I have been gone from here a long time. Over a year now. Back then, I promised I'd get back to blogging and tweeting more. While it's great to have a web and social networking presence, I have decided that I'd rather spend my time on the work that's most important: my Plath work. I just can't put full focus and concentration on a subject while tweeting and liking other things to increase my friends list every ten minutes. Because I haven't been talking about my work much publicly, I'm sure a lot of people thought I dropped off the map, or God forbid, even gave up this commitment to Plath and her largely unrealized genius. To showing everyone she was more than a suicide.
There is not a chance I'd give this up.
I have been busier than ever. The first thing I'll catch you up on is that this year I got my rights back to Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath, volume one. It's no secret that my publisher was absolutely incompetent, and I thought many times about giving you a lengthy blog of my journey through hell and back with SFAU Press. But who wants to read that? Suffice it to say that a friend summed it up well, when she said, "I have heard of every single one of these publishing problems happening to other authors I know, but never all to one person for the same book."
From the spiritual point of view, my energy was wrong. I see that now. I wrote this book, my first published book, with the wrong goals in mind. I wanted to firstly please the Plath world, and secondly, please my publisher. I was so very excited about my findings, and thought, you know, how could they not read a poem like "The Other" and get that it was Plath's tribute to Dostoevsky's The Double? How could they not also see Alcatraz in it, when the prisoners had just made their famous escape with their dummies in their beds, made of "Bright hair, shoe-black, old plastic," slipping "between my walls" from that "womb of marble"? How could they not see Plath's beloved Wuthering Heights in "The Couriers"? It goes on and on.
They don't want to see. Truth is, people are lazy and don't want to read. Even academics. These classics have almost been forgotten, and besides, my findings are threatening, as they up-end all traditional beliefs about Plath They might accept some of it, but they're not going to take it seriously because I'm a tarot card reader who found it through the Qabalah system. And in atheistic academia, we can't have that.
We know Plath and Hughes were very active in occult activities, be it astrology, Ouija board, tarot, crystal balls, etc. But like that rather important Literary Hub article that recently came out about how Plath's physical abuse from Ted Hughes was too uncomfortable to really be seen or discussed by scholars, the same goes for their mysticism. All the psychology tells us that we're a pretty blind society, seeing only what we want to see.
Back when I was writing FSGL, I had some well-meaning friends and advisers tell me to steer away from the spiritual and keep this thoroughly academic. They wanted to protect me from attack, I understand that, but I do think it killed a lot of the energy. That said, FSGL is a little bit monotonous to read, and not the book I wanted to write. I have stacks of academic Plath books, and they keep on coming, and they are by and large rather boring to read except for the occasional new bit of information. My book became another one of those, with a weirder cover. Likewise, I was so concerned about meeting page limits, etc. that I cut and cut and took out most of my personality in order to accommodate the boundaries imposed upon me, and sometimes by me.
That's all done now. I have been having a lot of fun, both in revising and expanding FSGL volume one, which I am going to self-publish and sell for a lot cheaper, because I can. It will be searchable for students as an eBook, and I'll have a print-on-demand version for those who like to hold a paper copy. It's not a full re-write, because I have other things to get to. But it will be better.
To those great readers who have contacted me, and to some of my former students who have asked, FSGL volume two is going to come out differently. If you've read volume one, you pretty much get the system and how I got the answers. The way the poems work together is less important, and all mapped out in the first book. Instead, I am publishing individual poems in their own smaller books. This will be the Decoding Sylvia Plath series. The order in which they will be released will be determined by popularity, and so the first poem is unquestionably "Daddy." It will be cheap, because I want the word to get out to the average schoolkid as well as the scholar. No one should have to pay forty bucks to learn the truth. The cover art for Decoding Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" is in design now, the book is already formatted, and soon it will be ready to go.
In addition to reissuing FSGL vol. one and releasing the Decoding series, I'll soon be publishing a teaching manual for FSGL for teachers and students. This is exciting as it's been compiled from two years of actual classroom experience, student activities, and more. If professors want to consider it for their classroom, I will be happy to send a complimentary copy. Next up for publication will be my biography of Plath and Hughes' mysticism, The Magician's Girl. If all goes well, this will all happen before the beginning of next year. I have been sitting on this work for ages, and it is time to set it free.
Why not seek a traditional publisher, some of you have asked. Well, I don't want to go through any of these publishing nightmares again, I don't want to wait years in cue for the seasonal releases, and Amazon makes publishing and distribution incredibly easy these days. Many of you know that I come from the music world, and I have seen the publishing industry slowly mirror what happened to the music industry. Today an artist, whether a musician or a writer, can get that production and distribution done effectively on their own. I am not writing these books for my reputation. I could care less what anyone thinks of me at this point. Eventually, word will get out, and enough people are going to understand that I'm onto something, no matter how questionable my methods. It's a matter of getting it done. It's a matter of doing justice for Sylvia Plath.
Saturday, July 22, 2017
Sunday, May 8, 2016
The Night Dances (and Reflects)
First, the updates:
My poem, "Race: 101," has been accepted in an anthology of St. Louis poetry by the Vagabond Press, working title "Crossing the Divide," edited by St. Louis Poet Laureate Michael Castro. I am so grateful to have been asked to contribute. The book will be out in October, 2016..
I have an article on Sylvia Plath's poem, "Morning Song" in The American Journal of Poetry.
I have just (finally) updated my calendar of public tarot events.
I already have some bookings into the fall, so if you're thinking about having me for an Octoberfest event or Halloween party, please make your plans and book me soon.
I had so much fun writing my short essay for The American Journal of Poetry that I'm thinking about blogging quick little summaries of Plath's other poems here, or maybe publishing them elsewhere. I haven't decided yet. It's nice to have the book out, with all its notes and explanatory material as a resource, allowing me the pleasure to riff freely off Plath's work. Want to read into it more deeply? Look it up in Fixed Stars Govern a Life.
Every day I see the magic of Sylvia Plath around me. I am part of a women's Buddhist reading/writing/meditation group, and in my studies last week, came upon this piece by Ernesto Cardenal, which for me is a complete reflection, intentional or not, of Plath's "The Night Dances":
[See it here, pages 130-131]
Cardenal, a Nicaraguan poet, has all of Plath's stripes and spots, lilies and caterpillars, the stars and all the shared patterns. Even Plath's "mathematics" are Cardenal's "multiplicities." I was astounded to see it.
A few nights ago, I was watching The Discovery Channel's special, "The Story of God" (excellent series, by the way; hosted and narrated by Morgan Freeman), and as I learned more of the Tibetan Buddhist sky burials, Sylvia Plath's words from "The Jailor" filled my head:
Drops me from a terrible altitude
Carapace smashed
I spread to the beaks of birds
It is exactly the right description. Along with a group of mourners, the Tibetan priest smashes the body of the deceased to pieces with a hammer. Then, they toss the pieces to the vultures, all the bits of the person to be carried in every direction. It is horror and beauty at the same time, much like Plath's work. I wish I'd gotten that detail into FSGL,but there are always the class plans in which to include it, and possibly a revision down the road.
Is this Sylvia Plath's magic, or Qabalah, which I continue to witness all around me? Maybe it's God. Maybe it's Science. A source of wonder, for me, needs not to be explained--just noticed and revered. These are the "synchronicities" Carl Jung spoke of. The recurring patterns, the qabalistic faces of God, on everything. Whatever God is, it seems that science validates it every day, for me anyway, with its sub-atomic proof of connectedness, the mass and dark energy of the universe, We all boil down to infinite particles,practically nothing and yet everything, specks of something greater. We are all connected, like it or not. For those we don't like, I suppose it's time to take a look at our own dark energy. I'm delighted to be connected to you, Reader. Most especially if you're connected to Sylvia Plath.
My poem, "Race: 101," has been accepted in an anthology of St. Louis poetry by the Vagabond Press, working title "Crossing the Divide," edited by St. Louis Poet Laureate Michael Castro. I am so grateful to have been asked to contribute. The book will be out in October, 2016..
I have an article on Sylvia Plath's poem, "Morning Song" in The American Journal of Poetry.
I have just (finally) updated my calendar of public tarot events.
I already have some bookings into the fall, so if you're thinking about having me for an Octoberfest event or Halloween party, please make your plans and book me soon.
I had so much fun writing my short essay for The American Journal of Poetry that I'm thinking about blogging quick little summaries of Plath's other poems here, or maybe publishing them elsewhere. I haven't decided yet. It's nice to have the book out, with all its notes and explanatory material as a resource, allowing me the pleasure to riff freely off Plath's work. Want to read into it more deeply? Look it up in Fixed Stars Govern a Life.
Every day I see the magic of Sylvia Plath around me. I am part of a women's Buddhist reading/writing/meditation group, and in my studies last week, came upon this piece by Ernesto Cardenal, which for me is a complete reflection, intentional or not, of Plath's "The Night Dances":
[See it here, pages 130-131]
Cardenal, a Nicaraguan poet, has all of Plath's stripes and spots, lilies and caterpillars, the stars and all the shared patterns. Even Plath's "mathematics" are Cardenal's "multiplicities." I was astounded to see it.
A few nights ago, I was watching The Discovery Channel's special, "The Story of God" (excellent series, by the way; hosted and narrated by Morgan Freeman), and as I learned more of the Tibetan Buddhist sky burials, Sylvia Plath's words from "The Jailor" filled my head:
Drops me from a terrible altitude
Carapace smashed
I spread to the beaks of birds
It is exactly the right description. Along with a group of mourners, the Tibetan priest smashes the body of the deceased to pieces with a hammer. Then, they toss the pieces to the vultures, all the bits of the person to be carried in every direction. It is horror and beauty at the same time, much like Plath's work. I wish I'd gotten that detail into FSGL,but there are always the class plans in which to include it, and possibly a revision down the road.
Is this Sylvia Plath's magic, or Qabalah, which I continue to witness all around me? Maybe it's God. Maybe it's Science. A source of wonder, for me, needs not to be explained--just noticed and revered. These are the "synchronicities" Carl Jung spoke of. The recurring patterns, the qabalistic faces of God, on everything. Whatever God is, it seems that science validates it every day, for me anyway, with its sub-atomic proof of connectedness, the mass and dark energy of the universe, We all boil down to infinite particles,practically nothing and yet everything, specks of something greater. We are all connected, like it or not. For those we don't like, I suppose it's time to take a look at our own dark energy. I'm delighted to be connected to you, Reader. Most especially if you're connected to Sylvia Plath.
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Because the World is Round
Forgive my long hiatus (again). Work must take precedence.
I'm very pleased to share an "elemental" interview with me on the SacredMoonGrove site,
and also "Sylvia Plath's 1957 Poems", most recently published in Plath Profiles 8.
A friend asked me the other day what the Solstice means to me. Well, even as a tarot card reader, I'm no astrologer, nor am I Pagan or Wiccan. I tend to look at the Solstice from the perspective of being a writer--the written language being my true religion--and so this time is a lovely metaphor for turning inward, facing and then rising up and out of the darkness.
Whether you believe in anything or not, the end of the year is traditionally a time to look over the past twelve months, the period in which the Earth has traveled all the way around the sun, and see where you yourself have metaphorically traveled and what has come to fruition. Our Christmas season of course aligns with the Solstice, and that is no coincidence. The end of the year is sort of a micro-version of the macro Apocalypse theories. The Apocalypse, which some believe we are in now, is about breaking down of the institutions and structures that don't work for us anymore (the economy, the environment, politics, war). The idea is that the foundations upon which we have built are faulty, and they need to be torn down and replaced. We do this on the personal (micro) level with our end-of-the-year resolutions.
I went into a quiet time this year with regard to media and promotion. This might seem odd at a time my book had just been released, but I have a lot more work ahead (three different books in the works: FSGL vol. 2, Sylvia Plath's Early Poems, and The Magician's Girl, a biography). I have had some strange battles with scholars who've based their arguments on what they think my work is about without having read it. One wrote that I am wrong, having never read my book (it would not be released for another year, I had not shared any early drafts with her, and she was going merely on assumptions and guesses). When the book did come out, another scholar called it "a tarot book", missing the point completely. It is of course a Plath book.
It isn't just them. It's our world. Today, decisions are made and accepted as truths either with old research, no research, or with narrow agendas. We have closed our minds to possibility that exists outside our paradigms. Everyone decides they know the facts without looking. The Earth is flat! they say, more or less, because of course, they go with what we have always thought, and they are far too invested in their professional reputations to risk exploration and the (gasp) chance of being called wrong. The way we do it, and maybe have always done it, is to blindly rotate along this globe with the herds who spout the most entertaining message (in the case of my field of interest, that Plath's work reflects only her personal drama), because God forbid we take the time to open our eyes and read something. The status quo counts on our laziness and disdain in thinking for ourselves, as well as reactive emotion against anything uncomfortable. Donald Trump knows how to work this attitude pretty well. This is scholarship? No, this is Ego.
One of the editors for my book, Tom Reynolds, says FSGL creates "cognitive dissonance". This condition is the upset and confusion that arises when a person holds on to two or more contradictory beliefs. When this happens, a person will often automatically avoid the source of the information causing the stress, as well as to avoid all ways of causing more of this stress.
It is a fascinating thing to see: One scholar reviewed The Letters of Ted Hughes (Ted Hughes was Sylvia Plath's husband). In a public blog forum, I posted that Hughes' Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being section essentially spelled out the Qabalistic system I believe Hughes taught Plath. "I skipped over those parts," the reviewer posted. Cognitive dissonance in action.
I could get frustrated over the attachment to the status quo, and I have, but it is so much more pleasant to let it go. I have had some beautiful support at the same time, coming from unexpected places, and from people outside the demographics to whom I had intended to market. I have had the most wonderful support from Lindenwood University, who allows me to teach to my own text. I have had some incredible students who have taken my Plath message and run with it, expanding upon it in their own scholarship. I continue to be invited to speak at conferences and symposiums, where younger, less-programmed minds open to other possibilities. My reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and elsewhere have been great. Such a feeling!
As I grow older, I am learning to let go of my attachment to how I think a thing is supposed to go. Believe me, it can be tough to do this. Whether in my personal or professional life, I am continually surprised at life's other plans. Today, it's my choice to just stay in the joy of the work and let the details figure themselves out. It is my job to uncover and reveal the details, and who wants to be open to reading them will do so when the time is right. It's all right there, for anyone who wants to read it. Sylvia Plath has made the most beautiful, poetic miracle of history, art, alchemy, myth, the stars and more.
There will always be some people who prefer to stay in the dark and not transition to the lighter, brighter season, the new thinking, a new age. They'll dig in their heels and spout their platitudes. They'll choose the dark like the prisoners in Plato's Cave.They'll ignore me. They'll get angry with me. But that won't stop things from changing. It won't stop my findings from getting out, because they will eventually. Truth always wins, just as the world keeps turning, the sun rises again and again, and spring returns after a long, dark winter. I'm enjoying the ride.
I'm very pleased to share an "elemental" interview with me on the SacredMoonGrove site,
and also "Sylvia Plath's 1957 Poems", most recently published in Plath Profiles 8.
A friend asked me the other day what the Solstice means to me. Well, even as a tarot card reader, I'm no astrologer, nor am I Pagan or Wiccan. I tend to look at the Solstice from the perspective of being a writer--the written language being my true religion--and so this time is a lovely metaphor for turning inward, facing and then rising up and out of the darkness.
Whether you believe in anything or not, the end of the year is traditionally a time to look over the past twelve months, the period in which the Earth has traveled all the way around the sun, and see where you yourself have metaphorically traveled and what has come to fruition. Our Christmas season of course aligns with the Solstice, and that is no coincidence. The end of the year is sort of a micro-version of the macro Apocalypse theories. The Apocalypse, which some believe we are in now, is about breaking down of the institutions and structures that don't work for us anymore (the economy, the environment, politics, war). The idea is that the foundations upon which we have built are faulty, and they need to be torn down and replaced. We do this on the personal (micro) level with our end-of-the-year resolutions.
I went into a quiet time this year with regard to media and promotion. This might seem odd at a time my book had just been released, but I have a lot more work ahead (three different books in the works: FSGL vol. 2, Sylvia Plath's Early Poems, and The Magician's Girl, a biography). I have had some strange battles with scholars who've based their arguments on what they think my work is about without having read it. One wrote that I am wrong, having never read my book (it would not be released for another year, I had not shared any early drafts with her, and she was going merely on assumptions and guesses). When the book did come out, another scholar called it "a tarot book", missing the point completely. It is of course a Plath book.
It isn't just them. It's our world. Today, decisions are made and accepted as truths either with old research, no research, or with narrow agendas. We have closed our minds to possibility that exists outside our paradigms. Everyone decides they know the facts without looking. The Earth is flat! they say, more or less, because of course, they go with what we have always thought, and they are far too invested in their professional reputations to risk exploration and the (gasp) chance of being called wrong. The way we do it, and maybe have always done it, is to blindly rotate along this globe with the herds who spout the most entertaining message (in the case of my field of interest, that Plath's work reflects only her personal drama), because God forbid we take the time to open our eyes and read something. The status quo counts on our laziness and disdain in thinking for ourselves, as well as reactive emotion against anything uncomfortable. Donald Trump knows how to work this attitude pretty well. This is scholarship? No, this is Ego.
One of the editors for my book, Tom Reynolds, says FSGL creates "cognitive dissonance". This condition is the upset and confusion that arises when a person holds on to two or more contradictory beliefs. When this happens, a person will often automatically avoid the source of the information causing the stress, as well as to avoid all ways of causing more of this stress.
It is a fascinating thing to see: One scholar reviewed The Letters of Ted Hughes (Ted Hughes was Sylvia Plath's husband). In a public blog forum, I posted that Hughes' Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being section essentially spelled out the Qabalistic system I believe Hughes taught Plath. "I skipped over those parts," the reviewer posted. Cognitive dissonance in action.
As I grow older, I am learning to let go of my attachment to how I think a thing is supposed to go. Believe me, it can be tough to do this. Whether in my personal or professional life, I am continually surprised at life's other plans. Today, it's my choice to just stay in the joy of the work and let the details figure themselves out. It is my job to uncover and reveal the details, and who wants to be open to reading them will do so when the time is right. It's all right there, for anyone who wants to read it. Sylvia Plath has made the most beautiful, poetic miracle of history, art, alchemy, myth, the stars and more.
There will always be some people who prefer to stay in the dark and not transition to the lighter, brighter season, the new thinking, a new age. They'll dig in their heels and spout their platitudes. They'll choose the dark like the prisoners in Plato's Cave.They'll ignore me. They'll get angry with me. But that won't stop things from changing. It won't stop my findings from getting out, because they will eventually. Truth always wins, just as the world keeps turning, the sun rises again and again, and spring returns after a long, dark winter. I'm enjoying the ride.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Released! Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath, vol. one
Well, my friends, the book is out.
As I've been doing my first readings, interviews, discussions and presentations around Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath, it has really been a revelation about the preconceptions and assumptions made around me as a tarot card reader, about what my book pertains to, and also about what tarot is. I tend to forget that people outside of my world have often times never even heard of my world, much less visited.
People make the assumption that I am a witch, a Wiccan, and/or a Pagan (I am officially none of those things, although I do respect some of their ideas). It is widely and incorrectly assumed that I conjure spirits and talk to the dead. Some think I can read minds, or perform miraculous healings, and almost as many presume that I think I am Plath reincarnated. No, no, no, no, and no. I am seeing and hearing these incorrect assumptions more and more from interviewers. I have seen embarrassing comparisons to tarot and grade school "cootie catchers," and I have had first memories and childhood recollections inflated into forced analogies that leave me wanting to run screaming.
In some cases, I have been fortunate enough to be granted permission to review the interviews before they're published (oh, bless those reporters!). In other reviews I am not so lucky, and just pray that people don't read/believe it. Sometimes I am able to write a post-published comment, and wag my head and try to clarify the key points. I'll do it here again, just to save the next potential reviewers time:
FIXED STARS GOVERN A LIFE is not a book about tarot. It's not even a book about Qabalah! Nor is it fiction or poetry. It is a book about how to read Sylvia Plath's poetry collection Ariel (the Restored Edition, in the order Plath intended), with the keys to understand the many different levels on which Plath was working. Those levels are Qabalah/Tarot, Alchemy, Mythology, History and the World, Astrology and Astronomy, and the Arts and Humanities. Each Plath poem works on at least all six of these levels, if not more. My work is backed up with years of archival evidence.
The tarot is not a religion.
The tarot is a set of cards, designed to touch upon some ancient mystical systems such as Kabbalah (I'm using the K-spelling here, the Jewish brand, because the Jews used it first. In my book I explain that Plath and Hughes mostly embraced the Hermetic version, spelled with a Q. Christians have their own kind, spelled with a C). The tarot is a psychological tool to reflect the subconscious and give a person direction. The idea is that we know a lot more than we think we know, and the cards help bring that to consciousness. No ghoulies, no ghosties, no chanting or blood sacrifices. Sorry to disappoint. Tarot is just pure psychology, which is why the famous psychologist Carl Jung used the cards for himself and for patients.
Qabalah is not a religion either, although it encompasses some occult systems that people adopt as religion, or that may conflict with some religions. Qabalah is an umbrella term that speaks for all the occult sciences as reflections of a universal force, or one God. This is why I call the facets of Plath's poems "mirrors" in my book--and it's probably why Plath herself liked the mirror metaphor.
In other news, I am planning some events around the book in Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. Watch this blog in the next couple days for locations as they are nailed down.
To buy Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath, go here.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Recent and Future Events
Other tarot card readers know that a tarot reader doesn't usually read for him or herself. We all have too much bias about our own lives, too many fears for what could go wrong, and too many wants for how we think it ought to go. And so, as a rule, we don't throw cards down for ourselves. I have had several other reader friends look at my book, and everyone sees it as a success at the end. It is just the painful journey getting there that I can't seem to avoid, no matter how hard I try.
Sigh. Many of you know that the third Amazon-posted release date for Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath has now been missed. I know, I know. I can't believe it either. I can't tell you how excruciating this is. Beyond the embarrassment of the eternal promise that it's coming, it has been expensive for me as I have done so much marketing over these years, and of course with each missed release date I lose preorders who will not take the time and effort to preorder again, and again, and again. I can't blame them. It appears that Amazon has given up on my publisher too, because preordering FSGL is now no longer possible either.
If what I was told is true, my book has been sitting at the printer for over a month. The nature of a university press, of course, is that it is run by a teacher and manned by students. They will not resume classes until January 20th, and so I am not expecting much until probably a couple weeks after then.
I have to just try and press on (I wish I could laugh at that pun). I can say that this experience has dashed my impressions of academia being some kind of cred-feather in one's mortarboard cap.
If you're out there, if you are one of those beautiful people who preordered and keeps telling Amazon, "Yes, I still want it!" please let me know. I want to do something nice for you one day when all this is said and done.
In the meantime, I'm working on volume two, and finishing The Magician's Girl biography and the Early Poems book. I'm also having fun revising my old Night Times memoir, returning it to experimentations in literary form. Thanks to encouragement from my own favorite magician, Zulfikar Ghose, I am returning to what Night Times was, not the first draft of the memoir which was completed in 2005, but the actual magazine. NT was always an irreverent, playful experiment in form and parody. For some reason, I let people tell me what a memoir should look like. I let agents push me to add this, take that out. I got lost inside it all, listening to them. My voice became theirs: flattened and everyday. Now, I am back, and I am really excited about what I see happening.
Also, Class Plans to complement volume one of FSGL will soon be released FOR FREE, for a limited time, and I am rather excited about this because there is information in them that did not make FSGL before it went to print. These will help professors from high school through graduate school levels teach Sylvia Plath with my text. There are lots of discussion questions, in-class exercises, teaching tips, creative writing workshop activities, and more. One does not have to be an instructor to be able to download the plans.
Please note the following calendar events I see in my own crystal ball, if you'd like to be a part of it:
Monday, January 12th-- ALL tarot $ earned this day via phone, email and Skype readings will benefit Tenth Life Cat Rescue. Please make your appointment ASAP--you do not need to be in St. Louis to get a reading. Call me at 314.517.0158 or email tarot@nighttimes.com.
Monday, January 26th--As far as I know, we are still on for the rescheduled November poetry reading at Chance Operations. I haven't done a reading in a year or more, and I am looking forward to it.
Saturday, February 14th--Valentine's Day is also Mardi Gras down in Festus, and beginning at 2 pm I'll be back at Taytro's Bistro for their pull-out-all-the-stops celebration. Last time, there were fire eaters, hula dancers, live bands of all kinds, and probably a hundred other things I didn't notice, because I was busy reading tarot cards to the mobs of people in attendance. Owner and proprietor Luke Taytro is originally from New Orleans, and could not stand the idea of leaving Mardi Gras behind, you see. He promises me that this year will be even bigger. One does not have to be a soothsayer to say there is NO DOUBT.
Saturday, February 21 and Sunday, February 22nd--I'll be presenting two free seminars at the Working Women's Survival Show. Catch me on Saturday at 3:30 - 4:30 pm for "You Are Psychic," and on Sunday at 3 pm for "Tarot Toward Self-Actualization," a repeat of the seminar I did for them in 2013. I will likely have some free tickets to give away beforehand, so write me if you're interested.
Thanks, friends. Watch for more news here, on my Twitter @jgordonbramer or @fixedstarsgov, at www.fixedstarsgovernalife.com, or on my tarot website.
Sigh. Many of you know that the third Amazon-posted release date for Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath has now been missed. I know, I know. I can't believe it either. I can't tell you how excruciating this is. Beyond the embarrassment of the eternal promise that it's coming, it has been expensive for me as I have done so much marketing over these years, and of course with each missed release date I lose preorders who will not take the time and effort to preorder again, and again, and again. I can't blame them. It appears that Amazon has given up on my publisher too, because preordering FSGL is now no longer possible either.
If what I was told is true, my book has been sitting at the printer for over a month. The nature of a university press, of course, is that it is run by a teacher and manned by students. They will not resume classes until January 20th, and so I am not expecting much until probably a couple weeks after then.
I have to just try and press on (I wish I could laugh at that pun). I can say that this experience has dashed my impressions of academia being some kind of cred-feather in one's mortarboard cap.
If you're out there, if you are one of those beautiful people who preordered and keeps telling Amazon, "Yes, I still want it!" please let me know. I want to do something nice for you one day when all this is said and done.
In the meantime, I'm working on volume two, and finishing The Magician's Girl biography and the Early Poems book. I'm also having fun revising my old Night Times memoir, returning it to experimentations in literary form. Thanks to encouragement from my own favorite magician, Zulfikar Ghose, I am returning to what Night Times was, not the first draft of the memoir which was completed in 2005, but the actual magazine. NT was always an irreverent, playful experiment in form and parody. For some reason, I let people tell me what a memoir should look like. I let agents push me to add this, take that out. I got lost inside it all, listening to them. My voice became theirs: flattened and everyday. Now, I am back, and I am really excited about what I see happening.
Also, Class Plans to complement volume one of FSGL will soon be released FOR FREE, for a limited time, and I am rather excited about this because there is information in them that did not make FSGL before it went to print. These will help professors from high school through graduate school levels teach Sylvia Plath with my text. There are lots of discussion questions, in-class exercises, teaching tips, creative writing workshop activities, and more. One does not have to be an instructor to be able to download the plans.
Please note the following calendar events I see in my own crystal ball, if you'd like to be a part of it:
Monday, January 12th-- ALL tarot $ earned this day via phone, email and Skype readings will benefit Tenth Life Cat Rescue. Please make your appointment ASAP--you do not need to be in St. Louis to get a reading. Call me at 314.517.0158 or email tarot@nighttimes.com.
Monday, January 26th--As far as I know, we are still on for the rescheduled November poetry reading at Chance Operations. I haven't done a reading in a year or more, and I am looking forward to it.
Saturday, February 14th--Valentine's Day is also Mardi Gras down in Festus, and beginning at 2 pm I'll be back at Taytro's Bistro for their pull-out-all-the-stops celebration. Last time, there were fire eaters, hula dancers, live bands of all kinds, and probably a hundred other things I didn't notice, because I was busy reading tarot cards to the mobs of people in attendance. Owner and proprietor Luke Taytro is originally from New Orleans, and could not stand the idea of leaving Mardi Gras behind, you see. He promises me that this year will be even bigger. One does not have to be a soothsayer to say there is NO DOUBT.
Saturday, February 21 and Sunday, February 22nd--I'll be presenting two free seminars at the Working Women's Survival Show. Catch me on Saturday at 3:30 - 4:30 pm for "You Are Psychic," and on Sunday at 3 pm for "Tarot Toward Self-Actualization," a repeat of the seminar I did for them in 2013. I will likely have some free tickets to give away beforehand, so write me if you're interested.
Thanks, friends. Watch for more news here, on my Twitter @jgordonbramer or @fixedstarsgov, at www.fixedstarsgovernalife.com, or on my tarot website.
Monday, January 5, 2015
Gifts and Timing
I wanted to have something worthy to say for my New Year's post, which is why I am writing it five days into the New Year. There was too much commotion in finishing up holiday events to write sooner.
2014 has been both a very hard year, and a very wonderful year. On the hard side, I watched three friends lose their sons, all three young men in the 24-25 year range, all due to different causes. To add to this pain, my younger son lost a peer his age in 2014, a friend of one of the aforementioned friends. The grief has been huge. As I have two boys of my own around this age, it shook me to the core. We want to believe that this could never really happen. We realize that a parent never raises a child to "safety." That there is no safety, ever, and that every day of life and time spent with our loved ones is precious. It really makes me clear on what is truly important. It was a most painful gift to learn.
One can't deny, especially in St. Louis, that 2014's political climate has been the test of all tests. I have written here before that I am not an astrologer. That said, that whole End-of-Age 2012 Apocalypse business is actually only supposed to begin then, and I have heard astrologers say it lasts for a number of years. To look at all the wars, the recession, the uprisings and inner and outer revolutions, I'd say that I am becoming a believer.
Those of you close to me, and regular readers, know that my book, Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath had its release held up not once, but twice. It has been entirely stressful and you can read the details in earlier blog entries here. This has been a huge spiritual lesson for me regarding attachment, and being too attached to how I think something should go. In the end, everything truly does seem to happen for a reason. I can look back on these 51 years of life (Gasp! Am I really that old? I can't believe it) and truly see that this "everything happens for a reason" cliche is true in every aspect of my life--the blessings and tragedies have all been essential in forming me to this person today. My little sister pointed out to me that there is just no way anything wrong is happening. I am in my eighth year of the Plath work and miracles continue to happen; new information rises from the most unlikely places supporting my earlier findings; and new people enter my life lending their love and support.
This leads me to the blessings of 2014: How could Sylvia have not been pulling the strings to essentially deliver a friend of hers and Ted Hughes' to me, to give me this treasure who has been in my everyday life since June, Zulfikar Ghose? Far beyond the Plath-Hughes connection, he has become the dearest of friends and such an important person in my creative life. He is a brilliant poet and prose writer, a man who refuses to pander to the trends, a true magician-visionary and great teacher. If only every serious writer could one day find a Zulfi of their own. As for now, he is mine and I refuse to share. ;-) I am trying to read all 25 of his books and review them on Amazon.com and elsewhere, as I get the chance. I encourage you to find his books, read them, and do the same. You will not be disappointed. You can find my reviews searching his name on Amazon.
Other blessings: As I write this, our feral cat, Hermann is asleep on the mat, INSIDE of our house on this bitterly cold January day. Our three years of work taming him is paying off. My husband Tom and I had the most magical two-weeks in the Hawaiian Islands, and I cannot say enough about the magic of the Big Island, especially. Kilauea calls me back (how lucky to see it during its eruption time!), and I'll be glad to get some more Kona coffee. Oh sure, the beaches of Oahu are lovely, and Kauai is a gorgeous rainforest, but the Big Island is truly mystical. There is honestly nothing like it. I need to finish posting my photographs on Facebook. I also count among my blessings meeting and working with the gang at Circus Kaput; finding the best hair stylist in the world, Rosemarie Palazzolo (Drury Salon, Chesterfield), making some great new friends, reconnecting with old friends dear to me, and most especially to getting to know my son Ross' lovely girlfriend, whom we plan to keep forever.
Out in the world, I think our local Prince Ea is a huge gift. I feel so fortunate to be so popular on Academia.edu. I had the time of my life at the 2014 Colgate Writer's Conference and joint Association for Studies in Esotericism Conference, where I presented on Plath. I loved also presenting for Case-Western University and the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin. I have felt so incredibly welcomed. It's been delightful to have my moments on television and radio, and to see my tarot business grow the way it has. I truly do feel on-path.
I decided not to make any formal New Year's Resolutions. I have resolutions every day, and I get the majority of them done. I resolve to keep going toward my dreams, always, and to give everything I do my best effort. Every day, I resolve to try and be my best, whatever that is and however I might occasionally stumble, and to try to live from a place of peace and love.
The next couple months of 2015 are already filling up, and I will soon have some separate posts with all the details. Ahead, I'll be doing some tarot fundraisers for cats and dogs; I'll be a featured guest reading poetry with Chance Operations, and doing another reading in April with Lindenwood U; I'm holding two seminars at the Working Women's Survival Show in February; planning more radio and TV appearances; and, fingers crossed, releasing Fixed Stars Govern a Life. That is, if the time is right.
2014 has been both a very hard year, and a very wonderful year. On the hard side, I watched three friends lose their sons, all three young men in the 24-25 year range, all due to different causes. To add to this pain, my younger son lost a peer his age in 2014, a friend of one of the aforementioned friends. The grief has been huge. As I have two boys of my own around this age, it shook me to the core. We want to believe that this could never really happen. We realize that a parent never raises a child to "safety." That there is no safety, ever, and that every day of life and time spent with our loved ones is precious. It really makes me clear on what is truly important. It was a most painful gift to learn.
One can't deny, especially in St. Louis, that 2014's political climate has been the test of all tests. I have written here before that I am not an astrologer. That said, that whole End-of-Age 2012 Apocalypse business is actually only supposed to begin then, and I have heard astrologers say it lasts for a number of years. To look at all the wars, the recession, the uprisings and inner and outer revolutions, I'd say that I am becoming a believer.
Those of you close to me, and regular readers, know that my book, Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath had its release held up not once, but twice. It has been entirely stressful and you can read the details in earlier blog entries here. This has been a huge spiritual lesson for me regarding attachment, and being too attached to how I think something should go. In the end, everything truly does seem to happen for a reason. I can look back on these 51 years of life (Gasp! Am I really that old? I can't believe it) and truly see that this "everything happens for a reason" cliche is true in every aspect of my life--the blessings and tragedies have all been essential in forming me to this person today. My little sister pointed out to me that there is just no way anything wrong is happening. I am in my eighth year of the Plath work and miracles continue to happen; new information rises from the most unlikely places supporting my earlier findings; and new people enter my life lending their love and support.
This leads me to the blessings of 2014: How could Sylvia have not been pulling the strings to essentially deliver a friend of hers and Ted Hughes' to me, to give me this treasure who has been in my everyday life since June, Zulfikar Ghose? Far beyond the Plath-Hughes connection, he has become the dearest of friends and such an important person in my creative life. He is a brilliant poet and prose writer, a man who refuses to pander to the trends, a true magician-visionary and great teacher. If only every serious writer could one day find a Zulfi of their own. As for now, he is mine and I refuse to share. ;-) I am trying to read all 25 of his books and review them on Amazon.com and elsewhere, as I get the chance. I encourage you to find his books, read them, and do the same. You will not be disappointed. You can find my reviews searching his name on Amazon.
Other blessings: As I write this, our feral cat, Hermann is asleep on the mat, INSIDE of our house on this bitterly cold January day. Our three years of work taming him is paying off. My husband Tom and I had the most magical two-weeks in the Hawaiian Islands, and I cannot say enough about the magic of the Big Island, especially. Kilauea calls me back (how lucky to see it during its eruption time!), and I'll be glad to get some more Kona coffee. Oh sure, the beaches of Oahu are lovely, and Kauai is a gorgeous rainforest, but the Big Island is truly mystical. There is honestly nothing like it. I need to finish posting my photographs on Facebook. I also count among my blessings meeting and working with the gang at Circus Kaput; finding the best hair stylist in the world, Rosemarie Palazzolo (Drury Salon, Chesterfield), making some great new friends, reconnecting with old friends dear to me, and most especially to getting to know my son Ross' lovely girlfriend, whom we plan to keep forever.
Out in the world, I think our local Prince Ea is a huge gift. I feel so fortunate to be so popular on Academia.edu. I had the time of my life at the 2014 Colgate Writer's Conference and joint Association for Studies in Esotericism Conference, where I presented on Plath. I loved also presenting for Case-Western University and the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin. I have felt so incredibly welcomed. It's been delightful to have my moments on television and radio, and to see my tarot business grow the way it has. I truly do feel on-path.
I decided not to make any formal New Year's Resolutions. I have resolutions every day, and I get the majority of them done. I resolve to keep going toward my dreams, always, and to give everything I do my best effort. Every day, I resolve to try and be my best, whatever that is and however I might occasionally stumble, and to try to live from a place of peace and love.
The next couple months of 2015 are already filling up, and I will soon have some separate posts with all the details. Ahead, I'll be doing some tarot fundraisers for cats and dogs; I'll be a featured guest reading poetry with Chance Operations, and doing another reading in April with Lindenwood U; I'm holding two seminars at the Working Women's Survival Show in February; planning more radio and TV appearances; and, fingers crossed, releasing Fixed Stars Govern a Life. That is, if the time is right.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Evolution, Adaptation, and Wonder
It is a curious world. There is a belief among those who practice mysticism that as we evolve to become more and more enlightened (I am one of those who is not sure that we ever truly get there; not until we're ready to die, in any case), the world makes its corrections around us. I have been a witness to this personally, and 2014 has been both such a hard and extraordinary year.
Early in 2014, I thought my book would "soon" be out. The original plan had been to release it in 2013, the 50th anniversary year of Plath's death. Fall of 2013 had been discussed. Then the winter. Then the farther off winter of 2014. I continued with my speaking engagements and travel, touring universities and publishing excerpts on the book. I passed out my Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath bookmarks, and promised, "Soon, soon."
But it was not soon. Not by my definition. Today, I am thankful about that. There were a lot of Plath books released last year, and I would have been lost in the mix. As I brought in a new editor on my own dime, as I continued to make my discoveries of supporting evidence in the Plath archives at IU-Bloomington, as I continued to receive my little epiphanies that helped me connect the dots in even more new ways, I knew I had needed this extra time. Today, I have a superior manuscript to the one that I thought was finished last year. My seven years of work had not been enough! Our Sylvia was a perfectionist, after all. Maybe most special to me is that I have befriended a friend of Plath and Hughes' from their days in the London poetry scene, and he has become a very important, almost daily part of my personal and professional life. How can I be so fortunate?
Otto Plath's hero, Charles Darwin, once said in an 1857 letter to Asa Gray, ‘
Still, despite my own feelings of wonder, things around this book of mine that were fully there, and yet somehow not happening, continued to frustrate me. It was not going according to my plan for its evolution. There had been talk about my book being the star at the National Publisher's Conference in New York City (did my press even go? I was told nothing). There had been talk about them giving me a great web page devoted to my book (To this day, I am not sure my book is even mentioned as forthcoming on the site; it was not the last time I looked). Refusing to wait, I paid a developer to give me this nice page (Please join my email list if you're not already on it). There had been talk about me coming down to the press' university for a reading. There had been talk about advanced copies being printed and sent out to reviewers. There had been talk, and talk, and talk... but rarely to me, and none of it was ever nailed down. To this day, while I know that there are pre-orders of my book patiently waiting out there, I have no idea how many. Ten? A hundred? A thousand? I'm not sure that the press knows either, but I kept working hard to market my work. I have spent thousands on travel and speaking engagements, presenting twice in England, and in DC, New York, Milwaukee, Cleveland, St. Louis, and more. I have an email list of more than 30,000 names. Every day I get hits from all over the world on Academia.edu, and requests for more information. I am always between the top 2- and 4% of pages viewed. The world loves Sylvia Plath, and the world wants this information. I feel like the most blessed person to have been the one to find it, to have learned what I have learned, and yet, for metaphysical reasons beyond me, it all seems to be held up in the retrograde of retrogrades. Meanwhile, a breakthrough article I am publishing in Plath Profiles 7 is also held up! [12/10/14--It's there now] Who can understand any of it?
I felt embarrassed (ego stuff!) as the June and September release dates for my book came and went. I wrote back to the people querying about their pre-orders, apologizing and saying, "I can't give a definitive date, but I promise it's coming." It is. And soon. Really, this time! I have seen the layout progress with my own eyes. Finally, I have a very good contact person at the press, a capable and mature person who is working hard and communicating well. We are close to there. I'd hoped that it might get out on Sylvia Plath's birthday, October 27th. She would have liked that. Perhaps it will get out by my birthday, November 26th. She would like that too.
I have learned a great deal about publishing through all of this. Mainly, that today the entire industry is in a free-fall. Everyone with experience tells me my story is not unique. Large publishing house or small, writers are suffering today from what the music industry went through in the 1990s. It does not matter if one publishes with a large or small press. One prolific writer I know (15 books with HarperCollins and Random House) had a book held up for three years while the press went through a reorganization. Ultimately, they dropped it and she is going to self-publish. My Plath-Hughes friend has 25 books with publishers all over the world, some with major international awards, and still finds the industry impossible and in a complete down-slide. Self-publishing is no longer a dirty word, by the way, and like those in the music world, more and more authors with followings are not willing to play the bureaucratic games, to pay editors, agents, publicists and distributors to do nothing, and to have their books held up for years in the system. Today, Miley Cyrus could more easily put out a book of blank pages with a large house than a past Pulitzer Prize winner, because that's what the masses want. Today, I wonder if Sylvia Plath or Ted Hughes would even have a chance.
Printed books, like CDs and tapes, are falling away from the norm as people want digital downloads of everything, easy to search, to listen to, and to get right to the parts in which one is most interested. It is not all bad, and as a scholar and researcher myself, I know how valuable searchable digital editions can be. In music, the concept of the full album experience is gone, in favor of singles. Publishing has known for a long time that readers are reading less, especially with regard to literary fiction and poetry. Books of criticism on those subjects have an even smaller audience. One could complain about the injustice of it all, or one can get on with the changing world and adapt. In the 1990s, musicians either lost their careers, or learned to parlay their energy into giving away the music free and/or independently (think Wilco, Radiohead, Garbage, and others), making their money instead on performances and fan merchandise. I am certain the carbon paper industry lost its mind (and everything else) when the copy machine became an office standard. Likewise, typewriter manufacturers were probably not too happy when the personal computer came around. When Charles Darwin realized his theories on evolution, he declared that those species able to adapt were the ones to survive. Smart companies, like IBM, adapted.
I am adapting too. I count my blessings that this first book has the name of a university behind it. I am blessed for the hold-ups that have made it better, and for the new treasured friends, and maybe most of all, for the spiritual growth. I have learned an incredible amount, and it has all made me a better person. It has all created a better book. There are no accidents. We just can't allow ourselves to become too attached to how we think it is going to go. If it had all gone as I had originally planned, I would have had a book quietly released last year to probably quickly dissolve into obscurity. I wouldn't have received half of my gifts of knowledge and friendship. I simply hadn't dreamed big enough, and this world continues to amaze me, personally, professionally, and spiritually.
I wonder how it will all turn out.
Early in 2014, I thought my book would "soon" be out. The original plan had been to release it in 2013, the 50th anniversary year of Plath's death. Fall of 2013 had been discussed. Then the winter. Then the farther off winter of 2014. I continued with my speaking engagements and travel, touring universities and publishing excerpts on the book. I passed out my Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath bookmarks, and promised, "Soon, soon."
But it was not soon. Not by my definition. Today, I am thankful about that. There were a lot of Plath books released last year, and I would have been lost in the mix. As I brought in a new editor on my own dime, as I continued to make my discoveries of supporting evidence in the Plath archives at IU-Bloomington, as I continued to receive my little epiphanies that helped me connect the dots in even more new ways, I knew I had needed this extra time. Today, I have a superior manuscript to the one that I thought was finished last year. My seven years of work had not been enough! Our Sylvia was a perfectionist, after all. Maybe most special to me is that I have befriended a friend of Plath and Hughes' from their days in the London poetry scene, and he has become a very important, almost daily part of my personal and professional life. How can I be so fortunate?
Otto Plath's hero, Charles Darwin, once said in an 1857 letter to Asa Gray, ‘
I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.’ Darwin, a self-proclaimed Atheist, might also fit the definition of a mystic, as it was through his existentialism and loss of faith that he was able to see what he called "the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind." Darwin opened his mind beyond the status quo, and even beyond persecution and the loss of his professional reputation, to entertain what seemed at the time to be the ridiculous.
Still, despite my own feelings of wonder, things around this book of mine that were fully there, and yet somehow not happening, continued to frustrate me. It was not going according to my plan for its evolution. There had been talk about my book being the star at the National Publisher's Conference in New York City (did my press even go? I was told nothing). There had been talk about them giving me a great web page devoted to my book (To this day, I am not sure my book is even mentioned as forthcoming on the site; it was not the last time I looked). Refusing to wait, I paid a developer to give me this nice page (Please join my email list if you're not already on it). There had been talk about me coming down to the press' university for a reading. There had been talk about advanced copies being printed and sent out to reviewers. There had been talk, and talk, and talk... but rarely to me, and none of it was ever nailed down. To this day, while I know that there are pre-orders of my book patiently waiting out there, I have no idea how many. Ten? A hundred? A thousand? I'm not sure that the press knows either, but I kept working hard to market my work. I have spent thousands on travel and speaking engagements, presenting twice in England, and in DC, New York, Milwaukee, Cleveland, St. Louis, and more. I have an email list of more than 30,000 names. Every day I get hits from all over the world on Academia.edu, and requests for more information. I am always between the top 2- and 4% of pages viewed. The world loves Sylvia Plath, and the world wants this information. I feel like the most blessed person to have been the one to find it, to have learned what I have learned, and yet, for metaphysical reasons beyond me, it all seems to be held up in the retrograde of retrogrades. Meanwhile, a breakthrough article I am publishing in Plath Profiles 7 is also held up! [12/10/14--It's there now] Who can understand any of it?
I felt embarrassed (ego stuff!) as the June and September release dates for my book came and went. I wrote back to the people querying about their pre-orders, apologizing and saying, "I can't give a definitive date, but I promise it's coming." It is. And soon. Really, this time! I have seen the layout progress with my own eyes. Finally, I have a very good contact person at the press, a capable and mature person who is working hard and communicating well. We are close to there. I'd hoped that it might get out on Sylvia Plath's birthday, October 27th. She would have liked that. Perhaps it will get out by my birthday, November 26th. She would like that too.
I have learned a great deal about publishing through all of this. Mainly, that today the entire industry is in a free-fall. Everyone with experience tells me my story is not unique. Large publishing house or small, writers are suffering today from what the music industry went through in the 1990s. It does not matter if one publishes with a large or small press. One prolific writer I know (15 books with HarperCollins and Random House) had a book held up for three years while the press went through a reorganization. Ultimately, they dropped it and she is going to self-publish. My Plath-Hughes friend has 25 books with publishers all over the world, some with major international awards, and still finds the industry impossible and in a complete down-slide. Self-publishing is no longer a dirty word, by the way, and like those in the music world, more and more authors with followings are not willing to play the bureaucratic games, to pay editors, agents, publicists and distributors to do nothing, and to have their books held up for years in the system. Today, Miley Cyrus could more easily put out a book of blank pages with a large house than a past Pulitzer Prize winner, because that's what the masses want. Today, I wonder if Sylvia Plath or Ted Hughes would even have a chance.
Printed books, like CDs and tapes, are falling away from the norm as people want digital downloads of everything, easy to search, to listen to, and to get right to the parts in which one is most interested. It is not all bad, and as a scholar and researcher myself, I know how valuable searchable digital editions can be. In music, the concept of the full album experience is gone, in favor of singles. Publishing has known for a long time that readers are reading less, especially with regard to literary fiction and poetry. Books of criticism on those subjects have an even smaller audience. One could complain about the injustice of it all, or one can get on with the changing world and adapt. In the 1990s, musicians either lost their careers, or learned to parlay their energy into giving away the music free and/or independently (think Wilco, Radiohead, Garbage, and others), making their money instead on performances and fan merchandise. I am certain the carbon paper industry lost its mind (and everything else) when the copy machine became an office standard. Likewise, typewriter manufacturers were probably not too happy when the personal computer came around. When Charles Darwin realized his theories on evolution, he declared that those species able to adapt were the ones to survive. Smart companies, like IBM, adapted.
I am adapting too. I count my blessings that this first book has the name of a university behind it. I am blessed for the hold-ups that have made it better, and for the new treasured friends, and maybe most of all, for the spiritual growth. I have learned an incredible amount, and it has all made me a better person. It has all created a better book. There are no accidents. We just can't allow ourselves to become too attached to how we think it is going to go. If it had all gone as I had originally planned, I would have had a book quietly released last year to probably quickly dissolve into obscurity. I wouldn't have received half of my gifts of knowledge and friendship. I simply hadn't dreamed big enough, and this world continues to amaze me, personally, professionally, and spiritually.
I wonder how it will all turn out.
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