Tools for Winter

So, you’ve done your year-end rituals. You’ve done your Winter Solstice exercises--acknowledged your accomplishments and burned your list of what you want to get rid of in your life. You’ve done your Annual Review. You’re even willing to Hug the Dark.

Now what?

Skeleton Crew

I’m not talking about Halloween or Day of the Dead. I’m suggesting that your winter have a skeleton or backbone of regular activities that anchor you in your cave months of self-reflection. These three months are about being rather than doing. Even if you work full-time, coming and going to these rituals will help you stay in sync with the Season of Slowing Down.

Rituals are vital. They give rhythm and music to our days. They are signposts of where we are in our 24-hour journey. They offer us the familiarity and comfort of sameness that the rest of life rarely holds.

While I am talking about ritual as any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner (Dictionary.com), most of the other definitions have religious overtones and refer to repetitive spiritual ceremony. When our rituals become praying without ceasing, they evolve into something more than touchstones in a world with constantly ticking clocks. You don’t have to be serious or work at making them so. It just happens through conscious repetition.

Ritual also allows us to  make the rite itself a mantra.  We let go of ourselves in the repetition, so that inspiration and spirit can break through to us.

The following are some tools for winter that will enrich your “down time.” Don’t try to do them all, any more than you’d fix a loose faucet with the entire toolbox. Choose which tools work best for your season of introspection and reunion with your Inner You.


Start Your Day Off Rite

Open your day with a reading that inspires you. Whether it’s Daily Word, Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Simple Abundance, or any one in a million sites you can access online for your morning spiritual communion, this practice will change the course of your day. It gears your mind in a positive, healing, holistic direction as early as possible after your feet hit the floor. One of my favorite winter practices is to read Love Is Letting Go of Fear by Jerry Jampolsky. This is tantamount to the Cliff’s Notes version of A Course in Miracles. It will absolutely change the way you see your world and open a window to let love in. It’s especially a good choice for anyone who is grieving, angry, or is otherwise hurting.

Some of my favorite online stops for a morning cup of positive thinking include:


• Inspire Me Today
• Quote Garden
• Spirited Woman Blog
• Inspiration on Beliefnet
• Daily Affirmations with Dr. Wayne Dyer

Keep a Dream Journal

I’ve written so much about dreams on my Writer Joyce Mason website, I’m referring you there for everything you’ll need to know to explore the free guidance you have available daily in your night movies. No subscription or rental fees!

Take a Short Walk in the Fresh Air

Even when it’s frosty, there’s nothing like contact with the outside world. You might not want to take a mile hike in a snowstorm, but contact with the elements has an invigorating and grounding effect. It reminds us we’re part of the changing weather and basic substances that make up life itself. (Read the Four Element series for more on this subject.) While it’s boosting your circulation, that short walk will stretch your legs if you’re computer-bound and allow you to let step out of any mental ruts you’ve been digging. A walk freshens your thinking, as long as you allow each step to be a journey back into your body and out of your mind. It’s good to be out of our minds for awhile each day!


Meditate

It doesn’t matter what form or how you do it. Meditation has major benefits for the body, mind, and spirit. If you’re like me, you probably know that down to your toes but still have a hard time doing it on a regular basis. We complicate things. All you have to do is sit for 10-20 minutes, let go of your mind chatter as much as possible, and let inspiration—spirit—come in. This practice boosts creativity and your ability to handle life’s ups-and-downs in a centered, easygoing way. Yet we still struggle with it. Meditation is a bit of winter all 365 days a year. Is 2010 the year you’ll commit to it?

My first spiritual teacher always said that praying is talking to God; meditation is listening to what God has to say. However you perceive a Higher Power, hone your listening skills! Imagine: We have this inner guidance at our fingertips, but we just won’t make time to open our palms and let it in. If you “go within” during winter, by the time the natural New Year occurs at Spring Equinox, you’ll know your goals and have the sap-rising energy to achieve them.

Read

People talk about summer beach reading, but reflective winter is the perfect time to drink in some of those more thoughtful reads like self-help or spiritual books. Just for fun, I thought I’d look at the top five books on Amazon in both of those categories for you to consider as possible winter reading picks:

Self-Help. (1) The Power of Self-Coaching by Joseph J. Luciani, (2) When Am I Going to Be Happy? by Penelope Russianoff, (3) Get Out of Your Own Way by Mark Goulston and Phlilip Goldberg, (4) Five Simple Steps to Emotional Healing: The Last Self-Help Book You’ll Ever Need by Gloria Arenson, and (5) 50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life by Tom Butler-Bowdon.

Inspirational. (1) Everyday Blessings: 365 Days of Inspirational Thoughts by Max Lucado, (2) Daily OM by Madisyn Taylor, (3) Remember Who You Are: Life Stories That Inspire the Heart and Mind by Daisy Wademan, Kim Clark, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter, (4) I Am With You Always: A Treasury of Inspirational Quotations, Poems and Prayers by Douglas Bloch, and (5) How to Succeed in the Game of Life: 34 Interviews with the World's Greatest Coaches by Christian Klemash.

Listen to the Quiet

If you’re not accustomed to a house where the TV, music, or chattering people aren't a constant blare, try it. You might like it! I feel blessed to be married to someone who also likes the beauty of silence. I can hear myself think and hear Spirit whispering directions. Do not underestimate the importance of alone time and silence.  They are essential to cool insights all year long!
 

Walnut—and Other Flower Essences

Maybe you wondered about the illustration for this post. Is winter a “tough nut to crack?” Maybe in some ways, yes--but this is really a visual pun on why we might need a nutcracker to carry over from the Christmas ballet.

When I trained as a flower essence practitioner, one of the enduring things I learned about the flower remedy, Walnut, is how the anatomy of a Walnut itself explains how these particular drops work to free us from limiting influences and encourage us to make healthy transitions and follow our own path. What a wonderful remedy for the New Year!

Now, onto the anatomy of a walnut. Crack one, and you’ll notice it has two lobes in separate chambers divided by a membrane—just like the human brain. A cracked walnut may as well be a miniature human brain model. This flower remedy helps us integrate both sides of our brain and break mental patterns that hold us back from the radical changes sometimes needed to move forward.

If you resonate to this idea, visit your local health food store for a bottle of Walnut or wherever flower remedies are sold locally. The primary brands are Bach Remedies or Healing Herbs. Buy an empty dosage bottle, too. Fill the dosage bottle with approximately one-fourth preservative (brandy or apple cider vinegar), three-fourths spring water, and 2-4 drops of Walnut. (Let your intuition guide you on dosage.) Take this mixture, 4 drops, 4 times a day under your tongue, especially at the threshold times of sleeping and waking. Take it for 3-4 weeks. You’ll know when it’s time to stop. You’ll consistently forget to take it-- a tap on the shoulder from your intuition that you’re ready to move on. Review your relationship to change over those few weeks. Comment, if you will, and share with us how it went!

In fact, let us know how you fare with any of these tools and share any faves not mentioned. Happy Inner Journey!

Affirmation: New Year, New Decade, new me becoming all that I am!

~~~


Photo Credit: NUTCRACKER AND WALNUTS © Tihis Dreamstime.com

Note: Information about flower essences is not meant to replace medical or psychological treatment. Readers need to decide for themselves on the quality and effectiveness of flower remedies.

Celebrate Epiphany, Jan. 6th! Epiphany is this blog’s feast day. Revisit the post Epiphanies—and follow your star!

Oracular Spectacular!

A Primer on the Use of Astrology, Tarot, Dreamwork and Other Oracles

© 2009 by Joyce Mason

At Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights, I often talk about “playing the symbols.” This imaginary one-person band involves putting together everyday waking signs and synchronicities and sleeping dream ciphers for some resounding insights. Alternatively, we can seek guidance from symbol systems or oracles. In this article, also posted on joycemason.com, I hope to introduce you to—or expand—your knowledge of oracles and their value.

Q: What do tarot cards, fortune cookies, astrology, dreams and meaningful coincidences all have in common?

A: All can be used as oracles

“Oracle” has many meanings from hokey to holy. I am most interested in #5 in the Dictionary-com definitions, namely a divine communication or revelation.Oracles are symbol systems that help us receive insights or spiritual communications. I believe the Source of their inspiration follows strictly the orientation of the seeker. When you open yourself up to divine inspiration, the Holy Spirit, your Higher Self—however you see good guidance according to your personal beliefs—those are the forces that will shine through when using these symbols. If you are fearful, or if you want your “fortune told” where you have no power or spiritual backbone to co-create your own dreams in divine partnership, don’t be surprised to find negative energy in a tarot reading or other symbol system consultation.

Toolbox
Like any tool, oracles can be used for higher good or dubious intent. Think of a knife. In the hands of a skilled surgeon or premier chef, this tool can perform miracles of healing or nurture. In the hands of a serial killer—not. Like all tools, oracles run the gamut of agony and ecstasy. Again, the difference lies in the hands of the user. With oracles, the seeker often uses a medium—a consultant—rather than consulting the cards or other symbols directly, although people do both, of course. That’s why choosing your consultant is especially important if you use one.

The Medium Is the Message
Let me start with a couple of bad examples. I once worked with a woman who consulted a well-known, local astrologer on all her investments and life decisions. This was in the 1970s, but I swear, if ATMs were in operation back then, she’d have consulted her “friend” before she made a $20 cash withdrawal.

You can probably predict what I’m going to say without an astrology chart. Ultimately, my workmate lost her shirt by turning her power over to this woman’spredictions. It was a stark lesson about making a god of either the symbol system or the medium. Ironically, the astrologer also worked herself out of a job. They both lost. After all, how could my workmate continue to pay her for advice after she lost everything?The most horrible story I ever heard—same astrologer—was a reading wherein she predicted the exact date and time of a male client’s death—and he died exactly when she predicted! I was utterly appalled; convinced she had literally scared him to death. Few people would want to know this information. To ask for it, is—well—asking for it!

Still, I believe to this day that the astrologer in question abused her power over this man. Astrology can be (pardon the pun) dead accurate, but she would have no way of knowing his fate. Even if she did, “pronouncing” it took away any personal power he had over the outcome, which was not necessarily sealed. Specific predications can be a real power trip. (That’s why I refuse, personally, to make them.) The same symbols can portend literal death or any other major, life-changing transformation while the person remains embodied. Did the astrologer contribute to his death? Depressing thought, but I think it explains why these tools have sometimes had a terrible reputation. It’s all in how they’re used. Fortunately, in general, they tend to be used for higher good by most people I encounter nowadays.

Positive Outcomes
Examples: As a consultant, I have helped people out of thorny dilemmas and have foreseen the potential for happy marriages later realized in tarot or astrology readings. I use oracles directly for myself on an ongoing basis, and now with years of practice my use of them is refined. I am able to see new angles to problems and personal tendencies I want to change. Symbols never cease to amaze me with their simple wisdom.

How Does It Work?
My theory is that oracles work like a symbolic mirror and magnet. Symbols have strong universal meanings. Much is contained in their simple patterns, and more importantly, the person who seeks guidance will fill in the blanks with the personal details needed to make the symbols meaningful.The magnet part: Everything on earth has an energy field; every person and thing resonates. When we seek guidance, we are drawn to the energy—or it is drawn for us through the reader—that matches the frequency of the issue on which we want guidance. When you shuffle a tarot deck, for example, and put the energy of your question into the cards, the “right ones” fall into the layout. Magical!

It’s no different with any of the other symbol systems. We are drawn to want an astrology reading when the vibration of the issue is creating internal pressure for resolution, so we seek out an astrologer when we have significant transits or activity in our astrology charts. Our subconscious gives us dream material, asdoes our internal synchronicity machine, our magnet for meaningful coincidence.Once when I taught a dreamwork class, I spoke about encountering people I was thinking about or repeated encounters on a topic I felt were “signs.” A surprised participant said, “You talk about real life the same way as dreams.” Exactly! When we have the eyes to see, the symbols and signs are all around us. Our subconscious is in constant dialogue with us, and when we pay attention, we can get limitless Higher Direction.

I Want to Try It. Where Do I Start?
If you haven’t done this before or haven’t done much of it, here are my suggestions—probably good for seasoned oracle users, too:

1. What system appeals to you most? Start there. If astrology fascinates you, go there first. If you can’t remember dreams, maybe you need a little more work on bringing the subconscious to waking awareness before you can use this one.Do tarot cards call you? Runes? The I Ching? If you don’t know, visit a metaphysical bookstore where you can look through many of the symbol sets or books on them like a kid at Christmas. Let yourself be drawn to the images or system that calls you.

2. Approach oracles with the wonder of a child. These systems are completely about connecting guidance to your own inner tracking device, your intuition. Play with them and respect them with wide-eyed wonder. Their optimal guidance will flow through your openness.

3. Get trusted referrals for consultants. A personal referral from someone you know and trust who has seen this particular astrologer, tarot reader, or dreamworker is always best. The metaphysical bookstore or resource center isanother source. Try someone at a local psychic fair—the one with the longest line! Reputation rules when it comes to trusting someone to work these channels with you. If someone “doesn’t feel right,” don’t open yourself to that person.

4. Take what fits, toss the rest. This was the advice of my first mentor in all things intuitive, the late, great Betty Bethards, a San Francisco Bay Area psychic and meditation teacher. I have lived by it with optimal results. No “reader" can be 100 percent accurate because his or her own experiences can’t help but influence interpretation, at least a little. That can be handy, if they have like experiences and lessons to learn, or it can put you off track, if they don’t.

While most good readers do their best to avoid putting their own “stuff” into interpretations, the translation of symbols is a tricky business. The analogy I like to use is a ballpark. It’s easy to get into the right ballpark or neighborhood on an interpretation because of the breadth of content each universal symbol holds. That’s what makes them so powerful, like the oak tree contained in an acorn.

However, to find the right seat in the ballpark really takes reaction, dialogue, and sorting from the seeker. If you don’t actively participate, you will suffer pronouncements instead of helpful insights. Which brings me to the final point:

5. Be an active participant in all readings with a consultant. Ask questions. Give your opinion. Say when something feels right or when it feels off. Be sure you walk away getting your key concerns covered. It might not be quite as complicated as being a patient in an HMO system, but the idea is the same as navigating this bureaucratic form of medical care. You have to be your own patient/seeker advocate. The best readers will welcome you as a co-pilot on the adventure of going a layer deeper into your inner growth during your time together. You enter the sacred ground of your psyche together. Your reader needs to respect the inner sanctum, your needs, and your help to make it a meaningful journey.

Sealed with a Ms.
I thought it would be fun to draw a tarot card to seek Higher Guidance in wrapping up this article. At first when this idea came to mind, I thought, “Huh?” Using these tools has made me respect these inspirations, no matter how sillythe light bulb over my head might seem at first.Turns out, I’m also going to be able to illustrate how anything can become an oracle. I “got” that the words I should Google were “tarot oracle.” They led me to a new deck I hadn’t heard of, literally called the Tarot Oracle. Click on the link and look at the Magician Card, that Mystical Ms. She’s for us; I’m convinced of it! She’s juggling the stars and her key words are Intuition, Taking Chances.Take a chance on your intuition. Oracles will expand your sense of inner knowingness and connection to All That Is.


Photo Credit: ESOTERIC ATMOSPHERE © Starblue Dreamstime.com

For more on oracles, including How I Read Tarot Cards and some of my favorite ones to use, visit the Oracles page on joycemason.com.

Follow Your Dreams—and You Won’t Have to Chase Down Inspiration!

Joyce Mason on Dreams

Listen to the replay of Joyce's interview with Eileen Williams from The Feisty Side of Fifty on Blog Talk Radio that took place on Monday, July 20, 2009

Your dreams are more than a personal movie provided nightly by Metro-Goldwyn-Maker. Learn the relationship between dreams and increased creativity, inspiration, and problem-solving. This may be both the dreamiest and most practical 15 minutes you’ll ever spend.

Click on the Feisty Side of Fifty Radio/Joyce Mason interview link.

You've got a GPS (God Positioning System). Find it in your dreams!

Happy Blog ReBirthday!

Celebrate Spirited Living

Broader Scope, Same Cool Insights
As promised in my

Reconstruction Zone

post, today is the rebirthday of this blog. Welcome to the new Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights!

Once aimed primarily at baby boomers, Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights now emphasizes practical spirituality, women’s issues, and the development of our intuitive gifts as guidance, what some people call “women’s intuition.” Not just women have or want to develop their sensitivities; men on this wavelength are welcome here with enthusiasm.

There are no age limits on a lifestyle that runs the full gamut of emotions and experience. This blog is about full-tilt living. The directions for finding our way and getting the most out of life involve learning to read the signs: synchronicity or meaningful coincidences, symbols both waking and dreaming, and how to weave those universal or cosmic hints into a synthesis of “getting it.” I call that the sort-it details.

Definitions
I get regular key word searches leading to this site from people who are asking the question, “What are hot flashbacks?” What a perfect time to define the title terms of this blog.

While a hormonal transition may have intensified my “hot flashbacks,” menopause was only a triggering mechanism. Many readers assume this phrase refers to “the change,” but that’s incidental. I had hot flashbacks before, during, and after my hormonal crash. (Whew!) Here’s the hot ‘n’ cool of it:

Hot Flashbacks – Moments in your past that light up in your
mind and yell at you at the decibel level of a four-alarm fire,
This incident is significant!

Cool Insights – You “get” in the present: the pattern, purpose, or meaning of the experience or experiences that your mind has lit up for you.

Hot flashbacks and cool insights go together, hand in glove. They are those light bulb moments that lead to deep understanding, as well as personal and spiritual growth.

Since I’m changing directions midstream, I want to share why. Here’s the back-story about what brought me to this new slant. You’ll find—no surprise!—it was a hot flashback and a cool insight.

Too Close to See It
I started this blog at the suggestion of a literary agent to complement my memoir, also called Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights. The agent thought a blog would be a great way for me to start gaining an audience for my writing in this genre. (Memoir was new to me.) I had many loyal readers of my past articles in astrology, flower essences and on other spiritual development tools and topics. I saw myself going more for a mainstream audience—seeking new readers who didn’t know me by prior reputation or works.

Like most memoirs, mine has episodes from various eras of my life, dowsed with the humor that helped me live through them. My book has three parts: Hormonic Convergence, about the cancer scare and emergency hysterectomy that took my already smoldering intuition over the top. While crashing into surgical menopause spread the bonfire of my sensitivities, the real flames I discovered were in the theme of my life—passion. Flashbacks on Passion is the middle section about my most formative life experiences involving passions of every kind from the heat of young hormones to right work—writing, my life’s passion. Sexagenaria recounts my struggles as my physical fire began to wane somewhat. In this section, I pondered how to keep the fires stoked to live a sizzling life all the way to the finish line.

With the book ending as Social Security was in sight for me and given boomers are a huge percentage of the population, this stage of life seemed like a logical focus for this blog. I figured other boomers would want to share discoveries about how to explode the old Old. (Consider the alternative!) Besides, boomers buy a ton of books and are “the” sought-after demographic with money to spend.

In the end, the universe had other plans for me. The details are too long to get into here, but I got crystal clear direction that I was missing the point of my own book. My GPS or God Positioning System works with those same tools I mentioned: synchronicity, signs, and symbols. It keeps “telling me where to go.”

I wasn’t supposed to give up my spiritual orientation in writing about my life or life in general. Spirituality has been my area of expertise for decades. In fact, there are existing posts on this site where I’ve talked about it plenty, but I just didn’t “get” that this was the point. My inner guidance? Come out of the closet, put it out there, and draw my core audience. Wow. So close to it, it went right over my head.

There was also a practical consideration. Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights was not growing at the rate I’d hoped as a boomer blog. Prior to the nudge I got about changing this blog’s focus, I got an unexpected inspiration to start an astrology blog. I had been away from astrology in any formal sense since 2002. When The Radical Virgo overtook Hot Flashbacks in hits and unique visitors less than three months after I launched it, I could not ignore the light bulb: I play the symbols. It’s my gift to share. That’s why Hot Flashbacks is rededicated to seeing, hearing, and feeling those directions that are right in front of us—you know, the kind I had missed myself at the beginning of this blog.

Even though I finished my book almost a year ago, I have been dragging my feet on pursuing publication. Now I’m glad I did, because this redirection is right for Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights—both the book and blog.


New Quote, New Slogan
While I’m redefining this blog and defining some of the terms bandied around on it, I’d like to do the same for the new slogan:

Live a Spirited Life! Look both ways for signs at the crossroads.

We encounter many crossroads every day of our lives. Some of them add up to huge intersections, where we get to make big decisions about our life’s direction. We simply need to look around for the hints at every crosswalk. The signs are posted. Some of them, I’ve already mentioned and will define further:

Synchronicity. Synchronicity or meaningful coincidences show us how life is supposed to hum. When synchronicities are popping, life is in harmony. They are direct signals that you’re headed in the right direction. You run into that person you haven’t been able to get out of your mind. The lyrics to a song on the radio “solve” a dilemma and dissolve your angst. You need a good repairperson for a major household disaster. Before you can even ask around for emergency referrals, a trusted friend starts talking about a great worker who just finished a project at her house. Oh, and he exceeded all expectations at the right price.

Signs. Many signs in life direct us to full, rich living, if we have the eyes to see—and if you’re a little nearsighted at the moment, don’t worry. This type of vision can be developed. (For some tips, read these previous posts:

Insighting a Riot and Believe Everything You Hear.) There are many types of signs—dreams, waking symbols that come to you—and of those you seek out. Symbol systems such as astrology, tarot, and other oracles can enlighten you when you’re looking for guidance.

Sort-It Details. We’re lucky when insight comes spontaneously, like combustion, but in real life, getting the point of our experiences usually takes a lot of self-reflection, thought, and analysis. Journaling is one of the key ways to do it, but, hopefully, this blog will be a forum where we can share how we “go figure.”

Spirited Living! One of my favorite parts of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert’s blockbuster memoir, is the scene where life literally brings her to her knees. She discovers her personal, direct relationship with God and apologizes in advance to people who don’t see Him/Her/It in exactly the same way. Same here. I like to use terms that are as generic as possible when talking about spirituality, knowing how loaded language can be around people’s beliefs. I respect all paths and take wisdom wherever I find it. My personal orientation is universal, yet personal—kind of like Tevye talking to God directly in Fiddler on the Roof. Even if you don’t believe in anything bigger than the human spirit, the same fire leads to lively living.

Quote: Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. I discovered the Kierkengaard quote in the Hot Flashbacks banner by synchronicity: Someone had posted it on Twitter. What a testimony to why we look back to understand the past to live well in the moment and create a positive future.

Bringing It Down to Earth
One of the most important factors in looking Up for guidance is bringing the information back down to earth. That’s why grounding and practicality are my guideposts when I “play the symbols.” I write on this blog about everyday life: how we can get the most out of what we experience. How to live well, play fair, and enjoy our stopover on this beautiful planet.

If we forget this, dabbling in all this “sign language” can leave us looking like a caricature of what I call a smiley-faced metafoofoo—someone who speaks in tongues of platitudes but hasn’t woven the principles into making their life work better. I’m all for feet on the ground and “value added.” I write from the synthesis of using the tools of spirited living. Often I don’t even mention them. I just share the results, like the answer to a math problem, without all the figures and head scratching. The tools are always in the background, but the bottom line is how they make life better.

Boomer Features
I’ll keep a recurring “cool saging” feature for the generation I’m proud to be a part of. After all, much of what I know is because I have lived long and have had a wealth experience as teacher. In addition to these occasional posts and keeping a Boomer Links List, I’m a founding member of Boomer Authority on Twitter. I have volunteered to monitor posts on the topic of spirituality.

It’s Not About the Stage of Life; It’s About the Stage of Light
Welcome readers young, older, and in-between. If light is your goal—both ongoing learning and lightening up with humor—I hope you’ll find plenty of juice on this blog. I seek to create a light socket, a power source. Thank you for being part of my transmission grid!

As we share here, may we spread a lot of light and Spirited Living.

OK, light’s covered--candles are lit—but we can’t have a rebirthday party without gifts:

The past is a gift; it has the answers for the future. That’s the present.

~~~

Photo Credit: SIGN BOARD © Picstudio Dreamstime.com

Comment Contest! Don’t forget the Blog Comment Contest

through Friday. Comment to enter a drawing for a women writers’ mystery anthology, including Joyce’s humorous offering, “Digital.” See sidebar for special, additional prizes to the first three people who comment on this rebirthday post.

Get Guidance from Your Dreams!

Mark your calendar for your “dream date!”

April 20, 2009 @ 9:00 pm PDT


Watch Joyce Mason’s lively interview with Dänna Wilberg, host of the Paranormal Connection in the Sacramento area on Comcast - Channel 17. Anywhere else, watch on the web on Access Sacramento. Click on WATCH 17.

Here's a hint: Log on early! The web stream only holds 2000 viewers - if you are unable get online, call Access Sacramento: 916-456-8600. Let them know you want to watch "Paranormal Connection."

Topics covered include tips on remembering, recording, and deciphering your personal dream code. Hear some amazing results that speak for themselves about why you might want to play with your “Dream-Doh.”

Can’t make the web- or telecast or want supplemental information on this topic? Visit Joyce’s Dreamwork page on her Writer Joyce Mason website.

Photo Credit: DREAM © Adpower99 Dreamstime.com

Journals: The Sort-It Detail

We all talk to ourselves, even if we don’t do it out loud. A journal performs the most important follow-up function to inner dialogue, what I call the Sort-It Detail.

It’s much more difficult to sort what we’re learning and how patterns repeat themselves without annotation—like trying to do math in your head. Journals are spreadsheets. They allow you to “go figure.”

Since I am a writer, the habit of writing my thoughts and feelings is natural to me, but my journal has morphed over time to a custom fit. I invite you to try on some journaling styles until you find the one that’s perfect for you. Like a comfy pair of shoes, your journal needs to fit well but boast a style that’s yours alone and makes you feel like a million.

Since I live at my computer, I have developed a Word template for journaling. I print out the pages in color and prong them into a three-inch binder, the kind with a clear front pocket, so I can make a custom cover. At the end of each year, I reread and relive my 12-month journey and contemplate where I’m headed next. My journal has sections in the back for greeting cards and other keepsakes.

My template header, in a fancy font, says Joyce’s Journal. The subtitle is Learning, Growing, Spirits Uplifted, Stuff Sorted. Below that, I type the date. I insert an ever-changing graphic beside the header to fit the content of the day’s summary. For example, on a day I was angry, the clip art was an explosion. These “icons” show me, at a glance, the quality of my days and how my moods are shifting.

The most important part of my journal is a box on the left that runs the longer side of the page, Things I’m Grateful for Today. Each day, I find at least 10 things. It’s not difficult for me. I have a lot of practice.

I believe that the universe gives back to us as much as we appreciate the gifts we are given. When we send out gratitude, more abundance flows our way. But that’s not why I journal thankfulness. It’s just polite to say thank-you for generosity. It’s who I am, how I was raised. Maybe your custom column is Blessings I Count. Observations I’ve Made. Positive Experiences.

Speaking of the universe and sky, once it turns dark, we dream. I have a different template for my dream journal, and I mix the pages in my binder—waking and dream accounts. I simply sort them by date in chronological order, the most recent on top. For example, on June 3, there was a journal entry. On June 13, I wrote down a dream. This isn’t strange to me, as I revere the information from the subconscious as much as consciousness. I’ve learned to “play the symbols” in various careers, especially as an astrologer and dreamworker.

Perhaps the most important thing I do in either my dream or journal entries? I give them titles. Whatever we choose to name our entry is an intuitive key phrase for the experience, day or night. You can do a quick review of your journal at any time, just by paging through and reading the titles. You’ll be surprised at the sensation of your whole year flashing in front of you!

Best of all, my journaling technique led me to realize I could use similar techniques for telling my life’s story. What a fabulous discovery while writing my memoir with the same name as this blog, Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights.

May all your insights be cool!

~~~

Honorable Mention - This article won Honorable Mention in the 2008 annual essay contest on Be the Star You Are! The mission of this wonderful not-for-profit corporation, is to provide, promote and distribute its library of books and other media to empower women, families, and youth-at-risk to improve their daily lives. I love their slogan, "To Be A Leader You Must Be A Reader!"

Thank you, Cynthia Brian and the judges, for allowing my star to shine in your galaxy!

Photo credit: GIRL LOOKS THROUGH WEEKLY JOURNAL, © Zigf Dreamstime.com

Dreams—Waking and Sleeping

Dreamwork—helping people access and decipher the messages in their own night movies—was one of the services I offered in my former astrology-plus practice.

I have been a dream catcher for as long as I can remember. After journaling my nightly entertainment and instruction for decades, I understand my own dream code. This is what it takes—writing it down and taking persistent shots at analyzing the content, until you see the patterns, rhyme, and reason. Once you get the hang of your personalized symbols, the sky’s the limit on self-understanding.

Free guidance in your sleep. What could be more laid back? Effortless?

Even more enticing: This symbol system spills over into waking life. For instance, I got the message that it was time to look for my birth mom when the topic of adoption kept coming up in every other conversation and a magazine connecting adoptees and birth parents appeared in the window of my local bookstore. The one I passed every day and could not miss if I tried. A series of dreams about happy reunions complemented these waking hints, although the characters in the stories varied.

As you can see, the message I was supposed to “get” was a very simplified nugget of the material I was receiving. My world kept repeating “adoption, adoption” and my dreams whispered “happy reunions, happy reunions.” By not being hung-up on the details—by zeroing in on the simplest core message—my dreams came true, both sleeping and waking, in a happy reunion with Original Mom in 1986.

This reminds me of two of my favorite dreamwork techniques. One is to nugget your dream down to a single sentence, like a blurb in the TV Guide. Example from last night’s dream: Woman returns to her childhood home to find it renovated and moved to a different location.

I was the woman, but it’s better to take yourself out of the description, in case you or any other star is symbolic. Could be I represent someone else, as dreams are notorious for morphing one person into another and substituting one person for someone else with similar characteristics.

My childhood home represents security and happiness to me. My time in that little brick house were the best years of my life.

The blurb nuggets it down to a simple concept. The house can change in appearance or location, but I can still find what it represents in an uncertain world—stability.

The other technique I love is titling dreams. I took a workshop once where I learned this trick, and it has helped me vastly in dream synthesis—discovering the core message. It’s important to use your first inspiration in titles, as they are usually spot-on. I called my childhood home dream, Happy Childhood Home: Moved, Redone.

There are many other techniques I have developed over time, but the most important thing I want to share is that dreams are the portal to intuition and learning to use divine guidance toward abundant living. In order to mine your subconscious, you have to go down the shaft and hang out there—a lot. I know some people are scared of the dark, but remember that little light the miners wear on their heads to guide them on their way? Right on their third (intuitive) eye? It symbolizes insight, and the stuff they seek is treasure.

So, what if you’re somewhat new at all this? How do you get started?

If you don’t already remember your dreams, here’s a medical fact. You have them; you simply have not invited them into waking memory.

Here are some helpful dream memory tips:

• Get enough sleep. I dream triple the content on days I can get 8-9 hours.
  
  
• Avoid stimulants, especially caffeine, beyond morning


• Avoid alcohol at night


• Anything deeply relaxing before bedtime enhances—lavender baths, meditation, tense/release of muscles


• Pray about or affirm your desire to remember your dreams. You can even write a note to your Higher Power requesting guidance on a specific issue and put it under your pillow.


• Keep a note pad handy to jot down memories first thing upon waking, even in the middle of the night, along with a high intensity reading light that won’t bother your partner if you share a bed.


• Put the herb mugwort under your pillow, which you’re likely to find at your local health food store. The scent stimulates dreams.


• Use flower essences that evoke dreaming.

Dreams are so integral to the intuition and insight needed to have a cool life, no matter what your age; I encourage you to invite them into yours wholeheartedly.

Dreams are like people. The more you court them and pay attention to them, the more they’ll want to hang out with you—and share themselves.

It's Done!

Crack open the champagne! Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights—the book—is done!

I’m midway through my first full read-through with edits; then, I’ll send it off to several volunteer readers while I beef up the plan to find an agent and/or publisher--or decide to self-publish. I sense that the right road to take will be revealed in the next few months. My earlier attempts to find representation may have been premature. Like working a complex puzzle, I didn’t get the complete picture of what the book was meant to be until most of the pieces fell into place. Therefore, I couldn’t pitch it in a way that fully conveyed its aim and impact. So much for outline versus “writing by the seat of your pants.” In my experience, a bit of both is best and produces the most creative results.

Here’s my bestseller list blurb (think big!):

New Tagline
Eat, Pray, Love meets Sex in the City, Boomer Edition. Don't get old. Get ready for your next phase of fabulous and fulfilled.

Target Audience
One of the big clarifications that came into focus the closer I got to the finish line: The target audience of this book is definitely women baby boomers. While there is plenty to interest men and up-and-coming younger women (as long as you live an average life span, everyone will age), boomer women are the pioneers with the motivation and skills to reinvent aging. We are not only the unique generation that survived the ‘50s Happy Days and the ‘60s Counterculture, those polar opposites in our somewhat schizophrenic coming of age. We also have always done it our way, one of the reasons we have been called the Me Generation. Now we are morphing into a new ME Generation, which stands for and celebrates our age group as Most Experienced.

The skills that often come naturally to women because of their hormonal make-up—intuition and insight—are half of the equation needed to find your own personal path to cool later living. The formula is Intuition + Insight + Analysis + Synthesis = A Sensational Seasoned Citizen. Hopefully, watching how I worked the formula in my own life will inspire you to mine yours for all its worth and to discover not only your personal curriculum to a fulfilled life, all the way, but also how each lesson learned opens the path for the next hint on how to have more adventures in fine living.


Title/Subtitle
When it comes to naming your book baby, writers must accept that our brilliant christenings are what they call in the publishing biz working titles. Often the publisher’s marketing department has the last word on which title sticks based on its selling power. My first working title for this book, which I still love and in many ways prefer, was Hot Flashes of Insight! The reason it wasn’t a keeper:

“So, what is it, a book about menopause?”

This was the initial reaction of a young male guest editor in an online class I took in the mid-‘90s. (Yes, I’ve been incubating this project that long.) For many of us, the less said, read, or experienced about “the change,” the better. The only role hot flashes played in my life were to heat up my already warmed-up intuition to boiling. The emphasis is on the insight. Hot flashes were only the vehicle. And, besides, if we’re talking about the years approaching and beyond Social Security, for most women, the flashes are long gone. I did not want it to be mistaken for a book, humorous or otherwise, about surviving the Great Hormonal Transition.

My original subtitle for Hot Flashes of Insight! was Flashbacks on Passion from the Fast Lane to Social Security.

Today’s working title and subtitle:

Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights
Hints in Plain Sight for a Cool Later Life

I would welcome your feedback on these titles/subtitles. Say, for instance, you just love that first title. I could easily be persuaded to go back to it, as long as the subtitle deflects any bad memories or future fears of the menopause from hell. Then, if it’s not my future editor’s favorite, I can produce proof that my earliest readers beg to differ. After all, it is your reaction they are trying to anticipate.

AARP Contest
I am a nut for writing contests, my version of roulette or playing the slots, an indulgence I seldom allow myself. I’d have to admit on objective analysis that I’ve probably lost more on writing contest entry fees and won less money in them over the years than on my casino trips. Casinos I only do once or twice a decade. Writing contests? Usually several times a year.

I don’t spin three cherries in contests as often, either, but once in awhile, coins kaching in good volume out of the literary one-armed bandit. (Try writing with one hand.)

In 2005, I won $200 and first place in the Yosemite Writers Contest for a mini-proposal of Hot Flashbacks, while it was still called Hot Flashes of Insight! The real “in” it gave me was incentive—to retire early and get this show on the road.

My latest contest is Borders & AARP’s Your Next Chapter short essay competition. It celebrates AARP’s 50th anniversary and focuses on what people over 50 are doing with their next leg of life. Hot Flashbacks is so on target with the contest subject matter, I’m hoping for a fighting chance to win. My book even features a chapter called The AARP Card—a reprise of my reactions to receiving my membership card as I approached the big Five Oh, primarily of screaming denial that I might be getting older. Who knew this was the year AARP would become eligible to receive its own membership in the 50+ club!

Next Steps
I’m brushing up my short forms of the book—synopsis and chapter outline—for the annual writers contest at California State University, Sacramento. There I’ll have a chance to do a whistle stop or speed date with several agents and editors. This is an opportunity for a one-on-one pitch. The last time I did this, I was very early into the project. With a finished product, I have a lot better chance to make meaningful connections. And we have established, three years ago, I didn’t know completely where this book was headed. Here’s to the excitement and wonder of discovery. That’s one of my favorite parts about writing.

How to Help Make It So
The photo is of me signing Capital Crimes:15 Tales by Sacramento Area Authors at our March 2008 book launch for the mystery anthology published by my local Sisters in Crime chapter, Capitol Crimes.

In indigenous cultures, women often give birth in a circle of other women who support and cheer them on through their ordeal of delivery. It is a ritual of shared joy and experience that not only bolsters the new mother; it also honors the truth that all creations belong to the community. “It takes a village,” Hillary Clinton told us in her book title, to raise children. Same goes for nurturing our ideas and stories that make up our larger cultural reality. I now realize that in creating this blog, I have replicated that circle of support. Thank you for being my midwives!

On the spiritual level, what we see is what we get when it comes to manifesting our visions, and visions held collectively are even more powerful in the Dreams Come True Department. So, memorize this image of me signing books and see it in your mind often. Send good energy. How can I lose with friends like you and a mind meld so mighty?

Believe Everything You Hear

Last time we talked about two simple tips to begin expanding your intuition—alone time, especially spent in meditation, and learning not to criticize your creations, thoughts, or ideas. These include strong feelings or a sense of knowing that might crop up as you develop your inner eyes and ears. Same goes for any funny little messages you might pull out of thin air.

Let me give you a couple examples. When I used to do tarot readings, using the Motherpeace round deck, I had a special way of using the cards with my clients. First, I’d ask them what images jumped out at them, while I listened carefully. Next, I’d say what jumped out at me. Only last would I consider any classical meaning of the card. Between us, we very often got a closer, more personal interpretation than “going by the book.” The blend of my stand outs and my client’s would give a profound reading of his or her subconscious. My observations often added a perspective or insights--what s/he was too close to a matter to see clearly. The cards simply pulled out the client’s inner knowing with a little help from me as interpreter. Synthesis of an experience isn’t so easy while you’re in the middle of it, especially when it involves strong emotions or complex situations and choices.

I remember one reading in particular where my client drew a card—which one I couldn’t tell you now—but as she did, the old train tune started ringing in mind, The Atchison, Topeka & the Santa Fe. The process made it mandatory for me to spill the beans on anything I “got.” I felt ridiculous telling her about this goofy song.

As we began exploring the context of her situation, it became clear that she was feeling railroaded to make an unwanted change by her love interest. So, that’s what the train song was saying! The mere realization that she felt coerced was the key to empowering her to get out of a gnarly dilemma.

Second, and most dramatic, was my intuition on where I’d find my birth mother. (Complete details of that drama will be in my second book, COMPLETE CIRCLES: More Hot Flashbacks from My Lost & Found Life.) From the beginning of my six-month search, I “knew” she was in San Francisco, only 90 miles away. In the beginning, I pooh-poohed this thought as wishful thinking. “You just want it to be convenient,” I said, talking to myself as though I were completely delusional.

By this time in my life (1986), I was tired of ignoring intuitions that turned out to be true. I figured I had nothing to lose to give it a shot. San Francisco is exactly where I found her, even though she was originally from the East Coast. I had no conscious reason to believe she would have conveniently relocated nearly next door to me. Finding her changed both our lives for the better in a big way. What I would have missed if I hadn’t listened to myself—at last?

Let me reiterate, both of these intuitive “hits” sounded ridiculous to me! Consider believing everything you hear with your inner ear, and if it seems goofy, take notes and realize you just may not have put it all together yet. These intuitive scraps are like puzzle pieces that you learn to fit together with time, trial, and error.

About once a year, I have what I consider a seminal dream—one that lays out something big that’s going to happen to me in the months to come. My dramatic dream in 2006 had a lot of symbols about being on a one-way road straight up. It was lighting up all my fears of success and the responsibilities that would go with it.

But in that dream, a Mervyn’s store was prominent. It drove me crazy for months till I finally figured out what it meant. MERVYNS turned out to be an anagram. Rescramble the letters and you get MY NERVS. I was struggling with high interocular pressure and a possible diagnosis of glaucoma.

To protect your eyesight with glaucoma, you have to lower the (interocular) pressure to avoid damage to the optic nerve. Suddenly, I saw the double entendre! To protect my vision, I had to lower the pressure. This applies to my creative vision, too, and lowering the pressure is why Mervyns—MY NERVS—was beside my road to success. I’d have to tend to my nerves, keep the pressure in my life down, if I were going to pull off this writing life and all that goes with it.

Journal everything! Dreams, crazy things you think or hear. The only way to learn your personal symbology and messages from “The Supremes” is to play with these tidbits. In one of my favorite books on the subject, Higher Creativity by Willis Harmon and Howard Rheingold, the authors pay much homage to how answers bubble up when we’re “offline”—playing, dreaming, or doing something else other than what we normally do. Something right-brained and non-linear. This works the same as the meditation and quiet time mentioned in the last post.

Of course, this is unlikely to happen with one mediation, long-distance run, or ride on the Ferris wheel. Inspiration/intuition loves repetition, even ritual, and I have a hunch this is one reason why knitting has become so popular again. Gathering that wool into a lovely creation allows for woolgathering of another kind. My own Messages from on High are so hilariously delivered, at times, they also keep me in another kind of stitches.

Let me know about your progress in amping up your intuition by slowing down your thoughts … and allowing those really helpful and life affirming mind messages to jump up and be heard.