When the 'Force" Is Disturbed: What Do I/We Do?

When the world is in chaos and our hopes and dreams seem to be tumbling down, to what (and where) do we turn?  

After I had written and posted my last “Zones of Peace” blog, “A Making Violence Obsolete Holiday Reflection”, I rather thought my work was done for the year.  I had found my peace, after the horrific, just past, campaign cycle and election, and felt rather settled as to how I would manage the fear and threatening disorder it had brought about. Donald Trump’s election was, as our next president, not unexpectedly bringing a strong sense of dis-ease into my life and to those around me; a fearfulness such as no one I know had ever felt after a presidential election.

Read about Anastasia --
Finding Light In The
Darkness

From this newly resolved – or is that “resigned” ?? – position I had decided that a paradigm shift was in order, if I was to let go of the threatened stance I had adopted during the campaign – and—immediately after, once the outcome of the presidential election race had been determined. This, it seemed, had to be the only sane way to go in this incredibly insane world within which we were now living in the United States as it was also around the globe.

It was from this position that I eagerly and confidently approached my radio show planning meeting with my honorary daughter, Terry, yesterday. Assured that that last blog of mine could give Terry and I a relatively easy template from which to create our show for tomorrow, I found myself in for a surprise. No slam dunk, this one!

Yes, Terry, definitely agreed with me that, as I had written --

These are challenging times, no doubt about it.

But was she settled about the situation? She was not!

Listen to Terry and myself tomorrow on the Anastasia The Storyteller Radio Show titled –

When the 'Force" Is Disturbed: What Do I/We Do?

Friday, December 30

11:30 a.m.

Hear how this “honorary” mother and daughter come to grips with their different perspectives on living through these troubled times.

Are Peace and Unity Overrated?

These are challenging times, no doubt about it.

I don’t know about you, but times of stress and distress, such as these, lead me, now and then, to just sit back and reassess perspectives. Given how 2016 has turned out, with our horrendous election campaign as a backdrop for almost anything and everything else that has happened this year, I am going back over the premises with which I began 2016 to see if and how they still hold true.

A significant paradigm shift seems to be in the offing. Where shall it take me; from what and where to a different what and  where?

In particular I feel drawn to contemplating my commitment to peace and unity and to building these wherever I can. Akin to this theme is my considering, once again, where the necessity for polarization and the upheaval and chaos this can breed fits in.

I have long believed that periods of polarization, inevitable as they are, need, on occasion, to precede true peace and unity, if we as a species are to function at our optimum levels. Such times are essential to the creative process that fosters growth and improvements, serving as balancing agents.

Might I have, however, been off in my thinking that peace and unity should hold such a high priority as they have in my value system?

Have I, in prioritizing these, as I have, overlooked other essentials in how best to run my life?

Have I significantly disregarded viewpoints that are markedly different than mine in my quest for this idealistic state?

In doing so, did I cut myself off from the caring and compassion I might have been more generous in giving had I been heedful of people who are distinctly different than me?

I/we did pay close attention to the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement. But in doing so were there others, perhaps less vocal, in need that I/we ignored?

These are questions I feel called to consider right now as we head into the holidays in the midst of the divisiveness and polarization that Donald Trump has successfully fomented. Even with the abundance of commentary by wise and thoughtful others that I read, especially those of such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, I still feel mystified and, of course, concerned about where we Americans are now as a country and where we are headed.

One of the things I am going to be closely examining in the weeks ahead is what New Horizons Possible Human, Possible Society study data, to date, can help me see and how best to proceed, now, with it to aid my settling things, currently troubling my mind. Look for updates on our study as we move into 2017. Today we are already beginning this review, as intended after the election regardless of how it would turn out, 

Since my final years in under graduate school in the mid-1980s I have been a devotee of Marilyn Ferguson’s Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal And Social Transformation In Our Time which I first read at that time. One of the most helpful pieces of information introduced in that book was the Nobel prize winning work of Ilya Prigogine in the field of chemistry. Since I learned of it, Prigogine’s theory of disipative structures, more than any other theory has provided me with a viable way of viewing times of high stress, such as this year, has been without totally freaking out! 

The main point I found useful, to apply to my life and those who I have guided, is the notion that when an organism is overloaded with stimuli it will fragment and then re-organize at a higher level!! We humans are organisms that fit into this theory. And, to the person, we are grossly overloaded! Does this signal that we are now on the brink of personal as well as societal transformation – and not on the “Eve of Destruction” as many fear that we are?

I sure hope so!

“The Morning After,” the theme song from the movie “The Poseidon Adventure” has also been a companion to me in times of volatility such as these. Future Shock by Alvin Toffler, at an earlier time, decades ago, gave me a way to look at monumental societal changes and make some modicum of sense of it all. It did help!

We need astute, well-documented works such as Ferguson’s and Toffler’s to help us attain some worthy meaning of these troubled times. And music such as “The Morning After,” sung by Maureen McGovern, to helps lift our spirits and affirms our hope.

As we head, now, into the spiritually uplifting end of the year holidays of the Winter Solstice, Christmas, Chanukah, the Hadj and the New Year, I know I am going to be spending some of my time rethinking former perspectives. I know others will be doing similarly. Finding one’s center of gravity and holding onto to it is especially challenging this year with so much divisiveness surrounding us.

I am heading myself into the holiday season with an eye, most of all, to moving through the present upheaval surrounding us on every side.  And beyond into next year with some kind of paradigm shift that will help me update the inner map of my body, mind and spirit. I want, at this time, to continue to hold on to my belief in miracles.

I do believe in miracles. Right now I am praying for one or two.

The Spiritual Side Of Celebrating Fifty Years

I am waking up Saturday morning and yup its there!

Icey white covers everything outdoors.
OMG! 

It's gonna ice for my anniversary celebration!

Inclement weather: Emergency Plan B has gotta move into place!

Of course I call Sue, as planned, and as I do almost every morning; my devoted Spirit Sister and the occasion' s chief organizer. 

We are prepared for this eventuality; AccuWeather, our trusty weather advisor, has already fore warned us. We are prepared.

What next, we are asking each other?

Ummmmmm.  Pause. 

I'm calm, relaxed, at ease with life's ups and downs and turn arounds, like I would never have been fifty years ago.

Yup, the Icey mess is here, no doubt about it!

"Just checked the news online,” I tell Sue.

“Baltimore pileup on I 95 (one of our major highways), sixty-seven car pile-up, two dead.”

No one should be out on the roads in this.

Even if it clears, roads will remain slick in spots, black ice and fog would make for a dangerous return home, after dark, as it likely would be.

“Gotta cancel our celebration and reschedule. Let's look forward to a day in the future of sunshine and flowers.”

In the next moment, after we get that straight, I am asking Sue, “Who has confirmed, who needs to be called immediately, who second?”

We are into Plan B! 

Then --- the moment when it all turns around. 

Really turns round right!

Sue tells me she has news that is just gonna knock my sox off!

She sure is right!

Later, on Sunday afternoon, when our turning has come full circle, Sue and I are singing -- 

Tis the gift to be simple; 'Tis the gift to be free; 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be; And when we find ourselves in the place just right; It will be in the valley of love and delight.

Yup, our celebration has turned into that! 

We are “in the valley of love and delight!”

See our picture!  I am happily ensconced in the midst of my honorary daughter Terry and granddaughter Maggie.

Plan B has brought us, instead of Saturday's pre-planned event, to a quiet Sunday afternoon at home in my lovely mountains. In our picture Terry, Maggie and I are looking at pictures in my Beloved Father – Daughter scrapbook (the scrapbook itself worthy of many tales to come). 

Four generations celebrating ME! You realize how close the spirit level is, at times like this, when a deceased parent shows up for a celebration.

How totally lovely, warm and cozy. Just as this celebration was meant to be!

Of course, I am disappointed about what was dismantled from Saturday's planned occasion; especially the other people I care about and didn't get to see. But as an introvert, I love small groups. Maybe someday, before too far off, we can revisit the bigger plan. But today I am full on what I did have for my celebration.

Spirit Sister Sue, also an introvert, enjoyed our small, cozy gathering. There she sits, watching us on the couch, rejoicing in having orchestrated the –

BIGGEST, BEST SURPRISE IMAGINABLE OF MY 50th anniversary celebration!

My daughter Terry has flown clear across the country from California to be here to celebrate my 50th anniversary! OMG! OMG!

It almost doesn’t get any better than that!

Terry and Maggie not only have traveled three thousand miles to be here with me on this day; my wonderful, tiny “honorary family” has traveled throughout an afternoon of revisiting memorabilia with me and listening to my stories of adventures and years past, laughing especially at the funny ones. Along the way we even admire the bronze plague Terry made up for me for the day we celebrated my 25th!

Meanwhile another Spirit Sister, Joan, my BIG sister guide who continues to pass on the teachings of his culture that Murat would have us learn, has informed Sue that she and my Kebzeh family in Vernon was to also be celebrating a special occasion on December 17. Just about the same time as we had been scheduled to do. Their celebration would include some of their adepts "turning," the Dervish turn, based for them on Murat’s traditions being related to the roots of Sufism.

Whirling dervishes perform a meditative, prayer dance to express emotion and achieve the wisdom and love of God. The dance originated in Turkey, in the Islamic sect of Sufism, which was founded by Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi. Murat was influenced by these Sufi traditions as he grew up in an Abkhazian diasporo in Turkey, following the early twentieth century invasion of Abkhazia by Russia which sent his tribal mountain people there.

We got their spiritual vibe even if we were a day late, catching up to them on our end.

So my celebration day was all so very good! And so simple.

A day to remember when we, perhaps, find ourselves, “Next year in Jerusalem.”

I am aware of our oneness; the universality of our celebrating.

West coast has merged with the East. Jew has blended with Muslim.

G-d is good!

More than any other single element, the spiritual side of my celebrating fifty years brings me joy and a great sense of unity!

OMG! New Horizons Board of Directors Is Gonna Make A Fuss Over Me!

Board Members of the New Horizons Support Network, Inc. will honor Executive Director, Anastasia Rosen-Jones with an anniversary celebration Saturday, December 17, following this week's Making Violence Obsolete training group (see details below).

Read Anastasia's bio and about her courageous handling of threatened blindness and eight years of actual blindness and recovery from it. (As of this date, Anastasia has once again lost her eyesight in her right eye).

In the event of inclement weather, contact Sue deVeer at 240.367.4403 for rain date, tba