new memoir
How sacred are our mountains…
After watching an episode of Sacred Journeys on PBS, one which included a bit about the sacredness of mountains in Asian thought, I got to thinking about how important it feels to have a full-time view of the forever changing Spanish Peaks right outside our front windows.
The Spanish Peaks, pictured above, have a centuries-old history of sacredness. Dating back far before the Europeans arrived, this area was a crossroads of the American West. Taos Pueblo, located in northern New Mexico today, has been a major Native American trading center for over 1,000 years. One trail headed north out of Taos into the San Luis Valley, crossing east over Sangre de Cristo Pass, through the gap between Rough Mountain and Sheep Mountain.
Various Native American tribes like the Ute, the Navajo, the Jicarilla Apache and the Comanche passed through this valley regularly. To them the Spanish Peaks stood out because they seemed to emerge out of nowhere up to 13,000 feet running east and west, not north to south like the rest of the Rocky Mountains.
The natives peoples considered this a sacred place of ceremony. As far as they were concerned, this is where mankind first emerged from the womb of the earth. In other words, this was their own Garden of Eden.
The Ute Indians named these two peaks Huajatolla (pronounced Wa-ha-toy-a), meaning the “two breasts” which translates as “Breasts of the Earth”. I loved learning this ancient history, which I first heard about from Robert Mirabal when he came here to perform recently.
We moved here to create a dynamic relationship with these mountains, this landscape and the lovely silence. Mike and I have both traveled to many parts of the world. We now find the inward journey more essential than outward ones.
For us this is a sacred place, one where we can celebrate and appreciate the beauty of nature every single day, while continuing a long tradition of sustainable living.
Want to learn more about what it feels like to say goodbye to city life in order to live more intentionally? Here’s a link to my new memoir.
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The Ups and Downs of Being a Writer
I saw some interesting commentary on whether maintaining a blog is “real writing” over at Kathryn Mayer’s Writing Out Loud blog this week. This topic certainly got me going! No maintaining a blog isn’t just writing, it’s learning a certain software, editing, proofing reading, organizing the appearance of your article on the page and, in my case, providing professional-grade photographs. Then if you decide to write a book and self-publish, you need to acquire so many more new skills, and pay others for their skills.
I’ve been writing professionally since 2006. I started out as a freelance writer with a number of stories published in national magazines, but I did not like how the editors decided everything. Specifically I could find no editors willing to cover my favorite topic: midlife psychology.
Sometimes the editors were simply wrong, sometimes their English was terrible, sometimes they stole my ideas, and sometimes they cut my piece at the last minute, paying me nothing for a few weeks of work. (Thanks American History Magazine!) That’s when I started blogging. I for one am so glad to have the freedom to write everyday if I like, and reach those who want to hear what I have to say.
Freedom of the press is only available to those who own one. And now, I do!
The downside to all of this is the unreliable pay for those of us who write because we love it. Through the years I have made money on sponsored posts, but most by selling my books.
For those of you who read this blog regularly, thank you! I’m happy that you come here and follow our life beyond the big city, but remember, my only real income is from book sales. Please consider purchasing one or two today. It makes my day!
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What are your life-changing unpredictables?
Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.” – Gilda Radner
When I sit and think about all of the coincidences and chance acquaintances that had to happen for me to be here now, loving my new life in the foothills of southern Colorado, it fascinates me. Life is rich and so complex!
My brother John has been visiting again, which only reminds me of where I came from decades ago, and the lost years of junior high and high school. In my teens I was such a lost soul, walking around without a clue of what I needed to do with this great opportunity called life. One coincidence that changed everything for me was a chance opportunity to live in Bangkok for a few months after high school. I had just started college, but felt no real career direction until I went to live in Asia. Shock and awe is an excellent way of describing what I found there. I thought, how could this whole part of the world be here, and I had no idea of its existence?
The fascination that developed from that brief stay dominated the rest of my 20s. I studied Asian history, learned Chinese, lived in Taiwan and traveled in China a few times. Asia captivated my imagination, only because my Dad’s sabbatical included a trip for any of his kids under the age of 20 to accompany him.
When I look over each decade of my life, I can find at least one life-changing unpredictable event which somehow changed everything in my future.
Go take a look at your own life. Do you have unpredictables there that changed everything for you? German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said that it is only while looking back over your life that you may see that it all somehow makes sense.
One of the most unpredictable was our decision to move to a tiny, poor town in southern Colorado to build a solar home from the footers up. Now we live close to nature in “be-here-now” land, and life just keeps getting better…
Boomers’ Views on Election Scams, Medicare Scams and Letting It All Go
Our Boomer Bloggers are feeling frisky this week! Must be the full moon or perhaps the goblins of Halloween are already emerging early just for us… Tom starts us off.
In his post The 0.3 Solution Tom Sightings brings us the latest news from Social Security, and also relates his latest encounter with Medicare. Instead of raising the premiums, is Medicare stealthily cutting services?
As the finale of the never-ending election season draws near, Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting is thinking about life post-election. Not her life – hers will not change – but post-election life for the candidate not moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She has some ideas for one candidate in Ten Post-Election Pursuits for Donald Trump.
On The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, Rita R. Robison, consumer journalist, writes about new election scams and a drop in IRS scam reports since a huge raid in India.
On the other hand, if you are perhaps looking for an escape from corruption and scams, go try these links:
Too little kindness floating around, so that’s what Carol Cassara is bringing forward at Heart-Soul-Mind. Kindness. Let’s spread it, she suggests, and has two posts with practical ideas for doing just that. Kill the world with kindness, and an inexpensive way to brighten another’s day.
We all get caught up in busy days and a hectic life style, even in retirement. Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting took a couple of days off and decided to, if not exactly smell the roses, listen to the sound of the sea, smell the salt water, and enjoy unseasonably warm, beautiful weather. Read about her mini-staycation in An Autumn Respite.
And, to add a little bit of icing on the cake, don’t miss my new post: The Challenge of Being Fully Present in Your Life. This has nothing to do with the world outside your own mind and heart! In case you’re new here, I just same out with a new memoir. Please go check it out!
The Challenge of Being Fully Present in Your Life
“All great changes are preceded by chaos.” – Deepak Chopra
A few years ago I presented a talk to a group of unemployed Americans in their middle years. When I was finished, the first person to raise her hand asked me,
“Do you believe we have to hit bottom in our lives before we truly begin to change?” My answer at the time was, “I did.”
The fact is that most of us will not change until we become uncomfortable enough to admit defeat. Most need to be absolutely convinced that the “plan” they had for their life is simply not working. The way this usually comes about is through a major crisis which demands our complete attention. Divorce, serious illness, the death of a loved one, or long-term unemployment, especially when these occur in our middle years, seem to be the most common stimulants leading to the end of our naïve notion that we somehow can control everything that happens to us. These events become ever more common as we age. These unforeseen and often unforeseeable occurrences tend to inform us in no uncertain terms that changes in our life plan are now in order.
We may first try to defend against the onset of pain and confusion by denying or ignoring this sudden lack of certainty or security in our lives. Most seek to escape into bad relationships, drug addiction, religious faith or even artificially extreme feelings of independence, as they defend against their need to depend on others in their lives.
Even though it may seem completely counter-intuitive at this tough spot, you may discover that accepting and embracing the chaos and uncertainty you feel surrounded by is your first best step towards peace. Stop, sit down quietly, and begin to feel the enormity of this apparent crisis, realizing that this may be one of the most important opportunities of your adult life.
Can you trust in the power of your own psyche to survive this crisis, and in that way heal yourself?
“Have a sense of gratitude to everything, even difficult emotions, because of their potential to wake you up. – Pema
Know that this is the beginning of your own personal rite of passage into full adulthood. This is a natural, normal stage of human development studied by psychologists like Carl Jung, when he experienced it himself.
Recognize that you are not the first to feel chaos and uncertainty in your middle years. This is a well-documented transition of personal change, growth and human evolution. And the best way to move through this life stage smoothly is to embrace the new information and knowledge you will be given now.
By allowing this in, you have the ability to access the unique instruction this moment has for you. Instead of attempting to run from it, embrace the uncertainty. Begin to believe this moment is giving you access to your own unique brand of power, one you may have never known or acknowledged before. Begin to see that you alone know somewhere inside what needs to happen next. Spend the time necessary to listen to the small, still voice within, the one you may have been ignoring for decades. Recognize this voice perhaps for the first time as your inner guide, brimming with accumulated information and wisdom.
This source knows where you need to go next. It will instruct you in how you must change, grow and evolve into your best self in this moment. The sooner you begin to believe in its power and trust this valuable inner resource, the sooner you will follow its instructions, and find more structure, certainty and peace in your life.
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 