Ampersand Gazette #59

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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I’m always floored by the Herculean effort it takes to interrupt a half-baked theory that the most traumatized part of me has come up with. It’s too tempting to run with it and construct a narrative where I am the victim, the persecuted, the misunderstood. It’s too easy for me to think that life is conspiring against me, to take the emotional debris from the harm I’ve survived and project it onto everything in my life that challenges my ego. The thrill of being justifiably angry is too alluring for the small, trampled on, and taken advantage of aspects of myself. My inner bands of outcasts undoubtedly think that they will finally get justice once the full fury of their rage is unleashed. 

Once I have gone down that deluded path of worst-case scenarios, it takes an Olympic level of psychological labor to reel myself back in. To figure out what is leading me to this torrent of terrible ideas. To ask myself: What am I feeling and why? What was the incident that got me here? Is my feeling a proportionate response to this event? And if not, what is the situation reminding me of? But that is only if I can gather the good sense to do so. 

It’s an exhausting foray into my own shadowlands. But the alternative is so much worse. 

When I don’t do this parsing out, I end up acting out in situations that are as humiliating as they are antithetical to everything that I say I am and want. Unfortunately, I am not alone in needing to consistently do this work. This is the work each of us must do—and there are too few doing this kind of psychological mining at all. 

Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung termed this part of us our “shadow.” He taught that understanding the marginalized, maligned, and socially unacceptable aspects of ourselves opens us to the very medicine we need. In his words: “The shadow is the invisible saurian tail that man still drags behind him. Carefully amputated, it becomes the healing serpent of the mysteries.” 

from astrologer Chani Nicholas’s newsletter, The Weekly
March 18, 2024 

Digging into your personal shadow is not optional, not really. In fact, as Chani underscores, it’s required if we want a world that works for everyone. 

Is everyone digging into their personal shadows? Um, not so much.  

Here’s what happens when we don’t do this vital work: we repress our shadows into our own deepest, darkest psyche places, and then project them all over the world. Now, as I wrote that last sentence, I had to laugh. The thing is, we don’t consciously repress those shadow things, we do it unconsciously, and we send them to even less conscious places within. 

If we were doing this repressing and projecting consciously, it would be a whole lot easier to put the brakes on the behavior. Honestly, there’s very little volition involved in burying the shadow. 

That’s why Chani writes: “It’s too tempting to run with it and construct a narrative where I am the victim, the persecuted, the misunderstood. It’s too easy for me to think that life is conspiring against me, to take the emotional debris from the harm I’ve survived and project it onto everything in my life that challenges my ego.” 

What she acknowledges here is exactly how we can stop repressing and projecting, and instead, start healing. 

First, it’s vital to understand that how you tell the story—any story—matters.
Second, it’s vital to understand that you get to choose how you tell the story.
Third, it’s vital to understand that all stories are as powerful as you allow them to be. 

Here’s just one example: the story of war bringing “glory” is deeply woven into the collective unconscious of humankind right now.  

Except for those of us who see war for what it is: a rending of the fabric of civilization. We are few and far between, sadly. 

It’s so very easy to take the victim position in any story we tell, so easy. There’s a whole collective reality in unconscious agreement about victimhood. 

Ever met anyone who “leads with their victim card?” I sure have, and it’s exhausting. So often I find it means that if someone starts with their victim story, then they inevitably make it my responsibility to take care of their victimization. 

Something’s utterly wrong there. And Chani’s right. Starting from victim almost guarantees that there’s some aspect of ego, originally created with all good intentions earlier and wanting recompense now. 

Before you even think of trashing your ego (or anyone else’s) let’s be clear. We all need healthy egos. Without them, we wouldn’t know where I end, and you begin. Ego is a Greek word that means, simply, I. It is a sense of yourself. 

Ego can also hold your inner victims—and yes, I meant the s. We all have different aspects of self that feel victimized. The real issue is: are we doing the deeper work to effect what Dr. Jung recommends?  

Here are his words again: Carl Jung taught that understanding the marginalized, maligned, and socially unacceptable aspects of ourselves opens us to the very medicine we need. In his words: “The shadow is the invisible saurian tail that [hu]man[s] still drag behind [them.] Carefully amputated, it becomes the healing serpent of the mysteries.” 

When we dig deep, heal those sad-mad-bad parts of ourselves, we become the instruments of our own healing magic. It’s one of the things we can all do for ourselves, and in so doing, amazingly, we inevitably bless our whole world.

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Cathedral Cove, New Zealand

It was as if a toddler had tumbled overboard. 

Several of us gasped or cried out as the wind carried the object away. We frantically searched the sea’s surface for some sign of it. And when, about two minutes later, we spotted it near the shoreline some 50 feet away, the captain of our catamaran dove into the water, swam as quickly as he could and brought it safely back to the boat.

Catastrophe averted! We had saved paradise from an empty can of beer. 

That was about three weeks ago, during a trip to New Zealand, where my three siblings, their spouses and I encountered more than some of the most dazzling seascapes and landscapes we had ever seen. We also observed a respect for nature and stewardship of the environment that put the behavior of so many of us Americans to shame. 

Graced with mountain lakes and coastal fjords and lush forests and birds galore, New Zealanders seem to possess a special appreciation of both the majesty and the fragility of what they have. I say “seem” because I visited this island nation only briefly, I’m going by first impressions and I’m surely generalizing. 

But to connect with the natural world the way you do when moving across a patch of earth as crazily beautiful as New Zealand is to understand, in a deep and spiritual way, the moral necessity of preserving it, the sacrilege of spoiling it and how much control we have—if only we choose to exert it, if only we temper our hungers and our heedlessness. 

In New Zealand, I routinely witnessed or heard about such exertions and such tempering. They were as humdrum as a store’s banishment of plastic and as ambitious as the government’s relocation of an entire species of native bird endangered by the corruption of its original habitat. 

When we kayaked in Doubtful Sound, we crossed paths with no other kayakers and only a few boats: The government strictly limits activity there. Almost everywhere we hiked, we came across meticulously distributed, laboriously maintained traps for rodents and weasels that weren’t indigenous to New Zealand and, left unchecked, might wipe out yet more species of birds. We also saw hundreds of clusters of strategically planted saplings, their spindly trunks skirted with protective cylinders. Where deforestation had once occurred, reforestation was now taking place. 

What an impressive campaign. And what a powerful inspiration. When you behold this kind of commitment, you internalize it, and as you do, you realize that an accretion of decisions and actions—some communal, some individual, some major, some minor—points the way toward our ecological salvation or ruin. 

Had the catamaran captain not chased down that beer can, I might well have. I want the same New Zealand that took my breath away to leave people breathless for generations to come. I want to answer the gift of it with the gratitude it deserves. 

from a newsletter by New York Times’ Op-Ed columnist, Frank Bruni
“On A Personal Note”
March 28, 2024 

Frank Bruni’s words, whether political or personal, are always beautifully sequenced. That’s why I’ve used his whole Personal Note here, but there’s another reason, too. 

It is identical to the reason I used Chani’s eye-roll at herself above.  

As Mary Engelbreit, Our Lady of Whimsy, would say: Well, if you’re not going to be a good example, you’ll just have to be a terrible warning. 

Chani used her own self-victimizing as a teaching opportunity. Frank Bruni used the catamaran captain’s spectacular dive for a beer can as the same. 

This is how each of us incarnate beings turns information into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom.  

We learn something: I can self-victimize.
We apply that information: But I don’t have to.
We transform it into wisdom: I’ll write about it, and hopefully, it will help someone else. 

Or, in Frank and his siblings’ case: I can litter. I can also remove litter. Isn’t it amazing to witness a whole culture doing the same for the sake of preserving the natural beauty of their shared home? 

This is why the perhaps most important thing you can do for the world is attend to your own healing and well-being. By doing so, and sharing about it, you become an example, and the world needs more [good] examples these days. Lots more. 

Because there are already way too many terrible warnings.

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Here’s a universal affirmation. It works every time, for everyone, always and forever … 

Dr. Susan Corso 

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And in publishing news … 

We finished reading Gemma Eclipsing aloud on Saturday! The book is a romp, and isn’t that just dandy? Now I need to write to a specialty reader, and make sure one particular subject is treated properly in the book, (and that I haven’t via ignorance made a huge gaffe,) and then we’ll be ready to publish. This week, I’ll write to the cover artist to get the mock-ups for the paperbacks. I’m now aiming for Tax Day to launch both ebooks and paperbacks.  

Speaking of which, I am now merely in one-half of a serious muddle with Amazon. The series page for The Subversive Lovelies is, at long last, half right. There are tabs on a series pages that allow the reader to choose Kindle, or Paperback. The Paperback tab is correct—finally! All four volumes, representing the first two of the series, in the proper order. The Kindle tab has the two—soon to be three—Kindle books, but it also sports two of the four paperbacks, and I still haven’t found anyone or any way to fix it. 

Sigh. 

So, if you want the paperbacks, look carefully. There are two volumes for each title. If you want the Kindle, there’s one file for each title. 

The first two of the tetralogy, Jezebel Rising and Jasmine Increscent can be found at these live links for ebooks and paperbacks. 

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Once again, if you haven’t seen it, 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? 

I’m on the verge of diving into writing Jacqueline Retrograde, and I can’t wait! 

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In completing the out-loud proofreading of Gemma, I was struck by how much difference a good editor makes. Time after time, my brilliant spouse bookhusband, Tony Amato, asked for clarification of some issue or another, and each and every question made the book a little better. Added together, it makes his work invaluable to mine. If you need anything in your writing life, he’s the person. Find him here. 

The Energy Leaks writing seems to have waned a little. I don’t know if it’s that my writing brain is busy reviewing research so I can dive into Jacqueline Retrograde, or if two other fiction series are crowding my brain waves, but I’m content to show up for Energy Leaks as it mandates on its own. These are micro-essays based on the principles I’ve lived by for many a long year, and there’s no possible way I’m going to forget them. Only God knows what they’ll eventually be, and that’s plenty good enough for me.   

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One of things I’ve been looking into lately is a new-ish marketing trend called Content Funnels, new-ish being a relative term.  

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of supplying my email address in exchange for “free” content. That’s not free; it’s a bait-and-switch. And too many emails can be a/ overwhelming, and b/ serious energy leaks. 

One of the marketing gurus I follow recommended Content Funnels, which pricked up my ears instantly. The usual conventional wisdom has been Opt-In Funnels—those of the gimme-your-email variety. I quit using those years ago. 

Which means …  

If you want, say, the Chakra Less/Mores from iampersand.org, which allow you to start your own chakra work immediately, then you get the Chakra Less/Mores without paying the cost of your email address. Find them here. 

And, yes, I will admit to having there be an additional page wherein you can sign up for emails—if you want them—after you get your genuinely free gift. 

Anyway, the Content Funnel notion has me captivated, and because of it, I’m a little over half-way into Ian Stanley’s book Confessions of a Persuasion Hitman. The title alone cracked me up. 

But also … he’s boiled his philosophy of copywriting down to thirteen nearly fool-proof rules, especially when it comes to direct selling, and they’re delightfully arrogant, hilarious, and spot-on all at the same time. 

If you’re into any kind of sales writing, he’s well worth a read. 

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For those of us who feel sometimes as though we’re not
making enough of a difference,
consider the ripple effect of
O*N*E DROP
of water.
One is enough.
Be that one good example, Belovèd. 

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. 

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