Back to Blogging Again!

Hello, kind people who keep looking at this blog to see if it will win take the record for most neglected blog of all time…

For those of you who aren’t on my e-mail list, I have a new mailing service that has enabled me to send out a weekly mini-zine called The Charmed Monday Minute. It’s newsy and fun and I think you’ll like it. If you want start receiving it, click on the “Subscribe to Free Newsletter” icon on www.victoriamoran.com, or go directly to www.victoriamoran.com/newsletter.html. The plan is to be in touch weekly with the more informational stuff and use the blog for just catching up. (There won’t be a newsletter this coming week because of the holiday, but we’ll start up again November 27.)

I have to tell you that I had a major shock when I learned that people get to rate the author blogs posted on Amazon.com. It’s bizarre to me that we’ve become a culture in which everything is judged and graded. It’s a reality-show mentality, I think: the most desirable bachelorette, the savviest apprentice, the biggest loser. When I think of a blog---a friendly blog anyway, not one that centers on politics or something like that---it’s a person sharing his life or her life. To be graded seems just plain cruel. “You get the good grade when you go to Paris, a bad one when you only go to the post office.” I must say it put me off writing for awhile. I expect my books to be reviewed by other people, but not my day. What do you guys think?

Well, let’s see, graded or not, here’s what I’ve been up to: I had dental surgery last week and ran into an anesthesia problem. It was just a local but it did something to my trigeminal nerve and I’ve been through a scare with that. For a couple of days, it was frighteningly painful. Now we’re down to the dull ache stage, so I’m convinced it will go away. I’m getting acupuncture, though. I am such a fan of acupuncture. My body takes well to it and it’s helped me through a lot of things.

I’m taking the 4-T---Tithing of Time, Talent and Treasure for Prosperity and Fullness of Life---(www.4tprosperity.com) class at the Unity church here. This is the fourth time I’ve done it and it’s very powerful. It’s about changing your consciousness. I think it works so well because participants have to sign a contract agreeing to do a lot of disciplines: financial tithing, daily prayer and meditation, volunteer work in the community, listening to the 4-T CDs twice during the week as well as in class, and being part of a prayer group that is dedicated to helping each group member get to the next level in his/her life. In addition, each of the twelve weeks is dedicated to one step in the 12 Step program, so it’s a way for people who aren’t in 12 Step programs to benefit from those amazing steps. It’s taking some time but somehow I seem to have more time than before. I love the delightfully illogical logic of Spirit. I don’t understand it, but I know it works.

Speaking of such things, have you seen the DVD everybody is talking about, The Secret (www.thesecret.tv)? It’s about the Law of Attraction. I just got a copy and watched it a few days ago (while recovering from my dental affliction). It was fascinating and, in my opinion, right on. I wrote a lot about the Law of Attraction in my new book as well. It’s interesting to see how that ever dependable collective unconscious brings necessary ideas to light in so many places and through so many channels when the time is right.

This weekend William and I are going to Providence, RI. I’m speaking for pre-Thanksgiving dinner of the Rhode Island Vegan Awareness on Sunday (www.veganawareness.org). My daughter and her husband are going to the Woodstock Animal Sanctuary (www.woodstockfas.org) for their pre-Thanksgiving celebration. And this comes from Amy Gonigam of Chicago (she’s also a wonderful writer who gave me some interesting info for my new book on periods of intentionally going without a computer): she adopted a turkey through Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY. (The turkey will live at the Sanctuary; Amy is more its sponsor.) Anyway, she sent me these adorable (well, I think so) turkey photos you might like to see: http://www.adoptaturkey.org/adopt.htm.

A couple of weeks ago I had a very quick trip to my hometown of Kansas City to visit my mother-in-law. I was just there for a minute, it seemed, so I didn’t get to contact many people, but it was sweet---well, sweet and bittersweet---to be back home. I remember Kansas City as being so urban and vital and centralized when I was a kid. Downtown was booming. Over the years, like most cities, my hometown has spread out to suburbs on all sides, and although there’s a great art scene in KC, and some wonderful theater, the urban energy I remember isn’t the same. I suppose part of what I’ve found in New York is a memory I kept looking for in Kansas City. I was talking with a woman here recently who said she was dying to move to LA, that as a native New Yorker she can’t bear to see how New York is changing. I guess I’m blessed that I don’t know how it was, so it seems absolutely grand to me.

I think that’s about it for the moment. This evening I’m going to a book launch for John St. Augustine’s new book, Living an Uncommon Life: Essential Lessons from 21 Extraordinary People, based on John’s long-running PowerTalk Radio series. He’s now working for Oprah doing programming for her XM station. It starts at 6, it’s 5 now, so I need to start making myself presentable. Thanks for taking the time to share some of your day with me. I probably don’t know you, but I do appreciate you.

My very best,
Victoria