It Takes Discipline

Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona, AZ

“For those who have been trained by it/No discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful … Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace …” Bobby McFerrin “Medicine Music”

I don’t know about you, but I was getting lazy before this crisis happened. Not so much lazy in doing things, but in my thought and emotional patterns. It seemed to me that the world was in such a big mess that I couldn’t do anything about it. I allowed myself to feel helpless, so I didn’t make much of an effort to effect change. I did personal work, but I wasn’t diligent about it. My life was pretty good. What more could I want? I was drifting, spiritually.

Then the big disruption hit and I took a big step back and said, “Whoa, I need to do some self-evaluation.”

You see, I believe what a friend of mine said long ago, “There are no victims, only volunteers.” We’re here now because we volunteered to live through these events. We’re experiencing, on a global level, what most of us have experienced on personal levels. Our lives fell apart and we were forced to do what I call “cosmic closet cleaning”. At those times we realized that we let life happen to us instead of choosing who we want to be and what we want to do. We listened to and followed other people’s ideas of who we should be and what we should do. At some point we hit a wall, we crashed and burned, and blessedly we got to reevaluate where we were going and who we wanted to be. If that hasn’t happened to you yet, maybe it’s happening now.

We’re taught to see the world from a negative point of view, that it’s futile to buck the system, that the world is a negative place full of traps, that life isn’t fair. But what happens to us is not negative or positive. Events become one or the other when WE put a value on them. So, what is happening now can be our downfall, if we choose that. Or it can be an opportunity to make the world a better place.

What I just wrote makes it sound like we can change fairly easy. “Oh, we just change our thinking and everything will be okay.” But I’ll tell you that when I first heard this idea, that our thoughts create reality, I did not believe it. I didn’t want to admit that I was to blame for this messed up world! I didn’t want to do the work necessary to change my thoughts and emotions.

Side note: Our thoughts creating our reality is not a woo woo, airy fairy, new age theory. It’s a scientifically proven fact by quantum physicists who were shocked to find that the outcome of their experiments were affected by their observations and expectations. They could never see how particles behaved in their natural state, because they couldn’t keep their expectations completely neutral. And eventually they concluded that all of us, with our thought patterns and emotional states, create the reality we’re living in.

Again, changing the way we think and feel is not easy. I know from experience. It’s difficult to take responsibility for the things that happen to us. When I did accept that fact, it meant that I had to take a good look at everything I believed. Taking responsibility was the first step in my evolution as a person.

The second step was to begin to pay attention to what I was thinking and feeling all the time. The two go hand-in-hand. It’s a process. I’ve been trying to turn away from negative reactions and thought patterns for more than forty years. It takes constant vigilance. Something will happen, most of the time it’s really trivial, and I’ll get all bent out of shape about it. And then Barry will say something, or I’ll catch myself and I say, “Wait a minute, I don’t have to see this as negative. It might be a good thing.” The barometer I always use for situations like that is something my Dad used to say, “Will this matter in a hundred years?” If it won’t matter, I let go of the negative feelings and let things play out.

But if what I’m facing will matter in a hundred years, then I know I’d better take a good hard look at what I’m thinking and feeling that prevents the situation from getting better.

This week I was listening to a spiritual teacher on YouTube, Amanda Ellis, and she suggested that we take a few moments every day to choose one troubled place in the world and re-envision it as peaceful, joy filled, with buildings and gardens rebuilt, and with people and businesses prospering. It will take discipline to do this, but if each person choses a different place each day and sees it as filled with whole and happy people, our collective efforts could change the world much faster than having disaster after disaster forcing us to make the changes we need to make.

I for one do not want to live with despair any longer. I want everyone to be happy, healthy, and honored for what they do no matter the size of that contribution. I’m willing to do this daily visualization. I’m willing to make a commitment to turn away from the negative and seek out acts of kindness and compassion. There are plenty of stories out there of people helping others if we look for them.

I don’t think our efforts have to be huge. I’m not one of those working in an essential field. But I can post encouraging things on my social media outlets, and on this blog. I can encourage my students, my family, and friends. I plan to push positivity like a drug, and that’s helpful even if only in little ways.

Sometimes the right message comes along at just the right time. I finished reading Marie Foleo’s book, Everything is Figureoutable last week and the three tenets of her book are: 1) No matter what the problem, we can figure out how to fix it, it’s figureoutable. 2) Start before you’re ready. You’ll figure out how to do it as you go along. And 3) refuse to be refused. There will always be naysayers when you comes up with innovative ideas. Don’t listen to them. If you’ve got a vision for how to be of service, go for it. Marie always finishes her MarieTV episodes by saying, “Remember, the world needs that special gift that only you have.”

If we accept that each one of us has a special gift that the world needs, that’s a much different perspective than to think we’re worthless and the world is against us. It also means that we need to support the people who can figure out how to cure this virus and not just them but everyone, because you never know how they will use their gifts to help us through this crisis and beyond.

I admit, I get discouraged and overwhelmed. There are so many people who need help. I want to give money, but which causes need it most? Sometimes my head feels like it’s spinning around like in some weird horror movie. But, I’m going to take Amanda’s advice and take just a few minutes every day to silence my mind and visualize a much more friendly world.

As we’re forced into isolation, it might be a good time for you to take stock of your life. I’m doing that. I’m asking what more work I need to do on myself. It’s not always a comfortable process. I’ve had to face dark places in myself that I’d much rather have ignored. But if I don’t face and accept them, they fester and that’s not good because my negative energy spills over onto those around me. The negativity acts like ripples in water. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of living in a scary world. I want to live in a friendly, compassionate, loving world.

What are you planning to do during this time of upheaval?

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you are safe and well.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2020

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.

 

I’m Grateful!

Chapel of the Red Rocks

“Our world has more than enough critics. Be an encourager.” ~ Marie Foleo, Everything is Figureoutable

“I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.” ~ Dalai Lama

Yesterday I took a trip outside for the first time in twenty-three days. I was surprised to see so many cars on the road. Well there weren’t as many as usual, but more than I thought there would be. The parking lots, however, were mostly empty. We have a shelter in place order in our state.

I know some people are going crazy because they’re stuck at home, they’ve watched every movie and TV show, they’ve read every book they had on their night stand. They’ve played games, done puzzles, exercised more than usual, and cleaned house over and over. Or maybe they’ve had to home school their children and that’s driving them crazy. I feel for all of you, especially if you are energized by being out and about interacting with people. This staying at home thing must be torture.

I can’t say I feel the same. I love being quiet at home working on my creative projects with lots of time to journal and think. This morning while I was meditating I felt an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for all the people we usually take for granted. The people who are keeping our society going.

I got an email from our garbage company yesterday assuring us that they would continue to pick up our garbage. How often do we thank the garbage man. Think about how horrible it would be if garbage stacked up everywhere.

Our neighbor works for Safeway. She and all the other grocery workers are making sure their shelves are stocked so we have all the things we need while we stay in as much as possible. And all the people we REALLY take for granted, the people who harvest the fruits and veggies we enjoy.

And I’m extremely grateful for the home repair guys who did all the work we needed to repair underneath our house so we could have our new heat pump installed before the hot weather hits. That was a seventy day process with more than one company and several men working. Thanks guys! We’ll be comfortable through the summer.

We’ve ordered items we needed online and I’m grateful for UPS and USPS workers for delivering those packages.

I have a young cousin and his wife who both work at a hospital in the Portland, Oregon area. They have a two year old son who must stay with grandma and grandpa because they can’t risk exposing him to the virus. I can’t imagine how hard that must be, but I’m grateful for all the people who are there to protect our safety and health who are in the same boat.

I have a niece who is about to give birth, and only her husband will be allowed to be with her in the hospital because of the precautions that need to be taken at this time. She’ll be required to stay in the hospital for an extended period of time to be sure she and the baby are safe. Contact with grandparents, aunts and uncles will not be allowed until this whole thing is over.

I’m also grateful for all the actors, artists, musicians, and dancers who are producing videos to entertain us. They’re continuing to be creative no matter what. I love that!

And thank you to all the business owners who are repurposing their businesses to produce medical equipment and supplies, or who are flying to acquire things our medical people need to protect themselves and help their patients. It’s fantastic that people are looking around, finding a need and stepping up and making sure the work gets done.

I would wager that each of you reading this have your own stories of people to be grateful for. You probably have people you are concerned about. I send my prayers and love out to you. This is an extremely difficult time, but it helps me cope if I find things to be grateful for.

Wow! We’re so lucky to be living through this time when we can witness the kindness of strangers. It restores my faith in humanity.

I’m grateful for all of you who follow me and who like and comment. Stay safe and healthy.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2020

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.

How Do We Cope?

Act I The Skin of Our Teeth

“After nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” ~ Philip Pullman

“But during the war,–in the middle of all that blood and dirt and hot and cold–everyday and night, I’d have moments, Maggie, when I saw the things that we could do when it was over. When you’re at war you think about a better life; when you’re at peace you think about a more comfortable one.” George Antrobus from the play The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder.

Even before the pandemic was declared, I was thinking a great deal about how people cope when faced with life threatening situations, like war, suffering from a deadly disease, personal or communal economic crashes, incarceration, or slavery? What is it that drives us to fight to make life better, to survive horrific situations?

In my second book Time’s Echo, Morgan and Jenna are fighting for women’s rights. They are exposed to women who have lived through horrendous situations. Those women inspire them because they do their best to carry on even as they are devalued by the men in their lives. I’m at the stage of writing now when I’m trying to flesh out the bare bones of the story and I’m always rummaging for connections that give me new inspiration for my story.

A day or two ago, in that netherworld between sleep and waking, I remembered a play I directed some years ago with similar themes to what I’ve been thinking about for my book. The play is The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder. It was first performed in 1942 and later won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The United States had recently entered WW II. The world was in chaos; just another disaster that mankind has had to try to survive. And that’s the theme of the play. Mr. and Mrs. Antrobus are the head of an “every family”, who, with their maid and children have survived the Ice Age, the great flood, plagues, and war after war. Mr. Antorbus is the inventor of the wheel, the alphabet, and all kinds of other things we take for granted. But like any family, they have their dysfunctions which they must work through as the world falls apart around them. In fact, it might be because the world is falling apart around them that they must confront their misconceptions about each other and their assumptions of how the world works.

Maybe this current crisis is making us do the same thing. Many of us have lots of time on our hands and in a way we’re being forced to take stock of our relationships, our attitudes, our wounds, and our purpose in life. The Skin of Our Teeth might help you with some of the inner work you might be engaged in. Here is the link if you care to watch the play.

Since I’m a connector, someone who is always looking for answers to my big questions in unlikely places, I was excited when Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov came up on my YouTube feed. At first I didn’t think past how much I love that piece of music. But as I listened to it, I remembered the story of Scheherazade. I’ve looked up a couple of versions of the story. I don’t know if she was a real woman, or just part of the mythology of One Thousand and One Nights, or as we know the collection, The Arabian Nights.

The story goes like this: Someplace in the Middle East, or perhaps in India, Sultan Shahryar arrives home from a hunting trip unexpectedly early and finds his wife in bed with servants. He’s so enraged that he beheads all of them immediately. Because of this incident, he wants revenge and vows to wed a virgin and kill her the morning after their wedding so she will never have an opportunity to cheat on him. After the Sultan has killed hundreds of women in this way, the Vizier’s daughter, Scheherazade, offers herself as his next wife. She’s known to be an educated, charming, talented women. The Vizier had tried to get both his daughters to flee to another country, but Scheherazade proves how intelligent she is. After the wedding, she makes a request of the Sultan. She promised her sister that she would tell her one last story and asks if she may do that on their wedding night. The Sultan agrees and the sister joins them. As they sit together, Scheherazade tells such a riveting story that the Sultan is enthralled, but just as the sun comes up, at the most exciting part of the story, Scheherazade says that it’s dawn and she must finish the story the next night. The Sultan agrees. This goes on like that for 1001 nights. Over that time, the Sultan’s rage has been healed. He has fallen in love with Scheherazade. Because of her courage, and talent in storytelling, peace returns to the land.

Stories can be like water droplets on stone. It may take a long time, but as the water freezes, and continues to drop on the stone, fissures form. Eventually the stone breaks. Perhaps that’s why we love watching our favorite movies or plays over and over, or returning to our favorite book for comfort. Each time we reencounter the story we learn something new and we are changed as a result.

Hopefully during this time of crisis, we will tell each other our stories both of pain and of hope and they will break down the barriers we’ve built up inside our minds and hearts.

Think of funerals and memorial services. Telling stories about the lost loved one often helps the mourners. Grief is not erased, but perhaps eased somewhat. When my father died years ago, we had a family reunion to celebrate his life. Each of us shared many stories about how he had touched our lives. When those few days ended, I still missed him. But I had learned things about him I’d never known before. Knowing those things helped me through my grieving process. His life had touched so many others and isn’t that we all hope for, to be remembered as someone who made a difference?

Welcome to my new followers. Thank you all for reading. I’d like to know what stories have touched your lives.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2020

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 little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Jenna’s life is shattered and she must put her life back together. When she finds old journals as she’s clearing out her mother’s house, she joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan. She is able to come back to her own life at intervals and apply what she’s learned to heal and forgive.

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.

Hope and Love

Daffodils serenading the sun.

“There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who do not. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living.” ~ José N. Harris

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

You might think I’m going to join the chorus of people commenting on the situation with the virus, but I’m not. Okay, not entirely.

I make connections between things that seem to be totally unrelated. This morning as I was thinking what to write for this week’s post, the movie we watched last night kept running through my head. It’s a survival/love story and aren’t we in the middle of that kind of situation right now?

The movie is The Mountain Between Us with the wonderful Kate Winslet and Idris Elba in the lead roles. I recorded it a few weeks ago on a whim. I’d never heard of it before, but I thought, “Hey, we can’t go wrong with Kate Winslet and Idris Elba at the heart of the story.” If you don’t know the movie, I suggest you rent it.

Alex, played by Kate is trying to get to her wedding, but her flight to Denver has been cancelled because of an impending storm. Ben, played by Idris, is a surgeon trying to get to an important surgery, but is in the same boat. They happen to be going in the same direction. Alex suggests they charter a plane. The pilot, Walter, played by Beau Bridges, has a small two seater. This makes Alex and Ben nervous, but they are hell bent on getting to their destinations as quickly as possible so they charter the plane. While over the mountains, Walter suffers a massive stroke and they crash. It’s January! Walter dies, and they are both injured, Alex the most severely with a broken leg. They are faced with the problem of how to survive the mountains in winter. They only have each other, a small amount of survival gear and Walter’s dog. It takes them weeks to get down to the valley floor to find help.

Near the end of the movie I said to Barry, “How do you come back to your life after an experience like that?” To which he replied, “I don’t know. Maybe you can’t.” That’s so true. Adversity of any kind alters us. It changes our trajectory. We have to navigate the world in a new way.

That’s what happens to Ben and Alex. She couldn’t marry her fiancé when she gets back. She’s forever bound to Ben. He’s altered too, but thinks that Alex has gone through with her wedding. So, he goes back to London to practice a different kind of medicine, one that requires him to be more involved with his patients. After many calls to Ben, Alex sends him the photographs she took during their survival journey. I forgot to mention that she’s a photojournalist. When he gets the photos, he sets up a meeting in New York where she lives. Their meeting is awkward at first. But when he finds out that she didn’t get married, we see hope in his eyes. Alex thinks they’ve missed their chance, but she tells Ben she thinks it was love that helped them survive. Outside the restaurant, they part. Alex going one direction, Ben the other. But their connection to each other is so strong, they turn around and run back into each other’s arms.

So, even though what we’re going through right now isn’t a movie with a completely happy ending, change is going to happen whether we like it or not. I know from personal experience that giving into fear and fighting to keep things the same only makes life more difficult. I have hope that we won’t do that. That we’ll navigate through these rough times and come through the better for it.

I’m sending love and prayers to all of you, to all of us. I hope you are well, or getting well.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2020

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 little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Jenna’s life is shattered and she must put her life back together. When she finds old journals as she’s clearing out her mother’s house, she joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan. She is able to come back to her own life at intervals and apply what she’s learned to heal and forgive.

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.

True Confessions

Revised book cover for The Space Between Time

“Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, with Annotations – 1841 – 1844

I’ve written a novel that I’m proud of. It’s long and some people say it’s slow moving, but that’s the kind of book I gravitate to. The ones where the characters have lots of challenges and learn a great deal about themselves.

I love the process of writing. When I’m sitting at the computer and my fingers are running over the keys, time seems to recede into the background. I feel pure bliss. But then, there’s the part of writing that I don’t take to at all, book promotion.

It’s logical that people will not buy my book if they don’t know about it. But for the longest time, I did just the bare minimum of self-promotion hoping that some huge fan would tell all their friends about my book, and then they’d tell all their friends, and word of mouth marketing would make my book a huge hit.

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. Well, I suppose word of mouth marketing can work for somethings, but have you seen how many books come out in a week? Hundreds. And they are all vying for readers.

Over the last year or so as I’ve been working on Time’s Echo, book two of the series, I’ve felt that I needed to abandon the idea of finding a volunteer marketing genius to help me promote my books. What I had to do was find a way to be an introvert/marketing/book promoting business woman. Telling myself that I didn’t know anything about how to promote my work wasn’t getting me anywhere.

Then I remembered Marie Foleo’s phrase, “everything is figureoutable.” She even wrote a book with that title. Okay! I can do this. I can figure out how to market my work in a way that works for me! I bought the book and I’m doing the exercises so I can figure out my own unique way to let the millions of readers out there know what my books are about and hopefully they’ll be intrigued enough to buy them.

It’s scary putting myself out there. But it’s fun too. I’ve tried to figure this out before, but the courses were too detail oriented, or had too much information that didn’t fit my situation, or I had to follow their exact formula which didn’t fit the way my brain works. I have to say, I rebel at such one size fits all ways of doing things. But, I think I finally found the system that allows me to create my own business strategy. Marie asks the questions. I come up with the answers that fit me.

One thing I realized as I was doing some of the exercises was that I’ve got to have the right book blurb. I don’t think my current blurb has the right hook that makes people want to read the book. Here is a new one I came up with the other day. Tell me what you think. Your feedback will help me make the needed adjustments.

“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 finds unexpected help when she finds her 3-times great-grandmother’s journals and begins the adventure of a lifetime.”

For social media purposes, I added, “This started off as a very different book. It’s amazing where the muses take you. You can get a hard copy of TSBT at Amazon, or at your favorite ebook retailer. Now back to working on book two.”

What do you think? Would you like to read a story like that?

This is the challenge for me, I have to keep posting about my book to social media at regular intervals. I can’t just do it once and then expect the entire world to be intrigued and rush to Amazon. This is a bit of an obstacle because I really dislike all those ads on my social media feed. “Buy thus and so and your life will become a dream.” Nope. I’m not doing that! So, I’ve come up with ideas of how to vary the posts. I’ve asked friends to take pictures of themselves with my book and add a caption. These I’ll post to Instagram, which is also linked to Facebook and Twitter. That way my readers can help me attract potential new readers by sharing their impressions. You can help, if you want to. If you’ve read my book and liked it, will you consider sending me a picture of yourself with the book and a caption to go with it? Or If you don’t want your picture splashed all over social media, just a picture of your hands holding the book and a caption will help so much.

Just this morning I thought of going to all those book sites I joined and instead of posting an ad for my book, I thought I’d ask questions, for example: How did you become a writer? What kinds of books inspire you? Do you like long books with lots of character development, or short fast paced plot driven books? Are you a member of writer’s group? If so, does that help you improve your writing? And so on.

I’m just getting started on this book promotion adventure. These are just the first ideas I’m trying. I’m looking forward to coming up with more. If you have ideas of ways I can create a community of readers and writers, please share them with me.

This post is getting long, but I want to say that my writing is inspired by everything that happens to and around me. When I sit down to write anything, I’m always trying to figure out what I’m thinking and feeling about current events both inner and outer. It seems to me that people who love stories, then talk and write about them are part of my tribe, because they pay attention to the layers of what it means to be a human being. That’s always my goal in watching, reading, and writing. I prefer face-to-face discussions, but I’m getting better at virtual ones. I hope you’ll give me some great things to think about.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. Take care of yourselves and those close by who need help too.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2020

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 little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Jenna’s life is shattered and she must put her life back together. When she finds old journals as she’s clearing out her mother’s house, she joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan. She is able to come back to her own life at intervals and apply what she’s learned to heal and forgive.

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.