not so grounded

Happy Election

A Frenchman recently explained he was striking against the increased retirement age, in part, to avoid becoming like the U.S. I remain utterly bewildered that Americans still fight against things our international peers take for granted:  free universal healthcare, excellent k-12 education for all children, free university education, strong consumer-safety policies, commitment to global environmental protections and foreign policies that protect - not endanger - their citizens.

Vision Alignment Project

This is cool.  Enough said.

Proficient at the sport of killing

Listening to Democracy Now on yesterday's long drive home, an active soldier nails it with harrowing eloquence.

Active soldier, Afghanistan vet and currently applying for conscientious objector status, BROCK McINTOSH: ... I was watching the World Cup a couple weekends ago, and I made a joke: why don’t we just settle conflict with sports, with soccer? And my friend was like, "Because then America would lose," because we’re not very good at soccer. And I realized that what we’re really good at is war and that there’s really not much of a difference between the sport of war and the sport of soccer, because in both cases values are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter who’s more righteous, who has the better values. What matters is who has the best skills at this particular sport. And being proficient at the sport of killing is not something that I want to be proficient at, and I don’t believe that being good at killing proves that I have better values.

Beyond the Story

Enjoying some literary downtime on my recent Santa Barbara business trip, I attended a writing workshop and dinner with LeeAnn Howe, at the invitation of our mutual friend Marisela Marquez (my UCSB client and a close buddy from grad school).  She led us through a miraculously simple yet powerful series of writing sequences that inspired me immensely, even though I didn't really follow the directions. (Note to teachers:  I never really follow directions.) Then a small group of us women had delicious mole enchiladas, chili verde and Tecate's at Del Pueblo Cafe.

We were asked to write about an object of meaning, to explore our own stories through this catalyst.  LeeAnn chose the stones in her heirloom ring.  Perhaps the ring also has Indian significance, for she's an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and much of her work embraces Indian stories and themes.  Part of her fabric as a person, a woman, a writer and scholar.  In fact, everyone at the following dinner has an identity she allows to enrich her individual personality -- lesbian, Indian, Japanese-American, Chicana, women of color ... 

Except me. 

I guess I could, sort of, although my dry-spell fantasies sure confirmed my mainstream sexual preference and my ethnic ancestry's a few generations back.  Three of my four grandparents came from Europe, aged 3 or 5, wide-eyed and perhaps a little seasick, holding tightly to their parents hands in a blurred mishmash of strange languages and faces, stepping through Ellis Island amid confusing paperwork and beleaguered immigration clerks who changed their Polish or Italian tongue-twisters to names easier on the New York ear.  My other grandparent was mid-point through an equally unique lineage -- four of her five grandchildren (including me) mark five-generations born in Brooklyn, certainly a whole culture in and of itself.  My mother was raised Jewish before converting when she married my father, the Episcopal seminarian; I was the preacher's kid who attended my 2nd cousins' bar mitvahs, the Goyeh who's Cousins Bea and Arthur had concentration camp tatoos.  My father, the priest, had gratis memberships to the most exclusive clubs in our Long Island suburb, but they would have banned my mother had they known her heritage. 

But I never wear these things.  I know for certain that my discipline for diversity and tolerance moves lightingly straight with the fact that my best friend and I weren't allowed to swim together in the country club pool.  But, I think my bewildered fury preceded the insult, and, besides, beyond that I'm wary to Identify.  With anything. 

Mostly, I am wary of Stories, particularly my own.  They seem to interfere with, more than illuminate, who I am.  Even my strangest personal adventures seem inconsequential backdrops to my ever-sharpening unique qualities.  I'm fairly reserved, smart, well-spoken, determinedly naive, a fierce friend, clear to articulate, and a staunch defender that everyone should be able to invent her or his own rules and life.  I increasingly believe my stories merely illustrate these things, not shape or define them.  And, quite honestly, I can't imagine why anyone, including me, would care about the narrative tragedies and triumphs of my ancestors or my past. 

I honor others' stories, but honestly -- running the risk of stepping beyond correctness -- they don't interest me nearly as much as the essence of the story teller.  I admired LeeAnn Howe because of her obvious commitment and skill at inviting forth the deepest nuance from her workshop participants, not really 'cause she's one of only half a dozen full professor Indian women in the country, inspiring as that is.  I embrace Marisela's Chicana identity marvel at her melodic Spanish.  But I love her because she is kind, wise, smart and has one of the deepest hearts I know.  And I bet she's been like that far longer than our 24-year friendship.  Far longer than her stories, too.

I get that story telling allows us to express our essence in ways that closed ears might hear.  But I'm eager for the time when we know each other without the need for such accompaniment.  

A neglected blog feels like the loss of my writing hand ...

But here's the thing -- I'm busy, in ways I don't ever remember being busy, an almost breathless response to a pounding boom of a new & wildly expanding zeitgeist, both ephemeral and practical.  Or, in English, suddenly what I do is popular.  

A little background.  I graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 1982, a lonely liberal arts major among throngs of budding engineers, attorneys, and financial tycoons ... a card-carrying liberal who believed in generous government and do-goody deeds thrust headlong in the middle of a Reagan Revolution where ultimately the noble point was to get rich.  I found it all bewildering and remarkably short-sighted, fueled by deeply buried streams of fear and naivete.  

So I hid out.  Found a lovely little professional niche, organizational improvement & development for public and non-profit agencies ... helping them deliver better services, find money, use their paltry sums more efficiently, improve life for staff ... domestic violence shelters, Habitat for Humanity, child protective services, departments of planning, park & rec, health, food stamps ... the vast majority of my agency clients serve an even more remote & fragile fringe -- those with chronic alcoholism and drug abuse, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, children with behaviors so disruptive and beyond their control they can't go to school or live at home ...  

It's been a wonderful professional subtext, full of highly capable people, life-changing outcomes and at the end of each day I can gratefully reflect on the woman now gloriously volunteering after 20 years frozen in her house from bone-chilling anxiety, the middle aged man working & living on his own for the first time in his life, the teenager heading for college instead of suicide.  I love my work, make a decent living, and happily allowed 25 years of weird politics and economics to pass me right on by.  Who cared if my friends had no clue what I did.

But suddenly, I'm kinda a hot commodity.  Suddenly being able to guide 150 people through a discussion about community values is a marketable skill.  It seems all those behaviors my marginalized industry has practiced for decades are now in vogue -- full transparency, rampant collaboration, open communication, sharing innovations, finding workable consensus among feuding stakeholders, thriving without capital, sparking hope from hopelessness.  

Suddenly we're a country transformed from invisible to helping hands.

Which is why I haven't been exercising my writing one.

Quotes for the Moment

I keep writing, inbetween (finally) reading Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope, inbetween fighting back inaugural tears ... inbetween finding wool socks and snow pants for all the children sledding down our street on this snow day ... inbetween dishes and work and making the bed ...  

I keep writing, trying to sort out our emerging transformation from the quiet, private perspective of a middle-aged woman.  A mom, wife and mid-level professional, I can think about big questions only until lunch needs to be made or phone calls returned.  It is part of our soon-to-be new President's appeal that, despite my anonymity, I will feel both part of this inauguration at noon and cared for as an American as of 12:01.  (As if on cue, as I typed that sentence I received a text from the inaugural team with DC directions, even guiding my safe travel.)  

I keep writing and I'm sure I'll be able to complete an essay at some point.  In the meantime, here are some of Mr. Obama's quotes in Audacity of Hope that have moved me.

Maybe the critics are right.  Maybe there's no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, and any attempt to alter the rules of engagement are futile ... But I don't think so.  They are out there ... those ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way -- in their own lives, at least -- to make peace with their neighbors, and themselves ... I believe they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point.  They don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting.  They are out there, waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them. pp 41-42.

If we Americans are individualistic at heart, if we instinctively chafe against a past of tribal allegiances, traditions, customs, and castes, it would be a mistake to assume that this is all we are.  Our individualism has always been bound by a set of communal values, the glue upon which every healthy society depends.  We value the imperatives of family and the cross-generational obligations that family implies.  We value community, the neighborliness that expresses itself through raising the barn or coaching the soccer team.  We value patriotism and the obligations of citizenship, a sense of duty and sacrifice on behalf of our nation.  We value a faith in something bigger than ourselves, whether that something expresses itself in formal religiong or ethical precepts.  And we value the constellation of behaviors that express our mutual regard for one another:  honesty, fairness, humility, kindness, courtesy, and compassion. p. 55.

Pakistan & Verve Magazine

My piece about Pakistan is now online in Asheville's Verve Magazine.  Maddy was sixteen-year-old blase about her photos; Alden wanted to know why the man was eating a snake ...

Coming Clean

Tuesday night I attended our monthly Professional Women's Network meeting - a wonderful, eclectic group.  We've strayed from more traditional topics the last few meetings, wild conversations ranging from energy fields, to intention, to the significance behind the political battle between Barack Obama and Sarah Palin.  And some wonderful questions that I'm happily pondering.

Here's the first question:  if we assume, as do many scholars, that Ronald Reagan's presidency initiated the huge shift in contemporary politics whereby facts were suddenly (and conveniently?) re-interpreted as ideology & political opinion and where profound cynicism first became a national epidemic ... then what ultimate gifts might that offer, as in "all is in divine order" kind of gifts ...?  I'm not sure yet (and suddenly faced with an emergency trip to Maryland so I can't ponder it right now ...)

Anyway, the whole conversation reminded me of another essay I published in All About Women so here it is for the archives.

Coming Clean

By Jeanne Supin

Ever been to meetings that seem civilized but feel dead?  People discuss things, share reasonable opinions, make rational decisions.  But everyone knows it’s a hoax.  Instant the meeting ends, the real conversation begins.  Folks cluster in the hallway or the parking lot, later gabbing on the phone or over drinks.  And suddenly the truth comes out.  People say what they really believe, grow lively and animated.  Then more intuitive, better answers soar.

This sort of sums up my life the last few years.  I have all these normal conversations … funny newlywed stories, tales of adolescent angst, how my house is a mess, I need more exercise, or I’m worried about the economy …

But thing is, although true, these conversations don’t tell my whole story. So I’m coming clean; I’m on-lining my off-line life.

I believe the world is changing … fast and huge and irrevocably.  Some of it’s like a parlor game.  I follow my “gut” instincts to slow down, and the hidden cop is revealed two bends down the road … I make a spontaneous marketing call that morphs into six lucrative contracts just when I need them … I email a friend out of the blue who said she had the exact same impulse … these serendipities are now so commonplace I barely register surprise.

Sometimes it’s bigger, and I can literally feel something rumble through every cell in my body.  I once had unexpected closure with a long-gone lover, and I subsequently felt every romantic abandonment drift permanently away.  I swear – it was like I re-did my past.  One moment I was simply thinking how nice the conversation was after so many years, and the next moment sensory images of one bad experience after another cascaded through me, each disappearing like vanishing debris from a defragged computer.  Absolutely gone, without a trace.  Leaving space for something brand new, which happened to be the first phone call – within seconds – from the man who would later become my husband.

I’ve seen occasional ethereal shapes move across my bedroom.  I’ve watched features in a painting change size and color.  Once in a famous Japanese Garden I actually felt miniature fairies and sensed the flowers so intensely it still makes me tremble years later.  I know people who routinely see energy swirls throughout a body with absolute clarity.  They can identify color, direction, and the type of physical or emotional congestion it blocks.  They can move those swirls, too -- whether they call them chakras, channels, meridians, auras, or energy flows – and lift away my back pain, sinus infection, or depression.

I also believe things are shifting far beyond my personal experience.  It is my understanding the world is merely tangible evidence of energy manifested:  e=mc² implies energy and matter are just different expressions of the same thing, and energy comes first.  Energetic frequencies shape matter – not the other way around.  Our world and our experiences are just functional representations of our collective imaginations, formed over millennia of human evolution.    And I believe our imaginations are changing, even if we don’t all consciously know it yet.

Here’s the condensed story best I can decipher it.  For evolutionary eons life was cool.  Then at some point we humans got scared, and we began to see everything as enemies – other species, other humans, and every “unseeable” chord nestled in nature and divinity.  So we started to fight, which led to more fighting, which caused destruction, hatred, and injustice.  Which sparked genocides and annihilation.  Our collective imaginations have trembled at that frequency, like some really rank note on a mangled tuning fork.  We created our world to match that vibration.  The horror sprang straight from our imagination.

But suddenly there’s a shift.  More people than in human history believe living out of fear (and its offshoots like anxiety, greed, or domination) is absolute madness.  Not everybody.  Not even a majority.  But enough.  Enough of us have imagined a different enough world to raise the earth’s vibration.  And so human-created garbage of lower vibrating frequency has to go.  Things like war, global warming and economic systems based on resource degradation.  Things like anger, worry and being mean to each other.  That doesn’t mean humans are destined to survive, mind you.  If we collectively don’t change our own thoughts and behavior, relentlessly jamming lower frequencies items -- like corporate greed or species superiority -- into the earth’s new vibration we’ll quickly obliterate ourselves.  But this shift in the earth’s vibration means the earth will survive regardless.  And if we get rid of our own crap, we can, in fact, live here in joy, peace, and love.

      Why a shift now?  There are a zillion proposed reasons, to name a few:

• The Mayan calendar mathematically foretold a cosmic shift in consciousness in 2012. 
• The earth’s magnetic poles are showing signs of repeating a long-ago reversal. 
• We’re moving from the Age of Pisces to Aquarius. 
• Humanity is demonstrating a natural immune response to the lethal destruction of its host, the earth. 
• Since the 1987 Harmonic Conversion new bands of light (i.e. frequency) have been able to penetrate and reconfigure the earth’s vibration and our DNA. 
• Crop circles depict consciousness-raising symbols. 
• Human’s own efforts to raise consciousness, like meditation or open-heart exercises, have created the right proportional critical mass to make the change.
• More conventional things, like the millions of people erasing poverty, oppression, and environmental disaster, have sparked the shift.
• God has said “Enough!”

      Maybe I sound crazy, but I no longer care.  I’m illuminating wide all those conversations I used to have in the darkened parking lot after those boring meetings.  And I’m not the only one.  I’m talking with people all over the place, in all professions and locations, people I never would’ve suspected to go “woo-woo.”  People looking for personal fulfillment who found enlightenment instead.  People recovering from cancer, alcoholism or a nasty divorce and quietly discovered cosmic love.  Artists searching for their muse who realized it was God.  Religious prayers that became spiritual conversations.  Parents who notice their children seem far more tapped in than mere intuition explains.  And over a million people from 139 countries watched Oprah’s online course with Eckhart Tolle.   We’re everywhere.  So I say forget the boring meetings.  Let’s move the conversations from the parking lot to the boardrooms, the classrooms, the living rooms, and make a difference.