I have been posting blogs on my website since August, 2018. At first, I posted monthly, then bimonthly, and for the last few months, I have been posting weekly. In total, that’s almost 60 posts.
They are essays about topics I am thinking about, usually triggered by something I have read or experienced. I think about what would serve you, mining for the nugget of truth that is universal in my personal experience.
August is my birthday month. When I was born, the sun was in the constellation of Leo. That’s the sign that governs the heart. I have always led with mine.
That’s why I am taking the time to introduce myself now, venturing to form a heart connection with you. Soon I will complete my 65th journey around the sun, through no direct effort of my own.
What is interesting is not that I have survived but what I have done with the time I have been given, how I have taken responsibility for living my best life.
In many ways, we are alike. Aspects of our human experience are universal, yet we are also individuals and that’s where it gets interesting. How does my unique Self interact with other unique selves? Who am I and why would you care what I have to say?
Please allow me to introduce myself. Turning 65 years old this month, I am five years into what I refer to as the third act. When I entered it, I wrote about life in 30- year chunks or acts.
The outline of 30-year segments roughly aligns with Rudolf Steiner’s seven-year cycles of human development and my overlay of Aristotle’s structure of the three-act play.
According to Steiner, it takes four seven-year cycles or about 28 years to incarnate the whole human being. That is the physical self, the etheric or energetic self, the astral or soul self, and the ego or individual thinking self.
Only once all four bodies are expressed are we fully ready to walk our destiny path, although there are indications of the emerging self throughout development.
Aristotle’s three act play structure involves: in the first act the exposition or background, in the second act the conflict, and in the third act, the resolution of the conflict. That’s how I structured my biography.
This is my story beginning at the beginning of the first act.
In 1956, the year I was born, the number one hit was Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel. America’s economy was on the rise and youth culture was, too. It was a small step to celebrate black music and glaring to overlook its cultural creators.
That feels like the general mood of the first act in my personal life; external signs belying inner unrest. The standard American dream (think marriage, family, job, and a suburban home) did not call me; my aspirations were outside the mainstream. You could say I was different in that way.
I was the fourth child born in a home and time when dad worked, and mom took care of the family that included eight children when all the babies had arrived. We reaped the benefits of those times: solid values, good education, a cottage at the beach in August and classic grandparents who lived nearby.
Throughout the sixties, we followed a path of Catholic education, daily rhythms and seasonal gatherings of family and friends, as well as changing mores and fashions. When things were good, we showed it. When they weren’t, we pretended they were.
Through small doses of media and adults openly expressing shock and mourning, I became aware of the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King as well as riots on college campuses. At the same time, that all was well at home in that children were healthy, our father supported us, and our village was generally safe, there was an undeniable current of unrest.
By the time I was in high school in an all-girl Catholic institution, inner unrest led to seeking understanding outside of Catholic traditions and Western thought. I became interested in Eastern philosophy including yoga as a path to enlightenment. How did the inner world meet the outer world?
Sensitive, curious, and shy, I wanted to know how things fit together, about invisible forces and about the deeper meaning of life. I loved literature and writing. After high school, I said goodbye to the suburban neighborhood and set off on a quest that took me to college and other life schools including Paris, a pink trailer in Florida along with financial independence, eventually landing in New York City.
Financial independence was the ticket to freedom and with it, I explored pop culture downtown in the edgy East Village and a career in midtown Manhattan where I learned to write copy for magazine editorials, and to value my writing as both a profession and an expression of self.
Saying yes to a destiny path that led to photographs in magazines, experimental film appearances and on-stage music performances in a punk band, I overcame shyness. Or at least I did not let it stop me.
Compelled to experience the things that frightened me most, I stepped out boldly and developed courage, despite heart-pounding fears. My mother called me the boldest shy person she ever met.
Not being held by standard expectations did not prevent me from feeling I should adhere to them and subsequent shame about forging my own path. Seriously, I wondered if I would be burned at the stake for it, but somehow, I was driven to do it, all of it.
Torn between pleasing others and following my own path, I had trouble discerning mistakes where guilt was appropriate (like oopsie, I made a mistake) and the kind of regrets that come from not meeting the subtle, largely unspoken, expectations of conformity (as in, am I a mistake?).
Conflict was brewing. By thirty-years-old, I had a beautiful daughter who was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, a desire to move back to Buffalo to be near family, as well as uncertainty about my work, lifestyle, and community.
I was searching for my people. They had to be free-thinking originals – free of cultural norms, but also caring, considerate and honest. Who were they? Who would I have to be to attract them?
The path forward had lots of bumps in the road, twists and turns that brought me into alignment with my destiny.
With the groundwork prepared; I was constructing a self, one with a purpose to fulfill, a purpose greater than me.
A great, big, messy process.
It set the stage for Act two.