Dear readers and friends -
Joya is sending out the Minute from home this week since I'm on the road, in Fargo, ND. I haven't been here since Adair was twelve and went to Chinese Camp in nearby Morehead, Minnesota. I stayed in Fargo for the week. It was during the O.J. Simpson debacle. I watched the notorious car chase in my room at the Holiday Inn.
I'm devoting the month of May to my spiritual and physical health, in that order. I'm still working, of course, and I have this week on the road (speaking both in Fargo and, on Thursday, in Merrillville, Indiana). And later in the month I'll get some media training (for TV, you're supposed to talk in these short sound bites. I am a word person. Short sound bites are not my forte). But for the most part, this month is about self-care, meditation, and letting go. Kate Moeller, Dr. Christiane Northrup's daughter, is coming over to do a feng shui touch-up on our apartment. I'll be working less and trusting more. Eating more fresh food and drinking fresh juice (thank goodness for warm weather when I actually want this kind of thing!), doing more yoga, and going to more meetings and classes where people are focused on the inner side of life. I've been so wound up around the book launch, I need to take these 31 days to slow down, breathe, and let go. I need to do what is mine to do, but the truth is, short of holding the vision of success, I am powerless over the fate of Fat, Broke & Lonely No More. I've worked hard. Now it's time to let the publicist do his job and, most importantly, let the Higher Power do the rest.
Releasing a book---that word "release" is interesting here---is sort of like sending an adult child out into the world. It's bittersweet, but without letting go, there's no way a young book or a young person can fly free.
May you be free and full of life this merry month of May.
-- Victoria
| Question of the week:
I heard you speak and you quoted a poem from Wordsworth about 'trailing clouds of glory'. What's that poem. - R.L., Illinois
Thanks for asking. It's one of my favorite poems, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." It is very, very long, and I quoted the Section V which goes:
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and when it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."
The rest of the poem is about growing back from the "common day" way of being to the state of Light we came with. Its last two lines are often quoted:
"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
If you like this kind of poetry, I recommend a luscious collection called The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. New venues and changes for where I'll be:
I'll kick off the Fat, Broke & Lonely No More tour here in NYC on Monday, June 4, 7 p.m., Barnes & Noble, 66th & Broadway. Please come if you're a New Yorker, and tell your NYC friends if you're not. I'll be joined by incredible Broadway singer Sherry Boone (she's also my "action partner" - you'll read about Sherry and action-partnering in the new book).
My talk/signing at 23rd Avenue Books in Portland, OR, has a change of day: it's now happening Sunday afternoon, June 10. Also in Portland, an event has been added. I'll be joining with Jennifer Louden (www.comfortqueen.com) for a workshop called "Creating a Charmed and Comfortable Life" at New Renaissance Books on Monday evening, June 11.
A new California Learning Annex venue has been added - I've told you about the San Francisco Learning Annex on June 18; now I'm also doing Los Angeles, June 21.
Another CA venue addition is the Marin Vegetarian Education Group: 6 p.m., Sunday June 17. For more info on that one, see www.marinveg.org. www.marinveg.org And looking ahead, do think about Bermuda in October: The Girls Getaway Weekend. I'll keep letting you know where I'll be as engagements develop | |
 | COUNTDOWN TO VICTORIA'S NEW, 10th, and (we're hearing!) BEST BOOK EVER,
Fat, Broke & Lonely No More: Your Personal Solution to Overeating, Overspending, and Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places
coming from HarperOne on June 1, 2007 ...25 days!
If you'd like to pre-order online, here are links to the big guys:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Or, call your favorite independent bookstore to reserve your copy!
(To find an independent bookstore in your area, you can search on booksense.com here.) | |
Happy week, all!
My very best,
Victoria Moran
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