Gettin' Earthy!

Now that I’ve started talking about the four elements, I’ll confess: I’ve always been an earthy woman. In my youth, it was easy to see. I oozed sensuality like most twentysomethings in the days of free love with no strings attached. In Hot Flashbacks, I mention how boomers my vintage were lucky. The AIDS epidemic didn’t rear its ugly head until nearly a decade after we made love and not war till there was no fight left in us. I delighted in bawdy jokes back then and salty language, too. I had no idea that these tendencies were so heavily driven by hormones. I hope you’ll enjoy reading in the book about some of my more hilarious epiphanies when my hormones stopped and, finally, I could be motivated by something other than my “animal urges,” as an ex of mine once called them.

Earth is my element in more ways than one. The signs in my astrology chart are primarily Earth (Sun, Moon, and Ascendant). In Chinese medicine, which has been my ancient adjunct to the modern allopathic kind for over 20 years, Earth is my element—the one that needs constant tune-up.

It should have come as no surprise to me, then, that Earth and environmental protection became my job. For over half my long civil service career, I worked in waste reduction and recycling programs. The rest of my astrology chart is primarily Air, so, again, it was predictable that astrology would be my side job. I love making the bridge from Earth to Sky and back. You might say I’m in my element(s).

This week we celebrate our Valentine’s Day to the planet—Earth Day. My last post was a lead-up to this important day each year to take stock of where we are as individuals, and as a community, in keeping our globe vital and viable.

Earth Day started in spring of 1970 and has grown bigger and better over the years with vast varieties of local celebrations and opportunities to do your part to save your little corner of the world. I won’t argue about whether or not global warming is real and if the Earth needs saving. As a person who has worked on the inside of environmental stewardship, I am sorry to report from many trusted leaders that it might already be too late to save many species and resources that we take for granted. Late, but not impossible. We like drama; witness our choices in TV programs. Maybe that’s why we’re waiting for the 11th hour.

I belong to a church named after St. Francis of Assisi. Not only was “St. Frank” the Dr. Doolittle of his time who talked to the animals and is their patron; he is also the patron of ecology. I celebrated Earth Day at a day retreat with Sr. Linda Gibler, a contemporary and learned nun with credentials in cosmology.

One thing that came up in this breathtaking Earth Day retreat with Sr. Linda, her second in a row with us, is how the media has influenced our view of the world. In the ‘50s, television first became affordable to the public. With the acquisition of that little box came our first awareness of what was going on with people in other parts of the world. Prior to that, only a fortunate few had any direct contact with those in other countries, real or vicarious. TV planted the first seeds with everyman and everywoman that there were everypeople dotting our Earth with the same hopes and dreams with similar and sometimes unique concerns. Slowly we learned about starving children, genocide, and natural disasters, building global connection and compassion. The Internet brought the global community together in a way none of us who pre-date it could have ever imagined.

Back to David Suzuki and how we are the Earth and its four elements:

Use this Earth Day to dig dirt! Make digging it both figurative and literal. Play in the dirt, pot plants, dig in the garden, and dig up those ugly shrubs. Take a nature walk and notice what things pop out of it speak to you. Actually, listen for their psychic dialogue. We did this on our Earth Day retreat and decided it doesn’t matter where the voice comes from, even if it’s only a subconscious place in our own minds. A buttercup is often very wise—or the buttercup part of our brains—whichever.

Use less, recycle everything you can, and bring your own cloth shopping bags to the market. Minimize your use of bottled water (buy a reusable bottle ) to help keep all those plastics out of landfills and learn which ones are safe. Keep abreast of these and other green issues. Make your next car a hybrid. Discover some of the truly creative ways people are making recycling pay—literally! We are all four elements, but earth is the one that represents our home, the only place humans inhabit, as far as we know. One of the things Sr. Linda observed—as our scientific knowledge changes, so does our story. Maybe if we find life on other planets, they’ll have advice for taking better care of ours.

Most of all hone your relationships and make more of them without geographical boundaries. That’s the earthiest thing you can do. Peace and cooperation on Earth is what will save it. This we can only do one friend, colleague, councilperson, cyber buddy, or family member at a time. When we know we are the Earth and so is everyone on it, there is no other option but being an Earth Mama or Papa, protective of our family.

And speaking of the Mamas and the Papas, that groovy boomer band, maybe one of their greatest hits, with a few minor adjustments to the lyrics, can become our Planetary International Anthem: This Is Dedicated to the One I Love.

Each night before I go to bed, my baby.
I whisper a little prayer for you, my baby …

Cool Mini-Flashes

While most of my Hot Flashbacks and Cool Insights take at least a chapter to build up a string of experiences to synthesis, here are some nuggets I call mini-flashes, single insights or moments of aha gleaned from the longer Hot Flashbacks tales with their chapter names noted. Enjoy!

"Once a Catholic, always a Catholic,” the nuns used to singsong. I
always thought this litany was pure religious propaganda. Except it turns
out to be true. I don’t even bother to say ex-Catholic anymore. Doesn’t
matter if you don’t practice it. It’s still your orientation, like
sexuality—something you can’t help. A friend recently said, “It’s in
your genes.” I believe Catholicism runs that deep. Someday, I fully
expect someone will discover a DNA marker for it.

--Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary

When we were barely teenagers, my first boyfriend Tommy Shire and I used to meet while I walked our boxer dogs, Duchess and Lady, in the weedy vacant lot next to our suburban Chicago townhouse. We’d steal kisses between dog droppings. Little did I know at the tender age of twelve how much that scene symbolized life.

– That Doggone Hit Parade


The first time I heard the odd expression “golden handcuffs,” I could not get over how well it described my career in government. I had not considered seriously; I had been abducted by benefits and was being held hostage by my own need for comfort and security. What’s worse for my colleagues and me and anyone seduced by these goodies, whatever their job: We all suffered from Stockholm Syndrome, falling in love with our captors—ourselves and our own bullshit.

--Golden Handcuffs


The Twenty-Third Psalm has always been one of my favorite prayers, even though it’s mostly said at funerals. I used to consider this morbid till I got old enough to realize how fragile we are as humans--how much we live at death’s door at all times. That’s why I love that prayer, especially the line: Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.

As you get older, the Shadow gets thicker. It goes from partly cloudy to seriously overcast, the closer you inch to the unknown finish line of life. There are only two ways you can deal with this fact. You can be bummed out or you can do what you did when you were a kid—get your thrills off living on the edge.

--Valley Girl

I am convinced that even the horniest people on earth cannot spend more than five to ten percent of their relationship in bed over the long haul. We have to make a living, raise children, pursue our interests. Since the vast majority of a relationship happens outside the bedroom, how can we expect to form a sound one when it starts there …and we never really want to get out of bed?

--Where Are My Keys? I Need a Sex Drive!

That boom in our name: It can do more than blast through the old way of aging that gives up and gives out. It can be the blast of reality, a fiery sword of truth that mediates between these conservative (‘50s) and rebellious decades of our youth (‘60s/’70s) and these extremes within ourselves. What makes us so special is our wiring to be weavers of wholeness within—and within today’s world.

--Sixties Reprised