To See Or Not To See Your Dark Side, Or What Makes Donny Run?

From a key quote on my Exploring Your Dark Side; The Adventure of A Lifetime blog site.

“….whoever is not aware of this force in his personality has lost control of it. He has not confronted himself and cannot know where he is headed.” What Do You Say After You Say Hello?  Eric Berne, M.D.

These are words I have come to hold as a baseline guide for determining positive mental health, the kind of well-being that breeds the optimum human success over the long haul.  

If I am relatively certain that my motives are based on a sincere caring and compassion for myself, others and the natural world around me I tend to rest securely in my actions. On the other hand if I have even a hint that I am being driven by an intent to control others in thought or deed, that I seek excesses in any area, I become suspicious of myself and pull back to pause.

Life is a challenging and sometimes tricky road to travel. Uncertainties can appear at almost any step of the way. I enjoy being sure-footed but accept with gratitude the frequent stumbling I do. I prefer unity and harmony, peace and serenity. Yet I honor the warrior in myself and in others. Where anger, outrage and volatile actions are concerned I want to respect both the message and the messenger though their methods might discomfort or even concern me.

Maturity and the wisdom it has brought me has shown me that there is almost always a more productive way than this. Yet I must also consider where I might be wrong, especially during an election campaign. The very intention of campaigning is based on controversy and even hostility. Certainly highlighting differences is the rule, not the seeking of common ground.

So today I am perplexed. I want to avoid biases. I want to respect the viewpoints of others and the choices they make. Still from every which way I try to approach the situation of this year’s election campaign, on the Republican side I keep coming back, again and again, that in my gut the whole of it seems rotten; more like Darth Vadar, the Dark Side of humanity, than anything of the Force I’ve ever known. So who might I choose as a leader here?

It is the Force and all it has come to symbolize to which I am drawn in others and strive for in myself.  I find that difficult to locate in the Republican party and think to myself, along with multitudes, that they have certainly made a mess of themselves. Could Donald Trump be their savior or their downfall?

My many years as a Certified Transactional Analyst brought me to explore, along with the incisive judgement of many of my colleagues, the Dark Side of humanity; the force in the personality that is out of control, the part of the personality not sincerely and thoroughly explored; its motives, frequently subconsciously or unconsciously, masked by guile.

This is how most have come to view Hitler, Jim Jones of the Jonestown Massacres, Charles Manson and his murderous gang. With this thinking as a backdrop I have been conscientiously trying to understand what makes “Donny run.” All that I find in my investigations spotlights a lifetime of his being of the Dark Side Warrior style not that of the Force. Compassion, sincerity, kindness, caring and the other attributes of an evolved humanity I see very little in him.

Though I want to do my best to reserve judgement and not get caught up in the political frenzy of this current presidential campaigning, I am fairly well-convinced that though I am now a registered Independent who is not particularly enamored of either Hillary or Bernie, it looks like I will, once again, vote Democrat. This brings me a measure of grief. I had pledged myself to take a non-partisan approach this time around whereas I had formerly always voted Democrat. 

After all I am Jewish and voting Democrat is our tradition. But I have recovered from that identity to be first and foremost an American. So I am disappointed that I am likely to take this route again. But seemingly this will be my choice come election day, if for no other reason than that the more Light I can see, the better I like it. And, what seems to make “Donny run” has, by far, more Dark than Light contrasted to the Democrat's side that, at least, merits my respect in many ways, if not all.

However, seeing Trump and his supporters as enemies goes against the grain for me too. So while I want to remember that complicity with darkness allowed Hitler to rise, I want to also be sure that I do not allow my fears to cast away the messengers and messages I am observing in the Trump camp. I need to not make them “the enemy” or “the other” but listen closely to what they are trying to say beneath their anger and seeming adoration of a man I deem a dangerous and crazy person. 

Still I need to “lean in,” not polarize. And, not allow myself to sink into an “us” and “them” position. After all, we are all breathing the same air so in a sense each of us is one another; there is a Donny in me and in you, a Donny supporter in each of us that takes the Trump side Trump in some respects.

The pain and/or sense of threat or injustice coming out of that camp must be great for supporters to fight so loud and so hard. I must remember that so that I can continue to hold theses followers of Trump with compassion in the deepest parts of myself. My pain is great too. I just manage it more quietly, most of the time.

That doesn't make my way the right one. So the best way for me seems to be to watch and listen -- and -- trust that our democracy can handle what might just simply be Divine chaos; a time to learn new ways of looking at things before I jump to conclusions.

The Love Behind The Message

Monday Morning On The Anastasia The Storyteller Radio Show

Conversations With Anastasia 

On The Art of Dialogue

This Week Featuring

The Love Behind The Message

Monday, March 7

11:30 a.m.

(If you miss the broadcast, also on podcast)

About Monday Morning's program

Anastasia and her new "sidekick," Kim Beckett begin developing their series, "Conversations With Anastasia On The Art of Dialogue" with this show. A good introduction to the show, as well as the series, can be heard on their previous show, "Trading In The Costs of The Quiet For The Riches of Dialogue."

On that earlier show reference is made to what it was that prompted New Horizons’  Coffee House Conversations initiative (New Horizons is the sponsoring organization for The Anastasia The Storyteller Radio Show). The back story for the initiative is heard at the end of the prior show. It will be used to introduce this present one as it provided the “love” behind the message of the Coffee House Conversations Project.

The Possible Society In Motion Radio Show titled “Leaning Into Conversations On Race Relations: A Love Story” is also recommended.  That particular program, recorded early last year, offers a broadened context for today’s show that listeners may find to be of benefit if interested in learning to apply the principles and practices of the new series, "Conversations With Anastasia on The Art of Dialogue."

Also see our Radio Show Study Guide for "Conversations With Anastasia On The Art of Dialogue. Bring yourself into the action and New Horizons' developing "Movement to Overcome Polarization In Our Society And Politics By Building Commujnity Bridges Through Dialogue." Our Radio Show Study Guide can help you make the leap!

Seeing, Saying and Listening: Earth Level And Beyond

It would be hard for me to tell you where I’ve been since last I wrote here. But it goes something like this: I’ve been traveling, inside myself into the Great Beyond and at home with close friends as I rested and relaxed, taking things a bit easy since my cornea transplant surgery in mid-December. Then I traveled some other places on the earth plane, back and forth into a few nearby states. Still taking it easy. 

I’ve talked to more people than usual  in conversations of such richness and depth I sometimes felt full enough to not need to eat for days.

Along with this I’ve  kept, always, the year-long physical healing agenda of my blessed new cornea at the forefront of my “vision.” Nonetheless, realizing that today is the last day of February – and – a leap day to boot, I wanted to just say a few words before March comes in as a lamb tomorrow as she is scheduled to do, at least in my neck of the woods. And, before I gear up to a more engaged schedule of activities, projects and plans, beginning sometime in mid-March.

The celebration of spring seems to be in the air up here in the mountains where I live though today is a bit windy and chillier than yesterday.  Tomorrow, again, is predicted to be warmer like yesterday.  And, oh what a day that was – yesterday!

I’ve been practicing a new spiritual discipline these past few months, listening for the voice of G-d. Limited as I’ve been with the monster snowstorm in January and the need I had to take things easy while the wound in my right eye healed some, this seemed a likely endeavor. Then came yesterday’s near seventy degree weather and off I was walking up and down my dear mountain road to drink in the ambiance.

My new discipline had me listening carefully, as I walked to hear G-d's voice, as some might describe it, or as I have done in the past, calling this focus “catching the voice of the wind.” So I walked a good long hour and one-half hearing that voice of Mother Nature or Father G-d or whomever beams it into me; carefully and much more fully aware than formerly.

I heard small mountain streams burbling, leaves rustling, birds twittering and singing.  I smelled the fresh fragrance of rich earth coming back out and alive after the winter freeze. And, possibly, most delicious of all, was putting my hand up to cover my left eye, the good one, and realizing, with my heart bursting with joy, that I could see the cracks in the blacktop of our road and the yellow line that marked the middle of the road with my “new’ right eye! It was a wonderful treat.

It had been a long time ago since I could do that!

I felt – joy so HUGE inside of me that it was as if I had left the earth while still standing right on it; so all right with the world as if my own personal springtime was meeting up with that of the whole earth. 

Certainly now I was truly home in ways I had not been for months.

Today I Am Dreaming Of What I/We Could Become!

There is nothing like doing a radio show, designed to be, in part, a rite of passage to inspire my grandest dreams.  In summary that is the effect my Anastasia The Storyteller Radio Show had on me today!

It is still too early for me to say much more about it other than that it was all I had hoped for and more. But after all it is just a little more than three hours since the program titled,  Trading In The Costs Of The Quiet For The Riches Of Dialogue, aired.

I am dreaming.

Nonetheless, already it has prompted me to write up and post a “Study Guide” to complement the program and the series planned to follow, “Conversations With Anastasia On The Art of Dialogue.”

Check out the radio show and the “Study Guide”!  See if they inspire you, even a little.

I am so high I can almost fly! But then I'm the mom.

Flying, well not exactly, for real.  But in my mind, why not!

Seeing (and Saying): Essentials for ME (YOU) Being ME (YOU) In The World

I’ve had a hard week. There were times during it when I wished I could just leave my body and go elsewhere. 

I’ve done that OOBE (Out of Body Experience) shtick in days past so I know what it’s like. But it wasn’t so much that I wanted to find myself up on the ceiling looking down on my body, lying prone in my bed, as it was with my first OOBE. No this time I was more deliberately conscious that I just wished I could lift myself out of the stress and distress I was feeling. 

Not that I wanted to end up all the way on my ceiling! 

What started that whole stress cycle for me was that I ventured out this past week for one of my first outings into mainstream life since my cornea transplant. 

I’ve been so far removed from ordinary life this past month or so. When folks at a meeting I attended were planning their next get together date as being in March, I piped up to ask why they were going to be missing February.

Actually we were, right then and there, having the February meet up. That, of course, prompted people to tell me that I was the one who had missed a month (and more) from the calendar.

Well, for sure calendar and clock time have not been “my time” of late.

Oh well. At that meeting it hadn’t really mattered much.  Our agenda was about making a better world; thinking global, acting local. That’s a fairly timeless, boundary-less issue, especially in this day and age.

Once I had, at last, removed myself from the foray, after a day “in town” at meetings and doing errands, however, I was so overwhelmed with future shock, data overload contamination I didn’t know what to do. It seemed as if my generally serene, well-centered balance had left me, buried under by mainstream debris. Realistically, compared to the norm for most others, I had had a rather leisurely day, especially as it was comprised of fresh, healthy mountain air in the beginning, the middle and the end of it.

Apparently that hadn’t been enough for me. My norm is mountain living all day long!

But it wasn’t always that way. 

Before blindness I spent three or four days per week in my psychotherapy office in suburban Washington, D.C. and did just fine with it. But I have been purposefully leaving city life behind for a good part of the week now for close to thirty years.  And have found it to be so much more my nature to be constantly immersed in country ways.

My eight year sojourn into blindness and recovery from blindness (1998 – 2006) definitely tipped the scales for me to be as far away from “in town” and/or urban life as one can be in this day and time.

Now mountain living is so much a part of me that I have actually been known to take plastic baggies of the earth and leaves and other greenery surrounding my house with me to smell when I am away from home. 

Weird, you say? Home connected is my take!

My saving grace these day, however, or so it seems – is that I am beginning to be more vocal in publicly defining myself as a mountain woman -- and otherwise -- who comes to town only intermittently. 

I love being in my neighboring town, Frederick, Maryland, once I am there. But “it” isn’t quite ME – this “in town” life!

I love connecting and interacting with the many friends and associates I have made over the years; the community activities, restaurants and relaxed dining and cultural activities. And, the activities of New Horizons and myself, personally and professionally, that link me to this wonderful community.  

Still I am not an urbanite who visits the mountains (or oceans) now and then.  I am a true, 24/7 mountain woman; in monster snow, ice and rain storms, cutting wood with my own chain saw sometimes, without electricity or running water on occasion.

But it has been a long time coming, it seems, that I have grown more fully into being a true mountain woman, known here and there as the Wise Woman of Elk Mountain where I live on the border between Maryland and West Virginia. 

Take me home, Shenandoah!

Little by little now, my public voice is becoming stronger and more able to clearly and authentically define who I am;  a mountain woman who loves my “in town” community but yearns, always, for my home in the hills.  

(I find it curious on occasion to continue calling West Virginia “the mountain state” given that erosion and other ecological changes have reduced much in our mountain ranges to little more than hills. But no, no one is ever going to call West Virginia “the hill state,” you best believe!)

Today, having regained my serenity and balance once again, I leave you with the following thought --

Sometimes it seems that the motion of moving from chaos to community can be as much within oneself as it is without.  

And the learning to “see” (and say) whatever is true for oneself is a challenge that must be surmounted in order that one openly define oneself, as well as be truly connected to others.

This, it seems to me, is essential for ME (and YOU) being ME (and YOU) in the world; a rich and wonderful national treasure wherever you are!

Lessons and lessons and still more to learn.

Living In The Light, Kissed By An Angel

I think I must be far away from knowing this new me I am becoming. But as amazing as it felt this morning for me to awaken feeling bathed in, of all things, Light – this morning there it was!

I even felt myself embraced by an Angel that seemed, without doubt, to be my “Mom” (i.e. stepmother) who has been deceased for a few years now.

As I do not even believe in angels this was truly astounding!

At the same time I also felt myself awakening, filled somewhat with concerns about my next right steps for today and the weeks and months ahead.

Last year’s New Horizons’ Coffee House Conversations Project events, nine in all, was overall a gorgeous, gratifying, uplifting experience, over all. But only a first step on a path laden with challenges, fraught with obstacles, if a true exceptional community in our local, somewhat ordinary yet beyond ordinary community is an objective for New Horizons which, indeed, it is.

What to do next? What to do?

Not knowing, I decided to just be quiet a bit longer this morning and listen and see if my Angel would show up again for me today.

I’m still waiting but the door is open.  The mind is indeed capable of magic!

My Could, Would and Should -- Speaking Tangle

Maybe you will relate to this that I am offering at this juncture, maybe not. But here goes anyway though it feels really risky!

Author's note: After a rather sleepless night I decided this morning to take this article down, at least temporarily. It occured to me that in offering the following reflections I was, perhaps, inviting the general public into my private world to an extent that might harm me. 

However, after pulling the article back out into draft form I discovered that one of my loyal readers had been signfiicantly impacted by what I had written, leaving me a thoughtful and supportive comment. When I read the comment I realized that my main objective in writing this blog had been achieved in this instance. This site has always been about expressing myself to whomever, often as a storyteller, as my small contribution to helping make a better world.

Thus the reader's comment reminded me of words derrived from the Talmud, "To redeem one life is to redeem the world." With that in mind I am, once again, sharing the following reflections with the hope that my "risky behavior" here might just make a difference to someone else, somewhere.  If it does it would be lovely to know that.

P.S. If you have any doubts about the legitimacy of this post and its relevance to our chaotic world, I encourage you to view the movie of "Tommy, The Rock Opera" for a jolt related to how I "see" the subject matter below.

It was just this past week; barely three weeks after my seventh cornea transplant when it hit me like a lightning bolt striking a darkened room, that for most of the years of my dealing with the challenges of my eye disease, keratoconus, I have been overlooking the fact that I have actually been managing two overlapping eye problems, not just one!

Then it struck me even more pointedly that hysterical blindness might have actually always been the precipitating one behind the other, keratoconus. Having now considered this notion as a valid possibility, I find myself facing the age-old question of which came first; chicken or egg?

A question I will no more be able to definitively answer correctly than the egg-chicken query.  Thus I am stuck with making up my own mind on the subject, on my own, based almost solely on my estimations.

What to do? What to do, especially in terms of making this issue relevant to me now, at this stage of my game?

Nonetheless, as I prefer relative certainty rather than complete indecision in charting a path for myself, I decided to create a working hypothesis as I had been taught as a psychotherapy student for my “treatment plan” (me client, me healer) and see where it will take me.

(Fortunately, two people of significance have come onto my daily landscape to “be in this adventure with me.” They will be a great help in assisting me in clarifying my theory, the one I have elected to consider as the true source of my eye problems. Thank G-d for fellow travelers.)

Here is the theory I have chosen as the “one” for now. --

I was born with a biological predisposition for keratoconus (i.e. hereditary/genetic), set in motion and heightened, from day one of my life, by my emotional, psychological, spiritual sensitivity to certain, very specific stimuli. (More details on this later when I can get my words and thoughts together to share.)

Does this mean that a predilection always existed in me for developing keratoconus, based on factors other than biology, that might even be traceable back to past lives should they, in fact, exist in reality?

Today I am certainly willing to consider this. I have to be honest with you! All possibilities are being examined.  My well-being warrants the effort!

Oiy veh!

But how can I ever know the truth for certain? And what difference does it make anyway to ponder that which is unlikely to ever have proof? Certainly my doctor at Johns Hopkins will is likely to dismiss my "theory."So now what?

With my personal imperatives in mind, however, I have decided to move forth from here, at least for a time, acting “as if” I had answers. 

From this vantage point I intend to alter certain life perspectives that I have allowed myself to hold as truths since my initial keratoconus diagnosis as a junior in college, and will operate under the assumption that what has been showing up physically has to have had its roots in my emotions, psychology and spirituality, not the other way around.

Over are the days of my viewing keratoconus as hanging over my head like a rain cloud  completely as a medical problem. Now I will proceed as if my emotions, psychology, and spirituality hold the reins to my physicality and its healing. But what difference will that make?

And why hadn’t I considered this earlier? Why and how did I not allow the serious taking of this issue into account and instead ignored it when I might have known better, especially with my psychology background being as extensive as it is? 

Certainly the idea was important enough for reflection much earlier.

I have had so much evidence to support what I am now only newly embracing; a lifetime of clues minimized, it seems. What if this "theory" as truth has been there all along with me overlooking the obvious?  Would it have made a difference somehow in how I have managed my life?

What will my new approach reveal? I am opening my mind, my heart and, of course, my eyes to seeing what will be unearthed from the depths of my psyche on this issue.

Here is my first discovery!

I may have always, even back centuries (Could it be? Could it be?) not been unable to see what I see but became so threatened by trusting what my eyes and my higher vision have shown me that my inner turmoil was about speaking, especially truth to power. Thus, in effect, I muzzled myself, passively creating a non-reality for myself based on ...what?

Should I have, could I have, would I have, risked, up against the threat of grave dangers, sharing that which I perceived from a limited view of the world? When I knew that others might, potentially, react against my view; enough so that my spoken words might endanger my safety?  

Was blinding myself, thus a safer option? An option I hid my authentic self behind? And all I could muster to see me through the peril I anticipated? (Such as a witch being burned at a stake might do?)

I am going to pursue my investigation of this idea as I strengthen, day-by-day, my intentions, backed up by new actions to speak truth to power everywhere I deem it necessary and/or appropriate; albeit in a timely fashion and diplomatically to the best of my ability.

Perhaps now is the hour for all lies, denial and discounting; the three prongs of human functioning that foster non-reality thinking and behaving in this world, to pass away, not only mine but from each and everyone of us. As a friend remarked, not long ago, the worldwide web has brought us to a place where lying and deceit can no longer hide.

If so, maybe there was no earlier time for my liberation until now. It was what it was but it doesn’t need to continue!

So – my immediate task will be to keep examining, on a regular basis, the “could, the “would” and the “should” of my saying what I see. But it sure feels scary to me – along with the new found freedom I am already experiencing – and – some unexpected fun!

I’ll let you know how it goes with hopes you, too, are getting better and better at speaking truth to power in health-affirming ways. We can learn together.

Running Toward The Light

I am running, running now -- toward the Light. The Light! The Light!

It is a miracle. Moment by moment, it seems almost, there is more Light coming into my diseased eye, now healing from its last round of Darkness.

Hour by hour my vision seems to get brighter and brighter. 

Sometimes almost moment by moment, growing clarity comes into my sight, my vision field expanding, expanding. 

OMG! 

I am so grateful, so happy. 

The brightness is beautiful!

I feel such gratitude for the gentle hands and advanced medical technology that has brought me this miracle.

And – in my meditations this morning I wonder with frustration and great sorrow in my heart how and why it is that SEEING all that there is to be SEEN – the most complete truth of truths, the whole reality of reality, as close as one can see of it – can be anything but top priority -- glorious, freedom.

Seeing all became a death defying challenge for me at eight years old. My mentally disturbed mother put a curse on my innocent self to not see what I saw. Forever after “my seeing” what she did not want me to see became a threat to her, punishable by the prospect of my death.  No wonder ordinary seeing has been such an ordeal for me.

I fought this wicked curse – always; a battle to the finish, physically, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically.  And, I am winning, am I not? Seeing is my biggest victory, my highest reward.

So here I am now, blessed and in AWE!

Like an astronaut high above the earth, I can see and it is glorious! 

Please celebrate with me. 

Join me please in seeing ALL there is to see. Hold back nothing!

Reflections

A dear friend wrote back from my sending out a link yesterday for my blog article titled “I Felt the Hand of G-d.”  She wanted to pass on to me the following –

“You may not agree, but I believe, based on old testament scripture, any symbol with one eye is demonic; it is not of God.”

Ouch! Oh dear! Had the seemingly simple act of my telling of the wonder I experienced during my corneal transplant surgery set off another round of “snags” in my life? Darn! Am I never going to “do” my “being” perfectly enough for the love I love to give and receive?

What was preferred, now that I reflect back on my actions of writing, posting and sending, was to invite a gathering of Beloved human souls to be with me as I celebrate my regaining vision. The kind of being together that becomes synergy; the adding up of one plus one that is more than one, bringing us to the edge of “awe, if not directly in it.

Ouch, instead instinctively I felt myself retreat from my friend’s appraisal of the Hamsa icon I had used to represent my extraordinary surgery experience. It seems my sharing had brought challenge back rather than out and out unity, or so I thought at first.

But I no longer like that way of reacting/responding; the withdraw, pull back, “I’m outta here” mode. 

So, now, being the good student that I am, even of my own wisdom, I did the kind of thing I am more likely to do these days; I pushed myself forward to “lean in” toward my friend, defining me while reaching out to her with a yearning for a higher order of connection than I had imagined possible in my former days with my former ways.

Soon I found words, rather than silence, to express my views, envisioning that I was taking this action at the risk of possible chastisement from her.  

Surprise of surprises; do you know what I got?

A kindly response from her.  How about that!

She felt no offense at my using that icon. She had only offered me a different view than the one I had chosen to support my selection of the amulet, Hamsa; protecting me from criticism from those more apt to truly judge my choice than she.

(The Hamsa, according to Wikipedia, is now embraced by Jews and Muslims alike as a sign of protection, originating in many societies, throughout history, to provide defense against the evil eye.}

Just goes to show me, one more time, that: 1. We all still have a long way to go in learning to make room in our lives for our different cultures, faiths, viewpoints etc.; and 2. “Leaning in,” dialogue rather than debate and moving from snags to synergy have greater potentials for creating the peace, unity and, yes, even love, that can best guide us out of our human troubles than do their alternatives; pulling away, debate and conflict (yukk all the way to supreme polarization and violence).

What hopeful and heartwarming thoughts to consider. 

What a beautiful vision to SEE on this Monday before Christmas as my new cornea continues bringing me ever increasing Light.

Sometimes You Just Need To Pause, Reflect and Celebrate

Thanksgiving is such a time.  The turkey that got away is doing it too!

My Thanksgiving this year was that kind of day for me; a day of peace, love, gratitude and celebration. I hope yours was that way too.

The turkey’s special day was followed soon after by Jack, my radio show co-host, and I doing a special program, marking the pinnacle that has been reached so far of New Horizons, almost one year old, Coffee House Conversations Project.

Of course, since I am the blueprint designer of the project (i.e. the “Mom” that birthed the project) I take a particular pride in what we have accomplished. Paying attention to the fact, last year at this time, that we were not doing enough for our community in the areas of race, community and police relations with the abundance we have, we got on board and now have, a new “baby” who is making folks smile.

And, my oh my how she has grown in just this one year!

You may recall, if you have been following our blogs that our Coffee House Conversations Project began as a love story as all babies should. You can hear my tale of it here, Leaning Into Conversations On Race Relations: A Love Story.

For those who have already listened to the podcast from yesterday’s show titled “Citizens and Police In Conversation: A Promising First Step,” it goes along with a newborn now becoming a toddler that our baby is taking its first steps. But my oh my what a walk this looks to be.

Check out our podcast for the show, Citizens and Police In Conversation: A Promising First Step. Join our celebration that the tragedies of Ferguson, Missouri prompted us to aim our sights a good bit higher than they were last year at this time. In the midst of commemorating the losses, we are also able to appreciate that out of the darkness has come a bit more light, if only a little.

And, consider this – your time, your talent and even your treasures, $$$ and otherwise, can help us grown bigger and bigger and bigger, placing you right in the midst of our Possible Society In Motion efforts.  (Details on how you can soon donate to our project are currently in production.)

Celebrate now with us – and – be an active part of a beautifully unfolding future for a “possible society in motion”, "our" possible society in motion.

The Groundswell of the Grassroots and The Nature Of Awe

Try explaining or describing the nature of awe to the ordinary person and what do you get?

Blank stares!

But talk about awe with someone who has been there, personally and with others, and what you get instead is a “real” conversation.

Wow! I have some of these “awestruck” friends in my life. They can, in a heartbeat, generate a conversation like this with me, even on the nature of awe!

So when I had the opportunity this morning to have a bit of a coffee/tea break with one of these friends, I got back even more awe.

Nancy is my friend’s name. She began as my acupuncturist but after a few years of working together, discovering in the process that we really like each other and have a handful of things in common, like understanding the nature of awe, more or less, we can speak of such things rather easily. 

Nancy and I had a break time telephone chat this morning in which I found myself “trying” to tell her about Monday’s Coffee House Conversations Volunteer Planning Meeting. And the awe I experienced in it. And how that meeting was, for me, in its tiny way, like the awe for some folks of seeing the Pope.

(Which, for me, is like the awe of being with Murat, leaving me so moved as to be almost speechless).

Only fireworks come to my mind as being as high and as bright as awe. Yet, being man made, they fall short of the awe of a baby’s birth, for example, or experiencing the purity and love of the Pope. Perhaps a perfect diamond, coming as it does from nature, might come close to the sparkle I feel inside, remembering and calling up the feelings of the precious moments of awe I have known. And, indeed, there have been many!

As I recounted my experience of that last volunteer meeting to Nancy, attuned and curious as she is, Nancy leaned in and probed that in me that had recently been to awe, attempting to understand more fully my experience of awe last Monday, connecting it with her own past moments of awe. 

Out of that exchange I had a grand surprise, accompanied by, once again, the wonderment of the well-lived facets of my own life, personally!

Trained as I am as a Certified Transactional Analyst to analyze interpersonal interactions, minute motion by motion, I was able to describe to Nancy (and amazingly to myself, too) some of the essential ingredients that brought the awe of that meeting to be; a simple formula, not easy to apply, learned from my dear friend, now deceased, Rabbi Edwin Friedman, noted systems analyst and author of Generation To Generation and A Failure of Nerve.

The formula has these three elements. I am convinced these three, applied consistently, can lead any one of us, as well as any group of well-intentioned folks out of the social messes of our day-to-day lives in to creating zones of peace wherever we go. So profound we can even experience awe!

Here is the formula. Apply it, transaction by transaction to how you reliably handle yourself, personally and interpersonally, and you will be more than half way up the Mountain of Awe – and – climbing. 

1. Self definition,
2. Investment in connection
3. On-reactive presence 

(Fear not. I will bring these three elements to you attention again and again with explanations. Now that I’ve started.)

However, if it doesn’t seem clear to you how high you are climbing, applying this formula, in your own personal ascension, as well as the collective, contact me, Anastasia, The Super Sleuth. I will be your personal guide for climbing the Mountain of Awe and I will assist you in reaching that peak.

I am here to help!

Definitely more on this, especially as we head into the craziness of the coming election campaigns, in the midst of all the other craziness surrounding us in our society and politics.

It’s a wonder anybody can stay sane. Let alone reach awe!

But we can! I know I will -- and -- I know you can too!

Thus we become the "groundswell" of the grassroots, as Marilyn Ferguson suggested in the Aquarian Conspiracy, that can even topple that most exasperating of entities, our dysfunctional political machinery!

My Cup Runneth Over!

I got to thinking this morning, after posting an announcement for tomorrow evening’s Coffee House Conversation by Conference Call, that all of a sudden coffee/tea cups had become a symbol of something to me; something warm and cozy, relaxed and happy.

But what was that something?  I had not an inkling.

The notion started to form yesterday but I didn’t, actually, realize a significance to it until just a short while ago.

Then I wondered about this growing awareness. 

What was this something that coffee/tea cups were starting to mean to me?

As I often do I thought to tell my best friend, spirit sister, peace buddy/collaborator, Sue, about it.  She had a few spare moments so was willing to ponder the point at hand with me.

Always eager to explore meanings and symbols in the abstract, it didn’t take but a minute for her to be in the “game” with me.

A coffee/tea cup?

Now what could that mean to me, Anastasia? Did the damp and the dreariness of the day have a thing or two about it as a connection?

Not much I decided.

But, aha, there it was!

New Horizons’ sponsored forthcoming Coffee House Conversation by Conference Call, scheduled for tomorrow evening, Thursday, held the magnetism that was drawing my attention to the idea of a cup!

I had been in the process of posting an announcement for that event when my first awareness of a generic cup surfaced. The generic cup became something to me before it became a cup, specifically the one pictured above. 

I was developing a feeling, an emotion about cups. I had never had such before! But still what did the coffee/tea cup mean for me in that context?

I mused on the image.

Then there it was!

Coffee/tea cups had come to symbolize friendships, gatherings, community, relaxation, hanging out with folks, informality, sharing, inspiration, fun, expanded consciousness, camaraderie, new ideas, inspiration, collective ideals, “a possible society in motion.”

Got it! My cup runneth over! Then I saw it full.  Awesome!

There it is – the meaning of a cup for me had come to meaning human sustenance of the finest quality, in every imaginable color, shape and size -- cups, symbols of the people and what I share with them.

Over the past year coffee/tea cups (I don’t drink coffee, actually) have grown to represent the personal and interactive richness New Horizons’ Coffee House Conversations has brought into my life through the many friends, new and old, it has drawn together to share an intention to better ourselves in the company of like-minded others.

Now Jack Slattery, my Possible Society In Motion Radio Show co-host, and myself are striving to bring that same ambiance to our expanded format of Coffee House Conversations by Conference Call.  Yumm.

My heart is already warming to the occasion, my mind yearning for the inspiration that will come of the camaraderie.

Umm! Coffee and tea cups plus a bit of a Coffee House  Conversation right from our living rooms (or wherever)!

I am yearning for the good times. I hope you will be too. And that you will join us for the ambiance, if nothing else.

Here are the details.

On The Experience of Awe: The Grand and The Tiny

There is a wonderful definition of “awe” on the New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” blog site. Also on that site are a handful of articles related to the general theme of “awe” as New Horizons regards it. Most significantly for me and the whole of what New Horizons stands for, at its core, are references to books written by our Beloved, now deceased community development mentor, Murat Yagan; many having “Awe” as a part of his sub-titles.

This should give you a hint that the experience of “awe” is right up there in terms of importance to all New Horizons is and does.

“Awe,” however, is not an easily described, much less readily attained experience. When it comes, rare as it is, it is truly a blessing of the highest acclaim.

I was having a text message conversation this morning with my dear friend, Chief Kim Dine, Chief of the Capitol Police (Washington, D.C. Police), about his experience last week of being totally on the front lines providing security for the Pope.

The bottom line here seems to be that as the Chief’s task was security, awesomeness took a bit of a back seat. Still my friend, the Chief, did report feeling honored, especially in shaking hands with this most revered of spiritual leaders. But more than anything else he was  glad the visit ended with security going off so very well. 

Intuitively, however, it seems that Chief Dine, along with the millions of others fortunate enough to share a relatively close space with the Pope, experienced a touch of awe at those happenings. 

Suffice it to say – love and laughter, joy and light helped to make up the vibration we might call “awe” that surrounded the Pope.

Today I am rejoicing a bit that New Horizons Coffee House Conversations Volunteer Team, also, had a tiny taste of awe at our planning meeting yesterday.  Working with our local City Police at that coming together we began to experience the “awe” of a developing trust and unity as a functioning team. That was uplifting and inspiring enough to be awe for me. 

Yet it was only a baby step, albeit in the right direction, of where we want to take ourselves; from an ordinary community of lofty ideals to an exceptional community living out those ideals, day-by-day, for real. I am gratified to see us in this kind of motion.

Another OMG Day!

If you’ve been a regular reader of my blogs you’ve already come to see that I am a person of regular, incredible highs and offsetting declines, now and then. Born under the sign of Cancer I am, by nature, this way, along with a sensitive, extremely home-oriented inclination which you might have also noticed.

Why else, do you think I would have to almost fight with myself to leave this gorgeous mountainside abode I share with New Horizons?  I am, without a doubt, an earth-bound mountain woman, traveling constantly between heaven and earth – and – here is my playing field and launching pad.

I believe I travel more miles in a given day, without using a single frequent flyer mile, than most others would even care to consider.  The spiritually inclined would call this the life of “Shaman” which I readily acknowledge myself to be.

But how do those of other persuasions make sense of such proclamations, without writing off individuals such as I, as simply being navel gazers; a term I abhor and find most insulting? Suffice it to say, at least on my part, that my being blind has played a far from insignificant part in this way of being for me.

Statue of Helen Keller

Just as I was going blind, Labor Day weekend, 1998, the words below of Helen Keller jumped, dramatically, right across my path. (This is an amazing story that, today, seventeen years later to the day, I am incredulous at its happening. But I will save the details for another time.)

Helen Keller said and I came to believe that …

The spiritual world offers no difficulty to one who is (deaf and) blind. Nearly everything in the natural world is as vague, as remote from my senses, as spiritual things seem to the minds of most people.

I think my journey into blindness and out, after seven eye surgeries, would have been something much different had I not found those words that very day I lost my eyesight! If nothing else these words helped me never lose my VISION though I could not physically see with my eyes.

Nonetheless, being blind was an incredibly challenging and horrific ordeal that the words of Helen Keller and the guidance of my Beloved Spiritual/Community Development mentor, Murat Yagan, and the Kebzeh community surrounding him, helped me through and to keep finding the Light in my Darkness.

These are the elements, along with the gorgeous land I live on, that brought me a jolt, this morning, of seeing a definitive landscape in my mind’s eye, along with my very own detailed triptik, for a short term, mid-term and long-range plan, for my life’s journey from here forth.

Could it be? I am almost pinching myself to be sure!

Will it work out the way I am seeing it today? I cannot possibly know the outcome, only thge path to follow. But now I know to keep following the instructions I receive, make adjustments as needed and “just keep swimming,” as Dore, the fish suggested.

I have been following this blueprint since the day I lost my eyesight. The one I had previously conjured up fell by the wayside, limited, extensively, by my over-exaggerated belief that I was the ONE in charge.

Now, I am working off a blueprint in my mind’s eye with a “light at my feet and a voice behind me” telling me how and where to travel. My most important task for the adventure is to stay healthy which I do my best to accomplish, day-by-day, – and – be willing to take instructions. 

At the time this new plan came to me on the day I lost my eyesight, I could see nothing ahead and had only "blind" faith to guide me – and – endless prayers that I could survive.  Thus you might well imagine how joyful and free I feel today that I awoke this morning and could see, clearly, in my mind’s eye, a blueprint laid out for me – with enough details to allow me a bit of security and confidence.

So, today, as yesterday and tomorrow – and – almost every single day since I regained my eyesight I am celebrating and thanking my Divine Guide for another OMG day that I did survive my blindness ordeal and that I can SEE, physically and spiritually!

Nonetheless for those who are fully earth plane dwellers, I thought you might like to see what the practical side of this blueprint looks like.  Our readers, followers of like-minded people and supporters sometimes have a bit of trouble being able to put the moving pieces together of what New Horizons and myself are up to. Please do feel free to comment and ask us to clarify further, if you are inclined. We want to travel with you!

The organizational chart below for New Horizons Support Network, Inc. priorities is offered below to help us clarify the path of our shared journey a bit for your edification.

Read what we are presenting here.  Then take a leap to just imagine all our moving pieces falling into alignment from the highest ideals to the most practical applications, united with all the other beautiful projects going on each and every day, worldwide, to help make this planet we live on safe and secure for as many people as humanly possible!

Such are our prayers on this Labor Day weekend, 2015.

OMG! How grateful am I for a day like today!

New Horizons Support Network, Inc.:

Organizational Structure and Priority Areas

September 1, 2015