Epiphany This and Thats

I have not written here in way too long for good reason…I am finishing this book and wow, who knew?  But it is so incredibly gratifying.  I can honestly say I am learning and growing beyond my greatest expectations — I truly am changing, growing, healing just from working with these remarkable people’s stories…so though it is outrageously intense right now, just trying to get it all in and done, I am loving the work…

Anyway, so that’s the reason for my silence here but when I get it all wrapped up and turned in by the end of June, I plan to really be good probably about giving little hints about the book and NEWS about it!  We’re launching January 4 and the way time has been flying, that will be here before we know it.

So, today is a friend’s bday and she was a bit freaked by it…she’s in her 30’s and that just started happening to her…I sent her a piece that I wrote last year as a writing exercise for a class I was taking and we realized that I wrote it on her birthday actually.  funny.  So in honor of her and  bdays – and especially this month of the Gemini since I am in that group and my bday is once again fast approaching, I have pasted the little piece below.

Happy Bday Geminis and Happy Summer to one and all!!  May it be the sexiest, most peaceful, magical, fun-filled summer yet!  (and p.s. also funny – the book and the monk i mention at the end, when I went in to meet with Harmony Books about working with them on my book, I caught my breath when the first book I saw in the glass case at their offices was this one with his smiling face looking out at me…very good sign, I thought. )

May 25, 2009

I sit down at my desk and stare at my screen.  The desk lamp to my right and the standing lamp in the far corner, along with the flickering candle, create the perfect light combo to surround and envelop me for a night of writing in my white-themed office.  My periphery vision takes in the books filling the white bookshelf against the eastern wall and the wistful thought, “One day I’ll have a library,” shoots across my mind like a blip of a shooting star.  Water bottles, an empty mug, my cell and the landline handpiece, scribbles on scattered papers, printed emails, lists, cds, a harddrive, a thumbdrive, my notebooks, a lighter, business cards, tapes from my edit session, a coaster, post-its, stray bills, the flickering purple lovespell candle, ipod wires, pens, pens and more pens, a book that is an early birthday present, and the just-discovered song that inspires me right now playing over and over through my speakers – all accompany me on my huge white metal desk, seeming as though they have been awaiting me.  I can feel and smell my freshly washed and straightened hair – I love the new shampoo I got – and it’s weird, but I can feel my smooth just-shaven legs hitting the softness of my favorite black sweats.  I am clean, refreshed and ready for bear, whatever that means – I’ve never understood that seashell.  I take a deep breath, and we all wait to see what I will do…I don’t know what I will do in this very moment…I have no idea.  But suddenly I hit the space bar – and the screen lights up with a blank document, cursor pulsing…I poise my fingers over the keys… and I let them write…

Yeah, my birthday is coming up…you know, I never thought the day would actually get here when I didn’t want birthdays to come…I still remember when I couldn’t wait to get older and would look forward to my birthday every year…I think I’m going to pick an age and stay that one the rest of my years until I decide to be another…I pick 32.  That’s a good one.  Not too young, not too old, just right.  If only I would have known that then.  If only I would have known how great it was to be 6 actually – or 7 or 9 or 13 for that matter … if only I would have known…but growing up, I would always hit a birthday and then I would almost immediately want to be older…I wanted to be 14 to get to high school… and then I couldn’t wait to be 15 to start dating, and then 16, of course, to drive.  And then it was 18 to go to college, and then 19 to get into bars, and then they changed the legal drinking age to 21 before I got there, so then, yes, 21 was the golden age to be!  Then at 22, I would be out of school and my life officially as an adult would begin and then I kept looking forward to the next few years after that to finally bring what I was supposed to be doing with my life… But then when I hit 25, somehow, I became too old for everything I was doing…And I was still so very young.  So very young.  And then when I was 28, I was still so young, but I thought I was running out of time so I jumped, and I did it, and my deepest self knew it wasn’t right.  And then I stayed and stayed and stayed thinking, “I’m so old, I have to stay in this, I’m too old to make anything else work,” and I was so very young…and then when I finally left, yes, I was older but I thought I was ancient, used up, done.  And I was really still quite young.  And I’m still young.  I’m still young today.  I realize – I’ve never been okay with my age.  Not one single solitary year.  I was always too young or too old, too behind or too ahead.  My god, my heart breaks for that girl who has lived her life this way.  Why?  Why didn’t anyone tell me?  Why didn’t they tell me in childhood, how great it was to be a child and to enjoy being carefree and open and pure?  And why didn’t they tell me when I was a teenager, to slow down and notice the changes and the shifts, and allow myself the thrill of blooming?  And then, when I was in my 20’s, why didn’t anyone tell me how young I really was, and how great it is to be an adult, yet still so young with so much to look forward to and nothing to be afraid of, and that I didn’t have to know and experience everything by a certain age and that I should be incredibly thrilled to be that age in that moment, that very day that I was living that age, each and every day…Maybe they did tell me but I didn’t listen…I didn’t pay attention…I didn’t understand.  I have carried this pattern with me into my 30’s – every year causing more anxiety, more confusion, more sadness of the loss of youth and the discomfort of growing older and into new realms of being.  I find myself not recognizing who I am sometimes – not externally but internally – the old me seems to be disappearing and it scares me.  It really scares me……. You know what?  Enough.  That shouldn’t scare me, it should excite me.  It’s called growing up.  It’s called stepping into my womanhood.  It is called wisdom.  And wisdom comes with all these glorious years I’ve resisted.  It comes with living those years.  It comes with age.

I’m going to make a birthday commitment…I am going to be okay with the exact age I am, today, each day, every day that I am this and that age, and know that I am that young and this old and it’s the perfect age to be and I am going to enjoy it and embrace it and remember it and be grateful that I get to be at that age at all.  This next year is going to be a different story for me, I feel it, I know it, and wow, I might even be getting a little excited about it…

As this occurs to me, suddenly I’m realizing that the book on my desk that is an early birthday present is by a Buddhist monk – his precious warm face smiles at me from the cover.  I don’t know that much about it but I do know a major tenet in Buddhism is about living in the present – this strikes me as funny – a present about being present for a woman who just realized she’s never been present … my friend obviously knows me only too well…. I flip through the book a bit, but I have this bad habit of reading the last pages of books.  And since breaking this habit is not part of my birthday commitment, I go ahead and turn to the book’s last page.  It is only four lines.  I have no idea who this monk is, but I think I just fell a little bit in love with him…

May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.

May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

May all sentient beings have joy and the causes of joy.

May all sentient beings remain in great equanimity, free from attachment and aversion.

(The Joy of Living, p. 252)

Life is beautiful and it’s hard.  Yes.

You could stand on the side of the road with a bag on your head for years and destiny will find you…

Your destiny will find you…

It will find you…

don’t worry…

all  is well…

Yes.

Share on Facebook

Twitter This

User: Password:

Everyone is invited to join us and participate!  If you happen to be in the Los Angeles area this weekend, I’m speaking with Ariane de Bonvoisin about Change and Epiphanies and who knows what else on March 28 from 1:30-4:30p.  Click on the link below for all the juicy details…hope to see you there!!

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs011/1102946334438/archive/1103159153448.html

Share on Facebook

Twitter This

User: Password:

What an amazing time we live in…think about it…technology like YouTube, iTunes, Facebook, MySpace, Skype, and of course, email and texting, oh, and blogs!  have completely changed the landscape of the way we live, in a very short amount of time really…I know there is the argument that our lives have sped up too much because of it all, and that we are more isolated in some ways because of it – we aren’t forced to go engage with human beings because we can communicate via computer in so many instances…but in a lot of ways our technology has allowed us to be more connected…we are definitely able to connect and communicate with our compadres in other parts of the world…that’s why it was always so important for me to do a website with my interviews living on it. We could take the project and reach out all over the country and world and see:  how are we all alike?  how are we different?  do we have the same kind of epiphanies?  can we learn from each other and share wisdom no matter what our background, nationality, age, profession and walk of life?

So far, the answer for me is a resounding ‘YES.’  Here is an example how a gentleman from Kenya reached out to share his epiphany – and he did it through Facebook… we could not have reached out to him on the other side of the globe nor he us without the technological world we live in now…more and more our world is shrinking with technology and we are realizing we are more of a real community – a global community.  As Erastus says, we are a ‘Nation of Us.’  We are very unique and different as people and in our experiences, yet we are all very much the same.  This project is proving this to be true, at least for me, in a very tangible, very real way.  Perhaps one day we will get to go see the community Erastus Wambugu is helping and impacting because of his epiphany…but the beautiful thing to me is – we are able to know about it…

note: Erastus found me via Ariane de Bonvoisin’s Facebook page, and when I told her that he had found my site through her and written to tell me his epiphany, she wrote him and sent him copies of her book, The First 30 Days of Change.  It is impacting his community and they are ‘waiting in line’ to read it, as you’ll see below!

Excerpts of our Facebook exchange…

Erastus Wambugu November 18, 2009 at 8:27am

Dear Elise.

First I pass my warm greetings all the way from Kenya and let you know that am doing fine. How are you doing? I wish to share with you a small story about my realization I have faced and congratulate you for a wonderful job you are doing.

Being born in the Ghetto, brought up there and still living there has not been an easy ride. After being lucky to attend college and study Photo-Journalism, I had made up my mind that this was the only way to make money and get out of this poverty. I know what it means to go a day without food and looking for a job the whole day without luck.

After finishing college, I had the opportunity to work with a local newspaper for a period of six months, but it went down, and I was back in search for a job without any luck.

I was so stressed and felt down and wondered how I would survive in this world. I had witnessed some of my friends be killed for engaging themselves in crime. With a lot of time at my disposal, I decided to attend a youth forum that was being held in a Community Center after a friend had invited me. Youths communicated different issues they were facing in the community and how they should look for solutions.

I was interested and kept attending and realized that majority of the guys attending the forum during the discussions didn’t have facts about what they were talking about.  Myths about things misled their lives and they lacked role models. So I felt I needed to be laying out the facts of things every meeting by doing research, and when I did this, the guys would respond positively.

I felt the passion of sharing what I knew with my fellow youths and felt passion for being part of a small change in the community.  Some of the guys were even Primary school drop-outs.

Then two years ago, a community radio station was opened and recruited youths from my community to volunteer as presenters and reporters.  I was among the first pioneers of this and continued highlighting different issues affecting the community at large by engaging them in discussions, finding the solutions and inspiring them. The response has been very positive.  The majority of the people living here lack most of the basic needs in life and lack the information necessary to live a moderate life.

Despite not being paid for what I am doing and having to do small odd jobs to be able to survive, I feel great satisfaction when I meet people and they tell me, “Erastus, I didn’t know about that. Can I get this kind of help?” or “What are my rights?”

I wish you a peaceful moment and looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Take care,

Erastus

Elise Ballard November 20, 2009 at 2:03pm

Dear Erastus,

Thank you SO much for sharing this with me. Would you mind if I posted it on my blog? This is beautiful and I am so happy for you and very proud of you. Keep up the good work, and I will be affirming that your work grows and you will be able to make a nice living at it so that you will have even more energy to reach people and make a difference in this great world of ours. Thank you so much for all you do on behalf of all us, Erastus. You are making the world a better, happier place and that benefits every one of us on this planet.

Take care and talk to you soon…

With great respect, Elise

Erastus Wambugu November 21, 2009 at 8:44am

Dear Elise,

It was nice hearing from you and appreciated very, very much for your loving and caring message from your heart as it gives me more encouragement in my daily work.

It’s my pleasure to give you my blessing to post it in your blog and believe it will touch other souls out there to be part of change in this Nation of Us. I will be looking forward to reading your book when it comes out and hope the publisher can use it. I will be praying also for you to have more strength and power to touch more people in your work.

I promise to keep on with my work and am happy to have a friend like you to be able to share with about my work. I will keep you updated about my work and hope you will do the same. I have also posted some photos about our studio. When you have time, please look at them and see for yourself.

As this industry is becoming competitive and to be effective in my work, I am trying to get some assistance so that I can get more education and some equipment to do enough research.

God bless you and take care.

Enjoy your weekend and keep the fire burning.

Erastus

Elise Ballard November 23, 2009 at 12:23pm

Thank you, Erastus. When I post your letter, I will send you a link to the blog. This week America has a holiday called Thanksgiving. We give thanks for all we have in our lives. I am thankful for this technology to make wonderful friends all over the world and touch beautiful souls like yours and I am thankful for people like you, my friend, that help make the world a better place.

I will be in touch soon…take good care…

light and blessings to you,

Elise

Erastus Wambugu November 29, 2009 at 9:22am

Hey Elise,

You are much welcomed Elise, and I was very glad to hear from you and keeping in touch despite your busy schedule. I will be waiting to receive the link and share it with my family and my workmates here in Kenya.

How did the thanksgiving go?

Did you enjoy it?

Here in Kenya we don’t have a thanksgiving holiday but we celebrate it during Easter Holiday and Christmas Holiday as a great moment to meet my relatives who I have not seen during the year and share our experiences. I uphold my African tradition as I have great respect for the family. You are always welcome to ask me any question, and I will honestly answer you.

Thank you for encouraging words during my work in this part of the world.  I am happy being part of this change that I believe in.  Let us continue being part of this wonderful calling and make a beautiful place to live in, my friend, no matter the challenges we might face every day.

I have just finished yesterday a six month training on Paralegalism, and I will be able to actively teach more on Human Rights among the community members that lack this knowledge.

Have you talked with your friend Ariane recently?

Take care and have a memorable moment,

Erastus

Erastus Wambugu January 11 at 6:00am

I wish to start by wishing you happy New Year 2010.  Last year is already gone and behold we are blessed with a new year that will take our lives to the next level.

I hope you are fine and enjoying your moment.  I am still waiting for you to share with me about the link of your blog.  How is your book writing project gone so far? I can’t wait to read it soon.

By the way, Ariane sent me six copies of her book about the First 30 Days.  It has inspired me a lot as I read it, and I have got many comments from the people I shared the book with.

Many people are waiting on the line (to borrow and read it), and I can’t believe the joy in their faces and how they are talking about it.  It has been a great Christmas gift for me, my friends and my neighbors.

What are our plans for this year?

Hope to hear from you soon.

Erastus

Be cool to be cool

Share on Facebook

Twitter This

User: Password:

Okay, I admit it…I am a terrible blogger!  I go on spurts and then I get sidetracked with life and okay, I am writing a book!  And filming many of those interviews that will go in the book and on the website, so there’s that, too…but I promised at the beginning of the year that I would be better at this blogging bit and I will continue to keep the faith that I will become regular so thank you for hanging with me on this.  To give you a brief update, this week I interviewed the lovely singer Billie Myers, brilliant actress Bronagh Gallagher, and television producer, Vin Di Bona (America’s Funniest Home Videos creator)…interesting stuff…and we have scheduled interviews with Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia – hello?  I think I read a Wiki entry just about every day!) and Nell Newman of Newman’s Own Organics.  I have a wonderful new assistant, Noel Nicholas, and my first speaking engagement for Epiphany with the beautiful and amazing Ariane de Bonvoisin is happening at the end of March (you can click on the link to read more and I will also post something about that later) … so, anyway, things are clicking right along.  More on all of that later…below is just a musing I had this morning and a quote I found that I find particularly beautiful…

Today is a day in Los Angeles where it feels like spring is on its way…I can open my window in my office and look out onto the huge pine and foliage next door and not even feel like I’m in a city.  It reminds me of last spring and summer when every day I would take a break and stand at this window and watch hummingbirds do their work.  I thought I might have seen one today, though the flowers aren’t out yet, so it seems unlikely – it was probably my wishful thinking… I love hummingbirds because they seem to me to be sort of modern-day fairies.  They’re just somewhat ethereal in nature the way their wings are invisible as they hover and jet around, and their very delicate tiny-ness takes my breath away.

I know many of you or most of you are in cold places right now, still dealing with the tendrils of winter…but that is the beauty of the seasons and cycles in life, I suppose — just when you think you can’t possibly take another minute of it…the sun comes out, the birds start chirping, some green starts peeking out of the bark and the ground, and a hummingbird appears even when there are no flowers to be found…

hang in there with whatever cycle or season you might be going through, and wishing you an early and gorgeous spring…

Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time,

carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration.

The hummingbird’s delicate grace reminds us that life is rich,

beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning

and that laughter is life’s sweetest creation.

If this were going in my book, this would be the quote:

Life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning

and laughter is life’s sweetest creation.

- the Hummingbird

Share on Facebook

Twitter This

User: Password:

Last week, I had the privilege of interviewing Stacey Lannert on the phone.  Stacey has a very complicated story.  Basically, she was incarcerated at age 18 and sentenced to life without parole for shooting and killing her and her sister’s molester after years of abuse.  Their molester was their father.  After serving 18 years in a penitentiary in Missouri, she received clemency and her freedom from prison in 2009 at age 36.  In the past year alone, she has set up a non-profit to help people who have been abused to find their voices and heal, she has been speaking at colleges, training service dogs for the disabled (a skill she developed in prison), and she is also writing a book for Harmony Books.  Our editor introduced us.  Her major goal with all the work she is doing is to help others heal and learn about the choices they have through her story of her experiences and mistakes.

I had emailed Stacey to introduce myself and schedule a phone interview.  She wrote back answering the basic questions I send to everyone I want to interview, which I’m going to paste below.  We eventually spoke about her epiphany in detail and it was fascinating…At one point she said to me something like, “I was thinking I had no choices in prison, all my choices had been taken away from me but then I realized, I may not have a lot of choices but I still have choices – we all do wherever we are…It’s the little choices I can make and be grateful for — like I can pick out what color socks to wear every morning!  It seems ridiculous, but it’s true!  And I can still make the bigger choices that really matter about how I choose to be in every waking moment.  I suddenly understood that I may not ever realize the dreams I had of making a difference in the world outside of prison, but I could still make a difference right where I was.  And that is the inner freedom I found that I am talking about.”

I just can’t quit thinking about those socks…that choosing the color socks you’re going to wear is a choice to be grateful for — am I grateful for all the choices I get to make every day?  That I get to go to the grocery store and choose whatever food I want?  What jeans I put on?  Which restaurant to go to?  What gas station to fill my gas tank at?  Who to spend my time with? Who to vote for?  Which charity to donate money to help Haiti?  What movie to see?  I mean, if you think about it, the list goes on and on and on, doesn’t it?  We are so incredibly blessed and wealthy with choice in this country that not only do we lose sight of how privileged we are to have it in such abundance, but we are almost overwhelmed and confused by it.

Lately this theme of choice is coming up for me…I keep hearing it over and over…and then I hear this epiphany from Stacey. We can always choose to look at any situation, any circumstance, any truth from a different perspective. There is always another perspective.  There is always another viewpoint.  There is always another choice.  You don’t have to feel trapped or hopeless in any situation. Stacey is an amazing example of how we can choose how to feel and see things no matter where we are, no matter what we are doing — and that is the secret to true freedom.

“No matter what the situation is we have a choice, every waking moment is a choice. We choose happiness or sorrow, we choose gain or loss, we choose forgiveness or blame, we choose faith or doubt.  We can choose hope.”

“True freedom is found within, everything else is just geography.”

- Stacey Lannert

- What was your greatest epiphany in life?

Realizing that true freedom is found within, everything else is just geography.

- What led up to it?

I spent 18 years in prison for killing my molester (father). I was sentenced to life without parole when I was 18 years old. I would have spent the rest of my life in the penitentiary but the Governor granted me clemency and I walked out free six days later.

-Did your life change?

Yes. I found true happiness, freedom, and forgiveness within myself.

-If so, did that change or impact others as well?

Yes. People are amazed that spending so much time in a negative atmosphere did not cause me to be bitter but instead instilled compassion, contentment, and peace. They reflect upon their own lives.

- How would you summarize the epiphany or what you learned from it in one or two sentences?

I learned that no matter what the situation is we have a choice, every waking moment is a choice. We choose happiness or sorrow, we choose gain or loss, we choose forgiveness or blame, we choose faith or doubt, we can choose hope.

- Whose greatest epiphany would you like to know about if you could ask anyone in the world?

Dr. Maya Angelou.

Share on Facebook

Twitter This

User: Password: