Diana's Blog: Quirky Words and Book Reviews

October 31, 2008
Happy Halloween! I have THE NEW ANNOTATED DRACULA for you. Leslie Klinger, an expert on the fictitious but seemingly real Sherlock Holmes, has turned his attention to Dracula -- Holmes and Dracula were contemporaries in London just before the 1900's.
I've never been drawn to know more about Dracula -- mostly because I spent a very confused childhood not knowing what was true and what was imagined. Actually, I didn't know until opening this book that Dracula was as imagined as was Sherlock Holmes.
This is a lovely and captivating book -- well over six-hundred pages -- with photographs and ink drawings, and dominated by three and four pages of footnotes at a time. Bram Stoker -- who breathed life into the Dracula legend -- once crossed paths with Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. Stoker's story -- through Jonathan Harker's Journal -- is utterly convincing, written in a voice that could sound like Sherlock Holmes, with proof offered in footnote and photo. The journal describes Count Dracula as very pale with rank breath and sharp white protruding teeth, but with excellent English and quoting the Bible.
It is possible to fall into this book and not find your way out for days.
THE NEW ANNOTATED DRACULA elicits thoughts of Elizabeth Kostova's THE HISTORIAN, for its intensity. Kostova told me in an interview that the book had taken about eight years to write. It was, she says, a result of her father taking her with him on his travels in Europe, and planting the story of Dracula in her young mind to grow into this deeply engaging novel. This was five years ago, and I am still grateful to have read it.
This being Halloween, I can tell you that Halloween was not the spookiest night as I grew up. I was not concerned about vampires visiting or of Dracula appearing. It was, frankly, spookiest any night, when a tall dark-haired man quietly pushed open my bedroom door long after midnight, and a sliver of hall-light split my room in half, while revealing nothing. Was it Dracula? Was it a vampire? It wasn't the Boogy-Man, I knew, because he wasn't as scary as this. This dark creature moved past my closet as if emerging from it, but I knew better. And, then, as he approached the bed, I would travel away, as I had been taught by the angels, leaving that poor girl's body behind, to return after the damage was done.
On Halloween, the scrim is thin between the other world and our own -- and many years I have seen the face of my grandmother and grandfather and others who had passed. Lights flicker of their own accord. Music stops, then starts again. I walk to my present bedroom and smell lavender as I enter -- a fragrance I do not own, but that my grandmother once wore.
There is, my friend, much more that we do not see that exists, than that which we can see.
So why not Dracula.

Labels: child sex abuse, dracula, Elizabeth Kostova, Leslie Klinger, t book review, THE HISTORIAN, THE NEW ANNOTATED DRACULA, transcending the trauma, truth, vampire

October 30, 2008
It's almost Halloween. I thought it might be fun to play with EXTREME PUMPKINS II -- however, there is a disclaimer listed -- it is not suitable for small children or humorless adults. More disclaimers -- use common sense. Author Tom Nardone advocates skipping the chain saw in favor of tools I've never even heard of -- the router, the angle grinder, the dremel rotary tool -- and things more commonplace -- the jigsaw, the electric drill, the steak knife and the big spoon.
We had a pretty artsy stepfather, so he also included the shiny black tape, often used for missing teeth. But it appears that Mr Nardone has gone into other freaking realms with his suggestions in this book.
Nardone has the Problem Child Pumpkin, the Skellington Pumpkin, the Subliminal Message Pumpkin, the Afraid of Pie Pumpkin and the Booger-Eating Pumpkin. I was drawn to the FrankenPumpkin -- he uses what he's got on hand -- balls, half-spheres like colanders, other pumpkins especially white ones, wigs, sunglasses, and stuff like nuts, bolts, wires and lights.
Nardone says you cut open and gut your pumpkin from the top or bottom -- decide to use a colander or thin metal bowl maybe the size of an eye patch. Cut the eyes, nostrils, mouth into that foreign material -- drill holes into the material and corresponding holes into the pumpkin -- then thread it together with soldering wire after glueing. Apply the other weird parts the same way. Install the bolts in the lower sides of the pumpkin to make it really look like Frankenstein.
Lots of "recipes" -- and a few facts. Did you know that pumpkins have been around since 3500 BC?
One thing I do not recommend that I tried one year on Halloween -- hollowing out a big pumpkin and putting it over your head. It is slimey and icky.
What you could do -- Nardone suggests letting the pumpkin guts drool out the orange ghord's nostrils to look like snot. You weave the pumpkin guts and chunks along a wire that you've poked into the pumpkin's flesh.
Yeah, that could freak out the neighbors.

Labels: book review, EXTREME PUMPKINS II, pumpkin carving, Tom Nardone

October 29, 2008

A Christmas book came today.
I am so not ready for Christmas.
I am so not ready for Halloween.
I haven't bought candy yet. I haven't even decided whether to buy candy I like -- or the kind I don't like.
The loose-leaf book is called SIMPLIFY YOUR HOLIDAYS: A CHRISTMAS PLANNER TO USE YEAR AFTER YEAR. I have a teensy-weensy family -- my two sons, and one of them is working in California over the holidays. Our two sons always had fabulous Christmases -- except for when they accidentally found out that Santa wasn't who they thought he was. One son hasn't forgiven me yet.
Christmas at my house has always been awesome, opulent, insane. I inherited that, but I like to think I have a healthier translation.
364-days out of the year, when I was growing up, we were drinking powered milk because we couldn't afford real milk, wearing second-hand clothes, ducking my stepfather's blows, and unsure whether my mother would try to take herself out the slow way by drinking or the fast way by taking pills or cutting her wrists. But Christmas was to die for. Maybe I shouldn't put it that way. How about this -- the basement door had a sign posted on it from Thanksgiving onward that said Santa's Workshop, and on the big day, there were jawdropping piles of gifts under the tree. The only gift I really remember though, oddly enough, was the box of multiple packs of plain M&M's. First eat the brown which was my least favorite -- I always did least favorite first -- then orange, then blue, green, yellow, and my favorite -- always very last -- was red.
Didn't mean to reminisce. What I want to do is to create an entirely new Christmas that isn't built around things. I open up SIMPLIFY YOUR HOLIDAYS -- serendipitously -- to a page in the Events section that says Where Do I Begin? I page back and find that the author, Marcia Ramsland, "The Organizing Pro,"is explaining how to do a whole new Open House. Marcia tells the story of a woman named Ann who just lost her beloved husband, a doctor, who had been killed on his Moped by an elderly woman driver. Ann continued her family tradition of holding an open house, and changed it up by issuing the invitation in one-hour time slots -- with neighbors coming first, then her husband's work friends, and then church friends. Doing parties has always freaked me out -- until very recently -- because, shh, I was that sure no one will come. But they do. And we have a blast. So now I can begin to entertain Marcia's list -- she suggests thinking of groups of people who would enjoy being together -- neighbors, a reunion of people you met on a cruise, coworkers from the office, church group, support group, walking partners, single parents and their kids uip see at school, business vendors, best friends, and family. Are names exploding in your head right now? They are in mine.
Then, Marcia says to plan your event around these three questions:
1. What's your purpose? neighborhood dessert night? year-end party?
2. What's your theme? a white elephant gift party? a neighborhood cookie exchange? a musical theme with dinner?
3. What will make it a good time? door prizes? games? party favors? catered food? live music?
Oh, and here's an interesting tidbit in answer to the question When do we start planning? the answer, she says, is the day after Halloween which gives you eight whole weeks. And this planner has all the right pages, with the appropriate prompts.

Two more days before I start planning for Christmas.

I am so not ready for Christmas.
And I'm going to buy M&M's to give away on Halloween.

Labels: Christmas, Halloween, kids, Marcia Ramsland, SIMPLIFY YOUR HOLIDAYS, transcending the trauma

October 29, 2008
One thing I absolutely live by -- the truth inside each moment of serendipity. It just happened again -- and completely unintentionally. I'm looking through a stack of books, trying to figure out which book to blog about tonight. I am in Thinking Mode, not Feeling Mode which, to me, means I am not officially or deliberately connected to my higher self...and/or the angels...and/or the Universe. Lifting each book, trying to figure out which one, I feel compelled to open one of the books. Not thinking or feeling...just acting as if in response to a silent order.
The book is MAKE EVERY MAN WANT YOU -- yes, I know, you may be in an entirely different space, but stay with me here.
I open the book at random. In the middle of the page, in bold, is Truth 3: Life Is Now: This Is It. The next line down is my favorite quote -- the words that have rocked me out of stubborn mental states time and again. Albert Einstein's words:
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
I have to smile!
And the author -- Marie Forleo -- dips into her own story, telling how she didn't particularly like how her life was going -- that all the pieces were there, the boyfriend, the apartment, the job, but the nagging feeling "I should be a lot farther along by now" was also there. She says all the goal-setting and affirmations and journal-writing go for naught if you're not living in the moment. She says by "putting up with" what shows up in your life, instead of being fully engaged, you end up leading a life of mediocrity.
Maybe this is what I call magic -- the sparkling awareness that is always available.
For years I interviewed Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer, and other gurus who advocated living in the moment, but it didn't really hit me until I realized that living as though everything is a miracle is an antidote to fear.
One of my friends gave me a silver bracelet nearly two years ago -- it says FEARLESS -- and I never take it off. It wasn't that I was a fraidy cat -- oh no -- I have made a lot of courageous moves in my life -- from parachuting out of a plane to taking Level Four rapids on the Deschutes River on my butt to opening myself up to heal myself and others. But I lived soaked in the fear that was actually Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In other words, the Past. Or -- I was always afraid that what happened when I was a child -- that the "other shoe" would fall -- would happen in the future. The only way to not feel fear, I found, is by being completely immersed in the actual moment -- feeling the feelings, being aware of what each sense is telling me, by filling the frightened, empty center with breath.
Forleo suggests when you order in a restaurant, go with your first choice -- your gut, it would seem. And style your hair like it counts -- pay attention to detail. And with a new person, withhold judgment -- just experience what it is to be with this person.
Forleo calls it "This Is It," which reminds me of a story I didn't expect to tell.
About five years ago, just after I was divorced, my radio station asked me to co-emcee a concert on stage. I had left all that emcee-ing stuff to my ex-husband who had also been in radio all his life. He loved being on stage -- and I let that be his special thing, never even thinking I could do it. I was afraid, for one thing -- I had to conquer my fear of speaking to strangers in my early twenties, next, the fear of speaking on the radio, then the fear of appearing on TV, and stage was my next hurdle.
My radio co-host, Tim, was to be on stage with me, and he coached me backstage -- where to stand, how to stand, to "eat" the mic, and other details. We walked out onto the open air stage, stars bright, and when we began talking, all fear fell away. Inside I was thinking, "OMG, this is so totally perfect. I love this!"
Tim and I stood tall, with animated voices, introducing Kenny Loggins. We surrendered the stage to huge applause for the amazing singer -- and just at that moment the perfect song hit.
Kenny Loggins burst into "This Is It!"
Isn't it though.

Labels: Albert Einstein, book review, Deepak Chopra, Kenny Loggins, live in the moment, MAKE EVERY MAN WANT YOU, Marie Forleo, serendipity, Wayne Dyer

October 27, 2008
Ready for more ghost stories? Leslie Rule's new book GHOST IN THE MIRROR reminded me of something that happened this weekend. I was staying at the Heathman Hotel in two different rooms that are reportedly haunted. I switched rooms on the suggestion of the night auditor who, at midnight Friday, suggested I change from 703 to 510. In the morning I did.
First, Leslie's story.
One of the best stories in Leslie's book is called Stranger in the Shower -- about a seven-year old girl who looked in the mirror and saw a girl standing behind her. Young Kya spun around -- and saw no one -- then she looked in the mirror again, and, sure enough, the girl was in the mirror. No one believed Kya, but the image stayed with Kya for years, it was so real to her. Leslie says children are more likely to see apparitions.
Leslie investigates these stories as deeply as possible. In the book, she interjects other experts. At the end of Kya's chapter, Leslie writes of Dr Raymond Moody, whose work on Near Death Experiences is pivotal. The term, Near Death Experience, by the way, was coined by him. In studies, Dr Moody found that about half his subjects -- similarly prepared with relaxation, light meals, no caffeine -- would look in his mirror and see apparitions. Half!
Now my story. I showered Saturday morning, just prior to moving from room 703 to room 510. The bathrooms don't have any device to dissipate the fog, and sometimes at home, I'll forget to run the blower, but I've never ever seen anything like this. I looked in the mirror, and two black eyes, superimposed over my own eyes, looked back. I stepped closer to the lightly-fogged mirror, and the circles around each of my eyes seemed like the round lens you would find on glasses. Even closer, and I see the black ring around my pupils about three times its normal size -- in fact both my eyes were about three times their normal size. The fog, by now, was dissipating, but my big black eyes remained. I don't know who the eyes were -- but the black eyes were not mine, and I sensed a male energy.
As I checked out of room 703, I felt this pulling on me -- like a "please don't leave." I checked out anyway, and moved to another haunted room, 510. Later that night, I showered again, stepping out of the tub in 510, facing foggy mirrors again.
I looked into the mirrors in this bathroom -- and saw the very same big black eyes.
Was it the Heathman chef who plunged to his death from the roof of the hotel in 1929? Whose big black eyes were they, superimposed over my own?
I wonder.

Labels: GHOST IN THE MIRROR, haunted, Heathman Hotel, Leslie Rule ghosts

October 26th, 2008
Leslie Rule and I have done at least three interviews about her ghostly books -- and another one has just hit the shelves -- GHOST IN THE MIRROR: REAL CASES OF SPIRIT ENCOUNTERS. It is very timely -- I just spent the weekend at the Heathman Hotel in two different haunted rooms. I brought the book with me to read when I wasn't working on my own book. I'm writing a novel in which there's a short section where my main character encounters ghosts while staying at the elegant Heathman Hotel. I asked for -- and received Room 703. "Now you know this room is reportedly haunted," my 'personal concierge Conley' greets me. She tells me I should talk to the night auditor, which I do, at midnight.
But first I get settled in, reflecting on the story that Leslie Rule wrote about in WHEN THE GHOST SCREAMS.
The 02 and 03 rooms are to the right when you get out of the elevator. The story goes that a line cook at the first Heathman Hotel, which used to be across the street on Broadway in Portland, was promised a promotion to chef at this Heathman when it opened in 1928. He didn't get the job, and he leaped from the roof in 1929, past all the 02 and 03 rooms into the courtyard. And they are all haunted. The auditor has seen orbs in the rooms, and apparitions.
The day Leslie and I did our interview for WHEN THE GHOST SCREAMS, several years ago, I had interviewed three other authors. Their recordings were perfect. Only Leslie's -- recorded in 702 -- had a high-pitched electronic sound through the entire interview. AP Radio let me use it because even though it was nearly inaudible, the quality of recording lent credence to a ghostly presence.
I am writing and rewriting my own chapters, when all of a sudden the smell of freshly brewed coffee appears, right where I sit, tantilizing me with the rich aroma -- I am at the desk, looking out at the mural in the courtyard. I have water and Diet Coke. There is no coffee. I go open my door and take a deep breath in the hallway -- nothing. The coffee aroma stays strong for a moment at the desk, then suddenly vanishes.
At midnight, I talk to the night auditor, and he tells me of probably a dozen rooms where apparitions have been seen, partying sounds heard, and things disappearing and reappearing. "Move to 510," he says. Saturday morning, Conley calls and says I've requested the move to 510, so off we go. Actually it was more like the auditor suggested it, and I thought that sounded cool.
As I leave 703, I feel sad, as if I'm leaving a friend.
I settle into 510, and pile all my papers and books on the golden and black stuffed chair next to me, and I type away, right next to the chair. I feel that I must move my things off that chair, and I leave the chair empty. Except that it's not. I get this exquisite sadness that pours over me from that direction. The auditor tells me some guests in 510 have seen a woman from the 1930's or 1940's in the chair, weeping.
I keep writing, taking notes with my favorite pen -- a uniball gel impact -- and I must say that I am someone who doesn't lose things. If I misplace items -- IF I do -- it's seconds later that it pops to mind where I put these things. So I set the pen down, and go into the bathroom for a moment. When I come back, I cannot find my pen. It is not on the desk. It is not on the floor. I move the laptop -- not there. Not under either chair. I go back into the bathroom -- not there. Not under the bed, nor in the closet. I pull apart my luggage and purse. Not there. My black journal -- propped at the foot of the stuffed chair -- seems to wiggle a bit. I pick it up, unzip it, and lift some pages. There is the pen.
There are more stories from my Heathman adventure, which I will disclose in time. When I Googled "Leslie Rule Diana Jordan" to figure out which book the Heathman story was in, I discovered that Leslie had written about a ghost story I told in an earlier blog for her book GHOSTS AMONG US. That's a spooky one, too.
Leslie, like her mom, best-selling crime writer Ann Rule, is sweet and warm -- and courageous. You should just read the tales Leslie tells in GHOST IN THE MIRROR -- all true.

Labels: Ann Rule, GHOST IN THE MIRROR, GHOSTS AMONG US, Heathman Hotel, Leslie Rule, WHEN THE GHOST SCREAMS

October 25th, 2008
Magic is happening. It happens when we break down those self-limiting beliefs, and when we take the charge out of emotional situations that teach us key concepts about how the world works.
And some of those are patently false. For example, a man who came into my home when I was around five taught me, beginning at that tender age, that I was a good girl when I engaged in sex acts with him. I ended up with twisted beliefs related to self-worth. A lot of therapy, interviewing dozens of authors on various topics -- many on Law of Attraction -- and EMDR, which is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, as well as reading books like FEEL IT REAL have helped me to Transform the Trauma and reprogram my mind. I feel passionately about sharing any information I find to ease you into your best life possible.
Earlier this summer I tossed an advance review copy of FEEL IT REAL!: A GUIDED APPROACH TO BRINGING THE LAW OF ATTRACTION INTO YOUR LIFE into my tote-sized purple, sparkly bag to pull out whenever I had time to do the next game. She calls the exercises Games. (I prefer to keep my precious books as clean as possible, and I wanted to fill in all the blanks that author Denise Coates presented. Hence, I appreciate using the little paper version of the book that pubbed in June.)
One of the key frustrations I've heard expressed about the Law of Attraction is loosely "I really, really wanted that, but it didn't happen! I followed all the rules. Why didn't I get it?" I've said it myself.
We inadvertently block the blessings. We say we want to be millionaires, for example, but secretly, maybe subconsciously, we don't feel worthy. Coates' book works those subtleties. Right from the top, she states the definition of desire "As long as it does not harm yourself or others to have the desire, then it is of love." She clarifies the difference between addictions and love. Then, probably the most powerful exercise in the book -- she reframes what you are unhappy about, using a game of opposites.
Later in FEEL IT REAL! there are more fun games to play. One of my favorites is to create a powerful vision board -- it's an idea that's been around for awhile -- and I did so beginning on New Years Eve, and finishing it up on New Years Day. Then I got my vision board laminated. For months, I had it propped up behind my stereo, and it began to fold over itself. One day I looked at the crumpled-over vision board with new eyes, and I thought "what kind of message am I sending the universe!" So I tacked it up, and it is in a place where I pass by probably dozens of times every day. Every time I walk past, I caress a section of the board, speaking the words of that picture aloud, and feeling very grateful.
Something curious happened. I had put a picture of a passport on the board, but had forgotten about it until I straightened out the board. A few weeks ago, really days after I tacked the vision board up, I was given an all-expense paid trip to do a radio show -- in Barcelona! I haven't used my passport in so long, I had to pull the passport out to be sure it was still good.
It is, and I'm going.
I have other magical stories to share with you, and I will in this place over the next few weeks. I will say there is a direct correlation between my work to free myself of screwed-up beliefs, and the goodness that comes into my life.
And I am so grateful!

Labels: Denise Coates, FEEL IT REAL-A GUIDED APPROACH TO BRINGING THE LAW OF ATTRACTION INTO YOUR LIFE, healing, transcending the trauma, vision board.

October 24, 2008
I'm not into scrapbooking. Just not my thing. But I picked up SCRAPBOOKS: AN AMERICAN HISTORY by Jessica Helfand, and an amazing world opened. For one thing, as I read her fabulously-illustrated book, it suddenly struck me that in high school I was elected Class Historian. Okay, no one else wanted to keep up the massive scrapbook in the main hall, but I totally loved the process. My brother reminded me just a few days ago, that I would prop up an older scrapbook from a decade or two earlier, and open both pages to the same date for a comparative study in our times.
And SCRAPBOOKS opens strong -- to the delightful scrapbook of a nineteen year old girl, eloping with her love. Then, little scraps of lilting poetry begin blowing across each page...until finally we realize that it is the beginning of poet Anne Sexton's tortured life, the pristine beauty never exposed until now. Her suicidal poetry -- from a darker, later time in her life -- marked my own life. Her writing reminded me of my mother's suicidal tendencies, and I read Sexton for relief. Yes, these words fit these feelings. "I came back to the scene of the disordered senses; came back last night at midnight..." These Sexton lines I still remember from my teen years, as my mother struggled at a mental hospital.
Another mind-bender. It was Mark Twain who received a patent for inventing a self-pasting scrapbook -- made more money from those, apparently, than from all his other books combined.
So I am hooked, and I read SCRAPBOOKS in one sitting. It's not just pictures. It's sociology. It's history. It's passion.
The term scrapbooking itself was coined in 1929 -- four months before the stock market crash.
Helfand shows a photo in her book of a clock stopped at 9:04 -- it was acquired following the September 11th, 2001 attacks near the World Trade Center. She talks of today's scrapbooking as a tool for recovery, a memory, even therapy.
The one night -- years ago -- that I decided to join a group of women at a series of card tables, with ribbons and scissors and stickers, I brought with me a few photos to begin a scrapbook. I have only one page. It is of my two sons, my husband and me in New York -- which is my home town. They'd never been. The photos -- us in Time Square at night, shots of us at the Yankees-Rangers game, and one of our family standing on the roof of the World Trade Center.

Labels: Anne Sexton, husband, Jessica Helfand, New York City, SCRAPBOOKS, sons, suicidal, World Trade Center

October 23, 2008
THE FIRE will debut on the New York Times bestseller list some twenty years after Katherine Neville's prequel, THE EIGHT, hit the list. Neville deserves it. THE FIRE is a Quest thriller that takes only the main characters and the mysterious (invented) chess set from THE EIGHT. Neville tells me this afternoon in her hotel suite -- Portland is the second city on her book tour, other than Ann Arbor, Michigan -- that her editor demanded that she do all new research. She dances through time and all over the map in THE FIRE.
The thriller centers on the daughter of THE EIGHT'S Cat -- Alexandra Solarin -- a child chess prodigy -- who is now in her twenties. Xie's mother sought to save her by striking chess from her life. And yet, there is the jewel-encrusted Black Queen at stake in a Game whose resurrection is signaled by the disappearance of Cat, herself.
As I pull out my mic and my mini-disc recorder, Katherine's stories are already spilling out of her. She gives me a beautiful leather bookmark for my copy of THE FIRE, and a card, and offers to sign my book. I accept all, thanking her, urgently wanting to learn what took twenty years for her sequel to a book I loved. I had interviewed her by phone about THE EIGHT all those years ago. I have a recollection of Katherine as sweet and almost shy, quietly spoken and humble.
She seems more comfortable with her success now. And she seems guided by the stars, a trait I passionately love...and embrace.
Katherine says she was nearly ready to write THE FIRE in 1992, but nothing happened. She says she writes by serendipity -- and if story lines and research don't just pop up, she puts the manuscript aside. What finally spurred her on to write THE FIRE -- was the plane that smashed into the Pentagon just across from her apartment in Washington DC on September 11th, 2001. And, later, being summoned by the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Treasury who had read THE EIGHT -- and was inspired to learn to play chess as a result. Oddly, he had mastered chess in Baghdad -- which is where Katherine had much earlier decided to set the origin of this majestic chess set.
What I find most charming about my hour with Katherine is her answer to my last question. I want to know what she would like readers to take away from THE FIRE. She tells me that she insisted the book hit stores before the election. Katherine says a powerful tool for cosmic transformation is revealed in THE FIRE. Nestled in that message is what we need right now, before November 4th.

Labels: book review, chess, election day., Katherine Neville, serendipity, THE EIGHT, THE FIRE

October 22, 2008
Ainsley MacLeod, author of THE INSTRUCTION, told me this summer that his Spirit Guides want me to meditate. I've fallen off the three-month old habit -- at least the kind where I sit quietly for at least ten minutes and just breathe -- Sorry Guides!
So I picked up HURRY UP AND MEDITATE. Actually, the title is a lot cuter than the content, but it serves its purpose -- explaining how meditation alleviates stress, lowers blood pressure, even heals. Author David Michie describes how he was a hard-pounding PR guy in London with daily headaches -- and now his life is lucrative, his health superb, and he's even become something of a gym rat. There are psychological benefits as well as physical improvements.
I appreciate that Michie doesn't hold just to the sit-there-quietly-and-breathe form of meditation. Mindfulness is the type of meditation I like -- the smooth surface of plates as I wash them, folding the warm clothes just pulled from the dryer, dancing Zumba or step or hiphop, petting and gently rocking one of my cats in a baby-position. It all serves to calm me and soothe me.
And sometimes there is magic.
Several times this summer, as I meditated, I burst into tears for no apparent reason, and in that clearer space within, suddenly there was a bright light. I stayed there, floating in that calm bright space.
Until the alarm went off and shocked me back to planet earth.
Those few moments of sublime clarity were so perfect, I am going to slide the mouse over Publish Post and click -- and now I go sit quietly and bliss out.

Labels: Ainslie MacLeod, book review, dance, David Michie, healing., HURRY UP AND MEDITATE, THE INSTRUCTION

October 21, 2008
Pure genius. The book FRANK GEHRY ON LINE comes in a corrugated slip-cover. Not the usual horizontal slabs, but a row of dozens of 8-1/2" long, 1-1/2" wide pieces glued back to back, with a slit in the middle for the slim volume, the cardboard slip-cover reminiscent of Gehry's furniture. Reminds me of a college art class, where our first assignment was to make a chair out of cardboard. Easy, you think, oh no, because we had to use the same multi-layered effect. I recall frustration and barely finishing. Actually, both coincided the night before the cardboard chair was due.
But it was clever, and clearly outside the box. And so is this book. There are whimsical sketches inside the book -- my favorite is of the stunning Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA. The architect sketches as a way of thinking aloud, the author, Esther da Costa Meyer says. The Princeton prof of art and archaeology lauds Gehry for taking art as his inspiration, for taking the value of art, and breaking down the walls -- and creating magnificent architecture. His sweeping sketches delight the eye -- and to see the finished architectural work nearby -- it is amazing.
It was Frank Lloyd Wright who was the architect of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, but Gehry took on the one in Spain. I remember the commotion in the news about the Guggenheim in NY -- the buzz impressed my grade-school self.
I loved the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and didn't think anything could rival that.
But I remember as a kid walking into the Guggenheim and being stunned by its glorious well-lit spaciousness, and how the art popped from the walls.
This book is a small taste of art transcending itself into our lives.
Gehry's sketches are, as the author says, the stuff of dreams.

Labels: architect, art, book review, Esther da Costa Meyer, FRANK GEHRY ON LINE, Guggenheim

October 20, 2008
Just finished reading THE POCKET DARING BOOK FOR GIRLS: WISDOM & WONDER, and, yes, it's been a long time since I was a Girl Scout. This lavender handbook -- with font that calls back to books my mother had -- brings forward intriguing histories of women I never knew. At first, I'm thinking, yeah, yeah, had all this stuff in school -- cumulus clouds to elliptical galaxies, Bill of Rights to Life-Changing Books.
Then I read the chapters on female spies and pirates and military leaders!
Actress Hedy Lamarr, chef Julia Child and African-American singer Josephine Baker were all spies! And, the story of Joan of Arc -- who at twelve declared she was hearing divine voices, had a unique destiny. As a teenager, Joan led captains and commanders -- often when she led her troops onto the battlefield, enemy soldiers would flee! She is the reason we have two separate countries -- England and France. What daring and self-confidence!
The book refers to the Rosie the Riveter movement, women inventors, and amazing athletes throughout history.
What occurs to me as I read -- what a rollback the mothers of Boomers took! They -- and for awhile their daughters -- had few options other than to be homemakers, secretaries, nurses and teachers. Where was the adventure? In the kitchen? When these women politely folded up and stayed inside, we lost a lot of momentum.
It has been thrilling over the years to see freedoms won. And terrifying to see some lost. The vote for women is not even one-hundred years old. I was in a lecture hall in college when professors announced that the Equal Rights Amendment was defeated. Medically, the Pill came along, liberating women. Roe v Wade -- tenuously hanging on, depending on the Administration -- offered desperate women the legal sanctity to not perish at the hands of kitchen-table abortionists. Honey, this is not so long ago!
I was a natural athlete in high school, but I was a girl, so what. It was just after that that Title Nine came to be -- after a huge fight over what it would or would not do. And, thankfully, what was truly promised has come to be -- young women working alongside men, without apology and without taking a back seat, and fearlessly starting their own businesses. The Glass Ceiling beginning to shatter.
When I started in radio, I fought to be the second woman on the air against management comments like "we already have one" and "women don't like to hear women on the air." I began as the second woman at three consecutive radio stations, finally seeing a breakthrough as women and men were hired according to talent and experience. I applied at one radio station four times during those early years -- hearing those bogus reasons. Finally I was hired -- and stayed thirteen years, while raising two young sons. I got up at 2:50am, anchored morning drive radio, and was home most of the day with them. At one point, I discovered that my male co-anchor made ten-thousand dollars more than I did for the same job. I typed up the facts in a non-confrontational letter, and got a big fat raise.
Maybe the reason THE POCKET DARING BOOK FOR GIRLS got to me is my fervent belief that every girl deserves to lead her destiny, to not have to fight just to sit at the table, and to be challenged only to bring forth the best of her talents and capabilities.
And I don't want to see another rollback.
Beliefs come in all sizes, shapes, races and gender. Listen carefully to what is said. And then vote. Vote to broaden our freedoms, that we all embrace passionately vital lives, loving and bringing forth the best we each have. It's all to the good of our World.

Labels: abortion, Andrea Buchanan, book review., Equal Rights Amendment, Miriam Peskowitz, radio, Rosie the Riveter, THE POCKET DARING BOOK FOR GIRLS, women's rights

October 19, 2008
This afternoon, for the second time this month, I learned -- re-learned -- the point of cooking. About nine members of Dinner Grrls -- a networking group with women ranging from architects to naturopathic physicians, journalists to jewelry-makers -- gathered at Dr Reba Akin's gorgeous sun-lit condo in Portland, Oregon.
Two points to cooking, actually. The first is to enjoy the fresh talk of friendship -- with hundreds of women in the group, there are always old friends and new faces. The second, is to cook healthfully, with nothing out of a box unless it's the most pure version of that ingredient.
A few weeks ago my friend Dr Lisa Shaver popped over to my house with a bagful of groceries totalling a few bucks, and cooked up a storm with just vegetables, buffalo meat, and other raw foods. I ate off that adventure for a week, froze some, and am enjoying the new knowledge that it is possible to cook without opening a bunch of bags of pre-cooked, chemically-altered foods.
Those points in mind, realizing that both Dr Lisa and Dr Reba created their own recipes, I pulled the American Heart Association LOW-FAT, LOW-CHOLESTEROL COOKBOOK from the shelves when I got home. Yes, I feel the need for a little more guidance before I start grabbing ingredients from the shelf, cutting, pouring and stirring. There's a chicken-veggie stir-fry and Sirloin with Portobello Mushrooms and even Triple-Chocolate Brownies. Can do.
Reba asked us each why we chose to come to her event today. I had signed up as soon as I saw the listing. And, I gave the reason that I used to cook a lot, really enjoying it, when I first got married, but he started working a five to midnight shift, and then I had babies and when they grew older, I still was cooking "kid" food. Then, I was single again, and now, with Lisa's encouragement, I want to revert to cooking.
What I didn't answer was...my mother was a great cook. Well, her friends say so. She would begin cooking dinner around five, and do enormous damage to a full jug of Gallo wine. And, while she was on the phone, cooking and drinking, we kids would sneak bites of whatever she was cooking, because dinner never seemed to be done before midnight. All too soon, it was go-to-bed-kids, and I don't remember very many sit-down dinners. Oh but Christmas time, she would always make spaghetti sauce from my step-father's Italian mother's recipe, a sauce-splotched list of ingredients that I copied, typing it out before I left for college, and still have. Mine is now also splotched with decades of Christmas spaghetti sauce. A few neighbors would knock on the door a day or so before Christmas, asking if the lasagna I made from the sauce was ready yet. Divine!
Today, I expanded my horizons with Reba's Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins -- rich and tasty; roasted cauliflower -- roasting, Reba says, brings out the sweetness in vegetables; spicy orange chicken -- totally yum -- everything's organic; she mentions baking sweet potatoes in egg white to make the fries crunchy; she chops up kale, onion, garlic and sautes -- don't toss in the garlic until the end, so it keeps its nutritional properties -- and top with sugarless rice vinegar and toasted sesame seed oil; dessert chocolate coconut balls -- low in sugar, high in fiber. Find Reba's recipes at www.inurmagazine.com.
Suddenly, the recipes I see in the LOW-FAT, LOW-CHOLESTEROL COOKBOOK look appealing. The two doctors have made their point -- that cooking healthfully can be very tasty -- and emotionally-rewarding.

Labels: American Heart Association, cooking, Dinner Grrls, Dr Lisa Shaver, Dr Reba Akin, LOW-CHOLESTEROL COOKBOOK, LOW-FAT, mothers, transcending the trauma

October 18, 2008
I have never seen the Garfield Minus Garfield comics, but it's the weekend, and I've been told to carve out playtime, so I read the Internet sensation in book form.
What startled me was the Foreword. It was by Dan Walsh in which he refers to Jon of the Garfield comics and to Jim. Wait a minute. Jim Davis is the guy who writes Garfield. So, who's Dan? Well, it turns out that Dan -- as a goof -- and he writes this in the foreword -- decided to write Garfield strips without Garfield, and post them on www.garfieldminusgarfield.net. He did it because his life was a lot like Jon's -- waiting for the phone to ring, catastrophic attempts at calling girls for dates, in other words, being alone, very alone.
But a funny thing happened -- the strip, which he began at the beginning of this year, ended up attracting half a million visitors a day -- then mainstream media -- then Garfield creator Jim Davis himself -- who -- totally freaking loved it!
Whew, terrible legal issue averted.
Poor Jon -- he ends up playing with his sox, counting his arm hairs, electric toothbrushes chase after him, plungers get stuck on his face. And now without Garfield, Jon has no one to pour his heart out to. I feel badly for Jon -- I'd call him and tell him I'll go out with him, but the phone number isn't in the comic book. But then, Jon's kinda boring, and what I usually do with a date like that, is I try to get him to figure out his passions, and then I end up driving him crazier.
Oh wait, Jon is a character in a comic strip.
There's a bigger take-away here -- that Garfield's creator Jim was wise and warm-hearted enough to open his world and let Dan Walsh in. Now we can all enjoy more Garfield comics -- with and without the cat.
What a wonderful philosophy! And in this case, it's a good thing Garfield isn't here to comment.

Labels: book review, Dan Walsh, GARFIELD MINUS GARFIELD, Jim Davis, wisdom

October 17, 2008
I pull my 2001 hardcover of CHOKE from one of my nine floor-to-ceiling oak Dania bookshelves after I get back from seeing the movie.
CHOKE is about Victor Mancini, a med school dropout, whose mother filled his mind with terrible schemes and scenes, and is now losing her mind to Alzheimer's -- and he develops an elaborate scam of choking on food in restaurants to collect enough money to keep her in a good mental hospital. He also prowls SA meetings to find nymphomaniacs to bang. And is -- with his best buddy -- a tour guide at a 1734 colonial theme park. Typical Chuck Palahniuk -- tons of plot points.
Everyone always wants to compare the book and the movie.
I just caress the book, hold it lovingly, remember the room we were in when I interviewed the author Chuck Palahniuk about CHOKE. I have one of those odd memories where, if I can remember the room, then the smells and the lighting and what happened in that room instantly appear.
We are in a walk-in closet-sized radio studio. It is very dark although it is late morning. I ask Chuck about his research and he tells me he went to a lot of sex addiction meetings -- walked away with killer stories for his book. After the tape recorder is turned off, I reveal that I went to some SA meetings early on, but they frightened me -- there were too many men telling violent stories loud and angrily. Very few women call themselves sex addicts. At one of those meetings I sat, hands holding the base of the kindergarten-size chair as if it might otherwise run away. I've gone to a handful of SA meetings over the years, never gone back. But my other work -- EMDR -- has healed me. I'm not crazy about the "in recovery" term -- as if one might snap back to her previously screwed-up ways at any unforeseen juncture.
I see Chuck frequently these days. He was on the shoot for CHOKE in the old mental hospital in New Jersey where actress Anjelica Houston plays Victor's (Sam Rockwell) mother. He says the hospital had been closed-down, and it was creepy.
The movie -- and the book -- great, tight, funny writing. Read the book. See the movie. In either order.
It just now occurs to me that the old hospital where Chuck was on the set -- I wonder if that was the mental hospital where my mother was taken when I was a kid after she swallowed a bottle of pills.
I open the book and see what Chuck wrote in 2001 -- "This is the martyrdom of Saint Diana."

Labels: Anjelica Houston, book review, CHOKE, Chuck Palahniuk, sex addiction, transcending the trauma

October 16, 2008
Ever wonder where the word book came from? A romp through THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO WEIRD WORD ORIGINS gives it up. In Anglo-Saxton times, authors used to scribble on chunks of bark from the beech tree. Their name for the tree was boc, and eventually, that became the name for the slabs of beech-bark writings that they would bind together. And boc became book, sticking even when the bark was replaced by pages.
And you know those blurbs that cover the back jacket of your favorite books? A fellow named Gelett Burgess convinced Miss Belinda Blurb to sing the praises of his new book -- back in 1907 -- and her comments appeared on the jacket of the book. Blurb was born.
What about deadlines? Author Paul McFedries says in his WEIRD WORD ORIGINS book that the first deadline was back in the Civil War days, where prison authorities drew a line outside the Confederate prison, giving guards the order to shoot to kill if any prisoners crossed that line. Naturally, that became a deadline. Newspaper editors adopted the word, because if their reporters missed a deadline, they would have to kill the story.
Cowabunga, we're having fun now. So, step aside Simpson fans, cowabunga was not coined by Bart. Not by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles either. And, nope, not by the surfers in the '60's TV show Gidget, who yelled cowabunga as they charged into the water with their surfboards. No, it was a writer on the Howdy Doody Show who, in the mid-50's, created the phrase for the character Chief Thunderthud. Kawabunga meant "bad things." And kawagoopa meant "good things." Only Kawabunga survived.
BTW, you might say all this information -- from WEIRD WORD ORIGINS -- is strictly on the q.t. Wondering about the origin of q.t? Nothing more complicated than quiet.

Labels: blurbs., book review, cowabunga, deadlines, Paul McFedries, THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO WEIRD WORD ORIGINS

October 15, 2008
The Obama-McCain debate over, I pondered the polls, who was ahead by how much, and what was the probability that that was likely to change. And then I spotted THE UNFINISHED GAME:PASCAL, FERMAT, AND THE 17TH CENTURY LETTER THAT MADE THE WORLD MODERN: A TALE OF HOW MATHEMATICS IS REALLY DONE.
There was a lot of gambling going on in the 1500's and 1600's, and some savvy mathematicians tried to figure out how they could better their chances at winning. Author Keith Devlin says that's the word they chose -- "chance" not probability -- which comes from the Latin probare, meaning to prove or test and ilis meaning to be able. The question -- the focus of this letter Devlin explores -- was if two gamblers were tossing dice, and one was ahead, but they weren't done playing and had to quit, how should they divide the pot? It took those geniuses years to figure out, resulting in their growing appreciation for each other, and opening a new world for the rest of us -- election polls (but not an answer to the Obama-McCain contest), insurance tables, card games. Devlin also gives us Pascal's mathematical answer for whether God exists or not. The answer -- it's smarter to bet that God does exist. Devlin also mentions that U-S military installations had in their hands a probability - developed by software - in the summer of 2001 - that the Pentagon was exceptionally likely to be a target of terrorists. That information was ignored.
Devlin points out throughout the book that the House is not gambling -- it wins. I've gambled very few times in my life -- it seems pointless. Probability, and all that.
But one time-- at a carnival that was sparcely-attended -- a barker was at me, at me, at me to plunk my quarter down and he'd spin the wheel. His attention was too much, and it didn't wear me down -- it irritated me, so I said to him, "Okay."
I dug my shiny quarter out, defiantly strode over to the long bank of numbers on the counter, and, without thinking, deliberately slapped my coin on a square. It was the only coin on the counter.
"Tick-tick-tick," the wheel hit the nails as it spun.
The wheel stopped.
The carny spit and swore.
And he pulled a big soft white bear down from the clothesline that was strung out over his game.
"Here, kid. You win. Get lost."
I took off, my arms squishing the bear to my chest. I knew I had beaten the odds.

Labels: book review, God., Keith Devlin, probability, THE UNFINISHED GAME

October 14, 2008
It's been awhile since I've seen Augusten Burroughs. The last time I saw him was during his book tour for POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS -- which is an extremely funny inside-joke title for anyone who has been sexually abused and tormented. Maybe there are side effects? You spend your life undoing them...or writing about them...or both.
MAGICAL THINKING -- Augusten's previous book -- is my favorite. His New York stories, his trail of empty booze bottles completely covering the floor of his apartment which he doesn't notice until he returns from rehab, his hilarious advertising agency stories. Step on a crack and you'll break your mother's back. Magical thinking -- he tried not to step on cracks. Me, too. But every June while I was in the middle of elementary school, my mother would fall down the nine wooden front stairs into the foyer, and end up in the hospital. I didn't step on any cracks.
Augusten reminds me of my younger brother -- maybe it's their seriousness -- or their devotion to what they love best -- but it's there. I never noticed the resemblance, until this past weekend, when my brother just dropped in. First time we've been around each other for longer than a few minutes in fifteen years -- and even then, it's been five years since we've seen each other at all. Yeah, he just decided to drop into Portland...from Florida. Kinda forgot to mention in that morning's email when he asked if I'd read any of Barack Obama's books that he'd be getting on a plane in a few hours. For Portland.
Augusten is brilliant. And he has a razor-sharp memory for every detail. My brother does, too. It's a photographic memory. Snap. There's a shot of our stepfather beating up our dad and telling him to never come back again. I remember that one, too. Snap. I am six and he is four and there are two rings on a table in our rec room, created when I decided to wet a 45-record and set it down, and he copied, following my design. He caught hell. I stayed quiet, and escaped. Snap. A babysitter yanks on his child pud until it hurts -- a story I don't know until now. Snap. I don't tell him about an earlier babysitter, Mrs Teddy, who never came back again after she caught me sucking on a frozen hot dog and I told her I was practicing. I was five. Snap. Pieces are beginning to fit. Snap. He is healing through Yoga. I am healing through dance and EMDR. He always looked up to me -- and that frightened me because I couldn't save him from his hell -- so I shut myself away, reading books, talking to angels, going out of my body. He had his vinyl and his drumset. Snap. Wipeout. Snap.
My brother and I talk solid for nearly six hours Saturday, and he returns for more on Monday, just before his flight. My older son asks if he looks like his uncle. There is a resemblance. There is a possible side effect of this newly-uncovered, unconditional love. There is the beginning of a family.

Labels: Augusten Burroughs, book review, dance, EMDR, MAGICAL THINKING, POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS, step on a crack, transcending the trauma

October 13, 2008
I traveled thousands of miles tonight, just by flipping the pages of the new National Geographic book THE LIFE OF A PHOTOGRAPH. Peru, Montana, Newfoundland, Queensland, Japan, Davenport.
Most pages in the book are blocks of white with a photo taking two-thirds of the page. The pictures pop. Photographer Sam Abell makes an interesting distinction -- there's a photo in the book of a train, smoke and dirt rising from the tracks as the train wobbles toward derailment. Abell says this is the only photo in the book taken and not made.
The train righted itself. There is another shot that I find completely stunning that also could have been a disaster. Abell and his guide -- in two separate vehicles -- both got bogged down in the mud -- the tide about to come in -- in Western Australia. They backed up on their own tire tracks, and when they made it to safety, Abell took the shot -- from the roof of his vehicle -- of two sets of nearly parallel tracks on a flat plain that arc apart, with the pinhole of the sun just off center, against a muted magenta and cobalt sky. His textures are phenomenal -- a fallen tree whose rough bark echoes the rounded rocks in the Alaska river delta below it -- the tones in soft browns and grays. Another page, there's a jaw-dropping shot of a wild dolphin, juxtaposed with a tame little white dog.
Abell credits his dad for teaching him photography.
F-stops were a sore spot for me -- my stepfather was always training a camera on me. He achieved sensuous black and white photos of me at age five, seven, nine, and inbetween, until finally, he couldn't take a shot of me that didn't have me blinking. I shut down.
Some were nudes. He'd pose me all curvy, like a pin-up who just happened to be a five-year old girl. It took until about ten years ago for me to not blink in front of the camera. Lots of men -- claiming to be photographers -- tried. One photographer was able to coax me away from those child-like fears, and he shot pictures as I danced, and he experimented with odd shadows, and we laughed and talked until I was real. And I didn't blink. Oh, once or twice.
But to keep my eyes open and be captured now -- I am grateful that I can give myself, and not be taken.

Labels: blinking, book review, fearless, photography, Sam Abell, THE LIFE OF A PHOTOGRAPH, transcending the trauma

October 12, 2008
I was eleven. Built more like a slim young boy with short, wavy brown hair, than a sixth-grade girl with the shoulder-length flowing hair I would have preferred. The next year, I would be cast as Tiny Tim in our school play. So you have the picture.
We were in groups of five, the goal, to be an anchor team. Women didn't have roles like that in those days, so I don't recall aspiring to what I would become. But, I do recall that I was charged with reading a poem -- the close of the "news" program. It was a show-stopper.
This comes to mind, because I opened the OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MODERN QUOTATIONS at random to this very poem.
It was written by Dorothy Parker. I didn't know how to pronounce the title Resume back then, but I fully felt the words I was reading:

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

I finished the poem, and looked up. There was dead silence in the classroom. Mr. D cleared his throat, and asked me the title of the poem. I fumbled.
I looked at him expectantly.
I was eleven years old, for heaven's sake, and trapped in a violent home life. At the time, my mother was just attempting the slow suicide -- with the bottle -- only beginning to dabble in razors and pills. I completely identified with Dorothy Parker's poem. You might as well live.
What baffles me then as now, why didn't Mr. D persist until he understood why I chose that poem? Why didn't he rescue that little girl?
Because, for reasons I was too young to know, my life was designed this way. It has been a dramatically amazing path -- surviving, seeing angels, healing, interviewing compassionate teachers along the way, growing my hair to my shoulders and tinting it auburn, thriving, falling in love with a world without limits, gratitude.
You might as well live.

Labels: Dorothy Parker poem Resume, gratitude, healing, poetry, seeing angels., teacher, transcending the trauma

October 11, 2008
One of the books I treasured when I was a kid was Alan Paton's TOO LATE THE PHALAROPE. Set in Paton's South Africa, we see a white policeman fall in love with a native girl. The affair is discovered and he is betrayed and reported. The book broke my heart open. I was too young to understand about romantic love. But I did know injustice. My real dad -- and everything about him, stories, pictures, his name -- were severed from my life when I was five -- forever -- by my mother and stepfather. I understand the reasons why my mother and stepfather did what they did, so my heart forgives them -- but I am not sure that I can forgive what they did -- the rapes, the violence, the alcoholism, the suicide attempts, the abandonment, the neglect.
What I find most amazing is I've been thinking about forgiveness lately. So I looked up the word Forgiveness in the OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MODERN QUOTATIONS, 3rd. Ed. There were a handful of choices, and I immediately went to the one in the index marked "until we f." It was a powerful quote by Paton -- marked an unrecognizable PATO in the index -- and it was from TOO LATE THE PHALAROPE:
"When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive."
As I write, I am also assimilating the first visit of longer than a half-hour I've had with my younger brother -- born of the same father as I -- in probably fifteen years. We talked for nearly six hours today, sharing stories, filling in the gaps, and finding puzzle pieces that fit that one had but the other didn't.
I was filled with fear as I drove to meet him -- the child fear -- because to see him would mean all the old energy and the old scenes would come flooding back. I promised myself I would be real and I would stay in that vibration of light.
One wonderful thing about my brother. He has played the piano since he was three. And, he has been living in my parents' home for the last year and a half, giving classes to people in piano, yoga, Spanish. I said to him, "You are immensely talented and all that violence and abuse kept you from sharing your music with the world. " And I burst into loud, gasping tears. Not pretty in a restaurant, but very real.
And then he got it. I have always loved and treasured him -- we were trapped apart by the violence. Not any more.
"When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive."
I am gently moved into a place of forgiveness.

Labels: alcoholism, brother, forgiveness, mothers, OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MODERN QUOTATIONS, rape, stepfather, talent, TOO LATE THE PHALAROPE, transcending the trauma, violence

October 10, 2008
SECRETS OF THE MONARCH was meant to be medium Allison DuBois' first book, but it didn't get written until recently, following two others. Mediums have an extra door to understanding, and Allison wanted to reveal that. It took her awhile for this book to come together. Her subtitle is WHAT THE DEAD CAN TEACH US ABOUT LIVING A BETTER LIFE.
The book is filled with stories that remind us to pass on the love we get from others, and even if sad and disappointed, to turn the situation so that we can benefit someone else. Allison tells lots of stories of finding the killers of innocent women who have vanished, fun stories like a poker game in a haunted basement with some poker players from two centuries ago playing along, and her family stories.
What caught my eye was the monarch. How did that relate, I wondered? Her husband Joe actually answers that question in the foreword. He says she chose the title long before she knew the real story about monarch butterflies. Joe writes that the monarch butterfly takes several generations to complete its journey north, only to turn around and fly back to where its great-grandparents are from. Joe continues, saying that the monarch concept is also the story of how each generation builds on the energy and work of the generation before, creating a circle of life.
This hit home. I was living halfway across the country, and driving in the middle of the night from Iowa to Indiana, years before cell phones and answering machines. In other words, there was no way for my mother to get a hold of me -- even find me, since I was headed with my fiance to see some friends get married. My mom and I weren't in constant phone contact at that time.
I was at the wheel. The night was black, punctuated by millions of stars. The highway was dark, except for a few headlights zipping past every now and then.
The interior of the car suddenly burst into flames. A vision. It was impossibly bright, and there, before me, was my grandmother, who, at 85, was still alive as far as I knew, enwreathed with flames. Inside that circle of fire, with my grandmother was my grandfather, who had passed when I was a few years old. She spoke. She said -- words I remember to this day -- "Like two fires foraging the space around us, we've swallowed the last detail."
And then, poof, the night was black again.
When we returned from the wedding, I was consumed by this image, and painted it in watercolor. Finally, a few days after the vision, the phone rang, and it was my mother telling me that my grandmother had passed.
My mother orchestrated the funeral without telling me, so I arrived too late to say goodbye to my grandmother. But one day, as my mother got out of her car and I stepped out of the passenger side, a butterfly fluttered by. I closed the door and watched...as the butterfly circled my head over and over and over, floated a short distance, then flew back to me, and around and around me, hovering so close I could almost touch it. I turned to my mother and said, "Look! It's my grandmother, saying goodbye."

Labels: Allison DuBois, butterflies, grandfather, grandmother, mediums, SECRETS OF THE MONARCH WHAT THE DEAD CAN TEACH US ABOUT LIVING A BETTER LIFE, vision

October 9, 2008
I've dipped into SILVER LININGS before, and on a day when the Dow descends lower than it's been in years...this is a good day to shift focus.
On the back of the book is a quote from the Buddha "When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky."
You might be thinking "she's nuts," but fear is our worst enemy right now. Reality bites, but we can change our perspective.
So I open up SILVER LININGS to a page that is headed The Rocky Bottom, and a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt. This is powerful:
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.
Are you holding your breath right now? Breathe. In and out. Measured breaths. And if tears go along for the ride, all the better. Hormones of emotion are in tears, and when you cry, it clears you out.
SILVER LININGS has beautiful photos of flowers and other natural landscapes, matched with musings. Like author Mina Parker's essay The Upside of Adversity. She tops the page with a quote by Edmund Burke:
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens out skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
Parker mentions the top athletes, who push themselves and each other. And are better for it.
Connecting with others works...as long as you keep the vibration up. No kvetching, please, dahling.
Movies and theatre transform energy magically, as does music. The point is to keep moving, and smiling, and breathing. All quite natural, you may notice.
Yesterday, I mentioned how I distracted myself from the cruelty around me as I grew up, and how that inclination to distract myself turned into a bad habit. Emotions got stuck inside, I didn't grow in relationships, and I tend toward being a workaholic. SILVER LININGS is a beautiful reminder to experience your feelings fully, to embrace those you love, and to know that whatever is going on now, will pass.
I love this Bret Harte quote:
The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.
My BF and I had a quote we would toss at each other -- from FINDING NEMO. We would say with a smile Just keep swimming, just keep swimming....

Labels: book review., Mina Parker, overcoming adversity, SILVER LININGS, transcending the trauma

October 8, 2008
It is remarkable how we shift and change in a year, even more remarkable when using a book as a mirror. I plucked Jennifer Louden's book THE LIFE ORGANIZER: A WOMAN'S GUIDE TO A MINDFUL YEAR from the stacks tonight. Jennifer advocates