Coming Soon! A Truth Or Dare Movement Dialogue On Changing The Current U.S.A. Culture

A Truth Or Dare Movement Dialogue 

On Changing The Current U.S.A. Culture

Sponsored by New Horizons’ Small “Zones of Peace” Project

Hear Anastasia discuss her Prophecy, publicly, for the first time ever!

A Cultural Mediation Series Program

"We do best to begin by carving out territories or zones of peace in our personal relations where violence and deceit won’t be used.”  -Mahatma Gandhi

Dialogue/discussion based on the principles of David Bohm as presented in On Dialogue  -- to help us develop the art of community bridge-building.

Truth Or Dare Movement-Building 

And Dialogue Event

Frederick Friends Meeting House

723 N. Market Street

Frederick, Maryland 21702

Event date to be rescheduled due to Anastasia's recent car accident

1:00 to 5:00 p.m., followed by potluck dinner

Donations invited!

A small “zone of peace” can be anywhere.

Why not begin building yours in your own backyard?

Reserve early, space is limited!

Let’s work together to move beyond polarization!

Characteristics of cultural polarization include:
  Emotional barriers
  Communication breakdowns
  Defensiveness, anger, blame
  Lies, denial, discounting, collusions and conspiracies
  Seeing the “other” as an enemy

Examples of cultural polarization:
  Focusing on differences rather than commonalities
  Community disruption
  Bipartisan political divisions
  National/international conflict

Divisiveness, polarization,deceptive practices and corruption do not need to be a way of life in the U.S.A.!

RSVP, details and information at: 
MountainWomanRJ@aol.com or Anastasia cell: 240.409.5347.

Polarization does not need to be a way of life!

All kinds of things can divide us. 

Let's not allow them to do that!

Sponsored by New Horizons Small "Zones of Peace" Project

I Came Out Full, Not Empty When …

New Horizons Board of Directors played it’s  third “new” Truth Or Dare GAME on Saturday.
.
“On the path to our Higher Selves through community support and engagement.”

Saturday, I ended up on Full, not empty at all, after a truly tumultuous day, due to connection difficulties, on one hand, yet managing to do my part in leading New Horizons Board Members through the steps of our "new," monthly Truth or Dare GAME.

It felt soooo good to be back in this reaching for awe experience again! 

Snowy mountain roads did not keep us apart!

Not at all like the norm, these days, of what is going on around us in mainstream society and politics. 

That’s what exceptional community engagement is like and supposed to be like!

Yeow! We are on our way, at New Horizons, to strengthening our own small “zone of peace.” 

Everyone attending must have felt it, as I sure did! 

The hunger for authentic, cooperative, compassionate human contact assuaged was so palatable we ended up adding a bi-weekly GAME follow-up support group to our menu of delights, beginning next week.

Saturday's GAME, with the inordinate maneuvering we did to make way through a multitude of chaotic moments  ended up with our having established our intent to support one another in building, rebuilding, expanding and flourishing, an evolving community development agenda, grounded in our Truth Or Dare GAME, that may have no end, “G-d willing and the creek don’t rise” (again).

Getting curious and wanting to join in the adventure?

Look for information, after the first of the year, about how you might be able to qualify when we begin taking in new players, one-by-one, and by invitation only (or application) and meeting our criteria for participation.

We will let you know when. 

In the meantime, if you wish additional information, contact us at: mountainwomanrj@aol.com

Saturday’s GAME was our third. And with it came a solidifying of individual and collective commitments to our powerful, beyond societal and political polarization, making violence obsolete, possible human, possible society, gender transforming process!

All rolled into one.

And, catch this -- we did the whole thing by conference call!

An 8-10 inch snow storm, days before our GAME, made travel up to our mountainside retreat center totally unrealistic. Next time, on Saturday, December 8, hopefully, more people will be able to show up in person. 

However the "chaos" we went through taught us that our “new” GAME must now  take in the options afforded us by the high tech era we live in. Thus allowing GAME players to participate from as far away as one board member who lives in Northern California, if need be.

Via conference call it was a bit weird. But we, overall, accomplished our aims-- and in great measure!

Yeow!

The high point of the GAME, from my perspective, might have been when Steve our single male board member,  demonstrated his heroism, getting some heat, likely for all males, as he took his first "formal" steps in the direction of learning to recognize his subtle and not so subtle male-type put downs, i.e. discounts.

Of course, this was one of those times when “you just had to be there.”

It looks like Steve and I will be back on the air with an Anastasia The Storyteller Radio Show broadcast this next Saturday. 

Maybe, by then, the dust will have settled enough for New Horizons Truth Or Dare GAME players so that we can get Steve to share what he experienced.  

And, my two cents on what I saw happening for him with the others.

In the meantime, here’s a peek at how our GAME proceeded last Saturday.

New Horizons Support Network, Inc. presents

The Third “new” Mini-Truth Or Dare GAME

Saturday, November 17, 2018 1:00 – 4 p.m.

Agenda

Step One: Establishing working goals for the GAME. 

Setting our intentions to learning to work with other New Horizons Board Members to step out of the boxes we create in our minds, and consequently in our lives, by not having full access to and embracing the most complete truths and realities available to us.

Step Two: Playing the GAME. 

Discovering through dialogue how confronting discounts in one another can help us achieve our intentions to strengthen ourselves, personally, along with the small “zone of peace” base, upon upon which our board operates. 

This is Truth Or Dare at its most elegant!

For a discussion on the Transactional Analysis (TA) healing strategy of confronting discounts, check out the Cathexis Reader by Jacqui Shiff, one, among many, of New Horizons basic resources for our Truth Or Dare GAME, an interactive, educational process, based on community dialogue principles and practices. 

One comment on the Cathexis Reader by “Fishface” on Goodreads described this text, making a good case for it, as a profound  resource, on how critically important confronting discounts is, their presence and purpose in a person's life.  

The comment I appreciated is as follows –

This book was my introduction to Transactional Analysis. Absolutely intriguing, empowerment-based ... with roots that reach clear down to Carl Jung. It was a bit mystifying to a reader who did not yet know the basics so I went ahead and read up on it some more.

I will introduce readers to other resources on the psychological phenomenon called "discounting" over time so you can begin to make sense of it for yourself. 

Confronting discounts is a fascinating and central aspect of playing the Truth Or Dare GAME, as the active presence of discounts, minimized or ignored, is central to recognizing untruth and thus bringing ourselves and others into a fuller, authentic reality. 

Simply addressing discounts, in safe and non-defensive ways, is sometimes all it takes to get to awe. 

Try it! 

You might get to love it, as do the many thousands of people who have learned to honor this path. 

Step Three: Wrapping up the GAME

Noticing what and how we gained from playing our GAME, clearing away resentments, giving praise and acknowledgements.

Yum, yum – full, not empty. 

What made the difference, do you think?

Your comments are welcomed. Please post them here or send them to us at:
mountainwomanrj@aol.com.

New Horizons Annual Board Meeting To Convene On Sunday

Who would have thought fate would have led us here?

And where was “there” and, now, where is our “here,” you might wonder? 

“Here” is the present situation, with New Horizons’ Beyond Gender Tyranny movement, related projects and programs, looking to be, not only our present, but central to our future,  as far as we can see.

And this, alongside the personal upheaval related to the Ethics Complaint, submitted, May 13, by our Founder and Executive Director, Anastasia Rosen-Jones. The complaint was tendered to the Ethics Committee of the International Transactional Analysis Association, Anastasia’s primary professional association of forty-five years. 

Already the process of working through the issues of the complaint, related to charges of sexual harassment and power abuse on the part of one of Anastasia’s long term mentors, is taking her into uncharted territory, personally and professionally.

Such as she has never before seen or experienced!

How the procedures of this intense healing and reconciliation effort will impact the day-to-day operations of New Horizons is anybody’s guess, at this time; much too soon in the unfolding process to determine.

At New Horizons, up against this backdrop, between “then” and “now” much, of enormous proportions, has occurred beyond these personal happening of Anastasia’s. 

(Note added July 12: At the center of these events is the "how" we, as a working board of directors, managed to navigate a brewing polarization among ourselves and re-route it into the synergistic harmony that has uniquely marked the culture of our board since its inception in 1995.

We are truly "walking our talk." I will delineate some of how we lived out this motto and went from a threatening polarization to get ourselves back in sync in some of the text I will be writing for this summary of events of our past year.

We, the members of New Horizons Board of Directors hope you will understand our process and, thus, our journey to overcome polarization with so much appreciation that you will want some of "IT" for yourselves and invite us to be your guide in achieving the same in whatever venue is of central importance to you in your life.

Check out our link on "Exceptional Community Building" to read a selection of articles that demonstrate the challenges we were facing, among ourselves, last year at this time, and how we pulled ourselves through to get ourselves back to synergy.)

Starting below is a summary of some of our key transitioning events of the past year, as the New Horizons Board Of Directors prepares, now, for its annual board meeting, scheduled for this coming Sunday, July 15.

One of the most important resolutions of New Horizons 2017 Annual Board Meeting, was that Anastasia, our “best kept secret,” was to, now, emerge out of her hidey hole where she had kept her past professional experiences and expertise mainly behind closed doors. By this time last year, however, that space had grown too confining for her – and -- a bit limiting in terms of how the future of New Horizons was to be shaped.

As we, at New Horizons, are always a part of the whole organism of our local area, our region, our nation and the world, intent on serving these various spheres, “Thinking globally, acting locally,” is one of our main guiding principles. 

And – given that these realms were being turned upside down, mostly brought about by the social and political mayhem, following the 2016 presidential election, as we saw it, Anastasia, in keeping with that which she has believed to be her destiny, was feeling more and more called to, somehow, make her return to the D.C. fast track that had been her initiation into adulthood  -- and – to which she has always had strong kinship and allegiance.

This situation, we realized, as we approached last year’s board meeting agenda, had the potential for creating a conflict of interest situation within our organization, with Anastasia heading it. Thus we began, seriously, considering a separation between New Horizons and Anastasia.

Because we, by mandate of our 501 C 3 status, are bound to remain apolitical, and have been doing our best to remain so – and – although we have been highly impacted upon by the results of the last presidential election, we were more than aware that maintaining that dictate seemed to be at odds with Anastasia’s personal and professional goals. 

Thus, at last year’s board meeting, our main resolution, to be implemented immediately following it, was to formally announce the separating of New Horizons and Anastasia. We would do this, initially with a press release announcing our plan. 

You can read that press release here.

But how, in actuality, were we to separate the two became our next challenge.

After all, it was Anastasia who gave birth to New Horizons. And, that many years ago, with our forerunner, Anastasia’s private psychotherapy practice, dating back to 1973!

A recap of New Horizons transitioning events, paralleling all that was going on with us, beyond us and in the world around us, is in order. I will offer this review in readable portions, in order to assist you, our loyal readers, in having a glimpse of what has been going on behind the scenes at New Horizons and how that these happenings are shaping what you are and will be getting from us, from here forth.

I begin with New Horizons Annual Board Meeting of 2017. One of the most important resolutions of that meeting, as I have stated, was that we announced the biggest shift we have ever had -- New Horizons “best kept secret,” the life and world, both personal and professional of our Founder and Executive Director, M. Anastasia Rosen-Jones, would no longer be hidden away.

For Anastasia coming out of her long held storage chest, maybe a genie’s bottle is more like it, into high public visibility (how high we could only imagine) was to be no small task. She had done it before, becoming an overnight entrepreneurial celebrity and hadn't much liked it!

To be continued with “When The Personal Becomes Political And The Political Personal.”

Look for details on future postings for the extended report.

New Horizons News Update!

Would you believe --- simply focusing on my "tranquility diet" has now gotten New Horizons to being in the planning stages with some awesome “coming attractions,” not by the urgency, trying hard and workaholism that often dominated my earlier days. Rather by creating day-to-day tranquility! I am getting to love it!

So, beginning yesterday, under the power of the Eclipse, New Horizons commenced to create a "storytelling" project to help our overall community building mission, via New Horizons-type programs, for next year. StoryCorps and possibly the Frederick County Public Library will be our initial partners (the latter item is still being discussed); this, in spite of the fact that I got stung by a hornet the hour leading up to the time to focus on that fast moving Eclipse. 

Oh my, having stepped on a hornet, was I ever in pain all through that time and well beyond until morning. 

Still, that Eclipse seems to have brought us, New Horizons and myself, new beginnings of a marvelous type. 

Why not? 

Yesterday was also the day of the New Moon!

In the meantime, as our more extended project develops, we are now amping up to develop an updated storytelling track, correlating with our Coffee House Conversations and Possible Society, Possible Human Study, our Counterculture Community Development and Making Violence Obsolete projects, all rolled into one, new updated effort.

So, we are feeling confident, thinking we are, now, beginning to find our new path, while trying to stay sane in this insane world. 

Although we don’t yet know quite how we will proceed, we do know that storytelling as a pathway to peace and the ideals of leaning in and dialogue rather than debate will be central tenets of whatever it is we are about to create. Collecting stories of people’s lives as they are, now, living through these turbulent times, in this momentous time in history, will also be a dominant theme.

If you would like to contribute your ideas to help us shape this project, please let us hear from you. Either by posting a comment here or by writing me, directly, at SuperSleuthDSW@aol.com 

Thanks so much for your continued support that helps keep us strong and hopeful during these turbulent times.

Please send prayers and other good wishes while we Imagine what we can become.

With gratitude from
Anastasia and the New Horizons Support Network, Inc. Board of Directors

Today, Read Anastasia's Commentary

Come Together Folks! Even Is Congress Is Considering It!

These are what leaning in, dialogue rather than debate and exceptional leadership essentials are about.

While I, Anastasia, am now in the planning stages of stepping down, over time (even three years or so), as Executive Director of New Horizons, as circumstances dictate), I am never going to be far off. And, always, as long as politics and boundaries do not conflict, I will be doing my best as a spokesperson for the objectives of the New Horizons Small "Zones of Peace" Project.

With these aims in mind, check out my recent comments on Anastasia The Storyteller, titled Come Together Folks! Even Is Considering It!

And, have a happy day! The sun is shining brightly.

"One nation, under God.
Indivisible with liberty and
justice'for all."

What’s Next At New Horizons? We’re Gonna Pay Attention To The Flowers In Our Backyard, Even The Droopy Ones.

If Coffee House Conversations and our two movements, Making Violence Obsolete and Overcoming Polarization, are not now going to be particularly active, which there are no plans for them to be, presently. And, if I, Anastasia, am going to be concentrating more and more on developing and speaking my “truth to power” message, i.e. transforming the dark side in society and politics, what’s to be next around here?

This is how it goes!

I/we predict, that given our present political climate and social upheaval, New Horizons is, now, going to be focusing on how you can, from the position of the personal, so entwined with the political, build up the networks in your own backyard, enriching your relationships, through this time of upheaval, with family, friends, neighbors and your local community.

I just recently discovered that trees have underground networks with other trees and woodsy growing things. Now I am looking at my trees in a whole new way. They not only have millions of leaves that I can see. They also have, possibly millions, of relationships I can’t see.

We Americans could use a bit of enlightenment like I just had about my trees. 

People are so internet and media bound they are not paying adequate attention to the networks surrounding them.

What if I ignored the trees surrounding me on all sides of my home? If I did, I’d being disregarding one of the greatest sources of my well-being. Trees and other living things up here in our mountains filter out pollutants and bring other important essentials into our local ecosystem and thus our daily life. While we might explore this subject more another time, I think you get my drift.

Some of the most widely successful people nurture their advancements by having caring, close, personal networks, fostering relationships by creating ample face time that these might grow and flourish, like a summer garden bouquet. 

I did a very rewarding radio show on Anastasia The Storyteller, titled “More "Instead of Swamp Draining: "Why I Am Sooo Sorry – And – So Grateful, Part I” in which focused on how I have been, personally, working to maintain my important bonds, in this time of turmoil, with people of diverse political and other types of opinions from me.  

Check it out! I hope it will inspire you to take some, close up, bridge building steps.

Of course, dialogue versus debate and leaning in are fundamental principles here, once again.

It’s still not all easy, for sure! But well worth the effort, in the long run.

So look to this blog site in the days, weeks and months ahead to be offering you tips on bridge building up close, with people you already know and those you are about to discover.

Bridge building does not need to span the globe, the nation or even a distance such as our Beloved Chesapeake Bay Bridge. 

Bridge building is coming you can do each and every day, even with strangers or near strangers. And, it is one of the most important – and – close at hand things you can do to help yourself, others and our very divided nation through these challenging times.

Now may not be the best time to be thinking globally and/or nationally, beyond staying informed and updated. Now just might be an ideal time to act locally! 

There is so much that needs to be done in your own backyard, your neighborhood and your community. New Horizons is going to continue being here to help you with this.

For example, soon I will be broadcasting "Instead of Swamp Draining: "Why I Am Sooo Sorry – And – So Grateful, Part II.”  In this broadcast, I will be sharing a story of how I am handling the worst, volatile polarization I have ever come up against in my family or anytime with friends that is as a result of our present political situation.

Look for my scheduling of that broadcast soon. 

And plan to join me on that broadcast, if you can, to share your thoughts and ideas on how you are presently overcoming the polarization in your “backyard” these days.

Give yourself a break. Cross small bodies of divide!
Save the large spans for another time.

Are We In A Growth Stage, Or Are We Merely Coming Apart At Our Seams?

My small “zone of peace,” at New Horizons, feels like a port of sanity these days, in a world gone crazy with conflict and upheaval. You, as a reader of this blog might not realize it -- and yet you might -- just how profound – and – welcoming it is to have safe, secure places, these days, where people are not coming apart at the seams, polarizing in this era of stormy weather. No matter how bright the sunshine looks outdoors. 

In reading my recent articles, you might think it is otherwise here, at New Horizons; stormy weather for our organization.  Just like many other places these days.

To be sure, recent announcements, related to our board activities, have garnered an inordinate number of emails and comments (see “Comments” section at bottom of this article for example) suggesting readers are feeling concern over our recent happenings. However, this is rather than the sense of growth and expansiveness actually taking place for us.

Without doubt, we, at New Horizons, are going through some growing pains. A simple review of our past year of programs and projects, as written in articles for this site, will tell you that, in a heartbeat.  Nearly everything we had been developing and working on for the past ten years plus has now practically ground to a halt, waiting for the chaos of our present day society and politics to settle down. 

Almost no one cares to overcome polarization these days, or make violence obsolete. As important agendas for social movements these days per se, there is simply little fit! No, indeed!

I can hardly wrap my mind around the shifting we are presently experiencing here, paralleling what is happening around us in society and politics. It is that HUGE! It’s almost as if we are now living on another planet; and a warring one at that.

These are the days of our coming apart. Not the time for unity, it seems.

Whoever intimated that growth and change come easily hasn’t raised any teenagers. That stage is all about identity. With no holds barred, this phase of development is more often a tsunami rather than any smooth sailing.  However, when mature people face an updating of their lives and relationships to one another, things do tend to proceed more easily. 

That’s how things are these days at New Horizons; we are in a crisis of self-defining brought about by our collective intentions to weather the storms now confronting our country – and – therefore us. But we have long-held, reliable principles we’ve been practicing for more than forty years, at New Horizons, that are seeing us through the choppy waters now. At the top of the list and the bottom line of it all, of course is dialogue, not debate which we are truly adept at. How sweet it is! 

I have never before experienced the personal being so closely entwined with the political. But here it is! Maybe that’s good, maybe not. Nonetheless, mature and seasoned, as is my wonderful board of directors, grown now from three members to six, we are, daily, drawing from the lessons we have offered you, over the years, and coming through the bumpy places change is bringing us, relatively effortlessly, given the scope of what is happening.

Having raised two biological children of my own and helped to round out the growing pains of countless others as a psychotherapist, I have become accustomed to the signs, the conflicts and the pain of working through the years of identity crisis that come naturally out of the thrust and the striving to reach maturity. 

The crisis of one’s seeking to discover and hold intact one’s identity is grounded in struggling to find wholeness. The process is a rocky road at best. In many respects the time seems to begin in adolescence. Yet it’s coming actually began at birth, when first we separated from our mothers. The entire process, in some regards, lasts, once consciously recognized, often volatilely at adolescence, throughout the rest of one’s entire life.

There is no easy way to go through this process, known in psychological terms as individuation.  Wikipedia describes "individuation" as the expressing of how a thing is identified as an individual thing that "is not something else. This includes how an individual person is held to be distinct from other elements in the world and how a person is distinct from other persons.”

Today we are seeing, more and more, that a Republican is quite distinct from a Democrat, a Liberal is different than a Conservative. Actually, in the world of my own, personal mind, I hadn’t paid too much attention to these labels insofar as they related to me, until now. I had adopted the Democratic voting position, along with its apparent values, because that was how it had always been done in my family.

With Barak Obama in office, I found that this designation on my voter registration was too limiting, so I had switched to being a registered Independent. By the time our recent presidential election campaign had ended, along with its attendant, highly charged and conflicted outcome, I no longer “felt myself” completely in alignment with that designation either. Still it is the best I can presently find. So I have no intention of reassigning myself further. I am truly enjoying, at this point, individuating politically. 

This means affirming who I am, with my own unique view of the world, not identifying with one ideology or another! In all of this shifting, for you and I, as well as those around us, is the issue of self-definition. 

Contemplating this state of affairs takes me back to my psychological heritage as a Transactional Analyst (TA). With TA as an organizing base I have looked at myself and my place in the world around me with the notion of having a personal life script, as TA holds that we all do. Script formation is based on the individual clarifying their personal answers to several basic existential questions –

• Who am I?
• Who are you?
• What’s everybody doing here?
• And, what am I to do, as me, with people like you, in a place like this?

These are questions each one of us must answer as we develop from childhood through to adulthood and beyond into our waning years. These are questions a society can also be charged to answer, collectively, as the collective is but a representation of the individual, multiplied many times over. Societies, too, have scripts, cultural scripts.

At this point, New Horizons is now beginning to re-define itself. I, too, am, deeply involved in that process, personally. Parallel to this, our society is in midst of a redefinition. As with adolescents and the adults around them, growing pains are often manifest in chaos. A coming apart at the seams is what this growing-up phase can seem like. With mature decision-making along the way, however, eventually all, generally, will turn out well, with the gift of many lessons accrued to look back upon from these growing pain.

Our present and societal and political upheaval, thus, also brings us to consider -- 

• Who am I in terms of my place in this society?
• Who are you in terms of your place here?
• What’s everybody to do here, now, in this society?
• And, what am I to do, now, in a place like this – and – at this time?

I bet you are wondering about these things, yourself, these days. Give yourself time and patience to sort the answers to these questions out – and – find your peace in the midst of chaos.

Perhaps this is where the United States of America is now -- in the midst of growing pains. 

If so, it is reasonable to fear not. 

But hold on to your hat!

The Meaning Of Things And Why New Horizons And Anastasia Need To Separate

If you are a person of high ideals, at the base of everything you are and do, certain principles uphold the structures of your life, allowing you to build, sustain it and make it flourish. I am grateful that my personal heritage, rooted in the Judaism of the generations that preceded me, gave me a set of values and ethics I can rely upon to know how to live well, the “being” and the “doing.” I strive, relentlessly, to live by these ideologies and the ones I have added to that foundation, as do the people with whom I associate most closely.

Thus it is not surprising, given that the New Horizons Board of Directors is comprised of a group of people of this ilk, that a serious upheaval brought about by the outcome of our recent presidential election, now permeating almost all areas of American life -- from how we are, each and every one of us, to maintain good health, able to enjoy our natural resources, including our national parks and our availability to the arts -- has also entered into the discussions, operations and objectives of our non-profit organization, the New Horizons Support Network, Inc.

Personal ethics and values, under such circumstances, are often called up for review. As an almost natural outcome of these challenges, it came to pass that certain steps I was taking, on behalf of New Horizons, began to run into a bit of conflict, especially when long-term board member, Lisa, who we most rely upon to recognize injudiciousness, offsetting our prime agenda; the building (and sustaining) of small “zones of peace,” recognized we were in danger of getting off course. 

This might have come about, if we were to pursue my plan to develop and publicize future programs and projects under the heading of “draining the swamp” or even “instead of the swamp.”

It wasn’t that my idea was not creative or clever. Rather that it had the potentiality of making it “seem” as if New Horizons was leaning into politics, instead of “leaning” into people, all people, to foster the unity that is at the foundation of our mission. This potential was not necessarily a given outcome. But the line between what politics often breeds, polarization, conflict, special interest and a host of other nefarious outcomes that are the antithesis of coming together, might rise up.

In other words, my idea could have eventually taken us down a wrong path. Fortunately, we have Lisa, along with a now increasing (we have just gone from three on our board to six), board of dedicated people, to intercept such things. And our long held principles and practices to see us through. Dialogue rather than debate is at the top of the list of these.

Non-profit organizations such as ours, a 501 C 3, approved by IRS, must avoid even a hint of being involved in political campaigning. While such organizations may lobby in support of constituents or ideals they represent, such as the environment, homelessness and, yes, even human relationships, in some fashion or form, they must be extra cautious that political partisanship not infiltrate operations. 

With my personal/professional stance, as represented by my two other blog sites, Anastasia The Storyteller and Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure Of A Lifetime, jam packed with articles that come right up close to the conflicts that occur in individuals, including family, friends and communities and in both society and politics, in general, my “swamp draining” idea, while not actually crossing any lines, could, potentially, take New Horizons enough away from its clear cut agenda of building small “zones of peace” to muddy up the presentation and forward movement of our overall mission.

Unlike "certain others" (ha ha – here I go, getting our discussion into the danger zone of today’s politics), we are thoroughly committed to not only not corrupting our mission, but also doing our very best to not even allow any hint of it to look askance!

So in order that New Horizons continue to do its best to maintain clear-cut boundaries, distinct from politics, in every shape and form, it is best now that we begin the process of what will likely result in my eventually, when the time is right, removing myself from being Executive Director of New Horizons, sometime in the future. At this point, it is unclear how we will carry out this differentiation. But it is likely to come in this day and age of the political now having become so much the personal. Given that conflict resolution is so intrinsically woven into building “zones of peace,” you can count on us, however, to do this separating in a timely, thorough and harmonious manner. 

While both the social and the political upheaval, facing all of us now on a daily basis, is likely to continue to offer singularly profound examples of “what not to do” which I/we are likely to want to note as we go along, advocating for leaning in, the “what to do,” of our immediate challenge is well laid out for us now.

This is “Why New Horizons And Anastasia Need To Separate.” 

We want you to get clear cut messages from us. And we want to model how we, personally and collectively, handle ourselves in a fashion that will inspire you to trust what we do as having something to offer for how you manage your life and relationships.

So, now, watch us grow, stronger together with plenty of room for me to define myself, personally and professionally, through my two other blog sites, but not this one!

You can contact Anastasia,
The Super Sleuth at:
SuperSleuthDSW@aol.com

New Horizons Announces Anastasia’s Next Steps

PRESS RELEASE for immediate release

Finding Light In The Darkness, A Goddess Returns 

Frederick, Maryland -- The best kept secret of the New Horizons Support Network, Inc., a non-profit organization, is about to be brought into public view. As an organization, specializing in community development and violence prevention training, the secret New Horizons has been holding has to do, now, with WHO is behind this intriguing community education approach and what SHE brings to it.

To begin to uncover the secret, rewind back to 1966 when Anastasia Rosen-Jones (formerly Marcia E. Rosen) took the heart of Washington by storm with her U.S. “Male” Service reminder and gift shopping service and Special Delivery Messenger Service. 

Identified as being the first business of its kind in the world for executives, primarily male, Anastasia’s services made front page news in the Wall Street Journal – and – were featured, often in Washington newspapers, including one article headlined, “Burgeoning Business Pays Off,” as well as in the broadcast media, including the Diane Rehm Show, back in the day. 

With a fleet of motorcycles and hot pants and high boots attired models to man the delivery fleet, Anastasia and her staff, not only brought practical assistance to D.C. executives but also a sparkling bit of eye candy. Thus a twenty-six year old earned her way, almost overnight, into a full suite of offices at 18th and K Streets, N.W., the center of the lobbying community.

From that grand opening, fast forward to the words of former Frederick News Post reporter, G.M. Corrigan, who described Anastasia as an “Entrepreneur-turned-peace- educator, spotlighting the ‘dark side’ in non-violence training” in that publication. 

With such apparently diverse accolades of Ms. Rosen-Jones undertakings, one might wonder how she got from there; a glitzy, celebrity businesswoman at 18th and K Streets to her present position as Executive Director of a non-profit focused on peace and social justice training, based in Harpers Ferry and Frederick, Maryland.

No longer imaging Aphrodite, the goddess of charm and pleasure, as her branding, decades after those early days, Anastasia, now a more subdued goddess-type, still carries with her the charisma and creativity that once drew the attention of multitudes in D.C.

The tale is an intriguing one that has much of its grounding in the Watergate scandal, eventually ousting Richard Nixon, follows a trail into Ms. Rosen-Jones’ twenty-five years as a psychotherapist in Montgomery County, marriage and motherhood, a move to Harpers Ferry with the intention of building a training and retreat center and an eight year ordeal of blindness. 

Now Anastasia is setting her sights on returning to the D.C. fast track she left behind more than forty years ago at the time of the Watergate break in. In doing this she expects to bring Light into some of the dark corners of the nation’s capital in ways that have become uniquely her own. You will want to hear her story; the tale behind her leaving and the one about her return. And the adventures she has had between then and now. 

As far as New Horizons goes, Anastasia’s shift signals an expanding and redefining moment for both her and New Horizons. How this will shape the future is yet to be discovered. Nonetheless, Anastasia can be counted on to find the Light in the darkness of whatever lies ahead.

Information on New Horizons Support Network, Inc. can be found here: Additional bio information about Anastasia Rosen-Jones can be found here. For interviews with Ms. Rosen-Jones, contact Lynn Cullather-Popkin at: 301.775.1432 or zonesofpeacenh@aol.com.

When The Political Becomes The Personal

Well New Horizons’ Annual Board Meeting has now come and gone. Thank goodness we’ve had the prayers behind us we’ve had (see Comment from Lorenzo York "Open Letter To Our Loyal Followers"). We sure needed them for yesterday’s meeting. It was like almost no other, except for a rare few, I’ve ever known; stormy weather is what we got to, polarization for a time! 

Nonetheless, as usual the principles of New Horizons got us through the Dark into the Light. The very same ones I/we strive to share with you through our various programs and projects, including this blog site, hoping that our collective wisdom, accumulated over the more than forty years that New Horizons has existed, will uplift you.

Stormy Weather

Dialogue versus debate got us through, as indeed it should. Still we had some heated polarization on our way to the common ground we ultimately negotiated. And surprise of surprises that I would not quite have anticipated, the outcome was that the complexion of New Horizons is now about to change, markedly. 

The open letter to my board members  I shared with you certainly did predict that “the times they are a changing” at New Horizons, as well as elsewhere throughout our country!

I had also foreseen that a shift had been brewing for a while at New Horizons, somewhat independent of those brought about by Trump and Team. Yet I had not realized how very much of what I was sensing had to do with the fact that the political has now become, more and more, the personal and was intruding itself on our organization. Personally this had brought about an intersecting of what is personal and professional in me into a bit of a collision with long time board member, Lisa Boyer. All of this heightened by our present political climate and about to bring us right up onto major changes about to occur at New Horizons.

The bottom line which I will hope to be able to clarify and articulate, over time, is that I am about to be phased out of New Horizons and go off somewhat on my own!!

Imagine that!!

Yesterday’s board meeting brought that which had been brewing to a head!! 

Turns out that living out what my Higher Self was visioning, even though I had predicted it in my open letter, had a few bumpy spots when discussed at our board meeting, with more rocky roads to come before we get to the smooth sailing

So now what??  Well we don’t know yet.

What we do know is that the political has now become so very personal that a differentiating must now occur between me, New Horizons’ Founder and Executive Director, and New Horizons as a non-profit entity.

Isn’t that interesting?  But is it surprising?

Turns out now that New Horizons and I have out grown each other.  For more than forty years New Horizons and I have been able to grow together, harmoniously.  As far as I was concerned, as well as others, we were so symbiotically connected, like mother and child, that it was natural for others as well as “us” to almost always see us as one.  But wouldn’t that naturally be the way, as I am the Mother of New Horizons!

But politics has now become personal, especially these past months since Trump’s election and Hillary’s downfall (which I didn’t mind much at all except for the consequences of Trump being Trump) that New Horizons was kind of getting to be like too many cooks in the kitchen. Very much like when a mother and a daughter need more space for each of them to flourish. So they finally need separate kitchens.

The symptom showed itself around my strategy of bringing an outrageous plan, “swamp draining” or alternately “instead of swamp draining,” into the fold of New Horizons programs and projects. As you may recall, Lisa Board Member wasn’t having that at all!!

When that episode finally got clarified and articulated it turned out that my self-definition was definitively about getting to the root causes of the Dark Side, now being especially embodied in Trump and Team, shaking up that mess or mass, whichever you choose to call it, articulating how I have come to know and understand it – and – then setting out ways to transform it to its higher good.

Well that’s one way of addressing current political and societal circumstances. But, I was reminded in no uncertain terms that New Horizons is about unity! My personal/professional agenda, however, gets to unity, as an end goal.  But my approach relies on doing that -- after a long, arduous heated battle with the Dark Side that may, in fact, not ever pan out on the side of the Light.

So you see New Horizons and I have come to a parting of ways, at least in some fashion.

I will stay on, at least for the time, as Executive Director. But now I am to also go off on my own, more and more separating myself, as mischief-maker-in-residence while New Horizons moves forward with its every intention of building small “zones of peace.”

So you see, the turbulence of our political “climate change” has now become so very personal that it’s not quite certain what a clearing from the stormy weather of present day U.S.A. will look like when it clears. But we have our dreams and our intentions, translated into actions, and we will get to the other side, sooner or later.

No one and nothing can take this from us. That’s who we are, the collective of New Horizons, and each and every one of us individually.

Stay tuned in. More on the way!