Sunday, October 28, 2018

Resilience, hope, and resisting hate

When I think back to my childhood, I remember my friends and the games we played. I remember the woods up the street and the courtyard of my apartment building. I remember my family, my mother dancing in the kitchen, and my stuffed animals. And I remember my father railing about the Holocaust and Nazis and antisemitism.

My father was the child of Russian Jewish immigrants. He didn't know much about his family's life in Russia; the only story he remembered was one of Cossacks coming for the Jews in the village, and his father hidden in a flour barrel. My father was born shortly before World War 2 started and I'm sure his childhood was full of stories of pogroms, Nazis, and eventually what we have come to know as the Holocaust. While he didn't remember (or want to share) specific stories, this colored his entire life and outlook. His response to a trip to Israel was relief at the young people with guns, saying that this way he knew "it would never happen again." We all knew what "it" meant.

As a young child, I knew that I was Jewish and this was dangerous. Because both of my parents were secular, my only understanding of Judaism was that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. I knew that from a very young age and writing that down here feels like a childhood litany. I knew that Hanukah was the Jewish Christmas and it had something to do with oil lasting eight days. I did not know what Passover or the High Holidays were other than "Jewish New Year," I had a vague idea that we weren't supposed to work on Friday but we still did. I didn't know much of anything about my religion, culture beyond pain, and that Albert Einstein, Leonard Bernstein, Sandy Kofax, and Benny Goodman were Jews. I knew being a Jew meant I was at risk, that I was special somehow, and little else.

By the time I was in my teens and 20s I was hungry for deeper meaning, so I began to explore what my spiritual landscape looked like. In my 30s I had a much deeper understanding of what it meant to me to be a Jew. I began to shape an understanding of Judaism that wasn't based in fear or in anger over past atrocity. I would rather live in the present and live out loud. Now, in my 50s, I think of myself as a witchy JuBu (look it up). I observe the High Holidays, Passover, Hanukah. I try to set aside some of the Sabbath and have a bit of wine and bread, taking a moment to be grateful. I now understand myself as someone who is Jewish, and that Judaism is a religion of resilience among many other things. There is a reason that many Jewish holidays can be summarized as they tried to kill us, they didn't, let's eat. 

Anti-semitism has hovered in the air, but I've been lucky. It's rarely touched me. I've had a few people say some odd things to me (one date kissed me then commented that he'd always heard Jewish girls were sweeter; that was the only date and only kiss). I've had to explain things from time to time (I once explained Passover and why matzoh is important to a fascinated crowd in a rural midwest supermarket. They offered me Saltines with all good intentions). I've occasionally walked away from heated discussions or on rare occasions been able to ask the right question.

My social justice work has come from a place of privilege, I know this. I've worked for the rights of others and will continue to do so, but it was only in feminism that I felt my own safety might be endangered; I did it anyway. I've not felt physically endangered or even all that concerned about Anti-Semitism in the U.S. My father's fears were not mine.

All of that shifted after the 2016 election. The day after the election several synagogues and Jewish cemeteries were vandalized in Kansas City, not 15 miles from where I lived. I overheard people in public places talking about how the election showed the Jews who was boss. I was afraid to put my menorah in the front window but decided I would not live in fear. I lit the candles every night and I will do so again this year. The U.S. President may be a hate-monger and understands the power of fear, but I will not let him and his toadies define me.

Since then I have been more aware of the ways my father was right. He wasn't right to make the Holocaust the only notable part of Jewish history, but he was right that hatred is a powerful drug and that Jews have been targeted for millennia. American culture has always had a thread of anti-Semitism, but in my lifetime, until very recently, it was something to hide. Now it's out in public, and it has killed people.

Three thousand years of history, culture, art, music, life should not be defined by acts of hatred. I will not be defined by an act of hatred. I would rather create my own definitions of my life and my culture. I mourn those killed yesterday in Pittsburgh. I will say their names. And I will stand up. I will put my menorah in the window and be visible. I will remember that it is three thousand years of resilience, endurance, love.

I will still stand with those who are being attacked, whether they are of color, women, LGBT+, immigrants, Muslims, etc. I trust you will stand with me. They tried to kill us. We stood together. They failed. Let's eat.

Dedicated to the memories of:

  • Joyce Feinburg, 75, of Oakland
  • Richard Godfried, 65, of Ross Township
  • Rose Mallinger, 97, of Squirrel Hill
  • Jerry Robinowitz, 66, of Edgewood
  • Cecil Rosenthal, 59, of Squirrel Hill
  • David Rosenthal, 54, of Squirrel Hill
  • Bernice Simon, 84, of Wilkinsburg
  • Sylvan Simon, 86, of Wilkinsburg
  • Daniel Stein, 71, of Squirrel Hill
  • Melvin Wax, 88, of Squirrel Hill
  • Irvin Yungner, 69, of Mount Washington

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Saturday, October 27, 2018

Some thoughts on birthdays, mortality, gratitude, and resilience

I woke up this morning with another tick in the calendar. Today is my birthday and I find myself at 51. It seems impossible. Inside I am sometimes 44 or 36 or 5 or 19 or 30, but 51? That seems so adult. So old. So how-the-hell-did-I-get-here. I know I'm not the only one who experiences this, but right now, in this moment, I am swimming in it. I also know some of you will remind me that 51 is not old. I hear you, thank you, but right now? Yeah. I feel unsettled, surprised by both my age and my resilience.

Outside my window the cardinals are swarming over the lilac bushes, eating berries and jockeying for position. One pauses and seems to be looking back at me. I don't look away until the moment breaks. 

I have always believed that birthdays are important. We each should have a day when the world (or at least our immediate world) celebrates our existence and our impact, and birthdays seem like the right time for it. Our time here is so fleeting, taking a moment to acknowledge that we are here, we make a difference, we are enduring and connected and alive, that seems worth celebrating.

The trees are shedding leaves so rapidly now. It reminds me of the way a narrow stream can suddenly become a racing river. It is a flash flood of color, of time, of endings and hoped-for beginnings.

My feelings about my own birthday changed after Kevin died. I still believe birthdays are important, but mine now feels muted. It is hard for me to celebrate my place in the world when such a big part of the world is gone. This isn't to say my world is lacking in love or connection or belonging: Charley is his own big part of my world but having love doesn't mean the love that is gone is forgotten and unmourned. So my approach to my birthday has changed; I still celebrate but without needing the fanfare.

Looking to the top of my window I can just see the tail of a bluejay, perched in the gutter and no doubt eating one of the peanuts we put out for the local fauna. The bluejays line up in front of their offerings, so polite with one another while they call to the world in their rasping voices.

My birthday now is a time to consider mortality and the paths closed or untaken. It is a time to be grateful for all of the love, beauty, compassion, strength that surround me. It is a time to drink in the gifts I have been given. It is a time to appreciate what I have loved and witnessed and done. It is a time to accept the love that is offered to me. It is a time to consider all that has changed in a year and all that has remained the same. It is just another day and yet it isn't.

The sky is a flat cloudy grey; any texture is muted by the window screen. Even as it looks flat I know that there are ridges and bumps, castles and creatures all hidden in the clouds. I know that behind the clouds is the blue sky, and beyond that there are the stars. 

I am still here. I carry the cellular memory of everyone I love and so that alone is reason to celebrate. I am so grateful to the world for the beauty that is there for the seeing.
I am so grateful to the people in my life for reminding me that even when it is dark there is reason to celebrate.
I am so grateful for my own resilience and determination that keeps me moving forward, even if 51 seems like someone else.
I am so grateful for the love.

We are each a blessing and a curse; how we live our lives makes the difference. So many of you live your lives as light in the world, sometimes sharing that light with me but always radiant, and that is the best gift of all.

Thank you.
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Sunday, September 9, 2018

The world through my eyes: Odds and ends

The last several months have seen me very busy with writing a book, working, traveling, and the business of living. I've been so busy that each time I thought to write a blog post, I really couldn't settle on something to write about.

I've also been contending with some feelings of overwork. I was talking with a friend about it (what do you do when you are feeling overworked but you love your work so you keep doing it?) and he suggested I find a hobby. I used to have many; I did a variety of assemblage arts, I was a pretty dedicated home cook, cycling, and more, but most of those fell by the wayside when Kevin died. What was left?

What was left was the hobby I picked up after his death as both a way to use a tool he loved and a way to move outside of myself. I take pictures. I realized I hadn't been using my camera much lately, that I'd been so consumed by work that I hadn't even looked at the world from behind the lens.

Here is some of what I've seen recently upon remembering to pick up my camera. Thanks for sharing this glimpse of the world with me.

Please note, all images are (c) 2018 Laura Packer. Please do not duplicate without permission. Thanks.

A few studies of leaves, light, and shadow.






Seen in Bimidji, MN. I'm not sure this is practical advice all the time.
"But Your Honor, the sign said..."




I love the hidden details of the world.



A very lucky shot. 



I am so lucky to share this world with someone who sees the monsters in the woods, just like I do.


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Sunday, July 8, 2018

Things I have re/learned this week: July 8

Some of you may know I've been posting on Facebook weekly lists of things I have re/learned this week. I want to share them a bit more widely and with the option of a bit more depth, so here we are.

The purpose of this list is both to remind me that I am still learning and to encourage you to remember the same. I'd love to know what you have re/learned this week. Please comment!

  • I am still delicious to mosquitos but the need to be outside makes the risk worthwhile.
  • A corollary: Fine. I'll wear repellent even though it's repellent. No, natural repellents don't do the trick for me. My deliciousness overwhelms it.
  • Stunning art can be crafted from terrible experiences. This is not about mosquitos. 
  • I can always learn more about just about anything, even if it's something I already know a lot about. In this case, watching the art mentioned above has me thinking of whole new ways to tell stories. 
  • I know something about storytelling even if the voices in my head disagree. Finishing my forthcoming book reminds me of this, even at the same time that I'm wondering if there is anything valuable in there. We'll find out soon enough!
  • Telling a friend a secret, even when it's someone you already trust, is a brave and important thing. 
  • There is nothing like teaching something to help me realize how much more there is to learn.
  • It is possible to eat too much watermelon. Don't ask how I know.
What have you re/learned this week? I'd love to know!


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Thursday, June 14, 2018

Waves

I didn't intend to take a blog break, but I guess I needed one. I kept meaning to write, had ideas, but didn't settle down to do so. My last post was the letter written to Kevin on the anniversary of his death and now, creeping up to what should be his 60th birthday celebration, I'm writing again. I guess blogging remains therapeutic for me. Thank you for still being here.

I'm sitting in a cafe in Kansas City. I'm here because I have gigs tonight and tomorrow; I flew in and rented a car, just like someone who doesn't live here. Because I don't, not anymore. Sitting in this cafe, with the relentless Missouri heat outside, heat Kevin loved, knowing this is not home anymore and that Kevin is not home anymore well... it's a big wave.

Grief comes in waves, you know that. Right now I am in the swirling current of a cresting wave; it's not quite a tsunami but it pulls me under. My lips taste of salt and it doesn't matter if it's from tears or ocean water.

I am here, in the cafe I loved in the city I loved where I lived with the man I still love. I am here for the work I love, work I know he would be proud that I am doing and doing well. He is not here. He is not here.
He is not here.

It doesn't make any sense.
Yet it is what it is.

I am surrounded by love and I feel my heart cracking open, again. The difference now is that I know this moment will pass, that soon enough I won't be hiding tears while in public. The difference now is that there is a harsh kind of welcome to these hard feelings, the reminder that I am still this connected. It still hurts like hell. I still look for him and always will.

The difference now is that I know grief is another expression of love, and I am grateful for it all. The love is my life raft that carries me through the biggest waves.

Thank you all for loving me through.

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Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Dear Kevin: Some thoughts on love and grief four years on

(c) Jason Walker
Dear Kevin,

I couldn’t sleep last night, knowing that I would wake into today and yet… here I am. I can’t believe it’s been four years since you died. For that matter it’s sometimes hard to believe that you died at all. How can the planet continue to turn without you? I still love you. I always will. Four years of change and yet no time at all. 

I am writing this from Minnesota. I live here now. Yes, it is cold. You would hate the winter, but you would love the depth of the cold nights and the intensity of summer. It’s as if, knowing it will be brief, summer decides to be as sultry and full of light as it possibly can while it’s here. Kind of like you. You weren’t here long enough, yet in that time you warmed more people and shone more brightly than a dozen others.

You loved me so well I learned to love myself. You loved me so well I wasn’t able to give up on the world when you died, as much as I wanted to. 

You knew this would be the best path. Love is in my nature so I love and am loved, even as I am sometimes composed of cobwebs and twigs. Charley is a wonder, just like you were/are a wonder, though in different ways. He has room for me and you both in his heart, knowing you are a part of me. He is somehow able to make room for my love for you without feeling as if that impacts my love for him. I know I wouldn’t have been able to accept this indescribable gift had you not told me to, had I not known you wanted me to love and live again, had I not known that part of what you love/d about me is that I love the world. I like to think the two of you would be friends, that you would talk about Deep Space Nine and Doctor Who. That you would both bemoan my stubbornness and smile at my foibles while I glare, then we would sit down and eat together, both of you passionate about pizza and barbecue. 

I still have moments of gut-wrenching grief, those times when I feel nauseous with your absence, but as often as not, I remember your light. I wish I remembered with more clarity; you sometimes have that patina of memory, which underscores that it’s been four years. Four years. How can that be? In the early days after you died, I began to keep lists of thing I didn’t want to forget about you, too intimate and homely to cite here in public. I’m glad I made those lists, they are the only part of my journals from those days I read and reread. The rest is too painful, still, but this way I retain some of those details it’s so easy to take for granted and so easy to forget. 

It is so odd that you haven’t seen these glasses or my newer tattoos and that you aren’t here, cheering me on. It can still be confusing and disorienting. Even after four years I still turn to share an observation with you. I still dream  and wake up surprised that you are not by my side. I have moments when I want to ask if you remember so-and-so or such-a-thing, then remember that I cannot, that I am the only one now who has that memory. Sometimes it is very lonely without you, even for the richness in my life.

I do not like that you are a memory but I am grateful that at least you were/are, grateful that I have you to remember. I strive to hold on to that feeling, to let the love and gratitude be greater than the pain, though I can’t always. I am trying.

I have a good life but it often doesn’t feel like it’s my life. I am on a divergent path. I take comfort from the thought that somewhere there is a universe where you and I are still together, laughing until we cannot stand, working together, loving together, living together. I take comfort from the thought that my cells hold the memory of yours. 

For all of the pain, I am so lucky. 

Love is the only infinite commodity I know of and I strive to be profligate in my love, to give it away with abandon and to accept it with joy. Thank you for teaching me that. Oh Kevin, I love you. I always will. That is what I know most of all, four years out. It still hurts like hell, I would still undo it if I could (complicated though that would be) but the love endures. Love wins. 

I remain, always, your

Laura

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Saturday, March 24, 2018

Meteorology

Who could have predicted this season?
No computer model nor NOAA scientist sounded the sirens
telling us of the storm cells in your body.

Had I an early warning system,
radar that showed me the fatal confluence
of the incoming front,
I would have built a tornado-proof box
from bone. 
Sinew. 
Wire.
I would have sheltered you until
the gale passed.
I would have wrestled the wind itself
until the eye of the hurricane swerved and you were not drowned.

I could do nothing.
The storm ravaged you.

No weather report warned us.
There was no duck and cover
only corrosion and pain.

I am still here, walking
through the wreckage. 
I hold waterlogged photos
and torn notes
the remains of our life after
the tempest swept through and tore you
away.

In the aftermath, no green, wet smell of possible regrowth.
I struggle to weather

the widow’s storm season.

(c) Laura Packer
Please do not steal.
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Tuesday, March 20, 2018

What grief feels like

Here we are, creeping up on the four year anniversary of my beloved husband's death from pancreatic cancer. I've been dragging for weeks and keep asking myself why I feel this way, then I remember.

I remember that four years ago today we were in our home for the last time. Four years ago today he was in a hospital bed in our dining room. I was sleeping in a chair by his side. We knew he was approaching the end but you never know the end has arrived until it does. Four years ago today he could still hug me, still tell me he loves me, still was breathing.

Three years ago today I was only just learning how to breath again. I was still questioning if I wanted to keep breathing in a world without him.

Two years ago today I went looking for fossils to remind myself that I and Kevin are but a moment in time, as permanent as a calcified shell, as impermanent as a breeze.

A year ago today I was in the Caribbean, thinking I could be sad someplace beautiful as easily as at home. I was right.

And today. Today I have worked. I ran errands. I wrapped myself in a blanket and cried. I thought and remembered and was in uncomfortable astonishment that I am still here.

I feel tired.
I feel physically uncomfortable, grief is often somatic.
I feel grateful for this sorrow, for this pain, for the memories.
I feel numb.
I feel bereft.
I feel forgetful and uneasy.
I feel grief and love and hope and impermanent and and and and and...

Please don't tell me that of course I am better now, it's been years.
Please don't tell me that of course I am better now, I have a new love.
Please don't tell me that I will feel better soon.

It doesn't matter that it's almost four years. It doesn't matter that I have love in my life. It doesn't matter that this, too, shall pass.

What matters is that I loved. And was loved. And love. And do love. What matters is that I remember and mourn and celebrate.

We each grieve in our own way and in our own season. Today I am feeling sad and weary. So it goes. So it goes.

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Thursday, March 15, 2018

A Conversation about Right Livelihood with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

What does Right Livelihood mean in the context of Transformative Language Arts? How does it relate to finding and staying in conversation with our life’s work while keeping the cupboards and gas tank full as well as caring for our health, art, soul, and community?

LauraPacker and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, between them, have decades of experience. They have teamed up to develop the Right Livelihood Professional Training, launching in June of this year. This 100-hour training kicks off with a long weekend at the beautiful Unity Village retreat center in Kansas City, followed by a 12-week online class, and weekly video conferencing with the likes of Harriet Lerner, Charles Eisenstein, Gregory Levoy, Patti Digh and other luminaries in the field. More about this comprehensive training to help you make a living doing what you love here -- https://www.tlanetwork.org/Right-Livelihood-Training

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg: When I was growing up, I had no idea how a poet would make a living, and although people pushed me toward journalism and advertising, it didn’t stick. I was made to make things, especially out of words.

Now I make a living in ways that didn’t even exist when I was a teenage poet: I teach in a low-residency master’s program at Goddard College, traveling from Kansas to Vermont twice each year to work with students intensively in designing and implementing their individualized studies and facilitate community writing workshops for many populations, particularly for people living with serious illness. I love what happens when mortality is at the table, and we speak, listen and write from our souls. I give talks, workshops and readings through the Kansas Humanities Council and University of Kansas Osher Institute, and mostly on my own, conversing deeply with audiences on everything from poetry and wild weather to oral histories of people who survived the Holocaust. My work is a kaleidoscope of gigs and teaching, mentoring and consulting, driving across the plains in the bright light of early spring and occasionally flying over the green wonder of the mountains surrounding Lake Champlain to land again in Vermont.

What is your work, Laura, and how did you find your way to it?

Laura Packer: While I was pursuing my degree in Folklore and Mythology I had a lot of people tell me to practice saying, “Would you like fries with that?” I ignored them and persevered. Truthfully, I didn’t know what I was going to do with the degree, I just knew that I loved stories and that my work lay in that direction.

I met the man who would become my mentor when I was 19. He was telling stories and, as I listened, I knew that this was my path. It took me awhile to realize I would have to build the path myself. I worked part time for many years while I pursued my craft, but now I support myself doing a wide range of things that all fall under the umbrella of storytelling. I perform around the world to a wide range of audiences. I’ve told stories in pre-school, at festivals, universities, homes and so on. I teach, running workshops and coaching people ranging from storytellers to CEOs to parents to marketers to non-profit professionals and more. I work with organizations, both for- and non-profit, helping them understand and refine the stories they tell. I give keynotes and lead workshops at conferences. And I write, blogging about storytelling and taking on freelance assignments from a wide variety of clients.
It’s never boring. It’s sometimes hard to keep track of. I am always learning, hearing new stories and remembering that the work I do matters. Everything I do, as diverse as it is, touches upon story and the ways that our stories matter. I know that the work I do supports me both financially and spiritually. I also know that the work I do helps others. It is the right path and one it’s been fascinating to create.

Caryn, I’m wondering about the work you do with TLA and what that has to do with right livelihood. For that matter, could you explain what right livelihood means to you?

CMG: When I first heard about the term “right livelihood”—at Goddard College during a session on making a living true to ourselves—it chimed in me as something I had been seeking for myself and my community for a long time. After being thrown out of journalism school (the extremes we will go to so we can land in the right place!), I earned my BA in labor history, drawing on my concern since I was a teen about how our work lives infuse the whole of our lives. What we “do” colors not just our workaday life but how perceive ourselves, our communities, our world, and our potential to change. If your work entails saying, “Would you like fries with that?” on regular basis, it’s likely that being a fast-food worker shapes your identity, sense of self and what’s possible for you, and even your belief about what kind of work you’re entailed to do in your life.

Right livelihood is a Buddhist term, part of Buddha’s eightfold path (which also includes right speech, another TLA concept in my mind), and it connotes work that does no harm. Stretched out, the term points toward work (both vocation and avocation, for pay and just because it feels like our work) that serves, including conversing with our own callings as well as our community’s calling.

I didn’t realize when I was studying labor history, and later working as a labor organizer and reporter—all the time writing and reading and breathing poetry—that all would converge into my own right livelihood. As a transformative language artist, I draw on the power of our words aloud and on the page, solo and choral, to herd us toward greater health, vibrancy, liberation, and connection with the living world. My work—both at Goddard as a faculty member and coordinator of TLA, and as a working artist facilitating brave spaces for others to find more of their own voices and visions—is how I practice my right livelihood. All of this aligns me with the continual conversation with a calling, but it’s also work that, at best, helps others articulate more of their own truest work in the world. In the Brave Voice writing and singing retreats I co-lead with singer-songwriter Kelley Hunt, we fly on the assumption that opening your voice in one way cannot help but strengthen your voice in your whole life, and I’ve witnessed many people making courageous leaps into who they already were and what they now need to do.

Laura, is that how it is for you too as a performer, teacher, mentor, and writer as well as someone I would call a fellow transformative language artist?

LP: Caryn, you hit the nail right on the head. Right livelihood means work that enlivens and enriches us thoroughly, from fiscal health to spiritual health and beyond. It’s work that nourishes our spirits as well as our bodies and allows us to function as contributing members of a larger community, which is what artists are.

When I remember the value of my work in that larger picture, as someone who brings something powerful to a community as well as enriching my own life, it’s easier for me to be able to charge appropriately, advocate for myself and remember that what I do, as well as all other artists, matters.

CMG: Absolutely! I think part of this work, to really put the “right” into “right livelihood,” entails making paths for and sometimes with other artists. Little makes me as happy as seeing someone I helped mentor come out with a first book or start giving writing workshops in their communities.
Laura, you’ve talked with me before about the importance of charging what we’re worth as a way to honor those who come after us. The whole issue of what to charge, and how to ask for what our work is worth, is challenging and variable for me. I’ll do some things for hardly anything or for free, and other things for a livable stipend, yet negotiations can encompass lots of gray areas. I find our system of working this out to be awkward: an organization will often not say what it can afford until I suggest an amount. I often present what I charge as a range from the lowest I’m willing to accept to the highest I believe I should be paid, and if it’s something I really feel is mine to do, I try to convey that I’m open to negotiation.

Of course, all these issues speak to our cultural tendency to soil our money relationship with shame, privilege, hurt, defensiveness and other difficult guests to host. I’ve had a lot of help along the way to ask for what my work is worth, even and especially as a poet. Once a representation of an organization I was working with told me, a few hours before my gig there, that they didn’t have enough in the budget to pay me what we agreed on, so would I take a cut in pay? The musician I was collaborating with wasn’t asked to take a cut, so we talked this over, and together told the organization, “no,” but it was eye-opening for me, re-affirming my bias against myself that poets don’t get paid or paid much. Having someone stand tall with me helped me to challenge my self- and poet-destructive thinking, and hopefully, as time goes on, may have some effect for others too.

How do you navigate all this?

LP: Oh, this is a hard one! I feel like I don’t navigate it well much of the time, but I do the best I can, which is all any of us can do. Money is such a taboo subject, I try to understand my own prejudices and fears as well as talk about it, so it becomes less taboo. I use several tools to help me think and talk about money.

First, I talk with my colleagues about what they charge. If we remove some of the secrecy, we can all charge a living wage AND put a dent in the cultural idea that transformative language art should be cheap and that those who hire us should pay us less than they would their caterer, organizer, musician or others. It’s related to your experience with being asked to take a pay cut when your musician friend was not; if we charge a reasonable amount and know that we aren’t pricing ourselves out of range of our colleagues but in alliance with them, it can be easier to ask for. Additionally, by talking about it with my colleagues we get to remind ourselves that we are charging for far more than the 30 or 60 minute event, but for all of the time and experience that lies behind it.

Second, I do what you do. I often give the representative a range of cost and then remind them that this is how I make their living. I also tell them that I am open to negotiation (if I am).

Third, if I give work away for free or at a greatly reduced cost, I always give an invoice that reflects what I would have wanted to be paid. This helps lay groundwork that what I, and other TLA artists do, is valuable and worth paying for.

Fourth and last, I remember what a wise friend said to me, when I asked him money questions. He told me, “You can always negotiate down, you can’t negotiate up. Think about what you want and then ask for double.” I don’t do it quite this way (asking for double feels too bold for me) but I do ask for what I want and a little more. I can lower my rate, shorten the event, barter for other services but once I’ve set a price I can’t really come back and ask for more unless they ask for more service first.

When I remember to financially value my own work I am not only telling myself that what I do is worthwhile, I am also telling the rest of the world that art matters.

CMG: That’s very wise advice, and I love the idea of the invoice for what this is worth. There’s something magical about saying on paper “this is what my work is worth” when it comes to inviting in more lucrative work to balance out what we feel drawn to give away.

I’ve been thinking of what I do for free lately because in the last few months. I have one project that I’m grappling with because it’s sort of a “closure” project with a group of people, a way to share some social capital after working with this group for many years in the past. In the long run, I know this project is what I should be doing, but it’s sometimes difficult to balance the volunteer work with the paid work and still have time (not!) to write.
I’ve also been editing a book for a wonderful poet in his dying days, and that’s a sweetheart labor of love through and through. It’s an immersion in grace to be able to do this for someone I love and whose poetry is so important to share with others who can find a lot of sustenance in what he has to say about death, dying and life.

Often though, it’s hard for me to know the impact of my work and if I’m making the best decisions about where to put my time. My husband, also a writer and grassroots organizer, and I often joke as we’re falling asleep that we won’t know the impact of our work until after we’re dead, and I think that’s true. We don’t know, and this makes think of a stanza in one of my favorite Rumi poems:

If you are here unfaithfully with us,
you’re causing terrible damage.
If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love,
you’re helping people you don’t know
and have never seen.

So maybe all we can do is to try to be faithful in being here with our people, which also means being faithful to ourselves, and through our work and being, open our hearts (whether we use phrase like “God’s love” or not in describing this) to dropping our pebble in the pond and hoping for the best for what ripples we make and receive.

TLA involves bringing together people to make greater meaning and unearth greater vitality in how we live. It helps us find—through our words, images, rhythms—our work in this life. Mary Oliver said in one of her poems, “My work is loving the world,” and I feel the same. What I actually do for a living and beyond is just a form of that ritual: practicing how to love the world.

To learn more about the Right Livelihood Professional Training, please visit https://www.tlanetwork.org/Right-Livelihood-Training

To learn more about Caryn and her work please visit www.carynmirriamgoldberg.com.

This except of a longer interview is reprinted from Chrysalis: A Journal of Transformative Language Arts, 2016. The full interview is http://www.tlanetwork.net/2016/10/a-conversation-on-right-livelihood-and-transformative-language-arts-by-caryn-mirriam-goldberg/

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Friday, March 2, 2018

#storyseeds Friday: The dark wood

If you follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, you know that I'm posting daily #storyseeds, a short prompt for creativity and imagination. I started doing them as much for myself as for anyone else. They make me stretch my mind a little bit each morning and they help me remember that I am a creative being. It's fun, a little therapeutic, and a little useful for others. I'm posting expanded #storyseeds here on Fridays, both as a chance for me to experiment with more complex prompts and as a way for you to have a playful start for the weekend. Let me know what you think, which worked for you and which didn't, and send me any prompts you'd like to see posted! I can't promise I'll use them, but I may very well.

“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.” 

― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

The dark wood is rich with story. It is the warning heart of so many fairy tales (those stories that offer guideposts to living), the place where old lives can be released and new beginnings may be found, rich with promise and peril, and the metaphor for some of the most catalyzing times in our lives. 

Let's spend a little time there, planting seeds for stories.
  1. Embodied
    How does your body feel when you are in wild places? Do you breath more deeply? Is there a kernel of caution? Do you feel it in your gut, your heart, your eyes?
    Equally, what do you feel when you venture into the unknown, whether it's a new place, a new way of thinking, a new activity?
    What does fear feel like? Or excitement? How do they differ? How are they the same?
  2. Described
    Imagine a wood, a place of mystery, beginnings, and endings.
    What do you see? What kinds of trees? Is there a path? Is it dirt or pine needles or something else?
    What do you smell? What are the sounds when you are moving through the woods or those when you are still?
    How did you get there? Does anyone live there, human or otherwise? Is the wood named or nameless? How big is it? Are you lost or do you have an origin and destination? Is it an urban wood or a remote place? 
  3. A seed
    While wandering in the wood for a pleasant afternoon walk, you glance down and see a white pebble. You pick it up, surprised the see such a bright stone here. A dozen feet down the path you find another. Then another.
    OR
    The trees are whispering.
  4. Story-story-go!
    Imagine you set out into the dark wood to find a solution or salvation. Who or what did you find? How did they help or hurt? How did you help or hurt those you encountered? Remember, this story takes place in the woods. How do you find your way out again?

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True Stories, Honest Lies by Laura S. Packer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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