books i've read the past few months

I love those quiet moments of reveling in a mind other than my own, hearing words I'd heard a million times but in a new way, imagining things I'd seen before but never with these eyes. I love reading books that catapult me into a state of being convinced that I can dream, be, do anything, books that fill me with gumption and feed my free spirit, or open my heart, or cleanse old wounds, or fill me with pride in my woman heritage. I've spent much of the past few, overcast days curled up in a large recliner with a warm mug of tea in one hand and a book or iPad in the other. I've cherished these days, knowing they are a rare treat and beautiful gift.

• Ingrid (Chandler)
• Heat Wave (Castle)
• Celebrating the Great Mother (Johnson & Shaw)
• Cocaine Blues (Greenwood)
• Women Who Run With the Wolves (Estes)
• Heat Rises (Castle)
• Women Healers of the World (Bellebuono)
• Seasons of the Witch (Monaghan)
• A Force for Good (Goleman)
• Frozen Heat (Castle)
• Will I Ever Be Good Enough? (McBride)
• Goodnight Mr. Wodehouse (Sullivan)
• Flying Too High (Greenwood)
• Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines (Monaghan)
• Murder on the Ballarat Train (Greenwood)
• Wild (Strayed)
• The School of Essential Ingredients (Bauermeister)

Still on my short list...

• Communicating Nature
• Persuasion
• Wise Women
• Big Magic
• The Penelopiad
• The Mandala Workbook
• Almost Famous Women
• The Road
• Eleanor Roosevelt Vol. 1
• Station Eleven
• Seven Summers 
• The Rabbit Back Literature Society
• The Art of Eating
• The Host

what i wish i could spend more time doing

I think I'm very good at creating holistic plans to heal dysfunctional human systems.

Put another way, I'm really good at observing pieces and entireties of networks that are about or involve people, identifying flaws and problems, intuiting detailed solutions, and draftings plans to make the networks more efficient, effective, and functional. I then hand plans off, with advice, to people who will implement them.

Now if I could just find ways to make money doing it...

a time to breathe in and a time to breathe out

  1There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—

      2A time to give birth and a time to die;
            A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.

      3A time to kill and a time to heal;
            A time to tear down and a time to build up.

      4A time to weep and a time to laugh;
            A time to mourn and a time to dance.

      5A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
            A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.

      6A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
            A time to keep and a time to throw away.

      7A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
            A time to be silent and a time to speak.

      8A time to love and a time to hate;
            A time for war and a time for peace.

A time to breathe in and a time to breathe out. Or, a time to consume and a time to create. It's a spiraling circle, alternating from one extreme, through a transition, to another extreme, through another transition, always trying to work upward in the soul. 

11He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.

12I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime;13moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God. 

The spiraling circle speaks of balance and seasons. It speaks of change and growth. It allows time to sit and time to run. This is not a gospel preached in our modern world, where it's all fast-fast-fast and move-move-move. Bad experiences and feelings are suppressed, and joy is pushed away for fear of "tempting fate." 

But I am learning to surrender to the circle. I am learning that there are times to breathe in–to consume, to bring things into myself, to take–and times to breathe out–to create, to take things unto others, to give. Currently, I am breathing in.... and meanwhile, my stack of books to consume grows ever taller ;). 

22I have seen that nothing is better than that [wo]man should be happy in [her] activities, for that is [her] lot. For who will bring [her] to see what will occur after [her]?

on why i ignored my one-quarter scottish ancestry for ten years

About six months ago, I began feeling a need to reconnect with my Scottish roots. This yearning. A hole. I began doing things on my own but didn't talk about it with anyone. This morning I realized why, and why I also haven't openly celebrated my heritage and my pride for over ten years.

• I moved away from my family, who had raised me with Scottish food and traditions and dance and festivals, and I didn't take/haven't taken the time to maintain that at college, with my husband, or with my children. 
• I realized that my friends didn't think it was cool that I was Scottish. I got the vibe that it was "quaint." Of course, now I wonder if unconsciously-passed-down perceptions and traditions and ideologies haven't played a part in that. Almost all of my friends have had a lot of English blood (as do I also). The Scots and the English have always had a tense relationship. And even in America, a lot of Scots emigrated to the Southern states, and the South has also had a tense relationships with other parts of the country. This is all very hard to explain. But I'm trying to express that I perceived being Scottish made me different from my friends and it was hard to appreciate that difference. [I'm remembering now, once or twice in college, I heard a student across the quad practicing bagpipes in the evenings. And I loved it; it made me feel at home. Everyone I overheard talking about it said it was stupid or annoying and they wished it would stop, some of them yelling at the piper.]
• Scots have stereotypes. As do any and every group. And the stereotypes push me to shy away from associating myself with it out of fear of being pre-judged. But that's just silly, and I'm trying to move past that. 
• The things I've always gleaned from stories about my Scottish ancestors that I've loved the most and wanted to be also happen to be things that are, at present, usually culturally unacceptable to be as a woman (let alone a Mormon woman or Christian woman or mother woman, or a woman who's always been complimented on for her "niceness," etc.....): stubborn, willful, independent, wild, pioneering, passionate, boisterous, and rebellious. 

So here's to being stubborn, willful, and independent, passionate, pioneering, and wild. Here's to (yet again, because who doesn't give themselves this speech at least once every few months?) rebelling against everything I've thought I've been told I always should be or shouldn't be, and just being whomever I want to be, doing whatever makes me feel joyful and whole. People say you should live for your responsibilities and for others and not for yourself, but I don't have the strength or motivation to reach out and live for others and fulfill my responsibilities unless I first love, care for, and have rights for myself. When I do, I find myself tearing out in the world to fight and love and to act with a fierceness and loyalty that surprises me. 

“It’s not the critic who counts; it’s not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done the better. The credit belongs to those of us who are actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. We strive valiantly and sometimes there’s the triumph of achievement but at the worst, we fail, but at least we fail while daring greatly.” --Theodore Roosevelt