A New Plan

Architecture plans“And it’s a human need to be told stories. The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.” ~ Alan Rickman

“Fairy tales are more than true not because they tell us that dragons exist but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ~ Neil Gaiman

I’ve been thinking for a long time about making some changes to this blog. The subtitle for what I’ve been writing is “The Arts, Spirituality, Life.” I chose those things to focus upon because they gave me a great deal of leeway. I could write about anything that came into my head and whatever I wrote would fit into one of those categories. But I’ve become restless of late. I needed a better focus for what I was writing. Over the next few weeks I’ll be changing the focus and look of this site. I hope you’ll stay with me on this new adventure.

After a lot of thought, I realized that I’ve been in love with stories my entire life. Our family would watch movies and then discuss them. Eventually it was just my dad and me discussing something we’d watched together. Those discussions could go on for days afterward. They were a great way to understand my dad’s philosophy of life, and to connect with him on a deep level.

I didn’t realize this at the time, but I gravitated toward degrees that focus on story telling because those discussions with my dad helped me understand human behavior and interactions better. I loved that I could have experiences, make mistakes, and learn things all from the comfort of my couch. Eventually I also fell in love with books for the same reason.

So, from now on I’m going to share things I learn about being a human from the books I read, the movies, TV shows, and plays I see. Stories will be my way to examine the big questions that baffle me, or insights, or new perspectives I gain from consuming them.

Having written that, I’d like to write about an Amazon series that I’ve written about before. It’s The Man in The High Castle. My sister and I were discussing it because she and her husband have begun watching the first season. Our discussion brought back so many memories and insights I gained from watching.

The series is based on the book of the same name by Philip K. Dick. It’s a dystopian story which takes place in the 1960s in an alternate reality in which the Nazis and Japanese won WW II and divided up most of the world between them. The former United States is ruled by the Japanese in the West and the Nazis in the East with a neutral zone in the Rocky Mountains. A key point of the plot is the existence of news reel type films showing events in the reality we know where the Allies won the war. The Nazis and to a lesser degree, the Japanese want to find “the man in the high castle” and end the distribution of these films. The reason is obvious, they challenge their power. And it’s this idea of the different kinds of power that my sister and I were discussing.

In the book Seat of the Soul, by Gary Zukav, which we have both read, Zukav outlines two kinds of power. External power is based on our perceptions of the five senses. The idea is that, there is not enough to go around, so I need gather as much power as I can to protect myself and my loved ones. The Nazis and most of the Japanese characters are driven by external power. They need to control external circumstances to make themselves safe.

The other kind of power that Gary Zukav says we’re moving toward is authentic power, that is based on the perceptions and values of the spirit. In other words, what is good for all of humanity is good for me too. This power comes from within each of us not as power over anyone, but power to cultivate creativity, compassion, and trust. Though the various resistance groups struggle with trust and how to accomplish their goal of overcoming the superpowers, their main focus is to make sure everyone has the necessities and opportunities they need to create good lives.

The book ends rather abruptly when the main character, Juliana Crain, finds the man who has been distributing the videos. But meeting him doesn’t answer the question of why he’s doing this. It doesn’t seem he has any purpose except to cause chaos. The series, on the other hand, uses the plot device of the videos as a way for various resistance movements to gain momentum in their fight against tyranny. The man is producing and distributing these films attempting to foster an evolution to authentic power. He is spreading hope that love and brotherhood is more powerful than the fear the Nazis and Japanese dish out.

An interesting part of the story for me are the traveling characters who can travel between dimensions or timelines. One of these is the Japanese Trade Minister. He and Juliana have an interesting relationship, sometimes bridging the two timelines. All the characters who travel to the timeline we know, either gain strength from their visits, or are confronted by the bad decisions they made. And those kinds of character studies are always interesting to me because some characters make expedient decisions instead of thinking of the consequences they will face further down the road. When their lives end up badly, it’s like a warning sign to the audience, “Don’t make these mistakes.”

It seems to me that stories can also help us make sense of what we experience in the outer world at the time of their creation. The Man in the High Castle is a piece of art that shows us a version of what we are experiencing right now. There are leaders who want to control their citizens by denying their basic needs. They control by using fear to keep the population down. On the other hand, there are leaders who seem to feel the trials of their fellow human beings and want to do something to relieve their suffering.

Stories give us a chance to explore the consequences of the choices the various characters make without experiencing them personally. Sometimes mental distance can be a good thing.

I hope you will stay with me on this ride. Stories permeate our lives and as the quotes above advocate, we need them. We need them to give us courage, or to weigh possibilities, or to help us get new perspectives, or even to connect emotionally with people (characters) we might never encounter in our real lives. Stories help us develop empathy. And in my estimation, we can use a lot more of that.

So, welcome to my new followers. Thanks so much for reading. Please leave a comment or a like, and if you feel so inclined, share this site with your family and friends. I’m a story nerd and would love to discuss the stories you love 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. Except that 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.

This Is Still Our Phoenix Moment

Roller Coaster at night, Seaside Heights, NJ

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.” – Joseph Campbell

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”  – Maya Angelou

The year I started this blog, 2013, I wrote an article titled “This is Our Phoenix Moment.” It was about one of the government shutdowns. Obama was President and the Republicans had declared that they were not going to approve any laws he, or the Democrats proposed and to prove it they let the money run out and the government shut down.

At the time I wrote that post, I felt personal and societal rumblings that were going to shake us and wake us. And that feeling has turned out to be right. Everything is topsy turvy. It looks like we’re crashing and burning, but I see that as a good thing. To make a mundane analogy, you can’t clean out closets without taking everything out and making a mess. Chaos brings an opportunity for rebirth and renewal.

I don’t know about you, but my personal life is going through cosmic closet cleaning at the same time the world is going through it as well. In 2013, I thought I’d have become a full-time writer ensconced at home, blissfully selling my work. But nothing ever happens the way we think it will. Which is one of the ways we are forced to grow. We get plopped into an unexpected situation and have to learn to live in the new circumstances.

It’s easier for us if we embrace change. For example, I want to sell my work, but it’s impossible to sell anything if no one knows it exists. Just recently I realized that I can easily think of ways to promote the work of others but not my own. It’s this weird feeling that I’m not worthy to have people read my work. Once I admitted that to myself, three interesting things happened. A friend of ours that we got to see over Christmas vacation, told me she was in her local library and there on an end cap was my book. She was so excited that she took it off the shelf and hugged it, because what I’d written meant so much to her.

Then a week or so ago, my acting friend Dave told me that when he can’t sleep he picks up my book and reads portions of it to calm himself down. “It’s a beautifully written book,” he told me. I was so touched, because what I remember most are the criticisms I’ve received, not the praise.

And finally, I’ve started a new writing adventure with Sivana East. I think I wrote in a previous post that they invited me to submit articles on their site. I’ve done three so far. Any opportunity to improve my writing skills and unfold layers of what I’m learning is welcome and maybe I’ll make new contacts as a result.

This is what I believe: We go through individual times of upheaval to aid our spiritual growth. Societies, governments, and groups of people go through the same thing. And the two are linked. We’re not meant to get stuck in the same routines and ways of thinking forever. We can make ourselves miserable by complaining and fighting the inevitable, or we can hop on the roller coaster and see where it takes us. The ride can be joyful and exciting, or oppressive. It’s up to us.

It’s become clear to me that I need to make more of an effort to connect with people, not just to sell books but to hear their stories, lend them support, and accept theirs in return. I’ll always be an introvert, but it’s not good to stay hidden and quiet all the time. Because the way I grow is by being exposed to other people’s way of thinking and being. That can be in person, or it can by through the art they create.

I’m ready to open the chrysalis in which I’ve been transforming. It’s time for me to become the beautiful butterfly I was always meant to be. Maybe it’s time for humanity to do the same thing.

Thanks for reading, liking, and commenting. If you like what you read here, please share it with your friends and family.

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. Except that Jenna’s life is shattered and she must find a way to put it back together. When she finds old journals, she joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, rather than traveling physically. She is able to come back at intervals and apply what she’s learned to her own life situations.

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. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

Syntesis: Nevelle Longbottom and Mitt Romney

To Kill A Mockingbird book cover

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” ~ Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

So, I was fixing breakfast thinking about what I was going to write for this post and two seemingly disparate bits of information collided in my head.

I’m not a domestic goddess as you may know from previous posts. But sometimes doing menial tasks frees up my mind to wander and today that paid off. As I was cooking the eggs, I was thinking about Mitt Romney’s bravery and Nevelle Longbottom came into my head.

Do you remember in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, at the end when Dumbledore is awarding the house cup? He hands out some last minute points to Harry, Hermione, and Ron. Then he says, “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.” And he awards Nevelle enough points to give the cup to Gryffindor. That’s when what Nevelle did in the book/movie and Mitt did at the Senate Impeachment trial synthesized in my head.

Mitt Romney stood up to his party. I don’t know if he considers them friends. He even said in his speech that he expected to be vilified for taking the position he did. But here’s the thing. The President and many in his party may berate him and call him nasty names, but there are plenty of people, Democrats, people in the media, and many ordinary people like me, who were moved by his courage. He stood up for what he thought was right. He honored his oath even though I’m sure he endured great pressure to abandon it.

My sister, Celeste, said. “I see hope for the Republican Party and for the rest of us. He showed a willingness to set aside politics as usual and vote his conscience.” He gives me hope too.

I’ve been thinking a great deal lately about why we fold under pressure and don’t stand up for what’s right. I’ve done it upon occasion and it makes me feel so bad about myself when I do it. I’m sure Romney was frightened about the brouhaha he was going to cause, but he stood by his oath anyway.

When we show courage, we often get support in unexpected ways. I haven’t seen it but the two most liberal women on The View Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, praised Romney. They were willing to say that even though they have not always agreed with him, what he did made him a hero in their eyes. Yeah! We can use real heroes right now because heroes not only give us hope, they help to stimulate courage in those around them.

So, while I feel inspired by fictional heroes, it’s much more heartening to witness a real life person exhibiting great courage. Thank you, Senator Mitt Romney!

Welcome new followers. Thanks for reading, commenting and liking. If you like what you read here, feel free to share this site with your friends.

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. Except that Jenna’s life is shattered and she must find a way to put it back together. When she finds old journals, she joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, rather than traveling physically. She is able to come back at intervals and apply what she’s learned to her own life situations.

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. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

Little Women Love

Civil War Woman

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.” ~ Emily Dickinson

“I have decided to stick with love . Hate is too great a burden to bear.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

In this turbulent time, you might be looking for a book, or other entertainment, that makes you feel good. I have a recommendation for you. I recently finished reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Somehow I missed reading it in school. I’ve seen three movie versions of the story and loved them all, so I want to see this latest version too. I missed it in the theater but being the story nerd that I am, I will watch it and make comparisons to all previous versions and the book.

The thing I’ve always loved about this story is the close family relationships. The way the March family looks for ways to help others, even though they are poor. They spread love wherever they go. That’s not to say they’re perfect. They make plenty of mistakes but their practice of helping those in need demonstrates that they are unique among their acquaintances. Their philanthropy rubs off on their surly neighbor Mr. Laurence and his grandson Teddy. Mr. Brooke, Teddy’s tutor also becomes part of the March family. It’s almost as if the March family are magnets for dejected, lonely, and wounded people. Something about the love they feel for each other bubbles over washing people to their shore where they are welcomed whole heartedly.

Some time last year, I listened to Anne Bogel’s new podcast “One Great Book”. This particular one was about the book Love Walked In by Marisa De Los Santos. Anne quoted Marisa as saying, I’m paraphrasing here, that she writes books that she hopes will make people feel good when they’ve finished reading. I love that philosophy. Those are the kinds of books I want to write and for the most part the ones I like to read. Because life is hard enough and it’s good to envision a world with lots of love in it. Little Women is a great example of that kind of book.

Some critics don’t like the book or the movies because the story is centered on the March sisters and their mother. But some of the most iconic books ever written were by and about women. I don’t want to make too much of the differences between male and female oriented books, though I do want to point out that in stories written by women, their protagonists have tremendous power over the men in their lives. Their power is subtle and non coercive, but highly effective.

The last chapter of Little Women, affected me the most. It’s Marmee’s 60th birthday. Jo and Friedrich have opened a school for boys in the house Aunt March left to Jo. The boys and the entire March/Brooke/Bhaer families have gathered for a lovely day of apple harvesting and feasting. The school is unique because the boys are treated with respect. They are encouraged to be themselves but always to think of others first. The celebration is full of warmth and love. Everyone is happy and fulfilled. They all honor Marmee and acknowledge that she is the heart of their family. The way Alcott wrote the scene, I couldn’t help but be affected by the shared affections of the characters. This is one of those rare books that made me want to savor the feeling it left instead of beginning another book right away.

There was one thing, however, that disappointed me at first. Jo was determined to open a school just for boys and not include girls. I didn’t understand that. Granted, the school took boys in need as well as boys who’s families could afford to pay, But previous to the last chapter, the book had been focused on the lives of the sisters, their dreams, their affection for each other and their choices to be the best women they could be. But then it occurred to me that Jo was performing a great act of feminism. What better way to change the world than to teach boys to respect and honor themselves and all people? The family already advocated for women. It was as if Jo saw where she could do the most good. I’m not sure Alcott even thought about this aspect of Jo’s decision to open a school for boys, but I’d like to think she did.

I highly recommend not only reading Little Women, but watching any or all of the versions as well to see how the story has evolved through the years. It’s a hopeful story and most of us can use a big dose of good feelings right now.

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting on my posts. If you like what you read, please share this site with your friends.

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. Except that Jenna’s life is shattered and she must find a way to put it back together. When she finds old journals, she joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, rather than traveling physically. She is able to come back at intervals and apply what she’s learned to her own life situations.

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. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.

Let the Characters Make the Mistakes

Marco Polo Sings A Solo

“People of the future may suffer not from an absence of choice but from a paralyzing surfeit of it. They may turn out to be victims of that peculiarly super-industrial dilemma: overchoice.” ~ Alvin Toffler author of Future Shock

“A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimension.” ~ Oliver Wendell Homes

Do you yell at the characters on the TV, or in your books? I do all the time. I want my favorite character to be protected and to make the best moral choices even in the most dire of circumstances. And if they don’t I want to see why they followed a path that I naïvely think I would not choose.

Recently my husband and I binge watched three shows on TV that have good characters faced with moral dilemmas that I hope I never have to deal with. These shows were the last season of The Man in the High Castle, the last season of Poldark, and season two of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Each one, in it’s own way, is suspenseful has plenty of twists and turns, and points when the characters have to make moral decisions. That gives me opportunities to think about how I’d react to the given circumstances in which they find themselves. As you can imagine, I do a lot of cringing and giving them advice.

The Man in the High Castle is the show I want to write about because it’s the one I have been thinking about the most. It’s chock full of moral dilemmas. And as I wrote above, I find myself wondering what I’d do in those circumstances.

The story is based on the dystopian novel of the same name by Phillip K. Dick, a famous pioneer of the the sci-fi genre. It takes place in the mid-60s. The Axis Powers won WW II. Germany has control of the eastern part of what was the United States, as well of all of Europe, and Japan has control of the western part as well as most of Asia. There is a neutral zone in the Rockies where Jews, people of color, and those who want to resist these powers attempt to escape to so they can eek out a living. This is also the headquarters of the resistance movement which grows stronger as the series moves through the four seasons.

The key plot point that moves the story forward is the existence of films distributed by the mysterious “Man in the High Castle.” No one knows who he is or how he got these films that show the history familiar to us where the Allies won the war. As more and more people see the news reels they begin to hope that the oppressive governments can be defeated.

One of the things I love about the series is that the pivotal character is a woman by the name of Juliana Crain. From the moment she sees the first film that happens to feature people she knows in her world, in the other world, she’s on a mission to not only find the man in the high castle, but to bring about the destruction of the Nazi and Japanese empires. Her nemesis is John Smith, an American, who rises to be the leader of the American Reich.

The series forces the watcher to ask themselves how could any Americans throw in the with Nazis, especially military men who were fighting for freedom? They are the more dominant empire on the continent, though we do see how American’s are treated as second class citizens by the Japanese. It’s bad enough for whites, but Jews and people of color are in extreme danger.

One of the brilliant choices the film makers made was to wait to show the moment when John Smith and his wife decide to save themselves and their family by joining the Nazi party. Their decision is portrayed in one of the last episodes of the final season. It’s titled “Mauvaise Foi,” which is a French term originating from existentialist philosophy. It’s the concept that human beings adopt false values and act inauthentically (in bad faith) under pressure from social forces. And as we know, the Nazis were experts at setting up situations where people were forced to make bad faith decisions, or be destroyed.

In the show, after the surrender of the Allied Forces, the Nazis have starved the American people. They then “benevolently” air drop, or ship food and other necessities to all the major cities assuring the populace that they will be taken care of IF they join with the Nazis to ensure a prosperous new future.

I couldn’t help wondering what I would do if I were in that situation. When this happens in the story, we see John and his wife Helen trying to care for their infant son, who’s health is rapidly declining because of lack of food. Would I be able to let my child die for my principles? I might have made the same decision even though in my heart I knew it was wrong.

One thing that great stories do is allow us to see the consequences of character’s choices. For Juliana, her choice to learn all she can from the films, to practice the Japanese form of meditation, and to resist the oppressors, turn out to be transformative for her personally, and for the society. In the case of John and Helen, their decision to become Nazis turns out, dare I say, satisfyingly tragic.

In each of the TV shows I mentioned above, the hero characters have strong ideas about what is right and what is wrong. They sometimes make mistakes, but in the end they choose the moral high ground and win because of it. This does two things for me: One, make me pay attention to my own choices. Am I kind, do I show I care for the planet, do I stand up for what I believe? And two, gives me hope that if more and more of us on this planet choose the moral high ground, we will eventually create a better world. Am I delusional to hope for that do you think?

Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. If you like these posts, please share them with your friends.

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. Except that Jenna’s life is shattered and she must find a way to put it back together. When she finds old journals, she joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, rather than traveling physically. She is able to come back at intervals and apply what she’s learned to her own life situations.

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. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.