Winged Synchronicity

Synchronicity has always been one of my favorite words. I like the way it rolls off the tongue, but I also love the meaning it gives to my life: a symbolic coincidence (if you believe in coincidences) in time of two or more similar events that are causally unrelated, something that happens at the same time, usually making that something amazing and unprecedented. The story below is a synchronous event in my life, recorded in my journal, that has become a treasured memory. 

I felt the familiar arms around my waist as Patrick moved silently behind me, two pairs of eyes now watching the ritual unfolding on the patio table. A male cardinal tore juicy strips from a grape and delivered them to the open beak of his fledgling. His mate did the same for a second offspring, wings fluttering, vibrating in the manner of a young bird waiting to be fed. The drama repeated itself. It was the kind of scene both of us devoured with pleasure, nourishing an archetypal need for paradise. It brought me back to a much earlier time, and although I had moved on with my life, I allowed myself to drift back twenty-five years.

 A sudden thud against the back glass door of the townhome drew me from the kitchen to the patio. My two children, ages one and three and a half, were asleep and I was alone. Curiosity more than fear engulfed me, for I was young and brave and believed no harm could come to me. No man in the house was there to check out the noise and reassure, leaving only the three of us to fend for ourselves. I moved to the door fearlessly. A goldfinch had flown into the large sliding glass door and was out cold. I'd read about the danger of birds doing that, and I had even once revived a robin that had flown into a store window a number of years earlier. The scene did not fill me with anxiety or dread, rather a feeling of duty, perhaps a duty inadvertently instilled in me by a gentle mother who tended every sick and wounded bird that arrived on our doorsteps throughout my childhood. Without much thought I reached down to scoop him up, the plan being to warm him into consciousness in my hands. He was light and still warm. I'd never seen or held a yellow bird before. When I stood up, I saw that the entire chinaberry tree enclosed within the patio walls was covered with goldfinches. There must have been a hundred, maybe more. The sight of so much yellow produced the physical sensation that accompanies unexpected delight. Even though I had opened the grating, squeaking door and stepped outside, the birds remained in the tree, like a gift, a surprise package delivered to my door by some universal post.

It didn't take long for the goldfinch to move again, eyes first, then wings, then feet. He grabbed hold of my finger to steady himself and prepared for take off. I moved toward the door, cupping my right hand over his body to prevent him from flying into the glass door again or fluttering around the room in confused panic. I opened the door, lifted my hand with its feather-light, and watched as he rejoined his mates. It was a joy I had done nothing in particular to earn. It was a "tree with the lights in it" moment that Annie Dillard so aptly described, a kind of brief encounter that signals every cell in your body of its extraordinary magnificence, the full significance of which escapes you until one day, years later, it hits you hard.

The next time I looked at the tree the birds were gone. I don't remember now what more important task kept me from standing at the door and staring out at the tree--the children, a phone call, the kettle whistling for a cup of tea? But they were gone, and I never saw them again. In fact, I never saw another goldfinch. Ever. I figured their presence that afternoon was some kind of synchronous mystery in which the universe had conspired to ease the pain and uncertainty of raising babies alone, a cosmic prediction that I would indeed make it through another day, week, year, eternity. Perhaps I had really always known that such beauty would be the grace to heal and strengthen and keep me buoyed up and floating as I learned to rescue myself.

My daughters are grown now--a doctor and a teacher, both determined to save a world where people need rescuing, not birds. I remarried after twenty years--to a man who loved birds, an English gardener. That same cosmic post rapped at my door again, and Patrick stepped into my life and created a sanctuary for song birds, crows and grackles, and often water fowl. Six bird feeders emerged from among the altheas, wisteria, bougainvillea, honeysuckle, and roses, and hundreds of birds visited them each day. Countless pounds of birdseed provided daily sustenance for birds, squirrels, voles, and opossums. Blackbellied whistling ducks came in twos and fours, sat on the utility line above the back garden "like patience on a monument," and finally began their slow wide descent to the piles of seed below.

I saw the movie Field of Dreams years ago and have since repeated many times the iconic line, "If you build it, they will come." Incredibly still, this line applies to most of my life, and certainly at least to the seed trays in our garden. With every act of caring, consciously or unconsciously, I thank the universe for a tree long ago full of goldfinches and the enormous mystery of it that stirred in me a belief in hope and goodness and the joyous appreciation of each day. At the end of this cycle, as always is
rebirth, a new beginning. Out of darkness, light.

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Emerson wrote, "We live symbolic lives," and I know exactly what he meant.

 

 

Dancing…A Metaphor for Language

 

The older I get, the more I value each day, each moment. Do I spend it judiciously? I know a significant part of my life--time, money, angst and ultimately great joy and satisfaction, is tied up in writing. This past June I published a novel, my first after writing three nonfiction books, one of which was actually a collection of plays based on five Shakespeare comedies. Lambent Literacy, this blog that seeks to draw readers' attention to words that I confess are relevant and important to me, must include, in my humble opinion, a nod to what is possibly the greatest metaphor for language, dancing.

What follows is an edited portion of a chapter of my first book that explains this metaphor, Dance of Language. I pulled out several old copies recently to work with three of my grandchildren on their writing. Each had decided to write a short story, and a chapter on writing short fiction is included in the book, so I turned to the introduction while they were typing away on their laptops. The book was published fourteen years ago, but some things never change. Technology certainly has, but tips on good writing--well, not so much. After all Shakespeare wrote in the seventeenth century and he's still the greatest writer the language has ever known. My point here is this: Language comes as close to yielding a ritualistic and symbolic life, blurring the lines between past, present, and future, as you can ever hope to find. And folks, what a gift! 

So, Chapter 1 and the metaphor.       

The announcement of a school dance is generally enough to pique the interest of students to start planning to be there. There’s a nervous twitter when the day arrives.  I enjoy being there, too.  Just watching on the sidelines of that dance can be illuminating—the joy, the energy, the reckless abandon!

Maybe you remember dancing when you were a child.  Perhaps you celebrated the arrival of spring by weaving colorful ribbons and dancing around a Maypole.  The steps weren’t difficult, but sometimes the dancers forgot who they were—under or over?—and the result was usually laughter and slightly bulging ribbons unevenly woven around the pole.  In pieces of literature rich with imagery and symbolism, the concept of dancing is often dominant because its elements have so strong a resemblance to the elements that make up our lives—the diverse steps in choreography, the partners, the moods, the missteps, the reasons for the dance.

            Dancing in a circle, for example, encourages a kind of magic that seems to strengthen and protect whatever it encloses.  As a significant part of world mythology, the meaning of dancing in any shape or form has grown in complexity while other symbols—hands, feet, the heavens, and thread, for example—connect with it and enhance its powerful image.  The dance, as both symbol and metaphor, provides an ancient instrument by which we can understand and know ourselves.  It is little wonder then that dancing has become an expression of emotions—the dance of love, of anger, of joy and thanksgiving; the dance of entreaty; the rain dance, the fertility dance; and the dance of imitation, the dance of creation, the dance of the planets, and the dance of angels around the throne of God.

          Dancing has thus come to be a manifestation of human growth and maturation that, as Jung reminds us, leads to individuation, or becoming the people we were meant to be.

             The contents of our language are impossible to organize in sequential order.  Unlike some kinds of dances that require strict choreography, our language demands that we know and use many skills concurrently.  The skills and knowledge for critical analysis build on each other and prepare us for reading and writing and thinking..

            Serious students of dance must understand not only the inner workings of the body and the bones and muscles that allow the body to move but also the importance of maintaining balance and conditioning.  How similar to the student of language who must also comprehend the different ways in which words, phrases, and sentences are selected and combined to form the framework that allows our language to move gracefully and to move us—to inform, to persuade, to entertain, to touch our hearts and minds.   

       Classic ideas tend to support each other and form cohesive patterns.  We find the words of Aristotle, Plato, Emerson and Thoreau, Freud and Jung, and the Roman and Greek poets, philosophers, and statesmen have left us with the marvelous gifts of the foundation of our thinking and of our language.

           In order to proceed in our pursuit of higher levels and more sophisticated dances, we must aim ever so high in choosing to read.  I tend to lean toward the proverbial “just read everything you can get your hands on” philosophy.  According to the Bowker Annual Library and Book Trade Almanac, book title output for all categories numbered 149,859 (516).  Try to imagine, if you can, what that means in terms of available choices for reading material.  Now, there has to be something printed or digital that interests you.  Remember, good readers make good writers.

            Finally, my handbook that I titled Dance of Language includes actual dance steps.  The literature in this course begins with the American Renaissance and ends with the English Renaissance.  Included in both studies are the steps for two popular English circle dances of the seventeenth century.  These dances offer readers a sensory, kinesthetic approach to complement and encourage their learning, as well as immerse them in the culture of a people for whom dancing was literally an essential part of life.  You will also take a peek into the dance movements that lifted up a people through depression and war and into their own heritage and culture, and continue to do just that today.  Ira Gershwin wrote many Tin Pan Alley tunes in the 1920s and ’30s to convince people who were down and out that dancing was the cure.  

In “The Dance of Life,” 1923, essayist Havelock Ellis concludes that dancing is the most beautiful of the arts because it not only reflects life; it is life.  Dancers, as well as those who simply have a keen understanding of Ellis’s statement, have expressed their feelings about dancing and used its perfect metaphoric quality to communicate their ideas.   

            Art, perhaps the earliest of storytellers, has a unique dance that lends its steps to my own path in life.  In October of 1872, French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas (1834-1917) traveled from France to New York and boarded a train for a long journey to New Orleans, Louisiana.  His subjects for the next year would focus on his family and life in this cultural city.  Degas’s mother, Celestine Musson, was the daughter of Germain Musson and Marie Celeste Rillieux—my matriarchal family name.  Marie Celeste and Marie Antoinette Rillieux were sisters, both born in New Orleans to a prominent old French family.  Their parents, Vincent Rillieux and Marie Tronquette, the respected matriarch of New Orleans, were also my maternal grandmother’s great-great grandparents.  Georgine Susan White Hill, my grandmother, who was also born in New Orleans, and Degas’s mother were cousins.  Georgine’s mother, Jeanne Felicie Mercier (granddaughter of Marie Antoinette Rillieux) married Denis Prieur White and at the age of twenty-seven moved in the same New Orleans society as her cousin Edgar Degas during the short time he lived and painted in New Orleans.

            A copy of Degas’s Blue Dancers hangs in my family room as a reminder, not only of the metaphor of dance, that archetypal rhythm of the universe, but also of the great need for the stories that connect our lives.

More than ever, my own classroom structures included ritual, another kind of dance that depends on language to keep it fueled and connected to meaning and purpose.  The opening ritual  included a routine of coming into the room and warming up with grammar and writing or looking at the day’s agenda and getting prepared for the class.  This daily task not only taught my students what to expect; it also showed them what organization looked like and how it could be rehearsed and eventually achieved.

Ordinary days need to be recognized, too, in a way that is as meaningful as the more celebrated events in life.  Although it’s fun to try new ways of approaching learning, I much prefer the heightened sense of awareness provided by doing activities that have stood the test of time in generating creativity in our lives.  Each year my students engaged in the particular activities that students before them had. I hoped this sampling of rituals in my classroom would develop pride and continuity and closeness between all the members of the class.  My desire was to help students share in a fuller experience through rites that help us connect and live well.  I wanted students who came into my class not only to know what to expect but also to look forward to the program of events planned for them.  Teenagers today have so much pressure and uncertainty growing up.  Research shows that predictable outcomes and meaningful rituals produce healthier people.  When all is said and done, what we do now, the choices we make today about how well we live, will have an effect on what happens to us tomorrow. I cared deeply then, and I care now. Ritual is key, friends, and the metaphor of dancing provided the steps for my forty-six years in the classroom, and it still can today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                        

Coda: The Final Pas de Deux

 

On the 25th of June, 2022, American and English families and friends of John Patrick Francis O'Connor gathered together at the beautiful 900 year old Anglican church where he was baptized, St. Mary de Haura in Shoreham, West Sussex, England. It was to be a final farewell to a husband, father, grandfather, and friend. For me, it was the coda, the final pas de deux of the composition, a life shared with a beloved husband.

It is not surprising that coda, an Italian word originating from the Latin cauda, meaning the tail of an animal, is a word often used in music, ballet, and literature as a summation of the work. The beautiful memorial service could not be described more aptly than with the aid of the coda metaphor, my last choreographed dance of admiration and remembrance with the love of my life.

When Patrick passed on the 17th of August, 2021, I knew despite my tears and grief that my time with him was not over. Because of Covid and travel restrictions and because my family in Houston could not leave their hospital jobs and schools, I set the date to take Patrick back home to England for the 19th of June, 2022. I spent the ten months following his passing planning a memorial service and two receptions from across the Pond. Patrick's friends and family in England worked diligently with me to bring us all together for this coda. I would like to believe his spirit was with us every step of the dance, that he knew what we were doing, and in the end we witnessed an even greater bond than before as we put aside our grieving to celebrate a life well lived.

With Patrick's love of nature in mind, I carefully selected the music and scripture for the order of service, and a number of peopled offered tributes in honor of him, creating a farewell to remember. When it was over, we walked across the street to the Crown and Anchor pub for reception number one. A swashbuckling buccaneer in a boat sits atop the front of the pub, reminding visitors of the long-standing connection to 18th century smugglers on the River Adur that runs alongside the English Channel.

My first visit to Shoreham, St. Mary's and the Crown and Anchor, was with Patrick in 2005. He was keen to show me where he grew up and was baptized, where his family lived as they faced the devastating effects of World War II along the Channel.

After a bittersweet gathering at the pub with typical English fare and a toast to Patrick, we made our way back to our house in Saltdean to prepare for reception number two. 

Patrick's friends from college and from Brighton University where he was a lecturer in the engineering department--Baz Taylor, John Andrews, Ian Hymas and Rory and Diana Mortimore, and also family members, came from various parts of England and Australia to participate in our coda. Patrick's daughter Georgina Rebera and her husband Julian, son Johnny O'Connor, five granddaughters and their husbands--Jocelyn Rebera, Jazmine Goodyear, Jade Young, Gemma Butler, and Hana O'Connor, and five great grandchildren added youthful, hopeful joy to our gathering. On the American side, my daughters Kate Hartman and her husband Rishi Modi and three of their children and Rachel Paredes and her son Christopher supported me throughout our journey to honor Patrick.

We spent hours telling stories about this marvelous man, and as we did, we grew closer to each other. There is something magical about remembering with words and photos, reliving those special times as if they were happening again in real time. Experiencing those moments together often creates a solemn covenant that seals friendship in a way that is binding. I have no doubt that happened for us.

In the end George, Johnny and I traveled to Lancing Beach on the last day to scatter Patrick's ashes on the beach where they played with their father as children. What could have been the final farewell to our beloved husband and father did not feel final to me. Patrick O'Connor still lives in the life we created together almost twenty years ago. I became a new person when I married this man, a person I liked even better than my old self. His garden and his paintings, the daily habits that created a happy life together are constant reminders of the beauty he shared with me. Death has not separated us spiritually. I will always be married to this man, and I will see him again one day.

I'm returning to West Sussex in October of this year. Just being present on the beautiful English coast with his family and friends brings me closer to Patrick's spirit. The coda may be finished, but he lives on in every part of my being, offering me the gift of satisfice in my contentment.

Peace be with you, friends.

Birds, Roman Mythology, and Shakespeare: An Auspicious Omen

 

How fortunate am I that a word in the English language can rub elbows with mythology, birds, and Shakespeare, three of my favorite things. April is no doubt a celebratory month, auspicious in its promise of rebirth, brought about by Easter and the awakening of the earth in all its glorious vibrancy. We often hear the word used as a cliché: "this auspicious occasion," yet it's a cliché that never surpasses its relevance. In the end we can thank Will Shakespeare for contributing the word auspicious to our language.

In 1553, the Latin noun, auspice came into English, literally referring to the ancient Roman practice of foretelling the future through observing the flight patterns and feeding procedures of birds. An auspex, the singular form, could interpret those omens, deriving from the Latin avis, meaning bird and specere meaning to look at. Auspice, the plural form of auspex, became known as kindly patronage and guidance. Over time, auspice came into use as auspices, frequently used as "under the auspices of," for example.

From the noun form developed the adjective auspicious, continuing the reference to a good omen. Shakespeare was the first known user of auspicious in his long poem The Rape of Lucrece. The villain Tarquin invokes heaven to "stand auspicious to the hour." It's unfortunate that the first use happened to be related to the Bard's treacherous subject, but there you have it, and we nevertheless are grateful for the inclusion of such a propitious word in our vocabulary .

Which brings me to my next point, that the presence of our own auspicious hours are the reason we continue on our path. Weddings, graduations, the birth of a child, a new job, retirement, a successful venture that shows promise--this is the stuff that dreams are made of and we need a word that describes such momentous, hopeful occasions. Enter auspicious--thank you, Will. But let's dig deeper.

According to the latest research from the CDC, teens especially are experiencing a decline in mental health following the pandemic, even beyond sadness and loss of hope. Suicide cases are up among this age group. How can we turn their cataclysmic world to something auspicious? As you can imagine, plenty of how-to self-help books are available, but if we look at the bigger picture, maybe our 21st century lives have been constructed on tenuous, insubstantial matter, specifically material possessions and a craze for technology, i.e., digital devices. Please understand, I am writing this post on a digital device, so I'm in no way suggesting that we throw the baby out with the bath water. But has our costly cell phone-tablet-laptop obsession as adults been the role model that our youth have needed to ensure not only their survival but also their peace of mind? 

If you're one of my fellow baby boomers reading this, let me take you back to our parents' day, a time when they had to learn to cope with the Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Red Scare, a Cold War and later the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. They learned the value of money, time, talents, family, and a spiritual life. My parents never owned a credit card and paid cash for what they wanted or they waited until they could. They were resourceful and used their talents to create the life they needed to survive and be happy. And they knew their neighbors, depended on them for news and conversation, maybe a stick of butter or a cup of sugar.

These were not easy times, and yet they were auspicious times in the most positive way. The denizens of this life wanted their children to grow up with a more peaceful, easier life--a critical element of the American Dream, I suppose, and yet did we pass these tenets on to our children? Do our children's children understand clearly the promise of hope and renewal that drove their great grandparents to succeed?

I want my grandchildren to play outside, to use their imagination in their play, to know the names of birds and trees and flowers, to love reading, to write their thoughts and think about what they've written. I want them to love spending time with family and friends, and not always on a computer game. These precious moments comprise the touchstone of that auspicious omen that will foretell the future hope and happiness of our children.

Blessings, friends.

Inurement through Neuroplasticity: Peace with Patrick

Few if any people have never been in difficult situations that forced them to surrender and accept the consequences. We can't control other people--your children, your spouse, friends, work situation. It's difficult but not impossible to resist what you can't control. Once again, I turn to Victor Frankl and his philosophy of the one thing we all actually do have control of: the way we choose to respond to what is said and done to us or about us. Perhaps it's how you look at the situation and how you respond in a way that makes actions and words more bearable, easier to cope with. But how easy is it to accept, without resistance, difficult circumstances, hardship, and pain? There is, of course, a word for that: inurement.

The word inurement was first recorded between 1480 and 1490 from the Anglo French in ure and en ure from the Latin opera, plural of opus--work. Used as both a verb, a participle, and a noun, inure and inurement refer to an attitude that allows humans to endure suffering without being overcome by it.  

Since we don't like pain and sometimes refuse to accept it, the inurement of physical or emotional pain is a gift. Yet, is an acceptance without resistance to difficulty and pain always a good thing? Does it actually teach us a lesson or make us stronger, or even encourage us to achieve the impossible dream?

Inurement doesn't necessarily mean you can change the situation, but you can respond in a way that makes the difficulty more bearable. A broken heart, a death, the loss of a job, not achieving the goal you think you always wanted--we may not be able to change anything by our resistance, but we have a choice in how we respond to what happens to us.

A myriad of self-help books have been written advising us how to respond to every problem that humans are faced with, and the truth is, the solutions aren't all the same. But perhaps the beginning of the solution may be. No one ever said life would be perfect or even easy, but no one also ever said the way to a better life was staying down when you were thrown for a loop. 

My husband Patrick had such an intrinsic presence in my life that he made me a stronger, more versatile person. We spent so much time together that even today I expect him to walk into the kitchen for a cup of tea. How do I get through each day without him? 

Neuroplasticity--another good Lambent Literacy word.

Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to bounce back and grow to find an alternate route or solution. But does that actually work?

I lost Patrick on the 17th of August, 2021, almost seven months ago, and because I wanted him to return to his home in England and be celebrated there by his family and friends, I have waited for this closure until the 25th of June, 2022. My two daughters Kate and Rachel and their families will then be able to honor his life with me, there in Shoreham, West Sussex. 

For seven months I have been orchestrating this day with help from my English family and Patrick's life long English friends that he kept in touch with while he lived in America--the 900 year old church setting, the lovely pub luncheon-gathering of friends and family. Patrick's four university friends wrote beautiful tributes to him and they will be meeting together with us for a reunion, one even coming in from Australia, to honor their friend.

The hymns we will sing speak of nature and God's beautiful earth, the scripture about love and hope, the tributes about the amazing impact he had on all of us. It will be a glorious celebration of a beautiful life and Patrick would have approved.

So how is my brain bouncing back and what alternative routes and solutions has all this planning brought me?

There is a peace that comes from knowing that this man's life truly mattered. I have often asked myself why we don't recognize the worth of a human being earlier in life, and why we don't acknowledge that  life in a meaningful way. Why don't we go the distance for each other more often? I believe I did, but was it enough?

Neuroplasticity engenders inurement, and these lessons help us to respond to disappointments and loss in a way that brings hope rather than despair. Neuroplasticity turns thought distortions around and allows us to see another viewpoint, to respond in a more hopeful way--even if we have no power to change the outcome.

The next time I see Patrick in my mind's eye walking into the kitchen for a cup of tea, I'm going to imagine the smile on his face as he remembers that his friends and family got it right.

Equanimity: Just Breathe

 

Victor Frankl published his widely read Man's Search for Meaning in 1946, a year after he was released from Auschwitz concentration camp. Frankl, an Austrian neurologist/psychiatrist who was imprisoned in four concentration camps during WW II., noticed that, even though the prisoners were captive, they still had the freedom to choose how they would respond to their captors. They could even love them if they chose to. He tried to teach this logotherapy to his fellow prisoners, and those who accepted his advice often became more resilient.

Frankl's theory of freedom of response is more alive today than ever. The ability to keep one's cool during times of stress or conflict, the patience and presence of mind that results in mental and emotional stability is alive and well in the word equanimity. The origin of the word is aequus, meaning equal + animus, meaning mind. From the Latin came French c. 1600 equanimite, evenness of mind, calmness, good will, and kindness. By 1610, the English word equanimity retained the French definitions.

While all of us would prefer responding to every stressful situation with coolness and self-confidence, we too often react to people who know how to push our buttons. You know who they are. The ones with the snarky comments, the ones who get under our skin and give us a rash. And then there are the painful, impossible situations that come when you least expect them. But living our daily lives with equanimity doesn't happen just because we wish it would. It's a process. It doesn't happen quickly, and yet when you don't respond quickly to the jabs life sometimes gives you, you think you're defeated, maybe even less than, and you know where that leads--a serious lack of self-confidence and an often angry, unhappy attitude. If you look at the larger picture, society's treatment of women and youth as well as social media demons can destroy equanimity before it even has a chance.

It can be lonely business trying to figure out who you are and what you're worth. I'm not a psychologist, but as an English teacher I know a bit about literature, and the characters we love often display the equanimity that endears us to them. We wish we could be like them. I'm thinking Atticus Finch may be my forever hero. And let's not forget the ultimate heroic example of equanimity, Jesus of Nazareth. 

A popular and well known set of ways to build equanimity in yourself over time comes from Buddha's three teachings on suffering:

1. Stop fighting your difficulty and find ways of dealing with it that help to create that evenness of temper. Don't expect the problem to be solved right away. You usually don't have that kind of control over a situation, so start where you are and be like Frankl: Use your freedom to respond or not respond.

2. Recognize that things change. What is today may not be tomorrow. The difficulties and challenges of life aren't permanent. Be patient.

3. Accept the value of taking baby steps to reach your goal. Baby steps lead to bigger steps and changes. Letting go of what you can't control begins for most of us in a small way until we can build up to letting go more and more.

Most of us lead lives of quiet desperation (thank you, Thoreau), working too hard, worrying too much and reacting too quickly before we've had a chance to think things through and come to the realization that silence might have been the best response. Just breathe. And meditate, visualize and squelch the "fight or flight" syndrome. Take a walk in the woods and tell it to the trees. Write and read daily a gratitude list in your journal. These are just a few of the many ways to get started on your journey to cool presence of mind.

Equanimity can be our saving grace for 2022. No one can deny that we've run the gamut of pain, disappointment, and loss--loss in so many areas of our lives in the last three years, and hope is at an all time low. On Christmas Day in 1957, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a sermon at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. The line that people will never forget can be a tool in our process toward equanimity:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." 

And from the Book of Common Prayer:

"Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light..."

I wish you light, friends.

Fear in 2022: Metacognition to the Rescue

 Happy 2022, friends!  One of the little demons out there hovering over our goals and plans for the new year is that ugly monster called fear--fear of the unknown, fear of failure and our own abilities, and fear of criticism, to name a few. There is no instant cure for fear, however; it's a process, but the first new Lambent Literacy word of the new year, metacognition, might just be the beginning of that journey to dealing with those fears. 

The word metacognition, first introduced and recorded by developmental psychologist John Flavell in the 1970s, is derived from the Greek word meta meaning "beyond" and the Latin word cognoscere meaning "getting to know." It refers to an understanding of one's thoughts and thought processes, and it requires an awareness of all the questions one might have about thinking: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Metacognition gives us the ability to control our thinking processes through various strategies. For example, we can reflect on the cognitive skills we need to succeed in a given task. I love to cook. When I am putting the holiday turkey on, I go through all the steps in my mind to not only lay out the equipment and tools I'll need but also to go through the steps I must take before the bird goes in the oven. I've done it so many times, but because it happens only three times a year, I carefully remind myself each time about the bird's cavities, that is, what comes out and what goes in, how it's seasoned, what temperature and how long it will need to roast. Do I fear that I may get it wrong and ruin our holiday dinner? Of course, but I know what to do to prevent that from happening.

Metacognition covers every aspect of our lives. It's all about planning out our work, tracking our progress, and assessing our own knowledge. So, how can metacognition help us in dealing with the dark, menacing cloud over our heads better known as fear?

What are you afraid of? Most of us might answer  the unknown. Which is what exactly? Unless you're a mind reader or you have the gift of sight, that would be anything in our future. We can plan for what comes tomorrow but we don't have any guarantees, so worrying about the unknown actually hands over the regulation of our minds to the fear monster.

Or how about more specifically fear of what other people might think of you? Fear of financial burdens? Fear of change? And then there's fear that you aren't good enough, qualified enough, smart enough, athletic enough, fit enough, popular enough, and the list goes on and on.

Fear is most often based on thought distortions, and that's where metacognition comes to the rescue. When we don't have all the answers right away, we have a tendency to create them based on the worst possible outcome. Reframing thoughts allows you to break through distortions in your thinking and see yourself or your situation in a more positive light. 

For example, my garden in winter is cold and bleak, which makes me sad. I love working in the garden and seeing the fruits of my labor, and yet, in fact, I know a winter garden is a natural phenomenon and there isn't much I can do about it....except look at it from a different perspective:

1. Deciduous trees lose their leaves, but they'll return in spring.

2. Many flowering plants reseed and will also return. When planting season occurs in March, nothing is quite as exciting as watching new plants grow.

3. Roses in spring are magnificent and worth the wait.

4. Birds and other wildlife have a more difficult time foraging for food in winter, but I have twelve bird/squirrel feeders and can help the wildlife by keeping the feeders well stocked.

5. I can continue to compost and enrich the soil for more successful spring planting.

6. On warmer days I can take my coffee or tea out to the arbor, sit quietly with my journal, and watch the birds and squirrels.

Speaking of journaling, writing your history--your feelings and thoughts each day, not only gives you a sense of the relevance of your life but also encourages you to think. It can even include writing a gratitude or even a gripe list. Describing where you are at that moment in your life makes you conscious of your thinking, the first step to looking at your fears realistically. Journaling can be done in several ways: on the computer or voice recorder on your phone, through art or photography, not just by hand in a book. One of my favorite writing aphorisms is "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"

Cognition is the thinking skills that we develop over time to store and retrieve information in our minds, but metacognition is the ability we can develop to control our cognition, that is, to reflect on the skills we need to succeed not only in the task at hand but also in developing positive perceptions of ourselves. But it's a choice we have to make. Do we plan out what we want and need to do to succeed? Do we then track our progress? And finally do we take time to assess the knowledge we have gained? Yes, part of the problem is a lack of confidence in ourselves, but maybe it's time to stop making excuses, start with the self-discipline that comes from self-love, and reframe those negative thoughts. Do you remember love your neighbor as yourself, and put your oxygen mask on first? Take good care of yourselves, friends, and have a blessed new year.