There’s a big 12-day party going on over at The Spirited Woman Face Book page. We’re all invited to post pictures and poetry and music. Here’s what I posted… big enough for you to see!
Catch the Spirited Women Wind! Day One
It is a universally accepted truth that doing something silly will diffuse most stressful situations involving children. In fact the more foolishly you behave the more successful you will be. Tonight the “Toad of Truth” visited at bed time. The “Toad of Truth” is me in a hat that is part of a Toadstool mushroom costume from the Super Mario Bros. video games. This visiting Toad had the ability to answer two questions per child. Toad of Truth also happened to have an interesting accent (accents always help).
Bringing out the toad in me was not planned. The kids were having a hard time accepting that it was bedtime and I saw the hat on the floor and went with it. The fact that the hat was on the floor could have reminded me that I need to clean the boys room but I am far too creative for such thoughts. Instead Toad of Truth was born to ease bed time stress.
“Toad of Truth” will likely make future appearances at the Curley house and beyond. I am thinking he would be great for doctor visits and even some pre-surgery silliness! Nicholas’s born Fibular Hemimelia has created lots of moments in which distraction is not only useful but necessary. Therefor having a trick to pull out of my hat (or a hat trick to pull on) is always a good thing.
If you’ve ever wheeled your child into surgery then you know what I mean. Those moments are some of the most vivid and heart wrenching memories I have. Watching your child go under anastesia is not easy for anyone. Being calm for Nicholas is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do but it is vital! I want him to be in a peaceful frame of mind before surgery if at all possible. Now I have “Toad of Truth” to add to my distraction repertoire.
Distraction is not a new trick I know. Please feel free to comment and share your own techniques. But be warned according to the “Toad of Truth” nothing tops the Toad!
I met Deborah Brown, of Boomer and the Babe Network: Giving voice to 78 million Boomers from Coast to Coast and Border to Border, as part of my involvement in The Spirited Women 2012 Directory: Resource for a Spirited Life. Deborah asked me to come on and talk about both Sacred Village and The Councils of Elders Experience. And as is always true, when two spirited women get together, the conversation ranges wildly. I’ll be looking to see what Deborah and I decided to do (and with whom) with the notion of three knots. As my friend Josh mentioned, there’s also a pretty good back story to who I am and how I got here.
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Just because I’m working hard to get everything ready for The Spirited Woman 2012 Directory: Resources for an Inspired Life doesn’t mean I get to slack off as the Priestess!
Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been watching community form around this directory. What’s very interesting and inspiring is that so much of the work being done is being done to help someone else. Or to welcome them. Or to praise them.
All of these women are women who want to increase their visibility or make their bottom line grow. But when Nancy Mills, who conceived of this project, she began to talk about all of us as Women Visionaries, changing the world. And you know what? Words have power. We begin to believe that not only we can change the world, but also that it is our obligation. So you might see hands stretching out from Kenya to Kansas and change happening. And that will be a wonderful thing.
Starting on the first, I’m going to interview some of these women, asking them about the places they want to make a difference. It will be interesting to see what they have to say.
In the meantime, Keep building that World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.
Ann
Dear Shoppers of America,
Black Friday has come and gone, and with it we have witnessed more than our fair share of the worst of humanity. The most attention-grabbing headline was the one about the woman who shot pepper spray into a crowd to defend her deeply discounted X-Box. But of course, there was a shooting in a parking lot as a family resisted a gunman trying to steal purchases, a tazing, and another trampling, though this one didn’t result in death. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture. ‘Tis the season, I suppose.
People, we’re better than this. This is supposed to be the season for expressing peace on Earth and good will to all men and all that stuff. Peace on Earth? Is not achieved by shooting people in a parking lot and strafing a crowd with scorching pepper extracts in the name of X-Box ownership. I could blame the stores—they don’t HAVE TO pound us relentlessly with ads promising everything at an unbelievable price, though that is their job. I could blame the advertising agencies who send out a beat beat beat to buy buy buy and have gotten pretty darn skillful in equating shopping with happiness. I could blame the news, who spend all of Black Friday following projected sales estimates and alternatively telling us we’re reviving the economy and fulfilling our patriotic duty by hitting the malls. I could, but I won’t. That lets us off the hook and people, it’s time for a moment of reckoning.
Of course we want to make our loved ones happy and of course we want to get them what they want, but are you sure this is the path to happy? Loved ones want time + an expression of interest. Do we think, “I’d love to have a conversation with the brother I don’t really talk to” or, “I have a brother I don’t talk to; I wish he’d give me a gift certificate to Macy’s so I know he loves me.” As adults, do we look back on our lives and think, “Man, if Mom and Dad had gotten me that Barbie doll in the fourth grade, I’d be so much better off right now…they should have shot someone in a parking lot to get it.”
Question: Has anyone died from not receiving something on Christmas? Of course not, and I’m ridiculous, right? Then when did the stakes become so high in the shopping?
In light of all this, I’m going to ask you all to remember these simple holiday tips:
We’re all in this together, people, so let’s alter the direction this holiday season has started going down, and make it one filled with joy and peace. Let’s make this the year to start a new tradition, one of happy, healthy memories that have nothing to do with unfettered wants and neglected emotional needs. Bake the cookies, take the walks, plan the winter picnics and please, please, let the people you love know how much you love them in word and interested action. Participate in the spirit of the season because I guarantee you, that message isn’t printed on the outside of an X-Box.
Peaceful holidays!
Terri
Come and listen to me on Boomer and the Babe radio on Monday morning. 12 pm Eastern, 9am Pacific. We’re going public with The Councils of Elders Experience. It’s exciting, just a little anxiety-producing… but very fun. You’re going to enjoy Pete Peters and Deborah Brown. There’s some great stuff coming, my dears! Worlds are going to change — and we’re going to be the ones doing the work! (and reaping the benefits!)
This was an amazing story. A man with schizophrenia spent a fair amount of his life thinking that he was talking to God and/or Jesus. It interfered with his life; interrupted his studies, ruined relationships. Eventually he lost much of what life as he had known it. He went on medication; but the doctor never asked him about his hallucinations and what they might mean.
He went to the woods and found some solace and eventually some friends who guided him back to his medications. Somewhere he found a way to ask himself what these delusions of relationship to the Divine might mean. Even though the delusions were somewhat lessened by the drugs, he still had this impulse. He decided to channel these impulses for the good. He does good works and works for causes driven by the voices in his head. He works to bring to justice
He has a job. He has a family. His new family have helped him learn to set boundaries. But within those boundaries and within his loving family he has been encouraged to continue to care for the world. He has taken every bit of who he is, the whole and the broken parts and reached out to the world. Medicine wanted only to silence the voices. Milton Greek thought they might have something worth listening to. And so he does… and then he does good. Many of us don’t struggle half as hard as he does, and yet, we don’t take time to the voices within which push us to stand up and make a difference. What an exceptional man.
It is easy to write about the “champion mommy” moments. Fortunately I’ve had enough of them not to be devastated by another crop of moments, most mommies don’t care to share. The sad, inadequate, moment of truth moments such a the following…
Charlotte came to me after she got home from school to say “you’re not taking care of me enough Mommy because Chris and Bess are little and Nick has a cast and you’re not taking care of me.” Wow! Horror! Sadness! Then I seriously realized how amazing it was for a six year old to be so expressive about her feelings and needs. Am I thinking this to make myself feel better… Maybe but it’s true!
I knew she was feeling left out. I had tried taking her on errands with me and snuggling more but sometimes it is not enough and she let me know it. She didn’t act out or be mean to her siblings. She talked and cried and I held her. When her crying let up enough so that she could hear me, I apologized and reassured her as best I could.
It is not easy for the siblings of children with differences. Right now Nicholas is getting additional attention. How could he not? But that means I also have to work harder to make sure his siblings’ needs are met too! I can do more for Charlotte. I will take more time with her doing the little things. I will pull her closer and hope that is enough. I won’t be taking her shopping to try to buy some happiness. I will simply do better.
As parents, it’s not easy to admit when we’ve missed the mark but we have to be observant and willing to act on what we see. Even when that means modifying our own behavior and saying “I’m sorry”, instead of blaming the child and making excuses. Maybe it’s a different kind of way to be a champion mommy after all.
The scene: A New Jersey Transit train, pulling in to Penn Station (New York).
Imagine this: a nearly full commuter train pulls into a busy terminal in New York City. One of the commuters is a woman—petite, fairly young, with a backpack and, of all things, a cello. She’s clearly used to the burden of carrying said cello, because she’s moving it about with a casual ease. A non-cello-bearer, like me, would probably be far too nervous about breaking it or dropping it or stepping on it or somehow managing to initiate launch codes in it and set off a small thermonuclear reaction inside the carrying case. This lady? Exudes no fear that she will inadvertently explode her cello. However, she does need to maneuver the cello out of the narrow train seats and into the aisle so she can leave, which requires a little more effort than a gentle slip into the relentless stream of people heading towards the exit. She’s ready to go, but is going to be there a while.
Would you stop? Would you notice her? Can you step outside your agenda-based reverie to recognize that a ten-second delay would go practically unnoticed by the line of commuters and make that woman’s life much easier? Would that matter do you?
I’m happy to say that I did. It didn’t take much; I just stopped, and gestured for her to get herself out of the seat and on her way. I remember her look of surprise—she actually said, “Really?!?” And, as expected, she was able to get herself moving in a matter of seconds. I’ll say it was ten, but maybe it was less.
For whatever reason, I decided to watch her. As she got nearer to the exit, she let someone else out into the aisle in front of her. That was nice, I thought. Then the second person? Let someone else out in front of her. That person then held a door open for another commuter. And so on, and so on. Before I lost track, I saw something like seven generations of selflessly-paid attention, of unexpected courtesy, of unabashed civility. I hesitate to call it “paying it forward” since that phrase has become a little hackneyed in our culture…and it also sounds to me like one’s “pay it forward”-esque behavior is calculated. What I did, and I what I will continue to believe the rest of the people in that succession of pleasantries did, was simply behave as we ought. And that, friends, is what shared humanity is all about.
If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.
In celebration of the Spirited Woman 2012 Directory, Resources for an Inspired Life, a movement started by the Visionary Nancy Mills, I offer this prayer.
