetry, uplifting music, or life-changing equations; it can sketch the future, give life to untold beauty, and communicate the full-force of our love and aspirations.” ~ Adam Braun

As you may have guessed by my first post this year, I’m in a bit of a funk. Barry and I got Covid the first week of the month. It took us another week or so to get over that fully. That was the beginning of feeling unsettled.

Than my brother, who is the executor of my parent’s estate, told us that he had to sign the paperwork for my 91 year old mother to enter hospice care. I’ve decided not to spend the money to see her before she dies, which makes me feel two ways. She’s got dementia, so she isn’t really able to carry on a conversation. She might not even know I’m there. On the other hand, I want to sit with her and hold her hand. I know it may be for myself only, but I’d like to say a proper goodbye.

While my emotions have been going up and down, I decided to finish reading a book by one of my Story-Power guests, The Color of the Elephant by Christine Herbert. Her episode aired in August of 2023. She sent me a copy of her book about a week before we recorded our conversation, but I only got a couple of chapters in before we chatted. Then life got in the way and I set it aside. However, I felt bad that I didn’t finish it, so I picked it up again and I’m so glad I did. It’s about Christine’s time in the Peace Corps in Zambia from 2004 – 2006. At the end of the book, Mr. Chisala, Christine’s counterpart for the projects she’s been working on in her village, told her that one day she would write a book about her time in Zambia, the people who became her friends, and those she worked with. I love that Christine never holds back from her foibles and mistakes. In this case, she decides not to tell Mr. Chisala that writing is torture for her and she has no intention of writing a book about her experiences. But there I was holding her book filled with so much beauty, heartbreak, and honesty in my hands. I cried because it takes courage to lay bare the deepest emotions about our most profound experiences. That’s something Christine does so well in her book and what I need to learn how to do here in this blog and in my books.

One of my favorite chapters in the book was about Christine paying for a bus ticket and then sitting in the bus waiting five hours for the bus driver to come out and get underway. He was on African Time. The heat, the waiting, the worry that she wouldn’t get to her meeting on time, finally got to her. She went into the ticket office to get her money back only to be told, “No refunds”. That set her off and she began to not only argue with the man, but when he tried to leave, she chased him demanding that he give her money back or she’d kill him. (American for: I’m so angry I want to punch you in the face.) As you can imagine, she caused quite a ruckus chasing him around the yard. Eventually one of the spectators handed her a fistful of bills, which only amounted to about $1.50 US, and begged her to take it and not kill the ticket taker. That’s when she realized how ridiculous she was being, but on top of that how her white skin gave her privileges that she didn’t feel she deserved. There’s more to that story, but I hope you’ll buy the book and discover it for yourself. There is much more love and beauty in the book than events like that one, but I was impressed that Christine would allow us to see her at her worst. I don’t do that in my writing and she has convinced me that I need to.

Here is the link for Christine’s Story-Power episode, “The Peace Corps, Chocolate, and Books”. I hope you’ll listen to it again, or for the first time.

I’ve been struggling with why I’m feeling so unsettled beyond my Mom’s imminent death and I think it has to do with the fact that I’ve been producing Story-Power for three and a half years, and I don’t think my influence goes very far. That didn’t use to bother me, but lately, I would like to have people subscribe to my Patreon Community, or make comments here so we can have conversations about stories, or what I’ve written. But all I get is crickets. I go back and forth about whether or not what I’m doing is worthwhile. In December, I felt like I need to cultivate friendships with some of my podcast guests and pay attention to the friends I already have more closely. Doing that takes time and effort not to mention a new mindset. I love being quiet and invisible at home, but I need to be okay with making time to email and/or call my friends to get caught up. I need to be okay with being “seen”.

I feel that it’s time to make some changes, but I’m not sure what those changes will be yet. In a way that makes me anxious. We’d all like to know what the future holds. I’ll have to be comfortable with uncertainty for now.

Thanks for reading, liking and occasionally commenting. I hope your New Year is going well.

Blessings,

The Space Between Time

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards.

Have you ever experienced life shattering events? Yeah, after the last few years, most of us have. In The Space Between Time, Jenna Holden gets slammed by her fiancé walking out, her mother’s untimely death, and losing her job all in one week. But she receives unexpected help when she finds her three-times great-grandmother’s journals and begins the adventure of a lifetime.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords and for Kindle at Amazon, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news when the audiobook version and sequel are published.

Story-Power on Patreon and Apple Subscriptions

I’m so passionate about stories that I created the Story-Power podcast, Patreon Community, and Apple subscription so I’d have an excuse to talk story with other story lovers. Patreon is $5 a month for content not found on the Story-Power podcast, or on my Sage Woman Blog. The Apple subscription is $3 a month, again with content not found on the Story-Power podcast. If you’re passionate about stories, and want to talk about what you’ve learned from your favorites, come join me at patreon.com/StoryPower. Or, you can add the subscription on Apple podcast where Story-Power is published.

PodMatch

If you are a podcaster, or have a message or fantastic product you want to share with the world, I encourage you to check out PodMatch. I call them a dating service for podcasters. Use the affiliate link and tell them, Lucinda sent you. Then contact me so we can set up a Story-Power chat.

Some Pain is so Deep

Photo by Hakeem James Hausley on Pexels.com

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“He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.” ~ Aeschylus

“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.” ~ Walter Anderson

For quite some time I have wanted to put all of my Story-Power episodes up on YouTube. Since I don’t publish the video portion of my conversations, I have had to create visuals to go with the episodes. But that’s just background information for what I really want to write about today.

As I’ve listened to past episodes, I’ve come across guests who have suffered or discovered extreme amounts of horrific things their parents, grandparents, or other ancestors went through. To make sense of these situations, they wrote books about what they experienced or discovered. Sometimes writing is a really good way to figure out what we’re thinking and feeling. However, I did learn that some pain is so deep it’s impossible to heal.

Some of the episodes that stand out as examples of this, are Ashley Kalagian Blunt’s episode 59. Many of her ancestors died in the Armenian Holocaust, which took place during WW I and is not even mentioned in many history books. Her book, My Name is Revenge, explores how the denial of this inhumane situation affected some groups of Armenian refugees and how they attempted to bring those horrific events to light. Or Lauren Hunter (episode 57, book Leaving Christian Science:10 Stories of New Faith in Jesus Christ) shares how she is recovering from a toxic religious cult, or Lino Martinez, (episode 84, podcast, A Little Less Fear) recovering from severe health problems and discovering he was transgender, or Shirley Novack (episode 90, book The Story of …) discovering the dark past of her immigrant grandfather and how he mistreated her father and uncle, or, finally, Max Friedman, (episode 91, book Painful Joy) who is the child of Holocaust survivors and how their trauma affected his family.

Listening to all of the stories of my guests and how they have dealt with the challenges and tragedies they have faced was kind of like a magnet for fictional stories with similar themes to come into my awareness. One story that we just finished watching is Echo, an MCU series with several characters who suffered deep traumas. How they cope, or don’t cope with the traumas is fascinating to me.

Maya Lopez is the main character in Echo, but her character was introduced in the MCU series, Hawkeye, which Barry and I watched over Christmas vacation. When we meet Maya, she is connected to the man behind all of the underworld activities in New York City. Later, in Echo, we find out his reach is much further than that. Little by little we discover that Maya has suffered one tragedy after another. She was born deaf, her mother died in a terrible car accident when she was quite young, maybe seven or eight. She was in the car and her right leg was injured so badly that it was amputated below the knee. Her father takes her away to New York City, where he has a promising job unbeknownst to the family with Kingpin the underworld boss. That is a heart wrenching situation that separates Maya from her grandparents, and other family in Oklahoma.

During the events in Hawkeye, Maya discovers that Kingpin, the man she thought of as her Uncle and mentor, ordered the murder of her father. This betrayal sets up the events of Echo. As that series begins, Maya is traveling home to Oklahoma to try to understand everything that has happened to her. She thinks she killed Kingpin, who’s name is Fisk. But, unfortunately he’s not dead and the audience discovers along with Maya that his operation stretches to her hometown in Oklahoma.

There are several things that make Maya and her journey unique. First, of all are her disabilities, which the actress really lives with. Second, Maya is of Cherokee descent, and unbeknownst to her, she is part of a long line of very powerful women. Third, as the coming disaster begins to unfold, Maya gets to make a choice, continue to seek revenge, or she can heal old relationships and embrace her Cherokee heritage to find a different solution, which is the choice she makes.

I love that we get to hear Kingpin/Fisk’s story of why he felt so driven to become the powerful and feared underworld boss he is. This is a key part of the story. He’s just as wounded as Maya. That’s why he connected to her and made her his prodigy in the first place. It’s at this point that Maya makes her choice. She’ll do what she can to save her town, family, and friends from being destroyed. However instead of using violence, she uses her new found powers to heal Fisk, while her uncle and cousin stop Fisk’s team from carrying out his plans to wreak havoc at the Powwow. I wonder what will happen if the series continues, which I hope it does, because I love that we get to learn some of the traditions, myths, and culture of the Cherokee Native Americans.

That’s just one example of stories with deeply wounded characters that I’ve read or watched lately. One thing I love about stories is that when we hear, read, or watch them, we don’t have to experience what’s going on with the people, or characters to understand and maybe empathize with them. It’s kind of like the stories give us a little distance from our own experiences and give us a chance to examine what we’ve gone through without all the deep emotions attached.

That’s why I love stories so much. I get to live other lives and experience new places. It’s fun to imagine what choices I’d make if I were living inside the stories.

I recently got a list of new stories to add to my TBR, or TBW lists. It’s always nice to have a large list of stories to choose from. If I finish a book and don’t know what I’m going to read next, I get anxious. And as far as watching, I love to find new stories to contemplate, as well as watch old stories to see what new things I can learn from them.

Here’s to a wonderful year of story discovery for each of you.

Blessings,

The Space Between Time

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards.

Story-Power on Patreon and Apple Subscription

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Finding Your Glow!

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Owner of Firefly Scout, the guidebook for helping moms grow their glow and find magic in the everyday.

I provide practical tips and insights for women to apply to their everyday life, to give them the unconscious permission they think they need to fill themselves up and live a life that lights them up. My calm and conversational style helps listeners feel like they are connecting with a trusted friend who is invested in their growth journey.

If you are interested in growing your glow through a guided journey, check out the Firefly Scout Illumination Kit. It comes with a hand-crafted journal, 4 curated guides and a notebook. And as extra accountability, I send out 4 handwritten cards every couple weeks to encourage you through the process and add a level of accountability.

Website: Fire Fly Scout, Illumination Kit, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest

The Artist Way Julia Cameron

A Return to Love Marianne Williamson

Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert

Meet Me at the Lake Carley Fortune

The House in the Cerulean Sea TJ Klune

The Orville (2017 – 2022) Seth MacFarlane, Creator

PodMatch

This episode is brought to you by PodMatch, the dating service for podcasters. They introduced me to Stephanie Rose, and I’m so glad they did. I hope you’ve enjoyed our conversation and remember that if you have a podcast or something to share with the world, check out PodMatch at my affiliate link at PodMatch and tell them Lucinda sent you.

Patreon and Apple Subscription

My Least Favorite Month

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The new year is supposed to be full of promise and hope. A fresh start. A time to reset and improve one’s life. But some years, like this one, it feels like my life has come to a screeching halt. I got Covid for the first time. I’m grateful that I dodged it for three years, but then just when I had plans for the new year, boom!, everything stopped.

I really can’t complain. It’s just like having a bad cold, not like the terrible flu Barry and I both had in January 2019. That laid us up for almost the entire month. And complaints aren’t really in order since I’ve only been sick like this about four or five times in my entire life. And yet, being who I am, I wonder what the purpose of illness could possibly be. Why do we do it to ourselves? If you have any theories about that, I’d love to hear them.

In any case, that’s why there was no post last week. I wasn’t able to sit at the computer and compose complete sentences.

Even if I’m perfectly healthy at the beginning of any given year, January is still my least favorite month. I have never acknowledged that before. Barry and I were just talking about it and we think part of why we don’t really like January is because the warm feelings and beautiful decorations of the holiday season are over and we have to put the house back into it’s regular order. It’s a big let down. And then there’s the light to dark ratio. I love sunshine. Maybe we’d feel better if we rearrange the furniture or something to enliven our feelings about the house. That might do the trick.

The thing I’m going to try to do is just get on with the work I always have waiting for me every day. Being creative always helps me feel energized.

This Made Me Laugh

I thought I was finished with this post when I came across this in my inbox. I get a newsletter called “Today in Books,” and this was the headline for January 10, “Florida School District Bans the Dictionary”. I burst out laughing. A list of books banned in Escambia County, Florida was released as part of a lawsuit against the county by PEN America, Penguin Random House Books, and sure enough they have banned five editions of the dictionary along with other books most of which are reference books, like eight editions of the encyclopedia.

After reading that news and seeing the list, I thought, I’m going to institute a, This Made Me Laugh, segment to my blog. I can generally find something that makes me laugh either in the news or in one of the newsletters I get. This little news item belongs in the “Thanos Effect” category.

One of my recent podcast guests, Mack Griffin, Episode 87 November 8, 2023,“Characters are the Most Important Part of the Story”, coined the phrase. The Thanos Effect, (as in Thanos of the MCU Infinity Saga) indicates situations where a finite being believes they are the only ones with the solution to some real or imagined problem that humanity, or all beings in the Universe face. I think whoever started banning books was suffering from The Thanos Effect. They feel fear by what they have read, or assume is in the book, and think the only way to alleviate their fear is to eradicate the offending item from the world. Sorry, folks it doesn’t work that way. As Frank Herbert wrote in Dune, “Fear is the mind killer”. The only way to get rid of fear is to manage it internally.

Here are Mack’s Story-Power episode, and our conversation for Patreon. He’s a story whisperer and I enjoyed talking with him for both recordings.

I say let’s look for things that make us laugh and feel good this year. I’m tired of news and entertainment that is contentious and leaves me feeling hopeless. My goal is to feel as good as possible and work to feeling happier this year.

Here are some feel good story suggestions:

Lessons in Chemistry Bonnie Garmus both the book and the TV series on Apple +

Ted Lasso all three seasons also on Apple +

Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier, Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey

Finding Your Roots TV series with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on PBS

All Creatures Great and Small TV series, just started season 4 on PBS

What are your favorite feel good books, movies, and TV series? I’d like to know.

Here’s to a great 2024 for all of us, even though some of us are getting a slow start.

Welcome new followers. Thanks for reading, liking, and commenting.

Blessings,

Story-Power on Patreon and Apple Subscriptions

The Space Between Time

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards.

PodMatch

Sometimes Life Give Us Painful Joy

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Painful Joy, published in April 2022 and available on Amazon, represents five years of intensive research in the U.S., Poland, Sweden, Israel and Germany, by author Max Friedman, as he seeks to unearth and understand the real life stories of his parents, Sam and Frieda, two poor Polish Jews. In the process he discovers their roots, recreates their lives and times and uncovers both their remarkable journeys and painful secrets. Part memoir, part genealogical mystery and part history, the book is an absorbing, heartwarming and, at times, heartbreaking saga as readers accompany the author on his extraordinary exploration of the complicated relationship between two Holocaust survivors who meet in Sweden after their liberation from Bergen-Belsen, and experience the “painful joy” of a love too often touched by death. It explores questions of survival, the ability to reimagine memories in order to deal with the truth, and what it was like growing up in a world that was never to be “normal.”

As one reviewer commented: “As the last Holocaust survivors die off, Friedman’s exquisite book helps ensure that one of humankind’s most savage chapters will continue to reverberate – not through the brutal images of life in the camps, but by revealing, with great compassion and nuance , how a couple’s experiences play out in the lives of their children, and grandchildren…,At a moment when history, once again, seems to be repeating itself, Painful Joy could not be more timely or poignant.”

Max’s Social Media: Facebook, LinkedIn

Painful Joy Max Friedman

Schindler’s List (1993) Director, Steven Spielberg, Book, Thomas Keneally, Screenplay, Steven Zaillian, Starring Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall

Josef Mengele, German Schutzsataffel (SS) officer and physician during WW II.

Amon Göth, Austrian SS Functionary, Commandant of the Kraków-Plaszów concentration camp in German occupied Poland.

Kraków Ghetto, one of five major metropolitan Nazi ghettos created by Germany in the German occupation of Poland.

Auschwitz Concentration Camp A complex of 40 concentration camps in Nazi German occupied Poland.

Bergen-Belsen, was originally established as a prisoner of war camp in Lower Saxony in Northern Germany near the town of Bergen. Later it became a concentration camp.

Sweden A Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe.

Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D. Author of, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, and Miracles

Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl, Definitive Addition

Swedish Red Cross

Yad Vashem, World Holocaust Remembrance Center

Not Black Enough (2017) Director, Tracey Anarella

Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates, Jr. TV series, (2012 – ) on PBS

Amsterdam Press

Story-Power on Patreon and Apple Subscription

I’m so passionate about stories that I created the Story-Power podcast, Patreon Community, and Apple subscription so I’d have an excuse to talk story with other story lovers. Patreon is $5 a month for content not found on the Story-Power podcast, or on my Sage Woman Blog. The Apple subscription is $3 a month, again with content not found on the Story-Power podcast. If you’re passionate about stories, and want to talk about what you’ve learned from your favorites, come join me at patreon.com/StoryPower. Or, you can subscribe to the subscription on Apple podcast where Story-Power is published.

PodMatch

This episode is brought to you by PodMatch, the dating service for podcasters. They introduced me to Max Friedman, and I’m so glad they did. I hope you’ve enjoyed our conversation and remember that if you have a podcast or something to share with the world, check out PodMatch at my affiliate link at PodMatch and tell them Lucinda sent you.