The Momentum of Intention and the Healing Power of Ritual

19 Jun 2016 16 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Holidays, Uncategorized, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

P1110803Today I did something I’ve never done. It felt important to remember Dad in a special way on Fathers Day. In America that falls on Sunday, June 19th.

When the idea dawned to assemble mementos, the 19th was still two days away. As I went about the normal routine ideas floated to consciousness: Dad loved to play Texas Mean! I’ll find the game and set it up. What were his favorite foods? He liked hot stuff, chilies! And raisin pie, and, oh! Flowers!

I fell asleep anticipating Fathers Day morning but awakened at 2:04 a.m. Where was that photo of him that I brought back with me from the States? As I was scouring my brain trying to place it I fell asleep only to awaken again at 4:18. His purple heart and dog tags! Those must be displayed, and pictures of our family…I dropped back into sleep. At 6:00 a sunrise befitting the magnitude of the day summoned me. I scrambled out of bed for the camera and captured a stunning sky.

Still in pajamas, I set about looking for his photo. It wasn’t in any of the expected places, but in the process of the hunt I found others. Perfect! While unearthing the Texas Mean game from its place in the cupboard a collection of old calendars caught my eye. Inserted between March and April, 2015, was my handsome Dad on his wedding day. Beside it was the program from his funeral. Did I want that reminder? It took a few minutes to sort through how I felt. Then one line caught me eye: Died January 29, 2016. Yes, his death was a fact of his life.

As I assembled the keepsakes, a carved Buddha head on the wall just above the display felt off. The eyes, locked into an unwavering stare, didn’t fit. In my scarf drawer was a black loosely-woven shawl. I draped it over Buddha’s head so just the shadow of a face could be seen. That was the missing piece. It represented the veil of sadness and loss that today I’m allowing myself to feel. Then the tears came.

A time-out to shower and dress restored my composure. Barefoot, I walked outside, down the stairs, and into the garden breathing the moisture and aromas of breakfast being cooked. I sensed Dad’s presence with me. He loved gardens! Damp and cool underfoot, a slow amble around the perimeter produced yellow, purple, and hot pink blooms. I’d just added two green chilies to the mix when Ketut appeared.

“Ya, good morning. What are you doing?”

“I’m preparing a ceremony for my father.”

His face lit up. “One years, same as Hindu?”

“No, it’s six months since he died. But in America this is a special day for fathers.”

“I will bring offering,” he said. A few minutes later he returned with two palm leaf creations filled with the appropriate grains of rice, flowers, and mossy bits that appear everywhere on ceremonial days in Bali. I asked if it was okay to put raisins, the chilies, and a sweet biscuit on top. He assured me that this is how it should be.

All in readiness, I lit a candle and incense.

The raspy voice of Johnny Cash came to life on the computer: I Walk the Line. It was a song we loved to sing. While it played I made coffee, one for Dad, one for me, and we had our time together.

Underlying the sadness was intense joy filled with loving energy both his and mine. From the moment of intention, my subconscious mind had spun the story. When it was time to bring the idea to fruition, all the needed elements were there for creating an altar of memories.

Ritual is healing. I’ve heard that but I didn’t really understand. Now I get it. It can’t just be a concept. It has to be performed. I’m grateful that I took the time, made the effort, and followed the subtle promptings of my heart.

Happy Fathers Day, Dad, and all my love…always…

Sherry

A Fathers Day Farewell

17 Jun 2016 22 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Holidays, Uncategorized, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Sherry and Dad on guitarDad died in January. It’s my first Father’s Day in sixty-six years without him. I don’t know how to be with that truth. He was the most important person in my life. I was alone with him, holding his hand, when he took his final breath.

The last years weren’t easy for him. I was glad when he shed the troubles of his worn out body and escaped to wherever kind, hard-working, beloved men go. His presence hasn’t left me. He’s the blue butterfly that flutters around the bougainvillea and threads in and out of my house. We commune in a language free of words.

But when I saw an ad for Father’s Day, my heart lurched with pain, searing, immediate, deep. I was bereft knowing that this year I would not scan Amazon for a book with pictures of Norway, or stories about boyhood in the Midwest to send to him. When Dad stopped reading I knew his life-force was weak. He loved to read. When he was no longer interested in food, I mentally prepared for the inevitable. When the message reached me that he was failing, I took the next plane.

How will I navigate Father’s Day without him? I need a plan, a ritual, something that will not allow the day to pass like any other day. Perhaps….

…I’ll gather flowers. Dad loved them and taught me their names: bloodroot, honeysuckle, clover, buttercup, lady slipper, goldenrod, and many more. I followed his footsteps through fields of alfalfa bordered by marshy swamps as he pointed them out. None of those exist in this tropical climate, but Dad won’t care if it’s frangipani and heliconia instead.

I’ll listen to some old Johnny Cash tunes, maybe strum a few lines of Down in the Valley. Dad loved to sing and play guitar and he taught me the chords. We spent hundreds of hours playing and singing together.

And because this is Bali and offerings are an integral part of every-day life, I’ll prepare one for the ancestral spirit that is now my Dad. It will have raisins, chocolate-covered cherries, and the hottest chilies I can find. He’s the only Norwegian I’ve known who popped them in his mouth like candy, grinned with sweat beading on his brow, and asked for more.

Then I’ll play the video Jessa made with the song she sang at the funeral while her partner, Dan, accompanied her on Dad’s old guitar and I’ll cry. Of course I will. There have only been a few tears so far, but I’m ready. They’re stored up behind my eyes like a pressure in my skull that reaches all the way to my heart. And it will be the first time in many years that I’ll be with my Dad on Father’s Day.

Background song: Fall Down as the Rain written by Joe Crookston. Guitar by Dan Gaustad and vocals by Jessa Walters and Dan Gaustad.

The Crabby Old Lady Syndrome

16 Jun 2016 12 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Uncategorized, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,

Mild panic grips me when children visit. My house isn’t fragile, but little ones have a way of ferreting out exactly what I don’t want them to find and desiring it. If parents hesitate to say no, I’m left in the awkward position of either allowing the treasure to be handled or becoming The Crabby Old Lady.

Don’t get me wrong, I have colored markers and reams of paper. When my girls were little those would have kept them enthralled for hours. There’s also a covered cup with dice inside that can be rattled, or opened to explore the contents. Dice. Right. That’s about the extent of my toy collection. Balls roll off the edge of my living room and drop two floors to the garden. Can’t have balls. Everything requires storage space. There’s not an extra inch of that.

Dad always said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” So when Ketut and Komang brought three-year-old Nengah to visit me yesterday, it was time for creativity overdrive. I remembered a collection of empty yogurt containers that substitute for the non-existent Tupperware here. My guests watched with curiosity while I assembled the bottoms with the matching tops and stacked them, one by one, higher and higher. In less than a nanosecond we were embroiled in a wild game of build the tower and knock it down. Everyone within miles heard Nengah’s shrieks…and mine!

I don’t remember when I’ve had so much fun. Later, alone in the happy aftermath, I waxed reflective. It struck me as ironic how the richness of life seems to multiply with simplicity. True happiness requires so little.

To Risk Being Disturbed and Changed

30 May 2016 4 Comments

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From A Morning Offering
by John O’Donohue

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fears no more.

 

 

Bali, steeped in ritual, alive equally to the seen and the unseen, demands offerings.

I came here to ‘break the dead shell of yesterdays’. I had no idea what lay ahead for me but I wanted a life that I would love and I had a shadowy dream of what that might look like.

I noticed the offerings first. How quaint, I thought. How pretty. Weeks later in a small village I saw others that were not lovely. They held dark, partially burned objects. Women in trance danced beside them, swaying, eyes closed. An involuntary shudder rippled head to toe. In an instant it was clear that I was living on the face of things, lost in the romance of paradise while another reality roiled and churned just out of sight.

It’s that Bali I’ve grown to love. I’m still smitten with the enchantments of her beautiful face, but I’m no longer naive. The Balinese devote hours every day making prayers and offerings to spirits both dark and benign. This, they believe, maintains balance between the worlds. Since they operate in both realms simultaneously, that balance is essential. Unlike Western consciousness grounded in the seen, Bali-mind is equally at home with the physical earth and the spirits at play here.

I’ve been ‘disturbed and changed’ by the tremendous power of this island. People ask me, Do you believe all that? And I answer, How can I not? I’ve experienced her transforming fire first hand and I’ve watched as others fall prey to her spell. A friend commented recently that Bali is a karmic accelerator. That’s a piece of it, but it’s much more. If you stay any length of time you’ll see. Bali intensifies character good or bad, manifests intention, spawns creativity, and rearranges beliefs. If you merge with her flow she’ll nurture you. But if you cross her, beware. You’ve no idea what demons you’ve summoned!

 

 

Image by writingforselfdiscovery

Who stole my time?

14 May 2016 11 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Uncategorized, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , ,

sun capturedI didn’t come to Bali to recreate a life of frantic busy-ness. That’s what I left behind, a frazzled, strung out, head spinning schedule that fried me to a snarling crisp! I’ve done well to maintain peace, my cherished sacred idleness, until now.

It changed abruptly after the last trip back to the States, the catalyst that shot me into this altered state. Where did all these friends come from? How did I make so many promises? I didn’t join a new group or link arms with a cause, but maybe there’s a different kind of magic at the four year mark. Maybe until then I was still a tourist, a visitor who may not be committed to the long haul. Perhaps now I emanate a more settled energy that attracts responsibilities like ants to sugar.

This kind of frenzy used to make me feel alive. I needed the chaos, the structure. Over-commitment was my comfortable familiar. Then I moved to Bali where I knew no one. As years drifted by I’d taken my blissful solitude for granted. I was unaware of the subtle shift slithering in under the radar. The first month I thought, After such and such, things will slow down. The second month came and it was as though I’d hit the accelerator instead of the brake.

I’ve got to get them back, the week-long stretches of unassigned leisure. In my body there’s a gnawing resistance to the calendar squares with writing on them. They’re all activities and people I enjoy but taken together it’s overload. My nervous system is tuned to Bali’s rubber time, a phenomena that defies explanation but cannot be denied. It’s lackadaisical in nature, capricious, and gives the illusion of eternity melting, expanding, turning inside-out and looping back upon itself until there are no days, weeks, months or years, just one long continuum of lifetime after lifetime.

Without spacious hours to gaze into the distance and think of nothing, confusion sets in and the panic alarm goes off. Why have I fallen back into this? What forces, inner and outer, have propelled me headlong into an old, unwanted behavior?

I don’t know the answer, but the question calls for a serious stint of discovery writing. I want to oust the slumbering ghosts that have awakened and come out to wreak havoc with my peace!

 

 

 

 

Three Strengths – One You Don’t Want

04 May 2016 15 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Uncategorized, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,

 

You’re so strong! How many times have I heard that throughout my 66 years? But it’s true.

I have physical strength –

Emotional stamina –

And willpower –

Muscular arms and legs, probably earned from early years lifting hay bales and running through farm fields doing all the tomboy things I loved, still ripple under loosening skin. And by sheer force of will, I’ve maintained my weight and continue a regimen of daily exercise.

But looking back, emotional stamina was a double-edged sword. On the positive side, it kept me sane when my world, at various times, sank into the abyss. But the dark underbelly of that strength hindered me from moving out of difficult places. I knew I could manage extreme mental anguish so I did. Rather than change what I was doing, make different choices, I stayed and endured far too long.

Both pride and fear played a role. I proudly maintained a placid surface when inside chaos raged. I was complimented on my calm demeanor by co-workers, even complete strangers. My ego, undernourished as it was, feasted on those crumbs of praise and preferred the safety of known misery and a well-studied façade, to the terror of change.

There’s a high price for being strong. It took many years to realize that the same emotional resilience that enabled me to withstand destructive situations without losing my mind, could also be mustered to chart a healthier course. It’s the same muscle, but the more I practiced releasing it instead of gripping tight and hanging on, the more space opened to other possibilities.

Most people reach a transition point. The timing is different but the catalyst is the same. It’s the moment we grasp the concept of mortality, the uncomfortable truth that we’ve reached a place closer to the end than to the beginning. For many it ignites a mid-life crises. For others, depression. But for me it prompted the question: Is that all there is? And my answer: It better not be! The thought jolted me out of apathy. I became more afraid of staying the same, marking time waiting to die, than I was of change.

Beware of the strength that keeps you hanging on, stuck in an unlived life. Does your jaw clench, your neck stiffen, the space between your shoulder blades ache? Do you breathe shallow in the top of your chest while your stomach constricts? Ask yourself, What do I want more than this? What’s the worst that could happen if I just let go? let go

 

 

Monster Porridge and the Cloud-Watching Cook

18 Apr 2016 9 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Uncategorized, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,

Bali’s climate creates luxurious, grandiloquent clouds, guaranteed to entice the most hardened sidewalk gazer to cast her eyes upward. Today is a cloud-watching day. A day for dreaming, imagining, writing…and cooking?

Cloud-watching days, for me, outnumber cooking days 2000 to 1. It’s rare that I stick my fingers in that soup since both Ketut and Wayan, after a few polite attempts in the past, have declined to eat anything I make. They’ve kindly offered to share with me whatever they prepare for themselves. Both are accomplished kitchen magicians and I bow with gratitude to their superior talents and gobble up whatever appears in front of me.

But for breakfast I’m on my own. It’s my choice. I like to go softly into morning and a steaming plate of spicy omelette appearing at some ungodly hour before my palette has connected with my brain is just wrong.

So I make it myself, and for an otherwise creative person, my breakfast isn’t. I’ve eaten a quarter of a papaya with Bali kopi every morning for the past four years. Somehow I manage to open the fruit, extract seeds, peel and cut into bite-sized chunks with perfect results every time.

But besides clouds, the vast selection of exotic imported foods in the local supermarkets also fascinates me. Spice traders seeking cinnamon and chocolate, passed through Bali and brought with them strange and wonderful things from their own lands. The world has shrunk considerably since then and odd bits of it wind up on the grocery shelves. It’s a favorite pastime of mine to stroll and observe, not only the regional wonders but also the latest foreign arrivals, avoiding the meat case at all costs. Raw flesh and random body parts, waxy yellow chicken feet interspersed with bug-eyed, gelatinous sea creatures guarantees night frights later on.

This time, though, I was on a mission: I craved granola. That taste treat isn’t native to Bali but I found it and the price tag made me wince. It was the equivalent of $10 U.S. for a tiny bag that might stretch to 1 1/2 servings. The raisins, dates, cashews, and almonds, scattered among plump grains roasted to a mouth-watering golden, stared at me through the cellophane bag. My entire grocery bill for a month comes to about that. Granted my shopping list doesn’t include the nuts and berries in the little package. It features produce from area farms, fresh, mostly green, and when Wayan and Ketut have worked their spells, yummy!

P1110401I turned to walk away and the word Monster caught my eye. What was a monster doing in the cereal aisle? Moving to inspect, I found an uncooked, five grain product sans the extra goodies, made in Australia and offered for a respectable price.

I flipped the bag over and scanned the cooking instructions. They seemed manageable: add 2 cups water and boil 5 minutes. The list of proteins, fats, blah blah blah was acceptable, and unlike similar porridges, this one contained a bare .3 grams of sugar. Sold!

P1110403I couldn’t wait to make my first batch. Memories of cold Minnesota mornings, sitting down to a bowl of hot oatmeal mixed with sauteed bananas, apples, and cinnamon topped with a dollop of yogurt made me drool. There was fresh Cheese Works yogurt in my fridge and I imagined the taste of hot cereal with the creamy cool of dairy and drooled some more.

This story has a happy ending. I didn’t burn it. It turned out well. But it had not one iota of flavor. Zip. None. The plain yogurt added an essence of sour milk. My taste buds registered a complaint. Not happy. They had imagined something quite different.

The next morning my eyes landed on a container of mango juice, no sugar added, in the ice box. Hmmm. What if…? So I did. I substituted one cup mango juice for one of the two cups of water, mixed in the tasteless grains and boiled. The steam rising from the pan hung in the humid air, fruity and rich.

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I dished up a healthy portion and took a bite: the moment of truth. It was textured and sweet on the tongue. A faint lacing of mango cut the tang of yogurt but still left a surprised wake-up tartness. Perfect! About that time Ketut walked in.

“Wat you make?” he asked and eyed the dish suspiciously.

“Porridge from Australia with yogurt! Here, try!”

To my astonishment he accepted a spoon full. The moment the yogurt touched his tongue his eyes popped wide, a grimace unlike anything that has crossed his placid countenance previously, warped his face. With a strangled gurgle he mumbled something Balinese that sounded like, “OH MY GOD YOU’VE POISONED ME!” and dashed out.

My reputation is secure. And after all, I don’t want anyone getting the mistaken idea that I can cook.  I much prefer watching clouds.

 

 

Clever Squirrel’s 8 Steps to Stop Repeating Destructive Patterns

15 Apr 2016 7 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Smart people sometimes do not-so-clever things. We know who we are. After all, we’re bright, right? We’ve already figured out that we’ve hit the repeat button a few too many times with less than satisfying results. Maybe we’re in the wrong job, and then we’re in another wrong job, relationship, town, group. Maybe we have toxic friends. Whatever it is, it saps our energy and keeps us from living healthy, fulfilling lives.

I did all of those listed above over and over again for many years. It took the perspective of time, distance, self-reflection, and therapy to recognize the tendencies, and even more time, distance, self-reflection and therapy to change. But here’s what I’ve learned:

  1. Awareness – First we have to see, and admit to, the problem
  2. Desire –  Then we must passionately want change
  3. Help – We must seek out sources of support, self-help books, therapists
  4. Trigger – And uncover the deeper issues that prompt the behavior
  5. Courage –  Then we need to be brave enough to revise our responses
  6. Practice –  And commit to making different choices
  7. Forgive – We must show kindness to ourselves when we slip backward
  8. Transform – The goal is to become a whole, happy person

Easy, no. Possible, yes.

There’s a catch. Most of the patterns that run our lives are written in the subconscious. That’s why, in the case of relationships for instance, what appears on the surface to be a radical new choice becomes the same problem with a different face. Have you been there? Doesn’t it feel like betrayal? Have you ever said: And I thought this time I had it right!

Some things we can change. Others are embedded in our DNA so indelibly that nothing short of complete abstinence will suffice. It’s recognizing those addictions that is the most challenging, and I’m not talking about alcohol or drugs. We can be addicted to shopping, to overwork, to google, gaming, gambling, to love.

After therapy I was convinced I could recognize the devil in the bushes and avoid making the same mistakes. Wrong. I stumbled right back into misery. But that was the wake-up call I needed. For stubborn issues, or lets call them what they are, addictions, number six on the list becomes: Abstain.

Hard truth. But accepting the truth, no matter how hard, and making those adjustments to my behavior gave me freedom. For me it was love. I believe in love. I’ve always believed in love. But time and again my programming attracted mates with patterns that were mutually destructive.

After five marriages and five divorces, I am committed to a single life. I don’t trust myself to ‘get it right’ and I don’t want to put me, or anyone else through that heartache again. But the decision has allowed me freedoms I wouldn’t have experienced as a partnered woman. It has forced me to self-actualize, something we were really into in the 60’s and 70’s when Maslow’s, Hierarchy of Needs, was all the rage. Self-actualization was at the pinnacle of the pyramid. When all other needs were met, a person was poised to achieve her full potential.

I haven’t given up on love, but I’ve redirected it. My life oozes with loving, healthy connections, none of which are romantic. (Romance is a bit of an illusion anyway, isn’t it? Smoke and mirrors? Hormones? Chemicals? It feels so good until it doesn’t.) Instead of pouring all that energy into someone else, I’ve gotten to know who I am, what I want, and what I need to thrive, and I give myself that.

indexThere’s an Indonesian proverb that I’ve claimed as my own. Sepandai-pandai tupai melompat kadang-kadang jatuh juga. It means: The clever jumping squirrel also sometimes falls down. Or paraphrased further: Everyone makes mistakes. And we do. But the really clever squirrel figures out how not to make the same ones over and over again.

 

BALI Four Years Later…

05 Apr 2016 12 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Uncategorized, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

I came to Bali in March of 2012. Today I checked the archives of my blog to remember what I was doing this time four years ago and was stunned. Swirling around me in a crazy juxtaposition of images and feelings was a journey, upon a journey, within a journey!

As I revisited those first months I saw myself the way I see everyone who arrives here from the relentless time pressures of the West. In the space of thirty days I managed to tour a village famous for woodcarvings, visit an organic farm, the Green School, the John Hardy jewelry factory, Goa Gajah elephant cave, a traditional market, a black sand beach, GitGit waterfall, the Bali animal sanctuary, and a school for children with learning disabilities. I took a cooking class, attended a Kecak Fire Dance, a Grand Opening for the new Yoga Barn, and a Balinese wedding. As if that wasn’t enough, I walked to a yoga studio every morning for an hour of Vinyasa! I thought, I truly thought I was slowing down. The thing is, compared to what I’d left behind, I was.

Observing myself in energizer bunny mode dazed me.

Then I pulled up accounts of Dewa, the owner and host at Jati Homestay where I spent my first months. I remember how compromised my feelings about men were at that time. The only good man was a…well, maybe not a dead man, but any male with heterosexual tendencies was unwelcome in my world. Dewa cracked the stony wall around my heart with his kindness and laughter.

Besides an inability to slow down, and a desire to avoid interactions with men, my head was wrapped around the novel I was writing, a psychological suspense thriller that distanced me from my own reality and kept me entwined in the imaginary lives of my characters.

And now…

I’ve slowed to a point where I’d make a slug appear speedy. I’ve embraced and embodied, dare I say mastered, the art of sacred idleness. There is nothing I would do today that can be put off until tomorrow, or later, or forever. I meditate and daydream and spend chunks, huge slices of time gazing at clouds. Have you ever been lost in the magnificence of clouds?

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And let me tell you about men. When I moved into a more permanent residence after two months at Dewa’s, and discovered that I would have a man looking after me literally twenty-four hours a day, the discomfort that arose was irrational and immense. I was Ketut’s job. His only job. Many things crossed my freaked-out mind. But I loved my new quarters and as the days passed I grew curious about Ketut. He spoke almost no English but greeted me every morning with, “You want breakfast now?” His quiet, humble ways and attention to detail captivated me and the frozen places within commenced a tectonic shift. Since then I’ve existed almost exclusively in the company of men. First there were the adorable guys who built my house, and now the neighborhood staff, five of them, like to hang out, play my guitar, and beat me at Uno.

Ketut still manages me and I can’t imagine life without his friendship.

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Two years ago I completed the fiction novel and cast about for what to do next. Many times I’d been told I should write my story. I’d tried, but the tough things were still lodged in a pain place and I couldn’t make myself go back there. All attempts ended in failure. But that was before. Now felt different, so I began. One chapter led to another, then another. I dug through detritus within myself that hadn’t been touched for decades and found it had fermented and become delightfully intoxicating.

Today, as I read the blog and traced those first exploratory steps in a foreign place where I knew no one, not even myself, and superimposed the image of who I’ve become, the magnitude of change hit me. What a testimony to the energetic magic of letting go. If I hadn’t sold everything four years ago and leaped into the unknown…

SIX DEGREES…Who do YOU know?

28 Mar 2016 23 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Uncategorized, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Gypsy egc.

From blond to redhead, from drifting to anchored, from caterpillar to butterfly. Metamorphosis!

I’ve been writing this blog religiously since February, 2012, spilling my beans, airing laundry both dirty and clean, transparently sharing my life with anyone who cares to read. Is that the height of narcissism or the depth of depravity? Maybe both.

Simultaneously, I’ve written a book. Two actually. The first is 100% fiction, a psychological suspense novel entitled, A Subtle Revenge. It sits in manuscript form in a bottom drawer collecting gecko leavings and volcano dust.

The second is creative non-fiction, the real story of my life. Not that the blog isn’t real. It is. But Mating Season for Butterflies, the memoir, goes back to the beginning. It traces the troubled path through my mother’s illness when I was a child, five marriages and five divorces, a court case and the resulting prison sentence. It portrays a conflicted woman without a sense of self, who cycles through the same mistakes and never seems to learn from them. The picture it paints isn’t pretty because the choices I made often had disturbing consequences. But it resolves with an awakening to self-awareness and a second chance. Once I let go of who I thought I should be, and trusted the unfolding of who I was, opportunities appeared that catapulted me into a reality beyond anything I could have dreamed.

The story is finished. No, wait! The book is finished! The story is still very much being lived. But the time has come to search for an agent and a publisher. It’s who you know, the six degrees of separation connections that make the difference. So I’m asking those of you who have enjoyed reading my Writing for Self-Discovery posts over the past four years: Do you know a literary agent who would be willing to take a look at Mating Season for Butterflies? If you do, I’d love to be introduced. My market is women of all ages. The message is hope: It’s never too late to change the course of your life.

 

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