So many people have expressed an interest in my interview with Immaculée Ilibagiza, author of Left to Tell: Finding God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, that I wanted to let those of you who don’t have Sirius Satellite in on a cost-effective way to sign up or have a temporary free trial so you can at least listen to the show with Immaculée:
If you don't have Sirius, you can go to their website at http://www.sirius.com and either buy a full subscription OR get the free 3-day trial membership that will allow you to listen on your computer via the internet.
This is thanks to my brilliant assistant, Joya Scott, who can find things online I couldn’t begin to think of. (William and I went to her play, The Answer Is Horse, yesterday and it was terrific.)
Best wishes,
Victoria
Monday, July 24, 2006
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
A Midsummer Day’s Blog
Hello, all. I’m three days late on my promised 15th/30th schedule, but sometimes I believe these things take form when they’re supposed to.
We’re having a lovely summer day after several scorchers. I promised I wouldn’t complain since the winter here pretty much lasts till June, but when it was too humid to breathe, I complained a little.
To anyone who didn’t get the mailing about the audio of Fit from Within: it is ready and available from www.simplyaudiobooks.com. It is free for the first 30 days, but at least half of that, maybe more, has passed, so if you’d like a downloadable audiobook of Fit from Within: 101 Simple Secrets to Change Your Body & Your Life at no cost, go the Simply Audiobooks site right now.
William and I have been walking to Central Park on my non-gym mornings and climbing the rock outcroppings. We pretend it’s the wilderness. I know: pitiful, right? The park is wonderful, though. This morning we saw some kind of long-beaked water bird on one of the ponds. All the birds are friendly and we go so early it’s kind of private and very quiet. Quite a few homeless people sleep in the park, though, and that’s sad. Sometimes we’ll climb a rock and when we get to the top of it, there’ll be a guy, sometimes two or three, asleep on the hard rock. It’s illegal to stay in the park overnight, so I guess sleeping on a rock is arrest-proof in a way a ground-level bench would not be. The fact that there are homeless people seems very wrong to me. I spent my formative years when, with the exception of “bums” confined to one district of major cities, everybody had a place to live.
I’m working hard on Fat, Broke and Lonely and think I have some good stuff. Prayers appreciated. As you know, this book was not my idea and I have to trust that it was given to me to write because I really am the person to write it, that it will reach its intended audience, do good in the world, and carry me to my next indicated thing. My deadline was moved up from 12/1 to 9/15 so I’m aiming at a chapter (about 1200 words) a day. When the Muse shows up---today she did---that’s easy. When she doesn’t, it’s a grind.
The radio show is the most fun. I love it to pieces. I hope you get Sirius Satellite as soon as you can so you can listen. I think you can now get a subscription and listen on your computer so you don’t have to buy a special radio as was the case before. If you’re interested, go to www.sirius.com and see what it says. I’m techno-challenged, but I did hear this over at the Sirius studios so it should be right.
This is Weddings Week at Martha Stewart Living so my guest for Saturday will be Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway, author of The Wedding Goddess: Turning Wedding Stress Into Wedding Bliss, and afterwards I’ll tape the show that will air Sunday, July 30, probably the most important show I’ve done so far. I’ll have on Imaculee Ilibagiza whom you may have seen on the last PBS special with Wayne Dyer. Imaculee survived the Rwandan genocide, although it took almost her entire family and she herself was starved and hunted for three months. During this time of going through what no being God ever made should have to, she had profound spiritual experiences that led to her knowing that she had to forgive the murderers. She prayed 15 to 20 hours a day while hidden in a tiny bathroom with eight other women and wasting away to 65 pounds. When she prayed, the fear left her. She became convinced that although evil had overtaken these people, their souls were not evil; they had done horrific things and had to be held responsible for their actions but they were still God’s children. Her book is Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwadan Holocaust. Please buy this book and read it and let it lift you up. Christiane Northrup gave a blurb and said, “This book renwed my faith in God and the Universe in a profound and real way that has changed me forever.” I so concur. I want to give it as a gift to everyone I know. We need this kind of faith and love right now, maybe more than ever.
The world situation weighs heavy on my mind, of course. Living here in New York, I know a lot of people with family in Israel and some with family in Lebanon and Syria. It is so frightening, so inexplicable. Especially after reading Imaculee’s book and seeing how absurd war and killing looks when there’s even a little space of time for looking back, the idea that it’s happening again---in Israel and Lebanon, in Iraq, in other places around the world---is totally baffling to me. One of our New York papers bore the headline today: “Hez Says US Is Next.” It was an ugly, paper-selling pronouncement but it got me to do the disaster preparedness they say everyone should. I bought batteries and canned food and bottled water. William tried to make light of it all by saying, “Why did you get cat food? If there were an emergency, we’d eat the cat.” And then he gave me that grin that makes him look about twelve years old.
Last weekend we went to a cabaret performance because our neighbor, veteran composer and performer, John Wallowitch was appearing. One of the other artists on the program was Julie Gold, composer of the moving song Bette Midler recorded, “From a Distance.” You know the one: “From a distance, we are instruments, playing in a common band. It’s a song of hope, a song of peace, a song of everyman….” It seems so apropos, so necessary. I wish it could be piped into the halls of Congress and the UN and everywhere else that people make decisions that impact the world. Julie has agreed to be on my show this fall---appropriately on Veteran’s Day, November 11. I am so excited and grateful.
And life goes on: working out, climbing rocks, writing at Starbucks every morning, tending to the rest of my multi-faceted business life at home in the afternoons. (It’s weird to call what I do a business. I mean, I make my living at it, but I don’t think of it as a business. It’s more a calling or a commitment or a passion or just what I came here to do.) My daughter Adair opens tonight in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” at the Inwood Shakespeare Festival (obviously not all Shakespeare, but all classical theatre) in Inwood Park way Uptown. We are in Midtown (in the 50s), the main drag of Harlem is 125th St., and Inwood Park where she’s performing is around 214th St. It’s hardly like New York: hilly, full of trees, but still Manhattan Island. Adair never likes people she knows coming to her shows until they’ve been up for awhile so William and Sian (William’s daughter) and Nick (Adair’s husband) and I will see it weekend after next. By then, Adair will be in rehearsals for The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, a children’s theater production in which she has the female lead.
Tonight William and I will go down to the East Village to my favorite restaurant Caravan of Dreams. We’ll have dinner with Pam Grout, author of wonderful books including God Doesn’t Have Bad Hair Days, and her 12-year-old daughter Tasmin. Pam does a lot of travel writing and this summer they’re a mom-and-daughter travelin’ team going all over the country.
Tomorrow night we’ll have dinner in the theatre district with Jack Moran, my first (deceased) husband’s eldest brother who will be in from Kansas City with his wife. He and his son Greg (a doctor in LA who does some script-writing for the TV series ER) do an admirable job of keeping Adair and me as part of the Moran family. Jack officiated at Adair and Nick’s wedding but we haven’t seen him since then.
I spoke in Orlando last week for the American Auctioneer’s Association Auxiliary, but otherwise I’m staying close to home, writing, doing life-coaching by telephone, and filling in the upcoming weekends with radio guests. My days are very happy. I hope yours are, too.
My very best,
Victoria
We’re having a lovely summer day after several scorchers. I promised I wouldn’t complain since the winter here pretty much lasts till June, but when it was too humid to breathe, I complained a little.
To anyone who didn’t get the mailing about the audio of Fit from Within: it is ready and available from www.simplyaudiobooks.com. It is free for the first 30 days, but at least half of that, maybe more, has passed, so if you’d like a downloadable audiobook of Fit from Within: 101 Simple Secrets to Change Your Body & Your Life at no cost, go the Simply Audiobooks site right now.
William and I have been walking to Central Park on my non-gym mornings and climbing the rock outcroppings. We pretend it’s the wilderness. I know: pitiful, right? The park is wonderful, though. This morning we saw some kind of long-beaked water bird on one of the ponds. All the birds are friendly and we go so early it’s kind of private and very quiet. Quite a few homeless people sleep in the park, though, and that’s sad. Sometimes we’ll climb a rock and when we get to the top of it, there’ll be a guy, sometimes two or three, asleep on the hard rock. It’s illegal to stay in the park overnight, so I guess sleeping on a rock is arrest-proof in a way a ground-level bench would not be. The fact that there are homeless people seems very wrong to me. I spent my formative years when, with the exception of “bums” confined to one district of major cities, everybody had a place to live.
I’m working hard on Fat, Broke and Lonely and think I have some good stuff. Prayers appreciated. As you know, this book was not my idea and I have to trust that it was given to me to write because I really am the person to write it, that it will reach its intended audience, do good in the world, and carry me to my next indicated thing. My deadline was moved up from 12/1 to 9/15 so I’m aiming at a chapter (about 1200 words) a day. When the Muse shows up---today she did---that’s easy. When she doesn’t, it’s a grind.
The radio show is the most fun. I love it to pieces. I hope you get Sirius Satellite as soon as you can so you can listen. I think you can now get a subscription and listen on your computer so you don’t have to buy a special radio as was the case before. If you’re interested, go to www.sirius.com and see what it says. I’m techno-challenged, but I did hear this over at the Sirius studios so it should be right.
This is Weddings Week at Martha Stewart Living so my guest for Saturday will be Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway, author of The Wedding Goddess: Turning Wedding Stress Into Wedding Bliss, and afterwards I’ll tape the show that will air Sunday, July 30, probably the most important show I’ve done so far. I’ll have on Imaculee Ilibagiza whom you may have seen on the last PBS special with Wayne Dyer. Imaculee survived the Rwandan genocide, although it took almost her entire family and she herself was starved and hunted for three months. During this time of going through what no being God ever made should have to, she had profound spiritual experiences that led to her knowing that she had to forgive the murderers. She prayed 15 to 20 hours a day while hidden in a tiny bathroom with eight other women and wasting away to 65 pounds. When she prayed, the fear left her. She became convinced that although evil had overtaken these people, their souls were not evil; they had done horrific things and had to be held responsible for their actions but they were still God’s children. Her book is Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwadan Holocaust. Please buy this book and read it and let it lift you up. Christiane Northrup gave a blurb and said, “This book renwed my faith in God and the Universe in a profound and real way that has changed me forever.” I so concur. I want to give it as a gift to everyone I know. We need this kind of faith and love right now, maybe more than ever.
The world situation weighs heavy on my mind, of course. Living here in New York, I know a lot of people with family in Israel and some with family in Lebanon and Syria. It is so frightening, so inexplicable. Especially after reading Imaculee’s book and seeing how absurd war and killing looks when there’s even a little space of time for looking back, the idea that it’s happening again---in Israel and Lebanon, in Iraq, in other places around the world---is totally baffling to me. One of our New York papers bore the headline today: “Hez Says US Is Next.” It was an ugly, paper-selling pronouncement but it got me to do the disaster preparedness they say everyone should. I bought batteries and canned food and bottled water. William tried to make light of it all by saying, “Why did you get cat food? If there were an emergency, we’d eat the cat.” And then he gave me that grin that makes him look about twelve years old.
Last weekend we went to a cabaret performance because our neighbor, veteran composer and performer, John Wallowitch was appearing. One of the other artists on the program was Julie Gold, composer of the moving song Bette Midler recorded, “From a Distance.” You know the one: “From a distance, we are instruments, playing in a common band. It’s a song of hope, a song of peace, a song of everyman….” It seems so apropos, so necessary. I wish it could be piped into the halls of Congress and the UN and everywhere else that people make decisions that impact the world. Julie has agreed to be on my show this fall---appropriately on Veteran’s Day, November 11. I am so excited and grateful.
And life goes on: working out, climbing rocks, writing at Starbucks every morning, tending to the rest of my multi-faceted business life at home in the afternoons. (It’s weird to call what I do a business. I mean, I make my living at it, but I don’t think of it as a business. It’s more a calling or a commitment or a passion or just what I came here to do.) My daughter Adair opens tonight in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” at the Inwood Shakespeare Festival (obviously not all Shakespeare, but all classical theatre) in Inwood Park way Uptown. We are in Midtown (in the 50s), the main drag of Harlem is 125th St., and Inwood Park where she’s performing is around 214th St. It’s hardly like New York: hilly, full of trees, but still Manhattan Island. Adair never likes people she knows coming to her shows until they’ve been up for awhile so William and Sian (William’s daughter) and Nick (Adair’s husband) and I will see it weekend after next. By then, Adair will be in rehearsals for The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, a children’s theater production in which she has the female lead.
Tonight William and I will go down to the East Village to my favorite restaurant Caravan of Dreams. We’ll have dinner with Pam Grout, author of wonderful books including God Doesn’t Have Bad Hair Days, and her 12-year-old daughter Tasmin. Pam does a lot of travel writing and this summer they’re a mom-and-daughter travelin’ team going all over the country.
Tomorrow night we’ll have dinner in the theatre district with Jack Moran, my first (deceased) husband’s eldest brother who will be in from Kansas City with his wife. He and his son Greg (a doctor in LA who does some script-writing for the TV series ER) do an admirable job of keeping Adair and me as part of the Moran family. Jack officiated at Adair and Nick’s wedding but we haven’t seen him since then.
I spoke in Orlando last week for the American Auctioneer’s Association Auxiliary, but otherwise I’m staying close to home, writing, doing life-coaching by telephone, and filling in the upcoming weekends with radio guests. My days are very happy. I hope yours are, too.
My very best,
Victoria
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Something to blog about…
July 4, 2006
Happy holiday (and to you who are self-employed: what are you doing at your computer? It’s a holiday.) Of course, I’m at my computer but am feeling enough of the holiday spirit to be taking some blog-time instead of jumping right into my writing for the day.
My life has been rich and full. The past few days we’ve had as our houseguest from Kansas City, Chris Michaels, author of Your Soul’s Assignment. (You can read about it at www.yoursoulsassignment.com and order it from online booksellers.) He was the guest on my live show on Saturday (www.charmedliferadio.com). I taped two other shows, first Michelle Anton with Weekend Entrepreneur: 101 Great Ways to Earn Extra Cash (that one will air in September when I’m in Vermont for a wedding). I so took to Michelle and if she moves back to NY from LA I think we’ll be friends. It’s funny because Michelle was the longtime executive producer for Dr. Laura, whom I listened to almost every day from 1992 to 1999 as I drove my daughter to her various classes and activities. Much of the time I was in total disagreement with Dr. L., but it was compelling radio. And every day she would say, “Michelle Anton, selecting our music and screening your calls…” It was so interesting to be sitting with this woman whose name I’d heard Monday through Friday for the better part of a decade.
My second taping was Sherry Boone, my spiritual “action partner” and an amazing soprano who’s appeared on Broadway in Jelly’s Last Jam, Marie Christine, and Ragtime. Our topic: “Star Quality.” Sherry and I had such a lively conversation I kept thinking “TV show, TV show. . .I think we could have a TV show. . .” We’ll see about that. You can hear the radio show if you’d like on Sunday, July 9, 2 p.m. Eastern, on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius 112. Even if you don’t have Sirius and you have to sit in somebody else’s car, I think this will be worth tuning in for. It was very spirited and Sherry definitely has “star quality”---the real thing, not sham and show---down pat.
Anyway, after Sherry’s taping she and Chris and I went to Rockefeller Center for iced tea at the café that, in the winter, is the ice rink. It was a bright, warm, glorious day and this spectacular city was showing itself off. I felt so full. ‘You know how it is when you are so content, so in your right place, so surrounded by people you think are magnificent that you really do get that “cup runneth over” feeling? That was how it was.
On Sunday Chris spoke for Unity of New York with the message that we are indeed here only to love. He told the story of his relationship with his dad, a man who is very narrow in his views of life, lifestyle, and religion. For years the two of them did not speak. Then Chris realized that he didn’t have to understand his father, only love him. And when he did that, the love poured out from his dad’s side, too. They still don’t understand each other and his father has never been to Chris’s church (the Center for Spiritual Living in Kansas City), heard him speak, or read his book. And yet, they love one another today. (If you want to hear Chris speak---he is gifted---go to www.cslkc.org.)
After church, Chris and my husband William and I saw the final performance of Doubt on Broadway. It was a gripping drama, superbly acted by Dame Aileen Atkins and Ron Eldard. I usually only pay Broadway prices for musicals, but the dramas can be so moving. I mentioned in my last blog going to the Wednesday matinee of Awake & Sing! There was a small black dog in the show and during a pregnant pause in the second act, an elderly man in the audience announced for all to hear: “That dog’s a really good actor.” Ah, the theater!
Another moving and adventurous day for me was Thursday, June 29. I usually dash off to Starbucks to work on my book first thing, but that morning I read the newspaper before I left and learned that the entire collection of Martha Luther King’s written artifacts---homework from school and seminary, letters, notes for speeches and sermons, telegrams---would be on display at Sotheby’s just until 1 p.m. that afternoon. My schedule said I was to write from 8 to 12:00, have lunch, and be home by 1 to meet up with my assistant for an afternoon of work on the radio show and the various clerical and organizational tasks of keeping my multi-lane little business afloat. But I knew I was supposed to be at Sotheby’s, so I went.
And it was breathtaking. I was fighting tears as soon as I got in the room. I’m always moved by people’s handwritten works. It’s as if they leave a bit of themselves behind with the words. And rather like the psychics who claim they can “read” a person if they’re holding her necklace or his money clip, I felt I was with Dr. King as I perused his voluminous writings. Later, when I did get to my computer, I was enlivened. It was if spending an hour in the presence of greatness had opened the channels for inspiration to flow to me.
That evening, I went to the Oxonian Society to hear Ralph Abernathy. The Oxonians are the Oxford alumni in New York, but there are so few of them they let other people join, too, and they bring in luminaries to speak a few times a month. I know that not everyone likes Ralph Abernathy, but I like him a lot. He talked about the danger of narrow morality, “bedroom morality,” he called it, and how focusing so narrowly on the issues of abortion and gay marriage can shut people’s eyes to war, poverty, disease, children without health care and so forth. As a speaker he was funny and powerful. And when I asked if he’d be on my radio show, he said he would. I don’t do politics on my show but I do like looking at fascinating people who have something to say. If people disagree, they can call in.
The final thing I’ll share is about my talk on June 25 at Mama Gena’s School of the Womanly Arts (www.mamagenas.com ) . I’d heard about Mama Gena’s from TV---it’s been featured on Today and all over the place---and knew it was a program to teach woman to accept and enjoy themselves sexually and passionately, to unleash the power of pleasure and the power within. They use my book Fit from Within as one of their texts, and I’d had this date to speak on my calendar for a couple of months. When the day came, however, I was tired, my book deadline had been moved up, and I could have used a Sunday afternoon off. Then I got there. What amazing energy!---150 women believing in themselves and their right to enjoy their bodies and their lives. Mama Gena greeted me and said, “By the way, there are some VIPs in the front row---Dr. Christiane Northrup and her daughters, and Heather Graham.”
Wow. Dr. Northrup has endorsed two of my books but we’d never met. And Heather Graham---my goodness! Rollergirl! And I’d loved her in The Guru, a comedy with a message. Well, VIPs or not, out I went to “Here Comes the Sun,” the theme song for my radio show, blaring from mega-speakers. It was thrilling. I spoke about the gist of Fit from Within---if eating is a problem, give it to your Higher Power; be willing to sit through the cravings until they go away; and treat yourself very, very well. Then I shared the “free square” concept from Creating a Charmed Life and that day’s idea from Younger by the Day, “More Fun Tomorrow.”
During the q & a, a woman had a question about her husband who’d started writing and how she could help him. As part of my answer, I shared that my husband had also started writing (The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing the Harmonica and The New American Expat) and had also written a wonderful screenplay. There’s some serious interest in it and, just as she’s plugging for her husband to get a publisher, I’m praying and envisioning that William’s screenplay becomes a movie. At the book table afterwards, a woman came up to me who works for a major studio. She said they’re looking for family-friendly scripts and for William to send his over, which he has done.
Of course there are no guarantees about anything, but I absolutely love seeing how the flow of life energy works. I was there, book deadline and all, met some people I’m so happy to know, shared the ideas I believe in with women who were open and receptive, and may have helped William take one further step toward his dream. Just thinking of how things work in that way makes me smile.
In closing, I just want to let you know that there is an article in the August issue of Body & Soul called “Dare to Dream!” I didn’t write it but I was interviewed for it and they use my vision map as the illustration for how to do one. So if you have any interest in learning more about vision-mapping and taking a look at my current one (it has the cutest picture of a pig on it…), get yourself the August Body & Soul. (And my show on Saturday July 8 will be about vision-mapping.)
Okay, friends, I’d better get my breakfast and head down to the café to write. I go there to get the stimulation of other people and the blissful isolation of knowing that nobody needs me for anything. That seems to be the perfect balance for writing. Be well and happy and thanks for stopping by. I’ll do another entry in the middle of the month.
May your life be charmed,
Victoria
Happy holiday (and to you who are self-employed: what are you doing at your computer? It’s a holiday.) Of course, I’m at my computer but am feeling enough of the holiday spirit to be taking some blog-time instead of jumping right into my writing for the day.
My life has been rich and full. The past few days we’ve had as our houseguest from Kansas City, Chris Michaels, author of Your Soul’s Assignment. (You can read about it at www.yoursoulsassignment.com and order it from online booksellers.) He was the guest on my live show on Saturday (www.charmedliferadio.com). I taped two other shows, first Michelle Anton with Weekend Entrepreneur: 101 Great Ways to Earn Extra Cash (that one will air in September when I’m in Vermont for a wedding). I so took to Michelle and if she moves back to NY from LA I think we’ll be friends. It’s funny because Michelle was the longtime executive producer for Dr. Laura, whom I listened to almost every day from 1992 to 1999 as I drove my daughter to her various classes and activities. Much of the time I was in total disagreement with Dr. L., but it was compelling radio. And every day she would say, “Michelle Anton, selecting our music and screening your calls…” It was so interesting to be sitting with this woman whose name I’d heard Monday through Friday for the better part of a decade.
My second taping was Sherry Boone, my spiritual “action partner” and an amazing soprano who’s appeared on Broadway in Jelly’s Last Jam, Marie Christine, and Ragtime. Our topic: “Star Quality.” Sherry and I had such a lively conversation I kept thinking “TV show, TV show. . .I think we could have a TV show. . .” We’ll see about that. You can hear the radio show if you’d like on Sunday, July 9, 2 p.m. Eastern, on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius 112. Even if you don’t have Sirius and you have to sit in somebody else’s car, I think this will be worth tuning in for. It was very spirited and Sherry definitely has “star quality”---the real thing, not sham and show---down pat.
Anyway, after Sherry’s taping she and Chris and I went to Rockefeller Center for iced tea at the café that, in the winter, is the ice rink. It was a bright, warm, glorious day and this spectacular city was showing itself off. I felt so full. ‘You know how it is when you are so content, so in your right place, so surrounded by people you think are magnificent that you really do get that “cup runneth over” feeling? That was how it was.
On Sunday Chris spoke for Unity of New York with the message that we are indeed here only to love. He told the story of his relationship with his dad, a man who is very narrow in his views of life, lifestyle, and religion. For years the two of them did not speak. Then Chris realized that he didn’t have to understand his father, only love him. And when he did that, the love poured out from his dad’s side, too. They still don’t understand each other and his father has never been to Chris’s church (the Center for Spiritual Living in Kansas City), heard him speak, or read his book. And yet, they love one another today. (If you want to hear Chris speak---he is gifted---go to www.cslkc.org.)
After church, Chris and my husband William and I saw the final performance of Doubt on Broadway. It was a gripping drama, superbly acted by Dame Aileen Atkins and Ron Eldard. I usually only pay Broadway prices for musicals, but the dramas can be so moving. I mentioned in my last blog going to the Wednesday matinee of Awake & Sing! There was a small black dog in the show and during a pregnant pause in the second act, an elderly man in the audience announced for all to hear: “That dog’s a really good actor.” Ah, the theater!
Another moving and adventurous day for me was Thursday, June 29. I usually dash off to Starbucks to work on my book first thing, but that morning I read the newspaper before I left and learned that the entire collection of Martha Luther King’s written artifacts---homework from school and seminary, letters, notes for speeches and sermons, telegrams---would be on display at Sotheby’s just until 1 p.m. that afternoon. My schedule said I was to write from 8 to 12:00, have lunch, and be home by 1 to meet up with my assistant for an afternoon of work on the radio show and the various clerical and organizational tasks of keeping my multi-lane little business afloat. But I knew I was supposed to be at Sotheby’s, so I went.
And it was breathtaking. I was fighting tears as soon as I got in the room. I’m always moved by people’s handwritten works. It’s as if they leave a bit of themselves behind with the words. And rather like the psychics who claim they can “read” a person if they’re holding her necklace or his money clip, I felt I was with Dr. King as I perused his voluminous writings. Later, when I did get to my computer, I was enlivened. It was if spending an hour in the presence of greatness had opened the channels for inspiration to flow to me.
That evening, I went to the Oxonian Society to hear Ralph Abernathy. The Oxonians are the Oxford alumni in New York, but there are so few of them they let other people join, too, and they bring in luminaries to speak a few times a month. I know that not everyone likes Ralph Abernathy, but I like him a lot. He talked about the danger of narrow morality, “bedroom morality,” he called it, and how focusing so narrowly on the issues of abortion and gay marriage can shut people’s eyes to war, poverty, disease, children without health care and so forth. As a speaker he was funny and powerful. And when I asked if he’d be on my radio show, he said he would. I don’t do politics on my show but I do like looking at fascinating people who have something to say. If people disagree, they can call in.
The final thing I’ll share is about my talk on June 25 at Mama Gena’s School of the Womanly Arts (www.mamagenas.com ) . I’d heard about Mama Gena’s from TV---it’s been featured on Today and all over the place---and knew it was a program to teach woman to accept and enjoy themselves sexually and passionately, to unleash the power of pleasure and the power within. They use my book Fit from Within as one of their texts, and I’d had this date to speak on my calendar for a couple of months. When the day came, however, I was tired, my book deadline had been moved up, and I could have used a Sunday afternoon off. Then I got there. What amazing energy!---150 women believing in themselves and their right to enjoy their bodies and their lives. Mama Gena greeted me and said, “By the way, there are some VIPs in the front row---Dr. Christiane Northrup and her daughters, and Heather Graham.”
Wow. Dr. Northrup has endorsed two of my books but we’d never met. And Heather Graham---my goodness! Rollergirl! And I’d loved her in The Guru, a comedy with a message. Well, VIPs or not, out I went to “Here Comes the Sun,” the theme song for my radio show, blaring from mega-speakers. It was thrilling. I spoke about the gist of Fit from Within---if eating is a problem, give it to your Higher Power; be willing to sit through the cravings until they go away; and treat yourself very, very well. Then I shared the “free square” concept from Creating a Charmed Life and that day’s idea from Younger by the Day, “More Fun Tomorrow.”
During the q & a, a woman had a question about her husband who’d started writing and how she could help him. As part of my answer, I shared that my husband had also started writing (The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing the Harmonica and The New American Expat) and had also written a wonderful screenplay. There’s some serious interest in it and, just as she’s plugging for her husband to get a publisher, I’m praying and envisioning that William’s screenplay becomes a movie. At the book table afterwards, a woman came up to me who works for a major studio. She said they’re looking for family-friendly scripts and for William to send his over, which he has done.
Of course there are no guarantees about anything, but I absolutely love seeing how the flow of life energy works. I was there, book deadline and all, met some people I’m so happy to know, shared the ideas I believe in with women who were open and receptive, and may have helped William take one further step toward his dream. Just thinking of how things work in that way makes me smile.
In closing, I just want to let you know that there is an article in the August issue of Body & Soul called “Dare to Dream!” I didn’t write it but I was interviewed for it and they use my vision map as the illustration for how to do one. So if you have any interest in learning more about vision-mapping and taking a look at my current one (it has the cutest picture of a pig on it…), get yourself the August Body & Soul. (And my show on Saturday July 8 will be about vision-mapping.)
Okay, friends, I’d better get my breakfast and head down to the café to write. I go there to get the stimulation of other people and the blissful isolation of knowing that nobody needs me for anything. That seems to be the perfect balance for writing. Be well and happy and thanks for stopping by. I’ll do another entry in the middle of the month.
May your life be charmed,
Victoria
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