Ampersand Gazette #55
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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Wait. Are you saying we’re afraid of clowns?
Clowns show up fairly regularly; about 6 percent of Americans say they’re afraid of clowns.
What do you personally most fear for us?
Information tunneling and information silos. Algorithms. This is not a conservative or liberal or progressive type of thing; it’s happening to everyone. When I watch MSNBC I just see the reverse of Fox. The algorithms quickly figure out what you want, and that’s all people see. That is incredibly harmful. Every day, all we’re seeing is a broadcast that’s designed to tap into our fears. …
What this list looks like to me is how this list always looks: always some things related to current events, like what’s going on with Ukraine. Government corruption is always at the top of the list. Then you have these perennials, like people I love dying or becoming seriously ill. So some current events, and then it’s about death, illness and money.
from a New York Times Magazine feature by Matt Richtel
“What Are We So Afraid Of? Here’s the Expert to Ask”
January 21, 2024
Well, who knew that scientists studied fear? I didn’t. It makes a cruel kind of sense to me, though.
After all these years of living by metaphysical principles, I can honestly say that I believe almost all emotional turmoil reduces to fear.
The image is, of course, BenDeLaCreme and Jinks Monsoon, two of the premiere clowns working today. I chose it because so much fear has been focused on those who are other than we, regardless of what your we comprises. Whilst I thoroughly appreciate the artistry of these two amazingly talented queens, plenty of folks in this great, free country of ours other them.
Free.
Huh.
Really?
I am reminded of George Orwell’s observation:
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Uh, yeah, there is that persistent inequality that has reared its evil Hydra heads for thousands and thousands of years. The lip service to equality seems to have fallen by the wayside in a lot of mainstream America. What’s replaced it is willful ignorance.
If you don’t look like me, agree with me in all things, and live like me, then … and now comes the relentless litany of condemnation. I find I’m reading fewer and fewer news articles these days. How about you?
Personally, I agree much more with Dr. Christopher Bader, the man in charge of the human fear study. Information tunnels and information silos are far more fear-worthy than clowns. It’s these that are stoking the inequality pyre right through the middle of western civilization.
Because of this:
Every day, all we’re seeing is a broadcast that’s designed to tap into our fears.
Did you know that?
If we don’t actively work to counter this influence, our individual worlds and experiences will become more and more narrow as the algorithms do their work, eliminating any contrasts. I’ve thought for a long time that algorithms are actually based in fear—the fear that I cannot possibly cope with anything that contradicts what I believe or who I am or how I live.
When did we decide that humans were fragile? Too fragile to cope with any sort of others? No, no, no. It’s those others that make the universe spin in its courses. Others bring wealth, joy, a new perspective, challenge, excitement, inspiration. In fact, because the major principle on our planet is that of polarity, contrast—or that which is other—is the major mechanism through which we grow, learn, and heal.
One of the great uniters of people is humor, Beloved. Enter the clowns. No, let’s steal from Stephen Sondheim: Send in the clowns.
Do yourself a good turn today. Go to YouTube and put in BenDeLaCreme or Jinkx Monsoon, or both. Give seven minutes of your precious time to enjoying their silliness, their talent, and their exhilaration at the parts they play in this world.
And if what you see is something you have deemed other, look again. They’re only showing us aspects of ourselves, and what a wondrous, diverse world we inhabit.
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Turn your monotonous moments into monuments … much of life is filled with mundanity. … I’ve made a habit of “observation journaling” —recording everything my eye notices, including the people, sounds, smells, noises and screens.
I started to think more deeply about the sights we take for granted, the things that slip the attention of social media’s endless cataloging. These details came to feel like the intimations of the lives that people live around us.
These transitory items and people might say more about our time than cathedrals or statues; they are what’s particular to our era and thus reflective of its ailments and ethos. …
But through my journaling, I realized something: We’re shoulder to shoulder with many universes; countless lives, hopes, dreams and fears as complicated as our own, all clustered in the same crowded shops, train cars and sidewalks. Why ignore all that?
from an article in Real Estate in The New York Times
“Stop Ignoring All the Mundane Miracles in Your Life”
January 22, 2024
It probably won’t surprise you that this recommendation to attend to the mundane miracles in your life is the solution that will take you straight out of othering, and into identifying with and caring for the rest of the cosmos. This is, of course, Ampersand Living—creating a world that works for everyone, no exceptions.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when we stopped observing everyday life and instead decided that only the big stuff counts, but it’s a devastating trend. Sure, there are big things that happen in a life—weddings, funerals, illnesses, healings, fallings in love (and out,) but most of life is small things, small steps, small thoughts, words, and deeds that lived authentically, faithfully, and happily can add up to the big things.
When I begin to write a novel, I know that a finished book is what I’m after, but that finished book? It starts with an opening sentence, and the one after that, and the one after that, ad infinitum. I think up, type, correct, edit, and fuss with each word until, as the King in Alice in Wonderland says, I come to the end and then I stop.
Think of the things you are the proudest of in your life, Beloved. Aren’t they made up of the small stuff? Sure, you graduated. Awesome. But that’s not really the accomplishment. The actual accomplishment in this example is every book, every word of every paper, every discussion group, every group project, every bit of learning no matter how insignificant, the everyday stuff of being a student.
Graduation is significant, it’s ceremonial. It’s a ritual observance that represents something else. See?
The big stuff is swell, and well worth celebrating, but the actual work of living, the place where we learn, grow, and heal is in the everyday reality of one step at a time.
Observation journaling is one way to do this. Another is letting a running commentary in your mind report on what you’re observing. Another is to draw it, or paint it, or dance it, or sing it.
What all these practices do is toggle your Curiosity to On. Curiosity is one of the few neutral stances one can take. Interestingly, its etymology, via Latin curiosus means careful—translation: full of care.
Herein lies the secret to solving othering forever. Get curious. Open your mind. Be willing to care about anyone and anything and everyone and everything you encounter. You will find that the more care you exude, the more you will receive, and isn’t that what living is all about?
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Here’s a universal affirmation. It works every time, for everyone, always and forever …
Abraham
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And in publishing news …
Tony Amato finished editing Gemma Eclipsing a whole day early. I am up to my hairline in edits. And it’s a total thrill to do the work. It’s painstaking, sure, and changing one thing in one place can lead me down the editorial rabbit hole to changing six more things. Once I’m done, we’ll have a meeting about the ones I don’t get or disagree with, and then we proofread it aloud.
As promised, here is the new cover for Gemma Eclipsing, Book Three of The Subversive Lovelies—
I’ve got the first two books divided into Volumes One and Two for their paperback editions, and I’m still arguing with Amazon about them, so I’ll share the links next time. It’s taken a lot of orange patience pills to get these ducks in a row, believe me.
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 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.
Here is the 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?
A Family Brag
Thanks to the forever persuasive work of Sassafras in Good Housekeeping, there is an article detailing “32 Inspirational Quotes From Transgender and Nonbinary People.” In Good Housekeeping no less! And my dearest husband and favorite editor has a quote! Find it here.
Once an editor, always an editor … 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-eight books and counting! Find him here.
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The Energy Leaks micro-courses are coming along swimmingly. I’ve written two levels, and by the time I’m through it should be four or five for each category.
I’m also going to write a meta-level energy leak course for the serious metaphysicians in our midst.
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.
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The
based upon the chakra system is barreling through my brain at a fantastic velocity. Strangely, on the days I’ve set aside to work on the taxes, it takes a break. Amazing.
Anyway, I remain excited to see where this is going. It might actually be a combination of The Phoenix Initiation and this new idea. That set me back on my pins, believe me! 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 over-the-rainbow excited.
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In the spirit of healing that the Earth and we who live on her need,
here are some profound words for your consideration.
Never forget that you are a worthy being,
simply because you exist,
and deserve always and forever only the best.
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.
S.