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  • I Used To Be Self Righteous, but I’m Okay Now

    The fierce, beautiful shadow

    I used to be self righteous, but I’m okay now!!

    Leaving my self righteousness behind,  was like sawing off my own leg.

    After my head was dunked in water in the Catholic church at a few days old, I thought I had to be perfect.

     On school days, I had to bless myself with holy water from Lourdes, mailed by Irish aunts, who went there on pilgrimages.

    Before going to bed, I had to kneel at my mom’s bedside and recite the rosary, praying on each bead of the long necklace.

    By age 10, I was a morality snob,  who thought God told me what was right and wrong, and who looked down on people who didn’t follow the same rules as me.

    The Sunday masses, Wednesday Novena masses for the hopeless, and Thursday after school cathecism classes all thoroughly indoctrinated me.

    Trying to be perfect meant denying my shadow, which disconnected me from other mortals with a shadow.

    Instead of bringing me closer to God, being self righteous brought me further away from humanity and Him.

    I feared I would crumble if anyone saw my shadow, and the more I fought it, the bigger it got.

    Then the shadow of the church became apparent, and blocked out the sun, and, like a volcano, everything exploded.

    With my veil of illusion lifted, I had to face myself with radical personal honesty after lying to myself for years.

    My shadow was whipping me to the core.  I started seeing my humanity and it was going to change my mind and open it and free it. It was going to force me to be honest and fearless with its’ danger.

    I still loved God personally, and now saw him as a loving friend, not an extremist.  He loved me as a person with challenges, who must make choices, like everyone else.  

    I understood my challenges were different than other people’s challenges, but the point was to understand we all had challenges to face and work on.  That makes us humble.  The point was to understand that, not to be blind to it.

    My shadow was the secret to my gypsy soul, and my angel heart.  God loving me when I fail is more beautiful than anything.  That is the power of the shadow.  It protects me from danger and helps me grow.  It makes me feel the pain and the beauty of being human.

    I thought it was too painful to look at my failures, but it was the only way to improve, and it set me free to feel them.

    The pain of your flaws show you how great you are, and our tears are cried together as humans, and we can thank our shadows for making our lights shine brighter.

  • The World Needs You

    How many times have you read a book or watched a movie or heard a song that has changed your life?

    How many times have you felt down, and a comedian tells a silly joke and you crack up laughing?

    The world needs you to do what you do.

  • For Heaven Sakes Train Wreck, This Ain’t Your Station, Keep Going!

    The storm changes you

    It doesn’t matter about your struggle, you gotta get over it to get somewhere better!

    Focusing on your struggle messes up your future and All you have is now.

    A few years ago, I was in a relationship, and I got betrayed, and when I talked about how my life sucked, nobody wanted to hear about it.

    They started talking about how their life sucked too, and we all felt worse.

    Then I started focusing on what I could do to make myself feel better, and I wrote a novel. 

    When I talked about my dreams, it lifted people up, and made them feel like they could do something to make their life not suck too.

    Focus on what you want to do in life, and the life you don’t want will cease to exist.

    That lifts you and others up.

    When you come out of a storm, you are no longer the same.  The purpose of the storm is to teach you something.

    That you are worth more than your misery.

    Bad things happen to everyone.  How you deal with them is everything, and deep inside you are a kickass rebellious fighter!

    You know you’re gonna find a way!

    You change on the inside, and the invisible, intangible, forces don’t recognize impossible, and you break out, like hatching from inside an egg, and you are changed.

    Then there is no struggle, because the storm has changed you, and your opinion matters more to you than anyones.

    You have set yourself free!

    #writing #novel #action #freedom #rebirth #change #growth #dreams #love #author #hellomadison #life #storm

  • Where Did April Goooo?

    Trees provide oxygen for people

    The late Bill wither’s wrote ‘Lean on Me’, and we all need somebody to lean on in Corona times.

    I lean on people and music to make me feel better.

    Health is wealth, and we are building our immune systems more than we are building our wealth these days.

    We are leaning on our hospital staff, and our service workers.

    The places we used to go are shut down and many are out of business.

    Elon Musk, creator of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, is selling all seven of his houses worth 100 million dollars combined.

    But the shutdown has reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 5.5%.

    I walked outside this morning and the air smelled like sweet oranges and jasmine.

    I planted some trees.  They remove carbon dioxide from the air and release oxygen. We lean on trees.

    Ann Beaudet

    ‘the world population reached 7.8 billion people as of March 2020. It took over 200,000 years of human history for the world’s population to reach 1 billion, and only 200 years more to reach 7 billion. Wikipedia.

    If Elon Musk goes to Mars, he will need a pressure suit to breathe. It’s too cold to plant trees there.

    I hope he will use the proceeds from his houses to find a corona vaccine.

    And before we know it, we will be asking ‘where did May goooo?’ And suddenly there will be a cure.

    ‘Sometimes in our lives we all have pain

    We all have sorrow

    But if we are wise

    We know that there’s always tomorrow’

    Bill Withers

  • You Can’t Have Sex, But You Can Plant Trees

    Trees grow themselves

    It’s Friday

    Which means nothing in corona times.

    Every day feels the same. You wake up, do a sanity check, hook up with yourself, and decide what you’re gonna watch later.

    Planet of The Humans was offered free on Youtube during corona times, so I cleared my schedule to watch it.

    My hot take?  There are too many of us on the planet.  And, to boot we are still using our finite supply of fossil fuels to produce green energy, and biomass is failing with too many trees being cut down and burned.

    So sex is the problem yet again.

    I inhale and walk outside.

    I uproot a little cedar tree that seeded itself conspicuously in my herb garden planter.

    I plant it in a pot so it will grow big and strong so I can replant it in the yard. 

    Then I walk back inside and erase my footprints.

  • Is Wearing Sweatpants The Ultimate Un-fashion Statement?

    Karl Lagerfeld said wearing sweatpants is ‘giving up.’

    I have been recycling a few pairs of sweatpants and jeans and cut offs throughout the entire coronovirus period.

    Occasionally I will ‘dress up’ in bamboo yoga pants, but that’s it!

    Sad, but nobody cares.

    And I feel really comfortable doing a yoga pose on the couch in my eco bamboo pants!

    Marilyn Monroe herself wore little more than a generous all over spray of Chanel No 5 covered with a bed sheet or terry bathrobe or a black slip when at home.

    Marilyn’s philosophy toward fashion mirrored her lifelong quest — to find and honor her deepest self. She needed to be understood — she needed to be seen — and the garments she turned to again and again were extensions of her authenticity. By giving press interviews in her terrycloth bathrobe, pouring mimosas for the journalists, fresh from her bath and makeup-free but drenched in perfume, she was shouting: “This is me, love me or leave me.”. the cut.com

    So it’s the perfect time to own your personal style and hone it.

    Toss the tight fitting, restricting, binding, itchy, starchy, wrinkly clothes, and fly your authentic fashion flag!

    I dare you to pour a mimosa, make up free, in a terry robe and blame it all on me!

  • Fiction Writers Are Entertainers First

    Fiction Writers Are Entertainers First

    They live out loud through their stories and characters.

    They are conversationalists who unknowingly show you their personality in every chapter they write.

    They write their experiences all over their books. Often their imagined experiences too!

    They have eyes everywhere, and always have, since they can remember.

    At age 4, I had no clue what the word ‘observant’ meant, but parents and adults and teachers who had never met, said that word repeatedly to me.

    ‘I felt like I was on mute when I tried to express what I saw in spoken words. It was all too beautiful and overwhelming to me.’

    Ann Beaudet

    It was a sin to keep it a secret.

    ‘I retreated to writing fiction to share what I see and how I feel.’

    AnnBeaudet

    Novelists unknowingly tell you their world views through their stories, and their characters’ words and actions.

    They show you the actors they’ve seen on the stages of life they have been on, and the parts they themselves have played on the stages they have entered and exited.

    They are blessed with vivid imaginations that force them to replay all the people they have been at different stages of our lives – a child, a student, a lover, a wife, a mother, an entrepreneur.

    They want to show you all the lessons they have learned by transporting themselves into the bodies of other people of different genders and ages.

    They never take themselves too seriously.

    They are their own comic relief, seeing the one morsel of humour or light that exists in the middle of a tragedy, or the bittersweet sorrow in the happiest moment.

    They do what they do because it’s fun, and it comes naturally to them, and their heads are so full, they have to express themselves or they will burst!

    First of all, novelists are entertainers, wanting you to feel what they feel, because moving your heart is the most powerful thing anyone can do.

    Sometimes we are in the spotlight, sometimes we are background supports, but we always love you, the audience!

    #fiction #writers #entertainers #novel

    #hellomadison

  • Thank You Healthcare Workers and Moms!

    We all need a bit of extra mothering in this pandemic, to feel her care, and her loving arms wrapped around us, as she tells us everything is gonna be alright.

    My dear mom passed 10 years ago this month, but I can almost hear her Irish accent speaking these words to me, as if she were here today:

    ‘You may be quarantined in pandemic, but be grateful you have a home to be quarantined in.’

    ‘You may be inconvenienced, but you can breathe easily, and are not in hospital with your life at risk.’

    ‘You may be disappointed your book signing at Chapter’s Indigo Bookstore didn’t happen, but you have books fir sale on Amazon.com.’

    ‘You may be isolated, but you have people you love and who love you.’

    ‘You may miss eating in a restaurant, but you have food to eat.’

    ‘There is much more love and abundance than lack in this world.’

    ‘Much more faith than fear.’

    ‘You must make a sacrifice to help others in times of need, and your kindness will be returned tenfold.’

    Thanks for the hugs Mom! xo

    #healthcare #moms #thankyou #gratitude

  • Spring Happiness Washes Away Covid Blues

    A friend dropped this at my door

    First of all, I miss you!

    Second of all, I’m still happy.

    I am standing in line at the post office on a circle on the floor, 6 feet back from the person in front of me and 6 feet ahead of another person.

    I’m mailing a package to a friend I miss.

    I know the clerk but she shuns me from behind her plexiglass shield, then apologizes after, saying she doesn’t recognize me with my mask on.

    ‘It’s okay,’ I say, ‘everything’s a bit weird right now, but I’m still happy.’

    Stores may be closed, and concerts are cancelled, but our happiness is not in quarantine because of a temporary situation outside of our control.

    Covid is like a detour, when a pilot takes off in the west, hits a south cross wind  and must crab to the north to land in the east.

    To thrive, we must put our noses to the spring breeze, choose happiness and be idealists.

    Dwelling on the way things are, will bring more misery, and prevent us from seeing a way to make things better.

    We have to imagine an end to Covid to feel better now.

    We have to inhale the rebirth of spring into our lungs, and be strong.  We have to find the spark of meaning in the crisis to learn from it and adapt to it.

    That’s how we will make the world stronger and safer.

    You are in my heart.  Despite social distancing. Thanks for the spring flowers.

    Friendship is not about proximity but about how you make me feel, even when we are apart.

    We can choose happiness now, because now is all we have friend, and the alternative isn’t as fun or helpful!

  • How Astro Vision Boarding Helped Me Write Hello Madison

    Before losing our lifestyle to the coronavirus, we used to take classes, and cut pictures out of magazines to create a poster board of our dream lives, called a vision board.

    We would sit close together, share a glue stick, drink some tea, and chat, before hanging our posters in our bedrooms and drifting off to dreamy sleep to make our visions become real in our subconscious minds.

    I wrote my first novel, Hello Madison that way. I saw it becoming real, step by step, by writing the stages on a white board, and cutting out pictures for the cover art and the graphics. Then I started taking action on writing the book and getting the cover designed.

    At a vision boarding class in January 2020, I met an astrologist named Sandra Alexae Moren, who invited me on her podcast.

    Watch the podcast here:

  • The Year Of the Pandemic And the Rat

    Our Health Depends On Us

    We’ve surrendered to the pandemic in this year of the rat, but only some of us are behaving like rats.

    You’ve seen us hide food and supplies, and hoard them for later.

    We run the other way when we see people.

    We lost our food source when the restaurants closed down, and we line up outside the grocery store for an hour, then sneak in and buy the last package of toilet paper!

    Like rats, we are looking for opportunity in the middle of disaster, hoping someone will spill their bucket of popcorn, so we can get it.

    In the lunar calendar, the rat is a sign of wealth and surplus, and signifies the beginning of a new day.

    Rats are smart, but can only spread disease, not stop it, like us.

    The pandemic has brought a new day, and it has taught humans a lesson.

    Humans are creating a whole new world from it.

    A better world.

    The pandemic taught us a beautiful form of etiquette for our fellow humans.

    We have stopped touching every fruit in the grocery store, and spreading our germs on them.   We have stopped coughing and sneezing droplets all over the room and we cough into our elbows now.  We wash our hands and clean our surfaces better now.

    And we have learned that our health and our relationships are more important than money, and we finally appreciate all the people who bless our lives everyday with their service and care!

  • All We Can Control About the Covid Virus is Our Mental Attitude


    Life Will Go on After the Virus

    Complaining and whining about staying home and social distancing won’t help, we need to attack it with everything we’ve got now – hand sanitizers, gloves, masks, social distancing, staying home, hand washing, and mostly with our FAITH.

    We need to believe we will defeat it in the long term, by doing whatever it takes in the meantime.

    It’s okay to feel bad about the virus.  

    It’s okay to miss eating in your favourite restaurant.

    It’s awful that people have suffered and died from the virus, but it’s not okay to let it defeat us mentally.

    It has forced us to pay attention to our health, and the health of the most vulnerable people in our communities.

    Things will get better, and life will go on,  not exactly as it was, but our faith will help us to overcome anything, and to use what we learn to be better prepared next time.