Building Bridges through Loss: Two/Arshay Cooper/A Most Beautiful Thing

Signs of the improbable healing at work in our world just keep coming.  One of these signs appeared in a recent edition of the News & Citizen, a local/regional northern Vermont weekly paper, announced by the headline, “From gang to crew: Black rower finds peace on the water.” Rowing is one of those sports Ivy League colleges support to ensure high enrolment. It is expensive and exclusive,  so the story of an all black rowing team from west Chicago is startling news, as is the linking of three words: gang, crew, and peace.

Continue reading Building Bridges through Loss: Two/Arshay Cooper/A Most Beautiful Thing

Celebrating Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s long and wondrous life ended this week, on August 5, 2019. All of us alive today have been touched by her body of work whether we know it or not. For me, Toni shone as a woman in a man’s world, and more audaciously, as a black woman in that world. The literary canon still taught in many out-dated colleges and universities carries the heavy load of racial and cultural bias, skewing students’ beliefs about what makes literature great. Toni, along with many other women, outed that lie simply by writing.

As a literature student, always and forever – because story is the humanizing principle of our species – I will miss the anticipation of a new Toni Morrison offering. And I will revisit her literary children and watch the film Beloved again and again, for the heart and the soul of pain and healing it transmits through its cadences, its images, and the shocks and pleasures of its characters. So many women writing today carry on the deep soul work of our best writers. I am grateful for all of them, and especially for Toni Morrison, the woman who emerged from the literary mists of my young adulthood to assure me that the world of story, lasting, vital story, was not the exclusive property of dead white men.

Now I am on the hunt for the new documentary, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am. Up in this neck of the very white woods that is northern Vermont, we have two theatres that will likely show it, The Savoy in Montpelier, and The Roxy in Burlington. I know I can watch it on one of the platforms available to us in our homes, but I don’t want to experience this last documented Toni-Morrison moment by myself. I want the public experience of sharing her with others who love and value her work as a writer, a way-shower, a guide back to deep justice, tenderness, and love.

Thank you, Toni, for every word, uttered and written. You are and always will be a light in the darkness of human folly and treachery. First at so many things, you will continue to shine through these dark times and we, all of us, will continue to be blessed by your shining.

EFT and Grief

Losing Ms Morrison is an immediate and sorrowful event for me. I want to feel all my feelings about her courage and her work and the considerable loss I feel at her passing. EFT is useful when grief will not shift on its own. It is not a deadening tool, but rather a relieving one. I have no need to tap on my grief at losing this giant of literature because feeling this grief is part of what makes me human.

If, however, her loss leads to an unshakable depression about the state of the world, then using EFT to release that dread and hopelessness will become a forward path. Just now, I feel nothing but the loss of a spiritual teacher. I want to feel how much I will miss Toni Morrison. Missing her will lead me to revisit her books and her interviews, and this revisiting process will enrich me further.

EFT is useful for chronic, relentless grief. What I and so many others are experiencing now is the healthy expression of mourning. This grief assures us we are alive to the pain and wonder of the world. This grief is a gift. It is at the heart of the human experience. Feeling this powerful emotion for the loss of Toni Morrison, one so bravely present to the world in all its beauty and horror, is a privilege.

Until next time,

Jane

Visit www.eftinternational.org to learn more about how the use of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) supports the resolution of inner and outer conflicts, informs more loving and respectful relationships, and empowers its users to contribute to the changes we want to see in the world.

Jane is an EFT International Accredited Master Trainer,  writer, coach, and educator specializing in neutralizing the long-term effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)  as well as the cultural limitations that interfere with our ability to imagine, create, and live the lives we desire.  To engage Jane for individual or group coaching services, EFT International(AAMET)  Accredited, Certified Mentoring sessions,  and EFT Level One and Two Training for your group, call Jane at  (802) 533-9277 or email   jane@winterblooms.net .  Visit www.winterblooms.net to learn more about how Jane supports and inspires individuals, groups, and communities.

Please Note:  This educational website cannot replace therapy with certified psychologists, family therapists, or psychiatrists.  Before training with EFT International, Jane taught at the elementary, secondary, and college levels, in Ontario, and at the Community College of Vermont. She is an early trauma survivor who works exclusively as a learning coach using the best practices of EFT as taught by EFT International.  She created this website to support the most effective use of EFT to reduce general and specific stresses and to increase the joy of daily living through self regulation and pro-social experiences.

Speaking Truth to Power

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the ACEP website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.

Sometimes, our best teachers are our children and grandchildren.  As we look out at the world today we see many incidents of injustice whose front-line advocates for change are not the mature persons in positions of power, but the young people whose values prompt them to speak out to correct injustices that happen when those with power look the other way.  It takes courage to become a public advocate of a cause whose opponents resort to stonewalling at best and bullying, violent threats, and violent acts at worst.  It takes courage, and it takes trust in the collective group-process that brings about change.

From time to time it helps members of the older generations to be reminded of the importance of risking everything to advance positive change.   Indeed, many of us participated in the massive social change movements of our youth:  civil rights, environmental rights, women’s rights, and peace rights. However, the goals of these four powerful movements – and the more recent fifth movement – economic rights – have not been reached and it is, currently, our younger generations who are stepping up in massive numbers in all of these areas.  I highlight two of these courageous groups of young people whose activism is leading to vitally important shifts in both public awareness and institutional policy with the hope that readers will discover ways to serve these calls for justice within their own communities

Continue reading Speaking Truth to Power

Holidays – Part Two – Joining with our Neighbours to Stand Against Injustice

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website only and is in no way meant to replace experience with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane at 802-533-9277 or jane@winterblooms.net for EFT coaching support.

How challenging it is to feel joy at this time of year when we are devastated by the murders of children, men, and women who, because of skin colour, are frightening our mostly white police forces into fatal acts of violence.  We are, at our core, an empathetic species, and so the unnecessary deaths of people who have been profiled because of race is abhorrent to us.   Many are marching.  Many are speaking out.  Many are staging die-ins.  Many are calling town meetings to attempt to bridge the gulf between law enforcement officers and citizens of colour.  We are participating in these protests because we know it is our greatest challenge at this moment in history to transform the judicial, educational, political, and social systems that cause disproportionate numbers of people of colour to be killed or incarcerated.  We also know climate change requires our unified attention, but we cannot attend to the serious matters of planetary distress for as long as we are divided on racial, religious, and nationalistic lines.  Holidays in our culture are associated with material gifts and feelings of deprivation when we don’t get what we want.  But Holidays are Holy Days.  Now, more than ever before, we are called upon to use this sacred time of year, the rebirth of Light and Hope in every culture, to find a way to heal the deep divides among Earth’s peoples.   And, as we know, all transformation begins at home.

Continue reading Holidays – Part Two – Joining with our Neighbours to Stand Against Injustice