More Coloring - Adult Coloring Books

An add-on to the post

10 Weeks of Word Oracles - Coloring

Guess I'm still the Queen of Synchronicity! I had two adult coloring books come into my life right after I wrote the last post on coloring. With the extra insight I got in my PS to the Coloring post, this makes a trio—always a sign that something good is up, something that deserves attention!

First, I loved noticing that I had been trained to color between the lines and how it helped me with the bubble fill-in on my mail-in ballot for the November 2 election

Second, I had bought my husband a calendar from the kitty boys for Christmas. It’s by B. Kliban, the late, great cat cartoonist. Upon further examination the other night, I realized that it’s a coloring calendar. So now the boys have to give it to us both or give it to me, because I’m not giving up an excuse to sit with my coloring tools and play. (One: How did I do that? Two: How did I do that without noticing it at the time?)

Third, last night my wonderful group of spiritual women met for our monthly meeting. One of them planned a surprise activity. We each got to draw a book out of a bag, and it was a book of mandalas for coloring.

So, grown-ups of the world, unite and indulge your inner child. Go buy some coloring books of whatever ilk and a batch of crayons, colored markers and/or pencils. Re-experience what being in charge of choosing colors does for you, not to mention the pure therapeutic aspect of repetitive activity devoid of daily worries.

I have to wonder what it all means, but I’ve got a hunch. In these interesting times of huge change and universal transition, it’s totally up to us how we color our world.

Make mine brilliant.

Queen of Synchronicity

© 2010 by Joyce Mason

Coincidences are spiritual puns.
--G.K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

My friends call me the Queen of Synchronicity. I talk about meaningful coincidences often on this blog, because I believe they’re the cosmic feedback that our lives are aligned with the greater good and the flow of creation.

I’d like to share my latest syncs—they’re so dramatic!—and then talk about this phenomenon and how to tune into it.

Synchronicity

is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance. ~ Wikipedia

The concept of synchronicity suggests, just as events can be grouped by cause, they can be grouped by their meaning.


The Power of Three

My first spiritual teacher taught me that when something happens in threes, it’s like a divine tap on the shoulder. Believe me, it’s much better to “get it” when it’s just a tap. You don’t want to be bullheaded or oblivious and need “a house to fall on your head,” like my mom used to say. (It’s better to be The Queen than to get crowned by falling real estate.)

I got that synch-in’ feeling over poetry this time around. Synch #1: In mid-April, I stumbled across the title of a book quite by accident while cruising Amazon for something else. It caught my eye and my whole body in a visceral reaction. It made me buzz, like everything in me was yelling yes! It’s called Saved by a Poem by Kim Rosen. It’s all about using poetry for healing. My post on Write Anything! shows I was ready deep in my psyche to rediscover this excellent form of personal therapy … not to mention that I cut my teeth as a writer scribing poetry (I bit right into the poetic teething ring.) I bought the book immediately. Saved by a Poem has an accompanying CD with poems read by a variety of well-known people I admire. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it on a recent trip out of town and was inspired by the potential of reclaiming my identity as a poet.

Synch #2: On April 20, Chiron changed signs from Aquarius to Pisces. Since Chiron is my astrological specialty, I wrote a post about what to expect during Chiron in Pisces. As I checked out other posts on the topic, I noticed that other bloggers or their readers were writing—or commenting—in poetry! It makes total sense that Chiron in Pisces would portend using the fine arts as healing modalities, as Chiron is about the wounding and healing process that leads to wholeness. Pisces is the sign famous for being artsy. I expect not only poetry but also music, art, and dance to become more prevalent as forms of therapy over the next nine years, the duration of Chiron’s stay in Pisces.

Synch #3: I attended the Northern California Publishers and Authors Conference in Sacramento. The keynote address was by Dominique Raccah of Sourcebooks, the biggest “small” publisher the US—and I might add, a very progressive one. In her amazing analysis of how publishing is morphing into a multimedia adventure, Dominique mentioned a new poetry site she sponsors, Poetry Speaks. This site pays more homage to poetry and its possibilities than I’ve seen in my lifetime. I am wowed! It was another clear indicator that it was time to renew my lapsed poetic license.

Sync-o-pation

Sometimes synchronicities are so numerous in an encounter, they make me dizzy! I attended a seminar on adoption in the San Francisco Bay area given by Nancy Verrier, author of The Primal Wound and Coming Home to Self. Although geared to anyone in the adoption triad—adults adopted as children, birth or adoptive parents—the majority of those in attendance were people like me, adopted adults still dealing with the psychological implications of this early loss.

At the first break, I met a woman I’ll call Sarah. Turns out she, too, had traveled from my same Northern California metro area to attend the seminar. But that was just the beginning of the “coincidences” and commonalities. When she gave me her card, I noted she was also a writer. Sarah and I were born within a few years of one another. Both our birth moms were from the same East Coast city—but moved to a different city, the same one where we were each born. She was adopted through an agency in the suburb where I spent my pre-teen and teenage years—and her adoptive mom is from the West Coast city where my birth mom eventually moved, the place where I found Original Mom in 1986. It’s as though our birth, adoption, and mother finds were following the same map!

Sarah and I knew our meeting was “meant to be,” and I look forward to connecting with her on the home turf and learning more about why we were drawn together! Or why we’re using the same life map.

The sync that brought tears to my eyes, though, was a young man in his 40s. He is the janitor for the facility where the adoption seminar was held. He had no idea this was the event to which he was “assigned” that Saturday. I’ll call him Matthew. Matt is in his early 40s and had just recently resumed his quest to find his birth mom back in the Midwest. He told my therapist he had learned more that day, talking to other adoptees and overhearing the seminar, than he had learned in his entire life about his psychological make-up. He kept talking about how validating it was to meet other people like himself. His girlfriend had come over—no doubt because of an animated cell phone call from him. They were beaming. Watching such breakthrough and bounty of affirmation had me headfirst in the Kleenex box. I still sniffle writing about it!


Tuning Up Your Synch-o-Meter

One of the key ways to bring synchronicity into your life is to turn up your hearing aids, so to speak. I believe synchronicities abound, but we don’t always see or hear them. If you’re particularly focused on an area of pursuit in your life or a subject that’s on your mind, watch for instances where the topic pops up. Be alert and vigilant.

An excellent example was when I was getting the divine nudge to find my birth mother. I was never interested in “finding” till the subject of adoption started cropping up wherever I went. Ultimately, I realized this was Spirit saying hello? I finally realized could not truly know myself without reconnecting with my biological family. It was one of the best hints I ever took and crucial to my personal evolution.

Then there’s also what I call lighting up in yellow highlighter. When I first found the book on poetry and healing, I wasn’t especially onto the idea that reclaiming my identity as a poet was in the wings for me. But something about that book “lit up” for me. I felt like God & Company put a big splash of yellow highlighter on the incident in the book of my life. Watch for it!


How Synchronicity Works

I believe synchronicity is simply the outcome of the law of dynamic attraction. I talk about it in Your Cosmic Tractor Beam. We draw "the right" people when we are in our true energy or resonate on our unique frequency. People on our general bandwidth or same beam are drawn to us. This is also true for things and experiences. What’s going on in our thoughts and feelings—especially feelings—draws to us everything we need to answer the question, solve the puzzle, or fulfill ourselves. We become magnets of all the physical and spiritual stuff we need to create growth and meaning in our lives. “What a piece of work is man,” Shakespeare said, “How noble in reason. How infinite his faculties.” But look at what we have to work with! Divine substance is awesome, a word so overused, I reserve it only for the magnificence of All That Is.

Bottom line: That flow of abundance is there. We just have to get on beat with it. Sharpen your senses.

And that thing I said about emotion? Adult adoptees have many residual emotions about their early abandonment. It’s no surprise that this subject matter makes synchronicities pop like microwave Orville Redenbacher’s. My own mother-find was so laced with these “coincidences,” you’d swear I was making them up.


In the Sync Hole

Once you’ve gotten a good sense of how this works by experience, you will miss them painfully if your synchronicities take a powder. When I was going through some of the most difficult trials with my husband’s health and happiness, I lost all touch with my synchronistic “flow.” It was depressing, and I felt almost abandoned by God. I can’t remember another time when I felt such a deep loss of spiritual connection.

Even this experience is a reminder why synchronicity is the stuff of spirit. There’s a reason why the adoption experience seems to draw more synchronicities than any other topic—at least in my life. Adoption is about being cut off from your original source—your biological parents. When we are “out of sync,” we are out of touch with our larger Original Source—God/Goddess/All That Is. I’m convinced that a major reason why I was adopted in this life was to be able to help others heal that disconnection to reconnection through my writing.


The Synchronicity Symphony

Synchronicity is simply tuning into the beat of life, the flow of events, and paying close attention to divine orchestration. Trust me. It’s there. We live in so much competing noise; it’s amazing we can hear anything at all. Put on some “ear blinders,” and you’ll see that the real action has been going on in the background, behind the traffic sounds, the TV, and endless chatter.

For music lessons, you might keep a section in your journal where you notice how many things in a given day “respond” to questions on your mind or suggest paths you might take. It’s a new way of seeing, but the rewards are dramatic. Synchronicity has led me to reconnect with my lost loves and to realize that I was never disconnected from them in spirit—or the One Love in which we’re all joined.

That connection is a note replayed in every “coincidence.” It’s a grace note.

~~~

Photo Credit: RED QUEEN © Caraman  | Dreamstime.com

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.

The Training Tape: Debut E- Book by Joyce Mason

Learn the power and perils of how you talk to yourself. Words matter.

Is “The Training Tape” just a short story or a channeled instruction book on how to live? Joyce is offering her first fiction e-book for the introductory price of only $3.00. See Pay Pal button near the top of the sidebar to purchase.

The scene: A woman is traveling by train, a getaway to sort out her sordid marriage—the one that only leaves her with terrible choices. Suddenly, something completely unexpected happens … and nothing is ever the same.

Is it a channeled instruction book on how to live? Even the author doesn’t know for sure. You be the judge.

~~~

Readers Write:

A thought-provoking, engaging read with Joyce's signature and special twists. This one is sure to grab your attention and not let go! -- EW, SF Bay Area

I love the flashback memories and the humour that subtly deliver an important message in such an enjoyable, easy read. They really give the story depth. It’s gripping, I enjoyed every minute of it! Recommended! – SB, United Kingdom

I STILL keep thinking about the punch line … thanks again for the reminder of being so careful about what we say to ourselves! –TW, Carmel, CA

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.

Happy Birthday, Hot Flashbacks!

The Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights blog was born on September 17, 2007 at 10:43 pm with my first post, “Boomer's Hot Flashbacks Contain Instructions for a Cool Rest of Her Life.”
I’d like to invite you to our baby’s first birthday party. Our baby. A blog is a community. Ours is just a toddler, but it’s starting to walk!


Conception
I won a five-minute pitch meeting with agent Laurie McLean of Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents in a random drawing at my Sisters in Crime meeting in September 2007. She recommended that I start a blog to begin finding an audience for my work, while I finished my memoir. I took her suggestion and ran with it. I’m still running, but like I said, the baby is just starting to walk.

Birth Chart
Hottie-Cool (HC for short), our baby blog, has an astrology chart, just like the rest of us. She’s a Virgo with a Sag Moon and Gemini Rising. If she were a real person, that’d make her way chatty! With Jupiter conjunct her Moon in Sagittarius, she’d be fond of hyperbole. (Do you think she exaggerates? Her “mom” sure has stories that must sound like it, stranger than fiction.) Oh, and she loves to have fun!

Not to astro-babble too much for those not familiar with the lingo, but I think you’ll appreciate two other points. First, her Moon/Jupiter is on the 7th house cusp of relationships. That tells you the heart of this blog—connection. Second, Neptune is on the Midheaven. This blog’s job, if you will, is consciousness and things like intuition and dreams and creating psychic links. Put it all together and you’ve got us linked in consciousness, communicating about it, and having fun. Just what I had in mind. Hope it works for you!

Milestones
Since it was brand spankin’ new, there have been 39 posts covering many diverse topics besides my memoir (progress reports and excerpts). Some of the other topics include women’s circles, celebrating the seasons, gratitude, patience and faith, pets, intuition, flower essences, loss and love, the four elements, meaningful coincidences and dreams.


The Numbers
Although I’ve only been tracking blog statistics for two months, a profile of Hot/Cool readers and their visiting habits is starting to emerge.

Over the past month, Hot Flashbacks has had 378 page views by 88 distinct visitors. They come from all over: 10 countries and 4 continents with the most visits from the US, UK, and Canada. In the US, most visitors come from my home State of California followed by Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Oregon. The majority of visitors read two or more pages during an average 1-2 minute visit. Sixty-five percent are returning visitors.

Since most readers land on the Home Page, it is the most frequently visited page. However, it has ever-changing content, and visits are not reported by which post is displayed at the time of landing. The home page is followed, in order, by these specific posts: Memoir Evolution, Boomers Hot Flashbacks Contain Instructions for a Cool Rest of Her Life, Edgar Allan Poet and Happy Autumn Equinox, with It’s Done! and Yellow Highlighter tied for 5th place. So if you’ve missed any of these popular destinations, pay a visit to these links to find out why they’re in the Top 5. Check the past post list, too. There may be other topics you’ll be glad you discovered.

Future Outlook
To help this kid go from toddler to walking upright on two legs without teetering, HC needs your support and encouragement. You are the aunties and uncles whose job it is to pitch the cheeks of our little blog now ‘n’ then and say, “My how you’ve grown.” More than that, you’ve got to talk to the little tyke. That means jump in and make more Comments …

… and if you’re too shy to do it in the blogosphere, send me an e-mail, where we can do it in private, one-on-one: hotflashbacks@gmail.com.

I can attest, though, the public thing doesn’t hurt at all-- honest! I blabbed on this blog 39 times, and no one has come after me with a straightjacket, one of those butterfly nets, or called the paddy wagon, as my mom used to say. And if you’re afraid you might make a fool of yourself, take it from one who has been there and transformed it. Read the post Blunders to Blessings.

Thanks
Most of all, this post is a big thank-you for your support during my first year of blogging. It was always my dream to write a column. I would have called it Life in the Vast Lane … but blogging has taken the old concept of the newspaper or magazine column to new heights of unlimited potential. I hope you’ll continue to help me raise HC to be a vibrant source of inspiration, connection, and a place where all readers, especially the baby boomer generation, can keep mentally sharp, spiritually in tune, and physically up for blowing up the old Old.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering what to get the baby blog for her birthday? Referrals. Lots of them. She can never have too many people drop in to say hello or Happy Birthday. Link to your web sites and blogs. Tell your friends!

Coincidences

Where Coincidences Come From
I say it so often; it’s a mantra. Synchronicity rules my life. Meaningful coincidences have guided me at every turn. They are the bandstand for playing the symbols. The ability to see them is a special vision we develop from raising our eyes to the sky, arms outstretched, pleading, “How about a hint?” Coincidences are the hint and the heavens are the right source.

“There are no coincidences,” various spiritual teachers of mine have pronounced flatly. Author Anne Lamott calls coincidences God showing off. Meg Lundstrom, another writer, says they’re a wink from the Cosmos. While I’ve gotten good at noticing them in my own life—yesterday I experienced something completely different. I was the coincidence.

Synchronicity Vortex (Not in Sedona, AZ)
I was on a food mission, a snack mission to be exact. In order to have a double scoop of Baskin & Robbins, I had to hit the ATM machine at Safeway. Perhaps you’ll remember that Safeway is Sync City for me. (See my Yellow Highlighter post.). It’s a Las Vegas where I hit the jackpot of cosmic alignment recently, right next to the money machine.

Snack Indecision, Psychic Indigestion
As long as I was at the grocery store, anyway, I figured I’d replenish my microwave popcorn supply. Because of my astrological make-up, a strong Virgo/Libra blend, I have a terrible time making up my mind, because I want the decision to be perfect. Never mind I was about to indulge in enough ice cream to clog my arteries for a week; I was splitting hairs, three boxes in hand, over which popcorn had the least salt, fat, and artificial ingredients. I took so long; a cop came by. For a second, I wondered if he thought I was the popcorn equivalent of the Frito Bandito, about to empty the shelves of exploding maize—or perhaps to detonate it.

“Do you have a car in the parking lot?’

I answered yes and described it--his next question.

He shot down the aisle, as I trailed a question of my own in his dust.

“Did someone leave their lights on?”

I picked up a sense of alarm in his muffled response I couldn’t quite hear. After all, I was nosing into police business, and he had no obligation to give me such details. The whole thing left me unsettled, because I could feel something was wrong and worth worrying.

This is the downside of being highly intuitive with antennae in every cell of my body. Gregg, my friend and fellow astrologer, says Virgos are so sensitive, we can feel our blood run through our veins. Our bad rep as hypochondriacs is simply a misunderstanding. To us a headache actually feels like a brain tumor.

My Dying Day?
While I’m digressing, I’ve got to say that this increased heartbeat and sensed danger from the cop’s presence was the most exciting thing that happened to me all day. I had actually wondered earlier if it was my time to die. I had spent hours rewriting my book proposal for Hot Flashbacks for the umpteenth time in three years, prepping to meet some publishers and agents at a writers’ conference next weekend. The conference and writing pros—cool. The book proposal? I would rather have a colonoscopy.

In fact, some of my writer friends refuse to write non-fiction because these painful proposals are part of the gig. A proposal forces you to figure out and clearly state what you’re trying to say and accomplish—and requires a plan for how you’ll market copies of your book, once it’s published. Hands down, most writers say it’s easier to write the book than the proposal. Most of them, including me, say it’s the most valuable thing they ever wrote—once it’s over. Like childbirth.

I had unloaded on my sweet and supportive husband about the difficulties of getting my first book published, and the blah-blah-blah of all my frustrations. Why would God give me such an intense sense of mission and vocation, if I’m not supposed to do this … and if that’s the Plan, why is it so hard?

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Maybe there is nothing left for me to do here. Maybe I’m supposed to die soon, because if I can’t do something useful, I may as well. Maybe I’m being prepared for the end.”

Not Checked Out at the Check-Out
As soon as I succumbed to the ice cream cure for depression, I was temporarily distracted, even though I hadn’t tasted a lick. I took my huge purchase of one box of popcorn to the checkout and paid cash.

The checker asked for my Safeway card, which gave me a discount. It ended up costing only two bucks. While I was basking in my good fortune—again, just feet from my magical ATM machine—the young checkout clerk, looked at the receipt to address me by name, as is the Safeway custom. She stared at it for several beats, then asked, “Is your name really Joyce Mason?”

Was she a blog reader or astrology student—someone who’d actually heard of me?

“Yes,” I said, wondering what was up, and deciding not to get into the fact that it has only been my name since I was three weeks old by adoption—that I had another secret, original name.

She looked to be in her late teens, and she must have said, “Really?” four times. “That was my grandmother’s name.” Then she added, “She died.”

“Well, I think I’m still alive. Do I look alive to you?” I asked the three other clerks at the bagging end of the counter, and I began to wonder why this Coincidence had such a big audience. They said nothing, which worried me.

“I am really weirded out by this,” the checker must have said another three times. “I never heard of anyone else named Joyce Mason before.”

I tried to reassure her that it is quite a common name. (Google me, if you don’t believe me). I know of at least three others in the Sacramento area alone, but she didn’t need those details or my amusing stories about how I found out. She was so spooked; I actually caught her chills. Then I realized what I was supposed to do.

“It’s probably just your grandma, letting you know everything’s OK. Really. Everything’s OK.”

Our Lady of Synchronicity

I looked to my right and the three baggers were there like angels witnessing an apparition. I do not know why they stood out so much to me, wide-eyed and brightly illuminated. There were too many of them for my single item, single bag purchase. Their presence seemed surreal, like Lucia and her cousins at Fatima.

I was shaken as I walked to B&R, but not enough to derail my need for an ice cream fix. I saw the cop cars out front, and I still wondered what on earth had brought our local boys in blue to the scene. Maybe I was going to be arrested yet for scaring children, impersonating their dead grandmothers.

When I got home, that’s when I realized that I had somehow graduated from having coincidences to being one. Of course, God/dess can be a goofball, and since I was whining just minutes before that my life might be over, I got the opportunity to try on the idea by playing Joyce Mason, Somebody’s Dead Grandma.

But I knew it wasn’t this Joyce Mason’s day to die ... because I proved to myself that day; I could still do something useful. I was present, accounted for, and reactive to the mystery of life--a willing participant when called upon for Cosmic Improv.