Ampersand Gazette #46
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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“You can do this,” I adamantly told myself. “If you believe, success is certain.” [SC: The writer is a mountain climber.]
It didn’t work. I fell near the top. Defeated, I lowered to the ground and realized—powerfully, and with the clarity I was seeking minutes earlier—that the desire to climb the route had kept me from doing it. My self-worth was bound at that moment to my success or failure, and that set off a chain reaction: unnatural desire, pressure, performance anxiety, anticipation, a mind enamored with the top but a body struggling below, bad decision-making, irregular movement, distraction, frustration. All in that order, too.
On a whim, I told myself that on my next attempt, success or failure was irrelevant. “Make one move at a time. That’s all.” I gave myself a pass from whatever would transpire. Case closed. It worked. I floated to the top with poise, clarity and bewilderment.
… When I added (determination, grit, self-confidence, desire), I failed. When I took away (the desire for success), my body moved with greater fluidity and naturalness. I improved. I enjoyed it more as well, which, as an athlete of 30 years, I didn’t think was possible.
I discovered the power of subtraction.
The key is removing barriers to clarity, not adding them in hopes of reaching our goals.
In the early- to mid-1920s, the French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was an adventurer, a poet of life. He also wrote one of my favorite books, “Wind, Sand and Stars.” In it, I found one of the smartest lines ever written on the human condition, even though at the time he was riffing about airplanes: “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add but when there is nothing left to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.”
What is left when you do that? Only an action. You are in it, then, in sport or in love, with clarity, intensity and solidity. You adjust quickly and deftly. You are no longer bound by addition. You are free to act.”
from an Opinion Essay in The New York Times
“The Power of Subtraction” by Francis Sanzaro
September 17, 2023
Mr. Sanzaro’s tale is more than a cautionary one. It holds several metaphysical wisdoms—yes, you read that right, wisdoms plural.
First, and this holds especially for goals, dreams, and visions that have been held for a long, long time. Sometimes, we become so used to the wanting of the dream that we forget to include having it come true as part of the process. The wanting, another word for desire, of course, but also a word we use to mean lacking, becomes so much a part of us that we wouldn’t recognize having if it rang our own doorbells and said, “Here I am.”
Often, the solution to this is to let go of the dream. I know, I know, it’s counter-intuitive. It can also be personality-jarring. The subtextual question is: Well, wait! Who will I be if I don’t want this?
Let’s get … technical, shall we? It’s really not that you don’t want it. It’s that you’re following the cardinal rule of creation. Yes, visualize. Yes, dream. Yes, see yourself in the picture. Yes, yes, yes, participate, but … the teachers advise … don’t get attached! (It’s hard not to do something, though. Instead … read on.)
Argh! How do I do that? If I’ve heard that question once, I’ve heard it a million times. Again, I’ll go technical. You are attached, Beloved—to the what, meaning what you want, the subject matter. And rather than don’t get attached, try surrender … the details.
I have a friend who decided she wanted a new car. For the sake of brevity, she kept giving thanks for “wheels,” and seeing little red wagons wherever she went. Eventually getting the message, she howled with laughter, and changed the wording of her what.
The what is our responsibility, always and forever. What you are actually letting go of, and you must let go of, is the how. The nitty-gritty. The pesky, little details that can actually prevent our good from finding us!
Go back to the car example. You want a new car. If someone offered to give you a car, and it was perfect in every way except …, would you turn it away because it wasn’t the exact red you envisioned? I hope not.
So what did the climber do? He repaired to the present. Not where he’d been: failure. Not where he wanted to be: the top. No, he turned to the moment, the process, the one place where his contribution had an effect. And he discovered subtraction.
There’s a concept in metaphysics that equates to subtraction. It’s out of favor right now, but it’s exceedingly powerful when practiced correctly. It’s called Denials, and it used to be that Denials and Affirmations were an inseparable pair. Essentially, it works as: deny what is, affirm what you choose instead.
Back to the car. There is no spot where God is not is an old, old denial. So it looks like my friend “lacks” a car. So? You really think the God of the Alps can’t manifest a car? Of course She can.
The perfect car is mine now. Affirmation. The first part of the practice is meant to take the energy out of the “solidity” of what-is so you can affirm with greater faith.
What is left in the manifestation process after denials and affirmations is baby steps towards your goal. As Mr. Sanzaro says, “You are free to act.” And that, Beloved, is one of the only two, but far-reaching, gifts each of us receives from the Divine when we incarnate: the life force, of course, and free will. It is free will that allows each of us to choose, and work toward, our what.
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“The first step in a good apology is acknowledging harm.
The second is expressing genuine regret, and where possible, acknowledging our shortcoming. Our intentions are not always good. Sometimes we’re selfish. Sometimes we don’t know what we’re doing, and sometimes we fail to consider the consequences. If we can admit these things, it helps repair trust.
Then we vow, in good faith, to not perpetuate the same harm again.
The last step is repair. This means directly addressing the harm done—not via self-flagellation on YouTube nor with any expectation of forgiveness.
A lot of public apologies have been undone by people who complain that despite their contrition, they’ve been canceled. Supposed remorse often morphs into outrage and resentment. Why aren’t they immediately allowed to return to what they were doing before? “But I said I’m sorry!” my 8-year-old says, when he apologizes and still has to face consequences for his actions. Who can blame him? Many adults think an apology by itself should be enough; it rarely is.”
from an Opinion Essay in The New York Times
“I Have A Question For The Famous People Who Have Tried to Apologize” by Elizabeth Spiers
September 23, 2023
The Days of Awe in the Jewish calendar have just passed. It’s an occasion to review the year, and make any amends for whatever feels unfinished. Several years ago, I experienced a creative betrayal by someone in whom I’d placed a great deal of trust. Ever since, we’ve been trying to find our way back to each other and our friendship. It’s still not right.
This year, right before Yom Kippur, she asked me if there was any action she could take that would help us deepen that process.
Her question made me have to really think through what action might repair the rift from my side. Really think. I wrote her back and said I wanted to think about it, and then I did. What I came up with surprised me, and it didn’t.
I let a couple days go by, and realized that I needed to reenact the wounding narrative, but with a new ending. So I asked her to read the book descriptions of a couple of my books, decide if they intrigued her enough to read them, and then do so, if they did. If they didn’t, I said we’d find another way.
The minute I wrote the email, I felt better. I very much want this repaired in my life. I miss my friend. It also felt great to be able to participate in the repair process, really to look at what I thought might make me abler to trust her again. And, as always, I had to be the first to give what I wanted: trust.
Just a verbal apology often isn’t enough, but inviting the person wronged into the process goes a long way toward healing.
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Don’t forget this bottomline prayer. It works every time …
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And in publishing news …
Jasmine Increscent is live on three platforms
Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble! I am so pleased.
In addition, to celebrate my nearly-here birthday, the 12th, both Jezebel Rising and Jasmine Increscent will be 99¢ until the 13th on all platforms.
In the back matter of both books, there is a page offering to email me so I send you an email to forward to a friend who you think will love these books. Please! Take advantage.
May I also ask, if you read either of The Subversive Lovelies books and enjoy them, that you post an Amazon review please? Reviews are the major determining factor for that pesky little algorithm. Thanks!
School’s in full sway now, and people are settling into this semester’s routines whatever they may be. Are you making time to read for your own pleasure? Even if it’s ‘only’ a chapter a night?
That’s one of the things I’m really careful about in my writing. Most of my chapters are, within a +/- five hundred words, the same length. That’s so you can read one before bed and know you won’t get caught in a long, long chapter.
And for those who missed it …
Here’s the blurb (to whet your appetite)—
A wedding. Increasing. And it’s time to start her vicety … it’s a three-ring circus—oh, my.
Jasmine Bailey is the second eldest of the Bailey siblings, yes, those Baileys. Known for being much more in the present than the future, years earlier she’d begun a one-woman mission to serve mothers who’d been abandoned by their spouses in the worst slum ever to darken New York City: Five Points. Universally recognized by her honorific, Lady Jasmine, throughout Gilded Age society, the wealthy take their checkbooks in hand whenever they see her strawberry blonde braid and her lissome figure coming.
Now it’s time for Jasmine’s vicety—the second of four the sibs had planned upon the death of their beloved father four years earlier. Since then, Jezebel’s pair of viceties—The Obstreperous Trumpet, a saloon, and The Salacious Sundae, an ice cream parlor—were going great guns. Jasmine had originally intended to create a high-end gambling hell. Except ... her wedding is scheduled in less than a month, and she’s increasing. There’s, uh, a lot on her plate.
Jasmine’s research takes her from the lowest of the low policy shops in Mulberry Bend to an outré visit to the most elite gambling institution in town. Still, she’s struggling with what is in her heart about starting this vicety. A chance sentence, if you believe in that sort of thing, overheard whilst at breakfast one morning changes everything.
Will her struggle with gambling resolve to her satisfaction, or will Jasmine have to scrap every idea she ever had about it to start over again? Sure, no doubt she could, but does she want to, and how will that affect her siblings and their nefariously well-meant agenda in Chelsea Towers?
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I’m up to writing over two thousand words a day on Gemma Eclipsing, which is rolling along nicely. I wrote one of the hardest scenes I’ve ever written just yesterday, and I’m definitely in the winding-up stage. Hopefully, I’ll be able to announce that I’ve finished it in the next Gazette!
Tony, my editor (and if you need a good one, find him here), (and full disclosure: my husband) bless the man, sits with me every night before supper and lets me read to him what I’ve written—like viewing the dailies in the movie business. It’s the highlight of my day, and he always has a good idea or suggestion or some notion that I haven’t thought of. He’s a remarkable collaborator.
His self-dubbed name for what he does is Book Husband. And that’s exactly what he does. He, somehow, has figured out how to live in the world that each of his authors has created, and participates avidly in that world. His gift is remarkable, so if this fall is a time to get going on that book you’ve always dreamed of writing, find him here with my heartfelt blessing.
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On an entirely different note, a next, new speculative fiction series is starting to gather momentum, and I am hanging on tight. Research is still top of the list.
One of the best things to happen is that I received a working title for the series, so here it is for inquiring minds …
The series title has remained the same since last I wrote, and I have been given the titles of all four books in the series. The first one is:
The book takes on the healthcare system in the U.S., and its evil twin, the insurance industry.
Last issue, I said I was still researching, and I am, believe me, I am, but I am also ready to say that I’ve discovered something remarkable about this avatar, who some of you might recognize. Her name is Lilith.
What I’ve discovered in my depth astrological studies is that there are actually five Liliths! Five!! And that each one represents the pattern of how Lilith plays out in your life, only in a slightly different way.
Right now, I’m seeking a few volunteers to have me create a Lilith Legacy Chart for them. If you know that’s you, please email me, and send me standard birthdate and year, time, and place (town, state, country) you were born.
The storyline of the books is coming to me slowly. It’s a process I treasure.
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Lately, I’ve been working with images for a chakra meditation workbook. This is one of them, endless loops of energetic color. Try to meditate with it sometime, and see what happens. I am, of course, more convinced than ever that And is the solution to everything, and so, Be Ampersand, Beloved, until next time.