Solitude

Always it is in the morning in my daily “Conversations With G-d” that my life path takes on clarity regarding its directed meaning.

Of late I have been wondering about that directedness; the guidance that I trust to show me the path I must best follow each day, if my life is to have unity and a reasonableness that makes sense, at least to me. Who is it that is doing the leading, I have been asking myself?

The question particularly intrigues me when I contemplate “My Prophecy.”

Since August of last year when Sue, my colleague, collaborator and Spirit Sister, and I returned from our visit to Elyria (Ohio), the place of my birth and childhood, I have grown increasingly sensitive to the fact that my life has been directed now, for over forty years by a prophecy I received in the midst of  the Watergate scandal.

A long anticipated pilgrimage to one’s hometown, not visited for a good long time, can certainly prompt such contemplations; one of those periodic life reviews most of us are inclined to make now and then.

However, my questioning of the prophecy’s origins became particularly pointed after our return home. The fortieth anniversary of Nixon’s resigning his presidency was a few days after that and the commands of my prophecy are quite intricately woven together with the Watergate break in and its fallout..

I maintain that what I experienced on the occasion of my receiving a vision I later called prophecy came from outside of me. But could I have been mistaken?

It is a bit troublesome, especially when a certain something has consistently been experienced as the guiding light of one’s life, to not know from whence that guidance comes though most of the time I am not particularly concerned about it.

But every now and then I ponder the circumstance, as I did this morning, asking myself along with wondering about the true source of my prophecy, who, indeed, am I really talking to when I tell myself – and a few choice others – that I am talking to G-d every morning?

Jack, my radio show co-host, has been an astrology enthusiast for decades. And while he would not consider himself an expert on its intricacies he can, with a bit of prompting, be enticed into providing me with a few planetary perspectives now and then.

Not too long ago I asked Jack if he could give me some feedback on how the heavens; the planets and so forth, might have lined up that day of my prophecy so as to, somehow, create the conditions for it. Reluctantly, Jack acquiesced to my request, providing me with a cursory glance into possible answers for this mystery of mine.

What did I get from my inquiry?

Primarily the same answer I get most of the time; when I am talking to G-d as I do daily, who I am talking to, be it inside of me or outside, is just simply and not so simply at all -- G-d!

My daily solitude is the playing field for that experience.

So maybe the heavens opened up that day of my prophecy because the planets were lined up in some perfect way to occasion that happening. Or maybe I just happened to have opened up my own self in some certain special way.

Whatever – I have been guided by a prophecy for forty long years that has directed my life path.

How very special!  Lucky me! 

And, lucky me, again, that I know how very much of a treasure is my Solitude!

Our Political Swat Team

A neighbor of whom I am rather fond and keep in touch with occasionally by email responded to my blog article about my voting for Hillary with a bit of “disbelief” that I would make a choice like that! Perhaps, he also wondered at my selection this early in the game.

Oh well I hadn’t expected to win any popularity contests with my bold statement of support for this particular candidate except, maybe, from some of the diehard Democrats and, likely, from the feminists among them.

I wasn’t quite certain how to immediately respond to this friend neighbor’s challenge right off.  But then I read a CNN article wherein the reporter, Ms. Ashley Killough, described Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker as hitting “back at potential GOP presidential rival Marco Rubio over  the Florida senator’s charge over…..”

Well you fill in the blanks.

The topic could be any comment made by another who is one’s political opponent. The subject matter changes, the manner of combat rarely, if ever does. In other words Walker took a swat at Rubio and soon Rubio will swat him back.

Thus I come back to Hillary.

We definitely, in my opinion, don’t need our politics to be handled like a SWAT team going after armed criminals in the guise of other presidential contenders.

The deal, as I see it, is who is going to do the best job throughout the campaign to even appear capable of leading us to overcome the viral polarization in our country and help our very sick society heal.

I don’t necessarily trust Hillary. She’s a politician. That means she’s a game player capable of the dirtiest maneuvers to get what she is after. But I don’t expect to find any other among them upon whom bestowing my trust would bring me comfort to any greater degree. After all politics is politics and anyone who tr2usts a politician is a fool in my book.

But Hillary has, by this time, developed a bit of grace and diplomacy; the skill of a veteran who knows how to get in the cage with the other large predators and come out relatively unscathed. So, while I certainly cannot say that I trust her, I am betting on her finesse.

Not meaning that I think she is lily white. It’s just that I think she has the skill to cross the great congressional divide without being decimated, manage our international diplomacy -- and -- G-d help us, achieve a greater unity among the citizens of our country.

I was proud of Hillary’s representing us, even with her flaws, as Secretary of State. So I feel confident I would respect her manner in representing this country at home and abroad as our president.  This would be such a relief that I cannot even speak it!

Still I can always change my mind as the campaign game plays itself out. But from where I sit now, with lots of organizational experience of my own, I think Hillary just might be able to do the bridge building we need.  All I see of the others candidates so far is more bullying and provoking polarization. I don't believe it needs to be this way.

I also don't think Hillary should lose just because she is a woman either!

I want someone who can help me hold my head up high, again, as an American.

What I don’t want is a president, even a potential one, who starts off his/her campaign on the attack of the other candidates as ENEMIES that he must take dead or alive, as if he/she were a SWAT team member! 

For all its imperfections the America I know and love is not yet a war zone! And, that’s not what our election process should look like here either, as if a bomb threat were lurking at every corner!

Anyway since our last presidential election I changed my voter registration from Democrat to Independent.

I don’t belong to any party anymore and that’s how I will make my voting decision; any which way when I get to the polls!

Women Power: A Critical Vehicle For Change

For Krystal and the Hood College Psychology Club

My first car was a fifty-six T-bird. With my Dad’s business partner of the era, George Barris, the absolute most famous custom car designerin the world to my knowledge, contributing to its sparkle and flash, my father even had it a bit customized for me.

How great the power of that little car felt to my adolescent-getting-to–know-the-world -around-me self! I can still feel its burst as we peeled away from a stop light, propelling me way out ahead of all those other cars, instantly left behind, thanks to the command of my fuel injection accessories.

Mine actually was green,
But this will do for now.

What a great entrance to emerging adulthood that was for me!

How much better than that could the owner of Hollywood’s Custom Corner on Vine Street (circa 1952) have demonstrated his proud-as-a-peacock manhood than to gift his young daughter with a car of this ilk?

I have a whole slew of T-bird stories in my treasure box of memories of life with my Dad and Mom and our life in Southern California. And, today they feel ripe and ready to begin pouring forth. It must be the sunshine of this spring day bringing them into my consciousness.

If I am to complete the mission I have set for myself with this blog site—taking off the thousand masks I wear to be authentically me in present time -- I  will, over time, want you to see how this T-bird story group morphs into my “Hot Pants, Motorcycles and K Street” life and stories.  But for today suffice it for me to say that over the years I have come to recognize the power of women as essential change vehicles, in or out of the cars we drive.

To make my point, I can now unequivocally state that I am definitely going to vote for Hillary!

In spite of the many things in her manner that I haven’t liked, Hillary is the one for me!

In fact, I’m even going to go a step farther and see what I can do to aid her campaign to help get her elected.

Yes! I am voting for Hillary without a doubt.

You know why?

It’s because I really like the way she threw her hat in the ring. I think she is setting her pace to genuinely play the real deal “game.”

Having said that I will soon want to discuss the GAME with you to which I am referring; the New Horizons Truth or Dare Game. I wish we could all be in it together, forever and ever, even in everyday life as a style of being.  

New Horizons Truth or Dare Game surpasses everything else I have ever known as the highest impact process for collectively learning how to live a life of “power with” rather than power over.  New Horizons “new” Climbing The Mountain of Awe Game is an updated version of our original GAME, circa 1976. Still I am unlikely to ever have that original Truth or Dare Game experience again. Those days are over, leaving only nostalgia behind.

More on this as time allows.  I have been working myself to the grindstone this past month, preparing for not one, but two Coffee House Conversations, back to back.

It was a hellish experience that only a workaholic, power addicted, determined to break the glass ceiling at all costs woman would like.

I did not like!

That’s not me, anymore. It took every strength I had in me to break the habit, my workaholic habit, Dark Side mode as it was.

Now the sun is beginning to shine again outside my window with the birds chirping their merry song and the flowering trees in bloom. I need a walk and fresh mountain air right now more than I need most other things. So off I go to drink all that in now as I chug my way up the mountain road that is my best, regular aerobic workout, long neglected because it was just too darn cold for me these past few months.

But I will be back here writing soon again with lots more to say. The hellish demands ended late day yesterday and I have a storehouse of updated reflections on life and stuff to share.

See ya soon again now that I am making my way back to my Beloved daily writing pattern.

My womanly way of power allows me that; time for the inner me; meditating, reflecting, contemplating, time for balance and gentleness, not all about the man’s way of power that steely, fast and furious little T-bird introduced me to.

I am most grateful for the balance.

Love Is The Answer

Introducing my Journey Back To Me, Book Two of Anastasia’s Random House Trilogy

I had a wonderful experience last night. It gave me a way in to the topic, “Discovering What Really Matters,” that I introduced in the article of that same name. “Discovering what really matters” is the pathway out of the Survivor/Addict lifestyle  that I am taking great pains to guide you to take through this blog site and my new blog site, “Exploring Your Dark Side:The Adventure Of A Lifetime”

Today I am so “excited,” which for me is always a bit over the top of a true, healthy happiness as Murat would want for each of us.  In other words “excitement,” in my vernacular, means having a slight bit (quite manageable for me) of a survivor/addict relapse. 

Anastasia, circa 1966 as
Marcia E. Rosen,
Survivor/Addict

But nothing too serious in the whole scheme of things.

Nonetheless, last night was the first occasion I have had – ever – to discuss my three Random House Books that I call my “Random House Trilogy” as the one set or series of books that they are, chronicling the incredible personal and professional journey that came of my years with Marty Groder.

Imagine that! The “why” is quite a story all on its own for another time.

My newest blog site, “Exploring Your Dark Side: TheAdventure Of A Lifetime,” has as its intention to only present Books One and Three of the series; Book One, originally titled Surviving Addictions, revised as Surviving Adrenalin Addictions and Book Three, Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure Of A Lifetime.

Book Two: Journey Back To Me, has hardly ever been mentioned so far. My design has been to incorporate that one into this blog site, somehow or other. But I had not yet, to date, seen how to do that. Last night, however, may have been a game changer in this regard because --

… last night at the Psychology Club I crossed over the doorwayto that intent. Once through, lo and behold, Journey Back To Me came alive for me as it has not been since the time I put it aside, twenty years ago.

Recall that on “Exploring Your Dark Side,” the blog site, I have said that there are many doorways to personal transformation. For me the practice and discipline my writing demands of me incorporates several of these, at least. And, a speaking engagement such as I did last night can bring the other remaining portals into play, provided one knows how to allow/enable that to occur.

So BINGO! One more deliciously transformative moment!

The situation of my crossing over last night was this.

I had been invited to address the Psychology Club at nearby Hood College in Frederick, Maryland; partially as a simple speaking engagement and partly in preparation for the club’s sponsorship of a forthcoming, campus-based Coffee House Conversation On Race Relations.

The college campus version of New Horizons’ flourishing Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations initiative is just one sign of the momentum building for New Horizons around this effort. In and of itself this new aspect of the over-all project mission holds exciting prospects for New Horizons.

It will allow us to, not only serve a local community as we are now doing in Frederick County, Maryland, but to expand our contributions to the reconciliation of present social problems, namely race and police relations, above and beyond our wildest imaginings. We are now situated, due to our originally conceived effort, Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations in local communities, to play an active part in aiding the healing of major and necessary social change in the United States.

Now our developing Coffee House Conversations at Hood College will take us into campus concerns at a most fortuitous time.  One need only read current news reports to recognize this; racist chants and fraternity scenes of rape spotlight some of the most serious.

So, beginning now I am trying to integrate the experience I had last night with the Hood College Psych Club. Hallelujah!

But I am, this minute, as I write this, so very excited about all kinds of related happenings I cannot stay on point. The problem, therefore, is that I am unable at this moment to keep myself on track to tell you about these. I can barely keep myself from getting off track trying to tell you about one single thing, my speaking engagement of last evening at Hood College.

Well, with that said and done, maybe, truth be told, I can’t just stick to that one subject today.  So my product here can simply be only to tell about my process.

Oh well! There is just too much happening right now that is exciting and wonderful for me to hold onto one focused path! 

I guess I will just have to come back later to tell you more. As it turns out, one of the most delightful new friends that I’ve made recently, Herman King, is about to bring about another incredible experience for me later this afternoon.

I will not be able to get ready for that one ahead if I write more about what was already.

Oh dear! Oh dear!

However, when I can get to it, in a day or two or so, I will do my best to write of all of this as best I can of what is happening here!

These days our joys and our sorrows can so easily be shared and matter for many through online communication. But for now the sunshine and fresh air, the abundance of bird song as mating season takes hold beckon me outdoors and I am off for that daily mountain road walk I’ve been missing these past months.

In the meantime, let me leave you with this, my talk last night, clarified by feedback I received at the Psych Club, underscored for me, multiple times, that whatever else I wish to impart to you, my readers, at the base the healing of our wounds and troubles, personally, societally and politically have “love” as the most profound answer at the foundation of it all.

I look forward to sharing my views on this one as soon as I can.

On A More Down To Earth, Practical Level Day Among the High Spirited Ones

Tales from the Sisterhood Of The Traveling Skirt

(Of course our “Traveling Skirt" has a history! Stop by for some summertime storytelling and we’ll tell you all about it with tears and laughter.)

Our lovely volunteers; all members of the "Sisterhood" except one guy, spent Sunday afternoon doing some of what we love best; building community while working on remodeling projects at New Horizons Harpers Ferry Retreat Center.

Spring is here, at last!

So we had a delightful day being together cleaning up, fixing up, getting ready to paint and rake up to so we can be as pretty and nice as we can for all our lovely community gatherings coming soon to this land we love.

Just take a look at some of what we did.

That’s “Our Kim,” community artist hand painting beautiful cabbage roses on one of our dining room cabinets. She makes her artistry look as easy as writing cursive. But none of the others of us could do anything like this but make a smear.

Then there is “Our Sue,” who could single handed build a house, up on a ladder, spring cleaning our cupboards.

Of course, Chris, our Beloved Handy Man, slipped in to do a final, we hope, round of splitting and sawing wood for our enormous wood burning stove, named “Our Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” that heats the entire house.

And, those are my toes and hands, Me, "Keeper of the Skirt."

We are getting ourselves ready for y’all to come join us in our kind of fun lovin’ community building at New Horizons Harpers' Ferry Retreat Center as sunshine and springtime brighten our days ahead.

A fine time was had by all.

We will be happy to soon share our good times with all who want to come and be with us in the good ole summer time. Hope you can/will join us.

Earth, Air, Fire And Water

An image came to me this morning. It brought me a rather elemental picture; as basic as earth, air, fire and water. Specifically it was a picture of how my new multi-cultural brothers and sisters and myself would/could be represented to one another through dance and music.

We would sing and dance, displaying for each other, the native music and rituals of the peoples of our origins. My personal version would be expressed by Klezmer music and dance, originating in Eastern Europe as did my grandparents. Klezmer is a melodious medium of expressing joy and other communal emotions that likely had its origins in Roumania, the birthplace of my maternal grandparents, known as Ashkenazi Jews.

Other Israeli folk dance such as the Hora, would also be a must to share. And, Israel’s national song, Hatikvah, would be presented too, expressive of the joy of a people returning to their homeland.

I am not a Zionist but the joy of song and dance often shows so much of who we are – and – certainly from where we come, beyond ordinary words. Klezmer, the Hora and Hatikvah are a part of me at my core.

I think I would like to experience this level of sharing with my new friends.  They are everywhere these days for me; the friends I am making through our Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations.  It would still be a little scary for me to be this open about my Jewish heritage. I am coming to realize this more and more since our conversations began. I have  learned, since I was of school age, that I needed to guard my Jewishness to assure my being safe.

But I want to grow this sense of openness with my new multi-cultural friends. And give this new way of being for me the tender care -- and more -- that I give to my rarest exotic plants. 

What we are doing means so much to me and others.

At the base of truth is this sense of oneness. It is as much a part of one’s whole nature as are the earth, air, fire and water. Love too is somehow a part of this though at the moment how and where escapes my conscious mind.

Nonetheless, more elemental richness and love in my life is what Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations in Frederick, Maryland is bringing me.  

What a wonderful, unexpected surprise!

Anastasia: Contrasting Starbucks and New Horizons Conversations On Race Relations

Love Does What Nothing Else Can

I still don’t fully get it, intellectually, how this is true; “love does what nothing else can.”

But my experience tells me it is so.

For example, far-fetched as the connection might seem at first, the contrasts Jack Slattery, my radio show co-host, made last night between the successful results presently gained by New Horizons’ “conversations on race relations” and the disappointing fallout from a similar endeavor by Starbucks, make the point.

The first undertaking, New Horizons’ Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations, one might say, was conceived in love. This initiative has, so far, managed to carry a sense of that love into its programs, to date.  With an accompanying joy, hope – and – love seeming to expand from itself and beyond.

However, the latter, Starbucks’ initiative with its baristas serving up their daily fare with a message for customers to join Starbucks’ “Race Together” campaign, has seemingly birthed an abundance of resentment, mockery and disparagement, if not out and out hostility.

But it too was conceived in love, I believe.

So what went awry in the Starbuck’s scenario that was set so right in the New Horizons version, both having to do with conversations on race relations?

Could the error be similar to bringing a newborn baby into a home of planned and stable parenting with a parallel birth into a home ill-prepared and ill-equipped to guide that child’s life into its fullest expression?

Perhaps there is this similarity. Still the answer is complex. And, Starbucks has given us a gift in their attempt from which we can learn many lessons if conversations on race relations are ultimately to do what they must; help this country heal from wounds embedded long ago in slavery.

As Jack drew me out on last night’s radio show, “To Talk Or Not To Talk: Considerations,” he made some astute observations of his own, recognizing the intricacies of what conversations on race relations entail. And, indeed what is at hand warrants serious and lengthy deliberation.

Love and how it is manifest is a central ingredient of my considerations on the contrasts between the success of New Horizons’ Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations project and the downfall of the Starbucks initiative.

One hypothesis might be this –

Starbucks is not a venue that can carry forth the countless back stories, born of loss, pain and anger that are part and parcel of healing race relations in our country. These cannot be carried forth with a cup of brew in a busy coffee house.  A safe, loving environment must be established for this.

An environment with -- ample structure, guidance, time, experienced program coordination, such as my volunteers and myself provide, well-prepared and trained facilitaters and time commitments set aside expressly for the purpose of what is needed to affect a healing of the divisions that set people apart in this country – is some of what is needed – and -- more.

The essential ingredients that are trust, safety and the love that is necessary to bring forth healing need a much richer setting where such as this can grow and thrive.  

Listen to Jack and myself take up these contrasts, as we did live last night. Then let us know what you think about “talking or not talking” about race relations; where, when and how.

And, be sure to look for the love in the contrasts.

Love Does What Nothing Else Can!

New Horizons Coffee House Conversations On
Race Relations, March 21
Audience in rapt attention