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Aphrodite After Therapy

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“If music be the food of love, play on,” says Duke Orsino at the opening of Shakespeare’s comedy, Twelfth Night. He goes on to request his musicians give him such an excess of music that he may kill his appetite for it entirely. And with it, his yearning for Olivia, the woman who does not yearn for him.

Without discounting the full weight of Orsino’s truth and his pain, I’d like to take a moment and focus only on that first statement. Playing on.

It’s a tricky skill — a complex finagling of fingers on keys, you might say — to learn how to play on when we lose a mighty love.

I played the trickster Maria many years ago in a community theater production of the Bard’s play. And in a twist-outcome befitting the tangled love lines in all of Shakespeare’s romantic plots, I fell for the Duke, and he for me. Sorry, fair Olivia.

When our hearts were no longer star-crossed, I had a hard time recovering. I struggled to write and create. I battled depression and grief. Playing on required a lot of help and guidance from a therapist, as well as from all my loving friends and family.

Slowly, quietly, softly, in my early morning hours always devoted to my writing, I began to hear … musical words. I jotted them down, not knowing what to do with them until my phenomenally talented musician friend, Tim Birchard, suggested turning the poems into songs. Eventually, Tim’s wife Cheryl brought her powerful voice into the studio. And together, we collaborated, crafted, and crooned. Plenty of times, I cried because the more we refined the lyrics, the more I healed my heart and coaxed my soul out of hiding.

And so, without further ado, I bring you “Aphrodite After Therapy.” An EP gathering together a quartet of songs documenting my breakdown and my rebuilding. My return to music as the food of love. My testament to the resilience of human love, that elemental universal force which never ceases to play on…and on…and on.

You can listen to the album for free from Tim’s own music site. It’s also available to stream on iTunes and Spotify. If you choose to give monetarily, please know your gift supports the supremely talented and kind musicians who helped me piece this project together. And if you’d rather give something other than funds, we welcome your feedback in posting a review, as well as your shares across your social media circles.

 

Early praise for Aphrodite After Therapy…

“It’s Meatloaf and ABBA and Dan Hicks and Queen and Grease and…wow!”–Jason from Texas

 

Justin from Colorado says Aphrodite After Therapy is a “…two-ton slab of healing…”!

 

Tidy Marie Kondo

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Is it true that how you acquire, keep, and shelve your books is a reflection of how you maintain friendships? Can a properly folded pair of socks improve your relationship with siblings and parents?

Before you dive down the Netflix rabbit hole and bingewatch Marie Kondo’s hit series on tidying up, check out the book that sparked the joyful spiritual transformation inherent to tidying up.

Kondo, Marie. The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Trans. Cathy Hirano. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2014. Print.

Genre: nonfiction

Summary: Tidying coach and expert Marie Kondo shares in this book the top-secret techniques she normally teaches one-on-one to clients paying top-dollar. Throughout, she defies conventional wisdom and practice so that the act of tidying up can be done only once in your life and never again. And, if you follow instructions carefully, you might just tidy up your soul, too.

Critique: Did you notice how the title of this book sort of repeats itself? Much of the text will do that, too. Many paragraphs will feel not like a progression of thoughts, but more like multiple iterations of the same sentence. I chalk this up to the difficulties inherent in translating — supremely demonstrated in this snippet from RadioLab.

Besides the repetition, the first fifty pages or so feel like the cousins of a Popeil infomercial. Kondo beats a steady drum to advertise that these methods are hers, hers alone, perfected over decades, beginning when she was but a tweenager obsessed with lifestyle magazines, and that she has trademarked these techniques as the KonMari method. (And in case you couldn’t figure out the etymological roots of that mysterious moniker, she tells you: it is her name, flipped and abbreviated. Well played, Ms. Kondo. Well played.)

I promise I am not merely quibbling over this book’s minor flaws and quirks. My hope is that if you know about these flaws in advance, you will smile at them and then read the book all the way through. Because you should. Kondo has an uncanny way of rooting out why we hoard, why we clutter, why we stockpile, why we acquireandacquireandacquire, how these habits hurt us emotionally, and why our repeated attempts to clean up and get organized ultimately fail within a few months.

As I noted above, Kondo defies our conventional tidying habits. She might as well. They don’t work. But the real knock-out epiphany lurking in her methods is not just its originality. Kondo links the way we treat our home and our stuff to the ways we treat the people in our lives. (Especially ourselves.)

Is it true that how you acquire, keep, and shelve your books is a reflection of how you maintain friendships?

How does a properly folded pair of socks improve your relationship with siblings and parents?

Can you really find true love (or better treasure your soul’s mate) by giving an honorable farewell to old mementos?

Will a tidy home actually make you a more joyful person?

These questions may seem innocuous. Inane. Insane? But when it comes to finding enduring happiness, the questions are as worth the asking as the methods are worth the trying. I mean, heck, think about it. What if all that’s keeping us from experiencing joyous and fulfilling lives is a poorly folded pair of socks?

My Bearings

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The bear track halted my run. It and a string of identical cousins imprinted the sandy trail ahead of me. If I paid no attention to the crescent moons pressed by the claws, the tracks resembled a child’s delicate footprint. Rounded, plump indents. Chubby toes.

The cherubic tread traveled north on the trail, the same direction I was going.

A thought shoved stiff rebar down my spine: how fresh were these tracks?

I am no practiced or professional tracker. I have friends who are. If only they were there with me. Or, if only I had cell service! Then I could beam them some pics and they could tell me, “Bah, those tracks are weeks old. You’re fine.” Or, “GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE!”

The other shoe prints and horse hoof indents decorating the trail all appeared mottled with time or wind-smudged; their edges indistinct. Only my marks and the bear’s were crisply defined, trodden atop all the others.

A wintry gust shoved through the canyon. It pried under the insulated clothing and licked goosebumps across my skin.

I traced the tracks backwards. How long had I shared the trail with them without notice?

Quite a while.

My stomach dropped somewhere below my knees. That bear might be only a few yards ahead! And I was miles from the trailhead, completely alone.

With clumsy, shaking hands, I unsnapped my water pack and rummaged its pockets. I heard in my stooped position nothing but the chrrgg-chrrgg-chrrgg of adrenaline-laced blood surging through my system. At last, I procured the little canister of pepper spray.

As I slid the pack back on, my nostrils scoured the breeze for that unmistakable tangy, musky bear body odor. When I smelled nothing but the cold, many thoughts crowded in. I was being irrational. Bears avoid people at all costs. Even if those tracks were fresh, odds were good that my scent and my noises had probably prodded the bear to jog way ahead and hide to evade me entirely.

I resumed my run. Calm returned gradually and with it came the question I’d been taught to ask whenever my overactive imagination led me too far into fear’s terrain: Does this feel familiar?

While my imagination serves my writing well, it often skews reality for me. When I am afraid, I can spin a thousand fictitious narratives around the potential causes and outcomes. But those scenarios bear zero connection to the reality of the moment. They are usually a facade, a replica or facsimile, compiled from some past trauma.

Essentially, from a young age I became adept at buying fear’s tickets and riding the panic coaster through every loop dee loop.

When I asked myself if this fear in this moment and in this place felt familiar, I readily answered: yes!

On another wintry day in this very canyon where the sandstone cliffs resemble shortbread castles and baggy elephants, I had experienced fear. Perhaps exactly a year ago, I hiked this trail. At that time, I was facing the last winter and holiday season I’d ever get with my beloved best friend. On some level, I’d probably elected to do a strenuous hike because I needed to prove that I could endure. That I could survive the looming loss.

How could I possibly go on writing without this most trusted reader delighting in my creations? Who would I be without this person in my life? I was certain the answers to these questions awaited me at the end of the hike.

Back then, this trek was arduous for me. I’d packed gobs of food and water. The eight or so miles took most of the day for me to walk, with plenty of breaks to rest my aching feet and legs. I can still remember how I wanted to turn back after the first couple miles. No way could I complete this hike. But I did, practically staggering the last mile back to the car.

Fast forward, and here I was, out for a leisurely run. I knew I’d finish the circuit in hardly more than an hour.

The irrational fear dusted up by those bear tracks had nothing to do with the present moment. They stirred up fear I’d known in the past.

I marveled at my transformation. My skill. My strength. My power. That girl in that situation was a thousand miles away.

And the bear tracks? Gone. Although I never saw them veer off the trail, they did vanish, freeing me to forge my own way forward.

 

 

Photo credits: “Rock Creek Trail” and “Sandstone Castles” copyright Jennifer Mason; featured image “Canyon Curves” also copyright Jennifer Mason; “Black Bear Tracks” by K Young CC 3.0.

When the Words Breathe

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A five-week beginner meditation class? Right now? In the middle of letting go…processing loss…the death of my wildest dreams?

Yes, please!

For the first class, I and fifty other beginners settled on the zafu cushions at the local Dharma Center and listened to the instructor’s lectures on mindfulness, the Four Noble Truths, accepting the inevitability of suffering as a path to ending pain, and loving-kindness. I spent solid hunks of hours, eyes closed, mind quiet, awareness focused solely on the body and the breath. I knew only the contours of the present moment.

Inhale.
Exhale.
Notice: I am breathing.
Repeat.

Meditation was a cinch!

At the end of class, we novices received a homework assignment: meditate every day. For as many minutes as we wanted. At any time of day.

A week passed and we beginning meditators congregated at the Dharma Center yet again.

“How was the practice going at home?” the instructor inquired.

We all shrugged, hoping to pass off guilt as nonchalance because hardly anyone actually did the homework. Or maybe we did for a day or two, but then…well, a million factors fouled up repeat attempts. A nagging voice owled in the back of the head insisted: there wasn’t time, and besides, what good would it do, and wouldn’t it be more satisfying to binge The Grand Tour?

That was certainly my experience. Meditation didn’t fit in the morning routine. It didn’t slide anywhere into the afternoon. And before I knew it, 11pm haunted the clocks and no way was I going to stay up even later to sit and breathe.

Tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow! Cross my heart.

And then…tomorrow’s 11pm arrived with no meditation accomplished.

I marveled at my wild, insatiable inability. Didn’t I feel fabulous after meditating in class? Yes. Didn’t I find a stronger, swifter ability to identify my negative, self-defeating thoughts and habits and work through them? Without a doubt.

So why couldn’t I make the practice happen? Why couldn’t I get it to stick? And why did this mystifying resistance feel so familiar?

Oooohhhh, riiiiight. I had the same trouble, the same reluctance, establishing a reliable daily writing practice.

Plenty of writers struggle with what the pros call “B-I-C,” or butt-in-chair” time. And just like the meditation practice, writing habits suffer from those myriad competing factors.

Time. Work. Family. Pets. Time. Add to all that the inner voice—the one made of turpentine and bolt rust—which hisses: What’s the point? It’s not like you’re any good. No one’s going to bother reading that drivel. Published anything lately? Or…ever?

And yet, in order to succeed (master writing skills, complete a project, or revise a story), the writer must create a solid writing habit. Likewise, if the novice meditator is to ever acquire equanimity (or just a smidgeon of enlightenment), she must develop the practice.

“Even the Dalai Lama practices meditating every day,” my instructor kindly coached.

With only a couple classes left and no still no devoted practice in place, I weaseled the conundrum, ripping it open to find the solution in its guts. Showing up to class was easy. I never missed it. Of course, I had paid for the class; whereas, I paid nothing to meditate at home. Was the solution a penalty jar to which I would pay a fine each time I failed to meditate? Probably not. It hadn’t helped the writing. Pay to take a writing class—hell, go in debt for an entire graduate program—but when the course is over, no one and nothing is around mandating you sit down and write…at home…for free.

What else made attending class so easy? What other factors made the act of showing up to meditate one night a week so intractable?

Well, the “classroom” in the Dharma Center always had the essential supplies set out and ready for use. A cushion was there waiting for me. Also, the instructor always had a topic to explore, a purpose for being there, a technique to try during the guided meditations. Finally, each class always concluded with a spoken reminder—an invitation—to return for more practice. “See you next week. Same time,” the instructor said.

As an experiment, I replicated these classroom facets at home. I set up my little meditation space: a cushion, a blanket, and a timer were now waiting for me. I then considered the purpose of my at-home meditation. I pondered the technique or focus I could apply. Then I designated my class time: the next day at such-and-such time. I spoke the invitation aloud. When the appointed time rolled around, to my delight, I showed up, I sat down, began to breathe, and listened as the bolt rust voice gurgled up and did its best to dissuade me.

I was neither surprised nor discouraged. The voice arose in the actual meditation class, too. The instructor knew it would and told us novices to simply notice it and return the attention to our breathing. As time expanded, the voice diminished. The timer dinged and I voiced the invitation to return, “Same time tomorrow.”

It’s been a few weeks since class ended, but my daily practice continues. It has solidified into my routine. And to my fellow writers, I offer this approach if you are struggling to pin down your own regular writing practice. Set up the writing space and set out the supplies. Make sure a chair, paper, and pen are always there, waiting for you to arrive. Plan your “lesson.” Consider what you will do when you arrive at the writing space. The purpose can be open (I will write) or specific (I will write chapter one). Or, you can experiment using an exercise from a craft book. Then appoint the “class time.” Tomorrow at 6 a.m. or 10:30 p.m. Maybe plug it into your calendar, as you might a real class.

Finally, when the time comes, arrive at your space. Take your supplies in hand. Notice the turpentine talk, and without buying into its narrative, simply write.

Write one word.
Write another.
Notice: I am writing.
Repeat.

Let the words flow as effortless, as limitless, as essential as breath.

Images (from top to bottom): “Meditation” by Worlds’ Direction (PD); “a bit clumsy” by Vicki DeLoach (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0); “Meditation” by Scott Schumacher (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0); and “Pen” by Jorge Letria (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

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You’ve eaten…maybe prayed…definitely loved. Now it’s time to get magical in some very practical ways.

Gilbert, Elizabeth. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. New York: Riverhead Books, 2015. Print.

Genre: nonfiction, creative inspiration

Summary: The sage and witty writer who brought you the worldwide bestseller, The Misadventures of a Messed-up Woman Traveling Through Three Countries in Three Months, All to Find the True Source of Joy (alternately and succinctly titled Eat, Pray, Love) returns to tell creative types and would-be creative types: own your soul and go make something today!

Critique: I will often recommend this as a craft book to writers, even though it does not tell them how to better hone the craft of writing. It will, however, help them craft a better soul more suited to the lifelong pursuit of writing!

While each “chapter” of this text is only a paragraph or three, the book feels densely packed with fresh perspectives on the value of and necessity for living creatively. For instance, Gilbert notes that as a species, humans took up art at least 40,000 years ago. Surprisingly, we only bothered with agriculture about 10,000 years ago. That means we found it more important to make attractive, superfluous items than to reliably feed ourselves!

Gilbert gives everyone a permission slip to be creative and express themselves. And I mean that literally and figuratively. She reminds readers to get off the tightrope slung between “I suck” and “I am greatest.” Stand firmer on the grounds of, “I am here.” That’s it. Neither bad, nor good. Just here. And while here, entitled to your own voice and vision.

She also surmises that if you feel the urge to create, but too often ignore it, then you’ll likely spend your time destroying something. A bank account, a relationship, or maybe your own self-esteem.

Just as in Eat, Pray, Love, readers will find here Gilbert’s signature style, which never strays far from nakedly honest, graciously humble, and fantastically witty. Her voice — whether on the page or recorded for audiobooks — is reassuring, kind, and invigorating. It’s a voice so comforting I’ve started using it whenever my negative, snitty inner critic begins to gabble on about what a joke I am. Before that crank gets on a roll, I remind myself that my inner critic is NOT my inner editor. My inner editor loves my work and it tells me (in Liz Gilbert’s charming, sparkling voice) how much it wants me to succeed!

So, is there a project you’re dodging? A dream you’ve harbored but never sailed on open waters? Maybe it’s time to stop making excuses and start making big magic.