End Of The Month. No Deadlines. Yeah!!!

My new normal.

No blog writing quota deadline for me this month - and few and far between in the future!

Yippee. And agreed no more deadlines on the New Horizons Small "Zones Of Peace" Project either.

Board agreed -- Anastasia can set her own pace on all three of her New Horizons sponsored blog sites, as she wishes.

Instead of maximum stressed, trying to make one last post before the end-of-the month, here I sit on the top deck of my house, watching the moon and the stars overhead, listening to evening birdsong, crickets and cicadas.

The air is fresh and cool after a day of drenching rain.

And I am safe and healthy and enormously grateful.

The Crowning -- And -- The Next Chapter

Scroll down for updated program plan announcements, updated, Wednesday, July 29, 2:30 p.m.

I was crowned “Goddess Of The Glade” that is the New Horizons/Small “Zones Of Peace” (NH/ZOP) Retreat Center and Forest Bathing Sanctuary, at my 80th birthday celebration. 

It was a beautiful and uplifting event experience for me and for the others attending, both in person, properly socially-distanced, and by conference call, up against the backdrop of the pandemic crisis. 

How good it felt to have reason for celebrating! 

The occasion’s theme, “Celebrate Life: Yours, Mine and Ours,” drove home that all lives matter – and – how very grateful each one of us was to be able to honor a day like this, alive and well. In the midst of this strange and difficult time.

And – for NH/ZOP a new chapter began, ushered in by the “Open To The Public” Pandemic Survivors’ Discussion And Support Group, preceding a set of very special dedications and birthday rituals, created especially for me by my devoted board members.

For the past fourteen years, the work of the two intertwined non-profit organizations, the New Horizons Support Network, Inc. and Small “Zones Of Peace” Inc.  (NH/ZOP), I founded, the latter co-founded by Sue deVeer and myself, have presented many programs on behalf of groups and organizations in our closest local community, Frederick, Maryland, most frequently on a pro bono basis that I/we happily considered a way of paying forward.

Among the best known of these have been our Coffee House Conversations, our Abkhazian Dinners and our specially designed "Conflict Resolution And Anger Management #101" program for the UNESCO Center For Peace for high school students from around the world, based out of Frederick.

But there will be no more of these, on our local level. Certainly, not anytime in the foreseeable future.  

Those days are over, I remind myself, as my thoughts open up the heartache, once again, of the deep sorrows of our present circumstances 

Question: So where do we go from here?

Updated, Wednesday, July 29, 2:30 p.m.

Our coming attractions, already in motion include two major shifts:

1. Present and future programs into the foreseeable future will focus on reaching out beyond the local for national participation, with an intention of establishing regular, ongoing nationwide conference call support groups, and

2. Opening up our very peaceful Forest Bathing Sanctuary for limited, on-site, very small groups. Maximum 4 people. (Next NH/ZOP Forest Bathing Event. August 22 11:30 - 2:30)

Other developments, now in progress

Mss Study Group, Friday mornings. 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. 

This is the one that earns you your ticket to: 1. Our daily Pandemic Survivors Support Groups and;  2. Monthly Truth Or Dare GAMES and; 3. GAME Community Support Groups (Temporarily on pause, as we start up our new tracks, as offered on this list.)

Daily Pandemic Survivors Support Group (now on Monday and Wednesday mornings, time varies, usually begins 10 a.m. Led by Sue deVeer.)

Monthly “Open To The Public Pandemic Survivors Discussion-Support Groups,” limited on-site spaces available. Maximum 4 people. (Next August 22. 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.) Led by Anastasia. 

Monthly storytelling at the NH/ZOP Fire Circle. (Next Fire Circle Storytelling, August 22, 6 on.) Led by Anastasia. 

Also developing -- Anastasia The Storyteller Online Radio Shows to be increased with future shows including NH/ZOP Board Members. Some shows will also particularly want to encourage call ins and after show conference calls support and dialogue to follow up on program topics.

OMG! What a menu!

Please come eat at our table, far enough away, yet still able to join me/us for the sharing of human nourishment.

For details and reservations, contact -- Anastasia at: 
MountainWomanRJ@aol.com

My Big Day Arrived And I Was Crowned Goddess Of Our Glade

…meaning the New Horizons/Small “Zones Of Peace” organization (NH/ZOP) Forest Bathing Sanctuary and retreat center.

Goddess Of The Glade
on her
80th Birthday!

My honorary daughter, Terry (hear Terry co-host my Anastasia The Storyteller Radio Show, from time to time) proclaimed me --

Beautiful goddess of the forest. Mother of the land. Wise woman of the mountain. My honorary mother. 

And so it was that New Horizons/Small “Zones of Peace” Forest Bathing Sanctuary had its official birthing and dedication, alongside my beautiful, joyful, inspiring, happy 80th birthday celebration.

It was a wonderful day into evening.

Produced, especially for me by my Beloved BFF, collaborator, board member etc, etc. Susan C. deVeer.

More to come.

Transformation Is In The Air!

You can hear it in our voices, feel that IT, transformation, is in motion behind the scenes, as the New Horizons/Small "Zones Of Peace" organization, (NH/ZOP), goes through HUGE (maybe biggest ever since our earliest days, circa 1973) transitions, many, but not all ushered in by the pandemic.

Culmination: Anastasia The Storyteller 

Talks About Ten Years Online, 
The Gifts And The Lessons

Board member Lisa, our strict taskmaster, says "It's the best Anastasia Storyteller Radio Show ever!"

The Board Members of the New Horizons/Small “Zones of Peace” (ZOP) invite you to --

CELEBRATE  LIFE!!

Yours, Mine, Ours -- Everyone’s At

Anastasia’s 80th Birthday Party Event

Saturday, July 18, 2020

2:30 p.m. until after sundown

Schedule of Events
*Please note logistical details below schedule: 

3:00 to 5:00 p.m. – Pandemic Survivors Support Group -- Topic: “Society, Politics And The Art Of Holding The Pandemic As An Opportunity, Provided You Stay Well.” 

Anastasia and Marge Hulburt
Fire Circle Dedication, 2006

5:00 to 5:30 p.m.; -- Gather at the New Horizons/ZOP Fire Circle, scene of numerous community celebrations and rituals, since 1993!  Refreshments.

5:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. – Dedications and re-dedication of: New Horizon/ZOP Forest Bathing Sanctuary. Including –

• Welcome & Dedication of NH/ZOP Forest Bathing Sanctuary – Executive Director and Founder, Anastasia Rosen-Jones;
• Dedication of NH/ZOP Cairn – Board Member, Lisa;
• Dedication of NH/ZOP Pandemic Memorial – Board Member Sue;
• Re-dedication of NH/ZOP Community Fire Circle – Board Member Terry Harris.

6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. – Rituals to celebrate Anastasia’s 80th Birthday

6:30 on – Storytelling at the fire circle

*Logistical details: 

1. We are presently exploring logistic options, “to zoom, or not to zoom,” etc. for this event. However, they are not yet in place. Check this site for further details and updates; 

2. Only a very limited number of guests will be physically onsite for the event. They know who they are. No one else will be permitted; 

3. Pandemic Survivors Support Group, Dedication ceremony and birthday celebration will be available on a listening-in guest basis, only. 4. Storytelling – completely private.

RSVP: New Horizons/ZOP Board Member Sue deVeer at: Cell: 240.367.4403, 
email: suedeveer@juno.com

Please Board Member Sue, Help Me Write This Blog

An Open Letter To My Spirit Sister Sue,

Dear Sue, BFF, Collaborator and Board Member,

I’m having such troubles! Writer’s block like you wouldn’t believe. 

OMG!!  Damn! 

Almost this whole time of the pandemic lock-downs, my words, the best of them, I tell you, STUCK inside of me. Stuck!! Stuck! And – me with so much to say – and write about, especially surviving and doing it optimally well. 

That is if you can avoid getting sick.

Would you believe it?

Maybe I just can't write solo anymore. Could that be my problem here???

Can’t???  Wrong keyword! 

Won’t is more like it! 

Frequently, these days, I find myself just staring off into space, losing myself gazing at my trees, often for the better part of the day, stunned, yet feeling enormous gratitude that I'm alive and well. So are you and everyone else we know. Then, of course, I often have a few moments of tears most  days about the state of things. That too takes lots some time and energy. 

After that, I ask myself if there is anything else I want to do?

I never know. Truth be told, I've really all kinds of things to do -- and -- nothing at all.

This is all changing me, like most everyone else, not in ways I would have chosen by a long shot. So it occurs to me that insofar as my writing goes, I think I'm on strike.

I’m just not gonna! And nobody’s gonna make me! I can't take any more demands these days. You know there's just got to be a limit on "to dos," especially at a time like this.

My goodness! 

It's my Rebellious Survivor Inner Child (RSC) acting out in my resistance to writing, these days. A.k.a. my Dark Side, she/he has taken over the management of my writing life and stalled it. 

She/he appears to be on strike! 

Well, I’ll be damned! Imagine that! I’m protesting.

I’m mad. I’m outraged. There's a lot of stuff I don't like at all these days.

So I'm on strike!

Spirit Sister Sue, Let’s you and I take a long look at this one, as you know I'm not prone to anger!

Me, mad? Outraged? Hope it's at least a nice Light Side anger. Not dark?? Got to check it out.

How about we talk it over, sometime later this afternoon, after I’ve taken my almost daily mountain road trek, spray washed my deck, watered all my plants and flowers, drooping from the heat, washed my dirty dishes, trying hard to keep my house clean, a true uphill battle, and am coming face to face with the fact that I've still got a lot of Jewish American Princess in me that REALLY believes I do not know how to even run a vacuum. 

And You, dear Spirit Sister Sue, will have come home from taking your husband to ONE MORE doctor’s appointment, where, if you are lucky, you will have found a tree-shaded patch somewhere near his doctor's office, safely-distanced from ALMOST all others – but not quite where you sit, sometimes somberly, pondering the state you (and I and everyone else) are in, at this moment!

Oh, dear! How did it ever come to this?

More later, I do hope, guessing I’ll have to take that little stinker, my RSC, in hand – or else HE/SHE won’t let me write again.

Damn! What frustration!

Enough for now. Please send your wisdom and support

Love Anastasia

P.S. I do hope these won't be my last words before my Anastasia The Storyteller current format, retirement day, July 17, 2020.