MARCIA'S BOOK JOURNAL:  April 2000

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4/3/2000

Rich, as the Aries, always takes the initiative.  He read Barry Sears' Enter the Zone six months before I did.  I am a ridiculously stubborn person.  Even though I had heard years ago that this particular way of eating might have benefit for people with Fibromyalgia, he could not get me to read it.

I still haven't figured out why I have to learn through pain.  I say that I am perfectly willing to learn through love and delight.  But I did not make the move to change my eating plan until I was so worn out I could barely function.  Rich had already been following The Zone, losing weight, feeling good, and looking younger.  So about a month ago, I had to humble myself and ask him for help figuring out how to make the appropriate changes in my diet.

I have lots of self-pity about food.  For the sake of health and sanity, I've cut out a lot of things I used to enjoy:  sugar (and all refined sweeteners), artificial sweeteners, caffeine, carbonated drinks.  And I feel better for doing all that.  As a vegetarian, I wondered really how I was going to fit in with The Zone.

First, I had to be willing to give up the last holdouts of comfort foods, bread and pasta, and replace them with less refined carbohydrates -- beans, vegetables and fruit -- in a balanced proportion with protein.  What made me willing was that I had at least five separate sources (friends, teachers, healers, magazine articles), all within a very short period of time, suggest giving up the refined carbs.

I want to be honest and say that I had several days of very bad withdrawal -- not as bad as when I gave up sugar years ago -- but lots of mood swings.  However, a week later, I felt better!  Enough better that I could go out and walk around the park instead of just dragging myself around the block.  Enough better that the "brain fog" lifted.  Enough better that I felt hopeful about the future.  I am grateful that I found another little piece in the puzzle of recovery from FMS.

In the meantime, I started reading Enter the Zone, followed by his latest book The Anti-Aging Zone.  At that point, I was beginning to kick myself for not reading them sooner (but since I'm a nonviolent person, I ceased and desisted).  It was a revelation to see the scientific reasons why I was working against myself by eating a diet that was primarily grain based.

I am personally opposed to the deification of diet gurus, and will not get on the bandwagon thumping a drum and shouting hallelujah.  Food can be argued about as passionately as politics and religion.  What's right for one person may not be right for another.

In my lifetime, I've read enough theories about food, diet, and health for at least an honorary PhD.  Scientific discoveries about the workings of our bodies are being made all the time.  I know that I need to be mentally flexible and continuously self-educated in those areas to find optimal health.  For right now, I'm in the Zone.

4/6/2000

I had fun today!  It started with going to OCWW for a workshop with Jody Lynn Nye on humor in Science Fiction titled "Take my Alien, Please."  For me, after all the (excellent and educational) seminars on literary fiction and magazine article writing, having one on SF is like being in a foreign country and hearing your mother tongue spoken.  From praise of Pratchett to the puns of Piers Anthony to scenes of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and the Trouble with Tribbles, I was right at home.

Afterwards, I met my friend Shelley for lunch at Walker Brothers Original Pancake House in Wilmette, about a 10 minute drive from the workshop.  Just as I'm telling Shelley about my morning, Jody Lynn Nye walked in and I asked her to join us.  I was a happy camper. I am  convinced that there are no coincidences in the universe, so I was sure that my wish to talk more science fiction with intelligent grown ups had been very harmoniously manifested.  We chatted about SF, the Bahai Temple (a Wilmette landmark), ChiCon, GenCon and just general stuff.

Right now I'm reading Don't Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear subtitled:  The Mother of All Anthologies, edited by Jody Lynn Nye.  When Jody brought her books to the workshop, and I heard the premise, I had to have it.  The writers had to use a typical phrase a mother uses as the theme of the story.  Just the titles of these stories is worth the price of admission:  "From your Mouth to God's Ear," "Just Wait till You Have Children of Your Own," "Your Face will Freeze Like That," and "You Never Call."  These stories are the perfect accompaniment to the workshop, demonstrating the humor techniques Jody listed in the workshop such as parody, irony, role-reversal, the last straw, and feghoots -- an entertaining tale with a pun as the punchline.

Here's a great science fiction shaggy-dog/feghoot story (that I got from the Tarzan's Tripes Forever Site) written by the incomparable Isaac Asimov:
 

Monty Stein, in the year 3047, committed quite a heist and made off with quite a tidy sum. He was eventually caught, and the judge sentenced him to seven years imprisonment. However, the night before his impending incarceration, he calmly set his time machine for seven years and one day, and stepped through. When he emerged in 3054, there was quite an uproar. Prosecution maintained that Monty Stein never actually served the sentence, since effectively no time passed for him. Defense stated that the effect was basically the same, since he lost seven years of living in society, or something to that effect. Both sides called each other names (as lawyers are wont to do). Eventually, Stein was set free. Some say that the judge succumbed to peer pressure; others said that he simply couldn't resist the temptation. For his decision, in full, was:                           "A niche in time saves Stein." (c) Isaac Asimov

It's OK if you're groaning out loud.  That's part of the fun.

4/9/2000  - Joy

I went to the Temple today.  Since the beginning of the year, I've been going to the Temple of Kriya Yoga practically every Sunday.  The satsang (fellowship) at noon is a combination of chanting, meditation, and inspirational teaching that I find very healing.

Every month has a theme and a mantra.  The theme for the month is "Joy."  The mantra for this month is 'Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya.'  One translation for this might be:  I honor the Lord, who sustains me as the Breath.  On the physical level we breath in air.  On the astral level, the level of our subtle bodies, we breath in prana -- the vital life force.  This mantra is also called the twelve-letter mantra because in Sanskrit it is composed of 12 letters or 12 syllables.  The twelve-letter mantra has a correspondence to the twelve petals of the lotus at the heart center in yoga physiology.  So by chanting this mantra, we activate the heart center, feeling joy, and balance the heart center in unconditional love.  ("A Course in Miracles" has an affirmation that goes with this that I like to reflect on -- "I am sustained by the Love of God.")

The inspirational reading was from "The Dhammapada"  (the teachings of the Buddha from the South Asian tradition).

I remember many years ago, I was on a retreat with my guru, Goswami Kriyananda.  Our study for that retreat was The Dhammapada.  Most of Kriyanandaji's talks came straight out of Chapter One, these first two verses:
 

1.  What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow:  our life is the creation of the mind.  If a person speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows him as the wheel of the cart follows the beast that draws the cart.

2.  What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow:  our life is the creation of our mind.  If a personal speaks or acts with a pure mind, joy follows him as his own shadow.

(Penguin Classics, (c) 1973, translation by Juan Mascaro)

On our retreat, I remember the joy of sitting on the grass in the warm summer air, shaded by leafy trees, with a view of Lake Michigan, and listening to the voice of my guru.  I am so grateful to my past incarnations that created the attunement that led me to my teacher this lifetime.

After the Satsang, we extend our fellowship by having tea and cookies together.  The building the Temple is in used to be a social club many years ago.  What used to be the dining hall was turned into the main sanctuary of the Temple.  What used to be the bar, is the room in which we serve tea.  It still has a long wood bar with stools.  Tables with padded benches line the opposite wall.  I enjoy helping to serve tea.  I get to stand behind the bar and entice people with apple spice or chai.  I am still 'high' from the meditation and feel like the 'cosmic bartender,' chatting with old friends and greeting newcomers.

"Our life is a creation of the mind," says the Dhammapada.  I practice mindfulness: watching how a thought comes in, swirls around in my mind, dissipates, and the next thought arises. The thoughts that I hold on to and cycle around again and again are creative.  The more emotional energy connected with those thoughts, the more creative they are.  That's why I always try to enjoy the heck out of the good things in my life -- to put more of that creative energy into the positive.  I savor my time at the Temple and take the feeling of joy with me, in my drive home, and into my week.

4/13/2000 - Clothes & Closets

I was reading the March 27 entry in Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach this morning (I know it's not March 27, but that's where I am in the book).  Her quest is the search for our authentic selves, and suggests we wear clothes that reflect that authenticity.  "Today, I want to ask you consider to clearing away the fashion clutter of past incarnations that lurks in your closets," she says.  "Just because you bought it once doesn't mean you have to keep it forever."

So I was thrown into contemplation of my closet.  I've cleared out bags of old clothes many times and yet remnants of the past remain.  First of all, I still have clothes of my mother's.  She died over 17 years ago.  It took Dad awhile, but eventually he had my sister and me over to clear out Mom's closet.  I took what fit me, and I took some of the precious handknit sweaters she'd made. Over the years, I let go of many of the pieces of clothing that just weren't me (the sweaters are packed away).

Mom and I had entirely different tastes in clothes.  I remember shopping with her for my first semester of college, Fall 1968.  We bought all kinds of coordinated outfits including several wool plaid skirts with coordinated sweaters and knee socks (worn with penny loafers, of course).  By second semester at U of I, I was wearing nothing but jeans, t-shirts, and sneakers.  Thirty-something years later, I am still basically a jeans and t-shirt sort of person.

My past life selves crave and clamor for monks robes or a full wizard's cloak ala Gandalf the Grey.  My this lifetime self cannot oblige.  However, my authentic self would be wearing loose, flowing, natural fabric clothes, the kind found in earth-friendly catalogs.  Unfortunately, even if they made them in extra large women sizes, these simple clothes cost triple or quadruple of the oversize cotton sweats and t-shirts I order from One Hanes Place.  Authenticity vs. the budget.

So I contemplate cleaning out the closet.  Mom's pleated polyester skirts in classic black and navy  served me well in stints as an office temp.  I've come to the conclusion that I'm allergic to polyester clothes and nylon stockings.  My whole attitude toward life is different, more subdued, less energetic when I wear synthetic fabrics.  Actually, I hate all the clothes I bought for office work but fear putting them in the donation bag.  What if I need them again?

But what if throwing them out gives power to my self-employment?  It could be an affirmation to my personal goals.  What if I really got rid of every single piece of clothing that doesn't fit or that I don't really like.  Throw out perfectly good clothing?  What would Mom say?
 

4/16/2000 - Harry Potter

It was time I read Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling.  Everybody on earth has read the Harry Potter books but my kids are older now and I had to finally buy it for myself.  I enjoyed it very much but I don't think it should be on the short list for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Harry Potter is a charming fantasy with a likable hero.  It has a bit of the Roald Dahl* darkness, as Harry is fostered (after his own parents are killed) by an Aunt & Uncle who are unquestionably abusive.  Then comes what hooks us in all of these type of fantasy stories.  On his 11th birthday, Harry gets a letter that tells him he is really the son of a famous witch and wizard, and is invited to attend Hogwarts, a school for learning magic.

This is what we're all waiting for -- our validation that we are special, that we have hidden talents and powers unknown and unappreciated by our families.  If only we could meet up with a knowing teacher, who would give us the knowledge and understanding that we need -- then we could become extraordinary -- maybe even save the world.

Sometimes this backfires for us as adults.  I read so many books as a young person that had the myth of "the one" like in the movie The Matrix.  The hero is "the one," the only one who can save civilization.  If he/she fails we're all doomed.  Dune by Frank Herbert is one that comes to mind.  Another is Rand Al'Thor in Robert Jordan's neverending "Wheel of Time" series.  As a child, we identify with the hero and take this myth to heart. Maybe it works for us as part of the fantasy life that gets us through an uncomfortable reality.  But what happens when we grow up to be perfectly good people but aren't "the one" and can't save the world?  Sometimes we become confused, sad, or even guilt-ridden -- unless we take the point of view that we are part of a whole.  We're all connected, every living thing in the universe, and all the good we do in our lives (thoughts, prayers, and especially words and actions) has a cumulative effect combined with the good others are doing in theirs, affecting our society with a momentum toward peace, kindness, and spiritual evolution.

Flying is another hook.  Humans long to fly.  We don't just want airplanes and rockets.  We long to fly like birds.  We'll do anything -- hang-gliding, parachute jumping, para-sailing -- to give us the feeling of freedom from gravity.  At Hogwarts the students are taught broomstick riding, used for transport and playing a type of three-dimensional soccer.  I don't mean to be picky but flying carpets would have more credibility.  Think about riding on any kind of stick.  It would be as uncomfortable as riding on the supporting bar of your bicycle. If you could cast a spell to give a broomstick flight, why not spell your own self?

Despite my adult analyzing and nit-picking, my inner child is ready to suspend disbelief and read the other books in the Harry Potter series.

* Roald Dahl is another wonderful children's author I discovered as an adult.  My favorites are Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (Willie Wonka is one of my favorite movies of all time), The Witches, and Matilda.  Dahl has a very dark view of life in childhood but it translates into some funny, vivid and satisfying books.

4/17/2000

Last night I read The Afterlife Diet by Daniel Pinkwater.  In this weird send-up of the American diet industry, the main character Milton is murdered and finds himself in a "heaven" that resembles an old-time Catskill resort.  His fellow "vacationers" on the astral plane all have kept the form of their earthly overweight bodies with them along with a fixation on food.

A series of flashbacks show the weeks leading up to Milton's murder and introduce a variety of large characters either desperate to lose weight or rejoicing in New York's bakeries, delis, & restaurants.  As a food addict I have a problem reading about other people's binges -- they make me hungry and trigger my own cravings.  As a person who's struggled with weight all my life, humor involving obesity is just not that funny anymore.  So I really can't honestly recommend this book.  It had enough amusing moments to keep me going but it went off in some really bizarre directions.  A much better book on the same topic is the anthology "The Science Fiction Weight Loss Book," edited by Isaac Asimov, George R. R. Martin, and Martin Greenburg (unfortunately out of print but could be at your library or used books store).

All the women in my family dieted with no permanent success.  In the sixties, the doctors gave my mom and aunts tiny white boxes of pastel colored amphetamines as diet aids.  Later, Mom favored the more balanced eating plans of Weight Watchers.  I remember one aunt rejecting a holiday dinner for a plate of brown rice -- she was on the popular 'brown rice diet,' an extreme permutation of macrobiotics in which one eats nothing but brown rice.  Another aunt spent a couple of weeks on "the popsicle diet" -- nothing but popsicles.

In my childhood pictures, I look pretty normal, but at maybe 10 pounds over the average, I felt fat compared to my girlfriends.  I started dieting in high school, with the yo-yo effect that's well documented now - lose weight, gain back more.  In college, a doctor gave me diet pills -- your basic amphetamines.  They made me jumpy so I  gave them to my dorm roommate, who sold them and bought other drugs she liked better.

Even after I got into yoga and natural foods, I was a 'junk food junkie.'  I ate healthy in front of my husband and others but had chocolate and chips in secret.  Finally, in 1982, I found a supportive group of fellow sufferers, and I cut out sugar and other addictive type foods.  Even with support, reading countless books about nutrition and metabolism, joining health clubs, and using creative visualization, my weight has still gone up, down and then up more as I've aged and struggled with fibromyalgia.  I eat healthier than I did years ago but I'm still a large woman.  I've worked hard to love and accept myself as I am.  Humor directed at fat people gives me the same creepy feeling as ethnic and racist jokes.

But I certainly don't want to pick on Daniel Pinkwater.  He's written some weird and wonderful kids books.  I remember reading Lizard Music along with my sons who enjoyed it very much.  Wish I could recommend The Afterlife Diet.  Read at your own risk.

4/23/2000

I really meant this journal to be about books I'm reading, but I found a website that I've been reading everyday:  beliefnet.com -- a site that brings religious and spiritual writers together in an open forum of columns and commentary.

I'm very interested in comparative religions, the spirituality found in all religions, and what Frithjof Schuon calls "The Transcendent Unity of Religions."  I'm continually fascinated by the history (and distortions of history) of religions, shifts in morality and beliefs, and the cross-cultural pollination of ideas.  At Beliefnet, I'm reading people from various religious traditions describing the relevance of their faith in today's modern world.

I started out this lifetime being born into a Jewish family.  My family kept kosher and went to synagogue on major holidays.  I went to Sunday School from Kindergarten through 9th grade.  I studied Jewish history, religious holidays, and a little Hebrew.  I hated Sunday School.  I got many 'sore throats' on Sunday.  I wanted to stay home and watch 'Flash Gordon' on TV.  In retrospect, I'm glad I went to Sunday School.  I've met many people who aren't even vaguely familiar with the stories and history of the Old Testament.  What I learned in Sunday School helped me later in studying the Bible in the symbolic way of the mystics (as opposed to literal interpretation).

When I was in high school, my good friend Steve got me to read the Gospels of the New Testament.  It was mind expanding, opening me to an attunement with Jesus, his life and teaching.  It wasn't until much later, when I began to study yoga and work with past-life recall, that I realized that I had been Christian in many lifetimes -- as well as Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and others.  The big insight was that it didn't matter what name I gave to my current religion, religion itself was transient.  The only part that mattered was the evolution of the soul -- both the ability to sustain attunement with the Divine and how one interacts with life.

When I began studying at the Temple of Kriya Yoga, we were directed to read texts in all mystical traditions so I read the Moslem Sufis, the Jewish Kaballists, the Christian mystics, the Tibetan, Zen & Southeast Asian Buddhists, Native American, as well as various schools of yoga.  In the meantime, I began to detach emotionally from my religion of origin without rejecting it.  Yoga doesn't require changing religions.  Yoga simply means 'yoking' or union with the Divine and 'yoga' techniques can be found among all religious frameworks.

I don't enjoy debating beliefs with others, but I continually question my own thought processes.  I look for patterns of belief and behavior from this life and past lives that are keeping me from expanding my awareness and attunement.  Even though enlightenment seems very far away, I'm giving it my best shot this lifetime.

4/25/2000

Last week at Off Campus Writers Workshop, Alan Steinberg spoke on Creative Non-fiction.  He was a dynamic speaker who obviously read Jeffrey Lant's The Unabashed Self-Promoter and possibly has taken a workshop or two with Tony Robbins (he used the word "passion" several times and talks fast in the manner of motivational speakers).  I'm not criticizing.  I like people like that.  He's a person who's asked for what he wants from life and he's getting it, including a successful writing career.  But he did talk more about himself and his experiences than give a workshop on writing technique.

I decided to check him out, so I went to the library and got two of his books, both collaborations with celebrities.  The first is Behind the Mask:  My Double Life in Baseball.  This is a first person narrative by Dave Pallone (with Alan Steinberg) about his goal to become a major league umpire and his conflict with being gay in the macho world of baseball.  I read some parts and skimmed others.  I'm sure I frustrate the sports buffs in my family but I just can't get real worked up about that stuff.  So descriptions of key games and bad calls wasn't meaningful in any way to me.  Because the story was first person, I had no way to gain perspective on the personality conflicts Pallone described.  Steinberg said that his goal as the writer was to be invisible -- to make his work sound as close to Pallone's voice as possible.  For me, I just couldn't get that worked up or interested in Dave Pallone but I learned more about baseball umpiring than I ever expected to in this lifetime.

The second book was a hundred times better.  Black Profiles in Courage by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Alan Steinberg is a fascinating book describing not only African-American achievements but also how history ignored them or rewrote them giving credit to white Americans instead.  Some of the profiles are on familiar names such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks.  With these people, the book goes even deeper into the background of each and why their actions were so incredibly heroic.  More fascinating are the heroes history has ignored -- black explorers, cowboys and soldiers, along with explanations of the cultural milieu which made their achievements even more remarkable.

This book should be required reading for kids in school, not only for expanding their awareness of black history, but to understand how easily history can be distorted by the dominant culture (or bad scholarship or an exploitative media).  As a wise teacher used to warn us, "History is written by the victors."

I didn't learn until college that the reasons for the Civil War were more complex than the North fighting against slavery (which they weren't) and that Lincoln didn't sign the Emancipation Proclamation till he was forced to by the prospect of losing the war.  When I was in college, the Vietnam War was at its insane peak, and we could watch the US propaganda machine in motion, using the same kind of double-speak we normally attributed to the Soviets.  Innocence lost, cynicism gained, and with my generation and those that followed, the long search for truth.

(c) 2000 Marcia M. Sacks