Look and Listen

Biography

On an 80-acre farm in beautiful rural Oregon, I grew up with three older brothers. Our homespun lifestyle was ruled by equal parts poverty, faith, and discord. The farm wasn’t much of an enterprise. The only thing we managed to raise in abundance was a herd of goats. They kept multiplying, since my dad was too kind-hearted to kill anything. Primarily, they were pets that produced milk. Dad had to take a factory job in the city to support us and the goats. The goat is a fitting symbol for our family; a smart, independent creature that thinks for itself, unlike a sheep. In the New Testament parable, sheep are held up as a model for good Christians: trusting, innocent, and obedient. One might also say that sheep are dumb and naïve; they will follow anyone, even if it’s over the cliff. My parents were an odd contradiction of goats in sheep’s clothing: e.g., following God, while still thinking for themselves. They were churchgoers, though never becoming members, since they reasoned that no one church could encompass all of the truth. Instead, they made the rounds to various congregations, forming their own brand of faith, cafeteria style: a little of this and some of that, and an excess of religion in general. In our home there were frequent Bible studies and rigid standards to follow. A major disadvantage to my upbringing came in the form of too many restrictions. You name it; we could not do it. Some of the items on our no-no list were fairly common: no alcohol, no profanity, no sex outside of marriage. Others were rather odd: no Christmas, Easter, or Halloween; no “worldly” activities like TV or shopping on Saturday, our Holy Day. Our diet was patterned after Old Testament law: No pork, shellfish, or meat that came from an animal without a cloven hoof. We were also denied anything with white sugar or white flour since we were health food nuts long before it became popular. As a result, my brothers and I felt like social outcasts among our peers. I know our neighbors viewed us as fanatical and strange. Like most kids, we wanted to fit in, or at least not to be seen as weird. I can still remember the looks of disdain on my schoolmates’ faces as I ate my homemade brown bread sandwiches while they had their soft, white WonderBread. It wasn’t until years later that I grew to appreciate the benefits of good nutrition. To their credit, my parents had other interests besides religion. They fostered a love in us for music, art, literature, and learning pursuits. They managed to provide piano lessons when they could afford little else. Dad’s greatest passion was classical music. We had an old upright piano in our living room that he played daily. Mom’s passions were many, and she threw herself into everything she did. She was a writer, and a talented artist who’d had professional art lessons. She taught us, as well as many of the neighborhood children, all she knew about color, composition, and design. My mother also dabbled in palmistry, most certainly a practice frowned upon by traditional religion. I learned this art from her, and she picked it up from a book. But more than a learned skill, I believe it was an avenue for intuition through touch. Neither of us knew more than the basic lines. Yet when holding someone’s hand, impressions would instinctively come that usually proved true. It was great fun for me to make someone’s mouth drop by sharing something I couldn’t have known but somehow did. One other novel practice that helped enhance my intuition was our family’s habit of watching our dreams. We often discussed them around the breakfast table and pondered their meanings. It was, in essence, keeping a door open to the subconscious. My upbringing instilled a love in me for nature borne of living in its midst, so far from traffic, people, and pollution. Our family lived a green lifestyle before anyone else thought of it—we drove VW’s to save on gas even when it was cheap and plentiful; we recycled our garbage and gardened organically. My folks believed in living in harmony with the land, and with their fellow man. They were pacifists prior to the peace movement of the 60’s. Dad had, in fact, been a Conscientious Objector back in World War II—which was certainly swimming upstream against popular sentiments of the time. The irony was that my parents, the pacifists, were constantly at war with each other. If they were united in their religious convictions, they were divided on nearly everything else. Their inherent personalities mixed about as well as oil and water, or perhaps, fire and gasoline! Growing up in a daily combat zone likewise fueled rivalries between my brothers and me. Ours was not a very happy home. My adult life took a mainstream course of marriage, family, and career. I was a wife and mom who juggled family and a full-time job in the business world. I embraced Christmas and other holidays and happily dispensed with most of the other items on my childhood no-no list. I’m sure my neighbors saw me as normal. Living like a sheep had its benefits. When it comes to matters of faith, however, I was, and still am, the goat. Since early adulthood, I have traveled the backroads of spirituality. My studies took an Eastern turn, in that I explored belief in chakras and past-lives. Most intriguing to me were all things metaphysical—hypnosis, near death experiences, astrology, psychic healings and readings. Although these are commonly known as New Age beliefs, I resisted the label of “New Ager”, witnessing “Airy Fairy” naiveté among many of them. Nevertheless, I explored mystical beliefs alongside my starry-eyed friends, as a way to grow and develop my own healing gifts. In the early 90’s I embarked on a journey that would change my life. I quietly enrolled in a spiritual studies course through a healing arts center. This was purely for my own growth, not to make a career of it, and certainly not to go public with my beliefs. I learned about life energy, a concept that bridges both spirituality and holistic medicine. The theory is that when things are not in balance in our outer experience, it can be traced to an imbalance in the underlying energy. Illness would be an expression of energetic imbalance. So, too, would be relationship difficulties, career issues, and most any other challenge we face as humans. Mainstream approaches are usually temporary at best since they only address the surface level. Lasting change requires getting to the root cause, the underlying energy. One of the benefits to completing the program at the healing arts center was becoming ordained through their church and therefore legally authorized to perform marriage ceremonies. Yeah, like I’d ever want to do that, I’d thought at the time. Back then I was terrified of public speaking. Ironically, I now earn my main living as an interfaith minister officiating at weddings. While at the center, I gained many tools for self-healing that went beyond my years of therapy. I’ve often wondered if there’s such a thing as a “functional family”—most of us get to deal with one form or another of dysfunction. My biggest issue was the fallout from my parents’ continual conflicts. Though verbal and not physical, they were damaging all the same. The most significant piece I gained through my studies was learning to own my personal power, and even recognizing that I had any to begin with. My restrictive upbringing was like a stiff corset I’d been struggling to break out of all my life. As I began to heal, I learned I had intuitive abilities, that all of us do to one degree or another. I came to believe that we are each innately given an internal guidance system as to what is right or wrong for us. This goes beyond moral conscience. It has been called intuition or the “still, small voice within.” Most of us have been conditioned not to trust that voice, thereby repressing much of this natural gift. The inner voice can often be accessed in the dream state, and through meditation and other spiritual practices. When nurtured and strengthened, it can be a powerful guiding force in our lives. As I progressed I realized that I was not the only one who could benefit from this knowledge. I have always had the deep desire to help others. The new ideas and skills I was learning were something I could pass on to those who came to me for guidance. I began counseling people in private sessions, and offered meditation and healing classes. I formed the habit of journaling. The entries in my journals eventually gelled into two published books on spirituality and self-healing. So much for not going public with my beliefs. In recent years I’ve personally witnessed a spiritual awakening afoot in the world. It seems that people are searching for answers, realizing that the old way of doing things no longer works for them. Many are embracing a healthier diet and lifestyle, while being kinder to one another and to the earth. They are becoming “conscious”—addressing deeply held fears, dysfunction, addictions, whatever personal demons might exist in their own lives. As individuals learn to listen to the wisdom of their inner voices and follow that guidance, small miracles begin to happen every day. The healing wave is gaining momentum. Every time one person gets it, we all get it. Like a pebble stirring the surface of a pond, the ripple expands and moves out to touch us all. I firmly believe that by healing ourselves and embracing a green lifestyle, we can heal the planet, one person at a time.

Inspiration

There are math people and English or word people, and definitely I count myself as the latter. I've heard people say that what they like about mathematics is its reliability. Two plus two always equals four, period. It can be counted on, no pun intended. There is no "wiggle room." Personally, I prefer wiggle room. I like originality, to entertain an idea that no one has thought of before, or perhaps thought of in just that way, before. I value a life view filled with nuances and shades of gray, indeed, a whole spectrum of color. How tedious and boring it would be to live in a world of only black and white. What interests me most are intangibles that cannot be seen with the naked eye nor understood by the rational mind. There is no visible mechanism in place to explain the creative process, the impetus that drives an individual like Michelangelo or Beethoven or Hemingway. And yet the end results of creative geniuses are there for all to enjoy. It's pulling a rabbit out of a hat, manifesting something from nothing. True enough, we cannot all be Michelangelo’s, but each of us has gifts we can contribute to this world. I think I was born to write. As a preschooler, I recall copying painstakingly one of my older brothers’ school papers, character by character. I had not yet learned my ABC’s and had no idea what those squiggles meant. But to write seemed such a wondrous skill, I couldn’t wait to try my hand at it. Writing is, of course, more than forming letters; to write requires having something to say. This comes from finding one’s passion and combining it with life experience. My passion is rooted in spirituality and holistic health and healing. I am an intuitive. My unique background set the stage for my life’s work. (Please see Biography, above.)