Month: October 2021

The one who turned out to be a regular kind of guy with some fancy toys?

Well, at the moment, I feel like his considerably less up to date Grandmother!

It’s like this… I think geographically when it comes to my tech toys.

For example, how do I get the photo from my phone to a Word doc in my laptop so I can print it on the printer that has not yet worked out a relationship with the phone?

Or, how do I get the first half of a WordPress page into an email in Keap and from there to the automation I really, really need but am still just a bit terrified to kill and, thus, need to start over again?

If you’re reading this, there’s a better than even chance that you, too, have versions of this story!

There’s also a good chance that, like me, you have hungry beasties and a Zoom meeting to run and a truckload of emails from people who think that the big thing on their list should be the big thing on your list, too.

And, if we’re being honest, I’ll admit to a bit of temptation when a flash of a memory appeared in my mind. Or heart.

I was at my Minnesota grandparents’ house. Probably about 10 years old. Grampa was at work. Gramma and I were watching soap operas on a black and white TV while she starched and ironed shirts and something with a heavenly aroma roasted in the oven.

Looking back, that day with Gramma seems all safe and familiar and more than a bit Leave it to Beaver.

What I didn’t quite realize in that moment was that Gramma was also an employed woman who cared about lots of big world things like her church and politics. Well, she wasn’t so much employed by that time, but she had been.

She was also the chief financial officer in her family and a long-time guardian for a younger brother with developmental challenges.

And she taught her grandkids math by teaching us to play Cribbage and, later, a game she called Spite and Malice. She even kept our pennies when she won!

All of which made for quite a legacy!

What makes me sad is that I really have no idea how she felt about her life or what dreams she may have had.

I do, vividly, recall her ranting about not seeing the point of the Women’s Movement which I was only beginning to wrap my head around back then.

Here’s what I do know…

She loved me. And, even though she probably couldn’t have imagined my life as it is in this moment, she would have wanted me to be happy and committed to making a difference.

That feels timeless.

For now, back to Quiz emails…

ps… if you would, by any chance, be willing to volunteer to be in the beta test group for the Intentional Grandmothers Archetype Quiz, please email me! suesvoice@gmail.com

pps… early holiday art shoppers welcome! FierceArtWithHeart

For years I’ve loved the stanza of the Lewis Carroll poem that goes like this:

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things: of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax — of cabbages –– and kings — and why the sea is boiling hot — and whether pigs have wings.

I think, when I was a kid, the rhythm of it worked for me. And I really loved the thought of pigs with wings.

It was much later, after we moved to Florida, when I grasped the notion of the oysters a stanza or so farther on, for whom things did not turn out as well as they did for the walrus.

For today, though, it’s the many things in my head — and heart — which no doubt caused these words to start roaming around inside me.

Let’s just say that there are bunches and bunches of thoughts and beliefs and assumptions rattling around within me, becoming somehow new as they encounter each other in my awareness.

Some of those things are words from wise – and open minded! – teachers.

Another is the moon, which is gorgeous tonight.

According to the handy moon gizmo on my phone, this is day 18 of this lunar cycle. Or it was on Saturday night when I pushed buttons to make these words find form.

The 18th lunar day, I read, looks like no other. Nothing happens without a reason in your life today: any event, meeting, or word spoken to you reflects your inner state, beliefs, and intentions like a mirror. Those who are prudent and in harmony with themselves will call this day a blessing. Analyze the developments of the day to facilitate your personal growth.

I will confess to pushing a few more buttons on my phone to check the definition of prudent, which feels somehow cautiously stuffy to me.

Surprise… acting with or showing care and thought for the future.

That, I’ll gladly own!

I do have considerable care and thought for the future. For the world my granddaughters — and all our littles — are going to inherit.

And, if you’ve been reading along for a while, you’re already pretty sure I think we’ve got a whole lot of uphill work to do!

I feel a bit like a crazy quilt. Lots of helter-skelter bits, which somehow manage to become beautiful and keep the ones we love warm.

There’s more work to do on my inner quilt as it becomes visible in the world.

And, frankly, my poor, lonely sewing machine is a whole lot easier to deal with than the auto-email gremlins who live in my laptop.

It’s getting late, though, and, despite my lofty adventures with wonder and newness, there are still dishes to stow in the dishwasher and big dogs who need a stroll around the garden. When Bill gets home, I’d imagine it will be time for our bonding ritual, also known as figuring out what’s for dinner tomorrow.

Which all boils down, perhaps, to the realization that, while pigs with wings are a long shot, people just like us really can make a difference and get dinner on the table. And that does, indeed, feel like a blessing!

I’m in. How about you? What wants doing in your heart?

I’m so hoping you’ll leave a comment or email me! suesvoice@gmail.com

ps… STARDUST is a huge help!

pps… She of the many dots, above, is an early step in the development of my SuperPower SelfPortrait process!

Yep. Kind of strange. And yet, it’s #Work-in-Progress Wednesday and this is where I actually am! I kind of feel like I’m channeling a pop artist named Robert Rauschenberg. Mine, however, are not finished. They are holding their collective breath, waiting to begin.

It used to feel kind of scary, this point in the journey. I mean, what if I messed up?

Now I know more.

Anything can be painted over.

There’s always room for noticing and wondering. And new inspiration.

There’s always a way to be me and be part of a group journey.

The Muse dragged me out of bed at 5:30 this morning, with some help from a cranky neck. She’s thrilled!

The Critic is probably off, carb loading for her part in the drama of not one, but three, paintings about to begin. The part that goes, OMG, what if it doesn’t work? What if nobody likes it? What if nobody UNDERSTANDS it? What if people think you’re strange? Or wrong?

I, too, am rehearsing my lines. From memory. Thanks for your concern. I can tell that you really want to help.

And then, intentional dramatic pause… What I really need is______________________________________.

Please don’t tell anybody, but I learned this particular bit of the script in the first church I served. And life got lots easier to cope with. (At least for me!)

I have a few more tools in my medicine basket, too. One of them came in really handy this morning. You see, the blank canvases aren’t the only things about to change. To be seen.

I feel rather like the famous image of Alice, peering around the curtain, wondering where she has landed!

So, the magic chart. The whole bit with Input and Filters and a Map of Reality. (Just imagine along…)

Rather oddly, I spent a bit more time on the far side this morning, while the big dogs snored in the dark.

The part in the oval shape called Outcome.

Turns out there are, at least figuratively, lots of those little ovals for lots of different issues. Lots of desired outcomes for new plans and projects and strategies.

It’s really exciting! Because there are lots of those things going on in my world.

Which isn’t too different from the way the Big World feels!

The miracle is that, with my magic chart, I’m conscious of the things going on and the ways they relate to really old things and Critic things and fears and a whole lot of other things that hold humans back, but don’t have to.

Feel free to fill in the blanks!

For now, I’m off to have my hair adjusted a bit, having noticed what is working and what hasn’t been, so much, and wondered, a lot, about making it better. I even have pics in my phone!

Isn’t art amazing?

ps… I can tell you, even with all the things in progress, that I do have space for 1 or 2 individual clients… possibly folks who relate to all the circles and projects and strategies…or would like to! suesvoice@gmail.com (We could find time to chat!)

Some how, in my rather nomadic youth, I managed to miss a whole lot of history.

Wherever we moved, in the elementary school years, it was New Place State History year and I guess I didn’t feel enough of a connection to soak much of it up.

Middle School did not bring much of an improvement. I did well at Geography because coloring counted. (Back in the day, I was good at staying in the lines!) And I spent much of my time in American history reading library books under my desk.

I suspect I just didn’t have the perspective to understand why it might have mattered.

Among my real history teachers were Irving Stone, who covered both US and World history, Leon Uris on the Middle East, and a couple of guys named Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone who created the Broadway musical, 1776.

More recently, I’ve become one of Aaron Sorkin’s biggest fans.

I’ll admit it. Sometimes I like what I learn watching The West Wing better than what I learn watching CNN.

Well, lots of the time!

And, yes, I know all of that is, technically, fiction.

I can’t help but notice lately, with the help of friends like Dr. William Barber at the Poor People’s Crusade, and the organizers of National Hispanic Heritage Month, and Indigenous Heritage Month, and Resmaa Menakem, author of My Grandmother’s Hands…, that much of the stuff I didn’t learn in school might be termed fiction, too.

We’ll leave nursing school and church history for another day!

There are probably a whole lot of reasons for the things I missed. Reasons related to environmental input and human coping filters. Not to mention developmentally appropriate self-involvement and sketchy abstract thought skills.

There was one time in my early journey, though, that I remember learning a whole lot of unfolding history. A time that messed with assumptions I didn’t even realize I had.

We lived in a Chicago bedroom community from the summer of 1967 to December of 1968. My dad worked out of town most of the time we were there which I suspect, in hindsight, left me promoted to Mom’s unofficial buddy.

I remember sitting up late with her, glued to the news when Bobby Kennedy was killed. When the riots broke out at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. When Dr. King was killed.

And I remember knowing, at some level of consciousness, even then, that she and I were reacting very differently to all that news.

I suspect my “defection” to the blue side of the political aisle began in those days.

Which, not surprisingly, brings us back to The West Wing.

Here’s Friday night’s path to this place…

And, these days, like my friend Matt Santos, I have claimed the freedom to choose my own stories. Many of mine told by women…

ps… like Alice Hoffman, Alice Walker, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Elsie Hannah Royce Boardman, Gwen Marston, Hildegard, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Julian of Norwich, Mary Elizabeth Blanford Algren, Mary Magdalene, Me!, Shiloh Sophia McCloud, Sue Monk Kidd, Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy, The women of Gee’s Bend, Toni Morrison…

pps… the art is drippy under-layers of my Artifact painting, from the night Rep. John Lewis passed on. Tears and Hope. My truth in that moment.

Today is kind of an odd day in my world. My Legend painting is finished. (I think!) We haven’t started painting yet in Forest of Grandmothers. Taking Her Place Among the Matriarchs, who is also finished, has volunteered for the upcoming Musea show’s call for entries. Also among the sisterhood, a peek at my first Our Lady of Guadalupe painting who’s eager to meet her forever Mom, and an older friend, What the World Needs Now.

My day is full of meetings. And a massage!

It’s Work-in-Progress Wednesday and I am washing brushes.

That feels like a really good thing!

A reminder that the journey is at least as important as the finish line. That I am the work-in-progress.

And that reminds me of an old quote. With the miracles of technology, I tried to look it up.

Turns out that searching Desert Fathers scrubbing floors/washing dishes doesn’t get much but some sad faces from Google.

If you happen to be one of my buddies from seminary, or a mystic of another sort, feel free to help me out!

For now, I’m foregoing chasing that particular mental rabbit for the actual meditation of Castile soap and well loved paint brushes.

I like the scrubby kind the best. The ones that are a bit gunky even after they’re washed, with the stiff bristles so good for glazing. Some of mine have paint flaking off the handles.

I’m grateful for an amazingly cool silicone scrubby do-hickey which makes brush washing a whole lot easier. It was a gift from a dear paint sister and is still going strong a couple of years later.

Then, time to clean the sink and find a new sketch pad/journal for The Get It Done Lab which starts today. Which kind of goes along with the theme of me being the work-in-progress.

Here’s what I’ve realized, lately. When “work” is also passion and calling and what some traditions would refer to as sacred promise, washing the brushes is all part of the journey.

Now, I know that many of you reading this are paint sisters and other folks who will find these musings of mine familiar. Possibly even redundant.

But, there are many of you who may still be searching for that sense of place and purpose in the world. I’ve been there!

I took several detours along my path that might have been failures but turned out to be huge learning opportunities.

All that learning has led me to a place where I’m thrilled with the blue index card that has my best-ever answer to the eternal question:

What do you do?

It goes like this…

You know how the world feels upside down and the littles you love like crazy are struggling and you’re not sure how to help in ways that are real for you?

Well, I help wise Grandmothers like us to discover and claim the gifts of our special archetypes for empowering ourselves and each other, and the ones we love the most, to survive and thrive!

Stay tuned for more to follow!

For now, I’m so hoping you’ll claim where you are on the journey and have some fun with whatever version of washing brushes works for you.

(#phobia alert…)

I so hope you’re still here. And I promise to be gentle! It’s just that this story feels important today.

As you may recall, we moved around a lot when I was a kid, which contributed to my rather early adventures with airplanes.

I was never afraid to fly. Back in the day, it was fun. Sometimes I even got to meet the pilot. And they gave out those cool plastic wings.

Fast forward to the first time I flew with Dave. He was about 18 months old. We were in the poor, single parent phase, traveling on my Dad’s dime, to my Grandma Elsie’s 90th birthday party.

(I think they thought buying Dave and me plane tickets was a good investment, compared to a 1,000 mile road trip with us in the car. Each way!)

Getting there was bad. Especially taking off and landing. Dave had been through more than his fair share of ear infections so he was, perhaps, a bit more sensitive than usual.

He screamed. People glared. I sang. People glared more.

And all the while, I was terrified that the plan would crash and my fabulous baby would die.

Coming home was worse. We had to change planes in Atlanta, which was not familiar at that point. The flight was delayed. Dave fussed – loudly – wanting out of the stroller. I was afraid I’d lose him.

I had $1.56 cents in my purse. And no credit cards.

And there was still the whole taking off and landing thing. Again.

Elsie’s party was great. I was afraid of taking off and landing for about 16 more years! And I still had places I needed to be.

Bill used to ask whose knee I clutched when he wasn’t with me.

Then, one day, I was healed.

I was flying home to Atlanta from a hypnotherapy training in D. C.

A flight attendant, with a small face peeping out from behind her, asked if I’d like a new friend.

The young boy was flying, alone, to meet his Grandma in Atlanta. He had never flown before and was terrified.

There was no way I could decline.

Milton Erickson would have been proud. My buddy told me all about his Grandma and why he was going to visit. I told him about my Grandmas and some scary adventures they’d had along the way which were now favorite family stories about being super heroes.

We talked about how feeling afraid is actually trying to help us but – sometimes – it’s more help than we really need in the moment.

Feel free to fill in some of your own details here…

Once we got safely leveled out, I shared my Mrs. Field’s cookies and we talked about things we hoped for.

Soon, it was time to prepare for landing. My buddy gave me a thumbs up and took a deep breath. Then he said, ‘I’ve got this!”

And I did, too!

I still think of him every time I get on a plane, because I’m not afraid anymore, either.

Now, if you’re still reading, you may be wondering why this story in this moment.

That’s easy!

Just about everybody on the planet is feeling scared right now. For some of us, it’s kind of new. For others, it’s all too familiar. And it makes everything harder.

Often, though, it helps to realize we’re not the only ones and it’s okay to be scared and a bit of understanding goes a long way. It’s also okay to not need to be scared anymore!

I’ve done a couple of those way-less-scared things recently. You’ll be hearing about them soon. For today, if you’re curious about what way-less-scared looks like, come check out Fierce Art with Heart! It’s still a work-in-progress but you might just find something there that will inspire you or a loved one to branch out a bit.

ps… that bit of understanding even works for ourselves!

pps… tomorrow I have a meeting with an old friend who has several scary things on her mind just now. The lovely lady in the photo has agreed to join us. In case your eyes could use a boost, the little message in her pocket says, Live Your Dream!