Aesculapius, the Healer: Just in Time for Advent

 The Covid pandemic has created a dire need for a cure. As I write this a vaccine is hours away from the first delivery to states, and plans seem to indicate health care workers are at the top of the queue, as they should be. As I sit here trying to type with my dominate arm in a cumbersome sling, the result of surgery to repair a torn tendon in my rotator cuff, my mind is on healing every minute of the day. No doubt healing of body, mind, and spirit is on all of our minds. Two friends from my youth have sadly died of Covid recently, and reports of suicide in light of failing businesses, long lines of cars waiting for boxes of food, general pandemic weariness, and staggering numbers hospitalized with the virus in every state all point to the urgency of returning to health on all fronts.

My own desires for recuperation coupled with my love of Greek mythology have prompted the introduction of my latest Lambent Literacy word, actually a name that no doubt will find itself in metaphorical allusion. Let me acquaint you with the Greek god of healing, Aesculapius, son of Apollo and the beautiful mortal maiden Coronis of Thessaly. A white raven was the hapless messenger of her unfaithfulness to him, and Apollo, in a fit of rage punished the bird by turning his feathers black. He also had Coronis killed and laid upon the pyre. Picture this: Apollo jumps on the pyre and cuts the unborn child from the womb. You can imagine the legacy poor Aesculapius had to endure, receiving the name that means "to cut open." And he obviously took it to heart, but he became such a famous healer that the Greek gods were so jealous of his ability to raise the dead to life that Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt. No mortal was allowed to have such power, not even a demigod.  As a child Aesculapius lived with the centaur Kheron who instructed him in the art of medicine. Because Aesculapius had an interest in snakes and was often seen with them, the medical culture we know today chose the symbolic emblem of snakes wound around a staff to represent their profession. Before you think this is a little creepy for a man of medicine, it is important to remember that snakes, who shed their skins, represent regeneration.

Although it is believed that Aesculapius was actually a real doctor in Greece, he is generally thought to be a demigod, half mortal and half god. It is with this fiction that I want to address the notion of not only healing but also of metaphorically raising from death to life the most important aspects of our lives.

 It is now possible that the coronavirus vaccine will be in the arms of many healthcare workers and nursing home residents this week. Doctors are predicting that Americans who want the vaccine may have access to it by late spring. They also caution  that 70 per cent of the population must be vaccinated to insure herd immunity and a path to our former lives--churches, businesses, schools and social lives back in business.

Scientists, however, also warn that December through February may possibly be the darkest days for the pandemic, stemming from holiday celebrations. So the question on everyone's mind is what do we do while we're waiting?

Is it synchronicity that, as the pandemic rages on, these four weeks before Christmas are known as the season of Advent, a period of reflection and symbolic waiting for the birth of Jesus? Perhaps our celebration of Advent is part of the healing we need--slowing down and reflecting on who we are, what we need to survive this time of darkness. It is in this season that we hear these words from The Book of Common Prayer, First Sunday in Advent: Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light...

While we rely on therapeutics and vaccines in these dark days, not even modern medicine can heal what often ails us: loneliness and despair. Social distancing doesn't help, and although it seems like a panacea to say just have faith and everything will work out, what we believe in and how we live in love can transform us. Maybe putting on the armor of light can revive us from the metaphorical demise of the people and things from our former lives that we long for.

My sister Sarah and our friends recently joined a Face Book page called Hygge Life, based on the Danish concept of comfort, peace, and the simple joys of life. The administrator of the page forbids negativity and blocks it when necessary, which is almost never. The most stunning revelation about this site is the open receptiveness to friendships and advice. Hundreds of people respond to posts with ideas and suggestions for finding comfort. Both men and women are members of this page in which kindness overflows from people of enormous generosity to people struggling through the pandemic. Kindness is so infectious that it gives members a little more faith to get them through each day.

Aesculapius was honored for his skill even after his death. For hundreds of years the sick and dying came to his temples for healing, and thousands had faith that they would be healed. Despite the miracles of modern medicine, how often do we rely on our beliefs in hope and faith for our emotional and spiritual healing? We may be getting the vaccine in a few weeks or months, but faith is a lot like chicken soup. A big dose of it  couldn't hurt.

The Sweet, Earthy Perfume of Rain: It Has a Name--Petrichor!

 

Of the many natural phenomena that we earthlings appreciate, the smell of rain may be my favorite, the sweet, earthy perfume in the down wind. I once knew of farmers and people living on country roads who could predict rain was on the horizon. Even animals use their sense of smell to predict rain--chickens, pigs, cats and dogs seek shelter. Ravens squawk and cackle before a rain; bees fly into their hives.

In 1964 the scientific journal Nature coined a name for that pleasant smell: petrichor, from the Greek petra--rock + ichor--the fluid that flows from the veins of the gods. It is, in essence, the distinctive scent, usually described as pleasant or sweet, produced by first rainfall on very dry ground. It's a fresh, musky smell emanating from two combined sources: rain hitting the bacteria in soil and a plant alcohol called geosmin. When the rain hits the ground, tiny aerosols splatter and are carried by the wind.

Now, isn't that just like us humans to give a scientific phenomenon a lovely name. I like that.  Naming people and things brings honor and respect to them, and what deserves these sentiments more than the elements of nature upon which our very existence is completely dependent.

Rain in particular has earned a place of reverence in the O'Connor garden. Spring's abundance soon turns into scorching dry summers in south Texas. Rain is an ethereal gift; the garden will die without water, and rainwater is supremely preferable to the garden hose. And my monthly water bill.

But I'm not alone in my veneration of rain. Many writers have placed their characters in a setting of rainfall--Singing in the Rain made Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly famous, especially Kelly's happy rain dance after falling in love. Yet, not all stories about rain are cheery ones.

Sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury's short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" opens after a nuclear blast has obliterated the town of Allendale, California, with the exception of one highly automated house, the McClellan family home, that still goes about its chores serving the family as if they are still alive. At one point, the house's automation begins reciting Mrs. McClellan's favorite poem, "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale.

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathering fire

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire,

And not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

If mankind perished utterly;

And spring herself, when she woke at dawn,

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Teasdale published her poem in 1918 during WW I and the 1918 flu pandemic. Ray Bradbury's anti-war position aligned with Sara Teasdale's, and he borrowed the title of her relevant poem for his story.

A tree branch breaks a window in the house, knocking a bottle of cleaning solvent onto the stove, and igniting a fire. Mechanical rain showers from the walls until it runs out and the house burns to the ground. 

Bradbury wrote another story about rain, "All Summer in a Day." Nine-year-old Margot's family moved to Venus from Earth when she was four, but she remembers her life there. Venus experiences constant rain except for two hours on one day every seven years. Margot is the only child in her school who remembers the sun shining on Earth. Just before the sun is scheduled to come out on Venus, her classmates bully her and lock her in a closet until the sun is gone. Only when they have experienced the sun themselves do they understand what Margot has been trying to tell them, but it is too late.

While the phenomenon of an overabundance of rain can certainly be disastrous, rain is generally considered life-giving, cleansing, and in Terence Rattigan's play The Winslow Boy, it is life-altering for each character.

Fourteen-year-old naval cadet Ronald Winslow is expelled from Naval College. He returns home to London unannounced and hides in the garden during a rainstorm. He opens his expulsion letter addressed to his father as he stands in the rainy garden getting soaked. When he later must go before his father in reckoning, the truth must come out. The crime of stealing a postal order is unfounded and Ronnie is innocent. His father accepts his word and begins to prepare for battle against the powerful Admiralty. He enlists the distinguished and costly barrister Sir Robert Morton to defend his son in court. No spoiler here. Watch the movie! 

The symbolism of the rain at the beginning of the story--growth, purifying acts of love and revelation, introduces the crusade in which each member of the family must now engage and whose lives will be forever altered.

Water has long been recognized in archetypal symbolism and world mythologies as a regenerative power, purification and spiritual revelation. It is the liquid counterpart of light, the the source of all potentialities in existence.

And that existence includes our environment, our beautiful planet that sustains us and is sustained by water, the flora and fauna that afford us our earthly paradise. We have a choice as well as a responsibility to preserve it. As my favorite rockers sang at Woodstock, "We've got to get ourselves back to the garden."

Next time that lovely fresh musky smell blows in from down wind, think of the ethereal fluid from heaven, petrichor, and say a prayer in thanks for rain and for all we have because of it.

Invoking Your Inner Griffin

 The griffin, or gryphon as it was often spelled in the earliest accounts, is a mythological beast with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. It isn't difficult to grasp the symbolism of such a creature: the extraordinary sight of an eagle combined with the strength and courage of a lion. Scholars  believe that this creature was first mentioned by the Greek poet Hesiod in reference to the battle between griffins guarding the king's gold as they battled the Arimaspians, a tribe of one-eyed men in northern Scythia, probably the Carpathians. Still, in other stories, griffins guarded priceless possessions including the green gold of the forests, the trees of which are the archetype of life, and became the unfailing protective superheroes of mythical creatures. No villain could mess with a griffin. Such is the world of mythology.

But does it have to be only mythology?

I'd like to think all people have within them exceptional strength and courage and the ability to see more than they actually allow themselves to see. In moments of desperation we have been known to call upon these qualities, but how often do we trust in our own fortitude enough to call upon the eagle's eye and the lion's courage every day? 

Although we may question, with no small amount of trepidation, going out on a limb and exercising that bravery quivering below the surface, we do have a choice. We can step forward and choose to invoke our inner griffin. This decision isn't based on Jung's personality types, shy introvert or bold extrovert. Surviving difficult times for every one of us requires strength and courage and a clear vision of what is ahead--identifying our own personal truths, if you will, and then facing them head on. We have the skills we need to stand up griffin-like to the difficulties we face. Okay, we're not mythical creatures; we're real human beings with weaknesses. We don't always choose wisely, but often facing the enemy, whatever it is, begins with just making the commitment to change course. That's really where it begins.

For the first time in my life, in the midst of a raging coronavirus pandemic and a politically divided nation, record breaking numbers of people have already voted in the upcoming November 3rd election, and millions have stood in line for hours to cast their votes early; others mailed them or dropped them off in special boxes. This is the kind of commitment effort I'm talking about. People not only voted; they encouraged others to express their democratic rights as citizens as well. Why now? Hope?

Hope moves people to perform extraordinary feats. The goals of striving to become, of taking care of a family, of reaching goals, of living a decent life seem to be not just an American ethos but a universal one.

Myths, legends, fairy tales and general fiction are full of ordinary heroes like us who discover their strengths in time to save the day. William Kent Krueger offers a brilliant example of four vagabond children who do just that in his book This Tender Land. Readers may remember his Ordinary Grace in which a Methodist minister navigates through a murder mystery and the epitome of personal loss to raise his sons and survive tragedy with grace. 

In This Tender Land, four children escape the pitiless, dreadful Lincoln Indian Training School whose goal is to "kill the Indian and make the man." In the summer of 1932 three white children and a Sioux boy journey by canoe from Minnesota to St. Louis to find a place they can call home. It is through their own griffin gifts and those of the adult mentors they meet along the way that they find the strength to become the people they were meant to be.

Great leaders who rose above humble backgrounds didn't quit when life seemed insurmountable. Doris Kearns Goodwin tells us, "Even early on Lincoln's moral courage and convictions outweighed his ferocious ambitions." He remained quietly in the background while he educated himself, sure that was the best way to reach his goals of striving to make a difference in people's lives politically. He borrowed law books and studied on his own.  Many years later during the depression, famed science fiction writer Ray Bradbury lived in the library, unable to pay for college, and taught himself what he needed to know. He went on to become an accomplished award-winning author of books still read in classrooms the world over--The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, to name a few.

Every day of my life I think of my beautiful mother who sacrificed her own needs to help her widowed mother of six children, dropping out of college during those depression years. Later, after sending her children off to school in the morning, my mother walked to a trade school several miles a day and again back home to get the skills she needed to become a purchasing agent for a hospital and subsequently an administrative assistant over four departments in this same hospital. Against the odds, she found the strength and courage to persevere and the foresight to gaze into her future with options. My sister and I and our two brothers paid attention.

No villain can mess with a griffin. Marguerite Ehlers knew this and lived it.  Are you ready to find out for yourself? 

Vox Populi? Or Will We Be the Vanishing Frog at Tinker Creek?

                             

The U.S. presidential election is only weeks away, the President has tested positive for Covid, a new Supreme Court nominee has been selected, and this country could not be more divided in her choice for the next leader of the country. The people have bitterly chosen sides with a brash disheartening disdain for the "other." No longer seen together as fellow Americans, citizens engage in the basest of insults, name calling, and mud slinging. One side looks primarily at the financial end of solving the nation's woes and the other focuses on the unification of the populous with all its basic needs before any other issues are addressed. Can we heal the wounds, repair the ever widening crack in our union before it is too late? Will we be like the frog slowly devoured alive by the giant water bug in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek? The frog sits motionless in the creek, the spirit vanishing from his eyes as he begins to deflate, seized by a vicious bite that slowly reduces the frog to a juice.

It's a horrific description and probably too scary to imagine metaphorically happening to Americans, but perhaps we need a good kick in the pants.

What can unite us? I suggest we look deeper into ourselves, past the politics and rantings spewed from both sides of the party and the media, to find that crux, the pivotal point of every human being's most critical need. What is far greater than simply the current prevailing mood of the people, the definition of the Latin vox populi, is the ultimate vox populi--the need to be respected and acknowledged as a human being worthy of life on the planet.

Whether or not you belong to or support any of the cultural, political, or socio-economic groups in the United States, the fact remains that we all something in common, and that something is the force that drives our deepest and most desperately important actions. Peel back the layers of anyone, no matter how you feel about him or her, and you have the same need to be recognized as having a life that matters. Deep down, the blue collar worker trying to support his or her family wants to be able to work and make a decent living that can afford the kind of life that is substantive. Who doesn't want the same thing? Food, shelter, clothing--the basic needs to sustain a life, and perhaps a little more for the miscellaneous extras we love, are important to all of us. Those who were born into wealth or who have achieved it through smart choices or working hard can easily say there but for the grace of God go I.  Yet the fortunate want the same things that those who are less fortunate want.

And then there are the more radical groups who get plenty of media attention and raise havoc with the general public as well as politicians--white supremacists for example. Despite the fact that our nation has spent the last 150 years trying to equalize the races, the truth is there are still people out there who need to feel superior to others and will fight for it. You may not agree with their beliefs or their modus operandi, but even those who deem themselves superior because they are white want to have jobs to support themselves and their families. Their desire to harm others with their beliefs and their behavior may actually have taken root from their belief that their own lives matter more than people of a different race or religious belief. Those are deep issues of fear that one can only hope can be resolved in time. Maslow's hierarchy of needs not only continues to apply to all human beings today; it also propels us into serious action with every breath we take:

To go hungry every night, to be homeless, to want for the basic necessities of life, including medical care are blatantly symptomatic of the position too often held that some lives don't matter. 

Unfortunately, the real vox populi is too often drowned out by the din of the somewhat obsolete chords of the American Dream that once promoted the idea of wealth for all--work hard and you, too, can have a better life than your parents. According to the NY Times, the richest one per cent in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom ninety percent. My guess is that isn't going to change any time soon, so what does that mean for the ninety percent of Americans who simply want to have enough so that their lives still matter?

God bless the houses of worship and the food banks and organizations whose sole purpose is to help those in need, but is it enough? Has it ever really been enough? Dominic Rushe of The Guardian wrote, "Inequality was a pre-existing condition long before the coronavirus started its spread." This American mythology of the potential wealth-for-all must be shattered now. Every person in the United States matters enough to ensure that all who want to work can, that no one goes hungry, and no one suffers because of a lack of medical care. All lives matter, not just the top one percent, and this is far from the much feared and repudiated idea of socialism. It's the United States raison d'etre: united we stand and equality and justice for ALL.

Thaumaturge: Be the Miracle Worker of Your Own Life

                           Getty Images

 Marc Pettaway and his troupe of Summer Mummers created one of the happiest memories of my youth.  One summer this esteemed theatre director cast my good friend Mary Lea Latimer as Helen Keller with me as her teacher Annie Sullivan for a series of scenes from The Miracle Worker. We agreed to enact the scene with as much realism as teenagers could muster, and, even as I got slapped around by Helen mercilessly, I loved every minute of that summer. And I've admired Anne Sullivan ever since for her selfless dedication to saving the life of a little girl destined to a life of meager experiences, a paucity of language, and even the possibility of an institutionalized life. Annie changed all that when she worked her miracles and gave the precious gift of language to Helen.

There's a word for such a person--thaumaturge. It means a worker of wonders, miracles, a magician, and it was first recorded in 1705, traveling linguistically from Greek (thaumatourges) to Latin (thaumaturgius), meaning wonder worker.

When you think of miracle workers throughout history, no doubt you think of Jesus, but miracle men and women have existed in every culture throughout time. In fact, religions exist to a large degree because of these miracle workers--Mohammed, Buddha, Hinn and Bonnke, St. Francis Xavier, and even St. Guinefort the dog, just a few of those thaumaturges who took part in miraculous occurrences quite distinct from the natural order.

                                                 Bing Images

While these mystical occurrences are either the basis of our religious beliefs or simply an intriguing story, the real focus of this blog post is less esoteric and more suitable for the general public--you and me, and our ordinary circle of friends and family who recognize that our success in life is frequently attributable to the miraculous, selfless behavior of people who care about us. At the top of the list are the angels God has placed in our path along the way--parents, friends, teachers, ministers, and even the small acts of kindness from generous strangers. They may not have contributed the little fishes and loaves that fed the crowds, but perhaps they turned your day around with their generous spirit or guided the direction of your life.

These minor thaumaturges should never be disparaged or underestimated, but before you develop a co-dependency on merciful miracle workers who show up for you, look in the mirror. You are the first and foremost thaumaturge of your life. There will certainly be times when no one comes to your rescue, but when that happens, you have the option to pull the sword out of the stone for yourself and take the lead. How? By making good, maybe new, decisions about your life and following through on them, and when they don't work, you turn to plan B. Remember, no one has put you on a timeline--no one makes good decisions all the time, which means we constantly have second chances. The news gets even better when you realize that you are not obligated to other people's opinions. No one knows your wants and needs better than you do, and taking stock of them often is the best way to plan the necessary changes in your life. Below is a short list of five tactics for the thaumaturge you are:

1.  Make an assessment of where you are now and where you want to be in the near future. Keeping a journal helps. Begin to see yourself as a winner, but don't stop there. Do something each day to get closer to your goals.

2.  Begin or continue a savings account that will be an emergency fund. Be frugal in your spending. Do not overlook resale and thrift shops! Learn to cook and go out to restaurants for special occasions if necessary. The list of inexpensive outings with friends is inexhaustible!

3.  If your personal assessment requires you to go back to school, do it. Find the most affordable program without going into massive debt. Avoid making excuses or following unwanted advice if this is an important part of your plan.

4. Take care of your mind, body, spirit: Eat healthy foods, exercise, meditate or find a church or spiritual group. Always count your blessings.

5.  Give back to others whenever you can--a kind word, friendship, a hot meal. When we do good things for others, our old brains think we're doing it for ourselves. You get two feel-good moments for the price of one!

We are living in an age of chaos filled with greed and self-centeredness. Miracles are precious gifts that do not thrive in chaos. Let your decisions about your life be made in peaceful thoughtfulness, and watch the miracles bloom!

 

Living the Hygge Life: Celebrating Joy

 

I took an online survey about Covid recently developed by a major American university. A number of the questions referred to depression and anxiety, which people in the United States understand especially as it relates to not only the pandemic but also the current natural disasters that are wreaking havoc on people in this country. Other studies done before Covid in the last decade pre-pandemic have focused on exactly the same issues: depression, anxiety, and a myriad of stress-related illnesses such as high blood pressure, headaches, heart problems, diabetes, skin conditions, asthma and arthritis. What they discovered is that 43 per cent of all adults suffer adverse health effects from stress. Seventy-five to ninety per cent of all doctor visits are stress related ailments and complaints. Emotional disorders are more than fifty per cent due to chronic stress. Well, you get the picture. Houston (the world?), we have a problem.

Capitalism, the free enterprise system, and consumerism are not necessarily the culprits, but before Covid arrived, weren't we the ones who  chose to get up at 4 a.m. to get the kids ready to go to school and rush off to beat the rush hour morning traffic to get to work, work all day, rush out the door to get on the freeway to get home at a decent hour, make dinner (order in?), and end the day knowing we were going to do it all again the next day? Most people felt they didn't have a choice unless they let their American Dream go by the wayside, which they weren't willing to do. Now that our lives have been turned upside down and we still don't know where we stand regarding a return to "normal," I believe it's time to rethink the little things we do in life that will result in big changes for the better. I suggest the answer lies in a movement that the happy people of Denmark know well and practice every day, the Hygge life (pronounced hoo'-gah).  Let me elaborate.

The etymology of the word hygge is Old Norse and was first used between 1560 and 1570. A number of derivations have contributed to hygge: hugr, meaning mood; hugga, to soothe or console, and the Old English hogian, to care for. It is not surprising that the current English word hug is the close relative we know so well. Today the word is used to describe the act of giving courage, comfort, and joy. It is no surprise that Scandinavian countries like Denmark and Norway find cultural identity in the concept. What could be more comforting on a cold snowy day than wrapping oneself in woolen socks and a warm blanket, sipping a cup of cocoa in front of a roaring fire?

For those of us who live in warm climates where the thermometer doesn't drop until late December, what alternative do we have for practicing the art of hygge? Read on.

If I could describe hygge in one sentence it must be this: It is practicing kindness to yourself and others by celebrating the little joys of life and staying present in every moment. 

The opportunities to do this are endless no matter the climate, but unfortunately we have either forgotten how to enlist them or considered them a waste of time in our fast-paced, often futile efforts to achieve more and more and more. While hygge doesn't deny monetary wealth, the culture of hygge is about the life experience itself that may actually cost very little, and often nothing but your time. Relaxation, slowing down to "stop and smell the roses" is essential to self-care, and in order to perform that task it is essential to drop the feeling that you are obligated to live up to others' ideals. Once you have mastered that, you will immediately begin to slow down, and actually find more time for self-love and kindness for others. Below are a few suggestions for you to try as you incorporate hygge into your life.

1. Take inventory of your home. What do you own that creates warmth? Candles, pillows, soft woolen blankets, mugs for a warm drink, a cozy fireplace? Put them to use, especially with the people you love.

2. Go for a long leisurely walk, preferably where you can see trees. People who spend time in green spaces are healthier, and your dog will love you for it.

3. Learn to cook comfort food and share it with others. No digital devices allowed. Plan for meals served around the table.

4. Make gifts for people. We often think about buying gifts, but handmade ones are so much nicer. You are giving the ones you love a piece of your time and your talent.

5. Put fairy lights in your garden and have a glass of wine in the semi-darkness as you reminisce about the good times with a friend.

6. Before daylight, put the kettle on and have a cup of tea and a muffin in candlelight quietness before everyone awakens.

7.  Keep a journal, and even better, a five-year journal.

8. Make Christmas cookies with your family or friends.

9. Enjoy loose, comfortable clothing as you relax.

10. Write letters by hand and send them to family and friends who live far away.

11. Look around your house for things you can re-purpose, especially those that can benefit from your creative artwork.

12. Take time to curl up and read a good book.

13. Plant something and watch it grow. Flowers are bright splashes of color in your garden. Even better, try planting a herb garden in pots. Choose herbs that you would usually use dried. Now you can have fresh ones right outside your door. 

14. Bake cookies and surprise your neighbor. Maybe she'll ask you in for a cup of tea.

15. Plan a picnic with bits of food you have prepared yourself and don't rush. Engage in conversation and enrich relationships that are genuine by spending time outdoors together.

16. Make Christmas decorations for the tree with your family.

17. Emphasize little spaces in your home or office--a shelf, a table, with seasonal decorations, especially natural ones that you have collected. Fill a jar with pebbles and dried flowers, find an interesting piece of wood, a bird's nest,  shells, wild flowers.

18. Learn how to sew, crochet, knit, or do needlework. Make a warm gift for yourself or a friend.

19. Put seed out for birds and squirrels (opossums?) near a window and watch their regular visits.

20. Use cloth napkins as often as you can. You can find inexpensive ones at estate sales, garage sales, or thrift stores.

Living the hygge life is not a prescription for happiness, but it can lead to it. This cultural movement is about slowing down and living in the moment with people you care about. It requires generosity and the desire to foster unity and positive relationships, and the time devoted to this lofty goal will engender a sorely needed ripple effect. In an age where appearances seem more important than reality, practicing hygge can get us back on the road to our peaceful authentic selves.

                                                                    My beautiful family

Mellifluous: Music to My Ears

                                                                                                             WMKY Public Radio Photo

Most of us take for granted not only the ability to hear but more specifically the sounds we actually perceive and the meaning we attach to them, the emotional responses they generate. For nineteen years I had the privilege of teaching English at a magnet school that also housed the Regional Day School for the Deaf and the largest unit for multiply-impaired children in the state. One of the student requirements of the gifted and talented unit of which I was a part was to learn sign language. Unfortunately, the hearing students and even the faculty rarely spoke of their own ability to hear; it was a blessing we simply accepted with little depth of an awareness of our own gift.

Yet how often we complain about the din that bombards our senses daily. This blog post is a tribute to the mellifluous, the honey flowing sweetness of words--from the Latin melli--honey + flu--to flow (1375-1425), that makes life worth living.

                                                                                                                                  Wikimedia Commons Photo

In 1598 Sir Francis Meres wrote in his Palladis Tamia, "The witty soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare," and compared the excellence of his plays to the greatest of  Roman philosophers. In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, the bard himself actually uses the word.

In Act II, scene 3 the fool Festes sings, 

What is love? Tis not hereafter

Present mirth hath present laughter

What's to come is still unsure

In delay there lies no plenty

Then come kiss me sweet and twenty

Youth's a stuff will not endure.

To which Sir Andrew replies, "A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight."

It's no secret that I love Shakespeare, and when I hear his words in the plays and sonnets spoken with perfection by trained actors, I am in heaven. Whether the voice of Shakespeare is heard in the myriad of famous lines from the beloved plays or the hundreds of words coined by Shakespeare himself, we know that music when we hear it--like no other, and the sound of his words in the cadence of his verse makes him the greatest writer who ever lived.

Here are a few of my favorites from:

Richard III, Act 1, scene 1: Now is the winter of our discontent...

Romeo and Juliet, Act I, scene 5: O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

Romeo and Juliet,  Act III, scene 2: Come, gentle night, come loving, black brow'd night, Give me my Romeo.

Merchant of Venice, Act IV, scene 1: The quality of mercy is not strain'd, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest.

Henry V, Act I Prologue: O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention...

Henry V, Act IV, scene 3: We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile. This day shall gentle his condition.

Julius Caesar, Act III, scene 2: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

As You Like It, Act II, scene 7: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.

Hamlet, Act III, scene 1: To be, or not to be, that is the question.

Macbeth, Act V, scene 5: Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage.

The Tempest, Act IV, scene 1: We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

Twelfth Night, Act II, scene 4: She sat like patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?

But let us leave the Bard for now and focus on the mellifluous sounds of music.

I grew up listening to my father play favorite ballads of the 30s and 40s on his guitar. His secret desire was to play in an orchestra or big band in the 1940s, and he actually did a few times, eventually giving up his dream to take care of a young family. The one song I remember most vividly is "Stardust." 

"In my heart it will remain, my stardust melody, the memory of love's refrain." 

Other than my father's rendition, no one sings it better than Nat King Cole--in my heart his Stardust melody will remain forever.

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And these ballads made me fall in love with the famous tunes of Tin Pan Alley, a decade before Artie Shaw's "Stardust," and I fell hard for the ballads of George and Ira Gershwin. The songs of these musical geniuses carried people through a depression and a war. During the Depression their sentimental music and lyrics reminded people of what was most important in an epic when life and death were merely a thread apart. George wrote the music and his brother Ira penned the lyrics, and together they created a world people could believe in.

Another kind of mellifluous music can be heard in the outdoor wilderness of our garden, where eleven bird feeders coax the frequent presence of songbirds. I think my mother must have been a bird whisperer, a healer, and birds found themselves in need of aid in her garden and even on her doorstep. I was in elementary school when she first rescued two young mockingbirds. There were others, but she taught me to listen to the long repertoire of the mockingbirds and their music became my favorite. I was intrigued with the screech of blue jays, the single note cardinals, the whistle of the black bellied whistling ducks, the cooing of doves, and the cawing of grackles, but none compared to the mockingbird. When Harper Lee's book To Kill a Mockingbird came out, it was my mother who introduced me to it, emphasizing "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird," who does nothing but make beautiful  music and eat the insects out of people's corn cribs.

The list of mellifluous music in our everyday lives is long: church bells, water in its many forms--a waterfall, a mountain brook, a fountain; laughter, a baby's sweet babble, the whistle of a tea kettle, a dog's bark and a cat's meow. And no one can deny the unforgettable sweet sound of the voice, the words we long to hear---yes, I will; I love you; the relief of a negative medical report, and the voices of loved ones far away as we speak online and on the phone. How sweet is the music of love!

2020 has been a difficult year, the pain of which few words can accurately describe. It is in these challenging times when we turn to our other senses to help us cope--food, movies, music, physical activities, pain-eradicating potions, online church services and prayer--lots of prayer. But we have also been stopped in our tracks and forced to slow down, and it is in the power of the universe when we finally pay attention to the details too often lost in the fast track of our lives. The silence and the sounds. May we never return to a time when we ignore them again. 

A Tribute to Ray Bradbury: Raconteur and Nonpareil of Storytelling

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Despite our many differences, humanity has at least one interest in common: storytelling. We write stories, we watch stories, we live stories, and then we tell them. And the greatest raconteur of all, the chronicler of  the mysterious unknown, is Ray Bradbury. The origin of raconteur is French, literally meaning to tell an account of something, but oh, how Bradbury does go the distance in recounting stories of the unknown in science fiction, fantasy and horror. He is probably not only the greatest story teller of modern times but also one of the greatest teachers of my life.

On June 5, 2012 after a lengthy illness, Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, and numerous other stories exploring the uncharted mysteries of life on earth and beyond, met his Maker. He repeatedly credited God with his talent.Wherever Bradbury is now, I have no doubt he is a source of light, illuminating yet another world. I hope, for Bradbury, heaven looks like his beloved Mars.

But let's travel back even further.

On September 28, 1995, my daughter Kate and I squeezed into our second row seats with fervent anticipation at the Unity Church in Houston, Texas to hear Ray Bradbury speak. He was already an icon by then and the auditorium was packed. I took out my pen and note pad, refusing to leave his words to my faithless memory, in order to absorb any new bits of wisdom from the writer whose life had already profoundly influenced mine.

I had been an ardent devotee of English literature and shared my own enthusiasm for that genre, so friends wanted to know how I could possibly love the work of a science fiction-fantasy writer. The answer, of course, was clear. Ray Bradbury was more than a sci-fi writer.

A white-headed sage by 1995, Bradbury commanded the stage and I was mesmerized. I was a teacher with enough experience to know the reasons I had embarked on that career path and the courage it took to try to change people's lives in a truly meaningful way. And the tragedy of not taking the leap to do so.

His stories, like Jane Austen's, explained our own human nature to us--the nature of good and evil, of learning, of relationships with people, and of the choices we make about our lives and the concomitant consequences. But his somewhat scientific settings were part of the message as well, contributing even more to the warnings about the other side of technology.

Bradbury said, "We're trying to build a chrysalis of education around ourselves and hope the wings come out." He had a great sense of intuition about learning--he knew what he wanted or needed for himself and found it at the library, great observer that he was. I appreciated his metaphor, but it wasn't until years later, after planting a butterfly garden, that I saw aghast what he meant. Standing over a chrysalis one day, I watched it begin to wriggle ever so slightly, sensing I was going to witness for the first time an emerging monarch butterfly. I was enthralled, and then something went wrong. It struggled for over an hour and then halfway out it just gave up. My husband Patrick, the realist, chalked it up to the randomness of nature, but I got it. I think Bradbury also knew, despite our hope, that sometimes the wings don't come out. And then what? What did that mean for me as a parent and a teacher?

The heart of Bradbury's speech that day provided a partial answer. I found my old notebook from that September lecture. Here's what he said.

"Some people live off positive or negative energy. They feed off you with their tongues. Evil people are attracted to agonies, negative energy. They warm their hands on your darkness, your unhappiness. They go around collecting your flaws. They're born of darkness, not light, which is why the devil finds us attractive.You don't get blockages if you keep doing things you love. Love is the best thing. Engage in the best things every day. Put the skin of intellect around it. If you have people who don't believe in you, get them out of your life, unless you can infect them with your joy."

Infect them with your joy, he said. For years I had read to my children and to my students Bradbury stories of space men with deep regrets as they faced death, of children who gave in to their own dark thoughts without thinking of consequences, of men and women who made decisions they couldn't live with, or of the technology they didn't know how to live with. I could only hope that the message would surface when it was needed. Left in the hands of people--teachers perhaps, with enough enthusiasm to carry it forward joyfully, it might be possible.

I was given a gift that day, something extraordinary about being in the same room with a living, breathing icon who speaks words of wisdom from his own lips, not just the pages of a book. You have that narcissistic tendency to think he's talking to you alone, that perhaps he's read your heart and uncovered your secrets. How many millions of people he must have mentored in such a way.

Ray Bradbury loved and thus wrote often about space travel. His cautious attitude toward technology made him challenge his characters as they struggled in the midst of futuristic inventions crafted from the finest imagination, but he was also convinced that space travel was a chance for immortality.

He wept the night the astronauts landed on the moon. In subsequent interviews, even at age 89, Bradbury still talked about the night he was scheduled to be on the David Frost show in London. It was for him the greatest day in history, that moon landing, and he was an expert who wanted to talk to the world about it. Frost had scheduled him last, behind a number of popular entertainers, until Bradbury got fed up and walked out, taking a bittersweet six hour walk back to his hotel. A small London tabloid's headlines read, "Astronaut walks at six a.m., Bradbury walks at midnight." He was gleeful as he related his story that evening, and I was close enough to hear him chuckle.

I was standing face to face with him, tongue-tied, as he signed my copy of The Illustrated Man. I met him briefly, and yet I will miss his presence on this planet and somehow feel the loss as if I had known him well.

My grandson Christian, a reader of science fantasy and a devotee of Mindcraft, recently turned eleven, and I gave him that beloved signed copy. It was only right. His mother Kate had been witness that night to the greatest raconteur of our time. 

Saving Our Environment: The Unlikely Polemics of Living Free

 

Few subjects encourage me to publicly engage in controversial debate--what we call polemics, the new Lambent Literacy word, but the environment may be one of them. Because I love this planet--the flora and fauna that soothe my soul, I'm going out on that limb. Here's my story.

I grew up in a city that surrounds a beautiful lake. In those days the oil and chemical industries were located at one end of that lake, and the denizens of the town went about their daily lives fully aware that the water was polluted and therefore dangerous to swim in. My friends and I sunbathed on the beach and stayed out of the water. That didn't stop sports enthusiasts from skiing up and down the river that flowed into that lake, however, but as the years passed, the town began to experience higher than usual numbers of cancer victims. Six acres of wetlands were used as dumping grounds for coal tar, transformer oils and dead electrical equipment for over 50 years, from 1926 to 1980. Soil, sediment, surface water and groundwater were all contaminated with hazardous chemicals. Although today cleanup work is underway, including dredging of the river, it will take many years to purge it of pollutants. As for the air, that's another story. As of February 2020 this city ranks number two of the nation's 100 biggest air toxics polluters. And this state, Louisiana, falls behind #1 ranked Texas, in toxic emissions.

Unless you are an environmentalist or you work in the oil/gas/chemicals industry, you probably don't look at the research on what is happening to our air, water, land, and the wild inhabitants on a regular basis, if at all. Like me, for many years I took it for granted that our government was enacting regulations and policies that would protect me. I was busy getting an education, raising two daughters, and working to help support my family. But, indeed, the government was burning the candle at both ends, protecting industry first and the community second, just enough to avoid serious litigation.

Corny as it may be, I was in my twenties when John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High" spoke such a loud and clear message to me that I put my sister and a trunk full of camping supplies in the car the summer she graduated from high school and headed for the Colorado Rockies. I had never seen anything so utterly clean and beautiful, and that summer changed my life forever.

We are living in an age of polemics--controversial disputes, a chaotic four years in the White House, and an unusual election year, one that none of us could have imagined. When President Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017, he signaled to the world that the United States wanted less leadership in international climate change agreements. Since that time, 65 per cent of the U.S. population and 68 per cent of economic interests have joined coalitions that support the Paris Agreement. These people, one group calling themselves We Are Still In, have reaffirmed their commitment to helping America reach its Paris climate goals in spite of the decisions made by the White House.  But is it enough?

Environmental safeguards are critical to protecting Americans and ensuring sustainable economic growth. Trump has initiated an unprecedented number of regulatory rollbacks that ignore science and severely impact public health, the economy, and the environment.

The following actions have been taken by Trump's EPA and Department of Transportation since 2017:

1. Clean Power Plan: carbon emissions, a policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants,  rolled back.

2. Regulations on toxic air pollution relaxed

3. Regulations on methane flares, equipment inspections, leaks relaxed in 2018

4. Plan to cap miles per gallon changed from 54 by 2025 to 34 by 2021

5. Executive order requiring federally funded projects to factor rising sea levels into construction revoked in 2017

6. In 2017 Trump proposed a change that narrowed the definition of what is considered a federally protected river or wetland.

7. Seismic air gun blasts to search for underwater oil and gas deposits approved despite concern over disorienting marine mammals

8. Restrictions on protecting the American sage grouse in favor of land developers, mining, and drilling eased

9. Administration of Endangered Species Act changed, putting more weight on economic considerations rather than endangered animals habitat

10. In 2017 companies constructing power lines, leaving oil exposed, or installing large wind turbines are no longer in violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Unfortunately for human health and environmental concerns, Trump has disregarded the importance of scientific data and opened the door for greater influence by business interests.

We simply cannot politicize the environment. 

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how taking care of the planet, the country, my little piece of the world is a Democrat versus Republican issue. Don't we all want to live with clean air, water, and land? Don't we care that we might destroy animal habitats to the point of extinction with our destructive choices? Are we so naive, or perhaps greedy for wealth, that we think our actions don't make a difference?

My story isn't finished. My life has been so very blessed with my beautiful family, my long teaching career, and good health, and yet some of my favorite memories revolve around my relationship with nature, not just the garden that is the salve of my soul, but my sojourns through the wild world. My list is a long, precious collection of memories: camping trips in the mountains of Texas, Colorado, and Arkansas; sharing a mountain slope with a big horn; a whale watch off the Atlantic coast; a hike through the Lake District in England; a hike along the Wild Atlantic Way on the southern coast of Ireland; wild birds and deer in Killarney National Forest in Ireland. 

We know from years of research that, despite the beauty of the environment, the clean green atmosphere adds to our longevity and our peace of mind. 

Knowing the policies and how they have been adversely changed might not convince you, but the potential loss of those feelings of solace and contentment should. So many poets have tried to explain it to us. My favorite is Wendell Berry.

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the

least sound

in fear of what my life and my

children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the

wood drake

rests in his beauty on the

water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild

things

who do not tax their lives with

forethought

of grief. I come into the

presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-

blind stars

waiting with their light. For a 

time

I rest in the grace of the world,

and am free.

 

Surviving the Hero's Journey: An Exoteric Treasure

 While the hero's journey, first elaborated upon by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, may seem esoteric, that is, intended for the select few who have special knowledge in archetypal symbolism, it actually belongs to all of us. That makes it exoteric, intended for the general public. (Greek exoterikos--inclined outward.) Campbell mentored George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, who used Joseph Campbell's writings in his creation of the series, especially his motif of adventure and personal transformation. Is there anyone who doesn't remember Luke Skywalker and his decision to answer the call to his own hero's journey? Ah, yes, the rest is film history.  

In our school years, we learned about Greek and Roman heroes and classic ones like St. George who slew the dragon and saved a village, making its lesser known name, the Monomyth, even more applicable to us--the one great myth that describes the difficult, often life challenging times in all of our lives.

So, what could be more helpful during an unexpected pandemic than a classic but simple explanation of what is happening to us right now and how our story could possibly turn out in the end?

Sometimes understanding the situation can remove enough agonizing uncertainty to enable us to cope more effectively with whatever is thrown at us.

One of my favorite Jungian analysts James Hollis wrote that tolerance for uncertainty is the key to happiness, but that seems to be a tad simplistic these days. So here goes--an attempt to explain the cycle of the hero's journey as it applies to the people of 2020 Covid-19.

The journey begins with the call, and it's a call to leave the normal world and descend to the unknown one. We can accept it or refuse it, but if we do refuse this call, the journey stops right here, end of story. If, however, we decide to take up the gauntlet, we then arm ourselves with the unique courage of advancing toward uncertainty with the facts we have in order to conquer the unknown and face our fears. Pretty daunting, right? Well, off we go.

Making the decision to answer the call simply means following the guidelines--wearing a mask, socially distancing, avoiding crowds, quarantining, and listening to the advice of doctors and scientists before crossing the threshold into the unknown territory of thriving amidst Covid. 

Now that we're squarely into unknown territory, we must remember we are not traveling down this road alone. Helpers appear to join us on the journey. Friends, family, businesses, government, and now schools are taking advantage of technology as never before. ZOOM meetings, videos, Schoology, Face Time, and a myriad other online media have held our communication needs in their safety net. Families and friends who live together have often been a much needed source of not only social interaction but solace as well. In the classic hero journey stories of old, a spiritual helper appears to help the traveler on his or her way. Our houses of worship have made great strides in offering online services and prayer time--some daily, as well as other forms of help needed, and not just the spiritual kind.

Here's where the more difficult leg of the journey begins. Throughout this trek through the unknown, tests and trials are inevitable: job loss, sickness, isolation and altered daily routine, leading to mild or serious depression. Both human and spiritual helpers often show up to pick us up from our misery and help us to move onward.

Every hero's journey of old relates a belly-of-the-whale ordeal, also sometimes referred to as the inmost cave life-and-death episode in the realm of the unknown. This part of the course is most difficult because it is here that we encounter Covid sickness and death, perhaps even our own. We listen to daily reports as the numbers infected and dead keep rising, and we rejoice when the graph levels off and gives us hope for leaving that cave and continuing to the journey's end.

Isolation can make us feel as if we are indeed trapped in a cave, even when we know there are victims of the virus isolated from friends and family in hospitals, sometimes intubated, unable to receive the physical comfort of their friends and family. Yet depression from isolation and altered routine, job and income loss can also throw us into that inmost cave of despair. Reopening of the economy, despite the caution to continue self-protection, has not been successful as cases rise and businesses and schools close again. Teachers and parents are fearful, and with good reason. They're not buying herd immunity or the confidence that all will be well with brick-and-mortar openings, and so we continue to struggle in the realm of the unknown. Add a politically divided nation and brutal racial unrest to the worst economic status since the Great Depression alongside a raging coronavirus pandemic, and, yes, it may seem as if the whale has swallowed us.

One day we will prepare for the return to the upper world of the "normal" when a vaccine is available, the percentage of cases has dropped significantly, and our leaders see that the time is right for opening up the economy and schools again. The hero, that would be all of us who traversed this path, will leave behind the transcendental powers and re-emerge from the kingdom of dread. The boon that we bring with us will restore the world.

Wait. What boon?

The heroes who have been infected with the virus or have been working with or around Covid patients return home with a new perspective about life. Those of us who have not been directly touched by Covid have had the opportunity to learn important truths about ourselves and the people around us. Coping with loss is a tragic way to learn lessons, but many of us have also had the boon of time--more time to pause and think about what matters most to us, more quality time with family even during rough periods. Churches have even announced an increase in attendance because of online services.

When our hero's journey actually comes to an end, we will bring home with us the elixir, the "Golden Fleece" of treasures. What treasure, you ask, could possibly come out of a pandemic? Well, how about a sense of awareness about our own fragility, our vulnerability, but also our strength? And what a boon for us to finally comprehend the destructibility of a life we thought was invincible, and finally the much needed consciousness of the supreme value of human life over quick but illusory fixes.

We will have persevered and stayed the course on our own hero's journey, but remember the real prize is this: Unless you answered the call, crossed the threshold into the unknown world, suffered the tests and trials, you will not return home with the priceless knowledge that you are indeed not the same person who began the journey. The knower and the known have become one, friends, and what greater prize than that.