RantingWomen.com Women's Blog

Staging Grief…

Anne — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:45:43 +0000

It is an odd quirk of my personality that I treat myself like a test monkey or a lab rat… maybe the subject of a book. I am never actually experiencing anything in the first person; at least, not until much later, when the character and her motives and modes have been established on paper. Then, and only then, can I step into the body of the character I call “self” and safely experience the experience. First, I must understand. I must know the end before I open the book to get involved.

So it is with learning to be a widow. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross established the protocol for grieving, or at least claimed to define the tangled structure of the emotions of being “left behind.” She defines them like this:

The stages are:

Denial: The initial stage: “It can’t be happening.”
Anger: “Why ME? It’s not fair!” (either referring to God, oneself, or anybody perceived, rightly or wrongly, as “responsible”)
Bargaining: “Just let me live to see my child(ren) graduate.”
Depression: “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”
Acceptance: “It’s going to be OK.”

This is bullshit. This is all stuff I felt BEFORE my husband died. I felt these things WHILE he was dying. Now I don’t feel; I act. I have established the path for future action, and I put one foot in front of the other on this path. I hover over the character that is me, watching from outside the process, saying to myself, “There she is. She’s reached acceptance.”

This is also bullshit.

This particular lab rat is running on its wheel, faster than ever. It refuses to participate in those stages, and refuses to slow down. It will run and run and run until it collapses. Then perhaps we can cut it open and study the guts of the thing.

A widow (rat) must learn to live life all over again. She must be again a nineteen-year-old girl, and this time, she must not follow the corridor on the maze that says, “husband arrives.” She must, after all, learn to service the car. He will not arrive just in the nick of time to take over this duty. He will not tell her that he will take care of her. He will not be omni-present, overwhelming her days with his plans for the future, sweeping her along in the bliss of innocence and trust. This time, he will not exist. He simply will not exist in this phase of the trial. She must run on the wheel and follow the maze alone.

Widow-rat has never blazed this particular trail. She stands up on her hind legs, wiggling her whiskers as she tests the new smell of the room. She has gained experience and bravery, but she is starting again at the beginning of the maze, deciphering the choices zig-zagging out from the center of her comfortable wheel.

She tries to categorize the things she must master. Kill a cockroach. Check. Learn self defense. Check. Rearrange furniture for more suitable single-rat environment. Check. Clean fridge and dispose of cancer-treating protein shakes, organic lemons, potassium supplements. Check. Store bedroom furniture on which he died. Redecorate. Erase all images of oxygen machines, nebulizers, home health staff and medication checklists. Check.

New environment equals acceptance. Check. Keep running on wheel. Sniff down the corridor of unexplored arms of the maze… Start a new business? Get a different hair cut? Stop pretending to like certain mutual friends?

Such is my life as I watch from above. I took an NRA certification class on Saturday to learn to be proficient with my new “Lady Smith” pistol. Bought the same pistol for my daughter, and now we are gun sisters, prepared to take life if ours are threatened. This is new. This is good. This could be anger. Note the chart, make comparisons to earlier studies, and perhaps someday these things will occur in ways that can be felt and measured in the heart.

For now, it is a study. We analyze, we chart progress, run on the wheel and watch from a distance.

Anne Pierson, Editor, Lab Rat

Tags: feminism, women writers, women issues, women rants

Self Defense for Women

Anne — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 04:26:03 +0000

With my husband in the terminal stages of cancer, I’ve been forced to think about some strange things lately. One of them is my personal safety.

This started around midnight last night. I was just stepping into the bath tub when my doberman starting barking like crazy. Zeus is unlike our previous doberman, a pretty laid back fellow who almost forgets his duties as a watch dog, content to lay around and soak up the love, as only a rescue dog can. So… if Zeus was barking - someone must be in the house or very close to a window.

Never in my life would I have thought to throw on a robe and go check it out. After all, with five very large sons, a big husband and a dobie… why should I worry? Any attempt to get into our house would surely end in death and dismemberment for any intrudor. It has never crossed my mind. We live in a small town. I am not careful.

Last night, for the first time, I realized there was no one but me to respond to the warning of the barking dog. My husband is too weak to hold his glass of orange juice. My big sons have all grown up and moved away. My youngest son and daughter, the only two left at home, are sleeping peacefully at the back of the house - unarmed. My ferocious doberman is… well, less than ferocious.

I flung open the chemical cabinet in the bathroom, frantic for a weapon. Ah… wasp spray. A nice twenty-foot stream of blinding poison in my hand. I fling on the robe, crack the bathroom door and enter the dark bedroom. Zeus is quiet, but standing on the bed, at attention.

“It’s okay, boy,” I tell him. Sure it is. I have the wasp spray. I am mentally re-checking whether I locked the back door. Sometimes I don’t…

I reach the hallway and grab a heavy silver candlestick from the fireplace mantle. Stupid safety-conscious me… I’ve locked the guns away in the gun cabinet, and the keys are in my purse - at the back of the house. Damn.

It turns out, some cats are fighting at the corner of the front porch. My heart is pounding, and now I don’t feel like taking a bath, naked and unprotected in the house, which is suddenly large, creaky and ominous.

I can’t shake this now. Tonight I take Deb to karate and realize that our motorhome is parked at the “street side” of the driveway. You can’t see our cars or the back entrance to the house, its bulk hiding all that from the main road. I take a deep breath before I go into the house. My finger is, for the first time ever, on the panic button of the car remote. I wonder if it works…?

It is obvious this cannot continue. I refuse to live in fear, yet I know for the first time the demons that drove my single mom, keeper of two little girls, to put burglar bars on our windows, lock the doors even when we were home, and park in the most outlandish places at night - simply because the well-lighted areas aren’t always convenient. I get it now.

I’m making a plan. Tonight when I go to bed, I will unlock the gun cabinet, place the loaded .357 on my night stand, and I will keep the wasp spray within range as well. One shot of wasp spray, one speedy bullet. I do know how to shoot the gun. We’ve target-practiced at the range many times, and I was proud of my bulls-eye skills, just for bragging rights. Now, I find it gives me confidence that I can protect the family, as I now must.

Second, I’m going to Lowe’s to get some motion-detecting bright lights for all the shady areas around the house. I’m going to get a surveillance system for my computer, too. Then I can keep the laptop next to the bed and watch anything that moves around the house.

Paranoid? I guess I am a little bit.

I haven’t thought of being a woman alone before. First I was protected by my paranoid lone woman mother. The brief time I spent in my own apartment alone, I gave it no thought. When I was twenty, I was untouchable, protected by an army of guardian angels, naive assumptions and an attack cat. Then there were always men… and now there’s only me - solely responsible for my family’s safety.

Good thing the state of Louisiana has two great laws: one, if someone even touches your car while you are in it, you can shoot them - no questions asked. This was prompted by so many car-jackings in New Orleans, and has been tested time and again in court. Second, if someone is in your house, you can shoot them, no questions asked. Believe me, I will do it. Anyone in my house has no good intentions, and I won’t even allow myself to consider WHY they are in the house. I will shoot, and that’s it.

Having never considered any of this before, I am doing some careful analysis of my habits. I’ll be going, with my sixteen-year-old daughter, to self defense classes, and I will probably buy her a gun as well. I will take her to the range and teach her calm and accuracy. Hopefully, as she is a month away from her black belt in karate, she has learned calm thinking under attack. We will practice, and my son Daniel, although he will probably move out in a year or so, will be involved for the time that he still lives at home.

We can do this. Women have to consider safety, even if they are happily married with an army of sons. The day will come when we each need to take responsibility for our own safety, and planning starts now. Never assume there will always be someone there to take care of you…

Anne Pierson, Editor

Tags: Angry Women, women writers, women issues, women authors

Coping with Feng Shui

Anne — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:30:16 +0000

If you’re not familiar with Feng Shui, you might want to look into it. I learned about it a few years ago, after purchasing Sacred Space, by Denise Linn. The premise of Feng Shui is simple… our homes and surroundings carry an energy, and we can harness that energy to create better lives for ourselves.

To give you an intro, just think about this: Have you ever walked into a room where two people were sitting together, but you could “feel” some kind of disharmony - like an argument - “hanging in the air?” It may not be scientific, but it’s practical and true to realize that energy does have its own tangibility, and our homes absorb everything that happens inside them… is your home holding energy that’s bad for you?

If you can go along with the basic principal, then you can begin to turn the energy patterns in your home or office to your advantage. There are many books about feng shui, but for my purposes, I just use a few of them, and the rest falls in place when my environment “feels right.”

For instance, in my office, which is very small, we have a little corner that’s just for hanging out, feeling good. We have two wicker chairs, a plant or two, and a fish tank there. It’s where we go to “chill out” in the middle of a crazy day, shaking off some of the ringing phones, chaos and frustration of life at work. My staff has no set break times. Anyone can go clear their heads whenever they need to. Everyone is more productive after a short break in the “happy zone,” and this feng shui, although not by the book, helps us keep a productive and happy office atmosphere.

We’re a bit playful about feng shui. We don’t do it by the book, but it works for us. When business is slow, April and I readjust the fountain water level, shake salt on the phone to cleanse it of poor results from last week, light candles we designate for different purposes… we totally make it up, but just our own energy intending these things makes it begin to happen.

At home, I use feng shui to guide me in the arrangement of furniture in each room. The room where I work and my kids study has elements of earth, air, fire and water - a fountain, candles, wind chimes, and many plants. This helps center us, and when any of us begin to lose our energy for the project at hand, someone will say “time to do some feng shui,” and we make a quick sweep, cleansing the room to renew the energy.

You can do a few simple things to re-charge the energy of any room:
1. Burn sage
2. Sprinkle salt around, then think about the salt absorbing all the bad energy. Clean up and dispose of the sale (outside)
3. Use bells or drums to create sound energy patterns - fast for added vigor, or calm, peaceful sounds for concentration

Once you’ve cleansed a room, you can then begin again, reassigning the new energy in the room to any purpose. Read about it, but don’t over complicate it. Just be instinctive, tune the energies in your home until they seem right to you… just pay attention to how you feel, and you will be utilizing feng shui to further your productivity and happiness in your own way…

Anne Pierson, Editor

Tags: women writers, women authors, women issues, women blogs

Flipping and Flopping

Nancy Cardone — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 12:47:46 +0000

Yes, I hate to admit it, but I am a flip flopper. I can’t seem to take either side on much of anything. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely do get angry about things. Sometimes I feel so strong about a topic that I could take on a cause and save the world, but then I start to think about the other side of things and sway my own covictions. As an example, here is an interview with myself on different topics:
On Gun control:

Q Nancy, Should law abiding citizens be able to have guns in their homes to protect themselves?

Answer A Yes! Absolutely, 100%! Honest citizens should not be left unprotected. If a criminal breaks into our home we should be able to protect our family from possible horror. If we need to use the gun, so be it. Noone has a right to enter anyones home without permission and cause fear and possibley injury or death to their family.

Answer B No! Guns end up in the wrong hands. Guns that are purchased by law abiding citizens can end up in the hands of criminals. Or worse, they could be turned on you by someone who can over power you. Or, even worse than that, they could end up in the hands of children!

On Iraq:
Q Nancy, should we remain in Iraq?

Answer A: No, too many of our military are getting injured or killed. Too much of our money is being spent. We could do so much here in our own country with the money to increase security and protect our citizens. Fighting a war in Iraq is not going to stop terrorism here! Our troops should be pulled out immediately!

Answer B: Yes, we need to finish what we started. I don’t think this is a war we should have started, but now that we are there, now that so many of our heroes have lost their lives, we need to to continue their work to help Iraq strengthen and rebuild their country.

On politics:
Q Nancy, do you think we are ready for a woman president?

Answer A: Yes, that would be the ultimate breaking of the glass ceiling! A woman president will lead the country with both her heart and her strong mind, not her ego. I believe the time is now and Hilary Clinton is the one. She is the one that will solve our medical insurance issues, she will rehabilitate our inner-city communities, and she will better use our resources to strengthen our country’s security!

Answer B: No, we need to keep a man as president, women are not perceived as strong as men. She won’t be seen as fearless as a man president, thus the people in this country will not feel protected. I, quite honestly, won’t feel as secure with a woman as president.

On Oprah Winfrey:
Q: Nancy, are you an Oprah fan?

Answer A: No, I am the anti-Oprah! I think she uses gifts as a marketing ploy to get jer fans to hang on her every word, whether they believe in her or not. I don’t think she is an expert on anything, yet has such persuasion on issues because of her ability to use her money.

Answer B: How can anyone not be a fan of someone who has helped so many. Oprah has definately influenced people to be charitable and giving. If I question her methods or beliefs, I can’t ever contest her good will!

So you see how wishy washy I am. Maybe I have a split personality. I argue with myself all the time! Maybe that’s ok, because I rarley argue anything with anyone else. I have been in the room when some really heated discussions have taken place and I find no fun (as a matter of fact, I am down right uncomfortable) in controversial debating!

Don’t get me wrong, I am fun to have as a guest, I love to keep the topics light and funny. I am not happy when the combination is wine-in-hand and a frown on my face!

Nancy Cardone
Check out more about me on my blog at http://glamnan.blogtoolkit.com

Tags: women rants, feminism, women writers, women issues

Important Deadline: Down Time

Anne — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:24:29 +0000

My to-do list is overwhelming me. Who created the list? Me. Who’s pushing me to complete it? Me.

Ever since my husband was diagnosed with cancer, I’ve had a demon inside me. It’s a real Type A demon, even worse than all of my natural instincts. It thinks that if I have a long, long, long, impossible list of things to accomplish, nothing bad can happen.

I’ve taken on vegan cooking, started working toward a B.S. in Nutritional Therapy, am still running my business and approaching publication time for my annual directory, the kids start (home)school September 1, and I’ve just decided to write a book. I’ve already completed a chapter and a half, fully edited, in just three days. Surely, this will keep my world from imploding. There is simply no time for a crisis, so we won’t have one. Period.

Last night I got eight hours sleep. This is rare, but the rain was drumming on the roof - a blessed sound! - after a month-long dry spell here in Louisiana. I crawled between the sheets, itching like mad from a case of poison ivy I got working in the yard. I never work in the yard, but Bob’s aneurysm may explode if he does it. So, I work in the yard now, and assure him that I like it a lot. I crawled in, feeling so grateful that it was actually COLD in my bedroom. The rain had cooled the outside temperature to about 95 degrees, allowing the air conditioning to work for a change. I scratched my legs two times, and fell asleep like the dead. I haven’t slept like that for years.

I woke up this morning exhausted, at 8am.

At the office I did all of Friday’s work today. Somehow, the Type A demon has me ahead of myself. I obsessed on the next section of my book, reviewed the pending interviews in my head, scratched my stomach, where the hives have spread… I spent the whole day making new mini-lists of things to do when I got home.

Somehow, around 7pm I just crapped out. That was it. I couldn’t take any more of my own harrassment, and I told my daughter to round us up a chick flick for tonight - I was taking the night off. She just stared at me.

“For real?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I told her. “Anything girly and stupid will do.”

We watched Sweet November, girly and stupid to the core. Naturally, the star of it had cancer and died. I watched it with a numb, floating feeling, like this had nothing to do with me. Cancer. Not my problem. I blocked it, enjoyed the San Francisco scenery, and now I’m done, back at my desk.

It’s important to schedule down time. I have no idea if any of this has been productive or not. I don’t know if writing this blog will save anyone else from killing themselves with deadlines and emotional tundras. I don’t know if anything in my book is really any good, because I’m just going through the motions, in the “zone.”

Now I’m off to take a nice, hot bath. I’ll apply the creme I finally bought for the poison ivy, crawl into bed beside my sleeping husband, and try not to hear his ragged breathing. We are playing a game. I am playing “you can’t catch me,” and he is playing, “I’m still fine.”

I can’t explain how or why, but a healing process is at work here. I’m not being funny. I am observing, somehow, the way we all cope with “these things.” I am really not frozen, but I have realized there is only so much I can take. There is only so much Bob can take. We talk about next year as if he’ll really be here, because you can’t NOT talk about next year. Everyone talks about next year.

My dogs know something is wrong. They are driving Bob to distraction, glued to his side like furry shadows, crunched up against him on the bed, following him around the house, squeezing themselves through the bathroom door, just as he tries to close it. They are relentless in their loyalty, and I’m relentless in my cheerful, positive outlook. Someone has to be cheerful and positive, and that’s me.

Still, even as I write this, I can’t seem to acknowledge out loud that we are headed for a crash. My little rest tonight, away from work, hasn’t changed a thing, but I think I needed it anyway. Stupid, girly movies designed to make me cry simply make me raise an eyebrow at their lack of style. Don’t the writers and actors of these things know that having cancer makes you sit upright and talk about how good you feel? Don’t they know that the ones who love the patient never bend, never cry in public?

I might need one more night of “unplugging” to begin to feel again. I’ll give it a try. So far, it has been ineffective, and the poison ivy is not making any point at all, except that it itches, and I still hate needles enough to keep trying creams. Where’s the miracle? Where’s the last minute moment of hope?

Maybe we find it in tomorrow, if we get just one more day.

Anne Pierson, Editor

Tags: women authors, feminism, women rants, women blogs

Women’s Blogs: The Irony of Exercise

Anne — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 01:40:14 +0000

I hope I’m not the only woman here who ever did a workout, then plopped down at a desk with a tall cup of latte and a pack of smokes… because that’s what I just did. (Did I mention panting?)

I recently realized that it’s been FIVE years since I broke out my yoga duds and hit the wide open floor space to dance, bend, stretch and work my abs. Too easy… too easy to forget, as a working woman and mother, that forty-something is just around the corner… and my legs, though still slim, are definitely not the legs of the beach girl I used to be. Forty has come and gone, and here I am, with not a ripple beneath my skin that speaks of muscle. Where did it go?

So - it’s not New Years Day, but by gosh, it’s time for a resolution. I cannot complete my forthieth year without making at least a feeble attempt to regain my youthful splendor. Maybe I can be like one of those California women… you know, little gold sandals, toe rings, and tight muscles under thinning skin - bronzed, of course, in a tanning bed. Nah. I’ll shoot more for a gracefully aging southern lady, carefully shielded from the sun to avoid cancer, and sassy anyway.

Whatever the end result, I’m starting today, girlfriends, getting this ole body back to whatever it can still be.

This might be a good place to use Steve Pavlini’s Micro-tasking. He recommends making a very, very detailed list of what must be done, to the point that once you look at every detailed step, it seems quite easy, broken down that way. Here goes:

1. Drink pineapple juice every morning, fresh from the blender with coconut milk, and include that nasty multi-vitamin I bought the other day - supposedly chewable. Even the dog won’t eat it.

2. Go to work. Do all the usual stuff. Feed the fish. Don’t drink coffee.
(Oh my god! Did you catch that last part?)

3. Come home from work. Clean up the house so I can tolerate living here.

4. Go to desk, boot up computer and put timer on. Yes, the timer; otherwise, I’ll just sit there all night, scanning web sites, planning my next brilliant maneuver, and letting those old muscles curl up and die some more.

5. Keep tall glass of water handy - room temperature so I don’t go into shock and end up in an emergency room. Drink at least three of these really tall glasses before the day is done.

6. Okay, enough procrastination. By 8pm, be in the yoga duds (yeah, they still fit). Put on some REM or INXS, get those teenage memories rolling back, and get this bag of bones back in the groove.

7. Find lost mojo.

8. Take long hot bath and accept feelings of guilt for having the lit cigarette on the rim of the claw foot tub. Stamp out cigarette and pretend I will be quitting soon.

9. Stand in front of mirror and note any changes or improvements. Perhaps this new program will also cause wrinkles to retreat from corners of eyes?

10. Savor the victory of one day of correct behavior. Fall asleep immediately due to lack of caffeine and exercise exhaustion.

11. Write articles in near future about exercise, able to speak truthfully about my own participation in the activity.

Okay - so there it is. All neatly broken down into micro-tasks. I think I can do that. I used to be quite religious about it. In fact, I’ll consult my mother to ask if there is a patron saint for the project, because a few prayers wouldn’t hurt.

Anne Pierson, Editor, fitness guru, seeker of lost mojo, slave to nicotine…

Tags: women blogs, women authors, Angry Women, women writers

Women’s Blogs: Mini-Manifesting

Anne — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 01:04:22 +0000

A friend of ours, who freelances for our company, wrote me the other day to ask for a small loan. I trust her, I know she has financial issues right now, and we were quick to agree to send her a check. She’s a special lady, caring for a terminally ill husband, too; but unlike me, she is the sole provider for her household, and they have no medical insurance. Talk about realizing how lucky we are…

Anyway, when I answered her question, I also wrote back to her about “manifesting,” thinking she could benefit a lot from using “The Secret.” I wasn’t sure it was “her kind of thing,” but told her about it anyway, and hoped it would help. She replied with a very kind email, and was glad for the heads-up. I linked her to “The Secret” site, and Steve Pavlina’s site as well.

In the next few days, her sales skyrocketed. She wrote me again to tell me that she was “manifesting” now, and how happy she was to have a focus for her goals, and a method to use to encourage her own skills, with a little help from the universe.

Well, that was great. Then I read Steve Pavlina’s Microtasks blog, and got an idea for my own efforts at manifesting right now.

Why not Micro-Manifesting?

My current manifestation project is huge… I’m working on the Million Dollar Experiment, and seeing small results so far… I think that project is going to be cumulative, and it may take the universe some time to pull together all the components to arrange them around my life. Then, too, I’ve been my own worst enemy, slowing the project with negativity, inspired by anger.

I think for now, my life is so full of confusion, I’m blocking my own manifestations. I’m going to try to break down my visualizations into Micro-Manifestations, beginning with a small intention. I will bring this intention into reality almost immediately, thus demonstrating to myself the power of my magical reality.

So… what kind of Micro Manifestation will I work on?

I think I will manifest two web clients. Yes, that’s a great place to start. I will focus on the phone ringing, and two people asking for a re-design of their web sites, and hiring me to do them. I want to start doing that as part of my business, and I will put out this intention, knowing it will manifest into reality within just a week or two. I will keep you updated.

For those new to manifesting abundance… here is my plan:

1. Each morning, I will wake and say to myself, “Thank goodness I can work from home all the time now. I’m so happy and grateful that I have two new clients to work with. I have all the income I need for the next week, just from this simple task of manifesting new clients.”

2. A few times throughout the day, I will close my eyes and focus on the beauty of two new web sites - one a blog, the other a retail site - and the pleasure of my clients at my new creation.

3. Before I go to sleep each night, I will write a quick 100 word essay in my journal, expressing gratitude for being able to serve fellow business people, and enrich myself financially, while doing something I love.

I’ll let you know when my manifestations become reality…

Anne Pierson, Editor

Tags: feminism, women authors, women writers, women rants

Women’s Blogs: Fearlessness in Women

Anne — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 03:12:43 +0000

I’ve been reading this guy’s web site… Yeah, I know, he’s a guy, and this is a women’s blog. Still, I love this guy, StevePavlina.com, because he is just strange enough to make me feel that I know him - quirky in all the right ways, and definitely an inspiration. So… we’ll make him an honorary RantingWoman for the time being…

I was reading his entry tonight on fearlessness, and realize that I do pretty well in this area. Unfortunately, my fearlessness is usually driven by anger, which is not always a good thing.

The thing is, lately I’ve been trying to face the hard fact that I will someday, if not someday soon, have to make my way in the world alone. My husband is terminally ill with cancer, and I am angry at the world right now. It’s not fair. Why me? All that and more. I try not to wallow in it, because it’s not “my turn.” It is HIS turn to wallow in whatever he wants… and I can deal with my own self-pity, anger and fear later.

Most important, I am suppressing all anger at HIM right now, because how will I live with myself if I remember these months as an argument and tirade that went on without end? All through these hot months of Louisiana summer… we just wait. I cannot afford to be angry with him for turning his back on the natural cures that are healing him. Who am I to force him to live?

So in my own defensive way, I embrace fearlessness as my only option. I turn my anger toward something productive, thinking I will blaze a new trail, start another business, and be one of those brave women who do not cry in the face of impending doom. We get tough.

But anger is only good for starting new things, not so much for finishing. I find that as my anger flares, I can create a fifty-page web site in one night. I can build my own world (damnit!) by typing and smoking and drinking coffee (damnit!) while he sleeps. The hard part is seeing past the completion of the site, turning off the coffee pot at midnight, and crawling into my bed, my sick husband hanging on to life beside me… and seeing the future long enough to see my goals through to the end. I lose steam. I lose my vision, usually allowing the fear to return.

So I’m reading Steve, for therapy. He is very strange, and his “wierd experiments” are fun to follow, but also have a core of brilliance and sincerity that speaks to my state of mind. This guys really does get paid for being “out there,” and his message, in general, is to be who you are… and let the chips fall where they may. His chips have fallen into a nice online income, and I say, “Bravo, Steve!” and wish I could find a way to do the same.

But you do see the difference, don’t you? His fearlessness comes from a place of “What the hell?” and mine comes from desperation and beligerence, as often seen in teenagers. I am going to lose the battle I’m in right now… so I’ll take on others and win. Not the right motivation. Not the clearness of vision it takes to truly be fearless.

Joe Vitale, a marketing guru, talks about “getting clear” before taking on anything new. “Getting clear” is all about purity of motive, I know. And it’s also about going forward with the right intentions, with a graceful heart, and with the staying power in each project that comes from a spiritual basis for everything good and right that we want to do. I need to “get clear,” and I need to find my fearlessness in the field of “infinite possibility,” not “infinite anger.”

I browse the Steve site again, and he says this: No matter how difficult it may seem, make the choice to live consciously. Do not succumb to that half-conscious realm of fear-based thinking, filling your life with distractions to avoid facing what you feel in those silent spaces between your thoughts. Either exercise your human endowment of courage and progressively build the strength to face your deepest, darkest fears to live as the powerful being you truly are, or admit that your fears are too much for you, and embrace life as a mouse.

So that is my new project, before taking on any others. Whatever the next few months hold, I must not escape into anger, building imaginary empires to get revenge on the gods. I hold onto his words, read more, look into the faces of my family, and try to find my fearlessness in a frozen moment.

Thanks, Steve, for the words. As they say, The Word is made flesh - and your word is the Genesis of this day for me.

Anne Pierson, Editor

Tags: women authors, women blogs, Angry Women, women issues

“The Secret” Widget… Fun!

Anne — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 21:26:12 +0000

This is a neat little “widget,” and features blogs about The Secret. Thought you all might enjoy using it! You can add one to your own blog from Widgetbox.com

Anne Pierson, Editor

Tags: feminism, women blogs, women writers, women issues

Women’s Blogs: Where You Stand is Holy Ground

Anne — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 02:05:27 +0000

I don’t remember when I first heard this quote, “Where you stand is holy ground.” I think of it all the time, and it, well… grounds me.

Throughout this summer, time has been a tricky thing. My husband’s cancer is “holding its own,” and we are afraid to be optimistic, and afraid not to be. We’ve been staying home a lot, and it gives me time to contemplate eternal things… and sometimes I avoid those thoughts, hoping for the ignorance of a life taken for granted, like I had before.

But it’s impossible to turn away from the larger questions when a loved one is facing illness, and possibly death. Every day is an inner journey of sorts, and this quote has haunted me through these insubstantial hours.

I was thinking today about my niece, Emily. I remember when she was three, and her mom began to take her to church. There was nothing funnier than to hear this ringletted three-year-old say, “Nanny, let’s talk about GAWD.” We’d laugh so hard as she baby-talked the rolling drawl of their charismatic Baptist preacher. GAWD was her favorite subject, this magical genie in the sky; all-powerful, divine, completely good. GAWD could do anything, and Emily loved to chatter about him.

Her brother, Alex, was into angels. Guardian angels. He explained to me from the back seat of my car, “They’re everywhere, Nanny! There’s one on that stop sign. One over there…” He was pointing and explaining in his five-year-old way as we drove down the streets of my town. Guardian angels could be anywhere!

“There are even two in the back seat with me,” he finished.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yep,” he confirmed. “And one up front with you, too.”

“Why do you have two in the back, and I only have one?” I asked.

“Because you only have one seat belt up there.”

Case closed. Angels follow the rules.

These, and other holy matters, are my mental soundtrack now. They weave their haunting melodies within the playlist of my day. No longer is the position of the canister on the counter a random fact of life. It all means something now. My brain is operating on a different plane, and indeed, where I stand is holy ground.

I used to believe that each day was a box on the calendar, no more and no less. There was plenty of time, plenty of opportunity for all the exciting things life had to offer. I believed, as all young people do, that I was eternal. I would probably never get old, and certainly never die. Only old people were mortal, and even they seemed sure to last a very, very long time.

Any day now, I could wake up widowed, my husband in the bed beside me - but gone. Any day now, my husband could be cured, like it was all a bad dream. Any day now, the spontaneous flow of the universe could throw me a whole new winding road to follow, and I suppose I’m spending this time preparing for the journey.

If you’re a bit confused by my blog, then you might begin to understand what it’s like to teeter on the edge of the structure of life. All the plans, all the assumptions - gone. This is the inside of my mind now. This is the ground on which I stand.

Examine the soil beneath my feet. Let’s describe it, commit it to memory.

The soil is moist with Louisiana rain. Days and days of rain falling, the sultry sun coming out to turn it to steam, the vivid grass turning greener, growing taller, thicker, more filled with the life of the wetlands of Louisiana. We are at sea level, maybe a foot or two above. The ground here is quick to flood, and soggy, coming up between my toes when I walk. I become engulfed in a way, whenever I allow my feet to get involved without protection. I can feel it suck when I take a step…

The soil here is fertile. Corn and cotton and milo stretch beyond the winding roads, lush, ripe and nourishing… crop dusters fly above it all, blanketing the fields with poisons to help it grow, to control the insects. Contrast and irony and beauty. Lions and tigers and bears…

The soil here is one with the water. There are places where the green slime on water appears solid, where a false step can bring you face-to-face with the bayou, kissing the cypress knees.

This is the holy ground on which I stand, and where time floats like clouds above each day. I hold every detail sacred, and plan nothing. I take each step, and think, “This is a state of grace. This is Zen. Timelessness. Nirvana.”

Anne Pierson, Editor

Tags: women authors, women rants, women blogs, Angry Women