Joyce of All Trades

Master of a Few!

© 2010

By Joyce Mason

This post complements an important announcement on my other blog, The Radical Virgo. I have re-opened my Inner Growth Work “astrology-plus” practice which also includes tarot, dreamwork, and flower essence consultations. All the details on finding out what I do and how to work with me, if you’re interested, are linked there. On Hot Flashbacks, I’d like to focus on something different. Namely, the mixed blessing of being an eclectic person. If you’re a Suzy, Jill, Sam or Jack of All Trades, and sometimes wish you could be more single-focused, this post is for you!


Very Versatile

In my last post, Very Verse-a-Tile, I talked about my lure back to poetry. In fact, these last three posts have been about going home to people, places, and things from which I had taken a temporary vacation. I realized midway that I was building up to the announcement about reopening my practice.

I have always had a multitude of interests. Several of my friends are still working on “finding themselves” in their 50s or 60s. When I listen to them, I understand, but it is so outside the realm of my experience to be limited to just one; I have to wonder what that would be like. It makes me ponder the greener pastures of a less complicated life.

When I don’t feed my various needs for spirituality, art, family and friends, I feel all out of whack. It’s a malaise that puts me on edge far more than the challenge of juggling several passions.

In trying to find a graphic for this post that fit my feelings, I had several to choose from. Some were prettier, sexier, or more humorous than this one. I insisted on only one thing—that the woman depicted had a look of joy or happiness on her face. This crazy pace and complex life actually makes me happy. When I found the photo I ultimately used, I “got” why. Writing plus all of the things in my Inner Growth Work practice are my “gifts.” As we embrace the wisdom years, it’s our job to give back what we’ve learned. I can’t give you just one gift—writing. I have to give you all five—writing, astrology, tarot, dreamwork, and flower essences. How convenient! This woman is juggling exactly five packages!



Women and Multi-Tasking

While there are, of course, individual variations, I have observed that in general women are better at multi-tasking than men. I saw this up-close when I had a job that required keeping so many balls in the air, it would have worn out the most seasoned juggler. We hired a man to co-pilot the program with me. He was so linear by comparison—one thing at a time. We operated in very different ways. Seeing this on a day-to-day basis made me appreciate our inborn differences and the ways men and women complement each other. I have had oodles of conversations about why women are wired for multi-tasking at the biological level. Some reasons are obvious. If you’re trying to manage several children, keep house, and gather food—that would require a juggling act even back in the Stone Age. Add the modern necessity for most women to work outside the home and their unwillingness to give up their own interests and fulfillment. Suddenly, the creative feminine energy has to be whipped up to a whirling vortex of amplified life force.

When it becomes “too much” involves the difficulty many women experience in saying no—in the appropriate reining in of their creative forces. The whole act goes to the Dark Side when we lose ourselves in the process. The only way this eclectic lifestyle works is if the owner of that energy is completely centered in who s/he is, what s/he wants, and in taking care of him- or herself. It’s important to remember that creative energy, AKA “the feminine” is the animus in both males and females. It’s an energy, not a gender or not the sole realm of one gender, even if women often “come in” with more of it. The best way to remember its ever presence is in the yin/yang symbol. Each has a drop of the other in it—females have a drop of masculine, their animus, and men have a drop of feminine, their anima. Some have more than a drop. Vive les differences!

Just One Glass …


When we get in trouble with all this juggling and jumping around, that’s when we have to downsize—at least temporarily. There is a huge difference between being stimulated and fulfilled and being overextended and utterly exhausted. We have to know when to say “uncle.” In my case, I was a workaholic for many years. I had a 40-hour-a-week day job, a half-time metaphysical practice, and an international astrology newsletter I did three times a year (more like a mini-magazine). This was in the ‘90s before all the whiz-bang electronic and print options of today. On top of that, I wrote articles, organized at least one international astrology conference—and that was just work. Once I remarried in ’98, something had to give because I wanted time for my relationship. I got a clear calling from spirit to put astrology and my practice on the back burner.

I was at the peak of my career in that realm. I had worked hard, and I did not understand why God was asking me to do this 180-turnaround. Still, I honored my inner wisdom. I honestly thought I’d never be back. (Are you laughing yet?)

In She, his wonderful book on the psychology of the feminine based on the myth of Eros and Psyche, Dr. Robert A. Johnson says that all women must learn to go down to the metaphorical river and take just one goblet of water. This comes from the four rites of passage Aphrodite, the Greek version of Eros, must complete in order to develop fully as a women. Only in her case, she has to fill a single goblet from the river Styx. Styx was the mythological river that marked the boundary between Earth and the underworld. According to Dr. Johnson, this means that a woman must learn at some point to focus on a single item at once from the vast choices in the universe. At the height of my one-woman Ed Sullivan Show, the idea of going to the river and choosing only one—in my case marriage—was a great comfort and necessity that cried out from all the cells in my being.

At some point, a woman must learn to focus on a single item from the vast choices in the universe. ~ Dr. Robert A. Johnson, She

However, this is not what a woman does always or what the feminine or anima does normally. Creativity is the “wild feminine.” What one glass?

The Eros and Psyche myth and the one glass metaphor illustrates the same point as the wonderful song from “My Fair Lady,” Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man? There are times when a woman must know intimately her drop of the masculine. She must own her inner male. She must be linear and become a good father to herself, including grounding herself in more ways than one.

The Renaissance Woman’s Dilemma

Multiple interests and gifts are great, but they require a strong, grounded core of energy to pull off the jugging act in daily life. They also may require a time-out, that grounding of another kind.

Here’s the bonanza of insight from my personal adventure with the river, one glass, and grounding. I’m back in a new and better way. My creativity is on fire! I have matured in the process and gained more self-confidence. I feel like the theme song to LaVerne and Shirley. Nothing will stop me …

… except myself, if I fail to ground all that activity by rest, meditation, inspirational reading, walks in the woods, and all the things a creative whirlwind needs to keep her life and self from blowing away from her like a hurricane.

Our multi-media world gives us so many choices, it’s hard to make them all. I can barely decide which e-mails to read or delete. How much harder it can be to decide where to put our most precious resource, our creativity—the God-stuff—the energy with which we co-create and can make the world a better place.

Ponder your yin/yang balance and ask yourself, now and then, if you need a one-goblet break to prepare you for your next personal renaissance.

~~~

Photo Credit: GIFTS © Bliznetsov | Dreamstime.com

The Ordinary Life

I was afraid of living an ordinary life, and I realized that’s what we all get. We all get an ordinary life. And it’s good enough.  ~ Garrison Keillor

Recently, my husband and I finally got around to listening to a PBS special we had TiVoed some time ago, "Garrison Keillor: Man on the Road in the Red Shoes."

Even if you’re not already a fan of A Prairie Home Companion, this is a slice of Americana you won’t want to miss, especially if you’re an American, a reader, a writer, or an old radio lover. As all four, it hit a home run out of the ballpark with me …

… but Garrison’s closing punch line about the ordinary life stuck in my craw, demanding I digest the contents and share any emotional/spiritual nutrition I derived. That quote is turning out to be one of those health food drinks with a shelf full of vitamin additives.

I never saw myself as ordinary, nor do others see me that way. I definitely don’t see Garrison Keillor as ordinary, and I’m sure most other people don’t either. So, my question to me—now to you is: Just who are you on the continuum of ordinary to unique? Why does “owning” both of these seemingly opposite designations matter?

Ordinary Dilemma

A deep truth struck me in the moment I heard Garrison say this. The ordinary life is what we get for starters—but in order to express extraordinary skills and talents, there are often huge impacts on the ordinary life—a big price to pay. That is, until we can learn to hold both of them at once, which we must, each in our own style and way. This is what it takes to achieve balance and happiness.

We doubt this balancing act is possible, yet many celebrities model this achievement for us every day. President Obama talks about how one of the benefits of his job is the ability to have dinner with his kids most nights, something he often could not do as a Senator. Certain stars leap immediately to mind as putting family first. Bon Jovi, a true family man, attends his kids’ parent-teacher meetings, just like any other mere mortal. Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick alternate working, so there’s always one parent who is primarily at home. You probably know dozens more examples.

I have always sensed that I could never achieve my ultimate success unless or until I had a grounded, happy home life. Now that I have it, I sometimes fear that I sabotage how far I can go, because I am afraid of losing my warm nest and grounded routine. These are the very things that nurture me down to my toes and up through my soul. They give me the springboard for going out into the world and doing great things.

Yet, I am still sometimes afraid to leap. I do not want to lose the ordinary things I treasure: my husband’s warm hugs and teasing (alternating between endearing and annoying), kitty whiskers rubbing my face, watching our ritual mystery movie on Saturday nights, getting the mail, or our teamwork on gathering and putting out the garbage one night a week. While some of these things sound boring, they are also the stepping-stones that mark our days and help them feel solid. Breaking out of this routine sometimes feels like throwing off the down comforter on a freezing cold winter morning and forcing myself into the shivering dawn and discomfort for no good reason.

Hints from the Other Kind of Stars

Astrology has helped me understand this dilemma. It offers several planetary and mythical metaphors to help all of us sort out and blend our internal mix of ordinary to extraordinary parts of ourselves.

Saturn represents foundations, structure, and responsibility, as well as wisdom and being grounded. Permanence and self-sacrifice are also its domain, all together, the stuff that solid daily life is made of—or any long-lasting “institution.” However, if that were the entire substance, marriage and/or the family and home life would drive many of us crazy enough to belong in an institution of another kind.

Uranus, on the other hand, represents the opposite archetype—originality, uniqueness, the unexpected, freedom and independence. You can probably sense right this minute whether you’re more Saturnian or Uranian. I thought I started out more Saturnian and grew more Uranian, especially when I moved to The Left Coast in 1973 at the height of the counterculture movement. On viewing my first wedding photos, more than one person has said I looked like “a hippie princess” in my old-fashioned muslin dress and crown of wildflowers. By contrast, back when I was growing up in the 1950s, I thought I was Happy Days typical. I’ve been stunned, quite honestly, to have many people tell me I was “a free spirit” from a very early age. So, when you’re mulling over where you start on the Saturn/Uranus symbol curve, you might also want to get a second opinion from those who have known you for a long time.

Chiron is my astrological specialty, the composite planetoid/comet called a centaur, just like the mythical half-horse, half-human character after which it is named. Chiron is an integrating energy that turns our wounds into blessings, our handicaps into our vocation, and asks us to make lemonade out of lemons. Just as mythical Chiron groomed many famous heroes like Jason of the Argonauts, the powerful Hercules, and Asclepius, the Father of Medicine: Chiron asks us to bring out the best in ourselves by resolving opposites within us. How do you like this metaphor? Chiron is located in space between Saturn and Uranus and acts like a bridging function between the two planets and what they symbolize.

Roots and Wings

There’s a wonderful saying I love:

Two great things you can give your children: one is roots, the other is wings. ~ Hodding Carter

(I’ve also heard it attributed to the famous inventor of the polio vaccine, Jonas Salk. You can tell it’s a great quote if people argue about who said it first.)

I think this never stops being true; adults need roots and wings as much as they did as children. When either of those forces becomes too overdone, the other energy demands reckoning.

I agree with Garrison Keillor that the ordinary life is a gift we all receive. If I were forced to choose one or the other, I’d have to take the ordinary life, even though the free spirit in me would begin to wither and die without expression.

From Either/Or to Both/And

Fortunately, we are not forced to choose. But this is something we often have to discover for ourselves. It reminds me of the game my parents played with me as a child. Little did they realize how potentially damaging it could have been to my sensitive psyche. “Who do you love best, Mommy or Daddy?” If I said Mommy, Daddy would pretend to cry. Vice-versa if I said Daddy. Asking children or adults to choose between roots and wings would be like asking them to pick Mommy or Daddy when they need both.

We are actually charged with integrating the opposites within us, including roots and wings. Chiron—and life itself—teaches us that joy exists in finding out where we are on a continuum. Everyone has this charge. The baby boomer generation perhaps has had the most stark life experience with it. Boomers grew up in the Ozzie and Harriet ‘50s only to have those ideals blown away as irrelevant, as we reached young adulthood in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Somewhere, we had to figure out where we fit between Doris Day and Janis Joplin.

Personally, I think the deeper our roots, the higher we can fly. We just have to be willing to face that initial discomfort of coming out from under our warm, down comforter on a freezing winter morning.

~~~

Photo credit: © Dolnikov | Fotolia.com

Want to learn more about Chiron and astrology? Joyce's new e-book is beginner-friendly and full of hints on how to turn lemons into lemonade, contribute your special gifts (vocation), and achieve fulfillment. Read more and/or purchase Chiron and Wholeness: A Primer on The Radical Virgo.

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.

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.

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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.