Thoughts On Turning 81 Today

by Rev. Amari Magdalena

Last year at 80 I was in the Emergency Room of Mountain View Hospital awaiting a room through the night.

As I reflect back, I grew up in a time of more innocence and fewer freedoms for women and people of color. We now live in a time of lost innocence and great freedoms though some are being eroded by misguided information and desire to return to other times.

It seems in the 60’s we threw out the proverbial baby with the bath water and didn’t think about some things that created a much nicer society with more compassion and caring for our neighbors and residents of the world.

Looking back, I have some memories that stick out. When I was around 8 or 9 my mother threw a birthday party for me replete with games. I won most of them and was a bit daunted that mom told me they were for the guests not me!

In childhood we had a friend with a small airplane so first up in the air flights were with them. Around 12 I took my first big plane, though prop, from Chicago to Detroit and that was quite the thrill. Last airplane ride was one of my fiancé’s who was an aerial photographer. We flew through some clouds and I opened the small window and stuck my hand in the clouds. What a thrill. Can’t imagine many people have done that.

We moved a lot because of my dad’s jobs throughout the Midwest. In Iowa we had snow piled higher than me. Everywhere there were lakes to swim in. Country homes and farms were prevalent. Burma Shave had plastered the roads with a bit of silliness. We counted cows or different state license plates to avert boredom. When McDonald’s came, we longed for the 15 cents hamburgers. At ice cream shops you could get 3 scoops for $.15. The candy stores near schools had many treats for a nickel or dime.

We had lots of hand-me-downs from older cousins. Sometimes that was great except for a few that had no taste in clothes. No big malls. One-car families. No on-line shopping. No cell phones. Party lines for many phone connections. We were generally safe and did not receive all the warnings that children are now subject too. We marauded from daylight to dusk in the farm areas of our relatives and no one wondered what we were up to as any neighbor would help if we had a bee sting or some accident. We never locked our doors unless going away for a length of time. Trust was almost a given in the Midwest.

Growing up every where we lived there was family. We had many, many gatherings and took vacations with my father’s sister and her tribe. We exchanged kids many times in the summer as we were often better behaved at relative’s than home. We settled in a suburb of Detroit and I so missed our move and making new friends. It was primarily a blue-collar place so my dad was king pin with a shirt, tie, suit, and hat. At 16 I was crowned the 4th of July Beauty Queen and rode in the parade and got a modeling scholarship. Too bad I was about ½ inch too short for New York but soon tired of mindless primping.

Got married at 20 on my birthday, not a great time to marry, too young and too influenced by the honored MRS. degree vs. getting the education I wanted. By 33, I wanted freedom and joined the 2nd Women’s Movement and was very active. Got out of that marriage and engaged in a 10 years “domestic partnership” with a person of another race and socio/economic background. Between the pairings I had 4 children. Left that and made-up time to have a postponed childhood and fun for a number of years. 3rd marriage of 4 (four) months was a rather short-lived mistake and have been single ever since.

Started a, to be, women’s international organization, sex education hotline, radio show, tv interviews started an international spiritual institute and now a non-profit for spiritual guidance and lived all over the place. The early pack up and move must have gotten to me. Still have the itch, though I love Las Cruces, but tamping it down as I'm not as mobile now. Without a proper bachelorette degree, I was a CFO, Corporate Secretary, Comptroller, Marketing & Advertising Consultant, Project Manager, Wedding Officiant, Instructor in Colleges, Entrepreneur, Author of 10 Books, Co-Founder of a Women’s Center at a University, and a few other jobs to make ends meet. All the other kids in the family were sent to college and what courses I picked up were mostly upper division and just couldn’t see the use of going back to get the needed 101-201’s. Got a Master’s Degree through my ministry and that sufficed.

Everywhere I lived as an adult, I’ve had wonderful experiences and made friends some of whom I’m still in touch with. Made one true life-long best friend who passed in 2010. And, lots of friends now passed or still living across the country. Loss becomes more and more and years rolls by. The sad state of affairs is that we spend gazillions to elect questionable leadership when all that money could be used to conquer disease and address mental health.

Definitely have had a lot of health challenges in the past year though seem to be turning corner with my new dietary regimen. Life is different for sure though still many rewards and lots of sunshine. Celebrated 1 year since my open-heart surgery in late October. Now focusing on my non-profit and enjoying the days. As Paul Newman said after 80, every day is a gift.

We are in such a hurry to grow up when we are young and never quite prepare with the challenges that come as these old cars wear down. Beam me up Scottie is yet a reality. I often told my four children that we have a very SHORT time to be children and a LONG time to be responsible adults! I unfortunately do not see my 9 grandchildren often enough so thank heavens for smart phones with apps to see them.

Do I have wisdom to share? Should I be so foolish as to offer it? Engage your life! Maybe we go around and reincarnation is real. Or maybe this is a one-shot deal. Keep dynamic, not static though it may seem more comfortable. As Woody Allen posited in Hannah in Her Sisters, maybe go around only once, maybe there is no god, but wouldn’t you want to enjoy the experience? YES, to that! And, when you get to the end of this life, wouldn’t you want to say that you enjoyed it and didn’t live it for someone else?

Lost and Found

by Rev. Amari Magdalena

How tight is your box of routines and habits?  How habituated are you?  Do you take the same route to your familiar places all the time or perhaps mix it up with one or two other, yet familiar, routes?  How much diversity do you have in your average day?

Why am I asking you this?  I’m exploring how willing you are to get lost; to lose your familiar bearings. How much do your trust yourself to find your way back to the familiar when you get a bit twisted around in your life?

In my own life, I’ve found that when I feel a certain stagnation or lack of newness, I usually recognize the need to move outside of my assumptions, routines, idea of stability.  In the past, I might physically move.  Now I recognize that it is not necessarily what is needed to break up stale energy.

Our Western culture tends to promote a belief in attaining some thing or goal, followed by great satiation. We are then to languish in our achievement and be completely happy.  Isn’t that what many of our advertisements suggest to us?  And, many people, reach their pinnacles and after basking, a deep dissatisfaction and perhaps a tad of depression sets in.

Why?  It is my deep belief that life is intended to be dynamic from our first splash in the birth waters to our last assignment to fire or earth.  It [sic.] life is to be lived with adventure and discovery.  Never was the design to be static.  I observe nothing in nature that is simple static.  If it were, early death would ensue.

Purposefully changing up our routines and willingness to try the untried, immeasurably contributes to a life well lived.  I’m not saying we must throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water, simply that we make some changes in how we immerse ourselves in this rather short span of life.

How many times have you passed a street that you’ve never been down? Have you seen an exit on the highway to a town you’ve never been to?  Watched a genre of movies that you normally would not choose? Read controversial opinions on subjects near and dear to you.  Do you vary what you eat? Could you put your pants on the other leg first?  Have you tried writing with your non-dominant hand until it was reasonably legible?

Have you made a bucket list, no matter your age?  Would you be willing to make such a list for each decade of your life and do what’s on the list?  Are you signing up for new courses, workshops, or seminars on topics unrelated to your primary interests?

Perhaps we do go around more than once.  Maybe reincarnation is real.  But wouldn’t you want to make the best of this life, just in case it is the only one or the completion one?  Are you willing to risk getting a bit lost to challenge yourself and discover more and more about you and this precious life?

Trust yourself.  Get lost. Go down that new street.  Explore that unknown city.  Try jumping out of a plane or go up in a hot air balloon. Do something that is completely out of the ordinary for you.  Get lost and discover the wonderful person that lives within you.  Fall in love with yourself over and over again as you find out just how magnificent you truly are.

This is the Day!

By Rev. Amari Magdalena

“This is the Day,” Graham Dashwood declares, in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, as he realizes that he’s through leading a life whose end game is not one he wishes to play.  Do you ever feel like you have a starring role in someone else’s life?  Are you aware that you are living roles of expectations that family, friends, lovers, employers and societal edicts have dictated? Have you wondered where you, your authentic self, has disappeared to?

We are living in fast moving and often precarious times.  Change is upon us with increasing demands on our mental, physical and emotional natures.  Many of us have had to wear a lot of hats to meet the demands of our different roles.  Perhaps we’ve felt like quick change artists in a play with many cumbersome costumes.  More likely a bit of us may have been lost along the way. We have mastered doing at the expense of being.

Yet some internal message we are receiving in the deep recesses of our minds, speaks to us. Its message may be soft or very loud. Basically it may be asking “where is my spirit.”  Where is that essential me?  Am I anywhere near fulfilling my dreams and living in concert with the real me? Will I just go on in over-drive until this little vinette I call my life is over?

When we get caught up in the doings of life, we often loose the magic that it truly represents. We are born because we chose to incarnate, to acquire this flesh and blood body.  Our life script is influenced by our early caregivers and takers and a plan for spiritual growth that is perhaps beyond our human imagining.  Each of us has a specific purpose in being here. Our soul wishes that we will realize our purpose and accomplish our mission. In between our birth and death, we are gifted time and experiences towards that end.

Though it may not always be apparent I believe we are actually here to enjoy this ride. Oh, maybe not every day, though we might choose that attitude.  Certainly we are not incarnate to be punished or ‘do time’ for our supposed past life regressions.  I feel we are here to have the full body experience in every possible way.  Along the way, hopefully we are also staying in tune with our eternal spirit and fostering its growth.

What I do know to be true, this nearly three quarters of a century down life’s highway, is that each day is a gift.  When we choose to be more present in the moment, we can experience gratitude for this wondrous gift; we can choose to life actively, magnificently, and dynamically. No matter the external circumstances, tugs and pulls, we can each declare, “today is the day!” We can embrace the day and surrender living the lives others dictate for us.  In our declaration, we can find our authentic self who knows how we can fulfill our dreams with whatever time is afforded us.

Perhaps you are saying to yourself, sure it’s that easy, not!  She doesn’t know the stresses I’m under or understand my circumstances.  Who is she to say this?

What I will share with you is that I’ve been through the hell of life.  I’ve been at the edge of giving up.  At 47 I was so close to early exit that each day was precarious.  One day in rainy, cloudy, dark Seattle the sun shown.  I was out laying in the sun.  The warmth on my body caused me to totally relax.  I heard birds joyfully singing.  In that very moment, I came to a realization that I could capture more moments like that and turn my life around. I could choose heaven on earth.  That realization moved my life towards embracing each day and following my dreams.

What I wish for each of you reading this, is a moment in which you make an active choice to embrace life and declare, “This is the Day”!  That you quit living your life for and through others and recognize that at the end of your life hopefully you lived your life for you.  Trust me, others will appreciate that much more than you losing your special Divine Spark to please them. And, you will lead a life that you enjoy and are grateful for.

“You think this is just another day in your life. It's not just another day. It’s the one day that's given to you today. It's given to you. It's a gift. It's the only gift that you have right now and the only appropriate response is gratefulness.”  Louie Schwartzberger

[53 Past Blogs are in my book "Shaman Talk" available in softcover and ebook on Amazon.com]