Revisting Day

Regular readers of this blog know I’m a reunion junkie. I reunited with my birth mother (1986), the “great love of my life” (1987), and my first love (1997) who turned out to be Still the One, as one of my favorite songs goes. We married (1998)—and in case you’re not convinced I’m a junkie yet, I married my first husband twice (1974 and 1979, but also divorced him twice). One of my most stunning and unexpected reunions was with the church of my childhood (2006), another close relationship lost that needed the light of current day to see if it could work in the present.

Do-overs have a huge place and theme in my life when it comes to relationships. I’m starting to discover that the theme extends to jobs and creative interests.

My purpose in this post is to help you discover whether or not there are people and things in your past that are worth revisting.

Job Do-Overs

I left my first job once to try my hand in the big city, hated my new assignment, and I was back in less than six weeks. Since my previous employer had thought I left for more money (not!), I even got a raise out of my return. Plus I had a fabulous going-away party, presents, and the gushing sentiments of my workmates who hated to see me leave and were happy to have me back. They didn’t begrudge me the false-alarm exit extravaganza.

It’s important to note that I loved my original job, but I was looking to move out of a small city I thought would be confining for me in the long-run. I had the right idea, but the timing wasn’t on beat. Twelve years later, I left my favorite government agency in what ultimately turned out to be a long career as a civil servant. I left because the leader at the helm at the time was harassing employees and wreaking such general havoc, he was later relieved of his post. The place wasn’t bad; the problem was the top dog. Once that was fixed, I returned to the agency in a new position, one of my favorite jobs ever, six years after I left the first time. In fact, this particular government agency was so great; it had a reputation for the boomerang effect--people would move onto greener pastures just to “come home.” I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what she had until she lost it.

Why Déjà Review?

As I’ve already implied, sometimes things aren’t finished for us. We have not gleaned all the growth or all the learning from them. Temporary circumstances may leave us in a situation where we can’t go on, but that doesn’t mean we can’t look back. Sometimes this is very therapeutic and just what the doctor ordered.

I spent another couple of years in my first job at that wonderful agency in the Midwest before I finally had the courage to make a move not just 150 miles away but across the country to California. The first time I left was a test run. My reasons for moving were still the same, but I had worked myself up to a move so far and dramatic, it would not be easy to back out of it. I have never looked back! California is where I belong and have lived since 1973.

The government job I loved, like my first one in social work, had a family atmosphere and a group of supportive co-workers that is anyone’s dream come true. I can’t imagine not having reconnected with these wonderful people who support me still five years past retirement.

Do you miss someone or something? Think about it, and decide if it would be good for you to reconsider the person on situation in present time.

Relationship revisits can be so important in terms of a sense of completion. I had no completion with all the people I found again, and in half the cases, we went on to have a bigger and better relationship (birth mom, first love/ now second husband). In the other half of the cases (“love of my life” and first husband), I got clarity on why it would have never worked with either one of them in the long run. It reinforced my belief that loving someone is easy; living with them can be difficult if you aren’t cut from similar cloth and looking in the same direction.


My Newest Boomerangs

You’re hearing it first on Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights! You’ve been my blog family longest between my two blogs, but you can look for a big announcement on June 14 on The Radical Virgo. To my complete surprise, the universe is calling me back to the front line of helping people through these fast changing times. I’m being guided to reopen my Inner Growth Work practice—astrology, tarot, dreamwork, and flower essences. I had taken what I thought was a permanent sabbatical from individual readings for the past seven years. Suddenly I’m not only called to doing them; I love this work again!

While this will be part of my work with writing still on the front burner, I had to take an honest look at why I quit my practice in the first place. I had been building my career as an astrologer in tandem with a full-time government job, writing astrological articles, and a host of other related activities that often kept me up till the wee hours of the morning. I was a One Woman Ed Sullivan Show, riding a unicycle while balancing a ball on my nose and spinning plates in each hand on the end of long rods. My work pace was insane!

Once I married again, I wanted time for my relationship. Something had to give, and I certainly couldn’t quit my long government career with all its benefits that close to the finish line. Now I have 40 hours a week not tied up in working a “regular” job. Now I can decide for myself how to spend them.

My return to astrology last year by way of The Radical Virgo blog was a complete surprise. More surprising still was how quickly the blog took off and has lured me back into the rarified view from the stars. When I wrote my article, Your Cosmic Tractor Beam, I had no idea that the cosmic joke would be on me! I feel like I’m at a family reunion with the other unicorns at the leading edge. I’ve noticed how seven years’ more maturity and self-confidence is making the experience twice as good as I ever remembered it!


Suggested Homework

Sit in a quiet place. Ask yourself to whom or what in the past does your mind keep returning? A person, place or thing? Someone or something you miss in your life?

Next, is there any harm in reconnection? Caution: Tread carefully in past love relationships where the other person is currently married or committed. On the other hand, if it’s primarily his or her friendship you miss, ask yourself:

• Are you sure you won’t be devastated if they’re unavailable?

• If they are partnered, can your keep it on a different level in the present?


Don’t pass up a reunion with a member of your true family of friends. Remember, you’re older and wiser now.

Reconnection is a piece of cake nowadays with the Internet. People leave trails everywhere, and if you can’t find them directly, you’ll find someone who knows how to find them. The days of needing to hire a private eye are over. Start with Googling them or a Facebook search.

Look at your photo albums. Review your résumé. Have fun with it, and if you’re “good” with everyone and everything on your list, just notice the wonderful growth you’ve made since this era of your personal history. Consider how these people and occupations have helped make you who you are today.

Whatever the outcome, Revisiting Day is a fabulous way to spend part of a Memorial Day weekend—or any weekend. Remembering those who have given their lives in the military is foremost. They paid the ultimate price for our freedom. It also makes sense to remember those people and pursuits that have served us by enriching our lives. They may deserve a boisterous homecoming. If it feels right, take this holiday to a new dimension.

~~~

Photo Credit: Two Halves Meet Each Other © Zitramon Dreamstime.com

My Three Minutes of Fame

Dear Cool Insighters,

This is a between-the-posts share about how my six-word memoir led to a local TV interview. Last year, I wrote the following micro-memoir on Smith Magazine’s six-word memoir site:


First love lost, 14; married, 50.

It’s Tim’s and my love story in a nutshell. (Want 200 more words? Click “show backstory” under these six words and the picture of Tim and me at my 8th grade graduation on my Smith link.) This summer, Smith partnered with AARP Magazine to do a regular column for the 50+ audience. Ours was chosen as one of the tiny memoirs on the theme of love (Less Is L’amour …) in the September/October 2009 issue.


This tiny blurb turns out to be six of the most evocative words I have ever written! Old friends saw the entry in the AARP column, and I got calls from people I hadn’t spoken with in decades. Soon I had an e-mail from a local reporter who wanted to feature us on “Good Day Sacramento” on a show they were doing with a “lost loves” theme.

Since the clip is from a copyrighted TV show, I can’t link to it directly, but if you’d like to see it, here are the directions:

Go to Good Day Sacramento.: . Once you’re on the GDS website, on the right there’s a Good Day Videos screen. Under the screen, the far right button says Menu. To the left of Menu is a spyglass. Click the spyglass, which activates a search window. Plug in the words “lost loves,” and you’ll find our video.

We hope our story inspires others who always wondered about their lost loves. While not all stories have our happy ending, it’s healing to complete that circle of “unfinished business” and “always wondering,” regardless of the outcome.

And about that 15 minutes of fame Andy Warhol said we all get? I’ve still got 12 left! I hope I can cash them in on a book or two—or ten.

Here’s to those flashes back to the past,

--Joyce

~~~

Photo: My favorite of the booth photos Tim and I took in Dallas on February 14, 1997, our first Valentine’s Day together since 1961.

Pancakes Pop

My dad was a blue-collar mechanic who worked long and hard hours for a building demolition company in Chicago. Since he usually worked six days a week, Sunday was our one, quality Day with Dad. Sunday/Dad’s Day was enhanced for me when he made us pancakes.

By way of contrast, my mom was a beautician—as opposite as you could get. While she was making people pretty, Dad had all he could do to scrub the grease off himself from his literally dirty work.

Both were very nurturing, but Dad gave most of his TLC in a traditionally male way—acting as household handyman, fixing our cars, doing lawn work, and speaking words of encouragement. After all, this was the 1950s where women were women and men were men.

Yet when Dad broke ranks with that rigid role model and made us pancakes, it really stood out for me. There was something much bigger going on than the fact that they tasted great! He was a one-trick cook, but those flapjacks were downright magical.

Looking back as a seasoned adult, I finally understand. It was the mere act of getting out of his comfort zone, giving my mom a break, and being flexible in showing his love that make the pancakes so fantastic. This is the same guy who would joke, dripping irony (and maybe a little grease), “I’ll do your hair,” when our any member of our otherwise all-female household was having a bad hair-day. All I could envision was my hair set on bolts and screws, the tools of his trade.

Love does whatever is called for, gives in whatever way is needed at the moment—and at Sunday breakfast, pancakes and fatherly love merged into one symbol of flexible and unconditional love. Whether it was watching him flip them (he was good!) or tasting the yummy results, pancakes and maple syrup will always be my sweet Dad to me in an unforgettable communion of continuity.

~~~

Photo: Dad in 1980

Thanks to Betty Lynch of My Country Kitchen for prompting this memory by asking for “dads in the kitchen” stories.

The Other Mothers

Have you ever noticed how some of the best “moms” on earth couldn’t—or didn’t—have biological children? I was raised by one. Here’s an irony that proves you can “inherit” something by adoption: I am one, too.

My mom’s “barrenness” was the lingering wound of her lifetime. What an ugly, archaic word. No wonder she felt terrible about it. I’m not sure “infertility” is any better. Is there really a neutral word?

Mom was Italian-American, a culture built around children and family. I was adopted back in the days when my origins were kept secret—even from me. I know my parents meant well, despite the damage “hiding myself” would ultimately do. They didn’t want people to treat me differently. I also think there was a strong measure of self-protection. Mom didn’t want to be booted out of the Mother’s Club, even in someone else’s mind, or worst of all, her own.

If you’ve ever witnessed a good adoption, or another form of people raising children that are not of their body, you know that bonding often has little to do with genetics. Children are born of relationships that are not biological (hopefully!). Two unrelated people bond, and from this strong merger, their children are created, a bit of both of them. If it weren’t for the non-bio relationship, given our incest taboo, there wouldn’t be any children of the biological kind.

Dad didn’t tell mom for a long time that the aftermath of an infection she incurred, followed by an operation to remove a scarred fallopian tube and ovary on opposite sides, meant that she could never have children. Mom was squeamish to begin with and barely had an eighth-grade education. She wasn’t big on understanding or focusing on medical details. She did not question the years of trying without success or relate them to this event. Dad could not bear to tell her; her dreams were dashed. They were already raising my brother, a nephew adopted within the family. He was much older than I was, and Mom still longed for “children of her own.”

One of the most poignant chapters of my memoir recounts the day, at 18, when I told my parents I had known for 10 years that I was adopted. Mom’s was wistful, talking about her sorrow that she could never get pregnant. “But if we had been able to have kids of our own, we wouldn’t have you, baby.” I’ll never forget how she beamed and how he held my hand.

However you perceive Ultimate Creativity, Spirit often brings us family in forms way more imaginative than biology alone—which you have to admit, is one of the most innovative and amazing processes in the universe. My children have come in nieces, nephews, and fur kids and an assortment of other special relationships with younger humans and animals of all ages.

“It makes me sad that some kids missed having you for a mother,” my husband once said when the subject came up. It wasn’t in the cards, and it was nearly as big a heartbreaker for me as it was for my mom. But that never stopped me from nurturing, adoring children, and applying that mom energy in other ways. Abundantly. It’s probably the “damming” of that energy that causes non-biological moms to let it spill over into their other nurturing relationships.

I have a unique vantage point for viewing motherhood. One of my moms abandoned me; the other one smothered me. I had a lot to overcome, and finding my birth mom in my late thirties was the beginning of deep healing for my original mom and me. Out of respect for the mom that raised me, I couldn’t even admit to myself that I had needed to know my birth mom till my adoptive mom was gone.

Ultimately, I got to merge my two moms in my mind and heart and to see how nature and nurture both influenced my life. I became close to my birth mom, too. Our families merged and love one another. But frankly, I will always feel closest to the mom who “did the job.” When I found out at the tender age of eight that I was adopted and tried to process that blow, I could not believe I was not of my mom’s body.

Closeness—perhaps best represented by when we hug—is a desire to merge in a body-and-soul way with another person. Mother and child in pregnancy represent the most physical form of this merger.

Yet, as I have lost loved ones, I have learned that no matter how sweet, the physical bond has certain limits. Now I can conjure all my loved ones in my mind and heart, any time of day or night. It’s the only way I have access to them. I did that sometimes when they were “in a body,” but not nearly as often. Why connect in mind/spirit when I could get a hug and their physical presence?

We carry our mothers in our minds, anyway, sometimes admonishing us, sometimes cheering us on. The most important thing we can know about nurture is that it is limitless, it is without form, it is love in its purest sense …

… it comes from the heart and soul, even if we often use—and crave—our bodies to express it.

~~~

Photo: Mom and me, 1948

Moonstruck!

After ten years of marriage, my honey and I finally went on one of those moon things. This got me wondering about the origin of this sweet custom—honeymoons.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered the roots of the honeymoon are far from romantic and date to the era of Attila the Hun! (Hunnymoon?) First, it involved abduction of the bride-to-be from a neighboring village. The groom had to go into hiding with her from her family. Naturally, her relatives would be frantically searching for their missing daughter and sister. The groom’s best man was the only person who knew their whereabouts. Honeymoon is from an ancient Norse word that means hiding. Though the folklore is from the fifth century, this doesn’t sound far from a cave man dragging his woman around by her hair.

Second, the honey in the word comes from honeyed mead. The moon portion simply refers to the monthly lunar cycle. The Scandinavian custom in the first months of marriage was to drink the honeyed wine nightly. Even for those couples who actually wanted to hook up, village life was too work-heavy for newlyweds to loll around for long drinking mead or drinking in each other’s eyes. The idea grew from this that no month of marriage would be as sweet as the first with the ritual honeyed mead, especially after you have to get on with “real life.”

Attila took the abduction and mead aspects of honeymooning to new heights—well, more like lows. He was King of the Huns from 433-453 A.D. King Hunny himself not only absconded with another man’s wife, he eventually drank himself to death on mead.

In the Western world, the custom of newlyweds going on a holiday together after marriage is compliments of the British in the 19th century. Nowadays, honeymoons tend to be taken in seclusion to exotic places, or at least somewhere the couple considers special or romantic.

We just came back from Hawaii. We went on a whale-watching cruise and saw the Pearl Harbor Memorial on Oahu. Then we moved onto the Big Island of Hawaii for a week. The main event for us there was swimming with the dolphins followed by a helicopter ride over a live volcano. More details on this trip of a lifetime in another post.

Time, money, circumstances—they just never came together for us to do this until now. But we have something else that made it feel more urgent. Tim, my husband, has a medical condition that affects his mobility. While he’s still walking, he’s not getting around as well as he used to, and he has less endurance. We don’t know what the future will bring. We feel fortunate that Tim has gotten to be a sexagenarian with so much quality of life. Yet we don’t know about tomorrow. So, we swam with the dolphins while we could—something on his “Bucket List”— hang the expense.

Isn’t that how boomers should live their lives, anyway? Even if you don’t have something like a health issue nudging you:

We never know how much sand is in our hourglass.
We do know that by this time of our lives,
there’s more on the bottom than on the top.

I remember one of the sweetest moments in the movie “Michael,” where a rag-tag angel visiting earth, played by John Travolta, is melancholy as his time to leave draws near. He looks around then stares at the sunset and says, “I’m really going to miss this place.” This recollection, written before the trip, became more ironic during it when John lost his young son to a seizure while we were in Hawaii. How truly unpredictable life can be …

So, grab your honey and get every last drop of nectar out of this time around. Where we go next may be even more spectacular. But if an angel—even a fictional one who has been both places— is reluctant to leave Earth, surely we should live every second of life here to the hilt.

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Photo © Yakov Stavchansky Dreamstime.com

Notes: Sources for this post were The Honeymoon by Charles Panati and Wikipedia.

Vanity Fair

My parents nuzzled me gently, “Wake up, honey. Santa’s come!”

It was the most magical morning of the year. I didn’t have the slightest idea what Santa might have brought me. I was only five. I was so excited. I felt like someone plugged Christmas tree lights into a socket in my belly. I felt lit up in rainbow colors.

Padding down the familiar steps in my jammies with feet, I smelled the pine tree. A log burned on the fire in my mind, even if we didn’t have a fireplace! Then I saw it--the most spectacular thing near the Christmas tree that I had ever seen in my whole life. It was a toy vanity, my own little dressing table, just my size, with a real mirror, brushes, combs, and pretend make-up.

Santa had somehow succeeded in bringing me something so perfect; I hadn’t even thought of it myself. A vanity wasn’t in my letter to Santa that I dictated to Mom, and in that moment, I didn’t really care what was. Somewhere there was this Benevolent Being who knew my needs better than I did myself. What’s more, I sensed that he was intimately connected to my mother and father—that maybe he could only do this because they told him all about me.

The ultimate meaning of this indelible, magic moment only became clear once I was as grown-up as Mom and Dad. Christmas is about new beginnings—the rebirth of self in the light of love—the message Jesus first brought to earth on his birthday. Thinking back on that snowy morning in the suburbs of Chicago and to the first Christmas in Bethlehem, I now see a big parallel. Some of the greatest gifts we ever receive are not the ones we ask for but rather those that pleasantly surprise or hide in right in front of us, to be discovered under the tree of everyday life.

A deep one growing up, I found myself easily led to the experiences I needed for my own development, as long as I was open-minded. I didn’t always see, right away, the bigger picture of what was right for me. I’d think back at those times of the vanity—a big and obvious gift with my name on it. I was a glamour girl at heart. I loved to primp and preen. Our cat Suzy was probably the only one in our house any better at it. How did Santa know?

From this simple experience of letting love surprise me, I have since been open to many other surprises stranger than fiction, especially when taken together. I was led to find my birth families--we were separated for 38 years by adoption--and the man who was the lost love of my life and my most unhealed relationship. Once I had a decade to digest these life-changing, lost-and-found experiences, the lesson of the vanity continued to sink in a layer deeper: Be willing to look at yourself.

One day, I was sitting at my computer doing just that by scanning my feelings. I got the nagging suspicion I had someone else to find. I had a rather animated conversation with God. “What now? Who else could I possibly have to find?”

In that moment, I remembered a dramatic dream I had six months earlier about my first boyfriend. Luckily, I am an avid dream journal keeper, and I reread my night movie recap with new eyes. There was a clear message that I needed to touch base with what happened in my very first boy-girl relationship. We were only 12 to 13 in our two years together, but I knew it was more than puppy love. We only broke up because his mom was worried we were too young to be “so serious.” While I wasn’t expecting a romance after 35 years, I still missed his friendship and hoped I’d discover what it all meant by following this surely divine direction.

With the Internet by then connecting phone books and people worldwide, I popped Tim and his unusual surname into a search engine and found him living in Texas. I wrote him a long letter. He wrote back. We were stunned to see how our lives had gone down similar paths over the years—same kind of work, same church, major life moves during the same years. Surprisingly, he had never married. Before I knew it, we were traveling between cities, and he moved to mine less than six months later. We married the following year. Now together eleven years, we are still amazed by the subconscious connection we retained, our grammar school pictures he kept, and how like the vanity, our relationship was there for both of us, under life’s perennial Christmas tree—the perfect gift when the timing was right.

Too bad we call it a vanity with all the egotistical connotations of that word. In my life, the mirror is about having the bravery to see myself and trust in the lesson of that surprise gift by simply making the journey to self-reflection. It is not always an easy trip as we relive pain and others’ imperfections, not to mention our own. Eventually we learn the truth—we are love.

We are the light of the world, a mirror of the love, which is born and reborn annually in this amazing season of peace and hope. Every year we have a new chance to celebrate light. No matter how many visits Jesus or other enlightened ones make to this planet to remind us, we still carry the guiding light within us wherever we go.

It’s the same message in the Chanukah lanterns that refused to burn out; in the sun god, whose return early worshippers sought to ensure at Winter Solstice. It’s in the Muslim Hajj, the annual trip to Mecca all adults must make around this time of year at least once in their lifetime. The ritual promotes the bonds of spiritual family by showing everyone is equal in the eyes of Allah—All One Light.

Regardless of faith, the message is the same: the inner light of love joins us all like twinkling stars in the night sky.

That’s why they call it the Christmas spirit. You can only see it with the inner “I.”

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Note: The original “Vanity Fair” appeared in Unity Magazine in December 1988. This updated version celebrates the 20th anniversary of its publication.

Need more Holiday Hot Flashbacks? Visit these previous posts: Not So Silent Night, Where Are My Christmas Cards?, and Turn on the Lights!

Photo Credit: Dreamstime

Winter Solstice

• I have been doing celebrations at the change of seasons since 1988—twenty years of honoring the cycles of life. Since I’m Santa Claus at heart, it’s no surprise how much I love winter and all the wonderful celebrations from various spiritual traditions that merge into a time of blessings and good humor.

What’s a Solstice?
The word solstice is derived from two Latin words: sol, which means sun and sistere, to stand still. Winter Solstice is one of the two days a year when the Sun stands still. At Summer Solstice, the sun reaches its highest elevation, on or about June 21, our longest day. At Winter Solstice around December 21, the sun is at its lowest height and we experience the longest night of the year. (These dates refer to the solstices in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, the two solstices are exchanged—winter in June, summer in December.) Implied in the solstice standstill is a moment of pause before a significant shift.

Why Celebrate?
Various cultures the world over have celebrated the Winter Solstice for many thousands of years. Winter Solstice observes the beginning of the solar year and rebirth of the sun. Many assume that while the exact date of Jesus’ birth is unknown, there is no accident that the ancient Christian Church selected December 25 to celebrate Christmas. (Based on the astronomical data of the time and reports of the Star of David, believed to be the conjunction or coming together of several planets in the sky, Jesus was much more likely born closer to spring, probably in March.) Winter Solstice was already a day of celebration. As Ellen Jackson conjectures in the children’s book, The Winter Solstice, “It might as well be Christmas, too.” Winter Solstice is much more ancient. It is also known as Yule, and it has many things in common with Christmas, starting with the parallels in the homonyms Sun/Son and the warmth and salvation the birth and rebirth of Light brings to the world.

If Yule captivates you, give yourself a Google little Solstice and check out some of the amazing facts, prayers, meditations, and ceremonies connected with this ancient feast. I won’t focus on them here, because there is a true festival of information right at your fingertips.

I want to do three things in this post: introduce you to one of my favorite solstice myths and walk you through two things I do at every Winter Solstice ceremony that you can do to celebrate the Solstice at home.

Raven Festival
I say often how I find inspiration in many places, and one of my favorite winter myths is from the Alaskan Inuit. I learned their winter solstice story in an episode of one of my all-time favorite TV shows, Northern Exposure. Picture Marilyn, Dr. Joel Fleischman’s secretary, telling this tale, then later in the episode, seeing the natives of Cicely, Alaska portray it as a play:

A long time ago, the raven looked down from the sky and saw that the people of the world were living in darkness. A ball of light was kept hidden by a selfish old chief. So the raven turned himself into a spruce needle and floated on the river where the chief's daughter came for water. She drank the spruce needle. She became pregnant and gave birth to a boy who was the raven in disguise. The baby cried and cried until the chief gave him the ball of light to play with. As soon as he had the light, the raven turned back into himself. The raven carried the light into the sky. From then on, we no longer lived in darkness.

What captivates me about spirituality is how every “flavor” of it repeats the same universal themes, especially a Light in the sky or from the sky that keeps us out of the dark and changes everything.

Burning the Old
I first did a burning bowl ceremony at my local Unity Church. The idea is to write on slips of paper whatever you want to get rid of in your life, whether it’s twenty pounds, a bad attitude or your anger toward your ex-husband. The women in my Solsisters group write fast and furiously in this segment of our Winter Solstice get-together, often scribbling into overtime. I can’t help but be amused sometime at all the catharsis and wrists flying. They line up and burn the paper in the fire. Like confession is good for the soul, dumping old burdens works in this form, too.

Ceremony of Recognition
One year, I realized there was something missing—something we needed to do to complement Burning the Old. We needed to recognize the accomplishments we had each made in the past year. We burn what we want to let go … but how do we memorialize or make permanent what we want to keep?

In the Ceremony of Recognition, we take another few minutes to write down what we feel we accomplished, completed … anything we each feel we deserve to recognize or thank ourselves for. I think many of you will agree that women tend to do too little of this. So here’s a meditation you can use to do your own recognition ceremony. Have pen and paper ready when you’re set to go:

Meditation

Take a three deep breaths and center yourself. Feel at one with Earth.

Now, look at yourself in the Year 2008.

-- What was your proudest accomplishment?
-- What baby steps did you take toward something new?
-- What giant leaps?
-- What did you do that you deserve credit for?
-- How did others recognize you?
-- How did others not recognize you in ways you wish they would have?
-- How were you disappointed? (It is important to recognize our disappointments.)
-- If 2008 had a name or a title phrase, what would it be?

Candlelighting Ceremony
Our Winter Solstice celebration always culminates with passing the light. We each light individual candles, igniting them from each other’s candle, passed down the line. Then we hold them up to show how our lights, merged, light up the entire room—just as the light of our spirits, when joined for good, light up the world.

I hope Winter Solstice is just the beginning of a blessed Yuletide season for you. This year’s theme at my house is the Magical Child Within. I like hosting Winter Solstice, so I can continue to soak up the warmth the Solsisters create that night through the New Year.

I want to end with two quotes, one that honors the eternal child within us and another that honors the sage stage of life represented by the baby boomers who read this blog:

“Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.” –Victor Hugo

“For the unlearned, old age is winter; for the learned it is the season of harvest.” --The Talmud

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Notes: Visit these previous posts for more information on Winter Solstice and celebrating the seasons. This Year’s Solstice Moment, when the Sun Enters Capricorn: Dec. 21, 4:04a PDT (adjust for your time zone in the US or World).

Friendship Feast

My guest co-blogger today is my dear friend, Dana Stone. We’ve known each other since 1980, and neither of us is sure how we’d have made it this far in life without each other. In 2005, we celebrated the Silver Anniversary of our friendship. I am grateful for her every day, but Thanksgiving seems an especially good time of year to share our thoughts on what makes a great friendship tick.

Joyce: Dana, please tell the Cool Insighters a little bit about yourself.

Dana: I am old soul refining the gold and polishing the silver of my Higher Self, while keeping my karmic commitments. I have been a world traveler since birth (courtesy of the US Air Force) and spent my formative years in England and California. This is how I learned diplomacy and an appreciation for all cultures. My native American (BlackFoot tribe) and North African ancestry (Watutsi tribe) instilled in me a great sense of rhythm and a deep appreciation for the spirit of earth and all her resources. My interests run the gamut from teaching Jazzercise to Metaphysics. I love all forms of art, music and dance. Sensitive in the extreme to all things toxic (people, places and hair dyes included), after 32 years of government service, I am embracing my role as an earth elder teaching others authentic empowerment and wellness. I am currently working on developing an intuitive leadership training module for government and corporate professionals, focused on earth-friendly policy development.

Joyce: Let’s swap thoughts on the qualities that make for an enduring friendship. You go first!

Dana: Shared interests, honesty (by this I mean candor with kindness), integrity (will take a confidence to the grave), trust, loyalty (not blind but supportive), common sense and an earthy sense of humor are on the top of my list. A friendship that grows and changes, as you do, is also important.

Joyce: Agreed on commonality of interests—add worldview—between us. It’s as though in the friendship department, we were made for each other—companions on the paths we have chosen, side by side, that parallel through the same woods. How many times did we joke about our first marriages with issues so similar, we sometimes felt like we married the same man? (What a blessing we each did so much better the second time around.) I think just like marriage, our most important friendships have something to do with making a good choice and recognizing “a great match” when you see it. I never thought about it till this moment, but you and I have some of the same things in common that I do with Tim. That is, the same religious background and values. Of course, I have friends from different faiths, but add to the spiritual perspective, so much of our faith is in each other!

Next question: What actions do you see us taking that keep the fires of friendship glowing?

Dana: I see us sharing tips and tools as we embark upon the joys of navigating the Social Security system. I also see us traveling to new vistas, laughing, loving, singing and dancing our way into our dotage.

Joyce: It’s about quality connection. Naturally, a certain quantity is important, but over the years, the various demands on us have meant we couldn’t always spend a lot of time together. Yet the time we spend together is so special—always a treat. We never miss celebrating birthdays, Christmas, or important personal events together. And with our common interests, I can’t count the number of workshops we’ve attended together. Loved our spa weekend getaway for our 25th friendship anniversary, reprising something we did more often when we were both single and life was a little less frenetic. We take time for our friendship, and when we can’t take a lot of time, we make it a celebration—which spills over into the whole quality of our relationship. It is one big celebration of gratitude for us both, and we tell each other how much we mean to each other often. Man, I didn’t think about it much till now, but we’re real gushers!

How ‘bout this: What things do I do for you that are the most supportive?

Dana: You are the best non-judgmental listener ever!!! You hear what I am saying and the intuitive thoughts and emotions behind the words. You are positive and enthusiastic, no matter what crazy idea or undertaking I am proposing, and you have the best referral/resource information database in your planner.

Joyce: For me, you’re “always there” in the most meaningful way to listen and give a positive spin on whatever I’m going through—or to shake a fist at the bad guys who do me wrong! (Especially when I’m being “too nice” to do it myself.) I’d say one way you support me is the same way my mom did—you only see the good in me. When I tell you about some fit I had, you act astonished that I could “lose it.” I don’t need to lose it with you; we’re so simpatico. That’s why you’ve never seen it. My mom had on rose-colored glasses about me, too. Reflecting from adulthood on times I acted like Baby McEvil, she’d insist I was always an angel. Luckily, love is blind (maybe even a little senile!) in motherhood and close friendship, too. You also give great input when I seek advice, keep secrets, and never judge. You liked Tim right away, which was an important barometer for me. I don’t think I could marry anyone that didn’t “feel right” to you. Thanks for all the class you demonstrated on some of my weirder boyfriend choices throughout the years. You’d never discourage me from walking the path of my learning, but you’d never fake enthusiasm, either.

Lastly, what are the qualities I have in our friendship that you are most grateful for?

Dana: I am grateful that you always listen with your heart, are perpetually positive, have awesome creative ideas and can find humor in anything!

Joyce: Laughter is definitely a close second to anything that comes first. How we have howled together! You’re so intelligent, witty, and spiritually savvy. To know you is to love you, and I feel honored to have such a special place in your life. You’ve got a very full dance card when it comes to friends—a line even!

Wrap-Up
I had said this so many times, I was grateful to hear my thoughts echoed on an episode of Sex and the City when Carrie came to the realization that men may come and go, but your friends are who you’re left with when you’re a Golden Girl. It’s rough to think about, but women outlive men on average by more than five years. Many times the woman lives much longer. In some ways, choosing your closest friends is one of the most important decisions you ever make.

May your friendship harvest be like mine and Dana’s—the cream of the crop! We’d love to hear your Comments and special friendship stories.

To read more about Dana as coach, visit her Astral Coach site.


Photo by Theresa Hayes, Dana’s sister, at the wedding of Dana’s stepdaughter on October 5, 2008.

Hot News Flash! Writer Joyce Mason Website

It’s complex, dense, deep, and fun. It’s a web site years in the planning. It’s joycemason-dot-com!

If you wonder about life's mysteries, your purpose and special gifts ... my new website is for you.

Discover my many other facets as a writer. My memoir-writing baby boomer persona is just one. Joycemason-dot-com will be home to everything else I write besides this blog, starting with my body of literature that has proven timeless for decades on astrology, dreamwork, and other symbol systems. If there is one thing that joins all my writing, it’s this: I play the symbols. I see signs in commonplace occurrences as well as the moon, stars, and meaningful coincidences.

There are articles, old and new, and links to my writings on other web sites. I look forward to introducing current readers of Hot Flashbacks to my other works. I also hope to reconnect with many old friends and clients who knew me when these topics were on my front burner—and when I still did individual astrology charts and other spiritually oriented consultations. You’ll find links to other people whose works or products help me share what I’ve learned in the Symbol World. The last tool in my medicine bag from my former practice, Inner Growth Work, is flower essences. Who knew a few drops of a tincture taken under your tongue a few times a day could transform emotions?

There’s an expanded bio, information on books and publications already in print or online, and previews of writings in progress. You’ll discover my poetry—my first genre, also symbol rich—and my genres I call M-in-M’s for short—memoir, inspiration, and mystery.

But the mystery of my new site? Don’t let it linger! Why haven’t you clicked on that link yet? Or this one?

Thanks to all my Cool Insighters who check it out, and if you find it’s for you, I hope to be seeing you in both my cyber “pads” often.

Join me for the fireworks! And let’s crack open some champagne.

Lessons from My Creep-o-Meter

Even though I was born just hours after author Stephen King, I have no taste for anything too creepy. In 1973, I saw two movies that sent my Creep-o-Meter into overdrive.

It was before I moved to the Left Coast. I was visiting from Wisconsin, on vacation to see my poetry editor/ love interest in San Francisco. He suggested we see the movie, Play Misty for Me. Remembering the beautiful song Misty by Johnny Mathis, I figured it was a love story. Turned out to be the Fatal Attraction of its time, the tale of a woman fan obsessed with a DJ, played by Clint Eastwood, also in his directorial debut. The suspense and slow revelation of his stalker’s mental imbalance sucked me in and scared me in the most visceral way. I wanted to crawl under the seat or inside my date’s jacket. I never considered seeing Fatal Attraction after the indelible impression Play Misty left on me. I was deeply weirded out by this movie and cannot erase some of the scenes from my mind to this day. Some people, who have seen them both, think Misty is actually creepier than Fatal Attraction. Misty starts out seeming like the love story I expected—then the twist. I didn’t mind doing the Twist in the ‘50s, but movies that were too twisted didn’t play well for me in any decade.

Then there was Harold and Maude. It opens with young Harold in a bloody suicide attempt--slashed wrists--then minutes later, Harold’s mom walks into another room to find he has hang himself. She remains sarcastic and unfluttered, and soon we learn the joke is on us. Harold stages all these death scenes—now we know they’re fake--in a desperate attempt to connect with dear old Mom. I almost walked out until I recognized it as a dark comedy. I was glad I stayed the course, because this cult classic endeared itself to me, living on the border of life and death and total unpredictability. It scared, then delighted me. I cannot think of this movie without reliving the hilarious scene where a priest tries to counsel Harold about of his “unholy” relationship with Maude, old enough to be his great-grandmother. He imagines out loud, in increasing verbal crescendo, the comingling of his young, firm flesh and hers—wrinkled and sagging. I apologize in advance if I hurt the feelings of any baby boomer readers, in case this hits home too closely. (I meant robbing the cradle, of course, not the wrinkles.)

I have had many personal encounters with people and things that are not as they seem, and learning to deal with these scary surprises seems to be one of the great skills we acquire as we accumulate birthdays. There are the milder forms of the unexpected—the relationships we imagine through our rose-colored glasses to be soul mate material when they are really a joke on us for not seeing every red flag the love object is waving in our face, not even attempting to be dishonest. “Oh, the lies we tell for the sake of love!” Especially to ourselves. Or so goes the opening line of a poem I wrote that amuses me still for my moment of clarity while swimming in that much self-delusion.

Back at the cinema, from these two movies emerge two distinct kinds of unpleasant surprises. Play Misty for Me is an encounter with true danger, something to be avoided at all costs and to run from the minute you see the switch from Jekyll to Hyde or you get the scent of something that gives you goose bumps. Before online dating, I sometimes tried the local singles ads. I connected with a man so smooth, I actually agreed to meet him for the first time at his home—very risky. A switch flipped inside me during one of our conversations, and I called him and backed out. I said if he wanted to meet me, it’d have to be in a public place the first time. I just wasn’t comfortable on a first encounter any other way.

When we met at a restaurant, he chose to have more than one drink, and in the middle of a sentence, his Evil Other emerged. He criticized me unmercifully for not keeping my word about coming to his house—just the warm-up for an onslaught of verbal battering. It was amazing to me that I had given him so much ammunition and personal information in our phone conversations to turn against me. He glommed onto my strong sense of integrity, knowing that the worse thing he could accuse me of is not being forthright or true to my promise. I walked out, fuming, mostly at myself for being so vulnerable, but not without having the last word, which I threw over my shoulder, “You have just proven why I made the right decision not to go anywhere near your house.”

Harold and Maude, on the other hand, represents the experience that seems a little strange at first, but something inside you knows there’s a hitch—some incongruity just sucks you in. Like Harold’s mother acting irritated with his “suicide attempts” instead of screaming or calling the paramedics. Ironically, I almost left Harold and Maude faster than my brush with the singles ads weirdo and my own potential Looking for Mr. Goodbar. There’s another movie I avoided, knowing would be too scary for me to see—especially considering the risks I probably had no idea I was taking during my “bar phase” in my twenties.

We all have an internal alarm system that will keep us out of Harm’s Way if we choose to hear it, but sometimes it conflicts with our desire to keep an open mind—or the way too open heart, eager to find love anywhere. If you feel a chill up your spine or witness any kind of behavior that seems “off” when you really don’t know someone well, that’s the time to run, not walk to the nearest exit.

On the other hand, if something is tickling your funny bone or you can remind yourself it’s “just a movie,” maybe a touch of the creeps is a relatively cheap thrill worth the occasional indulgence. I admit it. I have an approach-avoidance conflict to the bizarre as witnessed by my love of the cult TV show, Twin Peaks and movies like Fargo. I can take dark drama/comedy, no matter how bizarre, as long as there is a lot of comic relief. Often these flicks or shows are too crazy to be real—and somehow the humor dilutes the horror. For the same reason, I’m a fan of the “cocktail mysteries” by J.A. Konrath.

Life without a skipped heartbeat now ‘n’ then might be just a bit too boring for the generation that grew up in the era of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. And, for me,
before that, who grew up on Shock Theatre every Saturday night. I thought I had the most liberal parents on earth in the ‘50s because they didn’t censor my viewing and allowed Marvin and “Dear” to baby-sit me for a couple hours each weekend.

Meanwhile, ready, set, go—trick or treat! May all your things that go bump in the night be imaginary, not real.

Happy Halloweird!

Watts New? A Contest!

Sometimes Cool Insights are more literal than those figurative light bulbs of meaning that pop into our heads more often, the longer we live. After reading my last post on eco-shopping and the Sierra Club Sock-athon, the PR staff at Home Depot asked if I’d share this cool contest with you. I am happy to oblige:

The Home Depot wants to know how people are saving energy in their home in its video contest: “Save Money. Save Energy. Win Big.” Just shoot a short video to show how you're saving money and helping the environment by making your home more energy efficient.

Anyone can log on to www.homedepot.com/youtube to enter their video between now and Nov. 9, 2008. The contest winner will receive a $5,000 Home Depot gift card and up to $2,000 for installed insulation or radiant barrier products from The Home Depot.

Good luck! May the best bulb win—the idea that turns into the best energy savings.

Mentors and My Favorite Myth

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from the animated film, Fantasia, is one of Walt Disney’s most memorable characters. In the millions of images swirling in the subconscious of baby boomers, Mickey Mouse plays an apprentice who gets too big for his britches and starts playing with magic before he has the skills to control some of his experiments. This is just one of many good reasons for a monitored apprenticeship!

Mentoring is a lot like an apprenticeship. Mentors take their mentees under wing to teach them a job, a craft, or a life skill—anything from music to magic to managing to be a kind and loving human being. Mentoring is often more informal than an apprenticeship training program. If you’re a parent, aunt or uncle, an older brother or sister, or a teacher, you mentor others all the time, usually kids. Bosses may ask a long-time employee to mentor another employee new to the job. In Toastmasters, the Vice President of Education assigns all members a more experienced mentor.

The Mentor Years
Now is the perfect time in life for baby boomers to serve as mentors. One definition of mentor is an influential senior sponsor or supporter. Mentors bolster and cheerlead. Memoir writing can be a form of mentoring by example—why I write this genre and encourage other boomers to do so. With 28 percent of the US population reaching the wisdom years all at once, boomers represent more than a brain trust. We’re nearly an embarrassment of riches. As “seasoned citizens,” we have the ability to share what we’ve learned about making life meaningful—not just with other people supposedly entering the golden years—but with people of all ages. Indigenous elders have done this in their tribes for eons. I call this practice indi-genius. In the Foreword of Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights—the book—I talk about a boomer icon, the stage play Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical. Your tribe needs you now more than ever!

Chiron, Mythical Mentor
One of the most fascinating and useful things I learned in my study of astrology is mythology. Planetary bodies are named after mythical beings, mostly from the Greek tradition. Since I’m half-Greek by ancestry, I was probably drawn to the mythology more than most people. It’s in my blood.

I fell in love with the meaning of the planetary body Chiron (KY’-ron), discovered in 1977. As both a planet and myth, Chiron is primarily symbolic of how we find wholeness. Chiron, the planet, was named after the famous and kind centaur, whose upper half was man—his bottom half, horse.

Chiron mentored heroes in Northeastern Greece on Mt. Pelion. His charges were famous in the galaxy of Greek mythological stars, among them Hercules, Asclepius (the Father or Medicine), and Achilles. Chiron became my astrological specialty. Not hard to understand why I fell in love! Chiron symbolizes a skeleton key that unlocks the portal to where we find fulfillment. I learned there is both a personal and community aspect to “finding ourselves.” We all have gifts we must give in order to feel complete. I write about this need in a chapter of Hot Flashbacks called, “It’s Just Got to Come Out of You.” However, it’s not satisfying to live our passions in a vacuum. We must find how to give our gifts in a way that also benefits our community.

How Chiron Mentored Heroes
Chiron provided a well-rounded education to young heroes-in-training at his boarding school on Mt. Pelion. His education was holistic and included not just the martial arts, but the creative arts, as well. He taught in a balanced way, the full spectrum of skills, from archery to music. The discovery of Chiron coincides with men getting in contact with their animas, helping to rear children, like the many Chiron both foster-parented and mentored. Once there was matriarchy, then there was patriarchy. The discovery of Chiron signals a chance in our lifetime for true integration of all polarities within us and the “oppositions” we experience with others. One of his astrological meanings is bridge between heaven and earth. If we’re not in inner or outer conflict, that’s heaven!

My Mentoring Assignment
I was just sitting at my computer minding my own business one day recently, when I got a surprise request from a friend. Would I be interested in mentoring her daughter, a high school senior, in a writing project? My heart said yes immediately—it nearly leapt out of my chest. My mind, of course, said “too busy.” After asking some questions about time commitment and specific need, I sat with the idea and got a green light from Spirit. Kayla and I have teamed on her book-writing project. I love playing Chiron, and I can’t wait to see how this relationship contributes to the development of her special gifts. I could tell from the first paragraph of her book: she is a terrific writer and visionary in the making. I am already proud of anything I can do to coach her into what leaps off the page as her true destiny.

Where Can You Mentor?
Of course, there are many opportunities to become a mentor, if this idea appeals to you. Transmit your desire from your mind-spirit and bolster them with prayer, meditation, or however you connect with the larger cosmic consciousness. This intention will often bring a chance to help right to your doorstep, telephone—or e-mail box!

However, if your inner guidance says seek, and ye shall find, you can start with the organization, Mentor. It defines mentoring and provides a list of organizations, such as Big Brothers & Big Sisters, searchable by zip code and within a designated mile radius. I was surprised to find a dozen organizations within 15 miles of my home providing mentoring services to young people. Churches and nearly every other kind of organization offer opportunities to help show the ropes to members, both young and older alike. In my own church, I am a lay minister in a program that mentors individuals returning to their faith after a long absence. Since I’d been there and done it—returned after more than 40 years away—I wanted to share the excitement of how I integrated my larger spiritual journey into my homecoming to the church of my childhood.

Mentoring Magic
If I can help Kayla take even a single step toward claiming the place where she lives her passion, while sharing her greatest gifts with others, it will be one of my most fulfilling accomplishments. There is a divine domino effect in “each one, teach one.” There is no doubt in my mind why no man is an island. Earth is a school, and each human being we encounter is one of the many mentors or teachers in the custom curriculum of our soul development.

Who could resist helping create a planet with a lot of soul?



Image: The Education of Achilles (ca. 1772) by James Barry (1741-1806), oil on canvas, depicting the education of Achilles by the centaur Chiron. Located at the Yale Center for British Art. Public domain.

Tone Deaf

Don’t let the title mislead you. I have sung my whole life—voice lessons starting at age three—so I know how to find a note and carry a tune …

…when I can hear it! One of my favorite chapters in Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights—the book—is called “Huh?” It’s about when I discovered that my natural hearing batteries were running low. So, I don’t excel in audio. But hearing aids?

Talk about a blow to the ego. I am a baby boomer. I am a vain baby boomer, so if I had to do some old lady’s gig, I wanted total in-canal aids, the kind you can’t see unless you’re looking for them with a magnifying glass.

I also wax poetic in my book—no ear pun intended— about how one of my favorite characters, Gil Grissom on CSI, has a hearing problem far worse than mine. It could threaten his career, although I doubt that’s why his character will leave the show this season. And I reveal one of my nuttier pastimes, signing the words to “Who Are You” by The Who at the beginning of each show. That’s signing as in sign language, although I sing the song at the same time, too. Sign language is something I learned years ago, before I ever learned I might need it someday.

One of the drawbacks to my jazzy little Phonak hearing aids is that they are omni-directional. Freely translated, when I hear a sound, I’m not sure which direction it’s coming from. This could be dangerous, if not fatal. Imagine a car or train with a loud horn blaring at me, and I think it is aiming at me from the left, and I jump right—into its path!

This is one reason why I’m letting my Audriologist—my audiologist named Audrey—talk me into a different kind of hearing aids next time around. She claims they’re still discreet. I claim you can see them short of a safari into my ear canals, which makes them distasteful. But I realize I won’t care what I look like if I’m (gulp) dead!

One of the other drawbacks to being omni-directional, besides not being sure where a sound is coming from--when a cell phone rings, I’m not sure whose it is. If you’re a cheapskate, like me, who balked at popping for a ring tone and paying extra, you’re stuck with the standard issue. Most people “mobilize” with only a few main carriers, so the chances are, your ring tone is on a lot of other people’s cell phones. I not only can’t tell where it’s coming from; I can’t tell if it’s mine. Joe Blow and Jane Doe, both standing within five feet of me, might have the same tone.

There’s one more issue. Am I the only person so annoyed by Brenda Leigh Johnson’s ringtone on The Closer that I’d like to throw her phone against the wall? There is distinctive; then there is downright irritating. All the tones loaded into my newest cell phone are so obnoxious; it’s a clear conspiracy by my cell phone company to make more money selling sounds. Sounds a human being can actually stand.

True confessions: I have always wanted “Who Are You” as my ringtone. Not only am I an avid fan of all the CSI’s and their theme songs by The Who, but what could be cuter or more ironic? It rings and sings—“Who are you?” Purchasing ring tones is something I have always feared, especially with those crazy companies that have fine print, forcing you to sell your firstborn and all your grandchildren if you don’t pay a zillion dollars a month for the privilege of playing with cell phone music. They seem like scary swindlers and way too expensive.

Clearly, life was a lot simpler and cheaper when we had single-color, black rotary dial phones, when private lines were a newfangled luxury, and when our phone “numbers” were a misnomer, because they had both numbers and letters. (GArden 5-5194. Do you remember yours?)

Back from my nostalgia trip to today’s more complex communications: Late at night, I often can’t wind down, and that’s when I make my worst online purchasing mistakes—or get it right by accident—both of which happened with my new ringtones. I felt more comfortable buying them from Verizon, my carrier. After all, we already have a personal relationship, and if they pull a fast one, I can take my business elsewhere. After my new two-year contract expires.

On previous searches, I’d never been able to find a major company that carried “Who Are You,” only those in the scary-expensive category. To my delight, Verizon now has it! I like to do a different tone for calls from home and my husband’s cell, calls that come only from him. (The cats haven’t mastered calling. Hard to do without opposable thumbs.) For Tim, I chose “My Guy” by Mary Wells, a boomer classic I adore, one we often play on the jukebox at Mel’s.

Now for the mistake. I noticed there were two categories, ringtones and ringback tones. I wasn’t sure what ringback tones were, I was tired, and I bought one—another boomer fave, “You’ve Got a Friend.” This version is sung by Carole King.

I found out it’s “on hold” music while your phone connects. So, my friends will know they’ve got me, even if they don’t have me on the line. “Ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a friend?” Be patient. She’s coming!

This trio only cost me a one-time fee of $3 for each ringtone and $2 for the ringback tone. Of course, there’s a $1/month access fee for ringtones, so figure with the $12 annual charge, it’s $20. And another $12 next year, the year after, etc. They were my birthday present to myself for the joy I’ll get hearing those tunes each time the phone rings—and knowing it can only be my phone.

The new hearing aids cost $5,000. I think I got an incredible bargain by comparison.

Still, my new ringtones don’t tell me which direction the train is coming from ……

Autumn EquiKnocks

What inner seeds of hopes and dreams will you harvest this autumn? Think about what you have wanted to create in your life since the natural New Year last spring. How are your “crops?” What progress have you made?

We are again on the cusp of the Autumn Equinox, that comfortable, predictable change of season that gives us continuity and a sense of order on Planet Earth. Autumn comes knocking at our door in the US on September 22 at 8:45 AM Pacific—adjust for your time zone. One of my first posts last year, Happy Autumn Equinox, is often visited and has a lot of generic information about the season from a spiritual and symbolic standpoint.

This year, I’m treating all you Cool Insighters to an excerpt from Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights—the book. It’s from the chapter, “The AARP Card.” Imagine the crisp breeze and leaves falling:

I was born on the cusp of autumn. It’s my favorite season, even though I always get somewhat depressed during that time of year. I wonder if it brings back deeply unconscious memories of my original loss of my birth mom and my rough start in life. Or maybe the smell of early fires and the suggestion of winter in the air remind me of death and dying, as plants go dormant. There is a sad, bittersweet quality about autumn. Everything is most vibrant and bountiful right before winter—when it dies.

I also experienced many losses during autumn: moving from my childhood home, leaving home for the first time to go off to college, and ultimately, the deaths of my mom and brother. I wonder if I sensed those losses would come during that time of year, long before their illnesses. It would explain the blues I’d sometimes feel in the midst of leaves turning colors I consider among the wonders of the world. If I were to bet what time of year I’ll go back to the earth…

On the other hand—enough mourning—autumn holds two of my favorite holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving. I love costumes and the threat of a good prank. Best of all, I love a holiday that forces even the stingiest people to open their pockets to the kids and the dentists in the neighborhood.

I grew up in a time that preceded worries about razor blades in apples and Ex Lax in brownies. Homemade goodies were actually a welcome part of my Halloween booty. Being a Venus Girl—someone with a lot of planets in Libra or Taurus in my astrological chart, ruled by Venus, the Goddess of Love and Beauty—you’d never see me in an ugly costume. No hook noses or fake warts. I’m sure I played plenty a pretty princess or ballerina in my youth, not that I still remember.

As a younger grown-up, I’d never miss an opportunity to do something wild and wacky in the Costume Department. Some of my favorites include:

· Auntie Mame, one of all-time heroines and literary characters, with flapper garb and trumpet from the musical version of the story

·

The Purple People Eater—one eye, one horned, purple from head to toe, and flying into the costume promenade at work playing the old song by Sheb Wooly on a tape recorder

· A blue cosmic cowgirl in a kinky blue wig and cowboy hat, blaster at hip, and

· A Christmas tree.

I suppose you could argue I was mixing my holiday metaphors on the Christmas tree, but it was cool. I had a star on my head, wore a handmade green felt poncho that held garland, bulbs, and other ornaments, and I carried a wrapped box by a string that I pulled underneath myself when I spread my arms out, assuming the tree pose.

These last ten years, I haven’t done much with costumes, which does make me worry I might be getting old and no one told me. However, I always, at minimum, wear a black t-shirt with some Halloween message on it and pumpkin jewelry that glows in the dark.

More recently, I have become infatuated with

Dias de los Muertos or Day of the Dead, the Mexican holiday that begins the day after Halloween. Its purpose is to honor the dead and, at the same time, to thumb your nose at Death. Los Dias de los Muertos is not a sad time, but instead a time of remembering and rejoicing. Dias paraphernalia includes all those comic pictures of skeletons smiling doing various fun things like dancing. I have one under the clock in my office. The skeleton is grinning at his computer, wearing a pair of headphones. On the screen, it says Great American Novel. It definitely encourages me to get clacking away on my books, but if I run out of time, I hope I get to find out how you can still finish a book with whatever remains. Guess I may have to rethink cremation.

Then there is Thanksgiving, a holiday I truly attempt to celebrate every day of the year, not just during the big turkey spread and official kick-off to the winter holiday season. Gratitude is at the heart of a great life. The more we say thank you, the more the universe returns its bounty. Spirit, like people, appreciates those who don’t take giving for granted. Life is so rich. To quote my favorite Auntie (Mame, of course), “Life’s a banquet and most poor slobs are starving to death.”

Dig into the banquet. When Autumn EquiKnocks, answer the door with a big yes to her bounty. May your cornucopia and your gratitude overflow. In the words of William Blake:

"Gratitude is heaven itself."

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!