Author: Janis Johnston

Have you ever been in awe of a swirling mass of starlings that flow in a myriad of shapes as they perform an airborne ballet together? It is called a murmuration of starlings. Some other birds fly together in V-shaped formations, but starlings dance in a spinning and swirling flow together in the sky. Murmuration, meaning low and continuous sounds, comes from starling-wing music when as many as 10,000 birds synchronize their moves.

Traveling through the Great Plains—Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma—in one day I saw 9 different starling murmuration configurations. Each one was captivating in its beauty. Starlings fly in close relationship with their flock mates for protection from predators and for warming. What our world needs today is people murmuration–a flock of folks who get vaccines together to protect ourselves from the pandemic predator. Peaceful bodies, free from viruses, are not about politics; peaceful bodies are about survival.

Norwegian Johan Galtung is considered to be the father of peace and conflict studies. The 91 year-old sociologist has Ph.D. degrees in both mathematics and sociology. He founded the Peace Research Institute Oslo in 1959 and the Journal of Peace Research in 1964. What is Galtung’s idea of peace? Peace means there is a relation between 2 or more entities which includes people, nations, regions, or civilizations.

If you think about it, relational interactions are everywhere you may look. Some relational interactions are peaceful; others are conflictual. Galtung considers how our social interactions have evolved from “primitive” times (hunters and gatherers) to agricultural societies to the modern industrial world. Relations shifted, becoming more hierarchical and even impersonal, as these changes occurred.

We are missing out if we do not care about the personal best from each person. We need each person’s  flow in the flock. “Flow” is a concept proposed by Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, a sense of flow is defined as a presence, a state in which you are so involved in some activity that you are entirely focused. One might assume that health and survival would be good focus options. Flow activities do not have to involve a competition or a masterful piece of art, although these experiences do involve a flow mentality. Csikszentmihalyi’s research found that a person’s skill can develop best when they reach an intersection between their skill level and challenge. A sense of flow can be a struggle, as challenges often are difficult.

What might happen to the strength of countries if we engaged in peaceful dialogues about our conflicts? Is your flow tank full? It is a possibility that we could be a people of murmuration, flowing together to resolve the weighty issues of life.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

38. When have you felt a sense of flow in your life?

39. What dialogues might you have with another that could move both of you in positive directions?

Emily Dickinson identified hope as withstanding the “chillest land” in her stalwart poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers.” In other words, the sun never sets on hope because hope has possibilities for a new day.  

Environmentalist Jane Goodall and co-author Douglas Abrams wrote The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times (NY: Celadon Books, 2021). Jane does not wear rose-colored glasses (or pearls) but she does deliver pearls of hope. There are 4 reasons for hope outlined: the amazing human intellect, nature’s resiliency, the power of young people, and an indomitable human spirit.

Goodall emphasizes that “real hope” requires action! Think of hope this way–when you take on hopeful actions, you create a domino effect because hope has contagious possibilities. When you choose your domino, you set up possibilities for another’s domino. We actually need a healthy contagion of positive domino action with yet another COVID variant circling the planet. Hope activities come in many forms.

Here is part of a much larger conversation between Jane Goodall and Doug Abrams:

Jane: “Hope is what enables us to keep going in the face of adversity. It is what we desire to happen, but we must be prepared to work hard to make it so…You won’t be active unless you hope that your action is going to do some good. So you need hope to get you going, but then by taking action, you generate more hope. It’s a circular thing.”

Doug: “Do animals have hope?” 

Jane: “Chimps will often throw a tantrum when they don’t get what they want. That is some form of frustrated hope.”

Doug: “Is hope an emotion?”

Jane: “No…it’s an aspect of our survival…it’s not a skill. It’s something more innate, more profound. It’s almost a gift…it is a human survival trait and without it we perish.”

You might guess that Jane’s “gift” metaphor might make me think of pearls. A pearl is a gift from the sea, parented by an oyster or mussel shell due to an irritant (or parasite) entering the innocent shell. Like the COVID irritant, the shell may be “taken” by surprise, but it immediately gets down to business–layering a fluid on top of the irritant. People have the ability to layer on protective measures when irritants appear too. Vincent Van Gogh explains a version of hope: “The heart of man [or woman or child] is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths, it has its pearls too.”

Not every shell produces a pearl. But pearls-of-hope actions are a possibility. Whether we are battling COVID or any other life-storm, if we realize our indomitable human talents together as the human race, we can find pearls of hope.

 Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

36. What life irritants are you dealing with today?

37. How do you find hope in the depths of your challenges? 

I knew I had a problem when I found a small pool of standing water in my (usually) dry basement. When I looked up to the ceiling, the culprits–100+ year old pipes with drips–were oozing into freefall. Thankfully, it was not a gusher emergency, just a droplet here, a droplet there. The clear pearls of water forming might have been fascinating to watch if not for the ominous meaning they held.

The first plumber call was an apology for being “backed up” and gave me an appointment of December 13. The second plumber I tried could come on December 1. Plumber number three said they could come the next day. Meanwhile, a bathroom toilet stopped flushing and began dribbling water from the base. It turns out that a new toilet was needed upstairs. A temporary fix was tried in the dribbling basement until two plumbers could be scheduled for complete relief after Thanksgiving. I began a mind-search for gratitude pearls.   

There are many pearls of gratitude in my family. We celebrate Thanksgiving with both sides of the family (that’s two wonderful turkey dinners on both Thursday and Friday). This is my favorite holiday gathering of the year. It feels good to give thanks. I was especially grateful this year for the sharing of good-times stories with family members away from the mundane (and costly) repair issues of homelife and the ominous TV coverage of the new COVID variant, Omicron.

We often find new meanings in our retelling of a stressful time. Psychologist Monisha Pasupathi summarizes: “We become the stories that we tell; our stories aren’t single authored.” These co-created story plots influence our lives whether we are conscious of them or not. Perhaps next Thanksgiving I can laugh at leaky pipes with new story lines.

From the earliest of times people shared stories. Before printing existed, fables and myths were handed down through generations. I am fascinated by the lovely story-buildings in Europe. In the Middle Ages special legends were painted onto exterior walls of buildings where each floor told a different tale. Such floors were called “stories.” Just like those traditional walls hold certain story plots, your personality holds many plots in your story-house of life experiences. I envision that we store subconscious memories and pipe-dreams down the basement stairs of our personality story-house. It is time to uncover those pipe-dreams and discover the pearls they may offer.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

34. What happened to you over Thanksgiving that held both positive “upper” and negative “downer” messages?

35. Are there pipe-dreams you have held onto for decades that might hold meaning for you now?

Realistically, what we need most when we shiver from any coldness of life, or just-tired-of-negative-news malaise, is gratitude. This week encompasses our nation’s traditional day of giving thanks for the good news of life. The goodness is that we are HERE! Give a shout-out to your ancestors who undoubtedly experienced much literal and figurative coldness in their lives but they persevered. Perhaps they wore pearls. Hopefully, they expressed gratitude. Often.

Reviewing life events and finding thanksgiving moments is meaningful in a myriad of ways. Producer and composer Barry Goldstein wrote a song entitled “The Moment” which expresses gratitude simply for being alive and “not wasting” another second of life. What we “waste” often are moments when we might express our gratitude to others. Gratitude for others’ contributions to our lives affirms our belongingness and interdependence. If our DNA is anywhere close to 99.9% the same as the next guy or gal, how can we fail to care about each other?

As gratitude researcher and psychologist Robert Emmons points out, gratitude implies humility, a realization that we might not be who we are or where we have landed in life without the contributions of others. One pearl does not make up a string of pearls. A solitary pearl is lovely, but there is something precious about pearls that hang together.

Interdependence, a stringing together of caring for each other’s needs, is especially key at the beginning and ending of life. We are grateful for the birth of a beloved baby and we are grateful for having known a beloved one when they die. Gratitude is felt keenly; it is not unusual to have tears accompany gratitude moments. The part of your personality that may keep you from feeling gratitude is a complainer or critic. When you are busy with a downer-mentality, it is difficult to let your gratitude meter flow freely.

This week tap into the resilience of gratitude moments. The power in gratitude takes you closer to having self-compassion as well as having compassion for others. Yes, there is much suffering, cold rhetoric, and violence in our world. I am not suggesting that you forget that. I am suggesting that you hold onto a sense of gratitude while you address the chilly issues in life that cause suffering. Gratitude is a healer. It will warm up what needs warming up.

Whether you attend Thanksgiving with family or enjoy a Friendsgiving, tell at least one other person something you are grateful for in them. 

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

32. What is the first thought that comes to mind when you think of gratitude?

33. What are you most grateful for from your childhood?

Have you noticed how quickly a rainbow disappears? A rainbow pops in and out of brilliance. Yet, our frequent fixed-mindset perspectives entail wanting rainbows (and other goodies) to “last” or “stay the same.” Have you noticed seasons changing? The climate and our weather, including weathering the pandemic, is a moving target. We may not live the “same” as we did pre-pandemic.

Consider Frank Baum’s voyage-and-return plot for all ages, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900. There are messages for both adults and children in Baum’s classic story. While he visited Kansas only once, Baum was deeply moved by a tornado which ripped through the state in 1893, killing 31 people and destroying two towns. Baum turned his grieving into a redemptive narrative about a girl and her dog who are traumatized in weathering a tornado.

Dorothy Gale was named for Dorothy Gage, his 5-month-old niece who died during Baum’s writing about Oz. He created his name for a made-up kingdom by staring intently at his filing cabinet. The three drawers were marked, A to G, H to N, and O to Z. The letters O-Z captured his imagination!

Heroine Dorothy endured many challenges before reaching the Wizard. Coping with fear and uncertainty are mainstays in Baum’s original story. Dorothy asks the pretend-Wizard if he is frightened and he replies truthfully: “Child, you’re talking to a man who’s laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe…I was petrified.”   

One takeaway message is the growth mindset of Dorothy, an orphan raised by her aunt and uncle amidst conflict at home. Aunt Em orders Dorothy: “Find yourself a place where you won’t get into any trouble!” Like many runaways, Dorothy takes this message to heart and runs off with her dog, Toto. Then the tornado strikes.

When Dorothy meets the Tinman, Scarecrow and Lion, she discovers that everyone struggles. Each friend feels inadequate–not having enough compassion, or intelligence, or courage. When all work together to save Dorothy from a Wicked Witch, each one becomes resilient in discovering their personalities are flexible! Each discovers inner strengths (in spite of the Scarecrow’s and Tinman’s bodily disabilities), although they were unable to recognize their possibilities initially.  

It is through the storms of life that we tend to learn some of our best lessons if we have a growth mindset. We feel surprise in seeing rainbows after stormy times, but life is full of opposites. Our personalities are full of opposites. It is up to each of us to name our vulnerable fears. We can nurture self-compassion for our struggles and foster a belief in growing our potential. It is then we are better able to have compassion for others also weathering bumpy times.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

30. What are times when you have held a fixed mindset?

31. How might you nudge yourself into a growth mindset more of your day?   

As a young child I was curious about cats. I fancied myself a cat trainer – also, I was “trained” by them. Many cats visited. None were allowed in our house as my brother and I were allergic to cats. I fed itinerant cats table scraps outside. The vagabonds seemed happy with leftover dining offerings as a welcome change from getting mouse fur stuck in their teeth.

Cats are very independent creatures. Some consider that cats are only semi-domesticated which fits my experience. Egyptians reportedly were the first people to domesticate cats around 1500 BC. Cleopatra supposedly had a favorite pet cat she named Tivali (meaning gift of God). Cats were revered in ancient Egypt as they were protectors of the home, often attacking snakes who found themselves in the wrong place. An Egyptian goddess, Bastet or Bast, was characterized as a lioness and later as a woman with a cat’s head. Bast represented justice, fertility and power.

I learned a lot from taming feral cats. Each one had a different personality. I learned co-regulation, although that was too big of a word for a 6-year-old child. Midnight was my favorite cat – perhaps because she submitted to our co-regulating bonding for longer periods of time than other skittish cats. Midnight and I were curious about each other. She followed me, but I also followed her.

 Midnight was an excellent huntress. Her mousing efforts sometimes were dropped off at the back door for my inspection. I was clueless about mousing behavior, but Midnight enjoyed my after-the-fact co-regulating praise. I enjoyed her steady purring when we cuddled. Purrs are a cat-regulating sign of safety and comfort. Sometimes a cat purrs when alone, just rolling around as if self-soothing. Kittens are born deaf and blind, but they soon begin purring vibrations to bond with their moms.  

People are not as independent as we may imagine. We also are dependent as newborns. As we grow up our everyday responses are colored through our connections with other mammals. According to psychologist Stephen Porges, mammals are defined by a need to co-regulate with another, however unresolved trauma interferes with our co-regulating. A person who appears to self-regulate efficiently is one who has a nervous system filled with training times of effectively co-regulating with others. Porges points out that there are folks who co-regulate more effectively with their pets than their spouses…perhaps a topic for another day.

Cats know about co-regulating, but they also know how to pause after a busy day – they roll around on their backs, paws to the sky, while purring with contentment in their eyes. While most of us do not worship cats, we might learn some lessons from them.  

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

28. Can you think of times when you experienced co-regulation with a pet?

29. Who is in your life today that you co-regulate with on a regular basis?

The pagan party called Halloween originally celebrated the end of summer’s harvest and winter’s arrival. Halloween has roots in Samhain, a Celtic festival lasting three days in territory now called Ireland, Scotland and U.K. Samhain was famous for pranks and tricks which were blamed on fairies and spirits, as people believed that ghosts of the dead returned to earth at this liminal time of year. Sacrifices (presumably of animals) were tossed into bonfires. Offerings of food were made as further protective gestures, along with folks parading in costumes to ward off harm from wayward spirits. When Rome claimed these Celtic lands in 43 A.D., the festivities continued but were reborn with Christian themes. Later Pope Boniface IV renamed the event All Saints’ Day or All-hallows with an intent to honor martyrs who exhibited passion for good causes.

We have plenty of everyday people to honor in these pandemic times. A 28-year-old physician in Texas died of COVID-19. She was an obstetrician and gynecologist but did a rotation in ER to help with COVID patients prior to vaccines being available for her protection. Her father told about her passion for medicine and urged others, “Be an Adeline. Have passion for your life.”

My Mom did not lose her life “early.” She celebrated her 99^th birthday in August. She certainly lived a life of passion. Any activity may engender the pollination of passion, but some are perennial topics. Mom’s passions are world peace, racial justice and quality education for every child (to name a few). She feels immense frustration that she will not live to see significant results, but she planted seeds for others to harvest change. Today I interviewed a hospice service to augment Mom’s 24-7 care in her group home. It is difficult to sum up Mom in her prime. Here is one attempt: Be a Lois. Harvest passion for good causes!

When you are harvesting passion you are engaged with life! Passion takes positive actions. From research we find that positive actions are protective from stress — your immune system grows stronger and you become more resilient. Your outlook brightens. You see more possibilities. And what happens when you are inactive?

Consider the fable of the frog tossed into a hot pot of boiling water. The frog is frantic and makes an effort to leap out. However, if a frog goes into a cool pot with the heat turned on low, it will be lulled into inaction. As water gradually heats, the frog may float into a stupor until eventually succumbing to a cooked state when the water boils. Never mind that science has debunked this tale.

The metaphor does teach us something; people need to act “in time” to resolve potentially catastrophic situations.  

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

26. What are you passionate about in your life?

27. Where might you join with others to harvest passion for some cause?  

Have you ever been stung by a bald-faced hornet, alias yellowjacket wasp? These wasps are capable of stinging repeatedly. The stings pack a punch that you will not forget easily. I bawled after an encounter with a bald-faced hornet in my garden. When threatened, vengeance can erupt. And guess what…there is commotion and conflict within this aggressive wasp colony. One common worker-wasp version of a “strike” is to kill their queen. Competitive struggles for control obstruct the social organization of the colony. Does this sound like any human conflicts you know about?

Mister Rogers comes to mind: “When I was a boy and would see scary times in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” 

A researcher studying birds in Africa found helpers! Nichola Raihani, evolutionary biologist at University College London, studied pied babbler birds living in the Kalahari Desert where every bird cooperates in the flock as a helper to raise the offspring of a dominant breeding pair of birds. Raihani also studied mutualism in the meticulous “cleaner fish” who live on tropical coral reefs and found that cooperation extended beyond same species. Dubbed the hairdressers of coral reefs, cleaner fish remove parasites and surface gunk on other sea creatures. Now turning her attention to the study of human behavior, Raihani finds that cooperation is not always on the plus side. For example, corruption can be a form of cooperation!

Raihani wrote in The Social Instinct: How Cooperation Shaped the World how we humans have the possibility of cooperating with strangers. Other species are most likely to cooperate within their family groups (leadings to their familial genes having the best survival chances). People have the capability to cooperate with both family members and strangers.

Cooperative progress is a challenging topic. And yet, over a fairly short period of time many workers were able to transition to work-from-home routines and many parents/grandparents carried out incredibly challenging home schooling for children. Expanding our cooperation to “outsiders” is important, especially in pandemic times.

Can we learn something from cleaner fish who move beyond helping their own kind? We need cooperation to confront the collective sting of the COVID-19 virus. Raihani writes, “Evolution under adversity helped to forge our cooperative nature, and this willingness to work together ultimately defined the human success story.”

How can we become better Planet Earth team players?

Pearls of Peace (PoP) quiz:

24. How important is cooperation in your daily life?

25. When is a time when you were a “helper” to a stranger?

It’s a small, small world. In a recent 50^th anniversary show about Disney World, a young Julie Andrews sang this song while holding hands with people representing different countries. Hearing the cheerful tune launched my mind into reverse; I enjoyed Disney’s Small World ride (a few times) when my children were small. I think I liked it more than my kids as I imagined those international dolls representing the possibility of a problem-solving and peaceful world.

Fast forward to last week: “You’re looking up into the future and down into the past. What we’re looking down upon is Mother Earth and it needs protection.” I listened with tears to the moving tribute to our small, small world from 90-year-old William Shatner (“Captain Kirk”), now knighted as an astronaut aboard the “New Shepard” rocket. Shatner and three others traveled 62 miles above Earth to the “edge” of space. With an extraordinary view of our precious planet, Shatner was visibly moved by his fleeting glimpse of our planet’s fragility and blueness surrounded by an endless unknown.  

Back on the Earth, many of us are “on edge,” a different edge. We sail in collective water where trauma is like surround sound in this pandemic era. Uncertainty permeates everyday life. Some forgo an ability to have a sense of awe in science. Where is a lighthouse to shepherd us through choppy water?

If you ever took a Psychology 101 class, you heard of the Russian psychologist, Ivan Pavlov, and his operant conditioning experiments. Pavlov studied dogs who were kept in cages in his basement laboratory in St. Petersburg. A winter thaw created a flood in the nearby River Neva. The basement dogs were trapped in icy water with no escape route. While water receded and the dogs survived, they continued to be terrified even though they were physically intact. We might understand the trauma signs of dogs – lying listless, unable to show curiosity in their surroundings – as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) if we were discussing humans.

Like people, the dogs displayed different reactions. Their stress responses showed a continuum of strong excitability to depression. For some animals, even a minor sound produced an extreme response; others barely flinched.

Trauma comes from the Greek work for “wound.” Originally, trauma meant physical wounding, but today we also acknowledge psychological wounds. We often look outside of ourselves for some lighthouse to guide us to safety post-trauma, while we overlook the compassion of a core self. Psychiatrist Gabor Mate shines a light on the possibility of inner resiliency: many people say that their traumatic experience has been “the best thing that has ever happened to them.”  Acknowledging and working through trauma opened them to connect with their essential selves.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) quiz:

22. When do you connect with essential or core self?

23. How do you shepherd yourself when you experience physical or psychological trauma?    

Seed pods fly unfettered       creation cruising aloft        seeking common ground

Change is the definition of nature. Poets offer creative change themes and often use nature metaphors. Few words were needed in my Japanese-inspired haiku to capture “change.” Give it a try — you may surprise yourself with your simple change-of-pace experience.

Why do we rebel so much when changes occur? Transitioning is constant throughout the lifespan. Children cascade into transitioning from one developmental stage to the next. Each child transition ripples into parents’ own transitioning in how to relate to these budding change-makers. Many parents (and some kids) resist making transitions. People cling to their present status because of fears. Parents want to protect children from unknown dangers. Let’s face it – our parental fearful parts of our personalities want protection for us too! Loss of “the way things were” can trap us and prevent inner peace. But our survival demands change. Consider how our breath changes from inhale to a brief pause, and onward to exhale with brief pausing before the change-cycle repeats.

Many change lessons are available in the garden. I’m savoring autumn days when plants are winding down productivity while planning their legacies. Wafting seeds make sure new sprouts will flourish into more Rose-of-Sharon trees next year. I gave away multiple little Rose-of-Sharon start-ups. Yet, I find more fledgling entrepreneurs under lush raspberry bush foliage. Some plants and people are more prolific than others in their transitioning growth.

Consultant William Bridges described transition as a psychological time that involves both inner redirection and self-redefinition. Bridges’ three stages of transition include: an ending, a neutral zone or in-between state, and new beginnings. My version of transitioning is a recycling process. I find that transitioning cycles are ongoing. I favor using the verb, transitioning, as well-lived years require ongoing mental/physical movement…well, changes.

• Initial transitioning involves saying good-bye to what you are losing. What ends in leaving a school/job/career/relationship? Belonging and ability needs may go unmet initially. Befriending what is ending in your life includes finding what you might keep.
• The muddling-middle of transitioning is where confusion and angst may pile up. Your body may feel tense. You may experience vulnerability when you are “lost-in-a-maze” of feelings and unmet needs. Your energy may plummet. This is a clue for you to tend to yourself with great care.
• Personality rewiring carries possibilities. Bridges advised: “Things go slowly for a time and nothing seems to happen—until suddenly…the branch blossoms…when the endings and the time of fallow neutrality are finished…we can launch ourselves anew, changed and renewed by the deconstruction…[of] outlooks of the old life phase.”

With COVID numbers beginning to recede, we are transitioning (AGAIN).

Pearls of Peace (PoP) quiz:

20. What changes are needed in your life post-COVID?

21. What will help you make transitioning moves?