Think About It

A Loving Valentine to my Sisters

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:49:00 +0000

Yesterday I fell in love with thirteen amazing women. Warrior goddesses from the activist hills and the valley of sand.

Insanely strong and brilliant - shining - horsewomen, writers, elk hunters, philanthropists, travelers, mothers, wives, story tellers, readers, healers, art appreciators and culture lovers. World changing, life giving, generous beyond compare.

Yes, shoe loving, hot flashing, chocolate munching women.

This particular group had gathered for a life long friend on her fiftieth birthday. And while we celebrated our hostess with poetry and song, she celebrated us back with the stories that brought us to her side.

Held together in this vortex of loving friendship, each of us was honored to be in attendance. What I'm thinking about today is the friendship of women and the change in mandates from our younger days.

Donning the mantle of crone hood or "she-who-ensures-the-future", we accept a new assignment. But we bring along our posse to help us do the job.

It made me think about the women in each of our inner circles and why the demarcation of fifty is so important. Our biology in a state of transition (some would quip complete meltdown), it may simply be that our priorities and energies are shifting to ensure that the world survives. And this sisterhood of women carries us forward.

Having reached a vista of self acceptance, at fifty we are more comfortable with who we are. The arc of personal triumph dimming, mortal finish line in sight, we simultaneously look back with the desire for legacy and forward to the sustainability of our creations. Imagining the future world that others will celebrate, we see clearly how our choices creates the foundation for tomorrow.

We've mostly ensured that our children are fed and can express some degree of self sufficiency, attained a modicum of professional stature, successfully explored and expressed our sexual natures and finally softened into our true selves - deepening to access the broader equation with an urge to serve a greater cause.

If we have somehow been paying attention to what really matters, we've built a strong network of loving women to share the journey.

Some from high school or college, the maiden years, who held back our hair when we had one too many shots or listened endlessly to the same songs that summer until we knew all the words by heart. The ones who were there for our first cars, apartments, affairs and novels. The line of demarcation for me is those women who knew my first husband. We're talking thirty years ago.

He's long gone. My sisters are still here.

The mother years, when the children came and blotted out the sun in a flurry of diapers and play dates, school mates and soccer practices. We relive the first 20 years of our lives as they grow up under our feet and then fly away.

They're grown and living their lives. My sisters are still here.

Or when the children don't come. And fertility and identity and stories of progeny become a line of demarcation as our paths run parallel, not divergently. The women who car pooled, coffee klatched, power walked, trained for a marathon, passed the tissues at the movies, helped us pick a graduate school or a divorce attorney.

If we're lucky or kind or paying attention to what matters most. Approaching the last third of our lives with their hands to hold. Someone to attend the children's weddings, announcements of the grandchildren, celebrate the long awaited cruises, witness the unbearable loss of the only man who was there in the waiting room for the surgery and recovery.

The faces of the women who have loved you. Who are loving you today. Those shining, giving, laughing, crying, advice giving, hugging, scolding, coming to the party and then cleaning up the messes together, some day to be little old ladies side by side, girl friends.

If you think about it, these might be the last faces you'll see before you head off to your next assignment.

Probably should call today and send a loving thought. Yes, they're very busy saving the world for the next generation, but you can always leave a message.

A personal favorite of mine when the time comes around, maybe sing "Happy Birthday?"

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:03:00 +0000

Checking out Ping.fm

Brother from another mother.

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:00:00 +0000

Hallelujah! The culmination of the American trance dance of materialism has passed once again. The story of the arrival of the big JC, iconic emissary of a loving god, can be conveniently stored away in a manger with the wise men and the peaceful creatures of the barnyard with the odd camel or two thrown in for good measure.

Ever notice that East meets West is a theme there too?

We're all free to return to our daily lives coveting our neighbors' toys, sinning at the office, practicing mindless conflicts on the freeway and projecting evil out onto the blank screen of all "those others" who have interrupted our tidy, abundant, complicated lives with their neediness, suffering and despair.

I celebrated winter Solstice, which is my traditional observation for the season and offered prayers for peace, joy and love for all the cantankerous tribes of monkeys here on earth. Thrown in a few cranberry dishes for good measure, a bit of wild rice and sweet potatoes and skipped the egg nog, which to my taste isn't fit for consumption, even when adding rum to kill the taste.

At the end of the year my family celebrates by going to the movies. Being briefly absorbed into other lives and stories, albeit fictional, gives us fodder for contemplation and discussion of larger themes and different perspectives.

Three of the films echoed a dilemma around connecting with "others". According to most mythologies, we are all little bits of one bigger creation. So what makes connecting to the whole so difficult? The central characters found themselves adrift in alien cultures, searching for connection. (If you'd like to follow along in more detail, see "Up in the Air", "District 9" and "Avatar".)

In the first film, the leading man sought redemption in the narcissistic chimera of adolescent sexual fantasy and returned unchanged to his work in the corporate death mines. That was my take anyway. Perhaps there was transformation in his experience of connection, but the film refused to offer that conclusion. He remained up in the air as far as I can tell.

The second film forged the metaphor of connection all the way through a rather grisly transmogrification. A spiritual awakening through the death of the body and rebirth into an alien culture, which accurately recreated the vicious dehumanization of the majority of immigrant populations around the world.

Post transformation, the leading man attempted to bridge symbolically between these worlds and wasn't particularly successful in his efforts to establish a connection. Another reflection that most immigrant populations experience a similar disconnection from their former lives.

In the last film, not to be a spoiler, the leading man found connection through integration with nature. A satisfying transformation for this celebrant of the feminine face of creation. Apparently colonization doesn't make the script for the 21st century? Makes sense given that tromping around the home world killing other cultures is an apt description of the Western charter of the 20th. Let's see, how well did that work out? Note that the hero experienced transmogrification as well.

Is it so hard to apply our imagination to the life of the "other" that we fail to connect their struggle with our own face of alienation in the bathroom mirror each morning? Is a father's love for his son somehow less for his language or place of birth?

In an age of abundance, accessibility of creativity and genuine efforts to reach beyond our own biases and filters, why does connection to the whole still elude us?

Thinking about it, maybe the year end is a great time to consider getting up close and personal with our own connections.

Who do you call tribe? What are the common myths and metaphors that you accept as reality? And how do you make enemies of the "other"?

At the end of the twentieth century, the United States - conflicted hero or bully in the school yard depending on your politics - had "conquered" the world and was reaping a bounty of resentment from our neighbors.

Perhaps the twenty first century will ask us to rethink our conquering ways and envision rejoining the global village in a new way? I can only hope this involves flying around on dragons.

Think about it.

After all, who is the "other" anyway?

The Greatness of a Nation

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:28:00 +0000

The sound of the ocean, the silence of a spiderweb casually decked with diamonds of dew, intermittent and perfect, nothing symmetrical, yet the order of things point to beauty without a signpost or trail head.

Thinking about nature and patience. Grounding and animals. House plants and cats, palm trees and oceans. Waiting for inspiration to arrive as if delayed by the fog, my cat keeps me company, reminding me he's been fed but not adored in the last five minutes.

Preoccupied with my thoughts, we hug and purr. Rocking in the chair, scratching the litter off his foot so he doesn't track it around the house or lick it off later. He's okay with my kissing his head until he isn't.

I just stopped reading "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer.

I can't say I finished it. I just couldn't take it anymore. Picking it up to confirm the spelling of his name, and flipping it open, the litany of horror rolls off the page.

If nature and animals and being alive all delicately balance each other, how have we come to such a terrible place?

We got ourselves into this mess one bad decision at a time.

So much changed after the second world war. The industry of death envisioned and created during the war needed a new market and agriculture had plenty of upside. So we started pumping poison into the earth, air and water to destroy the pests that attacked the plants. Then we started arming the seeds genetically to defend themselves.

Coincidentally those same "killer" seeds can't reproduce, so every year the farmers have to purchase more seed. And should any non- patented seeds cross pollinate in the wind with patented seeds? You'll find yourself in court for stealing.

We brought poison to the altar of productivity and sacrificed our place in the natural order of the world. The greatest hubris of humanity is our insistence that we are the conquerors of all we survey and that mother nature is ultimately destined to be our bitch.

Manipulating the genes of the seeds proved fantastically profitable for the companies that "invented" the seeds and they now own the grain markets. Our government hands them millions of dollars every year in subsidies to poison our food supply, but that's another post.

The supply of food quintupled and poisoned food supplies were cheap.

It was just a logical step to begin "enhancing the productivity" of animals.

Voila. Factory farming.

And animals - breathing, living, creatures of heart, muscle, bone and brains - became "units of production."

We comfort ourselves with the fact that monkeys are omnivores. Even cannibals in the right circumstances. So killing and eating meat isn't the surprise.

There is a context of eating animals, a culture, a history; when access to larger amounts of protein secured health and reflected greater prosperity. While my ancestors grew taller and stronger for raising a pig and eating it, how does that relate to buying bacon from a factory farm with 30,000 hogs on it?

It's the factory part that is horrifying.

The inhumanity of spreadsheets and science that denatures life in the name of profits.

How can I knowingly participate in a market based on the standardization of animal cruelty?

According to Mr. Foer, 99% of animals raised for food are factory creations. Genetic mutants with short, incredibly brutal lives, ending inhumanely at the hands of monkeys who lose their own sanity on the killing floors.

The Von's truck rolls past with pictures of sandwiches on the side. Images from the book flood my mind. How those animals lived and died.

Here's what one of my teachers had to say on the subject.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Mahatma Gandhi

Guaranteed stress relief - just in time for the holidays!

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:59:00 +0000

The most important thing I've ever learned about the holidays? Ironically, the single most valuable lesson that repeats and repeats itself every day.

Lowering my expectations is the royal road to contentment, peace and joy.

This has been a hard learned lesson as I seem to have been born with towering expectations. And what better time to practice the gift of lowering my expectations than the holidays?

I've frequently said that Norman Rockwell did us all a hard turn when he created that idyllic image of the happy extended family around the holiday table. Failing to live up to that ideal, my disappointment grew.

I believed that Mr. Rockwell's painting represented an achievable state of family connection and celebration. Lowering my expectations meant letting go of what I imagined the holidays should look like and substituting this odd phrase in it's place.

"It is what it is."

Simply releasing my expectations signifies an acceptance of what is actually happening in the moment.

So, imagine the irony when I read the title of Mr. Rockwell's painting?

"Freedom from Want."

From my perspective, Mr. Rockwell's image represented what I deeply wanted yet frequently missed due to my expectations. (He had completely other ideas in mind if you're interested. Four Freedoms )

Okay, the holiday tables were always filled with food, which is no small thing to take for granted. In some homes this was not the case. I'm grateful that my expectations were never disappointed by dinner being scarce. (On further reflection, I realize that a big part of my attachment to cooking is to avoid being disappointed with dinner!)

More frequently my disappointments revolved around the monkeys at the table. They seemed to be suffering in large and small ways, tired and distracted, filled with unmet expectations about where they were and where they should or rather would be.

Wasn't this supposed to be a celebration of love and hope? So why was everyone drinking so much? Always worried about survival in some regard - about the economy, health care, aging parents, rebellious teens, the war in fill-in-the-blank.

Not so funny. That last sentence could probably be true for every generation.

If the circumstances of our lives don't change that much - we're born, grow up, love some people, hate some people, get some stuff, love some more people, forgive some people, lose some stuff, and then die - can accepting our circumstances make us that much happier?

In the word of a modern sage, "Duh."

As you find yourself wrapped up in the onslaught of expectations and the possible disappointment of holiday happenings, consider letting go.

Does your experience meet your expectations? Whether it does or doesn't, it is what it is.

As the next few weeks unfold, consider allowing all the parades and tantrums, spectacles and misunderstandings, to simply be what they are.

Passing images on a screen, moments of life unfolding, without resisting or clinging.

It is what it is.

Just doing my job.

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:04:00 +0000

I've worn glasses since the third grade. With two older brothers, I was frequently teased with the refrain "boys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses", which given my interest in eventually being passed at, was wickedly on target. Ah, brothers. (Little did I know at the time that in fact boys take passes at anything that moves, but that's another post.)

To adjust, I focused my emerging sense of okay-ness on what genetics had delivered by celebrating the compensatory prize of well shaped, evenly spaced and at times beautiful, teeth. I rationalized that while my eyes had been focused on the near side of life, my teeth were designed to bare my true standard to the outside world. Convenient that smiling is something I truly enjoy, particularly for no good reason.

In any event, I learned that while trips to the eye doctor were relatively painless, the upkeep of my smile had a different burden. I quickly determined that with a small daily contribution to the care of my teeth, the relationship with my dentist remained brief and harmonious. In the interests of avoiding sharp, stabbing or god forbid drilling pain of any kind, I became a disciple of flossing and brushing.

As the technology evolved, my cleaning arsenal shifted from manual to electric. A new brush came into my life through the miracle of Costco, where you can purchase two or twenty of anything, for what appears to be a greatly reduced per unit price. This is how the new electric tooth brush came into my life.

And in fact, it is significantly better. The mechanism doesn't duplicate the automated brushing function, up and down, side to side. The little rubber head wraps around the tooth and gums and gives the area a thorough but gentle scrubbing. You slowly move the brush head through your mouth and clean one tooth at a time.

I had to look no further than the box to understand how this leap in performance had been invented.

"Dentist inspired cupping action."

It took a little while for this so sink in, since at first I was mostly laughing. First I repeated the phrase in an excited, radio announcer, sales voice. After exhausting those riffs, I tried it with a Barry White interjection of baby talking sexy come on. Laughing and laughing.

What poor marketing person came up with that phrase?

Had dentists been cupping my teeth all the time and I didn't even know it? Was it included in the price of the cleaning? Had my dentist actually inspired others to cupping actions? Yes, there is absolutely a joke there.

Were dental students inspired by cupping actions as their motivation to enter the profession? Did the dental hygiene industry come to this inspiration together, or was there a leader who brought the innovation from the laboratory to the market? A dedicated researcher in a lab coat, working long hours, sacrificing family picnics and outings to the zoo, ultimately to be rewarded with finding the holy grail of cupping action.

Or was it market driven? Then the box might have said "Customer inspired cupping action", if marketing had any ethics at all about accurate attributions. But you don't end up in marketing if you're too concerned with accuracy or validity. So, there might have been a focus group that mused about the importance of surrounding the tooth with little rubber scrubbers, but the attribution had more credibility coming from a professional source.

Once the dentist has inspired cupping action, did he continue to live by the code? Was there a shrine to the dentist who originally inspired cupping? If I looked in the dentist's office, would I see the cups now that I was looking? Or was it only something that the dentist could see when he was inspired?

At the annual convention were there white papers on inspiring others to cupping? Or did the manufacturers present a variety of dentist inspired products, and cupping was voted to be the best? This made me think about what dentists' dream and are there other inspirations yet to come?

Think about it. "Dentist inspired cupping action." Bigger than anything else on the box. Including the product name or manufacturer. And darned if it doesn't work.

Today's inspiration was a silly phrase on a box and a quote "We never realize what an impact we have 'by just doing our job.'" Sara F. MSW.

Even though you might not be a dentist, could just doing your job inspire some cupping action today?

What doesn't kill you.

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:23:00 +0000

It's my birthday this week, and that means I am preparing for the annual recitation of all those cliches about getting older. Ever wonder why there are so many jokes? Because laughter is the only way to mask the humiliation and horror of surviving the advancing signs of decrepitude.

And the unfairly certain process of watching every single thing you loved and took for granted slipping away, either from view, since your eye sight is going, or actually from the room, since your friends and loved ones usually have one foot on a banana peel as well.

What no one ever jokes about is what makes getting older fun. That's because we're trying to compensate for being older than we ever imagined we'd be. Plus, memory isn't the strongest kitten in the basket at this point, so I'm not sure I'd remember if an old geezer ever told me what was good about adult diapers, hearing aids and hip replacements.

At this point, one of the best aspects about getting older is giving advice. Not that anyone is asking or listening for that matter, but just because you've survived so many stupid mistakes, you have a very long list of "exactly how is that supposed to work out" to draw from. The majority of my most whopping mistakes, (since I survived, maybe experiences?), were before the Internet existed. This gives them a certain plausibility as to "of course I couldn't look it up on the Internet, so that's why I went through that situation bass-ackwards."

All that experience means you get to say things like, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Accent this cliche with twinkly eyes and a sly, Cheshire catlike smile. What you absolutely won't mention is that a) it really, really sucked at the time, b) it hurt like hell and c) having it kill you was not a viable option, but had it been, you seriously would have considered it.

Also you can rename screw-ups "lessons" if you can believably pretend that you actually learned something in the process. From the right angle, what appears as wisdom now is probably more like well healed scars.

But what if the Internet had existed?

First of all, background checks in the form of Facebook. This would have saved me a ton of learning experiences in pretty much all of my relationships. If my ex-boyfriends only had posts from other single women who wrote pithy remarks like "that's so hot" on his wall, I might have guessed that he was a player.

Or if he consistently posted about his awesome streak in Vegas, featured ads for bail bonds men, strip clubs, get rich quick schemes or sleazy attorneys. Pretty much anything in multi-level marketing would be a non-starter with the classic suggestion that I could "make crazy amounts of money TODAY by doing nothing". Who cares if he had such a beautiful mind?

On the other end of the spectrum would have been those guys whose mother was posting sweet notes like "remember to floss" on his page and tagging him in baby pictures. Although I might not have even considered dating him to begin with since his cell phone ring would have been something from Mamma Mia.

Wait, no cell phones either!

This was the dark ages - hang on - before youtube, iPhones, Facebook, MySpace, Google or even Tivo. Actually back then television was a substitute for the Internet since I learned a lot about relationships from watching all those commercials in the 70's. My dream date would wear Brute, know the hustle and drive an American muscle car. It was even before blow dryers. Which was why I never achieved a truly awesome shag like Farrah's.

Thinking about it, I might have ignored all the warning signs and leapt right in anyway. Since my Facepage would have had some pretty damning links as well. Pictures of me with my cats, clips of me lip synching to the Beatle's, a "Keep on Truckin'" fan badge, links to astrology websites and ads for macrame plant holders and hydroponic kits for basement gardens.

Maybe all those lessons had to happen anyway? Since I can't rewrite history, today I'm choosing to think about the difference between acceptance and resignation. Let's just say the first one is more aligned with gratitude and I'm all about that.

At my age, even being able to think about it is a pretty great thing.

Filtering through the spice cabinet.

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:17:00 +0000

I love the taste of cumin. I could eat cumin on just about anything. Apparently it's been in the monkey cupboard for around 5,000 years. Here's a simple list of all the benefits, if you're interested in feeding yourself a little cumin today.

Big benefits, little seed.

Somewhere I read the scent of cumin is also associated with love, peace and general good times, which is why they pipe it into the air ducts in the casinos. What happens in Vegas smells a bit like cumin perhaps?

Not everyone loves cumin. Some would say it tastes like dirty socks, has been known to associate with spices from low circumstances and in general doesn't have the integrity of parsley or thyme. Certainly sage is much more familiar, but for my money, I'll take cumin any day. (To my knowledge there have been no folk ballads written about it, which could be part of cumin's problem.)

As I could be called a cumin lover, this makes me think about values. And how could anyone not love cumin?

Say for example your values are based on what's happened in the past. You're all about the perpetuation of traditions. The lament "it just isn't the same" is a frequent part of your vocabulary and everything was better before. If your family never ate cumin, grandpa never heard of cumin and great grandpa would be immediately suspicious, you seriously wonder why would anybody want to eat cumin?

Your world is all about trying to preserve stability and the sanctity of the way things have always been done. Today is a continuation of the past and tradition is the banner you're waving. If needed it makes a handy lance as well, should anyone suggest a change. Remember the past! And do not change the recipe.

If you're more in your head, you might insist on the continuous process of discovery and improvement. Cumin alone itself is fine, but could it be better when cooked up with carrots? Or paired with fennel and coriander? What does the current recipe lack? Spices are only one continuum of exploration and there are so many elements to add and subtract for a better experience. You're busy thinking about how many recipes there are for cumin and looking for patterns?

What if your values demand a context, a feeling quality, a madeline effect if you will? You place great value on nuances, sensitive to the subtle hints of something larger at work. Who have you shared cumin with, and what did it mean to you? Will harmony be preserved or disrupted if cumin is included? What's the deeper meaning of cumin in our lives? You once wrote a poem for the national cumin festival about how the spice changed your life.

Or might you first think what cumin can do for you? Can you find an advantage by liking cumin or is it better to dislike it? Cumin itself isn't really the point, right? Is there an upside opportunity here? Could you corner the cumin market?

You're always looking to win the game, so is cumin the best possible hand to hold? If there's no game to be played, how boring! Let's move on, make something happen, go do something! Why worry about a spice that isn't moving the game along?

Our values shape not only what's important to us, but what we see. This sheds light onto the myth of objectivity.

We don't accurately "see" anything because of all the filters of perception that are layered between us and the object we think we're viewing.

Do you ever think about your perspective? Ever wondered if how you see the world is just a matter of opinion? And what about the 6 billion or so other points of view?

I'm thinking that communication is a miracle. And finding agreement on anything remotely complex requires the ability to see not only my own filters in action, but to imagine the filters of everyone else operating at full tilt.

Could a little cumin help you see more clearly?

Going through the windshield.

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:52:00 +0000

I'm a big fan of change. Well, the changes I create anyway. My decision criteria is usually new is good, newer is better. To create room, I'm frequently thinking about what I can get rid of to make room.

I can tell when I'm ready to change, since it usually starts with cleaning out my closets. This recycling process can extend into whatever isn't nailed down but rarely makes it to the kitchen, where most of the gadgets have been with me forever.

I figure over the years I've let go of at least nine or ten wardrobes and two or three households full of stuff.

Without monitoring the bins at Goodwill, turns out that some psychologists figured out how to measure theses ebbs and flows by identifying states of change. Having built themselves a model, they're more able to support their clients along the change continuum. Particularly important in the addiction rehab business.

Where are you in the process of change?

As they say in Scotland, useful.

But what about the changes that just sweep into your life, unbidden and unwelcome? Or the ones you've planned for all your life that don't fit your expectations?

Let's say as a young girl you were the perfect mommy to all your dolls. Growing up you expected to have six kids and all the cargo to go with them. Then you turned up with a set of uncooperative ovaries, or married to an adorable but sperm impoverished donor?

Depending on your motivation to change your picture of motherhood, you could begin a global village at home through adoption. Or dive into the mind, body and soul challenging pile of acronyms to a medically assisted but potentially successful route to mommy land.

Say you saw yourself as a successful fill-in-the-blank and found that the destination was a mirage? With stressors and sacrifices that you weren't able to tolerate, much less consistently manage? And the job that payed the bills ended up costing you more to keep than to quit?

Everybody goes through it, and the names might be different, but hitting the wall is the one that makes the most sense to me. One minute you're flying along with your expectations intact, all the "I am this or that" labels solidly attached, and the next minute you're face down, sliding along the asphalt of life, having been ejected from the speeding car of your dreams through the abruptly shattered windshield of reality.

Not the change that you expected.

Your beautiful child is born with challenges you never imagined. Your perfect marriage ends less than perfectly. Your industry listing on the ground like a three day old balloon, your division laid off and the path to retirement taking a spin through some pretty dark neighborhoods.

Instead of a change model, consider using a grief model to get your bearings again. This gal, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, came up with a tidy one.

Gone through the windshield of reality?

Send farmers not soldiers.

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:06:00 +0000

Are some people actually just evil? Are there devils or Satan's spawn or undead zombie vampire killers lurking about the planet?

I'm a big optimist about the better side of human nature and talking about love, peace and understanding, but it occurs to me that I might be missing a big part of being a monkey.

What about all that bad stuff that monkeys do to each other? Like killing each other over a bunch of different things? How about traveling half way around the world to do it?

Our new president of change just sent another 30,000 plus troops of soldiers to kill off the drug dealers and mercenary war lords who are holding the people of Afghanistan hostage. I'm old enough to know that Obama couldn't have delivered on all the campaign promises of hope and change. So this isn't completely naive disappointment on my part, or a pollyanna version of how change happens.

But WTF?

This war looks a lot like the other war. At least this part was supposed to change.

How about applying a little creativity to the problem? This would fall into one of those, "Hey, Barack, if you're so smart, how come you're not thinking about it?"

How about we send 30,000 troops of school teachers to teach every single woman, man and child in the country to read and write. And send 30,000 cell towers with 3G capability, 30,000 net books and unlimited access to the creative resources and energy of the global village?

So the people in Afghanistan might have the chance to create the future for themselves.

How about sending 30,000 troops of scientists and engineers to help invent and build an economy that doesn't depend on opium?

How about sending 30,000 troops of farmers and horticulturalists to plant food and trees to sustain life, with 30,000 irrigation systems and 30,000 tons of organic compost?

From CNN.com/asia, a direct quote from a farmer who's trying to survive the war. "These countries that are here, why are they with guns and bombs? If you can just help the people of Afghanistan in this way (legal crops/AID), the fighting will go away, these Taliban and other enemies of the country will also disappear," farmer Abdul Qadir said.

I deeply appreciate all that the military has sacrificed. And when there is a clear need for a military intervention, they have served our country with honor and vigilance. I thank them for all their unwavering commitment and service.

Is this a clear case for military intervention? Can we do anything different?

The men, children and women of Afghanistan are not evil, Satan, the devil, or undead zombie vampire killers. And the bullies, drug dealers and zealots who have taken them as hostages deserve to be challenged.

Just think about it. Imagine what happens next.

Let's say we're temporarily successful in chasing the drug dealers and their henchmen war lords across the border into Pakistan. Then what?

If the families starve to death because there is no one to buy their poppies, what was gained? If there is nothing else to plant, how can a farmer sustain himself? Won't he need to go right back to what he was doing before the "liberation?"

Production is down, but what will take its place?

Something to think about at the holiday table when the gossip dies down.

When love comes first.

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:53:00 +0000

As you may have guessed by now, I talk a great game. There's a fluidity to my bravado that is laughable and I'm learning to love being just "so full of it" on occasion. Here's an example.

In my family we have an elder who is over 85. And whenever she doesn't answer the telephone, one of us will go over and check up on her.

Is she okay? Has she fallen and hit her head? Did she die last night and didn't have time to call and leave a message? Just to be clear, she's actually in great shape for her age and there is no reason to think that she's suddenly cut out just because she's not answering the telephone.

But we always draw straws on who has to go check.

And I'm not volunteering because I don't want to be the one who finds her either suffering or actually dead. Nope, not signing up for that. And after negotiating whose turn it is to go and fretting about it on the way over, just to make things worse, she usually meets me at the door, announcing that she was on the phone with her older sister and asks if I would like something to eat.

So far, so good. She makes a great chocolate cake.

No one else is leaping up to check on her, but I find my own reticence particularly endearing since I have been thinking about the subject of death and dying for many, many years. I'd say I love thinking about the topic, but that wouldn't make sense to anyone except a very small subset of other, slightly odd ducks.

My elderly family member actually thinks I'm a bit daft, or at least soft headed, for being interested in the subject at all. She has absolutely no interest in death or dying and expects to out live the rest of us by a long shot. We don't share a common philosophy on the topic to say the least.

So, I'll accept that not everyone is thinking about this. Actually, most of polite society puts this on a par with discussing the dog's hemorrhoids; we all know they're there, but please, for heaven's sake, do not bring it up.

Last week one of my teachers, Roshi Joan Halifax was in town. She faithfully practices what she preaches and excels in a challenging field. I admire her focus and enjoy the irreverence she brings to her work. She's been practicing for over 40 years and doesn't profess to having figured it all out, which is refreshing when you think about it.

I first met Joan teaching in the mid 80's at a solstice retreat in Northern California. She has since been designated "Roshi", which by her translation means, "decrepit old teacher." Her tradition is Zen Buddhism and she practices and teaches being with dying. Here's her cyber home base Upaya Zen Center.

Roshi Joan was here at the invitation of San Diego Hospice, a local organization that cares for the dying and is a recognized pioneer in the field of "palliative medicine." Hospice care and palliative medicine specializes in helping people crossing the border between resistance and acceptance, when the soul transitions from the battle of living to the surrender of dying.

In the workshop with Roshi Joan, I had a chance to sit with sixty or so like minded souls who agree that dying is worth thinking about. Hospice nurses, therapists, acupuncturists, herbalists, physicians, poets, writers, ministers, priests, pastors, musicians and healers of every stripe and color. A big bunch of gentle, twinkly eyed grandmotherly hearted friends keeping vigil at the crossing between life and death.

Buddhists, Christians, Agnostics, Catholics, Muslims and Jews. Death really is the great equalizer.

Every tradition speaks to this transition from here to there. And one of the big selling points of organized thought in this regard is the inevitability of the event. At some point, you won't be "here" to think about it. (I put here in quote marks since based on the current squishiness of scientific developments, no one is completely sure where here is.)

If faith and empiricism eventually reconcile, can we benefit from preparing to die as a path to reaffirming our commitment to living?

Can we hope that if hospice has their way, there will be lots of grandmotherly hearts at the border waving goodbye? Or maybe hello?

If this life is all just one big circle, could heaven be a place on earth?

Echos of the 80's and a loving tribute to the teachers and healers working on the border patrol. Feel free to dance along and enjoy the miracle of living.

Do you know what that's worth?

Big list, little list

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:06:00 +0000

Earlier today I was comparing two lists. On one list I'd written everything I can control. On the other what I can't. Predictably, the first was very short and the second was much longer. As I thought about the first list, it occurred to me that when I'm at peace and content, this is where I'm focused.

And the second list is where I spend all my time.

Not surprisingly, this is also the place where I encounter almost everyone else. Which is fine. Recognizing my own foibles and rapidly approaching sainthood with the exception of few bad habits like occasionally swearing with frustration and the now rare public tantrums, I graciously accept all the things I can't control.

It's what other people should control that makes me nuts.

Take dogs for instance. Other people, let's say "dog-people", should control their dogs. While I like dogs, I currently don't have one to displace my maternal instincts onto, so I am not at the moment a dog-person. To a non dog-person therefore it is not cute when your child substitute jumps up on me in the park and attempts to jostle the yogurt cup from my hands. This is compounded when instead of being horrified, which they should be, this behavior is briefly acknowledged by the dog-person as an adorable manifestation of the animal's natural interest in taking food from any passerby.

So, if I'm struggling with not having control over your dog, why aren't you?

What makes sense to me isn't "right". It just makes sense to me. That said, I'm living proof for the axiom that having lower than average emotional intelligence doesn't help when it comes to influencing people. Actually just the opposite.

Explaining to others what makes sense to me is just not a winning approach. Trust me.

That whole dog-person question I just wrote? Won't fly. When you're living with a dog, sleeping together and having meaningful conversations with him, really, what's a little yogurt between friends?

So let's look at something that isn't so emotionally fraught with family connotations and failed relationships.

Take flossing for example. When I discovered that the dentist would have very little to do if I flossed every day, I became a convert. Flossing every day makes sense to me. One small daily moment with my gums and the dentist is bored to death whenever I come in for a check up. Nothing exciting going on with my gums.

Flossing is a good metaphor. Every day I use my teeth and every night I give them a little extra thanks for doing their job. I'm looking forward to having them around for the rest of my natural life. It occurred to me that I hated going to the dentist and having work done. So I thought about it and took the next logical step.

This isn't "right." It just makes sense to me. Like servicing the car, rotating the tires, changing the oil, maintaining what is working to extend it's life.

Like it makes sense to me not letting your dog jump on people. And that's the rub. I can take control of my gums and service my car, but not your pet.

Or your kids, mother, husband. Or for that matter mine.

Turns out that relationships are not like gums. While daily flossing can preserve my gums, relationships with others involve lots of moving parts. And while I can do little things every day to maintain my connections to others, they might not share the value of regular flossing.

And just like being with other people and their dogs, this requires that I focus on what I can and cannot control.

Little list. Big list. Happy, not happy.

While you think about it, hang on to your yogurt.

I think I see a dog-person headed your way.

Hairy stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:44:00 +0000

I was planning on writing about hair. And all the wonderful people who care for hair. People who have devoted their lives to beauty and service. Removing unwanted hair, styling it attractively, highlighting it to look a bit more lively for the holidays.

Instead, this post headed off in a different direction.

There are much better writers on the subject. Historians, anthropologists, philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, ancient and contemporary political pundits, teachers and leaders. Definitely the philanthropists addressing the fall out. All of them have weighed in mightily on the topic, but for all the elucidation, evaluation, chronology, toxicity and destruction, the topic remains polarizing.

Racial discrimination is the topic today, not hair. Why couldn't I just stick to hair?

Having lived most of my adult life in the uber-liberal, tree hugging, granola munching, freedom loving, energy channeling, chakra spinning, body working, organic food cooking, diversity is our strength, do-your-own-thing West Coast, is it any surprise I am still stunned by the hatred that is generated on the topic?

Excuse my text, but W.T.F?

I don't enjoy being troubled. There's an inherent simplicity to my views on the subject because I was born into the comfort of majority blinders. There was never a seat I couldn't take, a store I couldn't enter, or a neighborhood I couldn't live in because of my race.

And when I look beneath the surface, I see my own assumptions and fears.

In no small regard, I have bitten off more than I can blog-fully chew.

Perhaps this would be a good time to think about contrasting highlights and low lights?

I'm reading about American history and multiculturalism. Within this context, I am horrified and appalled by the institutionalization of racism.

I was distracted in high school when we went over the creation of this great nation. Which is still a great nation with some very bad behavior.

The text books available on mid 20th century western history glossed neatly over killing all of the native people or romanticized it into a ballad of the brave pioneers. And that was just the beginning.

The marauding new comers kept coming.

Imagine attacking the owners of land you covet, then invading their capital city and strong arming them out of HALF of their country. Hello Mexico.

Sitting in a circle with twenty other women, intent on "diversity training", we go around and introduce ourselves. Every woman of color starts with her name and race. The Caucasian women skip announcing our race because it doesn't even occur to us that we're white.

Thirty years later I remember that circle with a sense of wonder.

The perfect example of a "fish don't know they're in water" moment.

I occasionally get hateful emails from people who practice racism. Last week a neighbor went off in public with the epithets of racial slurs in reaction to the changes around him. From otherwise loving and gentle souls who have good educations, tidy houses and plenty of food for their kitties.

As I think about it, the subject is so embedded in the lizard brain maybe the pre-frontal cortex is always disconnected and all we see is threats of loss of life and limb and the inherent inferiority of the "other".

Fighting for survival against the color of someone else's skin.

As my friend wryly observes, "what a primitive planet."

I try to imagine if short haired cats discriminate against long haired cats? Are orange cats racially superior to striped cats? Are white cats guaranteed a better life than tabbies or gingers?

Some of my younger friends are choosing not to bring children into the world because of the suffering and discrimination they will endure at the hands of other humans.

When I think about the hatred we've historically inflicted, I am hard pressed to disagree.

Is change possible? Are we capable of living respectfully? Can we learn to appreciate the reality that an injury to any is injury to all?

Warning - Silence Ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:04:00 +0000

"The only thing that happens abruptly in nature is disaster." (Safety tip from personal journal.)

Living at the periphery of the calamitous din of modern life, I often wonder if anyone has time to listen anymore? There are lots of jokes about it, but really, when was the last time you listened to anything? Actually took in what was going on around you with out reacting, commenting, judging, moving or responding?

Ever try "just listening" to what is in this moment?

It is harder than it seems for lots of reasons. For example,listening doesn't look like much from the outside. So if someone asks about your day, it might be hard to relate.

Try playing it out. "Hi honey, how was your day?" "Wow, I was just slammed listening today." Endure the quizzical look and having not much to report, unless you begin telling a story about what you think you heard.

This is called gossiping - which isn't really listening - but gathering up your judgements while someone else is talking into a narrative that you can repeat later to someone else.

Here's another tough one. If you do manage to be silent and listen, how do you know what you heard? And if you're action oriented, you might be listening for cues to turn what you've heard into something to do.

Maybe listening leads to doing? You know what you heard because you can see what you did. This is along the Indiana Jones continuum, or life is a mystery that needs solving and you know just the detective to do something about it.

Just listening is challenging enough, but especially if you don't think about what to do with what you're hearing. Could be interesting to try listening today for a few minutes and not doing anything about it.

Ever been accused of being listening deficit? No matter what you're hearing, you're actually thinking about what to say next? This one appears in marital discord all the time and may cost you dearly in alimony and child support. Better to nod and deploy the "yes dear" defense. Not being heard is a sad story, and in the absence of compassion, nodding often suffices.

This assumes that you're in the company of others. What if you're alone?

Think listening would be easier?

Not a chance. Turns out that listening to nothing in particular is even more difficult than listening to someone's story.

Here's a quick listen from this morning. The slow humming of the monitor, the clicking of the keys, the traffic going by, my cat chewing the plants. Hey, stop chewing the plants! Get up, wrestle cat away from the mangled bamboo. What was that, a few seconds? The minute I stop doing and listen, I react to whatever I heard and go back to doing.

Imagine that it's easier to listen if you eliminate noises around you? Silent meditation anyone?

This is like the Olympics of listening practices and not for the novice listener. If you're interested, here's the description of listening meditation. It's a direct path to transformation according to the practitioners, but sales brochures never tell the whole story.

If you ever sit silently for ten days, you'll know what I mean. It turns out that listening to nothing is tantamount to pushing every monkey-mind button at once.

You find out that you're reacting, responding, resisting, planning, commenting, judging and moving, when you're listening to absolutely nothing.

When you remove outside stimuli, the true source of the cacophonous din is revealed.

Jumping, jiving, story telling, connecting an undulating quilt of ephemeral diaphanous dots, the monkey mind is always speaking directly to you.

And if you enjoy fiction and drama, wait until the monkey mind is the only thing you hear.

There's an easier way though. Believe me. Start very slowly. One moment at a time. Practice in little doses. Try listening to someone today. Even for just a few minutes. Without judging, commenting or doing.

If you're feeling adventurous, consider being silent for a moment or two and listen to the sound of your own breathing, your heart moving, skin warming or cooling.

And if you're in the mood for the big roller coaster, take the leap into listening meditation.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Have a great weekend.

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:35:00 +0000

I'm physically limited to 30-minute segments of writing. Turns out that when I sit and write for longer than that, my neck muscles get tired. This discomfort is my body's way of saying, "hey, get up, this head is too heavy to hold over the desk, move it back!"

Thirty minutes on, five minute break, then thirty minutes on again.

This is just another insult added to the injury of the inverse pulses of diminishing time and expanding limits. Just for the record, I'm not great with limits. They seem to come up at the most inconvenient times.

Today I'm thinking about Friday, when I appear to encounter the most resistance to limits. A lifetime of clocking into first the playground, then the school house and then the water cooler - the accepted program of "modern" life - a dance inherent with inequity and unnecessary tension?

If you think about it, there is no actual difference at all between the moments that begin Monday and the ones that commence Friday. Yet I'm so thoroughly programmed to the weekly clock that the words evoke completely different feelings. We even have a special prayer for the experience. T.G.I.F. anyone?

That's why writing about limits is logically a better topic for Monday than Friday.

But Friday is when the resistance comes up. (Resistance to limits could have been my middle name but there wasn't enough space on the birth certificate, so they went with Ann instead.)

Resisting the culturally accepted delusion of work time isn't easy. The whole monkey show is organized around this dance of days. I suppose it is more efficient to have everyone agree that Wednesday is the middle of the week rather than just letting each person decided what makes the most sense.

First of all, why seven days? And why'd we agree to working five or six and only having one left to ourselves? Where's the creativity in that? Not to mention all the things that are competing for the short end of the stick and in living terms are probably more important.

Apparently we agreed the whole thing centuries ago and who's going to question the Sumerians? "The only thing we seem to know for certain about the origin of the 7-day week is that we know nothing for certain." It seemed like a good idea at the time.

So, probably just to be certain that Louis the cheese maker would be around when we stopped in to buy some cheddar, we agreed to participate five or six days in the marketplace and reserve one day for gratitude and rest.

And in exchange Louis agreed to the deal to secure somewhere to tend his cows, eat left overs and keep track of his kid's growing pile of toys.

We've made some adjustments to the original terms since actually Louis worked way more hours every day than was healthy. When we invented the machinery of mass production, we needed to schedule work a bit more closely. And were led into the land of labor laws by our cousins across the pond. Thank the British.

Having glanced at the link, turns out that the 40 hour work week was a great relief! A gift!

Thank god we don't have to work all day and night. But before you get too excited, read between the lines a little.

It turns out it's more expensive to replace trained workers who burn out at their stations, so breaking the work up into shifts was introduced. The machines can run around the clock and monkeys could survive if limits were imposed on their time in exchange for the guarantee of life long benefits.

We agreed to trading our lives for one day of rest to maximize productivity? Our reward a far off paradise called retirement? (Which I've checked out. It ain't pretty. There are a ton of old people and it's uncomfortably close to the nursing home.)

Is it any wonder as we're approaching the end of our weekly shift, the transition to "free" time approaches, and the resistance builds.

Inherent in our acceptance of this schedule is the agreement that one day is enough. Work six, rest one. (Anyone not working on Saturday? Think about it.) Get up and do it again.

And this realization, for one brief moment, comes washing in on the wave of relief at the conclusion of another hectic, maybe even brutal week.

I've agreed to exchange the entirety of my adult life for one day of rejuvenation per week?

On what planet does that make sense?

Maybe it isn't Friday that I'm resisting. Maybe it's the whole deal.

I'll have Sunday to rest up but right now I'm thinking I'll boycott Monday.

Have a great weekend and try not to think about it.

Some things are meant to be.

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:49:00 +0000

If the entire world is accessible from my computer by the sea, why would I ever leave? Or drive somewhere? Or get out of my daytime jammie clothes?

By eight a.m. this morning I've chatted with friends on two continents, checked out thirty or so discussion threads, gathered blog posts for later review, re-tweeted ten different posts, been quoted and grateful for the mention, offered emotional support for a gal pal and expressed concern for a family member's recovery from surgery.

The power to reach out and connect is growing exponentially. And not only with the people you already know and love. But the entire world is accessible from my home office.

This freaks me out in some regards. And in others I'm ecstatic.

Humbled and wondering, if I could connect with thousands of people, what would be the best possible thing to bring to the party?

Physical things are probably out, since just the logistics of the physical world require a big investment and certainly those pesky, basic math skills that I've never mastered.

Like all those questions of when and how many, how often, how fast and how heavy? The whole physical showing up goes to calculating space and time and I'm already on record about being math "challenged", and not by gender, thank you very much.

It has more to do with word problems, which never, ever, made the least bit of sense to me. I'd always get stuck on things like why was train leaving Chicago anyway? Was it winter? And did anyone remember to bring extra socks? And were the sweaters nubby wool, silk or cashmere? Will we have lunch on the train or are we getting off to try a new cafe?

These kinds of things were never mentioned in the word problems, so is it any wonder that I just wasn't really interested in taking the whole physical showing up part along to the next level?

Okay, so I'm not bringing anything that involves the physical, which is okay, since network services probably won't support a cupcake protocol for a few more years.

Emotional? Too dicey if I'm connecting with thousands of people I've never met before. This is where my we're-not-jumping-around-on-the-Internet friends get freaked out about stalkers, slashers, posers, perverts and half-wits. And based on some of the nastier traits of monkeys, I can see their point.

Psychological? Well, here's a bit about that arena. It can come off sounding preachy and self-satisfied, like I've figured stuff out and am generously handing out the keys to a happy, healthy and wealthy life.

It's the quick fix. Here you are, life summed up in a tidy package with a bow and a free seminar for friends and family. The advertising usually has a number in it, like the three secrets of eternal bliss, the five ways you can finally be perfect, the eight keys to undoing a life time of sloth, bad habits and snarky attitudes. You get the idea.

Not nearly close enough to the actually very messy process of living, for my tastes, much less the question of, if I'm so damn evolved, what am I doing attempting to connect with all these people by selling the answers to the quizzes?

Social? Not really what I get excited about per se. I know there are people who are relentlessly scheduled to meet people all day every day and never miss a chance to go to the endless rounds of potlucks that inevitably seem to come up. Thanks, but I'm out of town that day?

I mostly just adore who I adore. And you know who you are. I'm not especially interested in connecting with the people I went to high school with just because we were in the same building. If I adored you then however, I still do. I'm still trying to find Wendy Quinn.

Feel free to friend me on Facebook. But don't bring that other kid who was not cool about ditching sixth period to smoke behind the gym.

This brings me back to connecting with the global village on my terms. Which tends to be the spiritual, philosophical, zen mindfulness continuum. Sort of "the answer is there is no answer" crowd.

And sure, there might be some cupcakes, half-wits and high school reunions along the way.

But on a day to day basis? I'll continue to play the fool and rush right in.

Which brings me to the perfect gift to bring to those thousands of new connections, affectionately known as "tweeps".

Think about what you're bringing to the party while you hear it from the King.

The Dance of Love

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:04:00 +0000

This week a tiny clearing broke through the raucous thumping of creation. "Is anyone paying you to do this blogging thing?" "No," I replied. "Then, why are you doing it?"

Great question. Why am I doing this? Since all motivation comes down to either avoidance of pain or pursuit of pleasure, what is driving my behavior? I'm usually the last to know why I'm doing most things, so I looked at other bloggers to try and piece together some clues.

Honestly?

It appears there are as many reasons to do this as there are people doing it. Here's a link to a recent "Top 100" citing in the Times Online regarding the "blogscape" , if you are interested in Brian Appleyard's view on the genre. He's a professional journalist, so he's done an excellent job of researching the whole enchilada.

Recent guesstimates put the current number of blogs at over 200 million. Many of the posts about the growth of blogging appeared in 2005 and then died out. Just as many of the blogs did. Apparently blog mortality is a big issue.

I suspect the thrill over the printing press had a slightly longer honeymoon period.

For me there is the immediacy of seeing my words in a finished format. These words are not cleared by a committee, or approved by the legal department and beyond speller checker, lack formal editing.

This feels naughty, even writing it - I am completely unsupervised. Clearly at some point, that has to stop. Some part of me is waiting for the blog police to discover that I'm not qualified, licensed, certified or approved in any way to be just writing whatever I'm thinking about.

For heaven's sake, could I at least try and make money?

External acts that consistently deliver internal satisfaction - definition of a carrot on a stick, dangling in front of this donkey's nose. If I wanted a guarantee of something, blogging probably isn't the way to get it.

So the promise of fame and fortune on the outside take a backseat to a kind of internal stubborn streak. I practice three times a week because I can. Showing up, facing a blank screen, putting fingers to key board, refusing to take no for an answer. Typing along on my keyboard, there is nothing between me and the public except the acknowledgement that the posts may live forever.

Whoa. So that's kind of scary but also kind of thrilling.

Creating a foothold in cyber space with this freakishly direct medium is risky. Powerful socialization functions kicking in, my typing reflexively slows.

But hey, I endeavor to stifle myself every day in the name of good manners, so how real is the downside of acting out a bit here and there? Rather than succumb to the habit of hiding under a concrete veil of self criticism, I continue leaping into the creative fray.

Freedom, excitement, challenge, risk, set-backs, boredom, doubt, triumph, failure, exoneration, witness, advocacy, causation, liberation, art.

Looking at the process of creative expression, getting paid doesn't pop up. It is "supposed" to be worth money. If there is a socially acceptable reason to do anything it's selling.

Have a goal, a plan, an objective, for heaven's sake, at least an editorial calendar. Drive, do, produce, get money. Sigh.

Even writing that last little bit was torturous. Trust me. I know. Been there, done that. As a matter of fact, do NOT offer money as a reason to create. It stinks up the place.

If "a" then "b" isn't available, goal orientation slips away. Simply the clicking sound of the keys.

Freedom, joy, expression, monkey business. Entertainment. Fun.

There is it. Blogging is fun. Like some people would be skiing. Or sailing, exercising, reading, or playing the piano.

I'm thinking about it. Whatever it happens to be today. And if I wanted, I could tell you this blog is about triumphing over the inevitable smallness of any single life and reaching for immortality.

So, fun and death defying.

Oh, and love. Always about love.

Because in this little universe, as far as I can tell, there really is nothing else.

Blame it on the Bossa Nova.

What do you see?

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:18:00 +0000

Is it possible that being attention deficit is synonymous with a monkey brain on overload? My friends insist it's actually an apt description of modern life. With all the bits of flotsam and jetsam competing for my attention, is there any wonder each day seems like the aftermath of a tornado?

It remains a miracle that anything gets done, much less in a straight line. Seems that when I try to pay attention, I'm flung around by my thoughts, my ego, my senses, my environment, my duties, my values, my past, my future.... my, my, my!

You get the idea. Then, somehow, I remember the point.

"The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated", William_James.

And this makes me think about how we're living in a universe where, really, what you see is what you get.

Another way to think about this is the idea of a "holodeck". Click here for more.

Basically this is a science fiction version of a magic mirror. And in the normal progression of things, science fiction becomes science fact, then common knowledge, and then no one is amazed anymore.

Try reading anything from the 16th century on humans flying to the moon.

So, the holodeck works around the principle of projection and delivers on the idea that what we see is exactly what we expect to see.

This means that what we pay attention to is our reality.

I'm thinking that this is a true statement. (Check out this link and follow the instructions if you'd like a startling demonstration from our friends in the psych lab. What do you see? )

Eventually science squares up with common knowledge, and so cliches are also probably true.

This makes me think about appreciation and "what goes around, comes around." A popular expression that could point to a deeper meaning?

Holding the two ideas together, we see what we expect to see and what goes around comes around, might mean that our lessons are, in large measure, self created.

Of course the ability to consider creative responsibility for our lives is qualified by a baseline presence of a healthy mind. If a human is incapable of self reflection, emotional regulation or empathic response, they suffer from such instability as to be permanent creators of a living hell.

Most likely they will not be interested in appreciating others.

If you are related to one of these folks, you'll know what I'm talking about!

Otherwise, assuming you possess a somewhat intact mind, imagine for a second standing in front of a mirror and giving that person a righteous lecture on common courtesy.

What do you see? As your face contorts with indignation and hurt, what happens to the person in the mirror? Do they repeat your words of condemnation? Does their face begin to harden with defensive pain? Do they begin to take a poke or two at you?

Now, notice the effect of this harsh lecture and that in fact it is bouncing right back off the mirror into your own face.

Imagine now that you are smiling and appreciating the person in the mirror. What do you see? Try thanking that person for their gifts of gentleness and calm demeanor. Tell them a joke and see if they get your sense of humor and laugh. Do they enjoying spending time with you?

Chances are this experience could be easily applied to the world at large.

What you see is what you get.

When you are angry and defensive, guaranteed you'll experience mostly hostility and attacks. And every ensuing interaction justifies being fearful and aggressive. If you believe that "you're screwed", in fact, that is what you'll be creating!

The reverse is also true. When you are open and appreciative, what you'll experience is an infinitely loving creation.

What goes around comes around.

Consider spreading some appreciation around today. Start in the little mirror and move on to the bigger one when you're feeling ready. If you have a chance, appreciate someone who isn't expecting it. Feeling bold? Try genuinely appreciating someone who's being grumpy.

Silently appreciate someone who isn't ready to hear it.
Be amazed at how the universe reflects back exactly what you expect.

What do you see?

When the circus comes to town.

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:57:00 +0000

Having entered the Age of Rice Krispies - no matter what I have for breakfast every morning is snap, crackle and pop - I'm coming to appreciate a sense of perspective.

Doesn't mean that things just flow along like one big caramel macchiato, but my mental habits are beginning to emerge more clearly as my physical decline accelerates. And while I'm still young at heart, the rest of this bio mechanical bag of neurons is beginning to seize up with a predictable frequency.

On a side note, a friend who's reached the high side of forty, recently went doctor shopping for a diagnose of anything that would grant her a regular supply of stimulants. Her main complaints were that paperwork is tedious and she tired every afternoon.

If she's successful, I'll save you a spot in line.

Until then a change in perspective will have to suffice.

Aging is one of those topics where I notice that my mind and ego swing into a Cirque du Soleil routine that would make P.T.Barnum blush.

My mind applies its super power of time travel and routinely slides around the physical evidence, looking through the reflection in the mirror to a time when a much younger face appeared.

My ego slips into a warm, deep pool of denial, insisting that aging is happening to others and is convinced that actually we're dodging the entire process. Using these superpowers, this dynamic duo manage a perpetual stance of shock and surprise at the advancing territory of decay.

Is it any wonder that I covet a Mini Cooper to drive the clowns around town?

A big part of the fun of watching the circus is suspending disbelief. http://bit.ly/pBFI

In this suspended state, for an hour and change, we are transfixed by the performer's death defying feats of grace. They rush to the edge again and again, escaping gravity, time and space, defeating chaos and amazing us with their feats of physical beauty and strength.

They taunt death and win. When you think about it, what's not to love about this?

The mind and the ego are briefly grounded in their twin beliefs of immortality and specialness. We project ourselves into the performance and are relieved of the painful awareness of our mortal insignificance.

As my best friend would say, sign me up!

Noticing the circus that the mind and the ego are staging. The suspension of disbelief is undone and we fall back to this moment.

If you're interested in being here while you're here, you could practice noticing.

When the mind's circus comes to town, launching a drama filled trapeze act to distract from the present moment and the inevitable advance of your demise, you could practice noticing.

Following each inhalation, notice that neither the challenge nor the escape are true.

Neither fixated on adrenaline nor muffled in sleep walking.

The line between triumph and defeat fades.

Practice noticing and the circus music fades.

Gently, the elephants in the room sway. Empty, the trapeze hangs overhead.

No tall shiny boots or cracking whip. The ringmaster breathing in and out.

Sawdust drifting in a sun lit shaft of air.

Perilously fragile vessels

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:35:00 +0000

I was thinking about the amazing process of being born. Not from my perspective so much, as the woman who made it all possible - my mother. Technically, shouldn't every day be mother's?

Every monkey has a mother, of one shape or another. And making the choice to become a mother means letting go. Letting go of that identity before her child came. Of whoever she is before a tiny bit of life shines back at her and grunts the hungry sound. Or wails the wet or cold.

Interrupted by my shortened attention span. Shiny! Let's go outside, chat with the neighbors, watch HGTV, even practice my short game.

Wanting to do anything that is easier than writing about my mother.

Aren't there enough written words? Haven't all the great ones been taken? Looking for satisfaction in smaller and smaller things, I feel myself shrinking.

This is a good thing from my perspective. I'm as suspicious of self importance as I am of self deprecation. Whatever process puts the self in the center immediately brings to mind the ego.

Who do I think I am?

Love that question and could write about that for hours.

And that gets me neatly around what I do not want to write about.

My mother.

The cliche is true. Every woman in mid life endures looking in the mirror and sees her mother staring back at her. If the first half of my life was about reacting to my father's faults and challenges, does the second half need to be about my mother's?

Really, any activity - shopping, voluntary surgery, organizing the spice drawer, talking about your grandchildren, planning cruises, contemplating the universe, imagining health crises, avoiding holiday celebrations - anything but writing about my mother.

I thought we were finished. All is forgiven.

She did the best she could with the hand she was dealt and had some wonderful characteristics that made her remarkable, gentle, amazing, lovable and endearing. So why isn't that the part that I remember?

Why do I only look back at this stranger's life and poke holes in her psyche? Could I ever really appreciate having English as a second language? Or living in a community where the Catholic church set the tone and tempo of my every waking moment?

Helen, her given name, told me frequently that she grew up in the moral equivalent of the Middle Ages. Pisek was a reconstituted medieval Czechoslovakian village at the edge of North Dakota, not far from the Canadian border . She was born in 1917 to immigrant parents, the third child of eight.

Good news is they bathed in birth order, so the water wasn't completely gross and cold by the time she got there.

Her older brother began school not speaking a word of English. Fortunately, the one room school was run by a teacher who was bilingual in Czech.

The town revolved around the annual calendar of the church's feasts, saints, music and decisions were driven by the Catholic take on the Bible. Talk about fiction.

Whoa. My mom grew up in a cult.

And most of what appears below will only dance around these issues.

My grandmother Mary nearly died in the flu of 1918, which meant that my uncle and aunt and mom and her younger sister Margaret were cared for by the live-in "girl" who helped out with the household chores and cooking.

My mom had a nanny, but in her experience that was a bad thing, since she imagined that having her mother's attention would have been a much better deal. Having met my grandmother, I'm not so sure about that.

Ultimately grandmother survived the flu and went on to have four more sons. This was a big deal for my mom as her brothers were the "chosen" ones, as she was fond of reminding us. Men had special status in her cult, where Christ got top billing and Mary was more like an opening act for the big show.

I suppose I didn't encounter Grandma Mary under the best of circumstances, since it was later in her life and she didn't appear to be a very jolly person to begin with. We shared my room when she came to "help out" when mom was hospitalized.

Suffice to say I wasn't feeling particularly generous, had a new transistor radio and a defiant attitude towards the chaos around me. Of course how many eight year olds are interested in other people's problems?

This is the part of the story where I turn away.

My mother had issues. This isn't a surprise to me as an adult. It turns out that everyone does. I'm probably still attached to the story of who she was. And no matter how kind the words, the black and whiteness doesn't really serve itself up willingly to the page.

How can I characterize her experiences without just making things up from my side? Can I ever really know what was happening on the inside?

"All of human experience is subjective and memory is a perilously fragile vessel for collective truth." Mark Frost

There are only stories of events that were filtered by the simplicity of a child's understanding. Perhaps I'm entering the realm where fiction serves to speak on behalf of truths that are too painful to claim as my own?

Through fiction could I presume to open these doors and pretend that a yet unnamed character will sort out my mother's story?

Mother is gone some fifteen years next spring and she was never a great one for explanations anyway.

She'd been raised to accept what the church offered, and would repeat the truisms of her age and upbringing. This usually meant assigning blame to my father for whatever misfortunes she'd endured.

The immigrant history, martyr mother, lost child of eastern Europe, gifted musician of hymns exalting the life promised in heaven by a god who gave men a place of honor and women a place of servitude.

I suddenly understand why my sister is a poet. None of this territory easily lends itself to linearity.

All is forgiven.

My throat closes with unshed tears. Every story is based on fiction.

The perilously fragile vessel that was my mother.

Exhaling

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:08:00 +0000

I think I've earned a PhD. in "pushing the river". Naturally hard headed and raised to be a fighter, I've never been one to back down. Upon reflection however, what might be tenacity in some cases turns out to be just plain stubbornness in mine.

With the mind of a Rottweiler and the stature of a Chihuahua, I've specialized in starting fights I couldn't win.

Descended from aggressive, conquering, planet colonizing English stock, it isn't any surprise that our family anthem was "My Way." http://bit.ly/14Cwxf

At least on Dad's side of the family.

His ancestors emigrated from England in the early 1600's to stake claim to a paradise lacking only in British rules and rights.

The majority of people coming to the new world at that point were dreamers and fools, mostly destitute and fleeing either the tax man or the church, or both. Pretty much sums it up. The ones who survived were fighters.

Never surrender. Fight harder. Battle on to victory. Winners never quit and quitters never win. And for God and country's sake, don't be a "loser."

Is it any wonder that being a fighter is a compliment? Looking beyond my personal family cosmos, our culture constantly wages war in the market place, on playgrounds, in classrooms, bedrooms and court rooms, across game tables and continents.

The war of the sexes, the war on poverty, the war on obesity and we haven't even left our borders? The war on illegal immigration, the war on intellectual property rights, the war on drugs and the war on human trafficking. Oil wars, land wars, water wars and star wars.

Our wars are all about keeping score, winning and losing, triumph at any cost and avoiding defeat whenever possible. Depending on the stakes, we sanctify deadly force against our opponents or at least justify some serious prayers for it on any given Sunday.

When do we value cooperation? Where do we learn to collaborate? Within our families as a "team" against one another or against other families? Or do we band together with relatives in a dance to preserve our blood lines, consequences be damned for any one who gets in our way?

Is it any wonder we are ill at ease in the world? Our shoulders hunched, backs tightened against the raining blows, jaws jutting forward with determination and our heads pounding with the stress of modern combat.

We're fighting cholesterol, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, killer flues from super bugs, air pollution, drought, inflation, deflation, stagflation - is is any wonder we've lost our sense of grace?

What if the way forward is through surrendering to what is happening?

Have you ever just sat with the actual events of your life and noticed that when you stopped fighting, things moved along anyway?

It never occurred to me that the river would flow without my pushing.

Yoga practice runs counter to life here in the West.

Surrendering to expand.

Letting go to move forward.

Releasing into experience.

Pioneers laying down.

Opening outward from the inside.

Revealing infinite frontier.

Exhaling.

Sharing the harvest

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:19:00 +0000

What a small world.

Small but complicated, interwoven, connected, global and local all at the same time. Fragile, crowded, resilient, exhausted, wealthy, impoverished, blessed and stricken.

Some six billion souls careening through space on a watery rock with as many different perspectives as we have people.

Really, think about it. Could any one perspective actually be "right"?

A leading scholar in multicultural studies, Ronald Takaki, recently died and was featured in the New York Times obits. A leading scholar of multicultural studies at U.C. Berkeley, he promoted the idea that the history of America could use a serious tune-up.

From his perspective, we could start by the re-telling the story of the United States to include all of the voices, not just the ones of the conquerors. The link to his book "A Different Mirror; A History of Multicultural America", http://bit.ly/4EGMIM

In an early passage of the book he discusses the social construction of racial discrimination and offers a wonderful quote that it is "not the nature of men, but the education of men" that made them "barbarous and uncivil." Applied to justify the horrific behavior of settlers in "New England" towards the native population, it occurred to me that it's valid in lots of applications.

We have been taught to be hateful towards other races, countries, religions and cultures. We're steeped so deeply in our own cultural stew that it's easy to forget how our humanity is not unique. Much less we are somehow convincing ourselves we're right?

And how often do we invoke divine justice?

Conversely then, my hope is that we can be taught to love.

And learn to love our differences most of all, since this is always harder than loving what is the same.

President Obama took a step in the right direction this week by celebrating the Hindu festival of lights. He basically used the microphone to give a big shout out to the over one billion Hindus in the world. The recently elected African-American President, raised by Islamic parents (now professing Christianity) leading a 74% Caucasian country, is celebrating the biggest Hindu festival of the year.

What's not to love?

If you missed this bit of history, here's a YouTube clip of the President celebrating Diwali in the White House. http://bit.ly/GzSon

The current statistics on the changing demographics of the United States. http://bit.ly/74GQi

Coming to a neighborhood near you, the world's top religious orders. http://bit.ly/16YUXd

Learning to enjoy the diversity and complexity of the global village and sharing the bounty of the harvest.

Namaste!

Rare moments.

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:27:00 +0000

Turning inward, the days grow shorter, the nights longer.

I could easily sleep until 11:00 if it weren't for two small cats leaping on and off the bed at irregular intervals. Escalating from about 4:00 am onward, they start with bumping my closed eye lids with their wet noses, touching my chin and lips with a tentative paw, brushing ever so slightly onto my cheek with their whiskers and waiting for some response.

As those of you with small children or dogs can attest, they aren't really waiting.

Just beginning the ritual of "get up and feed me".

Each morning that we're together, the cycle repeats. The cats begin leaping about and gently nudging the monkey until she gets up and pours kibble into the chicken stock. This is our morning dance. My goal is to drift back to sleep as many times as possible. Their goal is to complete this process so they can nap until around 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon and then have lunch.

This cycle made me think about rituals. This time of year is fraught with marking the grander cycles of time. Now we do this, send this, sing that. Now we hang this, give that, drink these, eat those. Annual celebration marks some greater progression and occasionally haunts us with regrets.

Well storied, these bigger rituals carry us through time and space. On these occasions the pageantry draws us towards the larger landscapes of memory, history and destiny. Reaching back into the past we share the waning of the light with our ancestors.

Eternal echoes of fallen comrades, family and friends in "las dias de las muertas" the Mexican equivalent of Halloween. http://bit.ly/4gwZBh

Harvest celebrations are practiced in every culture that sprang from agrarian roots. http://bit.ly/1ojUM0

Busy in December, our ancient grandmothers bustled with the return of the sun long before the Christian era went with an adaptation of the virgin birth. http://bit.ly/1TzDQ3

It is easier to find these larger themes when accompanied by costumes and symbols. The thin veil between the living and the dead is much clearer wearing a fright wig and a set of vampire teeth. Or celebrating harvest with a poultry mascot and obscene amounts of food. Or marking the return of the sun with the patience and faithfulness of evergreens.

But what about the moments of our daily lives?

Is the bigger picture available to access, or are our lives unconscious by default? Could every day bring a chance to celebrate the living and remember the dead? Bless and offer gratitude for harvest and bounty? Give a joyful shout to the heavens for the blessings of the sun?

Thinking about the space between rituals and habits. A space where gratitude might live.

Rituals are choices we make and the awareness that "this is about something important to me". Habits remain what we go about doing everyday without thinking.

If we imbued our present and daily moments with meaning and reverence, would the practice of awareness become a habit? Might we become less a slave to the mind's wandering and more the agent of our divine intentions?

What if brushing my teeth were a ritual of thanksgiving for their glistening, grinding presence in my life? Some day they'll be worn and falling apart from their years of faithful service. Will I wait until they're gone to celebrate them? Or does my loving ritual of cleaning them twice a day offer an opportunity to be conscious of their gifts?

I might be grateful for the moments when the cat's noses are pressed onto my eyelids. Someday they'll be gone. I might be reminded of all those creatures in the world who have no monkeys to care for them. And are not shedding hair sleeping on the couch in the living.

If only they'd wait a couple more hours I'm certain I'll feel more grateful.

Daily habits can become rituals whenever the presence of mind is quiet and observing.

As the light dims and the pace of living slows, I can become aware of the connection between the two worlds, grateful for the harvest and faithful in the return of the sun.

Rare moments.

Only love

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:58:00 +0000

Corporate work offers many tangible and intangible benefits. A desk, a business card, a chair to sit in every day. Wearing the company logo, courtesy of HR, and an annual offsite that neatly puts the future into a slide deck that changes only once a year.

The macrocosm of good and evil, laid out in scalable portions. The kids in operations dog piling onto sales. Sales gals and guys dodging everything except their quarterly numbers. The snake charmers in marketing figuring out how to have more offsite meetings and vendor lunches. And the beleaguered CEO wondering daily if board members could be more clueless.

And of course paychecks, those useful monikers of one's value to the company and the world in general. The more you're paid, the more you're worth. A clear measure.

This paradigm fit very well with my commitment as an angry nine year old to always have the upper hand when it came to calling the shots. Tied up in the benjamins were so many notions about what it meant to be valued, dare I say loved? The middle class paradigm of the role of work as a tidy package of both identity and moral salvation.

With the basic math skills and developmental perspective of a pre-teen, I swallowed the lesson whole. My worth as a person could be measured by my brokerage account. Living as a material girl in a material world, the rules of the game were clear and I was determined to win. And win hard.

Later, when inducted into a spiritual view of life, I became aware of suffering and the causes of suffering, and my ideas about self worth took on other dimensions.

One of these is captured in the story about how to catch monkeys. This became short hand for understanding my attachments to measuring my self worth and suffering. Here's the link. http://bit.ly/1Ihg9t

As my hand clasped furiously around the sweetness inside the trap, I scheduled another meeting, press tour, event, offsite. Working harder, clenching my fist more and more tightly. By the late 90's, through providence, karma, luck and fate, the ground shifted beneath my feet and I was catapulted right out of the material coconut trees and into a spiritual crisis. At the exact same time my net worth rocketed upward, my grasp on the meaning of life shredded at the gateway of death The collision of these two forces sent my self spinning towards another way of being in the world.

It turns out that my younger self had been confused about many things.

Self worth being just one of them.

Now, ten years later? Unless my baby monkey mind takes the wheel, my self worth is not about my net worth. And what remains true has changed.

Only love.

These two words became a central organizing principle for my daily endeavors. Dedicating my life to being of service, compassionate, present, witnessing the reflections of suffering in the day to day living of all beings. Praying with my life for peace, experiencing gratitude, paying attention to nature, listening to dying. Embracing and recognizing the suffering of all creatures, great and small. Forgiving myself my trespasses and the trespasses of others. Letting go and surrendering to what remains true.

Only love.

Reading between the lines

noreply@blogger.com (Barbara A. Zelnick) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:08:00 +0000

If a single addiction has survived my multiple years of navel gazing, self absorption and sheer intensity, it would be books. I suspect that if I added up all my expenditures over the years, books would be at or near the top. And it isn't even that I've read them all. For many years just owning the book was enough. By way of confession, at times I've also fallen into pushing books on others with evangelical fervor.

The pattern would unwind by falling in love with a writer or an idea and then insisting to anyone who'd listen that THE answer exists within the pages. The list of these books would be tedious to recreate and I'm no longer convinced a) that anyone still reads and b) that they are seeing what I see within the pages.

The second point was brought home to me by a beloved friend, who having entertained my insistences over the years, eventually asked me to show her where in the book it said any of the things that I promised were written there. I assured her that I'd mostly read between the lines and that in fact the author probably didn't actually say that she possessed the answer to everything, but that's what I inferred.

And long before the book was written about outliers, my friend gently offered the reflection that I might inhabit a territory at the end of the bell curve bereft of common sense and social sensibility.

I recall the excitement when my mind assured me that this was the declared province of genius. Then I remembered that the other end of the bell curve houses insanity. This led to the realization that, hey, I only know that this end is really small. Isn't it equally possible that I'm at the crazy end? Now instead of being special, I had even odds of being nuts. Suddenly, I wasn't so excited anymore.

At any rate, non-fiction has been a life long obsession and in particular anything having to do with the aforementioned topic of "why are monkeys so fill-in-the-blank". The intensity of this desire to know, to possess once and for all, THE answer, has been the driving force behind my life long accumulation of the written word.

Reflecting on the libraries I've built and eventually discarded over the years, only a few authors remain constant. All of them, both living and dead, assured me that pointing at the moon is not the same as the moon. Zen koans

As with any quest to know "once and for all" anything regarding consciousness, the path is circular and quickly morphs into a three dimensional spiral. This is when all of you who adore fiction get excited because you've known all along that there are no answers, only stories that illuminate the domains and geography of experience.

I remain stubbornly fixated on my quest. That's how I come to recommend "Power vs. Force", by David R. Hawkins, MD, PhD.

And because I've disclosed my standard deviations and resulting instability on the slimmer end of the bell curve, accepting both the up and down sides of "norm", any conclusions regarding the value of this book are questionable.

Of course this doesn't stop me from assuring you that, really, if there is an answer, this is the closest thing I've read.

Reading between the lines