Ampersand Gazette #83
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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When Your Moral Compass Is Compromised
Because of a personal experience that destroyed her family, Dr. Jennifer S. Wortham, a researcher at the Human Flourishing program at Harvard, studies the topic of moral injury, or the deep distress that can emerge when you feel that your values have been violated, either by yourself or someone else.
The resulting feelings of powerlessness, guilt and shame can lead to long-term mental health problems. Why are you experiencing all these feelings? It’s because deep down, at your core, who you are is actually being challenged, threatened or violated.
In other words, she said, it can feel as though your very integrity is at stake.
How do you recognize moral injury?
Egregious betrayals can create psychological distress—but so can relatively small, everyday events. These moments often make us feel uneasy, even if we can’t immediately articulate why. And over time, people may reach a breaking point.
Moral distress, a precursor to moral injury, was coined in the mid-1980s in reference to nurses who felt they were being obstructed from doing what was morally correct while on the job. Later, psychiatrist Jonathan Shay created the term moral injury to refer to veterans who were psychologically harmed by carrying out orders that violated their beliefs.
The term has been applied to other groups as well: Teachers, health care, government, and public safety professionals may encounter mandates that threaten to compromise their values, witness morally repugnant behavior or become a victim of somebody else’s transgression.
Dr. Wortham and her colleagues have proposed modifying the American Psychiatric Association’s D.S.M.-5, psychiatry’s classification of mental health conditions, to include the notion that moral problems could contribute to a mental health condition. In December, after more than a year of review, the A.P.A. agreed. The change will appear in September.
How do you handle moral injury?
There isn’t a quick fix to address moral injury. But taking action can be an important step in the healing process. Speaking up and asking for change is one option. When faced with moral injury, experts say that building moral resilience is crucial.
Excerpted from a WELL article by Christina Caron in The New York Times
“When Your Moral Compass is Compromised”
February 20, 2025
I edited out all the specific examples of moral injury in this piece because the important thing isn’t whether you’ve had similar experiences. Moral injury is not a one-size-fits-all phenomenon. It’s as individual as the individual whose morals have been injured.
I want us to treat moral injury as if we are all rabbis. By that I mean, go behind what’s evident, and ask about that.
So, in order to experience moral injury, there is a three-part pre-requisite that cannot be waived:
You have to have a moral code.
And … you have to know you have a moral code.
And … you have to know that it’s important enough to you that you live by it.
Only then can we consider moral distress or moral injury.
The OED has a specific entry for moral compass. It’s a noun used in reference to a person’s ability to judge what is right and wrong and to act accordingly. Via Late Middle English, and originally Latin moralis, it means the proper behavior of a person in society. The root origin mor- means ‘custom.’
Note please that this idea of a moral compass can apply to something as simple as letting a person with two items go ahead of you in a grocery line and as complicated as an agreement between nations.
The thing that gave me pause about this article is that a compass doesn’t work unless it’s attuned to true north—it doesn’t matter if it’s a Scout compass and you’re lost in the Rockies or an inner compass and you’re lost in some social situation. Unless your compass is attuned to your morals, it’s useless.
Ah, but that means … you have morals, you know what they are, and you use them to choose your behaviors.
So, do you?
And if you do, are they merely your own or are they part of the implicit contract under which we operate in order to function as and call ourselves a society?
I think a great deal of the rampant fear we are experiencing all over the world for now is because we’re no longer so sure about that implicit contract.
Dr. Wortham says it can feel as though your integrity is at stake. I beg to differ. Your integrity is at stake. The integrity I mean is not that moral superhero meant to foster good behavior in business settings. What is meant is your own wholeness: body, heart, mind, spirit.
There are as many ways to heal moral injury as there are souls, Belovèd. One thing I know for sure—there’s no quick fix for moral injury. In fact, there’s no quick fix for anything that’s really important to you because what’s important to you is what makes up your integrity.
You might consider doing a little visiting with your moral compass. Morals, yes, are principles of right and wrong which dictate standards of behavior, but they’re also lessons that can be derived from stories or experiences.
Your personal work with your own moral compass is vital in these days of chaos and confusion. Both of those are temporary. I know this because Order is the first law of the Universe. The people who will sustain our world, and remain standing when these unsettling days end, are those who hold to their own True North to weather the storm.
Remember the best fairy tale wisdom I ever heard …
If you’re not happy, it’s not the end.
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How to Feel Alive Again
It all started with a Post-it note. “Go for a walk,” it said.
Katherine May, a British author who wrote the best-selling memoir “Wintering” about a fallow and difficult period of her life, had come across more hard times during the height of the pandemic. She was bored, restless, burned out. Her usual ritual—walking—had fallen away, along with other activities that used to bring her pleasure. “There was nothing that made the world feel interesting to me. I felt like my head was kind of full and empty at the same time.”
In Ms. May’s latest book, “Enchantment,” she describes how a simple series of actions, like writing that note, helped her to discover little things that filled her with wonder and awe—and, in turn, made her feel alive again.
“You have to keep pursuing it until you get that tingle that tells you that you’ve found something that’s magical to you,” Ms. May said. “It’s trial and error, isn’t it?” Here are her tips on how you can do the same.
Commit to noticing the world around you
“We have to find the humility to be open to experience every single day and to allow ourselves to learn something,” Ms. May wrote in “Enchantment.”
“Let yourself go past those thoughts that tell you it’s silly or pointless or a waste of time, or you’re far too busy to possibly do this,” Ms. May said. “Instead give yourself permission to want that in the first place—to crave that contact with the sacred, and that feeling of being able to commune with something that’s bigger than you are.”
First, you must “give in to the fascination” that you feel in everyday moments. Don’t force it, though. The key, she said, is to keep looking for the things that make you marvel—and have faith that you will encounter them.
Ask yourself one simple question
Instead of thinking about what you find enchanting, which may feel too difficult to answer, Ms. May suggests asking yourself a different question: What soothes you?
Whatever it is, find a way to do it.
Contemplate and reflect in your own way
If you want to spend more time in personal reflection but you are concerned about doing it the “right” way, set aside that concern.
Eventually, she had a realization: If something you’re attempting isn’t working, the problem may not be that you hadn’t tried hard enough, it was that those rules weren’t made for you.
Do it because it feels good
People tend to think that seeking pleasure for pleasure’s sake is somehow naïve. In other words, we are more likely to assign worth to things that are considered practical and efficient.
But you don’t need a set of data or another compelling reason to do something that brings you joy.
Excerpted from an article by Christina Caron in The New York Times
“How to Feel Alive Again”
February 27, 2023
In the face of all the recent shock, it’s easy to lose hold of awe. If you’re struggling with this, you’re not the only one. In addition, for some unknown reason, humans tend to think that how things are right now, including oneself, is how they’re gonna be forever.
The only constant is change, remember?
Still, I could relate to what Katherine May experienced. I know what it’s like to have a head that’s empty and full at the same time—perhaps better said, empty of all the things and feelings I desire, and full of all the things and feelings I don’t.
Just like having a moral compass, Belovèd, connection to awe requires reflection, and reflection requires that we slow down, notice the world around us, ask ourselves questions, contemplate and reflect in our own way, and figure out what feels good to us and what doesn’t.
Ms. May’s four points are actually a map that can lead anyone to awe—if you do what she’s recommending.
Ah, but this is the path of the individual. The single soul—mind and heart, inspired by spirit, and inhabiting a body. No one can connect you to awe but you. There is no stand-in that will suffice.
I have a friend who consistently tells me he doesn’t need to know the Divine; he knows me, and I know the Divine. Good enough. It makes me laugh to be sure, but he’s also, sadly, in error. I don’t mean a Divine like the God of the Alps—the transcendent God, the one that’s always bigger than any problem.
No, I mean the still small voice, the immanent Divine, that one that is the actual spirit that animates your every aspect. This is the God that’s closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet, in the illustrious words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The right here, right now, willing-to-awe you Divine.
There’s an adage in AA that stayed with me from the first time I heard it: If you can’t see God, guess who turned away? So, really, if you can’t see the Divine, go find a mirror. Any one will do. Because when you look into your own face, that’s the most important visual of the Divine you will ever have or ever need.
The old fight-or-flight adrenal reaction has gotten a couple of updates in recent decades. There are two more Fs: freeze and fawn. So now it’s the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn reaction. In these recent weeks of shock after shock, it’s easy to freeze.
That’s what happened to Ms. May (oh, not why it happened, but what.) But when you’re frozen, Belovèd, awe falls right off the menu. It disappears. That’s because awe requires vulnerability. It’s that sharp breath in, or that gasp, or that whoosh of an exhale that says, “You are in the presence of the Divine.”
In her tour de force performance of The Search for Signs of Intelligence Life in the Universe, Lily Tomlin’s Trudy the Bag Lady avows that she sets time aside daily for self-reflection and awe. She calls the practice awe-robics. Let’s get to it, shall we?
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Here’s a universal affirmation. It works every time, for everyone, always and forever …
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And in publishing news …
EEK! My WP Wizard had a family emergency so I need a WP Wizard ASAP. My guidance this morning was to wait until one came to me. Still, I’m asking!
Plugging away in blog world, finding more and more things I want to write about which is a thrill. I’m thinking of posting twice a week, short spiritual pieces meant for you to think about in terms of your own life and your own growth. In between, there will be random affirmations, prayers, and praxes.
The Mex In-Betweens are up on Amazon as ebooks and paperbacks. If you’re a Mex fan, you’ll enjoy the backstories. If you’re not yet, these thirteen short stories are a way to ease into all ten supernatural musical mysteries. Remember that the first book, Oklahoma! Hex, is permafree. If you’re feeling curious, go for it.
I am delighted to report that the Writing Angels said Go. How’s this for an unmistakable message?
I burst into laughter! That was February 5, 2024. I’m still laughing about it.
As of this writing, I am already over 30,000 words into Impending Decision, Book Five of The Boots & Boas Romances, the saga of attorney Jamie Jenkins and his about-to-graduate-from-law-school paralegal, Jayne Jordyn Jewell. In addition, in quite the departure, the rest of the series—its titles and storylines—fell full-blown into my mind so this week, I set up the files for books 6-12 or maybe 13.
I fell into Jaq Direct, the final book of The Subversive Lovelies, my speculative fiction series, on the same day as Impending Decision, so I am at last writing two fiction books, in two completely different worlds, at the same time. For Jaq, I’m over 35,000 words so far. Jaq is set in 1907; Jayne is set in late 2020. What it means is that I get to be totally disciplined about my time. Borderline rigid.
I still haven’t gotten to the Besieged edits, no matter that they’re calling to me. I am, however, continuing my research into the 1980s HIV/AIDS experience. Also, the mechanisms of blood, what it does, how it works, how its history has played out from the beginning of time. Amazing, the things I read these days that I never in my life anticipated or expected that I would read.
The Taber’s Medical Dictionary I preordered comes on Monday! Eep. Dang. Not so fast. I got a notice from Amazon and now it’s not expected till the end of March, so the tiny courses go back off my plate. The first four courses will be Body, Heart, Mind, Spirit chakra teachings. Each is a dive into one aspect of learning how to have Exponential Energy—something we all need right now.
Lauren Grace, my soul sister in Australia, has my visit with her live as a full-length episode on her award-winning Afterlight Podcast. Here’s what she says about it:
Restore Your Energy and Reclaim Your Power with Dr. Susan Corso
In this episode of The Afterlight Podcast with Lauren Grace, we dive into energy leaks and how to restore yourself to exponential energy with special guest Dr. Susan Corso.
✨ Using the chakras to gain clarity and heal
✨ Releasing the past & transforming rage
✨ The power of prayer & energy work
✨ Tapping into your energy system & reclaiming your power to choose
And so much more... If you’re ready to heal, recharge, and step into your full potential, this episode is for you! Listen now!
She also has two mini-episodes from that same chat which will go live in March and April. I’ll keep you posted.
Between Impending Decision, the fifth book of The Boots & Boas Romances, Jaq Direct, the final book in The Subversive Lovelies speculative fiction series, The Gazette, IWRITEWHATSYOURSUPERPOWER.COM, and a secret card project up my sleeve, plus, you know, life, things are rich and full.
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My review request this issue is … first, a great big thank you to those who left a review! And, if you love speculative fiction, would you please read Jezebel Rising—the permafree book that starts my Subversive Lovelies? If you love it, would you leave a stellar review? I need THREE MORE reviews of four stars and above to do one of my special series promotions … please. This will take you right there.
Here's one as a possible inspiration for your own …
5.0 out of 5 stars Enchanting
Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2023
I did not know what to expect with this series. I purchased it on a whim and had no prior experience with this author. Wow, what an enchanting stroke of luck I landed. It took me a minute to figure out who the characters all were, but once I settled in, this series has been a much-needed break from the stress of the day. (Truth be told, even my bouts of insomnia are better knowing I can check up on my favorite sisters and see what they are up to.) Although I may have been naive to this author before, I am surely a follower now!
Reviews really are the engine that powers the career of an indie author.
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Tony Amato is my favorite editor for lots of reasons. He has a magical combination of talents that serves authors and their books in a way unlike any other editor I know, or know of. May I encourage you to reach out if you need book-husbanding? Seriously, I know a guy.
Now more than ever the whole world needs your creative input. Really, if it’s about books—you name it, he’s done it. Like I said, if you need anything in your writing life, Tony Amato is the person. Find him here.
P. S. So … just wow. This week’s substack was about how passions other than writing fuel writing, and was it beautiful! Seriously. Go read it. Tony Amato, as you know my favorite editor, has a new substack. He’s writing about writing and he’s sharing some of his own fiction. Last week’s post flayed me. Subscribe here.
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On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
by Timothy Snyder
from the blurb … #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings.”—Masha Gessen
The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.
On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.
A dear friend recommended this to me as a way to feel less like a handless maiden and more like a participating citizen. It lived up to his recommendation totally. I’m recommending it again because if you didn’t check it out last time, please do so now. Brilliant.
The thing I found most helpful was that Snyder’s words made a larger place within me to think about what is happening in our world today. Essentially, his prose is a zoom-out—bigger picture, lots more space. Barring prayer, the best resource I’ve found for restoring confidence that one person—namely, you, or me—can and does make a difference. Yeah, just one.
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Are you waiting for a sign?
How about this one?
This is a puzzle I did recently.
I’m often draw to images of
Ribbons
For two reasons:
First, they tend to depict rainbow colors,
and I’m always up for rainbows;
Second, and far more importantly,
they remind me that
LIFE IS A GIFT.
I know the world feels to some of us
as though it’s quite precarious,
and perhaps it is, but …
What if we need the seeming chaos
of the world to shake us out of our trance
in order to receive myriad blessings
for all of us?
Just … what if …?
I am, without doubt, certain that And is the secret to all we desire.
Let’s commit to practicing And ever more diligently, shall we?
Until next time,
Be Ampersand.