Category Archives: Mundania

Lessons from Dr. Who

I woke up this morning with some thoughts rumbling around.

Many of us are being called to step away from our boring lives and do something just a little bit more to make our worlds safe again. This is a call to change, one happening on a much larger and more obvious scale than previous occurrences. If you’ve ever wanted to participate in history, rather than reading about it, the time is now. We have LGBT rights to retain, systemic racism revealed that must be dismantled, a climate on the brink of devastation, and a huge number of people in danger of losing what little support they have for staying alive.

It’s overwhelming.

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2016 Reading Challenge — SUCCESS!!!

Ok, I had to get ‘creative’ for a few categories, but I have successfully completed the 2016 reading challenge!

I love to read, I also read for a living (thanks Facing North!). So you’d think these reading challenges would be easy.  .  .

Here’s is the complete list:

A book based on a fairy tale — Cinder, Marissa Meyer
A National Book Award Winner — The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley
A YA bestseller — Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs
A book you haven’t read since high school — Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
A book set in your home state — Fire Touched, Patricia Briggs
A book translated into English — The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
A romance set in the future — Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishigurp
A book set in Europe — The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World, Anthony Amore
A book that’s under 150 pages — In the Night Kitchen, Maurice Sendak
A NYTimes bestseller — Dead Heat, Patricia Briggs
A book that’s becoming a movie this year — Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs
A book recommended by someone you just met — Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-up Bubble by Baniel Lyons
A self-improvement book — Yoga Therapy for Stress & Anxiety, Robert Butera PhD, Erin Byron MA, Staffan Elgelid PhD
A book you can finish in a day — Venus Envy, Rita Mae Brown
A book written by a celebrity — Don’t Try This At Home: Culinary Catastrophes From the World’s Greatest Chefs, Various (bonus: — Steps in Time, Fred Astaire, extra bonus! The Measure of A Man: A Spiritual Autobiography by Sidney Poitier)
A political memoir — Madam Secretary by Madeleine Albright
A book at least 100 years older than you — Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
A book longer than 600 pages — Summer Tree, The Fionovar Tapestry (book 1), Guy Gavriel Kay
A book from Oprah’s Book Club — One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A sci-fi novel — In Conquest Born, C.S. Friedman
A book recommended by a family member — Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
A graphic novel — Grendel Omnibus, Matt Wagner
A book published in 2016 —Leonard, My Fifty-year Friendship With A Remarkable Man, William Shatner
A book with a protagonist in your occupation — Personal Finance for Professionals by Susan Berson (yes, this is stretching it . . . but how many books feature an Administrative/ HR professional as the protagonist?)
A book that takes place during the summer — The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
A book and its prequel — The Naked Sun, and Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
A murder mystery — The Family Vault, Charlotte Macleod
A book written by a comedian — Bossypants by Tina Fey
A dystopian novel — Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
A book with a blue cover — Anodea Judith’s Chakra Yoga
A book of poetry — Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
The first book you see in a bookstore — a blank journal
A classic from the 20th century — Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
A book from the library — You Have it Made, Ellie Krieger (cookbook)
A book about a culture you are unfamiliar with — — Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir, Wendy Burden
A satirical book — The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
A book that takes place on an island — Frommer’s EasyGuide Kauai 2016*
A book guaranteed to bring you joy — Taltos, Steven Brust

*what?

How are you doing?

Words of Me: Two

Creating a kind of mission statement.

1. My mind, body and soul are very important to me. I promise to take care of them by…

Treating my body with respect for the hard work it does so elegantly. Cherishing its strength and helping it achieve its best level of health. Feeding my brain art, literature, music, and puzzles to keep it sharp and active. Filling my soul with art and music, and beauty so that I might maintain my divine connection with the Lord and Lady.

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“Lemonade”

Last night I finally witnessed Beyonce’s Lemonade. I use the word witness in full knowledge of its religious meaning: I was given a powerful narrative of the desperate erasure of black women in America that has nonetheless birthed a Queen. When she quoted Malcom X:

“The most disrespected person in America is the black woman
“The most unprotected person in America is the black woman.
“The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”
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Words of Me Project: One

What’s Your Routine?

“I know that by simply sticking with the process and being open to the unexpected, I create a channel to creative inspiration and that’s a mighty powerful thing.”

~Jennifer Lee, artist

This last year has been a challenging one for me in a variety of ways. My recent review of my goals set and achieved was a revelation as always, but not a true surprise. There are so many difficult goals I set for myself that I achieve (write a book; publish a book; create a class; teach a class; etc.) it’s extra frustrating and bewildering to always fail when my goals have to do with my health.

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2016 Accomplishments/ 2017 Goals

Each year I like to look back over the previous year, and then set goals for the coming year. Many people do this on Jan 1st; I prefer to do it on my birthday. I often refine the accomplishments and goals until my new year, Samhain, but the bulk of the work is done on or around my birthday. I also like to do a tarot reading.

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Difficult Situations

A conversation on another thread reminded me of a recent event I thought I’d share.

I do a monthly ‘coaching’ session with my assistant. It’s an hour that opens with my asking her what the most important topic on her mind is, and we go from there. (A bit of background, she’s in her first office job, and in her early 20s. She’s GREAT at what she does and an awesome admin, these sessions are wide ranging so that we both share and she gets maximum input.)
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Reflecting (Self-Absorbed)

It must be my birthday soon, I’m being more introspective than usual.

I’m having a tough time, mostly around abstract-yet-relevant concepts of ‘health’.  Seven years ago (give or take a day) I was told that I have breast cancer, and my world ||SHIFTED|| in an instant. I’m still uncovering the changes, like an archeologist on a tidy and clean site (no dust in my corners!) who keeps unlocking hidden compartments.

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Pagan Ethics, an excerpt from MC v2

A little bit from a longer piece I am writing:
With the rise of religions based on books laws became something governed by god as well as secular authorities, this led to situations in which you could ask forgiveness of him (all book religions have a male deity as their center), do penance as assigned by his intermediaries, and then be forgiven absolutely. This is a simple, attractive, way of administering and judging morality. (Granted, secular authority wouldn’t overlook a murderer, but at least one religion allowed for absolute forgiveness and entrance into heaven if one’s deathbed confession was heartfelt and sincere. So you could rob a  bank, be shot, make a heartfelt confession, and then die and go to heaven.)
Pagans have no concept of sin like what exists in religions of the book; we don’t put our morality on our Gods, we take it onto and into ourselves. While there are many myths that offer direction for being a positive member of society, it is easy to see Them engaging in a variety of activities that society generally finds distasteful: adultery, theft, lying, deception, murder . . .
Everything we do, every choice we make, has consequences. Each choice is like a drop of rain into a basin of water, rippling outward.
An ethical code is more than a line or two of a poem, or even the entire poem. It is a structure that starts in childhood and develops in accordance with your experiences. Your code may not always provide an answer, nor will it necessarily be perfect. It does need to be cohesive.
How does it start?
Learn true honesty with yourself. This is not a punishment, it is the beginning of creating an accurate vision. It requires courage and a dismantling of the prejudices and nasty mind voice we often have learned to ‘hear’. It also requires learning to not blame others. No one can make us do anything, it is all our choice. This is true even when the choices are few (do this, or don’t), or terrible (work at that soul-sucking job or don’t eat). True honesty is a cultivation of vision that requires looking clearly at ourselves and the world around us without placing blame. In doing this you learn understanding. That leads to better knowledge of the causes behind your actions and decisions and the effects that will arise from your choices.
Feel free to comment, or discuss. I welcome your input.