Changing Times

 by Rain Trueax

After a year of not much changing, the vaccine has now gone to about half of all Americans. I've read that there are those (1/3 of Christians and 1/2 of GOP men) who won't get the shots for assorted reasons. I know of those who fear the side effects, and for some there have been unpleasant side effects or worse for a very few. Some see it as some kind of spiritual test. I wish those who refuse the best of luck as the virus has side effects too. At any rate, the fact that a vaccine exists is a positive thing for life getting back to normal-- whatever that will be.

It's spring when everything will be changing. Now that we have had the booster to the Moderna vaccine and it's been three weeks, we have supposed immunity-- as best they know it. That's the one thing with this virus-- they are learning as we are going. Still, I believe, it's better that more of us have had it and we appear to be heading toward herd immunity. Onward and upward as a friend of mine used to say.

seasonal rituals

Celtic or Gaelic festivals can be taken on many levels. There is looking at them as a recognition of seasonal changes. This year Imbolc is February 1; Beltane May 1; Lammas August 1; and Samhain October 31. They relate to spring, summer, fall, and winter with each also potentially having a spiritual meaning.

Imbolc has many suggested pronunciations but most do leave off the B. It comes midway between the winter Solstice and spring equinox. It actually is more like spring than the equinox in the lands from which this festival developed. By its celebration in places like Ireland or my part of Oregon, spring is in the air. The trees are budding out, the lambs are bouncing around the fields, the grass is growing, and thoughts turn to planting gardens. Even if more snow falls or more freezing nights come, spring is already in the people's hearts. 

The interesting part about festivals like Imbolc are how many different cultures have found the time important in human life. Something that was more obvious to peoples who lived a more agrarian life than most do today.

Imbolc 

If someone wants to find ways to celebrate it that involve ritual, there are many possibilities especially in Wiccan books. Here's a link with some suggestions.

Wheel of the Year

My interest in Wicca goes way back. I have quite a few books on the festivals and rituals. I am not a witch, nor do I have an interest in becoming one. As someone might know who reads me regularly here, I am kind of off religions of any sort. There are though many misconceptions about witchcraft with those who believe it's connected to Satanism. It's not. It is an old faith with rituals, which relate to the seasonal cycles, to healing, and strengthening people through often communal celebrations. I think knowing when they are, giving thought to them, can be beneficial whether we do the rituals or not. To me, when rituals come from natural, earthy sources, they are apt to have more benefit to our lives. We need to be connected to the earth and it's too easy to lose that in today's world.

In the early 90s, I wrote my first book that involved the paranormal. That was Sky Daughter and as with most of my writing, the story evolved very organically as I wrote. For those of you, who have considered being a writer but haven't gotten started, start. Writing begets writing. You begin a story with characters. As happens in all friendships, you get to know their personalities through their activities and your interactions with them. 

In Sky Daughter, the heroine is not a believer in the mystical, when she returns to her family's ancestral home, where her grandfather still lives. From then on, what happens teaches her more about who she is as well as who her family had been. The hero is Jewish but not practicing. Each of them come from a place of disbelief to facing the unknown and finding ritual sometimes is needed even if the person does not know why it works. Sky Daughter takes place before and during Lammas.

I've since written more stories that involve the mystical, may write more in the future, but Sky Daughter is special to me for its combining of nature, the mystical, and human needs. It's a theme I do return to often even if the mystical is less dominant.

Hero Worship

One of the things that I must admit that I little understand is hero worship, but before I go farther, I better define what I mean by hero. Using Dictionary.com, I am thinking of 1 & 2-- although someone could worship a fictional character.

1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. 
2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal:He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child. 
3. the principal male character in a story, play, film, etc. 

When the recent uproar occurred over the Patriots and what the media named Deflategate, Limbaugh discussed it on his show and made a point that this illustrates how important football is to Americans. This non-story pushed from the headlines the overthrow of Yemen's government, the death of a Saudi king, Obama's trip to India, the shooting death of a prosecutor in Argentina, police overreach, climate change, oil prices falling, and just about any other story as paper after paper led with it-- including the nightly news. They did this because apparently Americans are obsessed with sports heroes.

Some claimed it was important because it was about cheating, and we all know cheating is bad. Except, that was before there was any proof of cheating. Just proof of under inflated balls, all of them belonging to the Patriots. Do other teams ever have under-inflated balls? Who knows? How much benefit does a team receive from one? That could be debated, but why would it be when there is something far more exciting to take apart piece by piece. [Experiments indicate there could be explanations other than cheating] but who cares about that-- sounds too much like science!

From the time of that game and the sports article, people weighed in on what must have happened whether they had any idea of it or not. That included a lot of aging football players. I even saw a video where a news team in Indianapolis handed two balls to random citizens and asked them if they could tell which was under-inflated by two pounds. After weighing them carefully, squeezing them, the people, even a homeless guy, guessed right-- at least they had been when I quit watching the video. So two balls that look identical, can be determined that one weighs more than the other if you handle them both, maybe at the same time, and you already know one is lighter than the other. What did that prove exactly? Well, it proved that guy could get his story on the air.

I don't think it matters so much because of what happened or did not. Time might tell what that was. It's hard to believe an equipment handler or ball boy could somehow get around and deflate all those balls without it being captured on film by someone. Some say that has happened, but the NFL is not discussing what was discovered-- probably until after the Super Bowl.

Isn't it surprising to anyone that the refs, who handle those balls between each play, never said they noticed. It turned out that the sportscaster from Indianapolis, who claimed an anonymous source, who was supposed to be a Colt, who took the ball off the field because he noticed something strange. But then he spoke out and said he had not. He just wanted a souvenir. That story didn't get much coverage though. I read someone saying that [if the team had been anyone but the Patriots, who were often hated already, this would have been a non-story]. 

Why it is a story, I think, is not so much because years ago Patriots took videos of hand signals during a game where 80,000 people saw the same signals. Some say that is why this is a big deal-- they are proven cheaters. I personally doubt that. I think it more likely goes back to Tom Brady, the man who seems to have everything, talent, physical beauty, strength, and a gorgeous supermodel wife. This looks to me like a favorite American pastime-- build up heroes and tear them down. It's not so far from the mentality of the Romans with the gladiators-- with a thumbs up or thumbs down and no basis on any actual event as to which the mob goes for.

For those who don't follow football or even know who Tom Brady is, here's an article I saw recently on him, his approaching old age (he's 37), his philosophy, why he believes his body can keep going, and the impact of this latest event on him-- interestingly enough written by a NYTimes writer who usually follows politics. (I have to say a lot of what I have seen happening with this deflategate seems a lot like politics.)

Brady Can't Stop

Americans, probably all humans, love to create heroes. Supposedly this starts when we are children, and these heroes provide us examples we can then follow and use to grow up and become... or try to become. So this is why it's so horrifying to adults who worry about the impact on children when they find out their hero had clay feet (something we don't yet know about Tom Brady).

To consider this concept of hero worship, I went back to my childhood to try and remember if I had such a hero. I had those I admired. Annette Funicello quickly comes to mind. Mickey Mouse Club, the first one, was popular when I was a girl, and she was the one who stood out. She was cute, bouncy, and the boys went for her. Spin and Marty in particular was a little series I loved and both those boys wanted Annette. I wanted Spin, of course, which might have impacted why I admired her. I was nothing like her for looks but wow, Annette.

from http://www.catsafterme.com/blog/archives/14590

But I didn't hero worship her. I didn't want to be her. When she later had her nose done, it didn't cause me to lose faith in her (or get mine done). When she went on to make silly beach movies (probably why she had to have the nose job), I didn't feel she had disappointed me. I just didn't watch them. So she wasn't a hero to me-- other than that she got Spin (who I already did understand was a character in a show not a real person).

As I searched my memory, there was nobody who I hero worshiped (although I did hope to grow up and marry Clint Walker, who played a character called Cheyenne-- but I gave that up when I found out he was married). But to consider someone a hero to me, to want to be them, there were none, not movie stars, singers, athletes, spiritual leaders, or politicians. So if they were caught doing some despicable act, it'd have not hurt my life or my own goals. My life and goals weren't based on someone else-- someone I really didn't know.

Was my life damaged by having no such heroes? I don't know. I've often thought I'd have liked to have a mentor and not just for writing but for art, for life. I never had that either. I have had this or that one I've learned from, but a mentor or hero is more than that.

Political leaders can easily become heroes to people. In my case, I might like what they do politically but that's where it ends-- no political heroes ever. When I found out Anthony Weiner, who I used to like for how feisty he was in standing up for progressive values, was a bit of a pervert, my life wasn't turned on end. I'd long since figured people aren't perfect. I'd probably have voted for him again even though it appears he hasn't given up his peccadillo for sexual misadventures. He's not my husband; and if he's doing his job, I don't really care what he is doing online-- his wife maybe should. I might think it's stupid, but it doesn't break my heart, cause me to lose my own goals. When it's not hero worship, it's pretty much-- so what. No, Obama wasn't a hero to me. I have liked what he said he would do. I hoped he'd be a good leader.

Actually, I haven't had a political hero since... hmmm, never had one. Which is probably lucky because they almost all end up with clay feet. 

Should children be encouraged to have heroes, where they try to mimic what they do? Where they build their life goals around them? How about fictional ones-- or even historical? Personally I'd say no-- especially if they aren't someone in their real life like a relative or older friend. Even then it's risky. Humans are not perfect and mostly will always let down others or themselves one way or another. Having anyone, as a hero on a pedestal, is leading to disappointment. It's unrealistic.

By 71, I am unlikely to have a hero, even as fascinated as I am by human nature. Maybe I am too cynical. Where I have created a lot of them for books, I have never seen any of them as perfect and sure never wanted to know them in real life. They were fictional and intended for the equally fictional heroine.

So tomorrow is the Super Bowl, which is the ultimate time for those who have heroes. Some will be cheering for the Seahawks. Others the Patriots, although less since so many have decided that they cheated even if they aren't sure how they did it. Me, I will probably go somewhere. It's a great day to shop or go to the beach. Love Super Bowl days for how it empties out the roads, restaurants, and shops. :)

And finally, I came across this Friday. Because we all deserve to laugh and not take ourselves too seriously-- yes, I mean that-- check this out:

winning and losing

Life is hectic right now on one level and yet very peaceful on another. For assorted reasons, it was beginning to feel pressured until we realized we had options and exercised some of them hence reducing the tension instantly-- at least in those areas.

Lately I've been thinking about the problem in our country with Americans so divided and that's even within political or philosophical groups. I think it goes back to our media which is used by some to gain power. The media now encompasses blogs, twitters, comments, and assorted places to get information which doesn't mean facts.

One problem is that we are bombarded by opinions. Twitters are full of instant opinions with maybe a link back to some justification for the opinion but often just to an expansion of the opinion. If you listen to news, especially cable news, opinions are in the forefront with limited facts behind them.

Who needs facts!
Facts are boring. 

Facts go on too long. 

Facts aren't exciting. 

How are we supposed to interpret facts? 

Never fear there are plenty to tell us.

Let's just take Syria as one example of the newest world issue. There is a civil war going on there.

One side is supposed to be the 'good' guys (ignore that video showing one of their leaders ripping out a dead enemy's heart and taking a bite of it). John McCain assured us these are the good guys when he visited and schmoozed with them. They are fighting for freedom. They don't answer for who.

One side is the 'bad' guys. They represent a brutal dictator who uses (supposedly) chemical weapons hence finally convincing the US to send weapons to the 'good' guys. The 'bad' guys are being supplied by Russia and Iran hence proving they are also bad guys, I guess.

The US has to get in or Bill Clinton said Obama would be thought of a wuss. That's funny if you think about all the deaths Obama has ordered by drone but are facts part of this? Of course not. Facts get in the way of emotions and this is about emotions and power.

That thing I wrote awhile back about distinguishing power from strength is still on my mind while I think of this problem of getting facts versus opinions. Power seems to be in numbers and in words that push agendas. What is real strength?

My main concern right now though is how do American get facts instead of opinions. If they spend their days reading twitters or blogs like this, they are getting opinions supposedly based on facts... or are they?

The fear talk that ironically is on both the far right and the far left is doing its best to head us toward paranoia but with very different solutions suggested. Listening to the talk radio pundits, where now you can only get right wingers in my part of the country (which isn't because this is a right wing region but because somebody wants it to be one), and you hear limited (at best) facts, never covering the whole picture, but with lots of opinions and ridicule of anybody who thinks otherwise.

Okay, here's my opinion-- get the facts. Do not listen to the opinions (I don't care how much you trust the opinion-maker) until you also know the facts. If you can't get facts, and are unwilling to go to the trouble to track them down, then turn off the news and quit listening to the radio or Internet. Until you have the facts, opinions can end up being toxic and I don't care which side you are listening to!

Watching birds is a soothing activity right now... whether it's at the house or the beach. It is one way to win :)

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder-- or is it?

When I read this piece on Daily Beast by Ashley Judd, I thought it was worth bringing here.

Get out of my face 

Her article led to Daily Beast posting a follow-up--

Your own puffy faced moments

Generally I don't get into these kinds of debates as she's a celebrity, she is under more pressure to always look her best, does it really impact me or readers here? Well it does in the sense that when the media ridicules or puts down women for their appearance-- especially as it relates to weight, beauty, health issues, or aging, they do impact how we see ourselves. It doesn't just happen to movie stars.

Think how often Hillary Clinton has been put down by one media or another for her hips, her legs, her hair style, or her aging. It takes a confident woman to go through that and stay true to their own style. Then there has been the physical putdown of Meghan McCain who, if you have seen her know, is a beautiful woman. That's not good enough for some people and the media, as they decree her to be fat and bring it up regularly as a way to ridicule. And if you follow the media's talk about women, a size 10 is plus sized.

Where it comes to aging celebrities, how many times have you heard someone put down Clint Eastwood for looking old? Not happening. But a woman in his age bracket better be skinny and have done some face work or she will be virtually asked to put a sack over her head.  If the celeb has had work done, the appearance police will evaluate whether it was a good job. Woe to that slim celeb (of any age) where her muscles show. Woe to the celeb male where they don't.

In some ways it would seem it shouldn't matter to women like me. We don't have to get out into the celeb world and be photographed regularly. The thing is do ordinary women then avoid being photographed in their own world?

How many young women, who are raising kids, feel fat compared to Cameron Diaz; how many will have zero photos of those years because they felt fat? Or when they get old, refuse to be photographed because they look their age and did not have surgery? Someday in a family album they will be as though they never existed, weren't really there-- and if you think that doesn't matter, consider the future generations who won't have known that person but might have a feel of who they were by those kind of photos.

Last lady on the right is my great grandmother. I never met her, not even as a baby but have seen a lot of photos of her proudly with her family and did she mind that she looked old, probably had no teeth by that age? If she did, she didn't let it stop her.

I only know how much fun my grandmother could be because I scanned some old negatives that had belonged to one of my aunts and saw this photo of her looking through a watermelon rind with her youngest son. My grandmother was overweight all her life but I have a lot of photos of her through the years. It means a lot to me now. Someday it might mean even more to my great grandchildren.

Some of this drive for perfection comes from advertising and our entertainment choices. Smile and if your teeth aren't perfectly even and nearly glowing with whiteness, shame on you and get ye to the dentist or the newest teeth whitening treatment. I had no idea how much was out there until I was in the toothpaste aisle and saw all the whitening products for teeth and that doesn't count the money going to dentists for even more advanced whitening.  If those teeth aren't totally white, do NOT let anybody take a photo of you smiling.

Yep, I have not had mine professionally whitened and feel lucky I just still have them. Well most of them...


For every Oprah (who is always battling her weight) there are more slim and beautiful TV and movie success stories. In a lot of the books out there, the hero is muscular and handsome-- heroine slender and beautiful. I can only think of a few exceptions like Bridget Jones Diary who was trying to lose weight but looked like an average woman-- oh the misery. In books off the top of my head, I can think of two obese heroines-- Little Giant of Aberdeen County and The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (and to play the role in the HBO series, the actress had to be inflated to fit the part. No really fat actresses to do it?) Jane Eyre is supposed to be plain but when you see a movie of the book, no plain women playing the part, are there?

Recently in the writer forums at Amazon I heard women complaining about there being only one male model who is regularly used on the covers. And it's true. He is everywhere from indie to paper covers and frankly he's found a market that it's too bad more interesting looking men and women don't mine by providing photos of themselves that would be suitable for say historic or contemporary book covers.

Besides, access, there's a reason he's on so many. He looks like who is in the books. And that includes some of mine as I have him on two because he does look like those heroes. I could have two more if I decide to publish my historic books and create my own covers for them. Why did I write about those kind of heroes? Well they came to me but why did they come to me?

One factor is that it's what readers want. I wrote one book with an ugly hero (who the heroine, of course, saw otherwise) and I have yet to find a cover model who could make it work to do a trailer-- and I will be doing a trailer for that book. I see men in real life all the time who don't have perfect features and yet have that certain something. Try finding a photo of one where you can buy the rights to use-- at least for a price independent writers can afford.

One writer said we can blame this on Clint Walker and she might be right for my age group. I had such a crush on him when he was doing Cheyenne (western TV series for you younger readers). Oh my and when he took his shirt off, well it's not too surprising a man looking a lot like him is making money these days pretending to be the hero about whom the writers wrote. I so wanted Clint Walker to be my husband someday and was quite disappointed to find the actor who played him was already married.

I am not sure why we like our advertisements full of, our movies populated by, our books about perfect looking people when none of us are. Maybe it's part of the fantasy. Well if it is, it's a problem when we take it with us off the pages or away from the screens.

Moon Dust with two free days

Although I don't usually talk about my eBooks in this blog, the topic of this one is important on several levels and so I am making an exception-- plus it's going to be free for the next two days.

Sometimes I write a story that I expect not to be appealing to the average reader because it's about a difficult topic. Such a one is Moon Dust. The hero is not a cowboy or some exciting undercover agent. He's a high school principal doing one of the toughest jobs out there in the inner cities.

In the schools is culturally where rubber meets road. Principals are caught between tax payer demands, different political agendas, school boards, superintendents, and finally parents who may not always be supportive of Johnny paying a price for trying to set fire to the school.

I remember my principal when I was in high school. He was a very sexy, tall, strong, good looking guy. He was tough, but I felt fair and did a pretty good job of keeping order in the school. Even though for school credits I had one period a day where I worked in the office of the school's counselor and health teacher (where all staff offices were), I had very little direct contact with our principal. That was exactly as I wanted it as when a student had contact with him, the reasons generally weren't good.

His job was safer back then. For one thing principals and vice-principals had more authority to discipline than they have today. Some would say it's better this way; and in part I agree; but children should be safe in schools and today they are not always. Back then I don't think kids thought about bringing guns or knives to school to right what they perceived as wrongs.

The world of a high school principal in an inner city is an especially tough one, sometimes a dangerous one, and we are lucky there are those who want to do the job. In Moon Dust, Dane Connors is such a guy, and he has put his all into the work because not only does he believe in education but in making a difference in the lives of kids. He is constantly in conflict with the powers that want to keep things as they have been-- or as they thought they were-- as he supports innovative ideas. His superintendent is only concerned with his idea of the bottom-line-- not getting the school in trouble and the budget.

Dane is facing problems on all fronts when Moon Dust begins. His wife has had enough because emotionally he has shut her off, and the demands of his calling have had him never there for her. After two years of marriage, the closest they came to a vacation was an away conference. The same day Dane faced down a scared kid with a gun, Susan was waiting to tell him she wants a divorce. Dane, who tries hard to not face any personal emotional issues, is suddenly bombarded by them.

So there is danger, educational philosophies, Susan's decorating business, the kind of love story that has hit a seeming dead-end, and most importantly, the reason Dane has shut off his emotions-- his physical and sexual abuse when he was a child, something he's gone out of his way to put behind him.

Before writing Moon Dust, I did research on the ramifications of such abuse on adult males. So many see sexual abuse in particular as not an issue for boys as they would for girls. They are wrong. Sexual abuse is about the ultimate loss of control. When the victims later shut away what happened, the problems can go underground to resurface other places in their lives. Moon Dust is about those ramifications and possible ways we can make a difference in the life's of others. Moon Dust itself is a fairy tale within the story, but it has a message that anyone can apply.

I didn't dedicate this book to anyone (have never done that), but if I was-- it'd be to all the school principals who are on the front lines of helping make citizens out of students. They hold the future of our society.

'Moon Dust' has a special for the 19th and 20th where it will be free at Amazon. For anyone without a Kindle, it only takes downloading a free app (it's right below the button to get the book). With that, you can read Kindle books on your computer.

One more thing, all of my books do have some sexuality as they are always about getting to a place of wholeness and healthy living. A healthy view of sexuality is something I believe is a part of that. 

To get the book, click on the link below which will take you to its page where it should have the price of $2.99 crossed out. Remember it's only free for the next two days and always look to be sure they have it set right.

Moon Dust