margaret wolff writing portfolio

Margaret Wolff Portfolio

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www.InSweetCompany.com

PORTFOLIO CONTENT

BLOG: “I Know Your Song: Lessons in Leadership” - Beliefnet

BLOG: “Hardwired for Compassion: Lessons in Leadership” - Beliefnet

BLOG: “Daddy's Girl: Lessons in Leadership” - Beleifnet

BOOK REVIEW: Perseverance, by Margaret Wheatley - Amazon.com

ARTICLE: “When Women Gather” - International Museum of Women exhibit

ARTICLE: “The Cutting Edge: Creating A Change-Resilient Workforce” - The PT/OT Dialog, Kaiser Permanente Newsletter

INTERVIEW, Excerpt: Olympia Dukakis, In Sweet Company: Conversations With Extraordinary Women About Living A Spiritual Life (Jossey Bass, 2006)

BOOK CHAPTER EXCERPT: The Architecture of Light

CHILDREN’S STORY: “The Secret In His Eyes.” Mothering Magazine

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT: Welcome Letter, B.A.B.E.S.: A Prenatal Education Program for Teenagers - The Well Being Health and Disease Prevention Department of Scripps Memorial Hospital

Copyright Margaret Wolff 2015




BLOG: “I Know Your Song: Lessons in Leadership” – Beliefnet

When a woman of a certain tribe in Africa knows she is with child, she retreats into the forest with her women friends and communes with the soul of her unborn child. From the depths of this communion, in response to their efforts, the Universe reveals the child’s song. They sing it aloud, first among themselves, then return to the village and teach it to the entire tribe. When the baby is born, everyone gathers round the child and sings their song to them.

When the child begins their education, when they are initiated into adulthood, when they marry, when they have children of their own, the villagers gather and sing their song. When the person is about to pass from this earth, the villagers gather one last time at their bedside and sing them into the next world.

There is one other occasion when one’s song is sung: If at any time they break with tribal law, the people gather in the center of the village, circle round the person and sing their song to them. They do this because they know that the remedy for inharmonious behavior is the remembrance of one’s True Identity; that when we hear and sing our song we have no need or desire to do anything that hurts ourselves or another.

The members of our tribe are not fooled by the mistakes we make or the darkness we hold about ourselves. We see your wholeness when you feel broken, your merit when you feel discouraged. We know your song. We sing it to you when you have forgotten it. We want you to remember how it goes.

274 words Copyright Margaret Wolff 2015

BLOG: “Hardwired for Compassion: Lessons in Leadership” – Beliefnet

On a balmy summer evening not all that long ago, a dozen warm-hearted and well-used colleagues and I lit candles and broke bread to mark the completion of a project we had worked very hard on for two long years. We told stories. We laughed. We teased. We eulogized our individual and collective efforts and came to a shared peace about the import of our work together. It was a glorious evening, a magical evening, an evening to remember—primarily because we felt so deeply connected to each other and to what we had accomplished together.




The next day I happened to watch a documentary by filmmaker Tom Shadyac, interviews he did with remarkable thinkers of our day about how to set the world right. (www.Iamthedoc.com ) To Shadyac’s surprise—despite mankind’s obvious proclivity for endless debate, acquisition, and competition—all of the scientists, psychologists, artists, activists, and leaders he spoke with including Bishop Desmond Tutu, Dr. Noam Chomsky, historian Howard Zinn, and poet Coleman Banks believed the solution to the world’s problems lay in each of us getting to know who we really are and how connected we really are to each other. In the words of journalist Lynne McTaggar, “We are far grander than we have been told.”

Some of the most compelling and moving evidence for their shared view was presented by several neuroscientists who spoke about the recent discovery of specialized nerve cells called mirror neurons that fire in identical ways whether we are performing an action or are observing that same action in another. These imitative responses create and enhance empathetic brain-to-brain communication with others. And, that feeling of being “all choked up” when we witness the heroic acts of others is actually the vegas nerve’s biological response to altruism. Our bodies know our minds and hearts cooperate by nature, say the neuroscientists. Compassion and collaboration may well be embedded in our DNA.

Physicists also spoke poetically about the macrocosmic and the molecular connection we have with each other, that we live in a “participatory universe,” a universe where quantum entanglement—what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”—is the norm. Once we connect to something or someone, our electrons actually spin in the same direction, at the same rate, at the same time as those of the other, even after we have separated from them, even when we are separated from them by time and space.

Unlike the planned gathering of my colleagues, quantum entanglement occurs without our conscious participation. Imagine what we could create if we lovingly participated in this process.





BLOG: “Daddy's Girl: Lessons in Leadership” – Beleifnet

One wintery Saturday afternoon when I was eight years old, I went with my father on a house call to repair a furnace. Dad was a mechanical and electrical engineer, an inventor and problem-solver at heart, who channeled his creativity into designing and building heating and air conditioning systems for residential and commercial clients. He had received a call early that morning from a long-term client whose furnace had gone on the fritz in the middle of the night. Would he come over, the man asked, and see what he could do?

Dad needed an “assistant” and I volunteered for the job. We walked together hand in hand up the driveway to the back of his client’s house. A man came to the back door and ushered Dad inside. “Wait here on the patio for me,“ he said, as he went into the house. “I won’t be long.”

I moved brown snow from one side of the patio to the other with a gnarled stick I found in the yard. Dad was gone maybe twenty minutes before I heard his muffled voice coming from inside the house. The patio door slid opened and Dad walked outside. There were tears in his eyes.

He averted his gaze, motioned for me to follow him with a crook of his finger, then headed quickly down the driveway to our car. I ran after him trying to catch him, skipping alongside him to keep pace. I grabbed his thick, freckled hand, mittens dangling from the metal clips on the cuffs of my jacket. I wanted to know what had made my Daddy cry.

When we reached the car he opened the passenger door and lifted me into the front seat. As I settled into my place beside him, he looked at me and sighed. "I remember the days when a man’s handshake was his word," he said. That was all he said. He got into the car and we rode quietly home.

A father's tears. A daughter's standard. In this way I honor my father.





BOOK REVIEW: Perseverance, by Margaret Wheatley, Amazon.com

Several years ago I had the great good fortune to interview Margaret Wheately for a book I wrote. Meg is one of the foremost organizational consultants of our time. She is smart and deeply perceptive. She sees to the core of things and easily opens herself in service to the Greater Good.

Meg’s latest book speaks to the heart of human striving. PERSEVERANCE (Berrett-Koehler Publishers) is a pocketsize prize that offers guidance on how to keep on keeping on. Her thoughtful essays on what trips us up and what paves our way spark new ideas about how to rise above the fray of life’s seeming inequities.

"When we are overwhelmed and confused,” she says, “we reach for the old maps, the routine responses, what worked in the past ... To navigate life today, we definitely need new maps ... The maps we need are in us, but not in only one of us. If we read the currents and signs together, we'll find our way through.”

PERSEVERANCE takes a bold look at these currents—guilt, anger, fear, blame, boredom, loneliness—and what supports our journey—steadfastness, choosing, clear seeing, and play. Our reticence to ask for what we really need and the names we call ourselves in the night also affect our staying power, she says. So she urges us not to give up, to examine our thoughts and experiences, and to “speak up about the things we care about.” She encourages us to “rename ourselves,” to “find a name that calls us to become fearless,” that helps us develop our innate capacity for greatness and “calls us to our future self.”

Meg’s lovely book is both a meditation on perseverance and a call to action. It helps you feel less alone in the thick of things. Outcomes, results, are often uncertain. “Perhaps,” as Meg says, “holding true to the vision and not losing our way is enough for one lifetime.”

321 words Copyright Margaret Wolff, 2015




ARTICLE: “When Women Gather” - International Museum of Women exhibit

We sat on the floor in a circle – twelve women – in a hotel ballroom nestled on the shores of Lake Geneve. It was the kind of a room where diplomats gather for brandy and conversation, a paragon of Old World elegance. The carpet was luxuriously textured; the molding that rimmed the ceiling was gilded and baroque. Twenty minutes earlier, Ginny and I breached the stately ranks of burly upholstered chairs – peach-colored sentinels poised for the next round of distinguished derrieres – and muscled them to the back of the room. That we were preparing this opulent ballroom for a Native American Pipe Ceremony seemed incongruous, at best. But that was before the ceremony began, before I understood how a paradox could be transcended by women who embody what unites rather than divides us, by women who allow their hearts to objectify that which makes us whole.

We had come together, these women and I, two days before as delegates of a Global Congress convened under the auspices of the United Nations. It was the Fall of 2002; time, our leaders said, to bring women of the world’s spiritual traditions together to talk about how we could individually and collectively advance the peace process. More that 500 women from 70 countries traveled to Switzerland, each of us propelled by an urgency that was far graver than any of us knew at the time. Preachers and rabbis and nuns, leaders of indigenous tribes, social justice advocates, judges, diplomats, artists and writers, educators, doyennes of commerce, directors of foundations and NGO’s, princesses and Hollywood actors, women who had themselves been victims of war: the faithful, the impassioned, the wounded made their way.

I met Ginny on the first day of the Congress. She was from Colorado. We had lunch. We walked by the Lake. We shared a late supper. She told me she was a Pipe Carrier, that she brought her pipe with her to Geneva on the off chance she was asked to do a Pipe Ceremony.

Late on the last afternoon of the Congress, I spotted Ginny in the hotel lobby. She would hold a ceremony, she said, during the dinner hour. I offered to pass the word, but recruited no takers. I made my way to the ballroom at the appointed hour. “Well,” she said, when I told her of my efforts, “we will make the space for women to gather and see what Spirit intends.” It was then that we moved the chairs to the back of the room.

During the next several minutes, the massive doors to the ballroom opened and closed many times. Some women saw us sitting quietly on the floor and joined us without a word. Others asked what we were doing, then stayed or went. We were a disparate group, a confluence of races and ethnicities, of ages and affiliations with no planned impetus we could name other than to be together in the splendor of this now deeply silent ballroom. When twelve women sat in circle, the ceremony began.




Ginny closed her eyes and offered a prayer for our gathering. Slowly, with exquisite deliberateness, she took the pipe from its pouch and spoke to us about its symbology.

“In my tradition, the stem and the bowl represent the masculine and feminine aspects of Spirit, the union of Heaven and Earth. The smoke is a two-way street: the path our prayers trod to Spirit and the means by which Spirit enfolds us in blessing during the ceremony.”

She assembled the pipe, filled the bowl with mountain herbs, and lifted it above her head. She invoked the presence of Grandmother Earth and Grandfather Sky. She called to the Four Directions. As she passed the pipe to the woman next to her she invited us to offer – silently or aloud – the imperatives of our hearts when the pipe passed into our hands.

In the time it took for the pipe to reach me, the external locus of the group’s control shifted. A primordial ardor entered our midst and diverted my awareness from the circumference of the circle, from the edge of life – from our individual comings and goings, from the material world rife with separateness and opposition – inward toward a luminous, collective core. A silent prayer rose within me for the women of our gathering and our world. I passed the pipe.

Ginny sent the pipe round a second time. This time when it came to me three words formed in my mind: “Great Mother Heart.” I understood these words to be both an invocation and the affirmation of a Truth humanity could draw on in times to come, a declaration of our potential if we made the words our own.

The pipe returned to Ginny. She lifted it once again to the Four Directions, to Grandmother Earth and Grandfather Sky, and thanked Great Spirit for our gathering. She disassembled the pipe and returned it to its pouch.

Fifteen minutes passed in utter stillness. Someone stirred; someone rose to leave. I asked if we might each share where we were from before we parted. “America, France, Venezuela, India, Switzerland, England, Iraq,” we said. Then One by one, the Great Mother Heart moved into the world.





ARTICLE: “The Cutting Edge: Creating A Change-Resilient Workforce” - The PT/OT Dialog, Kaiser Permanente Newsletter

It starts with a feeling in your gut you can’t quite put your finger on. Your intuition tells you something’s up and as the days and weeks go by, the word leaks out.

Health care reform, corporate restructuring, right-sizing, down-sizing, whatever you call it, it adds up to the same thing: change. And change has a bad reputation. When we don’t know where we’re heading, when we’re stuck in uncertainty, change feels like an enemy. But change does have an up side. Though it ushers in a period of confusion and loss, there are things we can do to preside over the change that comes into our lives and mine its unexpected benefits.

Albert Einstein once said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of understanding we were at when we created the problem.” Begin by taking a personal accounting of your skills and experience, what you bring to the table, to any table! Then ask yourself how you can use those skills to reposition yourself within your organization, your field or parlay them into a new venture. Be solution-oriented. Keep your mind open to new possibilities, to previously undreamed of possibilities. Be willing to expand your horizons, to try new things, to reach out to others for feedback and support. Look toward to the future rather than backward to the “what if’s,” “should have’s,” or “if only’s.” Focus on the contributions you can and will continue to make rather than on what you are leaving behind.

Be patient with the process. The beginning stages may be foggy, but if you keep at it the fog will lift. Not only will have a new position, you will know yourself as a “change agent,” as someone who can adapt to change with skill, ease, and grace. And in today’s changing world, that’s a skill you can bank on.





INTERVIEW EXCERPT – Olympia Dukakis, In Sweet Company: Conversations With Extraordinary Women About Living A Spiritual Life

WE KNOW HER best as Rose Castorini, the intrepid wife from “Moonstruck,” the devoted friend Clarey from “Steel Magnolias,” and the clear-sighted Mrs. Madrigal, the landlord of indeterminate gender from “Tales of the City.” …. An award-winning actress of stage, screen and television, Olympia Dukakis has endeared herself to audiences around the world for her dynamic portrayals of the grand transformations and subtle accommodations that are the bread and butter of women’s lives.

The daughter of Greek immigrants, Olympia grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts in a neighborhood where ethnic discrimination, particularly against Greeks, was routine. She made her stage debut at thirteen in a benefit for Greek war relief and acting became her first love. .... After high school, she obtained a degree in physical therapy and worked as a therapist during the polio epidemic. She saved her money, returned to school and earned a Masters in Fine Arts at Boston University’s School of the Performing Arts. Degree in hand, she moved to New York City to pursue a stage career. Shortly thereafter, she appeared in a production of “Medea” where she fell in love with actor Louis Zorich. Their thirty-nine year marriage produced three children and a lifelong repository of unconditional support.

In 1988, after thirty years of performing principally in New York City and in regional theater, and with fifteen years of teaching acting at NYU under her belt, Olympia won her profession’s highest accolade, the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her portrayal of the Italian matriarch in “Moonstruck.” … Later that year, she stood on the podium alongside first-cousin Michael Dukakis, then Governor of Massachusetts, as he accepted the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, and shouted the names of her departed Greek relatives into the din of the crowd. It was, for her, a profound moment, a proud declaration of her ethnicity that she claimed for her entire family.

Olympia has gone on to appear in thirty films, twenty-five Broadway and off-Broadway productions, twenty television movies and over one hundred regional stage productions. Besides an Oscar, she has won, among others, a Golden Globe, a New York Film Critics Award, two Obies, and two Emmy nominations for her work. …

In all things, Olympia Dukakis is both vulnerable and a robust force for life. This was first obvious to me in her brilliant portrayal of Rose Castorini in “Moonstruck.” Beset by the growing disparities in her marriage, Rose goes alone to a neighborhood restaurant to have dinner and invites a lonely college professor who has just been rebuffed by his girlfriend to dine with her. After dinner, he walks her home and attempts to engage her in a liaison. In spite of her own needs for companionship, Rose luminously refutes his advances




“because,” as she says, “I know who I am.” …. It was clear to me that no one could deliver such a delicately nuanced performance without being mindful of her own contradictions. Thirteen years later, when she accepts my invitation to participate in this book, I discover that contradiction is what feeds her, is grist for her spiritual and professional mill. What I also discover is that she is a woman … with a tangible and unreserved spiritual yearning.

IT’S BONE COLD in New York City in March, but there I am, climbing out of a taxi in front of the cafe where I am to meet her. … I pay the cabby, then walk inside the restaurant to get the lay of the land. The “joint is jumpin’,” brimming with neighborhood regulars and intelligentsia from nearby NYU. …

Olympia enters the restaurant bundled in a nylon parka, a mustard-colored wool scarf tied fashionably around her neck and a black wool beret pulled down over her ears. The hostess points her in my direction, and as she walks toward me, she unwinds her scarf and stuffs the beret into her jacket pocket. … Her eyes, those rueful, intelligent, honeyed eyes of hers, draw me in. I smile and nod in greeting and extend my hand. She hits the table running, and begins our discussion even before she sits down. She is apprehensive, she tells me, “talking about women’s spirituality in a world that has suppressed its existence for thousands of years.” …

“I always feel uncomfortable when I read one of these interviews because it never feels substantive enough or it feels very marginalized. It’s not because there’s a lack of sincerity, or even a lack of depth ...”

Is it because it’s hard to put something so subtle into words?

“No. I think it’s because most of us talk one way and live another. There are a few people who truly, truly walk the talk — who are, as Merlin Stone wrote, ‘women who have gone over the mountain.’ The rest of us just talk the talk. The rest of us are still trying to find ways to live in the world with spiritual values. Myself included. We’ve learned certain skills, we’ve learned to prevail somewhat, but we’ve not made it over the mountain. …

“Most of us have contradictions about our lives, but when we talk with someone like yourself, we talk only about what we aspire to, what we smell in the air. We don’t talk about the contradictions. I suppose those who have made it over the mountain still have contradictions, but not about their spirituality. ....”

She is clearly distressed by this paradox. This easy companionship she has with her vulnerability and her willingness to allow me to witness it occurs often during our conversation. Without giving it a second thought, I reach out and touch her hand, as if something I could do might be able to comfort her. She smiles at me.




“I recognize,” she says with a sigh, “that the real pulse of life is transformation, yet I work in a world dominated by men and the things men value, where transformation is not the coinage. It’s not even the language! Winning is everything in Hollywood. The ‘deal’ is everything. I understand the competitive thing because I had a real battle with it as a young woman. Because of my ethnicity, I felt I had to prove I was better — not as good as, but better — than others. Thankfully, it became clear to me that when I compete, I lose my connection to the passion I have for my work “ ….

The waiter has been hovering at a respectful distance, waiting for a break in our conversation. He now makes a beeline to our table. Olympia orders a burger. When he looks at me, she tells him with a smile, “She’s working, I’m eating.” I nod, ask for something to drink, and watch him scurry off to place our order. We pick up the thread of our conversation. ….

“In 1985, I became very involved with Gayatri Devi, a spiritual teacher, who helped me [understand how to bridge [these contradictions]. ”

How did you meet her?

“… I [was rooting] around for something to do and a friend suggested I go to Omega [Institute in Big Sur]. I had my doubts … but I went anyway.

“The only weekend I was free was during what they call their ‘Spiritual Weekend,’ so I signed up for that. Friday night, the presenters sat on a stage and talked about their upcoming workshops. There were rabbis and Cambodian monks and Indian swamis and Protestants and Catholics and Native Americans. It was a whole smorgasbord! And there was this little lady in saffron robes. I was very moved by what she said, but of course, I didn’t permit that to influence me! I decided to go with a shaman because I’d been reading a lot about shamans at the time.”

As she tells this story, a calm comes over her. She is a wonderful storyteller — funny, self-effacing, and poignant — and paints the scene in the colors of her emotional wellspring.

“The workshop I went to was like a bad acting class! Everyone was trying to get in touch with their feelings — beating drums and howling — but I stayed with it. … it continued with much sage-burning and carrying on, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. I walked outside toward a little house where I heard the chanting of women’s voices. I looked in the window and saw the woman I’d been so moved by the night before sitting in lotus position on a slightly raised platform. I walked in and sat down. Gayatri Devi was a bhakti, as they say in India; hers was the path of devotion to God. She was talking in an animated way about the Great Mother, about Her role in the Vedanta tradition. The more she talked, the more I cried. … It wasn’t that I was sad; I was just crying.”




I tell her that I know that kind of crying, when someone touches you in a place so far beyond what your conscious mind can articulate that all you can do is cry.

“You know that kind of crying too? Good!” She slaps the palm of her hand on the table, pleased not only that I understand what she is talking about but that I too have had that kind of cry.

“I didn’t make too much of it though at the time. After all,” she says parenthetically, “I am an actress!” We laugh.

“After the break, I went over and asked Sudha — Ma’s assistant at that time … — if I could speak with Ma, with Gayatri Devi. She told me Ma was totally booked. I wasn’t too upset because I already knew something about what Ma had been talking about. The truth was, I had secretly gotten involved with the Great Mother on my own, thinking I was the only person on the planet to do so. I had no idea other people were interested in Her.”

How did that come about?

“I did a play called “The Trojan Women” that brought up a lot of spiritual questions for me. Then I read a book called Perseus and the Gorgon. After that, I went to every bookstore I could find to get books about the Great Mother. One day, I was in a store here in the Village, and Merlin Stone’s book, When God Was a Woman, fell off the shelf and landed at my feet!”

She holds up her right hand as if she is taking an oath. “Honest to God,” she vows.

And then ....

“Then, months later, I’m having a massage and I hear a voice in my head, an androgynous Presence, say the words ‘Celebrate Her’ — meaning I was to celebrate the Great Mother. I started to cry and cry and cry. Finally I said aloud, ‘I know how to suffer, but I don’t know how to celebrate.’ And the Voice replied, ‘You are of Her, and you know how to do it.’ My awareness of this Presence remained for a while after that, but I told no one about the experience.

“Several months later, I’m going up the stairs at the subway at 42nd Street, on my way to NYU to teach. I’m in a hurry and feeling angry because people are in my way and I couldn’t walk fast enough, and I hear the Voice again. It said, ‘Turn around.’ I turned around and saw everyone scrambling up the stairs. Then the Voice said, ‘She loves everyone. All these people; everyone.’ It really took my breath away. I started to cry, so grateful was I for this love.” …




“So … [that night at Omega when Sudha said Ma could not see me] I started to walk outside when she suddenly came over to me and said Ma wanted to see me. I froze and said, ‘It’s OK,’ but Sudha said, ‘No, Ma wants to see you.’ So I started up the hill to where Ma was sitting … and as I walked, my awareness of all external sound left me. It was as if I were walking in a vacuum. I sat down and told her my name and what brought me to Omega. Finally, I told her about the two times I heard the Voice.

“She became very alert, then asked me some questions about the Voice. Then she said, ‘What are you afraid of?’”

Tears begin to run down Olympia’s cheeks. “I said, ‘I’m afraid of this love, afraid I would be lost.’ And Ma said, ‘Lost in the sea of Her love?’ I said, ‘Yes. ....’

“Ma looked at me for a long time, almost as if she were x-raying me. Then she talked to me and her words made me feel I would be all right, that I could receive the Great Mother’s love — which is still hard for me to do — and give Her love — which is easier. You know?” ….

…I reach for her hand again and she reads me a poem, [a prayer by] Swami Paramananda:

Glory to Thy all-conquering love; Yea, Thy love is my armor, my impenetrable shield,

My unfailing safeguard, I bathe in Thy love and am refreshed;

I feed on Thy love and my soul-hunger is appeased. What need have I of ought else,

When Thou dost fill me and surround me With Thine inexhaustible and all-filling love.”

“That was the love Ma was talking about,” she says.

She is quiet now, lost in thought. She manages a half-hearted smile, then loses herself in her burger. I shift the direction of our conversation, and ask her how she would define spirituality.

“Well, there’s something open-hearted about it. …. you have to trust, or be willing to trust — but trust with open eyes. You have to look at the reality of things. Sometimes there’s darkness and pain. That’s part of life, too.”




Being open-hearted in the face of contradictions?

“Being open-hearted when the world pretty much looks like a place your heart should be defended and protected against.”

What experiences [helped you become]…

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” she admonishes. “… I’m still becoming, thinking and reading and talking and writing and noticing — constantly noticing. It’s an ongoing process.”

I nod my head in agreement.

“These days, maybe because of all this New Age stuff, I hear the word “crone” a lot. People think of crone as a destination you arrive at, not as a time in your life when something is still going on. You never ‘arrive.’ It’s not over because you’re fifty or sixty or seventy! I think we’re in endless transition — and that goes on till we die. …

“Stories about the ongoing dramas in our lives as we age are not being told because women find it difficult to be honest about what’s going on — about, for example, our heightened sexuality as we age or about living in a society that only values youth. We have to be honest with ourselves — and with each other. We have to talk about our real lives and our real needs.”

Western civilization is goal-oriented so we think there has to be a point of “arrival.”

“Yeah. The reality is you don’t arrive, you don’t have a crone ceremony and suddenly get wisdom.” She rolls her eyes and bites into her burger. ….

“I also think we have to open our eyes to what others tell us and see if it works for us before we buy into it. I fall prey to this myself. We have to be cautious. At least, I do. I bought into a lot of things when I was growing up that were right for someone else but that I later discovered weren’t right for me.”

Me too. I think a lot of us did.

“A lot of us still do. I talk to women’s groups all over the country and see women struggling with this. The fear of not being accepted, of being different, of not having a man, all make it hard for a woman to do what she really believes is right for her. And, if we want to change things for women, we can’t tear away at the fabric of each others lives like some feminists do. Women have got to work together. We’ve got to recognize and acknowledge the bravery it’s taken to live the lives we’ve lived, to get up every day and take care of our children and our homes, to keep our churches and schools going, to plant trees in our




parks — all these things. It makes me want to cry when I think about what women do! And we get buhpkis for it. We aren’t even recognized by ourselves for what we do!”

Sometimes it’s easier to recognize our potential in another. That’s why I often show your movie “Moonstruck” in the women’s retreats I lead. That heart-stopping moment when your character refuses to sacrifice her integrity on the altar of her conflicting needs can be a powerful mirror for others to see their own need to maintain their integrity.

“‘Because I know who I am,’” she utters, repeating the words Rose used to jettison her libidinous dinner companion.

“Wasn’t that incredible! It’s amazing how many women talk to me about that one line. Why? Because they finally saw something in a film that reflected a woman’s view of herself, that wasn’t a man’s view of how women are. There it was. I got a similar response when I did “Steel Magnolias” because it was a film about the profound friendships and loyalties women are capable of.”

How important do you think the kind of knowing Rose had about herself is to living a spiritual life?

“I think we have to be careful about what we label as a prerequisite for spirituality. I don’t think you have to know a lot to have a spiritual life, but knowing gives life richness.”

I take a moment to think about her response. She looks up at me from her burger with a glint in her eye. “So,” she says, “what else you got?” …

When did you realize what you were looking for?

“In my forties and fifties, when I first heard the Voice.” …

How do you explore your spirituality?

“Through prayer and meditation. And I do Iyengar Yoga. The physical world is also an important part of my spirituality. Trees, for example, are a tremendous source of connectedness to my heart. A tree only aspires to be a tree. It doesn’t compete with other trees It adjusts to whatever obstacles it has below or above the ground. It doesn’t complain. It’s such a beautiful living presence, such a teacher.” ….

We make it so complicated!




“Women especially do this. We fragment ourselves; we take care of everyone else to the point where we don’t really know what makes us happy. We need to reclaim a sense of play and reclaim our creative initiative. We need to find out what works for us. Once we do this, we find a way to move forward with our lives. We stop being so fragmented and regain a sense of ourselves.”

The same sense that Rose had in her moment of decision?

“Yes. It’s that feeling of ‘I know who I am.’ It’s also the willingness to not know who you are, and to permit that transformation from not knowing to knowing to occur.

“Marija Gimbutas used to say that the heart of the goddess is transformative energy, the same energy that turns the seed into the plant, the tadpole into a frog, the cocoon into a butterfly. In ancient times, these animals were sacred because their transformation illustrates what life is really about. It seems to me that how we understand transformation and how it exists in our lives is also a big part of spirituality. At least it is for me. It’s something women understand intuitively and intimately through our bodies — if we have the courage to claim that kind of knowing.” …

Have you ever had a “dark night of the soul”?

“Yes, I’ve had a number of these experiences. I dealt with them by instructing myself — by willing myself — to go forward into the darkness, by facing whatever I thought would be the worst part of the darkness. …

“Talking to certain people, like my daughter, also helps. She recently visited me in London, and just before I went to the theater, she asked me if I wanted to pray with her. She said this incredible prayer. It just poured out of her. It took me years to learn to pray like that, but my daughter knows how to do it and she’s in her thirties! Isn’t that great!” …

What do you think is your greatest accomplishment?

“That I had children, raised them, and somehow we held it together in the midst of some horrendous things that happened.”…

Do you have any advice you would like to share with others?

“Only what they ask of me. I’m not a wise crone. All I know is that we keep transforming; we never end.”…

3506 words Copyright Jossey Bass 2006




BOOK CHAPTER EXCERPT: The Architecture of Light

In the early years of the 18th century, a great teacher, a Hassidic Master, lived in a small village nestled in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe. The Baal Shem Tov as he was known, the Master of the Good Name, was no ordinary teacher. The simplest of men, free from affectation and ornament, he had the remarkable facility to invest everything, particularly the most difficult of circumstances, with holiness. His fervent longing for God, his ability to receive God, to make facts subservient to faith, suffused the souls of his countrymen and offered them hope in an age of gathering sorrows. So great was his capacity to love that every man, woman and child who met him believed he had come into the world for them alone.

Given the peril of the times, the horror and devastation of the pogroms in Eastern Europe, the Master’s presence was both a harbor and a blessing, and there are many stories about the miracles he performed in the service of God and man. Finally, the day came when the Baal had no other choice left to him but to go before the Light of the World, his loyal scribe in tow, and plead for the deliverance of his people.

“Master of the Universe,’ he says to God, “I stand here at the door of your compassionate heart and ask for your blessing on my people. Lead us according to your laws of Eternal Righteousness through the darkness that threatens to engulf us.”

God is not the only one listening to the rebbe’s appeal that day. Mindful that the Baal’s intervention could bring an end to his reign of terror, the Prince of Darkness seizes the moment God deliberates the Baal’s request and banishes the Baal and his scribe to the ends of the earth. He likewise takes from both men the memory of everything they have ever loved.

The scribe begins to moan; the Baal seeks to calm him. “Can you recall something I entrusted to your pen,” he asks? “A dream? A prayer? Some fragment of advice, some pronouncement I can build upon to dissolve our unknowing?”

Straining to the very edge of his possibilities, the scribe begins, at long last, to remember the Alef, Bet, Gimel, the first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet. He speaks the




letters aloud, the Master followed suit and the presence of God in all things reawakens the Baal’s heart. The curse loses its power, the two men transcend the material laws of time and space and are transported back to their village, memories and lives in tact.

In this way the people learn that in their darkest hour opening their minds and hearts to the presence of God in the smallest of things can lift them to holy ground.


CHILDREN’S STORY: “The Secret In His Eyes.” Mothering Magazine

In the moments between the grey dawn of daylight and the crystal dawn of sunrise, the Crier Chief stood on the mesa and chanted the news of the day.

“Haliksai! Haliksai! Listen! This is how it is. All Hopi awake! Open your eyes to the day! Open your hearts to the light! Rise and be joyous! This is the way of the People.”

At the place on the hill where the wild berries grow, the Old Chief sat fingering an eagle feather. He was thick like corn and his grey-brown skin was covered in a hide as old and weathered as he was.

He had spent the night heart and mind locked in prayerful thought. No sons had been born to his brothers or sisters; no family would succeed him as chief. During the night he had chosen five young braves, any one of whom might follow in his footsteps if they could pass the test and climb the Sacred Mountain. The Crier Chief called out their names. “Go to the place on the hill where the wild berries grow,” he said. “Your future awaits you there.”

The boys ran to the hillside. The Old Chief told them of his plan. Then he sat back and waited for Great Spirit’s will to be revealed.

It wasn’t long beyond the first brave returned to the Chief. In his hand was a grassy reed. “I have brought you this magnificent reed from the sandstone spring,” he said. He handed the reed to the Old Chief.

“You have brought me a boy who grows tired and hungry very quickly,” said the Chief. “Return to the village where you can rest and eat.”




At noon, the second brave appeared with a clump of sagebrush in his hand. “O Great Chief,” he began, “look at what I have for you.”

“I see only a boy who crossed the sandstone spring but feared the desert. “Go home to your mother. She will comfort you.”

The third brave came to the Old Chief at sunset. He was limping and dragged a gnarled grey branch behind him, then laid the branch at the Chiefs feet. “Here is a mighty branch I have carried many miles for you,” he said.

“Here is a boy who reached the spring and crossed into the desert, but returned because he cut his foot on the shale at the bottom of the foothills. Go to the Medicine Man and he will give you herbs to bind your wound.”

A shooting star pierced the night sky and shown on the fourth brave as he stood before the Chief, a large brown pinecone in hand. “This is for you,“ the boy said.

“Though you crossed the spring and the desert and the foothills, for you there was only loneliness. Return to your brothers and sisters your cousins. They will keep you company.”

The sound of the night sky filled the Old Chief’s ear like a great universal hum. He listened to the darkness; he waited for the fifth brave. The boy did not come. The sun burned a hole through the darkness as the new day began. The Old Chief drew pictures in the red dirt on the hillside and waited.

When the boy finally appeared his hands were empty. He carried no proof of the distance he had traveled, made no attempt to prove the significance of his efforts. He stood before the Old Chief, silent, head bowed, for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was like the wind and his eyes were like the sun: “I have been to the mountaintop,” he said. Tears poured from his eyes.

From that day forward, the People say, “A true leader is judged not by that which he holds in his hands, but by the secret in his eyes.”





CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT: Welcome Letter, B.A.B.E.S.: A Prenatal Education Program for Teenagers - The Well Being Health and Disease Prevention Department of Scripps Memorial Hospital, San Diego County

Dear Colleague:

Thank you for your interest in B.A.B.E.S. (Babies and Bellies Education Series), the prenatal health care program for junior and senior high school students developed by THE WELL BEING of Scripps Memorial Hospital, San Diego.

Whether you come to us by way of another health care organization, a school system, a church, or a youth organization, your interest in B.A.B.E.S. unites us in a common bond: the greater good of our children and our children’s children.

You are, no doubt, familiar with the statistics. Every 2 minutes, a baby is born in the United States with a birth defect. As the country’s # 1 child health problem, birth defects consume our time, our energy, and our financial resources. They also consume our children. You also know that many birth defects can be prevented, that many causes of low birth weight (under 5.5 pounds) such as poor nutrition smoking, drug and alcohol use, and maternal age can be controlled through prenatal education and parental cooperation. 250,000 lives each year is simply too high a price to pay for lack of information.

The Sweetwater District in Southeast San Diego had the highest rate of teen pregnancies in San Diego County. With the help of a grant from the James Irvine Foundation, THE WELL BEING developed the syllabus you now hold in your hands to reach junior and senior high school students directly in their classrooms where we could tap an existing structure, the environment and audience we needed, to talk about the importance of prenatal care. Though the program was designed to prevent birth defects, we anticipated it might also deter teen pregnancy; but that was not our primary goal.

We hoped to reach 900 students. By the program’s end, we worked with 8,148 kids! B.A.B.E.S. has had more impact on our community than any program we have done. Teachers wrote hundreds of letters; articles appeared in local and




national publications; ABC News and a CBS talk show featured B.A.B.E.S. on national TV. The list goes on.

The best responses came from the kids themselves, so much so that we include them in this syllabus. After one presentation a 17-year-old girl tried on the Empathy Belly, the bib-like prototype of a pregnant belly, a teaching tool we use to replicate the external conditions of pregnancy. “I had a baby boy six months ago,” she said as she rubbed he belly, “and I gave him up. It was the best thing for him, I know.” She paused for a moment. “I sure wish you’d come here last year.”

It is our sincere hope that your efforts with B.A.B.E.S. will leave a lasting mark on your community as it continues to do here in San Diego.


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