Surrender
Ready or not, a whole lot of surrendering is going on. Even my slumbers had to be surrendered this morning, when the Full Moon Beauty of the Great Reflectress, woke me at 5:30AM. Checking the news, I saw this has already been dubbed “Black Monday” in London, where financial markets tumbled steeply again. Here in the US, trading has just been halted, for the first time since 2016 when the markets fell more than 5% an hour, upon election news. “The combination of a Russia versus Saudi Arabia oil price war (down to $35 a barrel), a crash in equities and escalations in coronavirus woes have created a killer cocktail to worsen last week’s hangover,” says one analyst, Sebastien Clements. So the ego clashes of Russian President Putin and the Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman will be combined with Trump’s craven ineptitude…a scary scenario for the rest of us.
Since my last newsletter the spreading corona virus, aka Covid-19, has wiped out over $5 trillion in the value of the worlds’ stock markets. Will all our pension savings evaporate? As this virus rattles our economic, social, and political structures, it thrusts us into a planetary conversation on social media about our healthcare and consciousness too. With no cure in sight, Covid-19 threatens all human reasons, rules and roles. No one can bully it, beg it or buy it off. The potential, to fall sick and die, has inspired a panic of pandemic proportions. This brings up our collective fears and vulnerabilities so we can take a hard look at them and surrender to some necessary changes.
What will we surrender to? Raw fear? Or something larger and less personal? Ideally we muster the courage to give ourselves over to a process of evolution and realignment. Things had to give. And so this crisis arrived to force us along. How fascinating this word corona (for the virus) means a circle of light, like a crown as seen around the moon or the sun during an eclipse. What is being eclipsed at this time in our personal lives? Certainly our world needs some Enlightenment.
Not to be morbid, but being in my mid-60s, I’m in the high-risk category, and have asked myself, what if this was my last newsletter? Have I made good use of my allotted days upon our blue green Earth? Ultimately, that is for others to say. And this is what my friend and reader Fred wrote after finishing my Paris memoir this month:
“Let’s say honest! I couldn’t have been more engrossed, intrigued and impressed! Not only with your writing although that was what impressed me most, not that I have underestimated you in any way! But the depth and breadth of your worldly wanderings and experiences at an age when I had only ventured briefly and infrequently from my home state! To say I have a renewed but certainly not new respect for you is an understatement!”
Publishing News
During the interminable wait for Amazon AIX/Audible to clear the audio version of The Importance of Paris, we have gone ahead to create an alternative to the Jeff Bezos option, at www.ingramspark.com. More about that in upcoming newsletter.
And watch for the spring release date of the Measuring Distances cross-cultural poetry collection, featuring artwork and photography by graphic designer/editor extraordinaire Gigie Hall.
Events
This ruckus will eventually calm down, so we continue to plan normal things. On Thursday March 26th join us for a reading and signing 6-7:30PM, at the delightful Ink Fish Bookstore in Warren, RI. Thank you Lisa.
On April Fools Day, Wednesday April 1st we have our first Memoir Writing Workshop of 2020. Could you, would you, should you write a memoir? From getting the writing started, to editing, publishing, marketing, and everything in between, bring all your questions to this big picture overview class. Reserve soon. This workshop runs 10AM to 4PM and we have made them more affordable, $79. Please see complete 2020 schedule here. Cost includes all instruction, materials, light lunch, unlimited coffee/tea and a signed copy of my first memoir, The Importance of Paris. If for any reason this workshop cannot be done in person, I will teach it via videoconferencing. I am happily accepting invitations from book clubs too. Thank you Karen A. for booking me on April 27th. If we cannot gather in person, we can talk via computer.
In the meantime, I encourage each of you to post your reviews on Goodreads or Amazon. If you post a picture of yourself, hold a copies of the memoir, it will earn you a seat at our raclette parties, to be resumed in spring. Stay tuned.
None of us knows for sure the date of our final Surrender but we do not have to succumb to fear. Make your allotted days count. And if you must self-isolate for safety’s sake, use the time to read and write! I’d love to hear from you.
Ceremonies
Our transit of this Surrender month, on the Wisdom Wheel calendar, continues until March 19th when the Enlightenment doorway swings open at the Spring Equinox. Expect additional adjustments, in attitudes, as well as beliefs and behaviors. This is the reality of sacrifice. By midweek, we must decide whether to continue with the beginning of the Bear Fast on March 18th and holding the Spring Equinox Lodge ceremonies on March 22, or not.
