Roger B. Burt's Blog, page 11

A Focus on Transformation

Stunning Alternatives

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Recently I mentioned that while this blog is titled Cusp of Reality that I’m redirecting it more to the issue of transformation. I need to explain what that means.

I’ve been on this earth awhile and certainly I’ve seen periods of crisis and turns toward productive development. But I’ve never seen the potential for the development of such vastly different transformations.

America in Crisis

I know I’m writing a blog about the cusp of reality and now am directing it  towar...

The Truth About the South and Democrats

 

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Let’s Get Real

I was born in Queens, New York and grew up around New York. I went to college in Michigan and in 1963 moved to North Carolina to begin work on my doctorate in psychology at Duke University.

I was utterly unprepared for the reality of the South one hundred years after the end of the Civil War.  As I had said previously I was not expecting to endure such prejudice. This privileged young white man was vilified for being a “Yankee”. I learned a southern accent so I could be serv...

The World Did Not End

 

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A Former Client

Recently a former client contacted me. She conveyed the success she and her second husband had had in part due to the advice they had received. They handled the divorce effectively and helped the children. They just celebrated their 36th. year of marriage and are a family with six children and grandchildren. It can be done.

Difficult Times

A marriage ending in divorce is a very difficult time. It is not just for the marital partners but the children as well. 

Well over fort...

Life Among the Living

 

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Do you have a special myth you favor?

Variety of Life Forms

Many of us don’t consider it unreasonable to ask if other life forms really exist. Are there angels, do we have spirit guides and how real are our day or night dreams? Certainly there is a great deal of speculation about paranormal phenomena. It would be impossible to comprehensively enumerate the various kinds of life forms there are and may be. And then should we include various forms of consciousness in humankind? It sounds odd...

Fiction Writing and Transformation

 

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Making a Beginning

When I started to write my Gaia’s Majesty Trilogy I merely thought I had an intriguing idea. I had always loved having my imagination stirred by mythology and mermaids particularly took my attention. There were mermen but no one seemed to care much about them. And so in this era of the empowerment of women I moved forward to a fantasy in a current real world setting. I believe the best term for the series is magical realism.

The Opening

The first book opens with a focus...

There Is Sadness in America

 

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First of all I have to clarify something about the context of this post. As a clinical psychologist it is my job to read people and how they are feeling. Most of the time I leave that door closed. It takes energy I don’t need to expend it for no particularly purpose. But presently I find feelings around me intruding.

Let me give three examples of things I have experienced recently.

A Simple Procedure 

I went in to get blood drawn recently and when I do the blood vessels in my arms go into...

Expressiveness in Men and Women

 

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How are your feelings manifested?

For most of my writing on the Gaia’s Majesty Trilogy the story and the characters seemed to flow out of my brain. Well, actually I did do an outline first but then the waves of details and change started to flow. For the outline I chose to use the tools found in Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc by Dara Marks. It is actually aimed at creating screen plays but works wonderfully for novels as well.

Even with an outline I often felt on autop...

Searching For Meaning

 

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There are a variety of ways for us to describe our lives. We each have our own story. Sometimes we aren’t even sure that we are searching for something. Generally a common thread is communicated to us. Get an education, find a job, marry, have children – is common. Of course our lives are far more nuanced than that.

Seeing a Hint

I think my earliest memory is telling. One rainy evening, probably around 1943, I was seated in a window seat looking out through a rain streaked window. There wa...

The Future of Jobs

 

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Setting Priorities

Nationally we seem to have a wrestling match about how much to commit to what. If we speak about investing in infrastructure or health care there is an accusation of socialism. In fact we have been putting off facing something that should be inevitable and investing for the people of our country.

Focus on One Issue

Of special interest to me is the issue of jobs as we move faster and faster into a changing  future. I learned a great deal many decades ago and am deeply con...

Seizing Opportunities

 

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Finding Alternatives

My father was a surgeon. He loved his profession but he shared reservations with me when we were riding in the car. I listened carefully and as I entered one part of the medical profession I found his reservations validated. And so when I saw alternatives I often took them.

A Marvelous Intervention

One day not so long ago I decided to take a Tai Chi course just for fun. But one evening my sinuses were bothering me. They were totally clogged and painful so I had to sit...