January 31, 2011

Prison, Jen (massage!), sick Helen!, exploring, peace, confrontation, money.

Themes!

Mirages. Art!

Pain.

Teleconferences, change, sleeping tigers

I think I am going to figure out how to record these blogs instead of writing them. There is an entire talk forming in my head, and a reluctance to write. At the same time there is an article and a painting in there too. Gestation indeed.

Perhaps I am neither butterfly nor pelican. A hummingbird? That would be satisfactory!

Time to sleep.

Jen and I determined today that the pain is a message that I have collected so many credits for contributions made that my credit account is full, and that when my credit account is full I can know that I am ALLOWED to rest.

I am in a new dance. Something is emerging. So be it!

January 29, 2011

Gloria had a fabulous idea today. She suggests that I take all the entries I have made about the cranes, cubes and the prison which is rising before me and make them into one article and publish it – somewhere like The Globe and Mail.

I will do this, but not tonight.

The doing of this is related in a number of ways. First on my mind is to develop the capacity to be calm, courageous and to celebrate life in the midst of all that is life destroying, horrible and disgusting. My automatic response is to ignore or run away. Truly I want to do neither. I want to be able to continue to look out my window, to be a watcher as my Mother was, and to celebrate the fabulous variety of insignificant events that continue to emerge moment by moment just outside my bedroom window. I want to continue to love living in this odd neighbourhood, so close to the lake, so “underdeveloped”, so human. I want to paint the emergence of life around me. I do not want to stop seeing and I do not want to have to go away. These are ways of the past that I have been able to rise above. This is my personal legacy – to be able to be where I am and be who I am whether or not I am afraid.

From another perspective it is too simplistic and fundamentally not true to say that this prison building is wrong. It is very much not what I would choose, but this is not the same thing as being wrong. There are many dynamics that bring about the global economy that result in Texan prisoners building cubes for Ontario prisoners to assemble and live in. I would prefer that people make different choices, and organize themselves differently in the awesome, largely unconscious, effort to work together around the planet. Just the same, although the results of this effort seem so contrary to life and its affirmation, still it is life and living people that are bringing it about. I do not understand and perhaps understanding is not an adequate response or approach. However, in my not understanding I can still appreciate the awesomeness of what is beyond me and my capacity to understand.

I have spent most of my life in a conscious choice to make a difference that I call Inclusion. I feel that this choice, this calling, is in some kind of coordination with the eternal impulse that brings life to the world – often called God. The rising presence of a massive prison in my backyard – rising night by night as I sleep or don’t sleep in my bed – can it be accidental? And even if it is accidental is it not something to which I can respond? What is before me at this time is to discover the response that I can make that forwards the conversation called Inclusion because that is who I am.

If I write my life with a large brush then it seems that Camphill fell through and my finances fell apart so that I might end up in this bedroom looking out this window at the very time when this prison is being assembled. Of course, I could say the same thing about other elements of my life – for example, that Gabor turned against me so that Mike would come to fill the empty position, or that I would have to turn to ODSP so that I would be in a clear position to choose powerfully how I accept or do not accept the next plan from ACF, or that I would contract a life threatening infection and have five doctors deal with it ineffectively so that I might end up lying and looking out this window for nine weeks. I am sure that many would say that I am far too full of myself to write such a major role into my life script.

On another topic, tomorrow is the day that I set to choose if I am leaving for Savannah, or not, on February 12. It seems that we are about $4000 short of what it would take to pay Mike and another assistant separately from the CILT based fund for my personal assistance. The value of doing it this way, besides keeping the peace among myself, CILT and the Ministry of Health, is that I would recoup a large part of the overspending of this account that has happened in the last seven months.

Unfortunately, no such amount of money is forthcoming for all the usual reasons. It is certainly not for lack of looking for it, although I’m sure there are sources that I have not discovered or touched. For the last six weeks I have kept a chart with happy faces and stars to reinforce my efforts to find money. The chart has helped. I am now more than likely going to earn enough money each month this year to be able to pay back some of the ongoing debt I am in, and to travel to some important engagements like the Conference for Global Transformation in May. Just the same, the money for Savannah is not there today. Of course, it may show up tomorrow. It would be awesome!

What would I do in Savannah? Paint “Dirty Window” and have it ready for the ROM exhibit. (This is the painting of the rising prison.) Catch up on what’s been happening with people who are struggling to be economically included in the most racist place I have ever been. Re-immerse myself in an explicitly Christian environment that somehow moves me deeply. Hang out with pelicans during the month before all the tourists invade. Speak to people about what I have learned and questioned in the two years since I last spent time with them. Enjoy the car ride down and back – a time that always allows me to pull my thoughts together. Eat fabulous southern grits and BBQ and other foods rarely encountered in the cooler north. There is so much more that I can hardly imagine that three or even five weeks wouldn’t pass by in a flash.

But it seems, at least tonight, that I am not meant to go. Seemings can be wrong. I sure hope this one is!

January 28, 2011

Well, I plugged away today, mostly while lying in bed, at finding the $5000 I still need to go to Savannah in two weeks. Some in my circle would say that this is my very problem – it is in my mind to look, not to have it come to me, and subtly I am pushing it away.

I listened to Trey Anthony’s Ted Toronto talk tonight. Her name has come up in my world a lot lately – we are both in the Second Story agenda. In the Degree of Freedom world we are separated by only two relationships – Helen to Jen to Trey. She has done a Ted talk. Do they pay people to do those talks I wondered?!?

I battle sometimes with my own reluctance to “push” myself. However, I have no reluctance to push Inclusion and apparently I am my own best example. So be it!

So I looked it up, found the Speaker’s Nomination form and applied. I got the e-mail back that says they received it. We’ll see.

The prison cube crane has been active – slowly – night and day for a few days now. The article in the Toronto Star seems to have sped things up. I wonder out loud with Helen how to stop the prison. I wonder to myself if I can return to just peacefully watching out my window, with no concern for the “value” of what I see – nonattachment. This “perfect” apartment has lost some of it’s sublimeness since I discovered the real nature of the gigantic blocks. I don’t want to have that rising feeling that I will have to move on to search again for my perfect home.

Of course the perfection or lack thereof are all inside of my own evaluation. The prison was always there – there have always been guns and drugs and crazed tenants in this building. The world is what it is! And so this is once again a great opportunity to create a gift out of this potential obstacle that has suddenly appeared before me.

I am so far behind on my e-mail it isn’t funny. Boredom and fundraising are the reasons. I want an adventure – a fun one – to legitimately be able to set up an automatic e-mail message that says: “I am out of town and will not be responding to my e-mail until… “

There has been nothing from the ROM or from ACF. Perhaps they will disappear – perhaps not. It wouldn’t be the first time that something or somebody occupied the depth of focus and energy that they have for roughly ten weeks only to vanish from centre stage. I feel like I am steeling myself for disappointment in several areas of my life.

Enthusiasm gone! Not the first time for that either. Fatigue. The doldrums. Apparently, according to a short video I saw today, it is a relatively new phenomenon to call such a state “depression” and to treat it medically. Others might call a shaman and do a ceremony for the whole “family” – me, Mike, Kimberley, Helen, Peter, Bill and Bill, Adlon, etc. Sounds like a mid-winter party to me!

I am making a promise to myself and my readers that I:
- will have something worth writing about by Monday – today is Friday;
- will catch up on e-mail by Monday.

January 25, 2011

I apologize to readers. Last night I forgot to blog! Just plain forgot until I was already in bed.

In some ways, since I blogged about the prison cells collected outside my window, I have lived a rather drunk, rather surreal life. Not literally drunk – I have had no alcohol and very little Morphine. Rather I have thrown my hat thoroughly into Cycle 3 and now it is simply unfolding. With this come demands – on my time, listening, focus, energy, stamina, words. There are demands from my assistants, ACF, ODSP, the Marsha Forest Centre, the Wisdom City Team, from my circle, my body, Father, WPIT, e-mail, Laser Eagles, the ROM?, the Book of Judith. I am not complaining – just spinning!

It all stems from taking myself seriously – perhaps way too seriously. I continue to imagine that I can transform the world by transforming how diversity is valued and included. Mike and I saw “The King’s Speech” again tonight, and though I waiver between whether I am more like George or Lionel I know (as in KNOW) I have an essential part in a drama much bigger than myself. Everything speaks to me as a potential means of finding a pathway to peace through Inclusion so I can turn down very little these days. That, and the ongoing search for $$’s, keeps prodding me on.

This morning Mike and I met with ACF and their poverty reduction champions and this afternoon with old and new members of the ACF Board and the Inclusion Circle. In all we met for over six hours. Mike was still raring to go after it all, but I was exhausted. For me the morning was mainly about listening, and listening to mainly whining, grieving and nostalgia for days when organizing seemed clearer. Listening took place on top of my own weary concern with feeling like once again I am being drawn into strategies that don’t work,

In the afternoon I felt the need to speak up about how it seems that ACF has not implemented the Inclusion Task Force recommendations. That and other people’s stuff led to a much livelier energy. However, at the end of the day (literally), it still remains in the hands of others to decide when, who and for what end this process will continue.

Going into the movie I lined up behind a young woman who is familiar to me from the Wisdom Course. Coming out we ran into a woman and her friend/supporter, both of whom were active twenty-five years ago in some committee or other that I was part of, probably the Ontario Advocacy Coalition. I felt that a certain element of safety and familiarity was added back into my day. In particular the woman who has a long term cognitive difference after a brain haemorrhage that she had in 1970 brought back the joyful sense that life is to be celebrated. She is just the sort of person I want to bring to lunch with ACF – Mary Lou, Miriam, Chloe, Greg and Felicia – the people who show me over and over again that it is way more effective in the end to stop trying to fix everything, and to enjoy the food, the company and the movie.

Speaking of lunch, I had the best roast beef sandwich I think I have ever had in my life. I could chew and swallow every bite, and I ate the WHOLE thing.

January 18, 2011

Today:
- The GTA, and apparently lots of the eastern seaboard, stopped in anticipation of an ice storm, or because it really hit. Here in the city of Toronto proper it was all hype. Mike and I walked to and from Laser Eagles.
- Mike and a little bit I started to draft the WPIT organization chart, with the Smart Draw software Peter Christianson bought for us.
- We made real progress with the painting “Dirty Window”, and painted another left over paint piece.
- Elizabeth and I made a little progress with grant writing.
- I landed a small monthly job.

The stuff I DIDN’T get done fills another half page. My desk is a mess. Stuff “to do” is spilling onto the printer, the dining table, the bureau, sometimes my bed.

I haven’t yet started reading the draft of my book!

When life gets like this I get jittery. Yes, I have moments when I experience the “going forward” but I also feel the anxiety of fearing that the “not done” will sneak up and bite me in the ass. Why have I not yet written contracts with Mike, Kimberly, Dan, Elizabeth and Peter? What about scheduling, performance reviews, hiring, training, What about fund raising for the assistant’s salaries? Etc., etc.

Tomorrow I must get “real” and figure out who is going to take some of this on. Gloria keeps on saying I don’t give things away. I don’t think this is what she means, exactly, but somehow I literally can’t keep up with myself, or so it seems today.

At the same time I believe that the jitters really come from the small me fighting the international me, somehow worried that I am not “safe” playing out my life and vision in this way. Be small “it” says. Take on less. Don’t expose yourself.

Well it’s too late for that now, isn’t it!

I have heard it said that a powerful road to success is to plan to fail often and progressively – learning something with each failure. If this works, what failure could I take on next which would make a real difference?

Some candidates are:
- finding two executive assistants
- selling my art for big bucks
- preselling my book
- How about – getting the Nobel Peace Prize? I like that one!

Tomorrow I will start to find out what it takes to win the Nobel Peace Prize! Even if I never get it, putting the steps into place must make a genuine difference in how the world views and does Inclusion.

January 16, 2011

Within myself and within my circle there is an argument about how to unfold WPIT. By the way I think we are close to changing the name – to something like Include.Me.org.

My certainties are based in some simple stories. They are stories from my own experience. Of course there is nothing unusual about this. All humans build their lives from their experience, their stories within the contexts provided by culture.

The story of my Father and the binding of ancient female children’s feet provides me with certainty that Inclusion can only be built on a foundation of Giftedness. His story of the killing of children with Down Syndrome (when I was 6) gives me the understanding that I have a “mission” and – more recently – that there must be an economic foundation to our approach to Inclusion. My encounter with the reality of God’s love when I was twelve gives me a greater understanding that I have a unique path, and that there will always be a way for me to enjoy my life, be fulfilled and bring about Inclusion. Then there was the day Dad told me to pay attention to where my clean laundry went, and I began to see that I could direct my support, and so the relationships and tasks of the daily life that would be my journey.

I am uncertain where the idea that peace is available through Inclusion comes from. There is no stellar tale. This frustrates me and is perhaps the cause of the slow development of this “project”. In the 80’s and 90’s an aggregate of stories coalesced in my experience and I began to see the potential socio-political transformation that would lead to greater peacefulness as communities became more inclusive.

To me it is not about personal peace although that is tied in and important. It is about cultural peacefulness. After all, the Scotties, Felicias and Eddies are everywhere and if their Giftedness is included powerfully, peace will break out everywhere!

Without a strong story I am not communicating powerfully. So it grows slowly and has weak roots.

I have been looking for a strong enough story. I have been hoping that I could find or build it through research. Apparently this approach is too weak. I must find it more clearly in my own stories and experience.

Perhaps it resides with my Mother. This seems unlikely.

So tonight I commit myself to give birth to a story that links Peace and Inclusion so powerfully that people’s hearts will be opened. Gloria’s message to me tonight is that I will not find that story in research, economics or my head. The story must reach those understandings, but it must be anchored in my heart.

Right now the story is simply missing. There clearly a space and a need for it, but where the story should be – in my mouth and heart – there is simply silence. Of course, silence – my silence – is the perfect place to begin the exploration! The path has always been linked to silence.

Perhaps tomorrow I will meet the person who will show me where the story lies within me.

January 14, 2011

I have a sense that no one is reading this anymore.

When I first started people were hanging onto every entry. I suppose the drama of whether or not I would recover was compelling. Then, of course, I signed off, not imagining that I might want to get going again so soon – three days later. How does one tell the departed to return?

Also when I started these writings it was not my intention to write for readers. I was writing to explore pure expression. It didn’t stay – clearly can’t stay – purely expression without some attention to the response of others. The response occurs in my own voice even when no other person is writing or speaking to me about these posts. Then again, if I truly intended no response why use a blog as a vehicle?

Gradually I have come to want to write about some things and not others. A desire for privacy? Feeling complete? Fatigue? Less urgency as my health returns and the pain diminishes? All are factors in my growing self edits.

We have passed the Epiphany and are now in Ordinary Time, according to the church calendar. Mundane concerns dominate my calendar, my day. Groceries, money, laundry, debts, housekeeping, scheduling, business plans, amusements, the neighbours. A shorter horizon indeed.

At the same time miracles are still happening. I caught myself NOT thinking that I might be dying today. This, for me, is a genuine break with the past – a breakthrough in Landmark language.

The past several days have been jammed packed with real and imagined commitments and appointments. This has led to insufficient eating and fluid intake, and yesterday the inevitable constipation set in even though I took care to drink more. Consequently, I awoke in pain three times last night, and I was also cold, requiring an extra blanket.

I have been learning from and through Jen how to shift the pain experience and so I was able to go back to sleep all three times and even slept to 7:45am – an hour and a half longer than usual. But more than that, today I realized that I wasn’t thinking all last night and this morning that I was getting sick AGAIN, that possibly I was dying. I was just thinking that my management strategies had broken down – too much bread and not enough water – and that I had better get on track or use stronger measures.

And then the flax oil, juice and vegetables of late yesterday and this morning kicked in, and all systems are go again.

Apparently I am off and running for a full Cycle 3. 120 birthdays.

Yesterday David Fu gave me amazingly different ideas on how to design an organization and on how to get across the ideas that World Peace is actually available through Inclusion. I am hoping that Mike and I can write it up in the next few days. Of course we are about to get into another crunch writing phase to get my autobiography out by May. I am truly hoping that on Monday I can get a Line of Credit on Dad’s GIC. In this way I can work at preparing a real fundraising effort.

January 11, 2011

Well there are days when the ball just won’t go between the posts! I was running late pretty well all day. Mike and I went to a consignment store this morning and there were some really great things but nothing in quite the right size. I got an email back from someone who had been asking good questions about WPIT but he declined to donate. I called some more people to be guests at the Wisdom Completion Evening this Thursday but just got message machines. Blah blah blah.

Perhaps the truly concerning “failure” was my need to use Morphine two days in a row. Jen did say there would be major shifts, and there have been. I do recognize it as one of those plateaus before a great step forward. Just the same, I am tired and sore, and kind of wishing I hadn’t booked myself such a busy week! But so it goes and I’m just venting, not really worried or complaining.

It is interesting how the quality of the questions and comments about WPIT as an organization and our projects are taking on a very more rich and serious (in a good sense) quality. I was Skyping with a colleague this evening and she completely bought into our need for a $6 million dollar foundation so that we can do our projects without constantly having our hands in somebody else’s pocket. She also was thinking about who, at the university level, might take on the kind of social/economic research that inclusion deserves. In a sense she is a “nobody” in the world of big money and research but life doesn’t work that way. Talking to her tonight makes it easier for me to talk to the Executive Director of ACF tomorrow, and on the other hand I have no idea who she knows or who knows who she knows. The message is travelling out and getting stronger as it goes.

In Wisdom we talk about fail, fail, failing your way to success. It very much feels like that is where I am at this time. It kind of makes it easier in a way because if lots of failure is the way to success then bring it on, bring it on, bring it on!

Of course, I hope that the failures are getting smarter as we go!

I feel like it’s been a very long time since I worked hard. I did not work hard at my jobs in the early and mid 90’s. The international travel was fun. The paid office stuff was excruciatingly boring and useless but not at all hard. The intense schedule and consistent phoning, writing, speaking that I’m doing now is considerably more difficult in the sense of leaving no room for fooling around, but it’s making a lot of sense and building a network and proving that I can be worthy of a team working with me. It is a very different life than Cycle 2.

Oh yes, I painted today. Well I didn’t actually paint. Mike and I spent about an hour preparing to paint. I am about to attempt reproducing a photograph of a scene outside my window – one of the scenes of the industrial and railway view outside my bedroom. It is a picture that I took during the last week that I spent most of my time in bed. It is very inclusive of all the elements that intrigue me about this view – the cranes, the trains and the sandbox quality of the scene.

At one point this morning I thought that I might not be able to paint today and keep up with all the other things I said I would do. I realized, though, that painting is once again going to disappear as a regular activity unless I stick to it in my schedule. Actually it’s amazing how much disappears when I (or anyone else!) doesn’t stick to the schedule. We talk about freedom of choice etc. But I chose all these things that are in my life and I chose them freely so having them disappear because I don’t keep my schedule is just some sort of insanity. I am free. I just have to remember that!

It’s been a long day. Tomorrow may be a big day if the meeting with Atkinson goes as well as it could! Time to pack it in!

January 7, 2011

Today I awoke to realize, in the barely beginning dawn, that the crane at the railway near the modular concrete boxes had disappeared out of view. I fell asleep again. Perhaps twenty minutes later I opened my eyes again and there was the crane. It had moved back into view. The sun was far from up and peering at the giant thing hurt my eyes. The many street lights, highway lamp posts and security systems on the local warehouses were mostly still on and intensely bright.

Perhaps three hours later the crane was rotating back and forth with such velocity that the hanging chain and clasps were bouncing around. Was it dancing?

Another hour and it was gliding almost imperceptively along and some twenty minutes later hovering above the larger grey boxes. Then I noticed a train of flatbeds, each with two grey cubes neatly placed. I thought for sure that the crane was unloading the flatbeds, but, no, another hour or so later when I visited my window again – this time the crane was harnessed to a cube, but looking like it was loading the train!

Which is it – loading or unloading? Who is playing this glacially slow game?

It was a beautifully sunny day and the new accountant had taken all the blank payroll cheques as well as miswriting one for this payroll. I urgently needed an alternative way to pay Mike. In my mailbox was a notice of a parcel to pick up. I was out of decaf coffee. In all this the invitation to take a walk and take frequent stops in my exceptionally accessible neighbourhood was strong. Helen and I went out.

Well –5 C (or -7 perhaps) is pretty cold, though I was doubly covered up. About a block before we reached the bank Helen was having to intermittently hold down my upper lip so I could make the speed changes necessary to get over bad curb cuts and avoid pedestrians.

I warmed up in the bank and the teller was efficiently helpful. I came away with a money order to fix the payroll problem after having ordered a new batch of cheques. The post office and decaf are only a block from the bank and we reached them without incident.

The package was not my new passport as I expected, but was from Second Story Press.

I longed for a coffee and snack at Yalla Café and to hear Michel’s stories of his New Year’s encounter with his son’s fiancée’s family at their year end party. So, thinking that I was now sufficiently warmed up, we set out to traverse the ten blocks.

Wrong! Not only did my lip get too cold but even the sip and puff pipe started to freeze up. We limped in to the café. Michel wasn’t there but his wife – Helene, warmly greeted us.

I opened my package. It contained three copies of an agenda published by Second Story Press. It features contemporary Canadian women who have made exceptional contributions. I am November!

I showed it to Helene. When she realized it was about me, she started to read it. Her English is weak and she called in another woman from the back – seemingly a cousin or friend.

The women shared one pair of reading glasses, and soon recruited the assistance of a man (the cousin’s husband it turned out) who used an I-Pod or Blackberry with a Lebanese/English translation application.

Both Helen and I, sitting quietly with our coffees, observed my story and words emerged in Lebanese. Inclusion took a leap into yet another culture. I was awe struck!

The cousins departed and Helene struggled to express her thoughts. She apologized and said she was fluent in French but not English. I still have a smattering of school French and I asked her to say it in that language. She said “fier” and I said “proud”. She clapped.

For me the connection was electric.

As we left Helene ducked into the basement and brought up a blanket to wrap me up. I rolled home a happy pink bundle.

December 30, 2010

Yesterday I wrote for the book and you will, of course, get to read that within the next few months – by May is our intention.

For the last week I have been fundraising with determination. WPIT provides me with lots of opportunities and lots of reasons to get more people involved and find lots of dollars. Right now it’s my most grounded way out of personal poverty.

So tonight I will just share my notes I use in constructing fundraising e-mails. The document they refer to is posted on www.peaceforinclusion.blogspot.com.
To a Canadian potential donor:
We spoke on the phone this morning. You said you would see if some of your friends (10?) would let me contact them about donating to World Peace through Inclusive Transformation.

I believe in and am giving my life to World Peace through Inclusive Transformation - WPIT, www.judithsnow.org. I noticed in 2006 that people become more peaceful when they take the journey to include diversity in their everyday lives. I have attached a document with lots of information, including our latest projects.

The most exciting project is that we are coding a 3-game series of video games where players do better in the game when they include diversity in the group of people who are playing AND reward diversity in the Zombie characters.

The money we raise is used for project development. the coding costs $80,000, and video development costs $7,000.

Money also goes to cover thousands of dollars each year of wages for my personal assistants – money that the government does not cover. This year I must raise $14,000 for this necessary expense alone.

One possible way to donate is to send a cheque to the Family Life Foundation. WPIT gets 85% of your money and you get a charitable receipt. Send the cheque to:

Family Life Foundation
c/o Lindsay King, Director
6 Kings Inn Trail
Thornhill, ON, L3T 1T7

Include in the memo: World Peace through Inclusive Transformation

The other way is to go to www.ppsn.on.ca and click on "Donate". Follow the prompts I get 50% of your donation and YOU get 75% of your donation back as a tax credit when you file your income tax. More information is on their website.

Thank you for your consideration and generousity.
Warmly; Judith

To a potential US donor:
It is awkward to ask for donations, but I believe in and am giving my life to World Peace through Inclusive Transformation - WPIT, www.judithsnow.org. I noticed in 2006 that people become more peaceful when they take the journey to include diversity in their everyday lives. I have attached a document with lots of information, including our latest projects. The most exciting project is that we are coding a 3-game series of video games where players do better in the game by including something that is different about the characters and about other players.
The money we raise is used for project development. It also goes to cover thousands of dollars each year of wages for my personal assistants – money that the government does not cover. This year I must raise $14,000 for this necessary expense alone.
There are two things you can do to make a difference with WPIT, and my ongoing underfunding with my personal assistance.

First, make a list of people you think would be open to listening to a request for money to support my ongoing participation, and ask them if I can contact them. If they say "Yes", give me their contact information. I am attaching a brief about WPIT and its projects.

Secondly, send a check directed to the World Peace through Inclusion Tour to:
First Presbyterian Church of Savannah
c/o Barbara Bishop
520 Washington Avenue
Savannah, GA 31405-2323

Thank you!
(Let me know how much so I can budget, please.)
Warmly and Season’s Greetings; Judith

December 20, 2010

Jen the masseuse, Kevin the frazzling child, trading a ride to Christmas shop with Helen for a car wash – inside and out, fundraising, cancelled meetings all day, tracking down a minced pie for tomorrow’s Laser Eagles potluck, discussing the next phases of WPIT with Mike, answered and unanswered e-mail, wrapping presents – these occupied my day.

Jen says there is no choice except to rest. At the same time we are on a very different plane today with my body, discussing together the intricacies of clearing and opening space for my right side while moving more of what I do with my right side into my left side – practical to spiritual. It’s a much different place than managing pain, though there is still some pain to manage. Oh, by the way, I don’t really get what all that means in a day-to-day way. Stay tuned!

When I get to this moment in the year I generally feel a certain sense of victory. This year, this night, at 3:17am Eastern Time there will be a full eclipse of the moon and we will also pass the Solstice. Thursday will yield more sunlight than today. Daylight will steadily lengthen until June 21, 2011.

There are moments in life when you know for certain that it doesn’t get worse than this. Those moments are perversely joyful, at least to me, giving a sense of power and vitality. Now that I am solidly into my Third Cycle this eclipsed Solstice offers just such a sense of joy and strength. I have already come through some of the most difficult moments of my life, and yet so much potential and realized opportunity is with me at this time.

I love my home, my health has returned, I have pathways to money, I have great staff and awesome friends, the ROM is working with me, the Book of Judith will tour this year coming and next, Mike Skubic is putting real legs under WPIT and – mysteriously – I even feel more attractive to men. I want to be a leader, I am a leader and I have the strongest chance ever to make a worldwide difference.

Some euphoria is Morphine, no doubt. Yesterday I took none but today I took two doses. Just the same could Morphine give me a high if there was nothing in my soul to be uplifted? I doubt it.

Besides money, if there is something to be at work to accomplish it would be to paint more frequently and steadily, which means having reliable and frequent access to a tracker that is trained to my ways. Mike has great potential but we have so much else going on that tracking for me easily gets sidelined. There is no reason I couldn’t have more than one tracker.

I never expected that art and writing would play such a large part of my life and be such a strong path to building Inclusion. Yet when I look back over the past seven years, and also twenty-eight years, painting, theatre and writing have been the most expressive and reliable vehicles for me to be Judith.

Funny how long it takes to see the obvious.

Anyway it is time to focus on painting, writing, friends, good food and rest. There are other important aspects to my life, of course, but these are my foundation.

The Third Cycle will continue.