Ampersand Gazette #54
Welcome to the Ampersand Gazette, a metaphysical take on some of the news of the day. If you know others like us, who want to create a world that includes and works for everyone, please feel free to share this newsletter. The sign-up is here. And now, on with the latest …
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Of course, every time there’s a movement, there’s a countermovement, where people feel that their place in the world is threatened and they want to turn back the clock.
from an Opinion Essay by Maureen Dowd in The New York Times
Here Comes Trump, the Abominable Snowman
January 13, 2024
I’m about to make what a teacher of mine calls a Captain Obvious statement. Maureen Dowd is, of course, writing about one of the major principles undergirding Life on Earth, even if she doesn’t know it.
The Law of Polarity.
As a metaphysician and an Ampersander, you already know this. It’s Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion:
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The thing in Ms. Dowd’s words that pulled my attention wasn’t the polarity, nor was it the polarization that is the natural result of polarity stretched to its breaking point. (Which is, of course, what happens when polarity becomes polarization.) No, not that either.
It was the addition of the concept of Time.
The third dimension is Space. The fourth is Time. But that’s not how we have come to use time in our world. We measure time by minutes, hours, et al, sure, but we also measure it by its efficacy.
Efficacy is the ability to perform a task to a satisfactory or expected degree. And here is where humanity gets in trouble every, uh, time.
In our world these days, efficacy has implicit timelines attached to it. Has an office-holder accomplished what was intended in those four years? If not, off with his head.
How many of us have heard that it was time for whatever grieving we were doing to end? Aren’t you over that yet? we hear.
In the idea of turning back the clock, implicit is the notion that then—whenever that then was—is or must have been better than now. It’s expressed best in the word nostalgia. (Can anyone else hear the marvelous Jean Stapleton warbling “Those Were The Days?”)
We long for “the good ol’ days.”
Personally, I think the good ol’ days are subject to an exponential factor of romanticizing.
I always want to say, Which good ol’ days do you mean? And, where? And, good for whom?
Nostalgia is a double-edged sword, efficiently revealed in the etymology of the word. It’s a modern Latin translation of a German word meaning homesick. Its origins, though, are darker and come from the Greek: nostos = return home + algos = pain.
Those who long for the good ol’ days aren’t longing for the parts that come with pain. They’re longing for the remembered joys, the ease, the fun. And yes, doubtless, all those things were present and accounted for then.
But that same then also had its pains, guilts, worries, fears, and challenges—just like now.
In fact, just as our now is based on the principle of polarity, so was then. A law of the universe is a law because it’s true for all people at all times in all places, Beloved. Polarity is now, and polarity was then, which means that just as many people were hurting then as now, although perhaps for different reasons.
Turning back the clock is no solution at all. Not now. Not ever. Turning, instead, to face the sorrows of those who hurt, and address them, that’s where we’ll find the good ol’ days, and that’s why I am so adamant about Ampersand Living.
Remember, it’s a belief in and a call to create a world that works for everyone. No exceptions. Maybe I should add: all the time. If not yesterday, as there’s nothing we can do to change that, but certainly today, and all the sweet tomorrows thereafter.
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So here’s a specific strategy for making the good ol’ days show up today …
It’s a story about one side of a friendship that was uninvited to a wedding …
Despite my hurt, I tried to keep the problem and my own mind open. I discovered what Rebecca Solnit calls the “spaciousness of uncertainty,” a realm of possibility. When at last my friend broke her silence with a text, I was ready to reconnect and move forward, even if I couldn’t get answers to all my questions. Meeting her rejection with unsureness gave me perspective and the courage not to shun her in turn.
Humans naturally need answers and so typically find uncertainty aversive. …But a wave of new scientific discoveries reveals that learning to lean into uncertainty in times of rapid change is a promising antidote to mental distress, not a royal road to angst, as many of us assume.
from an Opinion Essay in The New York Times by Maggie Jackson
How to Thrive in an Uncertain World
January 13, 2024
The “spaciousness of uncertainty.” Isn’t that a marvelous phrase? And isn’t that what the good ol’ days folks are desperately trying to avoid? I think so.
Whilst neither you nor I can do a thing about those caught in a romantic nostalgia haze, we can most definitely do something in our own lives about the hurts that make us want to long for those good ol’ (nonexistent) days. Case in point …
A friend is uninvited to a family wedding, and endures months of silence, not knowing if there’s something wrong, if her friend is alright, if their friendship is over. Instead of giving in to wanting things settled, she waits, and clears her own hurt, and still waits.
Yes, the spaciousness of uncertainty can be excruciating, but it’s also a realm of possibility, isn’t it?
One of the things I’m finding lately in my ongoing counseling is that this need to have things settled is becoming more and more pronounced as our world slowly spins out of control. It makes sense. On the other hand, it also means that I spend an awful lot of time slowing things down for clients so that they can have their initial reactions, and not take action based thereupon.
Let’s revisit that, shall we?
Yes, you’ll have a reaction—to whatever.
Yes, you might want it resolved—immediately.
Yes, that might very well be possible.
And, no, it might not.
Bring the experience home, Beloved. What is there for you to clear from within? Do that first. Then make an action plan.
Otherwise what happens is that you run the risk of trashing people, places, and things in your life that you’d actually like to keep.
The uninvited wedding guest wanted to keep her friendship more than her hurt. So she waited instead of knee-jerk reacting.
Just remember this. People could be just as inconsiderate during the good ol’ days as they can now. It’s just that we hear about it faster now because we have the technology to do so.
What gift might the spacious of uncertainty give you this lovely day?
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Here’s a universal affirmation. It works every time, for everyone, always and forever …
Mike Dooley
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And in publishing news …
Here is the new blurb for Gemma Eclipsing—Book Three of The Subversive Lovelies!
A rescue. An artistic vision. And her new vicety demands its immediate birth.
Gemma Bailey is the third of the Bailey siblings, yes, those Baileys. Known for being exceptionally talented on the stage, whether theatrical or domestic in nature, Gemma is given muchly to dramatics in the best sense of the word. She can make an occasion out of anything. She loves ritual. She loves pomp. She loves circumstance. She’s good at all of it, and she’s perfectly content with her legion of myriad friendships, no romance necessary.
Now it’s time for Gemma’s vicety—the third of four the sibs had planned upon the death of their beloved father seven years earlier. Since then, Jezebel’s pair of viceties—The Obstreperous Trumpet, a saloon, and The Salacious Sundae, an ice cream parlor—are going great guns. Jasmine’s vicety, The Board Room, the first of its kind in the City, is racking up the profits, all of which go to charitable causes. Gemma has been naming and claiming a music hall as her chosen vicety for years until the time arrives to make it happen.
Then, the extremis of a young painter causes a vision for a fine arts academy strictly for women artists to be birthed full-blown from Gemma’s eternally capacious imagination. And despite her abundant performance giftedness, Gemma discovers a fulfilling talent she never dreamed she had.
Will her vision engender the support it needs from all corners of the exclusively masculine art world? Will she struggle pointlessly to put forth her case? Or will an encounter with an unlikely colorful glass artisan change the whole game completely for Gemma and her vision for a vibrantly creative future for Chelsea Towers?
The book is in Tony Amato’s capable editorial hands. He tells me to expect the MS back by the end of the month. Then, I get to wrestle with the changes, have a meeting about the ones I don’t get or disagree with, and then we proofread it aloud. I’ll reveal the cover in the next Gazette.
If you have a project that needs some well-deserved editorial support, I cannot recommend Tony Amato enough. Without him, I would never have finished thirty-six books and counting! Find him here. [True confessions: After eighteen years of editing, I finally got smart enough to marry him.]
I’ve got the first two books divided into Volumes One and Two for their paperback editions, and I’m hoping to have them published this coming week. It’s taken a lot of backing-and-forthing with Amazon to get these ducks in a row, believe me. I simply cannot be the only author who writes books longer than 800 pages. Diana Gabaldon, anyone?
I’m still researching Jacqueline Retrograde, and it’s getting close to starting time. I am so delighted at where the story is going. These subversives are determined to have their stories told, and soonish! Plus, I’m missing fiction writing. Already!
The first two of the tetralogy, Jezebel Rising and Jasmine Increscent can be found at these live links, and I’m expecting to publish book three within the first quarter of 2024.
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For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to write a fiction … something based upon the chakra system, wherein I happily claim an expertise. I’ve considered a Mex structured like the chakras, but nothing has completely settled me until …
Consider this the announcement of a currently …
based upon the chakra system. It’s too nascent to tell you more right now, but ideas are coming almost faster and furiouser than I can get them down on paper. It’s eight or nine books—so far, and I’m beyond excited.
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I’ve also started work on a series of what I’m calling micros—courses you can work through in sixty minutes or less—on Energy Leaks.
Having noticed plenty in my own life, and having started to clean them up, and feeling a lot better, I began to mention these to friends and wow! People lit up. Yeah, they said, I want that!
Okay, got the message loud and clear.
I’ve boiled it down to six categories: Health, Relationships, Mindset, Spirituality, Wealth, and Technology. Now, without pondering, musing, or otherwise contemplating, which one of these makes you feel the crummiest? Click here to tell me directly, and I’ll email you the first module of your chosen category.
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In the spirit of the wisdom of the chakras,
here is a full-spectrum lotus for you to contemplate.
Never forget that you are a full-spectrum being,
and deserve always and forever only
the rainbow best.
I am, without doubt, certain that And is the secret to all we desire.
It’s about time, no?
Until next time,
Be Ampersand.