Jan’s Blog Posts

Blog Birthday! July 21^st  marks the one-year birthday of my weekly Pearls of Peace blog! I am reminded of the double-faced Roman god, Janus, often thought to represent beginnings/endings.

The month of January is a namesake of Janus and represents a beginning. Romans held a festival on January 9^th with offerings to Janus, but the beginning of a day and the beginning of a new month also were considered sacred. I like the idea of reflecting on beginnings. Each new day holds a potential for personal peace. Each beginning month offers new possibilities for beginning peaceful initiatives.

I was not named Janis for this Roman god (or king by some research), however I am intrigued by the symbolism that Janus represents. With double faces, one looking to the future and the other looking to the past, Janus represents transitions, time passages, doorways and dichotomies. Several possible dualities of Janus include beginning/end, youth/adulthood, birth/death, barbarism/civilization, and war/peace.                                       

Many jani, or ceremonial gates, were used for a departing Roman army. One particular gate was a shrine named Janus Geminus or “Twin Janus.” Shrine doors were left open when Rome was involved in war; closed doors were a sign of peacetime. According to one Roman historian, the Twin Janus gates were closed only twice between the 7^th century BC and 1^st century BC. For example, the doors to the Janus shrine were closed in 235 BC and Janus (briefly) was considered the “guardian” of peace. Apparently, Roman soldiers did not receive much leave time.

It is uncanny that in 2000+ years we have not learned how to problem-solve our differences across cultures and still have an “open door” to one war after another today. Peace always seems in peril. Is war easy compared to peace?

A lot has happened since last July — another month named for a Roman superstar, Julius Caesar, in 44 BC. Originally the month was named Quintilis, standing for the 5^th month in the Roman calendar. Quintilis was renamed July as it was Julius’ birth month! Beginnings of people’s lives and their choices in evolving events hold great significance for many generations.

A lot has not happened since last July. We have a world in peril, embroiled in dichotomies. Who could have guessed the number of raw events in our country since last July? Who predicted a war-ravaged Ukraine? Yet, here we are. Peaceful problem-solving is still a possibility.

Emily Dickinson’s phrase, “the mob within the heart,” captures the notion of the many dichotomies we each carry in our minds. Yet, we have this new day for beginnings. How will you open or close gates in your mind today?  

If you have been reading these weekly Monday AM blogs, you already know that I have more questions than answers.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

100. Just one final question today: What has this blog meant — or not meant — to you?  

I was traveling in British Columbia with my family on July 4^th. There were no fireworks, but I did see a magnificent bald eagle. Canadian news showed violent fire working in Highland Park, IL, as gunfire showered down from a rooftop shooter onto a crowd of happy parade-watchers gathered to celebrate U.S. Independence Day.

There is something terribly wrong in America when war rifles are unleashed upon innocent folks who are watching a parade, studying in elementary, high school or college, attending their church or synagogue, buying groceries or shopping in a mall, enjoying an outdoor concert or music in a club, driving their car, or just walking on a city sidewalk.

We need a national motto for peace. Wait, we have one! E pluribus unam is Latin for “out of many, one.” Our democracy’s motto refers to the formation of one nation from 13 “original” colonies. This motto appears on the Great Seal of the U.S. established in 1782. A bald eagle holds a ribbon with the wording in its beak.  

The bald eagle grasps peace — symbolized in an olive branch with 13 olives and 13 leaves in one strong claw — however 13 arrows are clutched in the other claw to symbolize war. While the eagle is turned to face the olive branch, it is ever vigilant or ready for war. How did the founders of this seal use arrows in their messaging but did not consider that indigenous people might have been a “colony” of folks too? This oversight still exists in today’s turbulence.  

While singing about the land of the brave, we Americans are not very inclusive of brave people who appear “different.” It is significant that the mass killing fields in the U.S. are on the rise. By one account, there were 63 mass shootings in May and 65 in June.  

It seems that everyone feels edgy. With great uncertainty, there is an unraveling of our “we” ribbon where people look after each other and make the common good a priority. Researchers find that when neighbors share a belief that they can collectively overcome crime, there is significantly less violence. Psychologist Albert Bandura named this phenomenon collective efficacy. He discovered that when educators believe that their collective actions will influence student behavior, there are significant gains in student achievement.

In the wild, eagles demonstrate aspects of collective efficacy. They embrace family values, usually bonding for life. Life partners cooperate in building (or reusing) a giant nest and in tending young eaglets. Some eagle parents receive assistance feeding the young from one or more unattached adults: this collective effort contributes to survival of the species.

We are the handlers to contribute to the survival of our species. Let’s increase our human tending for ALL our precious young and fulfill a peaceful motto: “out of many, one.”

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

98. Who might you look after this week? 

99. What collective actions can you initiate for the common good?

Roses and garlic scapes (flower buds of hardneck garlic) are neighbors in my garden. Each has a distinctive scent. However, both combine their talents of beauty and whimsy in flower bouquets. Cutting-back is helpful, as both thrive best when pruned. Garlic scapes are tasty and by cutting back the scapes, the buried garlic bulb grows larger. Similarly, it is through pruning that future roses increase growing power.

What needs pruning in your internal garden of thoughts/emotions/sensations for your growth? This week I found several parts in my personality that could use a little cut-back. My worried thinking does not leave much room for creative problem solving. By cutting back “what-if________” fears about the future, there is space for growth in one’s total outlook. Mark Twain adds a note of humor: “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

Multi-instrumentalist Randy Armstrong, co-founder of Do’a World Music Ensemble, composed this worry advice: “Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles, it takes away today’s peace.”

Anxiety and worry are at a high pitch in our world today. We are compromising our personalities with our crescendo worrying. What we need is more creative thinking. Pause your defensive worry thoughts. Ask if they hold any stereotypic thinking. 

Inventor and psychologist William J. J. Gordon (yes, there are 2 J’s) suggested that the mind has 2 basic jobs: 1) “Make the strange familiar” — through incorporating new experiences and facts into what you already know; 2) “Make the familiar strange” – by freeing something already believed from some stereotypes you have gathered throughout your life. Bill Gordon was a creativity guru. All of us might benefit from more creative thinking when the “strange” keeps propagating every day.     

Guns cannot be safe-guarded with open carry privileges and a political winner-takes-all agenda. There are no winners in “open carry,” unless you count gun manufacturers and gun stores as the A-team in America. History will not look favorably upon the U.S. obsession with guns. Ironically, it now is OK to have “open carry” guns while women’s liberty about carrying unwanted (and sometimes dangerous) pregnancies have been pruned. Will gun manufactures offer to pay hospital bills for those with gunshot wounds? Will state legislators take on raising children?

Just as a garden has opposite kinds of plants living in peace, we need to figure out how to make peace with those who hold different viewpoints. We must create harmony on our common planet with limited resources. Shared plants and music can bring people together. Perhaps we need a planetary anthem.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead has an encore quote: “One characteristic of Americans is that they have no tolerance at all of anybody putting up with anything. We believe that whatever is going wrong ought to be fixed.”  Let’s fix our thinking. Let’s celebrate independence from defensive thinking this July 4^th!

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

96. What can you do this week that stems from creative thinking?

97. How might you contribute to planetary peace?   

Are you a weeder? Folks, I’m talking about gardening here. If you are anywhere near a garden, you will notice that there are weeds (even in some gardens with careful weeders). Did you know that the definition of a weed is a plant in the wrong place? What one individual considers “weedy” may be different from another’s viewpoint. I’m calling dandelions a weed in my yard, as they are trying to replace my grass. They also blow themselves willy-nilly into my garden beds. I have an organic garden and dandelions are taking advantage of land without toxic products.

Dandelion greens are considered a health food, but I always found that they taste bitter. Recently I learned from a registered dietitian that it is only the stem that is bitter! There are health benefits in eating dandies — they lower blood pressure; reduce cholesterol and triglyceride levels; fight inflammation; aid in blood sugar management and weight loss; offer vitamins A, C, E and K; deliver iron, calcium, magnesium and potassium; provide high levels of the antioxidant carotene; promote liver health; support healthy digestion; treat constipation; and may have anticancer effects along with boosting overall immune health. Oops! I just gave up 2 barrels of dandy greens.  

When I was in graduate school for 5 years, I did crewel embroidery as my go-to relaxation. One of my projects was a wall hanging of dandelions. They looked cute when I did not own a yard. It took me a long time to grasp the “big picture.”

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung had ideas for the “big picture” in human nature. Many misunderstand his concept of individuation, thinking that it is merely navel-gazing or being selfish, although Jung stated, “… the individual is not just a single, separate being… his [her, or their] very existence presupposes a collective relationship…the process of individuation must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and not to isolation.”

People separate themselves from dandelions, but especially from other people with differing viewpoints. We each have a garden of thoughts/emotions/sensations filled with both annual ones (temporary) and perennial ones (long-lasting over years). You can decide whether your internal thinking has more blooming flowers or take-over weeds. I am aware that my garden as well as my internal thinking have some of each. I would like to tell you that my internal garden is “blooming” all day but it is not true. However, it is hard to admit to weedy behavior, especially if we are not aware of it.

What if all of us recognized our thoughts that “weed out” others? What if we understood a bigger picture that included other people’s “weeds?” Perhaps they planted their thinking in the wrong place. For example, anger often is displaced in the wrong place. Anger often cuts us off from understanding one another.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

94. When have you felt cut-off from other people?  

95. What do you do when you realize that you are in cut-off mode?    

Remember shadowy “Deep Throat” from the Watergate scandal? Do you know who owned that nickname? I did not, but Google knows. Reporters discuss the January 6, 2021 presidential scandal and keep referencing Watergate. Nixon loyalists had chanted “witch hunt” in 1972, but the dirty tricks were real. This sad choice of words has reappeared, but the dirty tricks are deadly.

It turns out that few knew the mystery-throated person’s identity — until 31 years after Nixon’s resignation (11 years after Nixon’s death). A former FBI Associate Director named Mark Felt (1913-2008) was “Deep Throat.” Felt had denied unwanted fame earlier, but in 2005 a family attorney broke the story when Felt had dementia at age 91. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, then reporters for The Washington Post, had received secretive information about the Watergate burglars directly from Felt and confirmed the truth.

When truth is stranger than fiction, you know there is more to the story. The catchy “Deep Throat” label was issued by Howard Simons, a managing editor of The Washington Post. Simons copied the salacious nickname from a 1972 pornographic movie by the same name.  

Now, 50 years after the Watergate break-in on June 17, 1972, we are embroiled in another presidential no-no, only this time the stakes are so much higher and for so many more U.S. citizens. We might call this tragedy “Deep Water.” In the Watergate episode, police arrested 5 men in suits. So far, the number of folks charged in the January 6^th “Deep Water” disaster — some wearing military fatigues and brandishing American flag poles as battering rams to breach the Capitol — comes to 865 and counting.

All the President’s Men, the movie version of Watergate, won 4 Academy Awards. I’m guessing that someone will make a movie out of the shocking January 6^th events, but no future awards can rescue the trauma-soaked lives of countless families from the real-life drama at the Capitol.   

If you have been a Pearls of Peace reader, you may recall the trauma drama of how a pearl is born  (See “Pearls and Trauma,” 7-21-21: “…pearls have a trauma history…conception occurs as a natural defense against an intruder.”) America desperately needs to create pearls of peace out of trauma intruding upon democracy.

Pearls are incredibly diverse. We need to celebrate our diverse America. Have we forgotten poet and refugee advocate Emma Lazarus’ words? Although asked to write a poem, her words were forgotten and not inscribed on the Statue of Liberty until after her death (at age 38). “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” stands for precious democratic principles.

Everyone deserves to exercise liberty in voting. Everyone deserves assurance that their vote is honored. Correct vote tallies will keep us out of “Deep Water.” Voting defines our country’s pearl, democracy.   

 Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

92. When have you taken a stand for democratic principles in your life?

93. What might you do today to protect democratic values?

Guns do not have to be the way the cookie crumbles (or a child dies). I am sickened to see over and over the pictures of innocent children proudly holding their Honor Roll certificates just before they were gunned down in a classroom with balloons to celebrate their achievement. Blame cannot ease the anguish of the surviving students and staff or the tormented “If only I had….” guilt reactions from families of victims. We need problem-solving.

Yes, we must de-stigmatize mental health services and provide more outlets for folks to receive compassionate support both in schools and their communities. Yes, we must have gun security measures in every state. But what about the soul of America?

There have been other challenges over centuries in the U.S. in allowing every child’s birthright, a right to receive a good education in a peaceful school, but we must act collectively this time. It is the children from previous school shootings who seem most capable of leading us forward. The term “full circle” comes to mind.

Mandala is the Sanskrit word for circle. In India the mandala is a spiritual symbol. Both in Egypt and India the circle represents a snake eating its own tail. I ate the gun circle cookie that was given to me. Named the ouroboros (Greek for tail-devouring snake),the symbolism behind the circle is renewal. I believe renewal is possible in America. Call me a cockeyed optimist.

Today mandalas are used as coloring projects for both children and adults. Ancient Indian mandalas (or colored circles) were used as a focal point to regard the sacred space of meditation. Psychologist Carl Jung interpreted mandalas to mean an integration of opposites. What we need today is for individuals with opposing views to color together on the same mandala page, or to find renewal of common humanity together.

When will our law-makers come together in their rotundas in most state capitals and in Washington, DC to make a common mandala? We cannot let these circular sacred spaces be used primarily for lying-in-state memorials for the prominent dead.

I wrote the above lines early Sunday morning. Then I went to church and was surprised by a snippet of synchronicity! Our beloved children in Religious Education were featured – pictures of their assembled mandala with flowers, leaves, and other objects from nature were projected on a large screen. The children had covered a circular tabletop with an intricate mandala design! Children model renewal for us daily.  

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde wrote about the Venetian merchant Marco Polo witnessing people living on the island of Zipangu (Japan) put rose-colored pearls in the mouths of the dead. Let’s not say good-by so early to precious pearl children.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

90. What child can you think of who needs to hear from you how precious they are?

91. In what ways can you come together with another who may have views opposite of yours?

The precious peony flower is a time capsule, albeit a very brief one. Our life plots are time capsules bonding one generation to the next in interdependence. Ojibwe environmentalist Winona LaDuke understands interdependence: “What we have is because someone stood up before us. What our Seventh Generation will have will be a consequence of our actions today.”

“What is it that you DO with your time?” Lin-Manuel Miranda told his interviewer, Willie Geist, that his synopsis of his famous Broadway hit, Hamilton, revolved around this question. It is an everyday question for ALL of us. Actions make differences.

I admit that I have spent much unskillful time focused on recent news of the day, although I am turning more to PBS for what I call “wholesome TV.” I love PBS’s Classical Stretch at 7:00 AM on weekdays with former Canadian ballerina Miranda Esmonde-White. Exercising to classical music (with sunny views of an ocean backdrop) involves present-moment aliveness. With the morning weather turning warmer, my AM habit now intersperses mornings of Tai Chi in a local park with others where I enjoy swaying like a peony in the breeze. Since April, 2020, I join with 40-50 others in an everyday meditation group for 20 minutes of meditation time — another “wholesome” action. I celebrate our time-capsule minutes.

After my mother died in February, I joined an online writing class with Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones) and found much of my writing to Natalie’s prompts were connected to grieving. This was no surprise to me. What did surprise me was how frequently others wrote about loss. Did the pandemic loosen our collective psyches on grieving? The staggering one-million-death mark can make one take notice of grief.

Our culture is not welcoming of grief-talk. People may ask you, “How are you doing?” although long drawn-out remarks rarely are encouraged. Often it is in the drawn-out remarking (or writing) that healing from loss scabs can layer up. The past few months of the Russian-Ukrainian tragedy and the past few weeks of one U.S. mass shooting after another leaves massive scarring; many are dumbfounded with grief.

Perhaps we need more non-verbal grieving rituals like those in ancient Greece. The Greek people used hair in grieving symbolism: hair might be cut or burned by mourners with the locks of the deceased hung by doorways. People have an interdependent need for others to witness their grieving. I am wearing my mother’s butterfly jewelry.

When I share thoughts on my mind, it may prod another to open up to slightly different thinking. Others’ feedback (often privately off-line) then carries my thinking forward. This is how interdependence is strung in present-time.

Precious peonies both grieve the loss of petals                                                                           and celebrate springtime                                                                     with meditative calmness and joy,                                   as grieving and celebrating are interdependent pearls in the time-capsule of life.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

88. What is it, exactly, that you do with your daily time?

89. What actions would you like to add to your week?

Over the book of time, Memorial Day changed. Did you know that originally it was known as Decoration Day? The day was set aside on May 30, 1868, to honor sacrifices of Civil War soldiers according to a proclamation by General John A. Logan who represented Union soldiers.

When World War I took over public consciousness, the focus shifted from commemorating those killed on Civil War battlefields to all men and women who died while fighting for the United States. In 1971 the day became a national holiday and the date switched to the last Monday in May.

But I find the earlier switching from the original “Declaration Day” to be the stories worth noting. It turns out that General Logan was aware of an annual memorial time in the South that began in 1866 by the Ladies Memorial Association. Four women in Columbus, Mississippi (a burial site for both Union and Confederate soldiers) decorated the graves of the dead. “…one of the women spontaneously suggested that they decorate the graves of the Union as well as the Confederate dead, as each grave contained someone’s father, brother or son. A lawyer in Ithaca, New York, Francis Miles Finch, read about this reconciliatory gesture and wrote a poem about the ceremony in Columbus, ‘The Blue and the Gray,’ which The Atlantic Monthly published in 1867…From the silence of sorrowful hours / The desolate mourners go / Lovingly laden with flowers / Alike for the friend and the foe….”  

A more poignant story predates the dear Ladies. A friend corrected my first version of this post. Actually, the earliest tribute was held May 1, 1965, by thousands of freed slaves in Charleston, South Carolina. Adults and children paid tribute to 257 deceased Union soldiers who were buried in a mass grave. The fact that this story is not a part of our collective knowledge about Memorial Day is troubling.  

Yes, every life represents someone’s grandfather, father, brother, son–or someone’s grandmother, mother, sister, daughter. We are family, all of us on the planet, including those who support Russian or Ukrainian soldiers. Sorrowful hours accompany far too many of us these days.

Reconciliation is what we need more of in these turbulent times. Today, Confederate soldiers in Arlington Cemetery are given respect just like the Union soldiers. All 228,000 graves receive an American flag on Memorial (Decoration) Day in the tradition known as “Flags In.”

Let’s use the inclusive “Flags In” as a rallying call for our country. It is time that we come together. When we have to decorate commemorative killing sites at grocery stores, churches, and elementary schools for innocent victims of war-style weapons, it is time to make big changes in our beloved country.

We all must take a stand this time. I applaud Steve Kerr, NBA coach and gun-violence survivor, as well as Fred Guttenberg, father of a slain high school student in Parkland Fl, for using their national platforms to make a difference. I have joined Kerr and Guttenberg in supporting the non-profit Brady: United Against Gun Violence.

Our bodymind health is on the line, yours and mine. If we do not promote gun safety this time, whose family will be next in line to decorate a grave?

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

86. Whose grave site(s) do you commemorate this Memorial Day?

87. What will you do to foster change in America?   

In Peacemaking Among Primates, Dutch-American primatologist Frans de Waal labels aggression a “social fire.” When ignited, it can be lethal. And yet, de Waal found peacemaking activities are common in the animal kingdom. Ruthless competition is not more prevalent than sharing and peacemaking among our relatives, the primates. There are territorial squabbles, but many primates are talented in reconciliation efforts. It is daunting to consider de Waal’s observations about monkeys versus humans: “…whereas monkeys generally make-up within minutes, humans can take days, years, even generations to do the same.”

Chimpanzee colonies have developed checks and balances on aggression with peacemaking occurring through a hug and a kiss. Rhesus monkeys groom the fur of their former enemies. The bonobo version of reconciliation is engagement in more overt make-up and make-out sexual behaviors. Other species appear to have make-up behaviors also – wolves, domestic goats, bottlenose dolphins and captive ravens are found to “reconcile” differences.

Only domestic cats have failed to show behavior that reconciles relationships after conflict! Those independent cats are reminders that peacemaking is NOT universally present. 

In de Waal’s book titled Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes, he cites a definition of politics as a social process containing three ingredients: “who gets what, when, and how.” He compares aspects of chimp life to Machiavelli! However, monkey leaders, the alpha males, do not impose leadership by themselves; they have accomplices.

Monkey business gained new interest this year. For the first time in 70 years, a female Japanese macaque named Yakei (who lives in a nature reserve) violently overthrew three high-ranking males and her own mother to become the first female leader! Yakei’s alpha status is stunning to watch according to reserve workers. “Social smarts are more important than physical strength for Japanese Macaques,” reports Katherine Cronin of Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo.

It was imagined that Yakei would lose her reign in mating season, however the plucky Yakei waltzed her wiggle successfully and mated with Maruo, rated 15^th in the troop. Staff members call him “quite the catch” as he is very calm and kind to baby monkeys. Yakei gave a rare birth to twins in 2019, but one of her babies disappeared. Meanwhile, Yakei is a loving mom to her remaining twin in spite of fighting her own mother to rise in rank.

Do animal behaviors remind you of any humans?

How did I come to write about monkeys this week? Maybe the latest news on monkeypox was an influence. The idea of yet another animal infecting us — when we cannot get a grip on handling the bat virus — is disturbing.

Is our current culture raising people to be like cool cats, independent creatures who are not adept at reconciling differences? Cat walking in a swaggering sway, as if to say, “Nobody better mess with me,” describes quite a few people.                                                          

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

84. What peacemaking skills did you learn in your family?

85. Where do you place yourself on an independent-interdependent continuum?

A 74-year-old woman summed up pandemic time: “It limited and slowed down face-to-face interactions while speeding up progress on some projects that had lain dormant…time is precious. Using it wisely is harder when your activities are limited and your schedule falls apart.” T. S. Eliot captured such time distortions with these words: “For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment, the moment in and out of time.” You may ask, “What was Eliot trying to say?”

My take on Eliot’s message is that time feels slippery. What feels like a “long” time to one person may feel like a “short” timeframe for another. And to make matters complicated, people are not good at attending to present moments. Our nearly constant mind chit-chat ties up so much of our time that we may feel we run “out” of time on a given day.

A 71-year old man offered these timely reflections: “[The pandemic offered]…me more time for contemplation and strategic thought…I did not feel that I lost time…[lessons included] some patience, some resilience…like a repeat when I was drafted in the service, like something you were compelled to do, [it was] better to accept that than to bemoan it…the greater your gratitude, the greater your happiness.” All of us are veterans of the pandemic invisible war with its ongoing deadly strikes. The veteran make-it-through toughness with a nod to gratitude makes me think about Father Time. 

Consider the grandfatherly image of archetypal Father Time who holds a farm-harvest tool, a scythe. Greek mythology’s Cronos was a god of time, harvest, justice and fate. This pandemic season is challenging economic harvesting and our sense of justice; it is fateful for many. Father Time represents veteran journeying through life seasons and enduring whatever befalls him. In some art Father Time holds Baby New Year, a hope-filled rejuvenation possibility. However, Father Time did not have to worry about running out of baby formula for his protégé.

British detective novelist Agatha Christie explained time this way: “I have been on a journey. Not so much a journey back through the past as a journey forward—a starting again at the beginning of it all—going back to Me who was to embark on that journey forward through time.” This optimistic time-travel is another way of suggesting that we trust and embrace our essence, a core self, to lead us onward.

The essence of a pearl is embracing “what is” and growing forward. If there is a pearl to harvest in any shell, it comes out of a trauma ancestry. Pearl conception begins as a natural defense against an intruder – an irritant entering an innocent “parent” oyster or mussel shell. Today’s pandemic is an invisible irritant.   

Is there a pandemic space-time continuum? Harvest your interpretation about the meaning of time, pandemic time or otherwise. Your thoughts matter.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz:

82. What has pandemic time meant for you?

83. How might you find some pandemic pearls?