What Can We Do? Tip the World Toward Love.

In light of the latest headlines, another African-American man killed yesterday at the hands of four police officers in plain view of stunned and protesting onlookers and recorded on a cell phone video, I could not find my way to the page today. The stories I wanted to write were drowned out by images from the news and my Facebook feed, my mind consumed with a swirl of competing thoughts and emotions. It is hard to find the words that even begin capture the way I feel today, but I feel compelled to try.

I cannot begin to comprehend the fear that our black and brown sisters and brothers in this country live with day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade. Headline after headline about a system, a society, a culture that shows little or no regard for their lives. To take just the most recent examples:

• February 23, 2020: Ahmaud Arbery, a 25 year-old man, is stopped, shot and killed while jogging in a Georgia suburb. It became national news only after a video emerged on May 5th.
• March 13, 2020: Breonna Taylor, a 26 year-old EMT is shot eight times and killed in a botched police raid in her own home in Louisville, Kentucky.
• May 26, 2020: George Floyd, a 46 year-old restaurant worker suspected of forgery is pinned to the street by an officer's knee to his neck and dies pleading for his life.

The very real toll these events must be taking on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well being of our black and brown sisters and brothers cannot, must not, be underestimated. Not to mention the stress and anxiety brought on by the uncertainty of waking up each day and worrying for your personal safety and the safety of your child, spouse, partner, relative, or friends in the course of going about their daily lives.

I, for one, am tired of clicking on the sad or mad (or recently added care) emoji each time these stories show up in my Facebook feed, knowing it is simply not enough. Even with the best of intentions, it is an empty gesture, worth as much as the routinely offered thoughts and prayers after each new school shooting. To be silent about these injustices is to be complicit in the systemic racism that has infected and afflicted our country for centuries.

We must do more.
We must speak out.
We must educate ourselves and others.
We must bring awareness to the problem.
We must call out aggressions against all members of our human family.
We must stand up in solidarity and raise our voices to call for justice to be served.

It is easy to say, but I have caught myself censoring my social media posts on more than one occasion to avoid being dragged down in the muck and mudslinging of internet comments or to avoid the bullying and ire of internet trolls who hide behind the relative anonymity of the web, let alone by friends or acquaintances who take issue when a light is shined on racial injustices. I have silenced myself for fear of saying the wrong thing, but it is even worse to say nothing at all when innocent lives are being lost.

While listening to a podcast this weekend, a conversation between Brene Brown and 19th Surgeon General of the U.S. Dr. Vivek Murthy on the topic of loneliness and connection, I was struck by Dr. Murthy's observation that our world is locked in a struggle between love and fear. He posed these questions, which resonate even louder in light of recent events:

• How do we move the world away from fear and toward love? 
• What can we do to tip the world toward love?

It is easy to get lost in the busy-ness of our lives, to say these things are in other places, affecting other people or other communities. But they affect all of us. We cannot afford to look the other way and hope for the best.

How do we move toward healing and tip the world toward love?
It will take connection and forgiveness.
It will take acting and living from a place of love.
It will take listening with open and non-judgmental hearts.
It will take acts of ordinary kindness and extraordinary courage.
It will take standing together against the voices of hatred and intolerance.
It will take not hiding behind our beliefs or our privilege.
It will take a shift in perception from fear to love -- in other words, a miracle.*
It will take many miracles that begin with each one of us.

In every great story where forces of good and evil clash in epic battles, love wins. And what gets me through each new day is the belief that love can -- that love will -- win again.


*This definition is often attributed to Marianne Williamson, who in turn borrowed it from Helen Schucman's A Course in Miracles

NOTE: If you are looking for a place to begin, some concrete actions you can take on behalf of racial justice, start with this list.

Give a Cat a Puzzle*

Give a cat a puzzle
and into the box she'll climb,
lie down on all the pieces,
settle in for napping time.

It's better that she's sleeping,
'cause if she's wide awake,
she'll sneak up on that puzzle
and the piece you need, she'll take.



She'll bat it with her tufted paws
send it flying through the air,
so when you need it    later on,
you'll find it won't be there.

And should you still ignore her,
to get your attention back,
she'll wiggle her hind-haunches
and prepare for an attack.







What happens next, you can't control --
a losing battle that.
A feline makes her own rules --
just ask any cat.









The purpose of a puzzle
may be lost upon your friend;
it matters not to her
how it winds up in the end.



So if snapping that last piece in
is the reward for which you thirst,
toss Kitty-Cat a mouse-y
or you'll have to find it first.

*Title and first line inspired by Laura Numeroff's much loved picture book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

Are You Out There?

The other night, as Alicia Keys led Stephen Colbert through a brief meditation exercise on The Late Show, she told him to focus on something he wished for. "I want my studio audience back," he said and laughed. But you could tell he meant it.

How strange it must be to record the show in his own home, after years of doing shows with a live audience. I notice it too as I watch with my husband -- the empty silence after each punchline where the laughter should be. Quarantined in our living room, it's up to us to laugh. Or not.

Colbert's longing for an audience response? I totally get it. It's a familiar feeling for an aspiring writer. For any writer, really. We throw words onto a blank page, post them on a blog or publish them as articles or books, and HOPE they find a reader. Hope someone reads our words and feels better for having read them, or at least feels something. Anything.

When I decided to start blogging again, I told myself it was just for me. An outlet for the thoughts that parade through my head in every waking moment, occupying my writer's brain. Those thoughts that, if left unexpressed, set up camp and clog my creative channels. I told myself it didn't matter if anybody read or commented.

I lied. It does matter.

We all want -- need -- that connection to our readers. Even those of us who prefer to create in the quiet of a writing room or artist's studio. We want our art to resonate with someone. Anyone.

See me, writers and artists say in the subtext of every creation. This may not be my story, but it does reflect, on some deeper level, a part of who I am. Something I have felt, something you may have felt too. A piece of my soul reaching out to yours.

We count pageviews and look for comments. And we feel sad -- empty -- when our words seem to fall into a void. When our voice goes unheard. Unnoticed.

Still, writing is an act of faith. So we continue. We put words on the page and send them out into the world in search of an audience. In search of even one reader who will pause and read. In search of you.

Keeping Your Chakras Open

During this time of social distancing and lockdowns, it is as important as ever to keep our chakras open and our energy flowing. Blocked or closed chakras can impede the flow of energy through our bodies, which can in turn affect our mental, emotional, and spiritual well being, not to mention our physical health.

In the spirit of keeping your energy flowing, I offer a practice to help you process challenging events and situations by walking them through the seven primary chakras.

 Root (1st) chakra                                                                              
What happened? Name the event. Let's take the pandemic. Or, if you wish, narrow it down to a more specific event caused by recent developments -- loss of job/income, limited interactions with people, restrictions on movement or freedoms, or a challenge in a relationship with a child or spouse.

 Navel (2nd) chakra                                                                          
How do you feel about what happened? Go with those gut feelings; they are called that for a reason. Are you angry? frustrated? sad? lonely? anxious? depressed? Feeling fear? despair? guilt? uncertainty? shame? resentment? What were the first feelings that came up? Name and acknowledge them.

 Solar Plexus (3rd) chakra                                                             
This is the seat of your mental body. What do you think about the event, about what's going on? What judgments are you making? What is that mental chatter in your head going on about? The thoughts that keep you up at night or distract you from your work during the day? We're talking reactions and rationalizations, not considered, measured responses. (If you need an example, look no further than your favorite social media feed.) Listen carefully to the messages you are sending yourself and others.

Heart (4th) chakra                                                                          
This is where the shift begins to happen. This is where our  2nd chakra feelings and 3rd chakra judgments can be transformed to (or by) the so-called higher emotions -- compassion, forgiveness, love, empathy, hope, acceptance, joy, and others. Choose the higher emotion that is needed to respond appropriately to the event you are processing. If not, you may find yourself mired in the swamp of 2nd chakra feelings and 3rd chakra thoughts. Suppressed, ignored, or left to fester for too long, these can block the energy flow and affect tissue on a cellular level. Find a higher emotion and ground in it daily. Having crossed the bridge at the heart chakra, we move from the lower to the upper chakras.

Throat (5th) chakra                                                                         
This is where you give voice to your experience or respond to the situation in some way. It might look like having a conversation with someone, writing a letter (which you may choose to send or not), or expressing your thoughts and feelings in a journal. This is also where you let go of what you think you SHOULD be doing and take appropriate responsibility for what you CAN do. For example, continue to do your job, taking the necessary precautions; or stay home, so as not to put others in danger. How can you be part of the solution?

Third Eye (6th) chakra                                                                   
Take time for reflection, meditation, introspection. Or if you happen to be an extroverted processor, talk it over with a trusted friend or family member, looking for insight. Is there a lesson here for you? How can you make meaning at a time when nothing seems to make sense? How can you use this event/situation as inspiration? As a call to action or change?

Crown (7th) chakra                                                                         
This is where faith resides, so closing or blocking this chakra can leave you feeling hopeless or disconnected. To keep the energy flowing, connect with whatever source of the Divine is true for you. Call upon your spirit guides, power animals, helpers and healers, angels, and archangels. They are always with you, but cannot act until you request their aid.


This process, which I learned from my Chakra Balancing teacher and mentor Arlyn Kline can be used any time to deal with big and little events alike. But it may come in especially handy now, as we all look for the best way to navigate this new, unfamiliar, and often surreal landscape. If there is one thing I have learned from decades of energy work and practicing mindfulness, it is that from the biggest breakdowns, come the biggest breakthroughs. My greatest hope is that we come away from this experience transformed -- or at least having learned something about ourselves.

[Note: Even as I composed this post, Governor Hogan announced the Stay-at-Home order for my home state of Maryland. This entry may be more needed than ever as we all absorb that news.]

Wet Socks?

There's a phrase I learned as a 20-something weathering the ups-and-downs of the search for love. I was doing a particularly bad job of hiding my

sadness one morning after the most heart-breaking break-up of my existence, which prompted a colleague and friend in the English department to say, "It could be worse...you could have wet socks."

From that day on, "Wet socks?" became our shorthand for checking the emotional forecast. And most days, that little shift in perspective was enough to bring at least the hint of a smile back to my face.

This morning, as I enjoyed the daily luxury of a hot shower (yes, I said luxury), wet socks interrupted my thoughts about life during a pandemic. It could be worse, I thought, as the water ran over my shoulders.

• We could have no hot water, forcing us to start the day with cold showers each morning.
• We could have no internet -- no Zoom meetings or classes, no virtual hangouts or Skype chats with friends and loved ones.
• We could have no computers or personal devices -- no Candy Crush or Words with Friends, no videogames or online Fort Nite marathons, no Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter feeds to monitor.
• We could have only one landline (remember when that was a thing?) that we had to fight each other for.
• We might be forced to get by on a diet of Saltine crackers and peanut butter or have to wipe our @$$es with scraps of newspaper.

Or we could be forced to watch news coverage of the pandemic 24/7 or tune in to press conferences that are more likely to spread confusion and misinformation than provide much needed reassurance. But no one is forcing us to do that. We can stop. Go back to getting our news once or maybe twice a day. If keeping up with hourly developments adds to our anxiety, we can step away from our screens, particularly the 24/7 opinion-driven programs that pose as news and the click bait that infests our social media feeds.

I know it is hard to be stuck at home -- and here comes the tough love -- but there are worse problems in the world than having to cope with a little boredom (or conversely, with the extra burden of having to teach and care for our children while working from home), especially if it allows those on the front lines -- those staffing our hospitals, maintaining public safety, running state and local governments, and supplying the food chain -- to continue to confront, contain, and eventually conquer the virus.

It is worse, in fact, in many parts of the world right now -- in Zagreb, Croatia where they just had a 5.4 earthquake; in war torn countries like Syria where many are living in unsafe and unsanitary conditions in refugee camps; in the impoverished areas of this country (and there are many) where the stoppage of non-essential businesses and the closing of schools means there might be no food on the table, much less a 30-day supply in the pantry.

So, friends, let's remember all those things we can still do from home -- exercise, worship, nurture relationships, practice mindfulness, learn, create, inquire, discover, and, most importantly, love each other. If we cannot work right now, maybe we can find our purpose in doing our small part to serve those who are fighting for survival.

Call me Mary Poppins if you must, but the best way to counter the grief over what we have lost or stand to lose right now is to feel gratitude for those blessings, large and small, that we do have.

And if that doesn't work, remember: wet socks.

On Choosing Sacrifice [Notes from a Pandemic: Day 13]

Today marks the halfway point of Lent, day 20 of the 40-day journey to Easter Sunday. On Ash Wednesday, our parish pastor Father John asked us what we were going to sacrifice for Lent. He urged us to look deeper than giving up a favorite comfort food or bad habit, and to contemplate instead giving up something that might change our hearts.

I thought back to one of the early years of my teaching career, when a good friend who taught history stopped me mid-rant in the teachers' lounge one day to make the observation that I complained a lot. Too much. I took what he said to heart and turned it into my Lenten practice that year. No complaining for 40 days. I didn't tell him. I figured that the best test of how I was doing would be to see if he or anyone else noticed a difference. They did. And so did I. The benefits of that sacrifice lasted long after Lent ended.

In the current political and social climate, it has been easy for me to get caught up in the swirl of negativity. I have noticed, as has my husband, that my frustration at the direction our country and world is going in (whether it's climate change or immigration or gun control or equal rights or the latest lies and mistruths coming from the White House) often boils over into angry outbursts or near-paralyzing anxiety that interferes with my creative efforts.

So I committed, sitting in my church pew on Ash Wednesday, to give up negativity and, as best I could, be a source of light and healing in the world. A lofty goal, sure, but one that might bring about the kind of change and journey to the heart that Father John was encouraging.

While there was some talk at that time of an epidemic spreading across China and into Europe that was likely to eventually reach our shores, I didn't know then the level of sacrifice we would all be asked to make in the days, weeks, and now it seems, months ahead.

We are all being asked to sacrifice, to give up some of the freedoms that we hold so dear in order to stem a crisis before the scope of its consequences becomes entirely tangible or visible. We are being told to stay in our houses, curtail our activities, work and school from home, and forego our usual forms of entertainment, from eating out to seeing a movie to enjoying an afternoon baseball game or taking in an evening concert or show.

For me, that has meant giving up several performances at the Argentine Embassy and Kennedy Center, postponing indefinitely the writing residency I've been preparing and joyfully anticipating since last fall, and the cancellation of SCBWI MD/DE/WV's annual spring writing conference. For my brother and his family, it meant cutting short a semester of teaching and learning abroad in England.

For healthcare workers, first responders, and so many others working to keep grocery stores and other essential services available, it means putting themselves at risk daily to take care of those who are ill and to ensure our continued health and safety. For many others, it means not being able to do the jobs they depend on to support themselves and their families. The sacrifices are just beginning.

Thinking about the sacrifices my mother and godmother made as refuges during and after World War II puts it all in perspective for me. I feel fortunate to have a roof over my head and a pantry full of food. I find myself wondering what I can give up, how I can scale back my consumption to make things last longer and stretch farther, what I can do to make sure there is enough for everyone. I seek out and do my best to embrace the lessons that this time of sacrifice offers. I encourage you to do the same, and to consider what doors may be opening to you even as others close.

With sacrifice come feelings of loss. Loss of what we had but may have taken for granted, or loss of what we did not yet have but were looking forward to. Not the least of these are the loss of certainty and loss of the ability to make long-range plans. And as human beings, we tend to grieve what we lose.

So yes, go ahead and grieve whatever it is you feel you have already lost or what may be taken from you in the days and weeks (and months) to come. And then take a few deep breaths and make the choice to sacrifice.

Word of the Day: Anxiety [Notes from a Pandemic, Day 8]

Anxiety. It's a word that's getting tossed around quite a bit in the news stories and social media posts of the past few days and weeks, increasing since lock-downs and shut-downs have been instituted. And with good reason. We are hard-wired for anxiety, an instinctual reaction to a potential threat. Add in uncertainty -- not knowing what comes next and not being able to plan for the future -- and anxiety takes off like the little popper weeds springing up all over my backyard.

My work with the energy healing art of chakra balancing over the past decade has taught me a few things about anxiety that I pass on to you here for your consideration as you and your family and friends adjust to this new level of uncertainty.

Anxiety arises from the root chakra, at the base of your spine, and increases when you become ungrounded. What ungrounds you? Not just physical jolts like falls or accidents, but also emotional shocks to your system, like the threat of a global pandemic, say, or your world grinding to a halt for an unknown length of time. Check, and check.

The antidote to anxiety, physically speaking, is grounding; its emotional counterbalances are trust and surrender, as in believing that we will get through this and letting go of trying to control those things that are beyond our control.

Why does staying grounded matter? Anxiety can cause you to pop out of your body, resulting in your aura floating somewhere near or above you, rather than aligned with the chakras (energy centers). Remaining in a heightened state of stress or anxiety over an extended period of time (14 days or 12 weeks, let's say) can result in dis-ease, or if it takes hold in your tissue and cells, disease.

So what can you do to stay grounded? A handful of suggestions:

🔴 Take a walk...or a stomp...or a run. Feel your feet connect to the earth. Walking around barefoot in the grass (if it's warm enough) or putting your toes in the sand (if you are lucky enough to have a beach -- or a sandbox -- nearby) is even better.

🔴 Hug a tree. Seriously. The bigger and more sturdy the trunk, and the more extensive the root system, the better. But really, any tree will do. If you feel strange wrapping your arms around a tree, or if you are afraid your neighbors will think you've finally lost it, leaning against the tree or putting the palms of your hands on its bark will work. 

Feel your energy connect to its energy and allow your energy to flow down the trunk, through the roots, to the earth. Have the intention of giving back any energy that is not serving you (i.e. anxiety, worry, panic) and pull up sustaining energy from Mother Earth. I did this when my father was ill and we didn't know how much longer he would be with us, and it always brought me back to a steadier place.

🔴 Find your rock...literally. If you have any jewelry with hematite, a stone with grounding properties, or just a pocket-sized piece of it, carry or wear it. If not, any stone will do. I prefer something with a smooth surface that fits in the palm of my hand. Hold it in your hand; feel its contours; tap into its solidness. Notice how it warms as you hold it. Or, if you've got a park nearby and can find a rock big enough to sun yourself on, kind of like a turtle, go for it. Allow its weight and mass to bring you back to earth and to your body.

🔴 Wear red...it is the color of the root chakra. If you feel ungrounded, try wearing red, particularly shoes or slippers, socks, or underwear (not kidding!). If you don't have those, shirts, sweaters, and scarves will work too. It may sound woo-woo, but the subtle energy body picks up on subtle cues.

🔴 Family time. We've all got plenty of that now, maybe too much for some people. But connecting in a meaningful way can stave off free-floating anxiety (note how that term implies an ungrounded aura) in a way that our electronic devices cannot. Like the coronavirus, anxiety can be contagious. As we listen to updates and read other people's posts, we may absorb their fear or panic.

While our screens will provide us with much needed human contact and a sense of connection to the world outside our homes, if you find yourself scrolling endlessly through your social media feeds (as I have a number of times these past few days), put it down and take a break. Go outside. Get some fresh air. Breathe deeply (more on that in a subsequent post).

There are more, but this is a place to begin. Together, we will get through this. 💕