Elizabeth Engstrom's Blog, page 8

A Cautionary Tale

Three days ago, my computer locked up. This was a problem because I was in the middle of posting grades for my university students, and my impotence with the situation sent me into a dither. Thank God for the Geeks, who found the problem after a quick diagnostic. I had a simple software incompatibility. They fixed me and I’m back in business. Grades were posted on time, thanks to my dear friend Ron, who loaned me a laptop with all the software I needed and understood. But what if Ron hadn’t been available? What do we do when we’re suddenly without computer? No calendar, no ability to work, no email, and a not-exactly-current backup.

Fortunately, my tale ends well, and I’m making plans to prepare for the next time this happens, for surely it will happen again.

But let me tell you another story.

In September, Al and I went on a cruise. We made it to the cruiseport to check in well ahead of time, only to find 2,000 people sitting in chairs, waiting. The cruise computers were down. We waited three hours before being allowed to board. Needless to say, everybody was low-blood-sugar testy, as we all anticipated going aboard for lunch. Fast forward a delicious ten days, and it’s time to leave.  We get to the airport and the airline’s computers were down. This delayed our flight. We get to Chicago, to Immigration/Customs and guess what? Computers were down. This made us late for our connecting flight. We race to the gate that is listed on the big Departure board. The flight has already boarded, but the gate attendant opened the door for us and let us race down the jetway to the plane, but someone was sitting in our seats!

Guess what? This plane was going to San Francisco, not Portland. The computer on the Departure board had it wrong. We had to run, again, to a completely different concourse to catch our flight, which was, conveniently enough for us, late.

We got home all right, and against all odds, our luggage arrived with us. The whole thing has now become a squirmy memory of difficulty in traveling, particularly international travel. But more than that, it seems like a portent of events to come. A very squirmy thought indeed. And that was just one day of travel for two people.

We are horrendously dependent on technology. This in itself is not a bad thing, except that I expect that we’re horrendously unprepared for an internet meltdown. This country, and perhaps the entire world would momentarily grind to a halt.

Would that be a bad thing? Maybe not, unless you’re stuck at O’Hare airport in Chicago. Or worse.

It’s worthwhile to give a thought to our personal dependence on this technology.  I’d love to hear your conclusions.

A Writing Conference in Eugene?

Yesterday, I had a preliminary meeting with Juanita Metzler of Travel Lane County, and Matt Lowes, writer, teacher, man of unlimited energy, and we hammered out some initial ideas and goals for a good writing conference for Eugene. The Register-Guard helped by posting a notice about the first public meeting on October 4, 3-5pm at the Travel Lane County offices at 754 Olive St., Eugene, Oregon.

We three came away extremely excited about the prospect of bringing world-class writers to our community to share that community and bounty of nature that we all love so much.  We don’t want to compete with other writing conferences that are established and do what they do so well, like the Willamette Writers Conference in Portland which is held every August. That is a big, stellar conference. No, we’re looking for something smaller and perhaps a little more specialized, without excluding the local writers upon whom we will depend to help with the organization. A conference runs on a battalion of volunteers.

After all, we’re all in it for the story, right? It all comes down to character, plot, motivation, setting and structure, whether you’re writing romance, science fiction, fantasy, thriller or mystery.

Anyway, we’re open to suggestions of all types. If you have a good idea for a name for this conference, or a theme, or a presenter you’d like to hear, or a type of class you’d like to teach or take, let me know. If you have ideas where we can acquire seed money to get this thing off the ground, we will be forever grateful. If you want to attend the meeting where I hope we will make some definitive decisions and begin to enlist volunteer captains, pop me an email, as the Travel Lane County conference room only holds so many souls.

Fun. Very fun.  A new adventure in writing.

About Melanoma

It occurs to me that this could be a teaching moment about melanoma.

My first melanoma began as a large freckle on my left ankle, the size of a dime, with a small flat black mole on the bottom edge of it. The pair had been there since I was a teenaged sun worshipper in the Hawaiian Islands, slathering on baby oil to gently sauté my skin to a golden brown in the tropical sun.

Fast forward thirty-some years to a Jazzercise class in Eugene, Oregon. At the first spring class, I put away my leggings and wore shorts. At the end of class, we were stretching, and I had my face down by my ankle for a close view. The freckle was puffed and pink, now the size of a quarter, the flat black mole was raised up tall, and at the top of the freckle was a little pink nodule with a vein clearly visible in it.

Not to my liking.

The next morning, the freckle was as brown and flat as ever, but the mole was still tall, and the little nodule still there.  When I scratched lightly on the freckle, it puffed up pink.

Since I’m a writer, research is my middle name, and my skin full of moles (I’ve had over a dozen small squamous cell carcinomas cut or frozen off my chest, face and forearms over the years), I went to the internet to look at photos of melanoma. (If you want to see some real nightmare stuff, Google melanoma photos. Good lord!) Mine didn’t look anything like that. But, I reasoned, could it eventually.

Yes.

I went to my family doctor who said he was certain it was nothing, but biopsied not only the tall black mole, but the little nodule. In doing so, he cut right through the freckle. The mole came back malignant melanoma, Breslow’s .9mm, Clark’s level IV. The nodule came back melanoma insitu. No clear margins.

I had a Wide Local Excision with a 3” in diameter skin graft and a sentinel node biopsy. This is where they inject blue dye into the tumor to see what lymph basins it will drain to. Mildly interesting. Made me pee blue for two days.

The freckle was all melanoma. They took out two lymph nodes, both negative for tumor. “What’s next?” I ask.

“If you start coughing blood or have a seizure, give us a call,” was the response from the surgeon.

“Really? No skin checks? No admonition to stay out of the sun?”

“That ship has sailed,” he said.

“Am I cured?”

“We only consider a melanoma patient to be cured of melanoma when they die of something else.” (Note to self: Keep a journal of jarring things that doctors say.)

Well, thanks to the internet, the Melanoma Patients’ Information Page (www.melanoma.org), and a lot more research, I am far more knowledgeable about melanoma than either my general physician or that surgeon. I have taken it upon myself to stay abreast of treatments and my own body. Eighteen months after my WLE, I found an oncologist and argued my way into a brain MRI and a body CT scan, all with negative results. He told me that from here on out, call if I had any symptoms (like what? A seizure or coughing blood?), but it wouldn’t matter if it happened in June or in November, by that time I would be Stage IV and quality of life, blah blah blah.  Meantime, he reiterated that they caught my tumor early, and my chances were good.

Amazing.

Fast forward again, 9 years later. The cloud of a recurrence or a metastasis has slowly dissolved over the years. I was in the clear.

But wait. What’s that weird mole on my shoulder? Has it always looked like that?

I’ve learned over the years that if I run to the dermatologist every time something weird pops up on my skin, I’d be going once a week. (One dermatologist told me that I had ruined my skin in Hawaii and skin cancers would be popping up on me like mushrooms some day.) So I took a photo of this mole and wrote on my calendar to check it again in forty days. I read somewhere once that nodular melanoma doubled in size every forty days.

After forty days, I took another picture and compared them.

And another.

And another. By now, I could see a significant difference. I had it biopsied, as melanoma is a cancer that becomes lethal in increments of tenths of a millimeter.

Sure enough. Melanoma. Dammit. .8 mm. The storm clouds that had just dissipated came roaring back.

Another wide local excision. This surgeon looked over my moles on my arm, the back of my arm and my back and said: “You are a melanoma waiting to happen, aren’t you?” (I guess I have made a memory journal of jarring things that doctors say.)

After the first melanoma, my chances of getting a second one were 8% higher than the normal population. After the second, my chances of getting a third zoom to 33% higher. Now I’m hyper vigilant.

And I need you to be, too.

First: if you have moles, know them. Be familiar with them. Notice any changes in them, and if you find one that’s crusty or bleeding, get thee to a dermatologist.

Secondly: Know the A, B, C, D, E signs of melanoma.

A – Asymmetrical. Most moles are symmetrical. Melanoma pushes a mole out of its normal boundaries.
B – Borders. Cancer is not organized, so it grows haphazardly as the immune system is trying to suppress it, resulting in notched borders.
C – Color. Melanoma can be many colors, including amelanotic, meaning no color at all (skin color). Blue, red, pink, brown, black, pale… check into it.
D – Diameter. If you have a mole bigger in diameter than a pencil eraser, it has potential. Be aware.
E – Evolving. Anything suspicious that changes.

Melanoma kills. Don’t be afraid, be aware. Get skin checks. Wear sunscreen. Wear a hat.

Fighting Cancer

That’s the phrase: Fighting Cancer. We call ourselves “warriors.” But is it really the cancer we fight? Sure, there’s an element of that, and I can’t speak to the whole range of waging war from first diagnosis to final dying breath. I’ve been lucky. But I’ve had cancer twice now, and I can speak to the war that I wage.

I fight fear.

I don’t want to live my life in fear. I want to live in love and light and joy. I don’t want melanoma to rob me of that. It may, sometime in the future, but not now. Now I am only Stage 1, for the second time, and still the fears begin to collect in the wee hours of the morning. And believe me, there is enough to fear.

With each thing I read, with each conversation I have with those who have only the finest of intentions, with every glance at the tumor on my shoulder, and soon the scar where the tumor used to be, the fear nibbles at my consciousness. People who love me say all the right things, but even “Good that you caught it so early,” sparks fears that I didn’t catch it early enough. “You’ll be fine,” translates to a slow, steady march toward an ugly black death.

It’s nothing to make a doctor’s appointment, to get an injection, an excision, an infusion. It’s nothing to get a scan and wait for the results. That is medicine battling cancer. My war is much different.

A wise person said to me not long ago: “The only struggles you will ever have are with yourself.” I have found that to be true then, and true every day since then. And so it is with fighting cancer. This is a struggle between me and me. Between my heart and my soul. What cancer does to my body I can do little about except hope to make the all the proper decisions at the appropriate moments.

Meanwhile, I wait for my surgery appointment and work hard not to torture myself or others. I try to educate people about sunscreen and sun protection and checking their moles regularly for changes. I want people to be screened regularly by their dermatologists. The problem is, the best way to get the attention of others is by revving up their fears. I show them the scar on my ankle (a 3” diameter skin graft), and catch myself saying, “Aren’t you glad that’s not on your face?” And I’m ashamed of myself for working so hard to keep the fear from my own mind while pouring it onto others.

Be kind to those who are fighting cancer, for their enemies are legion. For me, for today, I’ll let the doctors fight my cancer, and I’ll concentrate on fighting my fears.

Discussion Questions

I was delighted to discover that my book Lizzie Borden, has been selected as a text for two Women’s Studies classes at different universities.  Previously, Lizard Wine has received a similar honor. As a result, I have posted Discussion Questions on my website for each of those two books for the convenience of book clubs, literature classes, women’s studies classes, and readers, both professors and students.

Finding Renewal in Silence

The World Health Organization has officially stated that noise kills.  An article by Andy Coghlan in New Scientist documents their findings:

Noise kills in much the same way as chronic stress does, by causing an accumulation of stress hormones, inflammation and changes in body chemistry that eventually lead to problems such as impaired blood circulation and heart attacks. Such insidious effects on our health can happen even when we’re asleep and unaware that we’re exposed, as our bodies still produce a similar physiological response.

This daily wear and tear on our bodies, minds and spirits has turned us into a more aggressive, less patient society.  Journalist and author Richard Mahler explains in his book Stillness: Daily Gifts of Solitude:

In contrast to the slow, serene world of full-time spiritual seekers, the Information Age has forced many to conform to the lightning-speed processing of the computer, which is now integral to almost every device or service we use. We unwittingly believe humans should perform like microchips: fast, efficient, consistent, multitalented, and available 24/7. Computers—along with cell phones, cheap airfare, powerful cars, instant messaging, and other presumed amenities—have infected us with a sense of unbridled urgency. (15)

The frenetic lifestyle most of us maintain makes us edgy, grumpy, and angry. Worst of all, when we can’t achieve everything in a day, a month, or a year that we think we’re supposed to accomplish, we feel like failures. Exhausted, depleted, and prone to blame it all on our spouses or our jobs, we leave or quit, but we take all our noise with us, and wonder why we can’t find happiness.

We spend lots of money trying to reduce stress. We buy gym memberships, exercise equipment, yoga classes, and if those don’t work, we buy therapy sessions. We take stressful, loud vacations, thinking that getting away will take care of it, but again, we tend to take ourselves and all our noise with us wherever we go.

There is another way to reduce stress, a better way. It’s free and readily available. It is as simple as engaging in intentional silence on a daily basis. People are discovering it—or rediscovering it—and the renewing affect it has on all of our systems: mental, physical and spiritual.

Taking a moment of silence stills the mind, quiets the racing heart. It allows us to reflect upon the things that are most important. We can analyze, prioritize, and make sense of everything instead of ricocheting through our days. We can hear the still voice within only when we’re in silence. Quiet gives us the time and space to access our spirit—to pray, or to give thanks. It allows us to listen to the world around us, and be more centered so we can listen more effectively to our coworkers and loved ones.

But silence is not something that just happens. These days, we have to actively seek quiet, boldly engage with it. Quaker Brent J. Bill writes “Silence, especially in life’s busyness, leads us through the whitewater of life to gentle pools of stillness and calm” (58). Isn’t that what we all need now and then: pools of stillness and calm? Those pools are all around us, but they get lost in the tumult. We have to look for them, find them, and cherish them. Like everything else, seeking silence has to have a priority in our lives.

In “The Devil Loves Cell Phones,” Newsweek journalist Julia Baird reviews Sara Maitland’s book A Book of Silence. In that review, Baird writes:

What a profound longing many of us have for silence, how hard it is to find, and how easily we forget how much we need it. Most snatch it in small grabs—hot baths, long runs, lap swimming, bike rides. Maitland rails against the idea of silence as void, absence, and lack—something that we must rush to fill—insisting it is positive and nurturing, and something more profound that must be actively sought.

We have all experienced switching off the blaring radio in the car and felt instant serenity and stress reduction as silence flowed over us. We should take that as irrefutable evidence that silence is something to bask in, like a warm bath. Something deep within us needs silence to help us maintain balance. Author and therapist Bruce Davis, in his book Monastery Without Walls, writes: “If life has become so noisy that we cannot hear ourselves think, how can we hearing the calling of our soul?” (2).

Artists and writers have long known that silence and solitude are essential components to creativity. Writing requires much “staring out the window” time. Fantasy author Terry Brooks has said that when he’s in his lounge chair on the beach, his wife thinks he’s just lying in the sun, when in fact, he’s working, formulating the next book. Author Anne D. LeClaire, in her book Listening Below the Noise states it succinctly: “Sitting quietly, we gently enter our own inner worlds. Daydreaming. Woolgathering. Lost in space. These are rich and fertile activities. The playgrounds of imagination” (37). Creativity as well as spirit seems to come alive in the stillness.

So where are these moments of stillness? Everywhere, in tiny snippets. Closing the office door for a five-minute time-out with eyes closed can be astonishingly renewing. Locking one’s self in the bathroom for a few minutes of solitude is better than nothing. But if we try, we can do much better than this. We can take walks in nature. We can create a personal silent refuge in our homes. We can join a meditation group or class.

Solitude and silence are two completely different things, however. Writers and artists spend much of their time in solitude, but not silence. There is always the radio, telephone, internet, email, cell phone, editors, deadlines, negative self-talk, all the pressures of life. Solitude is something separate and apart from stillness. You can have solitude with or without silence, and you can have stillness with or without solitude.

Author, psychotherapist and meditation instructor Gunilla Norris reminds us that there is silence all around us if we will look for it. “With more awareness we may discover that small gaps in our daily round can be places of silence” (21). We may discover that taking advantage of these small gaps throughout the day gives us more energy, puts our lives into better perspective, provides a stabilizing influence. These little glimpses of serenity oftentimes ignite the desire for longer, more frequent access to the stillness, which can be had in a variety of ways.

First, and easiest, is to set aside time each day for meditation or centering prayer. Ten minutes per day may seem impossible at first, but a ten-minute daily investment in our mental health is a small price. Soon, that calm time becomes mandatory—an oasis in the day. For some, that’s enough. Others may eventually extend the time for daily silence to a half hour or even an hour.

A second way to appreciate silence is to be silent. Anne D. LeClaire, in her book Listening Below the Noise chronicles her experiences spending the first and third Monday of every month in silence. She goes about her daily life without speaking, and has kept to that schedule for over nine years despite public appearances, writing retreats, conventions, and book tours, as well as all the social and familial responsibilities of life. Her husband, at first inconvenienced, came to understand, appreciate, and respect her spiritual practice. She writes: “It seemed that silence was serving as a tuning fork, awakening the five-string harp of my senses” (28). She states that even waiting to speak is a noise in her head that silences when she does not speak, and allows her to listen more fully to others.

A third way to find silence is to go on a silent retreat, where you dwell in silence either alone or with others who are also retreating in silence.

Many churches sponsor silent retreats, as do secular retreat centers, but you do not need to be part of an organized event. You could find a beautiful place to be alone and silent, a place where you can be with nature, to walk, to listen, to be alone. A cabin in the woods. A hotel at the beach. A spa in the desert. Sister Carol Higgins, who goes on an organized silent retreat at least once every year, notes that one advantage to being part of a silent retreat with others is that “Even though you do not speak to those with whom you are silent, when it’s over, you feel as though you know them intimately.” Another advantage of an organized retreat is that meals are prepared and served in silence. You need do nothing but be present and serve your intention.

Whichever way you choose to spend a day, a week, or more in silence, here are some guidelines that might help make your first experience an extraordinary one.

1.     Have an intention.

Why do you want to go away and be silent? Is there something specific you wish to accomplish? Silence takes effort and intentionality, like all worthwhile endeavors. Write down your intention and take it with you.

2.     Have a plan.

What will you do? Read? Write? Draw? Paint? Create a collage? Meditate? Pray? Take long walks? Knit a prayer shawl? Be clear about what activities you intend to engage in and prepare to take everything that you will need with you. Include a small note that says “I’m silent today” to pin to your clothing, especially if you’re going to be among people who are likely to speak to you and expect a courteous response.

3.     Have a plan B.

The power occasionally goes out. Nature walks are sometimes thwarted by nature herself.  Things that you expect to happen frequently don’t. Be prepared, and be flexible.

4.     Speak with those who have gone before.

Read books on silence. Talk to those who have gone on a silent retreat and ask their experience and advice.

5.     Be gentle with yourself.

You are on retreat to escape the noise of daily life. Let the noise in your head dissipate at its own pace. Its chattering will subside, but not likely in the first fifteen minutes of silence. Be patient. Be a kind and gentle traveling companion to yourself on this journey.

6.     Try something new.

While the silent retreat is itself new, you might investigate some practices to enhance your experience. There are techniques to centering prayer, meditation, and journaling.  There are spiritual artistic endeavors. Anything that involves sincere reflection can become a spiritual endeavor.  Even if you don’t consider yourself a “spiritual” person, take at least one spiritual book with you, just in case. Find something that appeals and be willing. Anne LeClaire practiced her silent Mondays twice a month for nine years before she realized it was a spiritual practice.

7.     Be open.

As all of these suggestions are also good rules for life, being open is a particularly important way to approach silence. Sometimes what we experience is something other than what we expected, or wanted. Sometimes it takes a week back amidst the noise for the fullness of what we learned, achieved, or came to appreciate comes to infuse our conscious mind.

 

The benefits of silence and solitude are difficult to quantify, although they are legion, according to anyone who engages in stillness on a regular basis. Richard Mahler counts these among the gifts:

Freedom to fantasize. Development of the imagination. Cultivation of abstract thought. Heightened awareness. Healing during stress, mourning or other trauma. Improved concentration. Access to religious, spiritual or mystical experiences. Better problem-solving abilities. Liberation from unwanted distractions. Effective pain-management skills. The rich company of one’s mind, body, and spirit. Expanded self-understanding. (43)

Who among us could not profit from any one of these? And yet every one’s experience is different. And every retreat is different, just as every day is fresh and new. The important thing is to embrace the concept of incorporating silence as a small treat, a reward, a delicious morsel created only for you. A moment of silence is not just one more item to pack into your overcrowded and noisy daily schedule like a hard-pounding aerobics class, something to stress over as you try to fit it in. Be gentle with the concept of silence, as it is a tender, liberating practice.

Former priest and professor of English at Kean University James A. Conner writes in his book Silent Fire:

At the core of every human soul is an imperishable flame, the same energy that permeates all things—the fire of the comet, the twinkle of the stars. Like a campfire broadcasting light in wide circles, that flame illuminates the world, and as I move inward in silence, the world brightens (9).

This magical aspect of silence has been the subject of authors through the ages. Henry David Thoreau, Annie Dillard, John Muir and Sara Maitland, are but a few writers who have loved to write about their experience in silence. Poets have always tried to capture the attributes of silence with words.  Even the title of the famous Robert Frost poem, “Walking Through Woods on a Snowing Evening” is a poem, as it so clearly evokes a pleasant, peaceful silence. Some, like explorers, deep-sea divers, sailors, hermits, monks and nuns, choose professions with silence as an integral aspect of their work, day after day. A profession in silence might seem extreme, but the benefits of silence are catching on in the normal every day world.

The Ashland Institute in Oregon has established a “pulse” of silence, the last Sunday of every month, in the manner of author Anne D. LeClaire’s twice-monthly silent Mondays. “The invitation is for women who resonate with the practice of Silence to join us in spending the last Sunday of each month in Silence. Each person will organize these days in the ways that fit for her. The distribution of our time zones will form a wave of Silence and connection round the world.” As of this writing, over four hundred women around the world have committed to this practice and blog their insights at www.insilencetogether.com.

As with most things, as soon as you voice your intention to learn more, you’ll come upon opportunities for silence everywhere, and you’ll meet others who employ silence as a regular spiritual pursuit. Soon, you’ll turn off the radio, the television, and the iPod, and grant yourself a respite from the noise of the everyday world. That will be a good thing. You could start today. It will be good for your mental health, your spiritual health, and as the World Health Organization has already noted, it will be good for your physical health as well.

 

Here are some resources to get you started on your quest for more silence and less noise.

Silent Retreats Online is a guide to silent retreats. Many are ongoing, meaning they are in a state of perpetual silence; you just join in when you arrive. Others have workshops and classes and silence is a component part of the retreat experience. They range from the US and Canada to India, Europe and elsewhere. http://www.retreatsonline.com/guide/silent.htm

Contemplative Outreach is “a spiritual network of individuals and small faith communities committed to living the contemplative dimension of the Gospel.” They hold silent retreats of varying lengths in many locations. www.contemplativeoutreach.org

Yoga Bound lists a variety of locations that hold regular silent retreats in the U.S. “Most include yoga and moving meditation, while others are composed entirely of quiet contemplation. They are offered in traditions ranging from Buddhism and Hinduism to Judaism and Christianity, as well as nonsectarian formats. http://www.yogabound.com/yoga/art_silent_retreats.htm

The Right to Quiet Society has compiled a number of places for those looking for silent retreats, quiet travel destinations, and quiet transportation. http://www.quiet.org/travel.htm

Find the Divine is a directory of various retreat centers that list the types of retreats they offer. http://www.findthedivine.com/

The best way to find a silent retreat that suits you is begin your search within your spiritual discipline.

Annotated Bibliography

 

Baird, Julia. “The Devil Loves Cell Phones: Silence Isn’t Just Golden, it’s Heavenly.” Newsweek. October 22, 2009. http://www.newsweek.com/id/219010. An excellent book review of Sara Maitland’s book of her experience on a silent retreat alone for forty days on a windy moor, A Book of Silence. I’ll get Maitland’s book and read it.

Bill, J. Brent. Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2005. This was another small, sweet book about the Quaker way to practice silence. Most Quaker services are silent meditations, and he discusses not only the value of that, but the reasoning behind it, from George Fox to William Penn. “Silence, especially in life’s busyness, leads us through the whitewater of life to gentle pools of stillness and calm” (59).

Coghlan, Andy. New Scientist; 12/22/2007, Vol. 196 Issue 2635/2636, p25-25, 1p. An alarming article showing that the World Health Organization has documented that traffic noise contributes to the deaths of 3% of Europeans via stress hormones that affect the heart. Noise kills. Imagine what living in a big city does to the health.

Conner, James A. Silent Fire: Bringing the Spirituality of Silence to Everyday Life. New York: Crown Publishers, 2002. This is the author’s autobiography of silence. He’s a former priest and chronicles what he calls the “four circles of silence”: No Words, No Thought, No Self, and Embracing All. While the book was dotted with little gems, it wasn’t all that impressive.

Davis, Bruce. Monastery Without Walls: Daily Life in the Silence. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts, 1990. If Anne LeClaire’s journal of nine years of twice-monthly silence was a gentle reminder that we can make silence a priority, this is the opposite, discussing not only silence, but the disciplines of poverty, chastity, fasting, obedience, etc. and therefore he lost me right at the beginning. The way he considers it, it all seems like too much work. While a spiritual practice has to be a mindful activity in order to be effective, to my way of thinking, he’s a bit of an edgy purist.

LeClaire, Anne D. Listening Below the Noise. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.

This is a wonderfully insightful book about the author’s experience in her busy life with being silent amidst her daily life and inconvenienced husband. She seeks to “tune the five-string harp”, or to activate all five senses. This book chronicled her journey from the first day of silence through the nine years it took for her to recognize it as a spiritual practice.

Mahler, Richard. Stillness: Daily Gifts of Solitude. Boston, MA: Redwheel, 2003.

The author spent a winter isolated in the mountains of New Mexico, and a year after he returned, he reviewed his journal and decided he ought to write a book about solitude and stillness. One of his main points—well taken—is that we’re too busy and too noisy because we’re trying to maintain too much stuff. Simplicity goes hand in hand with solitude and silence.

Norris, Gunilla. Inviting Silence. New York: Bluebridge Books, 2004.

A very sweet little book, almost like an extended poem. I will keep this book and refer to it, as she points out that silence doesn’t need to be practiced only in a retreat, but can be accessed in tiny little moments throughout the day.

In Silence Together. “The Original Invitation” 2/8/2010. www.insilencetogether.com/?page_id=2. This kicked off the “pulse” of silence where currently over 400 women worldwide are silent on the last Sunday of the month. Anne LeClaire believes this movement will grow in strength and character. How could that be anything but positive for our planet?

The Juice Fast

My son and his wife told me about the movie “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead”. They had seen it and gone on a 7 day juice fast and were so enthusiastic about it, I got the movie immediately and watched it.

It’s a life changer.

The next time I went to the grocery store,  I found myself a little nauseated at all the junk in there…at all the junk I used to buy regularly. I decided to do a juice fast, too.

It took me a little while to get my mind right about it. I’m a lifelong dieter, blessed with a body that tends toward heavy (can I blame my parents?) and a love for all things bread. I don’t get enough exercise because I… well, no excuses, can’t blame that on the parents… but in the summer I am on my bicycle a lot. A lot. And then winter comes, and with it the cold rain and the bicycle sits parked and I rev up the crockpot with hearty bean soups.

I’ve had a juicer for years. When I was single, I juiced daily. Being married to an avowed carnivore makes things a little difficult, but I’m determined this time to “reboot” the bod with some really, really fresh food. I have a Jack LaLanne juicer, which is a great machine in my opinion. I’ve been to the Join the Reboot website which is maintained by the “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” movie guys. It’s all so very inspirational.

For lunch today I had carrot, apple, lemon, cucumber, rhubarb, celery and tomato juice. Later I’ll include some pineapple or mango, ginger, and some fresh-from-the-garden spinach, lettuce, beets and radishes.

I feel great.

I don’t know how long I can keep this up;  already my jaws want to be crunching things, but for now, it’s a good awakening about all the empty calories we tend to put in our bodies. At some point, I confused food with fuel. The body needs fuel, and I’ve been giving it not only more than it needs, but many of the wrong things.

So if you’re not happy with how you look or how you feel, watch the movie (I got it on Netflix). Get a juicer and get healthy.

Let me know how it’s going.

Kick Start Your Novel

For the first time in several years, I’ll be teaching the Kick Start Your Novel class June 4,5,6,7 in Eugene, Oregon.


This series of four evening classes is an intense, hands-on novel writing workshop designed to get your novel going in the right direction. Classes are structured so you will learn about the internal structure of fiction and the key aspects of writing a novel, then work on your book in class.


This workshop is for the writer who has basic writing experience, is highly motivated and has at least a nodding acquaintance with the novel that dwells within. While you may work on your novel-in-progress if you insist, I strongly suggest that instead, you work on something fresh for the purposes of this workshop. Leave your old work at home and let the spirit of the moment move you. Trust the creative process and watch the magic happen.


Plan to attend all four sessions, and spend non-class hours working intensively on your book as well. Momentum is important. This class is not for the faint of heart, the weak-willed or those who are afraid of the intense internal examination that novel writing entails. Your level of experience is not as important as your dedication to the process.


The fun, intense class will take place over four consecutive evenings, June 4,5,6,7 from 6pm to about 9 or 9:30pm. Space is limited to six participants. Cost is $250 per person. Email me for more information.

The Tao of Yarn

Anyone who knows me knows that I knit. In fact, I'm kind of a knitting maniac. Not a day goes by without yarn handling of some sort. I make yarn, spinning it out of beautiful, silky fibers. I knit garments and things. Warm things for children and old people, fashionable things, utilitarian things, things of beauty, filled with the peace that I feel when I'm knitting.

For the last two years I've been knitting and/or spinning twice a week at a yarn shop in town, Textiles A Mano, run by Laura Macagno-Shang, a delightful woman of amazing expertise and artistic talents.  Inspired by her and the other spinners and knitters, my knitting has gone from mundane, meat-and-potatoes knitting to creating incredible laces, intricate cable networks and dozens of warm things for the Relief Nursery, a local charity that helps out parents and their children from newborn to six years old.

Most of the things I knit are given away to family, friends, or charitable organizations. I keep a few special things, of course, but it seems as though the minute I cast on a project, a person comes to mind and I begin to think about that person, meditate on his or her situation, and pretty soon that warm garment becomes first a thing of comfort for me and then a thing of comfort for the recipient. But this is not a blog post about what a great knitter I am. It's about how we can all do little things to enrich a life.

Something as simple as a warm "chemo cap" for those going through treatment. Something as simple as a pair of baby booties for a friend's new grandson. Something as easy as a set of felted coasters as a wedding gift. These are not items of great value, but I believe that they send good, healing heart-energy into the universe that is multiplied over and over and over again. When we give gifts from the heart, from our creativity, we affirm the recipient's worth, we spend time in creative contemplation, we engage in constructive prayer.

And that is always a worthwhile endeavor. It adds love to the planetary consciousness.

What can you do today to make the life of a loved one — or even an acquaintance — better?

 

I love Edgar Allan Poe

Whenever I am asked, as all authors are, who the writers were who influenced me, Edgar Allan Poe is always the first to come to mind.

I was an odd child, and in the year between seventh and eighth grade, I spent all summer wearing my swimming suit and living in my bed, reading. I read the collected works of Poe, of course, and everything from Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan, Pelucidar and more), Ian Fleming, Rod Serling, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury… I read voraciously. The only time I got out of bed was to load the books in the basket of my bicycle and head to the library for another load. This immersion in literature was the most valuable use of time (though my mother never understood) for a fledgling writer.

I've since read most of those authors many times, none more than Mr. Poe: the author, the poet, the enigma, the influence. I glean new appreciation every time I read something of his.

Several years ago I was invited to contribute to an anthology entitled Poe's Lighthouse, a collection of stories about the most mysterious story of all: an unfinished one by Poe. Chris Conlon did a nice job of putting the anthology together, and I was delighted to contribute. Now that story is available as a $.99 stand-alone short story for the Kindle.

I hope all Poe fans enjoy it. As always now and forever: if you read something you like, post a review.