A Book By Its Cover

Sometimes the most important people in our lives seem to be the most unlikely. If we are wise we will learn from them, because all too soon they leave us and no one can ever replace them in our lives. Like my Muse who has inspired me yet again. Thank you friend.

Sid & the Gummy Bears

I dreamed last night, for the first time in so long I can’t even remember the last time I could recall a dream. Some things have happened since the last post here, including the real world pulling me to itself with fearsome meat hooks. But for those who spend too much time in the virtual world, I have good news for you, returning to the real world is much like it is with riding a bicycle, you really don’t forget how…and because of the virtual world “exercises” some of your intuitions are heightened in ways you don’t expect (there must be SOME commercial gain from all those hours playing with this grown-up pinball machine!).

And in my dream last night as all things in dreams are it was a bit jumbled but part of it was very vivid. It was about Sid Abraham (who has gone to Glory many years ago). He was sitting in a booth in a diner that I used to frequent in my university days and it was a great surprise to see him there. He was, as always, surrounded by an assortment of food and a near mountain of papers on the seat and on the table before him. I was so surprised because I realised the minute that I saw him that I had been remiss in spending any time with him or even calling him or writing a little note to him for a long time.

He knew I felt embarrassed by this (we all know this don’t we when we bump into someone we have ignored with our friendship and they know we know too) and did what Sid always did, he made sure he sent me that almost undetectable message that it did not matter between REAL friends how often you saw them or wrote to them. He sort of got up from his seat, which was quite difficult with all the things surrounding him – he intended to give me one of his warm embracing hugs.

I could see he was older and shorter and more tired, as old age seems to do to many (is it most or all) people, so I rushed to him instead and paid little mind to the paper mounds and the left over plates of assorted food stuffs and hugged him first. So warm his hugs. Unlike anyone I have ever known, but closest to my Mom’s hugs that were so precious to me.

I pushed some of the papers aside on the bench seat opposite him and just looked at his jolly, round face and relaxed for the first time in ages. We caught up as they say. I went up to the cashier to pay for his meal as a surprise for him and when I turned around, he was gone.

His papers were gone but the dishes remained, including one sitting on the seat next to where he had been sitting. I sat down in his empty place and felt the warmth from his body so recently here, found several blank white intex cards and just tried to see things once more from his perspective and found a silver bowl there on the seat.

Creativity & Politics

I remember Sid so well. I remember how he introduced me to a new approach to creativity and invited me to attend my first of many CPSI (Creative Problem Solving Institute) Gatherings in Buffalo New York (the creativity studies centre of the world, it seems). There, I met some of the most wonderful people and challenged the limitations I had "sensibly" put on my own thinking.

And he helped me apply my natural intuition and creativity to the new dangers of the corporate environment I had so recently entered. I was severely unprepared for the posturing, positioning and politics that surrounded me and promised to end my very privileged career too soon. (and this actually resulted in a life time of study of corporate politics, although as some of you would know, it is still a struggle, because knowing all about it and being able to manoeuvre through the murky waters is never the same!)

Archetype

Sid also introduced me to Jungian psychology in an out-of-book (not to be confused with out-of-body, though close) experience. I ended up studying the topic of archetypes and eventually worked with financial institutions and other large corporates helping them identify and understand their archetype in their world and how it related to deeply embedded behaviour patterns in their customer relationships with them (and how improve and better leverage those relationships) -- well that was always the hope anyway.

It was wonderful; and I even got to work with one of the leaders of this specialty field, Gil Rapaille. I don’t even know if he is still around, but I sucked his brain till it hurt my lips -- just to learn everything he would share with me – which was mountains of understanding and insight.

Mom

Then there was what I learned from Sid about my Mom. My Mom was a troubled woman and she took those troubles out on me. But, by the grace of God alone, I grew up wildly optimistic and hopeful in my little dark world. And no one in my family could understand it and Mom could not squash it out of me either -- although she truly tried -- which used to anger her more than she usually was – which was a lot.

One very cold and dreary February morning, with the Buffalo snow drifted to waist-level over night, I awoke to my Saturday and took the last straw from my Mom and, like a child, bolted from the house running away from the heated words I feared I would say to her.

The next day I was back at work and went straight to Sid’s office and closed the door and like Yoda behind a desk, Sid listened as he always did to my frustration at not understanding yet ANOTHER thing about my life.

I poured out my heart to him, confessing as if this was side by side in one of those movie sets where you’re in a Roman Catholic Church in one of those little rooms with the peep hole door so you can confess to the priest in the other little room that shares the peep hole door, and get to share your deepest darkest sins of the week and then are awarded a "hale Mary".

Sid did what he did best, he listened quietly and purposefully, intently and with love.

Now that is the true value of a good friend to me. He listened. I spoke, then cried, shouted a little and cried some more with utter frustration at WHY my Mom hated me so much (the reason I ran away will remain masked for the time being, but it was her attempt with her trusty broad sword to break my ribs as she ground my heart to mince, for the umpteenth time).

Spent from the telling of my tale I stopped talking and dabbed my eyes with Kleenex, kindly convenient in Sid’s office and blew my noise (not so lady like but effective) and sat back in the uncomfortable chair and waited.

Sid, you see, never launched into his analysis until he had pondered it for a bit (if you ever have a ponderer in your life, keep them!!). He moved some things around on his desk and pulled a white index card from his breast pocket, and began to write on it. He would look up occasionally at me and reach over to the silver bowl on his desk and offer me a gummy bear and then take one himself.

It seemed to take forever for him to get to a point of sharing what he was thinking and I knew all my eagerness or agitation for a solution would not help his process…so I thought about how this man has stayed for over 30 years in this mammoth financial institution, rising from a lowly teller (which when he joined the bank would have been a lowly job indeed and one with no computers!!)

He looked jolly. He moved through the halls more like a snail (do not remind me of the salt please). He knew everyone. Everyone knew him and there was not one office anywhere where he was not welcomed with open and hopeful arms. His hair was thinning and he wore dark-rimmed glasses and was far too heavy for his height and reminded me (honestly) of a happy garden gnome). He was also the only man I ever met in a corporate setting who always wore short-sleeved shirts and rarely a jacket (required anytime you left your office, regardless of your gender).

But he epitomised wisdom! So I waited. No one quite understood how (me) the new “Turk” in the bank has such favour with someone in such demand, but we were friends from the first time he confronted me about avoiding him as trivial in the bank (a painful realisation and the first heavy lesson he taught me – that appearances ARE deceiving in a corporate setting too).

Sid's Wisdom

He looked up at me. Pushed a little away from his desk. Smoothed out the completely smooth index card on his desk and I could hear the dryness of his large hands on the paper. And he began to unlock yet another of my life’s mysteries.

“Your Mom does not hate you, she hates herself.” A paradigm shift of such magnitude, I barely knew where to fit it in my thinking. He continued to tell me of my four choices to deal better with her:

1. I could do as I always did, try not to argue with her and store my anger up until I exploded over and over from her teasing of my weak spots.
2. I could try to ignore her and keep running away.
3. I could argue with her and reason with her for all I was worth.
4. I could just love her with, what is known as, AGAPE love – the love that passes understanding and that is unconditional (the one you hear about at most weddings nowadays. You know the…love is patient, love is kind, is not puffed up stuff)

This was the parsing of a problem by the great Sid. Carefully organised and structured the clarity of his messages and his analysis Stirling.

It changed my life and relationship with my Mom for the rest of her life in regard to me. I chose number four. It escalated her anger toward me for a long time….but she also stopped trying to tease me to anger. (And before she died, I knew it was the right choice too.)

I moved from Buffalo to Australia and left Sid behind although we remained the closest of distant friends until one day his diabetes took him home to be with the Lord.

Silver Bowl

I closed my eyes for just a moment in that dreamed-up diner and imagined the scent of Old Spice (do they still make that?) and remembered how Sid always wore that after-shave cologne.

My hands moved out to rest on the seat on each side of my body and my left one ran into that silver bowl.

I slowly opened my eyes and gently gathered it to my lap and peered down into it. Gummy bears; red and yellow and green ones still resting there for Sid, who was not allowed to eat them ever -- but loved them so much. Sid was a man who taught me so much and gave me hope and love and left me with a love for gummy bears and creativity. I miss him.

Thank you Turner for your words of wisdom and hopefully you will see that I too can write you secret messages to let you know how much you mean to me….you are my new Sid, sans the Gummy bears, the glasses and gnome shape…the wisdom pours from you and inspires me. Thank you so much for “seeing” me.

An Unexpected Birthday Present

Wow. A friend who also has a blog has given me a present: he has stirred me up to write again. Thank you Gorthaur and it makes me miss Turner even more and more as my Muse (where are you?)

Anyway I am going to put some of Gorthaur’s words here and some of my ideas in response. (I was going to answer him in his blog, but my answer got too long), so hopefully this will make sense:

Gorthaur said:

“To my mind there are two types of evil or "shadow." There is personal evil, and there is the collective evil. The "idea" of the collective shadow (or pure evil), for most is an objective reality. Unlike the personal "shadow" which always has hope for redemption often suggested by personal moral effort, the collective shadow leaves one with the idea that no one can stand against it. Many find refuge from the despair this pure evil causes thru their faith and obedience to value systems of their religion or ideologies. Historically this is the way to combat evil.”

I reply:

There is the concept of “sin” and there is the concept of “sins” in the Bible, which is what you have written about here. "Sin" is what entered into the world in the Garden of Eden when Satan tempted Adam through tempting Eve, to wonder if they didn’t actually know more than God did – the attitude and desire to do what is right in your own eyes.

Sin

"Sin" is universal and is no more possible to resist than “Don’t think of a pink elephant” is. As for the condition each one of us lives within in relation to sin, Romans 7 and 8 is the passage we “live” our everydays in as far as every person I have ever met or read about.

Sins

Then there are “sins”. Sins are personal choices that we make moment-by-moment to allow, as one writer puts it, "God to sit in the driver’s seat of my life" or whether I take that place for myself.

Most people worry about the “evil incarnate” – you know the guy (why a guy?) in the red suit with little pointy horns on his forehead, a long tail with an arrow at the end and a pitchfork? Well, the Bible talks about this evil one as an “angel of light”, one that was so beautiful and entrancing that his power was about that concept more than "evil" – to be attractive and therefore tempting -- not to be fearsome and easy to recognise.

It is why we get surprised when we discover we have not resisted evil. (See Bedazzled with Elizabeth Hurley and Brendan Fraser for the amazingly best illustration of this – and Elizabeth plays a very convincingly irresistible "evil" – well for the men at least! Personally, I would be after Brendan in a heartbeat, but that is a different story.)

Gorthaur said:

“Evil has been spiritual and intellectual concerns in human existence since the earliest times. In those olden days, during daylight hours, evil was generally perceived as non-existent. Yet, when the sun disappeared, evil lurked in the menacing shadows. Evil has always been associated with darkness. Much of mythology is permeated with ideas associated with the symbolic and sometimes literal ideas of ‘evil in the darkness.’”

I reply:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” Genesis 1:1-3

The first improvement God made when He created everything was to separate the light from the darkness.

Let’s face it, if I am going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I am going to put my fluffy slippers on BEFORE I walk on a floor in the darkness, knowing all those evil creepy crawlies have been running free because it is dark (just flick your lights on in the kitchen in the middle of the night!). Also, men jump out at you in dark alleys and from behind bushes and tend to hurt you. Darkness hides all kinds of evil intentions. Then there is what you do under the cover (and covers) of darkness when you are all alone sometimes (sorry to digress).

So I believe "darkness" is both a symbolic and a literal paradigm for where evil can lurk.

Note I said "CAN"; the greater evil is what we think should STAY in darkness and somehow peeks out and hits us in the face when we don’t expect it, such as what happened on a wonderfully clear day in New York one September 11th or in a school with children and guns.

Gorthaur said:

"To deny evil is foolhardy. Each of us has experienced evil, directly or vicariously - even through impersonal images of the media or fairy tale. Yet some think or teach that evil is not a permanent condition of the human condition. Since St. Augustine, there has existed the idea that evil is nothing but the absence of good. The ultimate conclusion of this idea is that evil can be eradicate by 'good works.' Many religious teachings rests on this concept."

I reply:

Actually, I think it is "evil's" intent and prime activity and key victory to have us think evil doesn't exist. Evil would have us convinced that all is relative and situational and that it is only our thinking that makes it so.

Take away -- for evil's sake -- all parameters. Create confusion about right and wrong. Soften wrong to be -- not only appealing -- but rational, understandable and excuseable. What a victory for evil - to deny it and foist responsibility on anyone or anything else!

And, I am sure there is rejoicing by all evil forces when they survey the numerous bums waving in the air with heads buried in the sand, ostrich style, when it comes to the concept of evil.

Trading Stamps Evil

But in this paragraph, Gorthaur, you have also hit on something I really think is evil. The church of today that has somehow gotten off on the idea of trading stamps.

Trading stamps is an old marketing concept that can be blamed for the many loyalty cards you have stuffing your wallet today. The purpose was to tap into our natural tendency toward self-serving greed and accumulation (creating stacks of money or in this case paper stamps or holes punched in a card). The stated purpose was loyalty, but the hidden purpose was to make you buy more stuff.

Anyway, when you bought groceries (typically) you got an equivalent number of trading stamps (that you had to lick and stick in little paper books). If you got enough books filled with stamps you could get a new toaster -- or in the case of the church today, you can (they will tell you) go to heaven (which is NOT the case at all - an entirely different concept is in place for the Heaven-bound, known as GRACE).

You get trading stamps in the church by serving tea and cookies after the service or the elder's meetings or by visiting the sick in hospitals or by darning socks (does anyone know what darning socks is about?) or you can crawl through glass on your knees carrying a cross in some cultures.

Or you can, of course, pay for new stuff for the church (or the pastor, his wife or kids) through well-documented and noted donations, offerings and tithes (does anyone know what a tithe was supposed to be?) that are then taken as a tax deduction.

Control Them

I think this idea comes from the hope that somehow you can control people (truly, truly an evil idea!). The best way to do this is to beat down their self-esteem and destroy the possibility of a support system with other human beings (See Hitler 101 or "The Wave", if you don’t know who Hitler is) and to ensure they are never really sure they are good enough! (smacking her lips with the deliciousness of this super duper idea)

As to where evil comes from, well God created us with the choice to follow Him or follow “what is best in our own eyes” sense of directions. He did NOT create us to be automatons (or robots) that just obey.

Why did He create us in the first place and give us this freedom? Because God wanted to love us and be loved in return. Can you imagine how sad God is to know that we don’t even have time for Him most days?

My Birthday

Today is my birthday and this is my gift to me: to remember who He is in my life and to thank Him for giving me the freedom to choose to follow Him or not. Sort of like religious freedom gone wild -- or where there is clear separation of the “church” from the “state”.

You see, if you tell me I must do some thing, I will not want to do it. If you, on the other hand, tell me not to do something, you can be sure I will want to and will likely do it.

However, if you tell me I am free to choose, after giving me clear parameters and laying out benefits and consequences for my choices -- then my choices are what is known as informed choice. God gives us INFORMED CHOICE to follow evil or Good.

It is like a TOS statement (Terms of Service) in the virtual world, most of us agree to them, yet never read them. We quote them as if they are law, yet many we quote don't even exisit and those that exist are common sense and easy to follow. Interesting how the virtual world parallels the real world even in this way. Neat huh?!!!

Happy Birthday to me!

Just Believe

Christmas time this year, and I feel so very, very homesick.

This clip is dedicated to those I have loved in this world that are gone now and those I love still that are here for me (what treasure I have!).

The magic of Christmas is so special. It heals us and brings us new hope for every tomorrow.

Enjoy the love and forgiveness and the renewal of the holidays for all they offer you.

My First Christmas

Christmas memories are remarkable for me. Seems like Christmas was/is the turning point for the entire year – I still mark every one of my years by December 25th instead of January 4 (my birthday!!).

And special memories of Christmas bubble up now and again reminding me of wonderful “sugar plum” love and sometimes even disappointment. So this year I’m choosing to share with you one of those memories from my favourite Christmases and hope it will stir up your own best memories, too.

The first Christmas I can remember would be when I was five. We had moved to a new house. My brother was only a year old. The house had a big living room with 10-foot ceilings (that seemed to be twice that high to me) and right by the front door there was a wonderful floor to ceiling window where we always put the Christmas tree.

The Tree

I remember the beautiful, tall, green, live, pine tree decorated with lots of pretty Christmas balls and some lights that looked like little glass candles in plastic holders. The glass part was yellow, blue, red and green and the contrasting plastic holders were mostly two toned green and yellow or green and red. The candle portion, once heated up would produce unending bubbles inside the glass tube and make little glass clinking noises once in a while. They were featured every year of my memory on our trees (I even bought then for myself after I grew up left home).

Christmas carols would play all the time. So pretty.

Under the tree Mom would arrange a white sheet (so it looked like snow) and put down special, big wooden bowls with fresh oranges and mandarins and mixed nuts (especially my favourite English walnuts). And boxes of home made and carefully decorated Christmas cookies – more than you could ever eat! And hard candy with little Christmas trees and wreaths on them.

The Doll of my Dreams

I had seen -- and desperately wanted -- this wonderful, tall-as-me, walking doll so badly. I think as I look back it was a difficult year for money what with the move and a new brother and all. But I was five and there was nothing more important for me than that doll with the frilly, white, long dress and the little pink bows all over it. I can still see her lovely hands and little fingernails and her beautiful eyes that would close if you laid her down for a nap.

Meaning of Christmas

Then right after dinner the day before Christmas, Mommy came to me and said we needed to go into Daddy’s office. Now I knew this is where all the Christmas presents were “hidden”. And I wasn’t supposed to go in there at all.

Well actually I had wandered in there a few times anyway and could see all the enticing boxes up high covered in bags. But they were up so high I couldn’t actually see anything. But I knew my dolly was there because it was the biggest box ever.

So I was really happy because I thought she was going to give it to me now instead of having to wait till Christmas morning!!

Strangely, she brought the newspaper with her and sat down on Daddy’s office chair. She had me come look at a picture on the front page of the paper.

There was an image of a burnt down house. With a mommy and daddy and little girl standing outside in the falling snow. Mommy explained that this family had lost everything in a fire that very morning and would have no Christmas at all.

That made me feel real sad as I peered at every detail of that picture.

She looked at me and she looked up at the boxes. Then she got up from the chair and reached up real tall and brought down the very big box in the bag. She looked at me again. She said nothing but slowly pulled the bag off.

And there she was, my dolly! The most wonderful dolly I had ever seen. All I wanted to do was to touch her, to hold her, to brush her hair, to smell her skin, to give her a big kiss.

But Mommy put her hand on my shoulder and pushed me a little away (I would have slobbered on that box to be sure!).

She asked me to turn and look in her eyes. There were little tears there – I will never be able to forget.

And she said, “Sweetie, we must do something for this poor family and I want you to give the little girl your dolly. You would like to do that wouldn’t you or that little girl will have no Christmas at all.”

Well I did NOT want to give her my dolly. I had wanted that dolly more than anything in the world.

Mommy said, “What if it had been us, wouldn’t it be nice if some little girl wanted to give her dolly to you?”

Well, yes, I thought. That would be good.

I looked down at my dolly’s beautiful face and just wanted to touch her once.

Yet, as I thought of that other little girl, with nothing but cinders and dark boards surrounding her, I couldn’t resist. I reached out to the box with my dolly in it and pushed it to Mommy. I asked her to take my dolly to the little girl. And I have known all my life that this is and was what Christmas is supposed to be, always.

Holiday Wishes for You

I hope your Christmas and holidays are the best ever and they are crowded with family and friends, good food and time to remember all the moments of precious love you have ever had in your life. And I hope that by the time you get through New Years that the only memories that remain are the good ones for the past year.

With love from Lady Sheridanne Kelley

Don't Give Up!!

Sometimes you just have to take stock of who you are and what is actually happening around you to find the secret to tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed that...I know I am.

/me smiles and smiles and smiles

Towanda !!!

Henry David Theroux said most men live lives of quiet desperation. In other words they are not only bored with their lives to the point of screaming, they remain silent. Perhaps they remain silent because they have convinced themselves that like a tree falling in the woods with no one there to hear it, there really is no sound and no one will hear them scream out for mercy.

But we all know the truth of that. Just this week I posted a segment about the series of virtual disappointments Lady Sheridanne has been going through (RL & VL (real life and virtual life).

She didn’t get through them alone though….others held her hand, her head, hugged her, danced with her, gave her a massage, rushed her off to get several lattes and many explained their own victories as examples of how “hope happens” and can’t be lost.

It was a time where Lady Sheridanne could not be strong or frisky or hopeful or optimistic or positive for anyone else, let alone for herself. Lady Sheridanne is exhausted from the last four months of events and has no more strength left.

Old Friends and New

And without intending to she turned to old and new friends just for a hug or a word from them. And they came.

- The man who brought her first to Avilion, enchanting her with his Elven magic and charm to hold her and to strengthen her from his new found strengths.

- The lady who taught her about being an Ancient, who said something to the effect, that this too will pass and really doesn’t matter much in the universal scheme of things and gently threw her long, red, dread locks over her shoulder and hugged me.

- The man who made the music box that I played until the neighbors must have complained and who held me like no other in my home, came and helped me say good bye (and hopefully has found a way to save my music box for my new home).

- The man who has held her the most, through the most difficult times for the longest friendship she has ever had in her virtual life -- a great (yet lost love), came and held her and listened to her fears for the upteenth time -- and still cares

- The gentle lady who never misses a day sending me encouraging words in many ways reminded me to look to my friends over and over, repeating the lesson as if I was a slow learner (and I am) offered me more hugs than I deserve.

- My first sword teacher came and hugged me and told me how well I had learned my lessons with him and how there were more things to learn from these past events.

- And my wonderful role play husband and special, dear friend came when all the furniture was gone danced with me and held me and let me just weep and say good bye. He let me be so angry and frightened and weak and never once told me to “Buck up.” A unique gift to be sure.

That tears and raging for a bit help is self evident to us all. And those who know me, know I rarely allow myself to ever get angry at injustice at myself (although for others you must be prepared to hold me back).

Compost Treasure

For me, the culmination of these months of exhausting difficulties and personal loss became like a huge pile of compost. And the useless scraps that are tossed into that pile must be nurtured too (tears and hugs from friends do this in real life -- I know) and then, when ready the compost can be spread out in all the right places to bring forth the most lovely and healthy of blossoms (I am the Queen of Flowers and the Spring for a reason, you know).

Most of all, being so weak I could barely stand -- taught me new things about friends I sometimes rush past as I try not to be hurt again by anyone.

But I am back now -- although I never really left, I just went into neutral as I took time to remind myself that my contribution to this world and that world is unique. No one else can make it but me. And if I stop, although there are a gazillion other people out there, no one can give what I give from what I’ve learned and know and from what I have become.

Honey and More Honey

An new friend started a blog recently and I pulled off this quote by Antonio Machado that he used. It is actually what began the hard healing of my heart.

"Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvellous error!
That I had a beehive here inside my heart.
And the golden bees were making white combs
And sweet honey from my old failures."

But most of all a friend, lying in a stable manger offered me the final set of building blocks to begin preparing the compost. (Thank you as always for being my Muse).
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How to be the strong one (TBS)

1. Keep a sense of humour
2. Remember, that its not your life - its someone elses
3. Have faith in something, even if its only yourself
4. Expect pain
5. Sacrifice yourself if it helps. Otherwise, play for keeps
6. Stay heads down even if everyone is going crazy.
7. Kiss away tears
8. Grab the back of the wrist, not the front. You won't get cut
9. Be willing to fight the crowd
10 What they're saying about the people they love, is really about themselves
11. Protect all children but teach them and play with them more
12. Make lists, even things that are soulbound.
13. Plan the work
14. Work the plan
15. Pain is weakness leaving the body
16. Lance Armstrong Rocks

"There is no limit to what a man can achieve as long as he doesn't care who get's the credit". - Bob Woodruff. (Coca Cola Corporation).
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I mixed in too many illustrations you are thinking…well you are right, but they symbolise the many, many gifts I have received. You see, although I absolutely refuse to open my Christmas presents early, this year I was tricked into, not only receiving the presents early, I was tricked into opening and using them early too.

Many have helped me during this time and I have not mentioned you all, but you know I am grateful anyway and I owe you a long, Lady Sheridanne, special hug. The one that makes you relax and results in giggles. Remember?

So I am humbled and I am healing and I am strong again, but wiser hopefully and thanks to each one of you for your patience and your love for me. Thank you and happy holidays (whatever they mean for you). For me….well this has already been a most memorable holiday!