New Projects

This episode is going to be short. I have other projects that need my attention at the moment.

But first, I want to tell you that last night my husband and some of my acting students and I went to see my colleague, Dave’s version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s his Masters project. It’s the third adaptation of a Shakespeare play he’s done that I’ve seen and thought was fabulous. You know I love stories and Shakespeare is one of the most fabulous storytellers who ever lived. To me Shakespeare’s plays point out the best and worst in human behavior and emotions. On one level, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a romp with mischievous fairies playing tricks on humans. On another level it’s about, as Dave wrote in the Director’s Notes, “… a chance to believe in magic, the power of love, the power of change, the joy in fearlessly doing what we know is right even when we have to face the consequences for it.” 

There have been many times in my life when I did what I knew was right for me even though many people around me didn’t understand my choices. I quit a secure job to follow a feeling that I was meant to do something other than teaching full-time for another 12 to 14 years. I thought I was meant to be a writer at first, and I do write, but the writing led me to podcasting and sharing my passion for the lessons we can learn from the stories we consume. 

Now I’m expanding my story passion to build a community of people who also love and learn from stories. I want a group discussion. That’s why I started my Patreon community last weekend. I’m adding the unedited audio conversation that is my first Patreon post here for your enjoyment. The edited version won’t air on Story-Power until February 2023. I hope you will go read Teri Brown’s book Sunflowers Beneath the Snow since it’s about Ukraine. It takes place between 1973 and 2016. It’s about three generations of women in one family and their differing experiences and viewpoints about their circumstances. I felt as if I was living in Ukraine with the characters, Ivanna, Yetsy, and Ionna as the Soviet Union falls and Ukraine struggles to create a viable government. I hope you’ll read the book. I think it’s fantastic and so timely for what’s happening now.

If you like my conversation with Teri, you can become a patron at patreon.com/StoryPower for a minimal monthly fee. I’m planning a live chat with Teri about her book once I get patrons. I hope you’ll join us, because I have other authors lined up for live chats as well as other special things planned for my community. For example, discussion boards where you can suggest stories to the other members of the community you have enjoyed. I’ll also offer extended podcast episodes, and more as I develop the group. 

Teri M. Brown Conversation for Story-Power

I have two more weeks of teaching this semester and then it’s full blast on editing podcast episodes and building a community at Patreon. After so much time worrying about the pandemic, I’m happy to be connecting with people and having lively discussions again.

I hope your Spring/Autumn is energizing. 

Blessings,

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2022

As many of you know, I’ve been busy with my podcast, Story-Power, which I started in July of 2020. It was going great for about 10 months. I had lots of former students, colleagues, friends, and family to have as guests, but eventually I ran out of guest ideas. I was feeling a little bit of panic. My one year anniversary was approaching. I loved doing the podcast so much, but I needed guests. Fortunately, out of the blue, I received an email from PodMatch inviting me to join their podcasting “dating service” as I call it. I loved that they suggested matches for me and made it easy to schedule guests. Soon, I had so many guests lined up that I was working several months out. It’s been like that ever since. 

I also liked that I could also sign up to be a guest on other people’s podcasts. I’m so happy to be a member of PodMatch that I want to share this wonderful platform with all of you. I love their mission to help promote conversations. I love that! I have been able to chat with people from all over the world, learning about their cultures, and points of view. 

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. Use the affiliate link and tell them, Lucinda sent you. Then contact me so we can set up a chat.

Why Stories Are So Important

Dad reading to son

I have always loved stories. Maybe because when I am reading, watching, listening to, or discussing them, I feel connected to others. Stories change me in subtle ways. I can experience different time periods, places, and states of being that would not be possible any other way and that has helped expand my life experiences.

That’s what this blog and Story-Power are all about. I think I love doing Story-Power because I get to meet interesting people from all over the world and have meaningful conversations with them. That’s also why I just launched my Patreon community. I’m hoping for deeper and deeper conversations with some of my Story-Power guests, and the people who listen. But more than that, I have not counted the work I do worthy of getting paid to do it, until just recently. Art feeds the soul and I want to honor mine and other people’s artwork by promoting it so we can get financial compensation for it.

Tomorrow, I will be interviewing Teri Brown for Story-Power, the author of a book that affected me deeply. The book is Sunflowers Beneath the Snow, about one family’s experience living in Ukraine from 1978 – 2014. I thought Teri did a fantastic job of capturing the feeling of living under Soviet rule, then the turmoil after it fell. The book depicts how difficult it was to find food, and the other necessities of life, and how the eventual war affected this family. There are very few books that have touched me as this one did. I highly recommend it as it is so timely.

Unfortunately, Teri’s Story-Power episode won’t air until March of 2023. That’s why our unedited conversation is going to be the first StoryPower Patreon post this week. I want to encourage people to listen, then read the book and in two or three weeks, when I get some patrons signed up, we’ll have a live Q&A session with Teri, because according to her Author Notes, there is a story behind the story of the book. I can’t wait to hear how she was inspired to write it.

It’s always been my dream to create conversations here. I don’t know why, but not many people comment on my posts. I get likes but few comments. But maybe that doesn’t matter. I know, we’re all busy but it seems like now more than ever we need to have deep conversations and I want to foster that. So, I invite you to contact me if you’d like to be a guest on Story-Power where you can share your story.

If you are interested in hearing Teri’s story and that of other of my Story-Power guests, the Patreon, subscription is only $5 a month. I wanted it to be pay-what-you-can subscription, but Barry and I couldn’t figure out how to do that yet. 

In any case, I’ll continue to write these blogs and hopefully we’ll create a community here too. I’d love to hear what creative projects you’re working on.

I hope your weekend has been blessed.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2022

As many of you know, I’ve been busy with my podcast, Story-Power, which I started in July of 2020. It was going great for about 10 months. I had lots of former students, colleagues, friends, and family to have as guests, but eventually I ran out of guest ideas. I was feeling a little bit of panic. My one year anniversary was approaching. I loved doing the podcast so much, but I needed guests. Fortunately, out of the blue, I received an email from PodMatch inviting me to join their podcasting “dating service” as I call it. I loved that they suggested matches for me and made it easy to schedule guests. Soon, I had so many guests lined up that I was working several months out. It’s been like that ever since. 

I also liked that I could also sign up to be a guest on other people’s podcasts. I’m so happy to be a member of PodMatch that I want to share this wonderful platform with all of you. I love their mission to help promote conversations. I love that! I have been able to chat with people from all over the world, learning about their cultures, and points of view. 

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. Use the affiliate link and tell them, Lucinda sent you. Then contact me so we can set up a chat.

Every Person’s Story is Interesting

Justin Lamb is a successful podcast host, musician, and future therapist. Over the years, he has shifted his passions from music to the mind. He as an advocate for sobriety, therapy, and trauma research. Justin shifted his professional focus in his mid-thirties to become a therapist and transform his passion for items into a career. As a musician, Justin has played across the country and successfully funded a studio album through Kickstarter.

Justin’s Podcast: Friend Request, website, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok

Find Justin’s music here

Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku

“Every Life is a Library” Douglas Oral History Project, Story-Power Episode, June 9, 2021

Oakland University, Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills, Michigan

Friend Request Episode 057, Katie Allen, Memoir about Senegal

Friend Request Episode 082, Don Wildman, Cities of the Underworld

Julia Cameron, The Artists Way, It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again, Seeking Wisdom 

What Should I Read Next with Anne Bogel, Episode 307, Allison Fallon, “Writers start as readers”

Ted Lasso, An Apple + original series

“Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.” ~ Roger C. Schank, Cognitive Scientist

Quick Update

While I was on hiatus, one of the things I was doing was learning about Patreon. I’ve been thinking about starting a Patreon community for quite some time because I’d love to have more in depth discussions about stories and how my subscribers are affected by them.

The more I chat with people on Story-Power about their creative processes and their lives, I just want to hear more. I think it would be fun to have special sessions with them and my community because I want to promote deeper understanding among people.

These last six years have been really hard on me. The political climate, the increased violence, the attack on the rights of so many groups that I don’t need to list them here. Then the pandemic, and now Putin’s war against Ukraine. It’s almost too much. I’m not a person who has ever suffered from clinical depression, but I’ve had to acknowledge that on some level I’m depressed about everything that’s been going on in the world. And yet …

On the other hand, I feel in my bones that we are in the midst of great changes. It’s almost like an epic battle between good and evil, except I don’t believe in Cosmic evil. What we’re living through is a battle between the crumbling of the old paradigms and the emergence of the new. Almost all of the old “common wisdom” is being turned topsy turvy as are institutions and belief systems, and even the way we interact with each other. I want to know how it’s affecting everyone I talk to. How are they/you affected by all the changes? Are they/you trying to help the changes along or are they/you hanging on by their/your fingernails. 

Some days I feel like I’m hanging on by my fingernails and other days, when I pray, send Reiki, meditate, or just chat with people, I feel like everything that’s happening is necessary and even good. I’m determined to seek out the good things that are happening and feel like it’s part of a bigger plan.

I’m not a therapist, but I think conversations about our deepest hopes and fears is really healthy. That’s what I want to promote with my Patreon community, trust and deep conversations. I have four authors who have agreed to do live chats about their books, writing lives, and hopefully more. They are A.D. Trosper, Stacy Bennett, Moshe Mikanovsky, and Teri Brown. I’ve read their books and highly recommend them.

Audra and Stacy have written multiple fantasy books and they are writing partners, Moshe’s book, The Resurrector, is about grief in a Jewish family, and Teri’s book, Sunflowers Beneath the Snow, is about the end of the Soviet Union and how that affected Ukraine. I’m nearly finished with that one, but it’s a fascinating look at life under the USSR, and the difficulties of starting anew through the eyes of one family. Even if you don’t join my community, I highly recommend these authors and their work.

I’ll let you know when I get my Patreon page set up, because I know that many of you have websites and have lots of things to share with others. I’m interested to hear what you have to say.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Blessings,

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2022

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, 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 is published.

Lucinda is also the host of Story-Power a podcast where she and her guests discuss their creative endeavors, and/or the stories that have changed their lives. It’s available here on Sage Woman Chronicles and on Apple, Google, and Spotify podcast apps. Please rate and leave a review. It helps people find me.

Layers, Upon Layers, Upon Layers

Daffodils serenading the sun.

“I am a human being, with feelings and emotions and scars and flaws, just like anyone else.” ~ Josh Gordon

I’m back! Wow, lots has happened since I said I was going to take a break and I’ve got some comments about it all that I hope will make sense.

My dad taught me something vital while we were enjoying watching movies together. I learned from our discussions, that there are layers upon layers of unhealed emotions, attitudes, and beliefs that we all carry around with us all the time. And sometimes, even though we think we’ve carefully locked them away in some dark corner of our minds and hearts, they come out, unexpectedly, in violent ways.

When that happens, most of us are appalled at what we’ve done. “Where did that come from?” we most likely ask ourselves. What I’ve learned is that none of us can ignore our painful experiences and think that they won’t erupt one day to make us take a good look at ourselves.

Self-examination is good for all of us, from world leaders who start wars, to other public figures who’s emotions temporarily flare to the surface and erupt violently.

It doesn’t matter if the violence is a war, a slap in the face, or nasty comments on social media, it is always a sign that there is healing that needs to take place.

So, I know, many people are commenting on Will Smith’s slapping Chris Rock at the Oscar Ceremony on Sunday March 27th. Some people are calling for healing between the two men, others are condemning one or both of them. Here’s what I’ve got to say about that incident. It was a perfect storm, as one of my students pointed out.

Thinking of what happened as if I were analyzing the scene as if I were an actor or director, I would take a step back for a moment from my opinion of what happened. I’m asking you to do the same and put yourself into these men’s shoes. They are at a huge event that is being broadcast around the world. Chris’ job is to be funny. Maybe he has “imposter syndrome” thinking, “I’ve got to be funny. I have a lot riding on this moment and I’m not sure I’m good enough”. Maybe he’s thinking about the opportunities this will bring for his career if he makes good. Or maybe there is a history between him and the Smiths and subconsciously he wants to get back at them. It could be a million other things that he’s thinking and feeling that we don’t even have any clue about. He looks down at Jada Pinkett Smith, sees her shaved head and off the cuff makes a joke about it.

Will on the other hand is up for the best actor Oscar award. Maybe he has “imposter syndrome”. Maybe he never dreamed he’d ever be nominated for so many awards. Maybe he’s anxious, and on top of all that, he knows the pain and suffering his wife has gone through with her disease and finally coming to the decision to shave her head. There’s still a lot of pain about her condition. His emotions are running high and boom, Chris Rock makes a joke about Jada and Will doesn’t think, he just reacts.

Every single one of us has unhealed stuff. Maybe we’re working on healing, but, of course, we can’t heal our wounds all at once. So, someone says or does something that makes us go ballistic. And if we’re smart, we recognize those feelings are pointing out something that we’ve been ignoring that needs to be healed.

Another thing I learned from my dad is that compassion for suffering people is always the best policy. I know it’s hard to have compassion for someone like Putin, but it’s worth my time to try to see the world from his point of view. He must feel extremely fearful if he wants to control the entire world so he can feel better. I mean he’s pretty isolated and disconnected. I’m not sure he knows what ordinary people in his country are going through. Who knows what wounds he’s carrying around. Again, his situation is fodder for the perfect storm.

Over the years I’ve learned another vital thing. Sometimes the only way to get a bully to stop being a bully is to stand up to him. And sometimes that means using violence because that’s the only language they understand. No matter how many people are being hurt, even if it’s only one person, the bully needs to be stopped. Maybe standing up to bullies, like Putin and any others we encounter, will help them wake up and finally try to heal everything they’ve been trying to keep hidden from themselves. In the end though, we need to show compassion and love to bullies. They probably need it more than anyone else.

Thanks for being patient with me while I took some time to concentrate on other important creative projects.

Have a wonderful beginning to Spring, or Autumn, as the case may be. The change of seasons is always an auspicious time.

Blessings,

Lucinda

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, 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 is published.

Lucinda is also the host of Story-Power a podcast where she and her guests discuss their creative endeavors, and/or the stories that have changed their lives. It’s available here on Sage Woman Chronicles and on Apple, Google, and Spotify podcast apps. Please rate and leave a review. It helps people find me.