Dispatch from Italy

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Shawndra Miller

I wonder if the entire world has ever been riveted on the same exact thing for so many weeks. What a powerful resonance. It doesn’t seem possible that humanity won’t come out of this completely changed. My deepest hope is that the shift brings more solidarity with people we consider the “other,” who live far away, or perhaps close by but not within our notice, or even those who have been called our “enemies.”

Americans have been so steeped in exceptionalism, indoctrinated with a belief that we are special. But this virus might be the great leveler, bringing one and all to our knees.

I’d love to start featuring the voices of people outside the US, to know how they are affected by the pandemic. To start, Elena D., a client who lives in Italy, sends these updates:

March 15

Elena preparing to go to the grocery.

So far, I’m doing okay, it’s scary and complicated (my parents are old so even more at risk as you’ll know) but I keep going. The situation here is just surreal, somehow trascendental, cause it happened very fast, it’s impacting every aspect of our lives, and also cause imo the mind hasn’t managed yet to process it.. None of us has a previous, direct or indirect, experience of such a global event, so I notice that even in my self sometimes it (our brain) still tends to disconnect because it doesn’t know how to cope with it. At times, when I wake up or spend some time (at home, of course) doing things that I would have done also before, I see that I have to remind myself what is going on everywhere else, cause it’s still hard to believe. It’s like that, inconceivable, unthinkable. At least for me…

You know, besides the practical aspects, this situation is clearly a very important opportunity to reflect (I believe it just calls us for at least moments of personal spiritual ‘retreat’), and some of that for me is about the beautiful and delicate balance and interconnection of all that is, the importance of taking care of ourselves cause it’s a way to take care of everyone else in our small or big communities too, till it’s about the whole world at large, what our real priorities are, and more… supporting each other at this time is something really important.

March 27

Sorry for not writing back sooner, these past weeks I’ve gone through a variety of mental and emotional states, as the situation kept changing; I felt scared, then angry, then sad, like spinning, like crying, even hopeless… I think it was especially due to the adrenaline, the instinctive response, the hyper attention to everything, the survival-mode, figuring out what to do for myself and my parents (in Italy the situation is dramatic and even if you are doing okay, that feeling is almost in the air)… After that, I somehow managed to calm my mind down, but emotionally now I feel a bit like ‘suspended’ or ‘disconnected’. To say, at first it hasn’t been easy to collect my thoughts, and lately engaging in conversations wasn’t easy either.

You know, for me living in hermit mode isn’t new at all, I intentionally chose it for years, because I felt called to investigate myself and life and at a certain point to do that I just felt the need to be alone and as much isolated as possible, so that’s not hard at all for me, not much has changed for me on that side. It’s instead quite weird to see everyone living like that now; and just when many feel lonely, for the first time in years I feel like I’m not alone anymore because everyone is living like I was used to, and have even similar concerns, about health, about making a living, about their relationships.

And just when that happens, of course, I feel called to redirect my attention elsewhere, towards the next step. It’s still not clear at the moment.

The void created by this event is immense, energetically speaking, and I don’t really know, or feel, much about what is gonna come from it, yet. Which is okay, of course. Silence and space have a beauty that in our complicated world is difficult to experience if you are not in nature, so I’ll do my best to just be with it.

I saw that also there you have a sort of lockdown, altho you can still go out for walks and meet people, if you keep the healthy distance. Here that has kept changing, and it has been messy. The PM issues decrees, other ministers publish their own advice, local governors sign different orders, so even understanding what you can and can’t do has been difficult because they contradict each other (even what the written decrees say differs from what the people who issued them publicly say about them), really confusing.

Right now, in my region we can go out only for work (the few who still work), groceries/medicines, urgent health related needs, nothing else. For groceries, only 1 person per family and as less as possible, meaning once a week should be the norm. We cannot meet anyone, not even if we wear gloves, masks and keep the distance. We cannot just take a walk to exercise a little and breathe some fresh air (running and riding bikes not allowed anymore), not even if we are alone and we do it around the block.

If you look outside, the only ones you’ll see walking are those who have a dog. Police and even the army check anyone who is around, both on foot or driving. So, at the moment it’s extreme. I’m lucky because I have a garden, I can’t even imagine how people who live in a condo, maybe even without a balcony, must feel…

There are many things I don’t like about the use of power I see authorities are choosing, both here and globally, if I think of the scenarios we might face soon, it gives me the chills. Way too many things aren’t said publicly, for anyone to know, at the moment. But I can’t focus on that, it doesn’t feel right to give it attention and in that, creating it even more.

Butterfly kite seen from Elena’s balcony.

So, I’ll change the subject 🙂 Some days ago I was on the balcony, when I saw something colorful in the distance… it was a dad making a butterfly-shaped kite fly from the balcony for his kid!, it gave me a huge smile 😀 I took a picture, it’s not a great one but maybe you can spot ‘the butterfly’ dancing in the wind. 😉

Gratitude: I bow to the creative spirit and sense of play that the Italian papa demonstrated with that kite. The promise of renewal it evokes. The universality of the human drive for connection.

Tip of the Day: How about writing down what you’ve been feeling and experiencing in this historic time? If you’re not comfortable writing, maybe express it through other means, vocally or through movement or visual art? Let me know how it goes for you, or share if you feel so led.

Resource of the Day: More bird stuff! I trust you like birds? A reader, Helen H., sent me a link to a New Zealand albatross-cam! I like it as much or more than the feedercam from Cornell Ornithology Lab. I mean, look at that blue water, those mountains. Reminds me of the epic New Zealand tour my mom, spouse and I took last spring. If we can’t travel right now, at least we can experience some big expanses in this alternative way.

The Importance of Embracing Earnest

Posted on April 3, 2019 by Shawndra Miller

I’d like to praise the amateurs out there. The earnest beginners, the ones who dare to create something they’ve never tried before, who risk falling flat, who most certainly fail.

This is all of us, at some time or in some area of our lives. At least, I hope so.

I guess it is hip to be snarky and removed, to know everything already, to mock the earnest. Let me reveal my age, perhaps, by declaring this: Snark is the language of fear. When I use it myself, I feel a brief charge of satisfaction, then deflation. It hides what’s truest in me.

But there’s courage in earnestness—in daring to be a newbie or a total geek. Maybe it’s a gift of midlife (or a gift of the Midwest), but I have come to the conclusion that amateurish enthusiasm is endearing in self and others. I appreciate quality, but I don’t want to stop myself from leaping into the ring by focusing on quality alone. I want to be in the game, not standing on the sidelines.

I have never seen artifice in my “Earnestina.”

I found a recent local production of Radium Girls to be refreshingly earnest. Community theatre is like that, people putting their hearts into collective art, allowing their neighbors, friends and family to see them in a different light, embodying all kinds of ugly and beautiful things that reflect us back to ourselves to make us think and feel.

This was an amateur production, made powerful by the actors’ passion.

Other recent examples come to mind. An octogenarian friend printed his own chapbook to share the wisdom he’s gained in 80 years. A folk musician came to my St. Patrick’s Day yoga class and performed ballads he’d written himself. A handful of women gathered for an EmbodieDance experience to move our bodies and express our spirits.

Countless others in my circle ply their creativity in poems, paintings, gardens, improv, photography, dance, textiles and more.

We may be experts or we may be newbies, and we may be more or less devoted to craft, but we all do our thing imperfectly, humanly.

Earnest people inspire me. Especially as I embark on the Tim Clare podcast Couch to 80K, a series of writing exercises in search of the Novel Within. It’s a relief to know that my initial (earnest!) efforts will be “amateurish.” To expect it.

See, I’ve stopped thinking of amateur as a bad word. I strive to be professional in my commitment, but I’ll be less lofty, more amateurish, if that means I’m all in—flubs and all.

Nature is art. And what’s more earnest than a honeybee?

Creativity belongs to everyone. The word “art” shouldn’t be reserved for the museum or the canon. (I think of a visual artist friend who created a marvelous pictorial history of my neighborhood. Painting it on a signal box on a busy street corner, she often had people stop to admire her work. One impressed young boy told her, “You could be an artist!”)

What my friend painted on a signal box

I’d love for that boy to understand that artmaking capacity belongs to everyone. To see this neighbor as artist, and honor her bravery, and take inspiration for his own self-expression.

The earnest artist says, This matters, at least to me. This is what I see. This is how I see.

And we’re all the richer for it.

More Tips for the Anxiety-Prone

Posted on April 17, 2018 by Shawndra Miller

A few weeks ago I gave a rundown of some hardwon lessons in the anxiety arena. Then a friend messaged me her experience, and I realized I left some things out of the picture. So: some more tips below.

Try a beta blocker. “If you find yourself too overwhelmed to practice those natural self-care techniques, you might benefit from a beta blocker such as propranolol, a drug that reduces the physical symptoms of panic attacks and anxiety. It lowers your blood pressure and slows your racing heart. Finding relief from those physical symptoms can give you the space you need to recover your energy and focus on more healthful habits.” —tip from a friend
Go the supplement route. 5-HTP, a naturally occurring amino acid, is a serotonin precursor. B vitamins also are my go-to (I favor a high-quality combo called Thera-B). I have just restarted these myself due to some situational stress in my life.
Calm your nervous system down using energy work. This is so foundational for me that apparently I completely forgot to note it down last time. Here is a good video showing several ways to calm the Triple Warmer meridian, which governs fight/flight/freeze. Most of us walk around in a state of overstimulation, with our nervous systems on overdrive. Even if we don’t think we’re in fight-or-flight, chances are our Triple Warmer wants calming.
Take a news fast. I mentioned limiting social media and online media, but sometimes we need a break from all of it to restore our resilience. Remember that the corporate media machine is geared toward hooking you. I favor media like Yes magazine to help me see broader trends. I might not be on top of the latest tweets and twaddles, but I maintain my balance, and stay informed in my own way.
Speak truth to power. I mentioned taking action last time, but leaned toward the feelgood stuff. Yet sometimes the most challenging thing, the action that seems to spike our anxiety, might be exactly what we need to do to reclaim ourselves.
Make space for discomfort. (Only if it isn’t overwhelming.) As transformation guide Lee Harris puts it in this video:

“We are stronger when we allow ourselves to sit with hopelessness and helplessness from time to time. As it is often our energetic undercurrents (grief, sadness, frustration) that are the very energies we need to sit and be with (or learn how to support), in order to rise into the next place we want to go…”

Finally, consider anxiety a call. I don’t think this perspective from novelist Walter Percy makes light of the pain of living with a mood disorder, but recognizes it as a possible gateway:

“Anxiety is, under one frame of reference, a symptom to be gotten rid of; under the other, it may be a summons to an authentic existence, to be heeded at any cost.”

More tips from the 14-year-old daughter of a friend who attended my Sheroes in Everywoman workshop this week.

As always, please add your thoughts and any tips of your own in the comments!

Tips for the Anxiety-Prone

Posted on March 9, 2018 by Shawndra Miller

A recent medical procedure that emptied my colon brought back vestiges of a mood disorder I thought was long gone. I realized again the close link between mood and gut flora. I’m happy to say that with time and scrupulous self-care (below) anxiety has mostly left me. But it made me remember how painful it is to live with anxiety, and I thought a blog post might be useful to others dealing with similar.

I visit this tree every day. It keeps me grounded.

So, below are a few tips drawn from personal experience. This is not an exhaustive list, and not meant to replace professional medical/mental health advice.

Take deep breaths. It doesn’t get any more basic than that. Breathe in, breathe out. It’s physiologically calming. It’s something you can control. Just watch the air come in and go out.
Feel whatever you feel. Don’t judge it or push it away. You can touch the emotion as if it is a beloved child, be there for it, love on it, and watch it shift. (Note: If this gets overwhelming, stop and reach out for help from a trusted friend/spouse/professional. Consider, too, that you can access help from the unseen: Source/God/spirit guides/higher self.)
Nourish your gut bacteria. This will help to rebalance neurotransmitters like serotonin, 90 percent of which originates in the gut, not the brain. According to my holistic physician Kevin Logan, a diet rich in vegetable fiber provides an ideal environment for diverse gut flora. Reduce or eliminate processed food and sugar, and introduce lactofermented veggies like sauerkraut and kim chee.
Take nature as your tonic. If you can’t get to the woods or the beach, just take a walk and look at the sky and the trees. Time outside (or even in the company of loved animals indoors) will increase your resilience to stress.
Limit social media and the online universe in general. Speaking for myself, social media can be a huge energy drain, and the overstimulation it creates is subtle but detrimental. I make it a rule that after 8pm I don’t check email or Facebook. My health coach buddy Bill Heitman recommends unfollowing anything (and anyone) giving you anything other than 100 percent warm feelings. (You can always seek out news when you want to get informed.) Or, you can install an app like Social Fixer to customize what you see on Facebook.
Get some movement every day. Even five minutes of freeform stretching is a start. Focus on the pleasurable aspect of feeling into your body as it moves.
Make positive habits the rule. If exercise is hard to work into your routine, consider what a recent TED Radio Hour guest suggested. Turn it into a rule, so there’s no question about whether to do it or not. He compared his gym habit to brushing his teeth at night: He doesn’t have to decide whether to do it or not (and if he had to make a decision, he probably wouldn’t go!). He just does it, regardless of how he feels about it in the moment. This is how I am with walking my dog every day: I just do it. And it’s self-reinforcing, because I’m also getting my nature fix.
Put deposits in your health bank. That’s what Christiane Northrup, MD, calls restful, restorative activities that engage the parasympathetic nervous system (responsible for causing vital organs to rest). (Examples: meditation, napping, cuddling, sitting and staring into space.) By contrast, anything that activates the sympathetic nervous system (responsible for revving up your metabolism, protecting you through fight/flight, etc.) will withdraw from your health bank account. We forget how important it is to STOP, get quiet, and allow our nervous systems to rebalance, in this overstimulating age.
Lean on your tribe. If you have a trusted friend or two who will hear you in your most vulnerable hour, kudos. Even if you don’t, getting out and connecting with people in real-time will probably bolster you.
Let your creativity out. In coloring books, even! Creativity heals.
Consider taking action. Sometimes our minds spin and spin about whatever worrisome thing has hold of us. Taking even a small action might make a dent in the worry. If some of your anxiety centers around the state of the world, ask yourself if there’s something you can contribute to the good. It doesn’t have to be grandiose to have meaning. Maybe it’s a creative project, or a small generative act that you dedicate to the uplift of all, like a kind gesture to a stranger. (Note: Make sure that what you decide to do aligns with who you are! Vs. a “should”!)

For me, all of these are cross-reinforcing. I feed my body well (most days) so it supports my mood and movement. Several times a week I practice yoga, which slows my breathing and moves me into the parasympathetic nervous system, while also strengthening my body. I get outside every day with my dog, which helps tire my body out so it rests easier. I try to avoid media after about 9pm so I don’t go to bed with my brain on overdrive. When I’m rested, it’s easier to write about what troubles me, and sometimes the writing turns into a creative piece that boosts others. And so on.

Please add your own tips in the comments! We’re all in this together.

“What Would Gene Stratton-Porter Do?”

Posted on May 18, 2017 by Shawndra Miller

After years of saying, “We should tour the Gene Stratton-Porter homes,” we finally visited two historic sites in the northeast corner of our state last week. We went to Rome City and Geneva to tour homes inhabited by Gene Stratton-Porter, an early 20th century author/conservationist/nature photographer.

You can be forgiven for not knowing her name, though she was beloved by our grandparents’ generation for her romance novels set against the backdrop of a disappearing wilderness. Even most Indiana residents are unfamiliar with the work of our state’s most widely read female author of all time. But in her day, she was embraced by enthusiastic fans all over the world.

Portrait of Gene Stratton-Porter, via Creative Commons

Stratton-Porter married a well-to-do businessman who must have been a brave man to wed such an independent-minded woman. She “shed social conventions like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon,” to quote a book I’m reading about something completely different.

Hubby didn’t want her to explore the vast Limberlost Swamp, though they lived right on the edge of this intriguing wilderness. At that time the marshland (later to be drained for farming and drilled for oil) was dangerous uncharted territory—teeming with Massasauga rattlesnakes, boggy muck, swarms of insects, and the occasional unsavory character.

Limberlost Cabin in Geneva, where Gene Stratton-Porter began her writing and photography career. Her many-windowed conservatory is facing us.

But Stratton-Porter’s love of the natural world compelled her, and in the end her husband relented, accompanying her on expeditions to photograph wildlife and collect specimens.

Her best-known book A Girl of the Limberlost, among others both fiction and nonfiction, brought this place to life for people worldwide. One of our guides told us that she’d worked out a deal with her publisher: I will write you a crowd-pleasing story as you require (heavy on nature details), and then I will write a nature book of my own choosing. Rinse. Repeat.

She helped build this low stone wall around Limberlost Cabin, with openings for wildlife.

We learned that she wore what was considered mannish clothing, that she served her husband dandelion and horseradish stew with hambone (he dubbed it “fodder”), that she organized a bucket brigade the night her husband’s businesses were threatened by fire while he was away. This woman was, in modern parlance, fierce.

I went on this trip mildly interested in her as a part of Indiana’s literary history, having read A Girl of the Limberlost sometime back. But I came away as full-on fangirl. I jokingly told a friend that my new philosophy should be “What would GSP do?” (except for the ironic not-driving thing—apparently she was afraid to drive, and in fact was killed in a car wreck at age 61).

So, what would she do?

She’d hyphenate her name as her nom de plume, well before the time when women commonly retained their family names.
She’d drop out of high school, but attend Chautauqua meetings for her own edification.
She’d monitor all the bird nests on her family’s farm as a child, honing her powers of observation and her connection to wild creatures.
She’d teach herself photography, developing early box-camera pictures in a bathroom that she converted into a darkroom.
She’d purchase a piece of land on a mile of lakefront, and design her own home, and supervise its construction, rowing across the lake every morning to check on the workmen. (Husband came on weekends.)

Wildflower Woods on Sylvan Lake, the house that she designed and used as creative workshop.

She’d collect stones from her friends’ travels, from all then-48 states, and build a fireplace using them, creating images in the stonework’s artful placement.
She’d sleep with cocoons, so as to be ready when the butterfly emerged. She’d live in a houseful of winged creatures. (Later, she would write of her realization that the only ethical way to interact with these creatures was in their native habitat, so presumably she no longer kept them indoors.)

Where she slept with cocoons. Note them hanging from the bedframe and gathered on her bedside table.

She’d be exacting in the execution of her creative vision. If a photograph didn’t come out right, she’d return as many times as it took to get the one she wanted. No matter how treacherous or buggy the territory might be.
She’d carry on with her work even as literary critics and scientists alike dismissed her; she’d see herself as a defender of the places and animals she loved.

From What I Have Done with Birds:

“This is the basis of all my field work—a mute contract between woman and bird. In spirit I say to the birds, ‘Trust me and I will do by you as I would be done by … I shall not tear down your home and break your eggs or take your naked little ones from the nest before they are ready to go … I shall come in colors to which you are accustomed, and move slowly and softly about, not approaching you too near until your confidence in me is established. I shall be most careful to feed your young what you feed them; drive away snakes and squirrels, and protect you in every way possible to me. Trust me, and go on with your daily life. For what small disturbance is unavoidable among you, forgive me, and through it I shall try to win thousands to love and shield you.’”

I found loads more information on this fascinating figure in an Indiana Historian article. And of course we bought several books that I’m looking forward to diving into.