Beyond Gender Tyranny: Press Release

New Horizons Pledges Development Of County-Wide Gender Gap Bridge-Building Support Network

The New Horizons Small “Zones Of Peace” Project, known throughout Frederick County for its Coffee House Conversations bridge-building efforts in the areas of race and citizen-police relations, has announced plans to update its former, decidedly impactful, city-wide support network approach.

From the mid-1980s into the early 21st century, New Horizons sponsored a full-fledged, highly successful, city- wide support network, addressing male female relationship problems. With ongoing support groups in Montgomery, Prince Georges and Frederick Counties and Northern Virginia, boosted by day-long educational seminars and monthly training, weekend retreats, the project became a mainstay for both men and women facing the kinds of gender imbalance presently filling our daily news cycles, prompted by sexual harassment and abuse scandals from Hollywood to New York City and all points between and beyond.

In response to this outpouring, the New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project, headed by Executive Director and Founder, Anastasia Rosen-Jones, is now pledging to revitalize its support network model for Frederick County.  To this end, the organization will now seek: 1. Collaboration with other organizations, groups, agencies and individuals to help develop a Frederick County Male-Female Support Network; 2. Develop a feasibility study to chart out strategies for the project; and 3. Bring together the many voices of our community that have gender-based, power imbalance concerns.

Ms. Rosen-Jones, a retired psychotherapist with more than forty years of experience in the mental health field, suggests that these sexual harassment and abuse scandals now offer our community an occasion to raise the bar for male-female relationships in Frederick.  “Whatever is now falling out, locally, from the national tsunami of scandals and #Metoo repercussions, can become an opportunity in Frederick County,” Ms. Rosen-Jones stated. 

Ms. Rosen-Jones, who is also a member of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) workgroup, a project of the Frederick County Health Department’s Local Health Improvement Plan (LHIP)—an effort including, too, Frederick County United Way, the Frederick County Mental Health Association, and other local agencies and organizations—states: Frederick United Way, the Mental Health Association and other local agencies and organizations, states, 

“There is a strong correlation between what we do as ACE activists and what New Horizons is proposing here.  From recent trends revealed in the reporting of sex and power related problems in the workplace as well as elsewhere, the main victims appear to be women and mothers.  

With secrets buried deep within, victims, who may have never thought, previously, to seek help, find themselves rearing children, with the added burden of carrying unhealed trauma wounds that can impact their young ones. As our ACE task is to assist children – and – families who experience adverse conditions, we may find our community benefiting, if we offer support and guidance to adult survivors, both male and female, in some new ways beyond current provisions, outside of immediate domestic violence crises. This is what our support network will be designed to accomplish. ” 

New Horizons Support Network, Inc. is a non-profit organization that offers programs designed to teach interpersonal and community development skills and strategies through the model of its “Small Zones of Peace” Project initiative. 

Information about the organization can be found throughout this site. Also, read Ms. Rosen-Jones’ bio on her Women’s Studies research and the intersect between the co-dependent i.e. passive addict/co-dependent and the aggressive/power addict.  

For further details Ms. Rosen-Jones can be reached at: 240.409.5347 or SuperSleuthDSW@aol.com.

Maybe I Should Vote For Trump????

OMG! No! My worst nightmare – Donald Trump in the Oval Office!

OMG! No! I hate to even use his name. Hate it even more to think of putting his picture up on my blog! So I will refrain.

But HATE is not a word I hold in any esteem. 

What to do, what to do when the man and the whole GAME he is playing actually evokes these strong feelings in me, even leaving me feeling like throwing up!

But then, again, I read something, somewhere between now and my last Anastasia The Storyteller article titled, “Hillary I Am Counting On You To….” that got me taking a second look at this presidential contender DT, yukk!

And then, too, I had a VERY important talk yesterday with my cousin Sallie who is like a BIG sister to me, known her my whole life etc. etc.  She says she is definitely voting for DT.

Should I have yukked her, you ask?

Well I’ve just gotta tell you that, for the first time ever in my life, during the 2008 presidential campaign cycle, I found myself getting into conflict with my dear cousin Sallie over those candidates.

Out of that I vowed –“Never going to happen again that I get into a polarized place with my cousin Sallie over politics or over anything else for that matter!” 

Maybe you are struggling --- and – scared – as I am and many others (most others???? that I know) about our present political campaign crisis and the way it is reflecting our overall societal crises on every front imaginable. 

What to do, what to do?

 I’ve got a plan now to save my sanity in the midst of it all. I will be sharing it this week and inviting you into to it too on my new formatted program series, Conversations With Anastasia On The Art of Dialogue.” 

Join me! 

Anastasia The Storyteller Radio Show

Politics In Motion: How Positions of Collaboration and Opposition Play Themselves Out

Thursday, May 12

6:30 p.m. (new time schedule)

On The Way To Exceptional

Our Coffee House Conversation On Race Relations had one specific aim. We were intent on creating a community dialogue rather than a debate. A dialogue that would generate community growth and development through purposeful conversation based on civility and respect rather than offensiveness.

But we were challenged by recent events. So we asked ourselves, could a group of, potentially polarized, concerned citizens come together and converse without volatility? 

Would present conditions, in the midst of the uprisings evoked by circumstances in Ferguson, Missouri and New York City surrounding the deaths of two young black men -- and then the murders of two policemen, allow cooperative conversations?

I never doubted that we could and that we would.

Yet in the weeks immediately preceding what would turn out to be a heartening and hopeful conversations experience several of my generally supportive allies set themselves to diligently riding me. They were concerned that our event might disintegrate into name-calling and other forms of oppositional discourse and disorder.

None of this occurred.

With the aid of an exceptionally fine panel of community leaders to support the intent of my opening address; Guy Djoken, NAACP’s local president, two well-spoken police officers, Capt. Jason Keckler and Cpl Rebecca Carrado, wholly dedicated to community engagement, and Kathryn Ruud of Stop Polarizing Talk, the tone was set for us to create an afternoon of community enhancement.

Dissension would have been as foreign to this group as a snowstorm in July.

I can’t say we are yet out of the woods. Pockets of substantial difficulty still surround that Saturday afternoon oasis we created, collectively. For example, gangs are known to proliferate in certain areas of this county, Frederick, Maryland, that yearns to be more than ordinary.  In fact, what may have been a gang-related incident of school violence occurred within days after our laudable event.

But we have made a beginning.  A spirit of “want to do” and “can do” is becoming the norm for the back story that is unfolding since our Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations made its auspicious start.  On a personal level, every day now I find myself coming home to a part of myself that may have been, beneath my consciousness, lying untapped; the part of me that knows that “life is with people”-- and -- that I am most alive when I am contributing to that life in motion!

Fortunes of A Rich Community Life -- And -- The Treasures Money Can’t Buy

New Horizons’ Beloved community development mentor, Murat Yagan, emphasized again and again, that the main ingredients for a genuinely rich life must include a teacher, a teaching and a community.

But – most of all, Murat stressed that it is the having of a community; a group of like-minded individuals, working together, sharing values and ideals, and implementing these in a way that builds a common good that is singularly the most important.

I have wanted to write of my recent experience at a local event celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. It gave me a sense of an enriching community life.

I did comment briefly the following day. But there was much left unsaid. Yet that reference was a first for me. In that I was gratified.

Not being a particularly tech savvy person, writing a blog post from my smart phone was both daunting as well as abhorrent. 

But an intention to push through my resistance to publish a few limited words took hold as the experience was that significant for me.

So I wrote and told you that as “strangers in the night, we met and we” were strangers no more.

In some ways those few words said it all for me. Yet when I shared them with some others they seemed to have almost no meaning at all. Folks I later talked with who had also been present at the same celebration had been left almost totally unmoved by it.

On the other hand the small group of New Horizons volunteers and supporter who attended seemed to feel as inspired as I.

What is the deal then of an event being truly an “event” or coming off as a “non-event” for some for all its planning and promotion?

I inquired further, as I am wont to do in my Anastasia The Super Sleuth mode. Thus I came to be reminded that “substance” rather than “surface” is obviously the telling factor.

So how do we achieve this state of “substance” that allows people to walk away from an occasion with a feeling of value rather than its being inconsequential? And reach as many as possible in order to evoke that state, maximally?

These past few weeks my key volunteers and supporters have been putting forth a concerted effort to create a Coffee House Conversation On Race Relations that we hope will leave people with a feeling of abundance rather than emptiness.

For me, accustomed as I am to valuing a sense of community unity above most other things I felt inspired by the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration. My experience that strangers came together, at least the ones in closest proximity to me, bonded in sharing designed to foster community building -- and -- did just that -- was awesome!

Building any bit more of a community feeling; a vibrational energy of unity and working well together, reinforces – in my mind -- Murat’s wisdom that of the three; a teacher, a teaching and a community, it is the community that is most essential.

I felt the “earth move” when I experienced the small morsel of community life we shared at that MLK event though the collective had had, no doubt, many teachers and many teachings to call their own.

For me that celebration was one that inspired, if only briefly, the force for growth and change that keeps people rich and healthy.

That is if you believe that rich and healthy might just be something other than that which money can buy; a priceless something!

I hope we are able to provide this for our participants at our coming Coffee House Conversation on Race Relations this Saturday.  Be sure and register for the event if you have not already.

We are intent on making some small difference in the way our possible society is in motion. 

We hope you will share this with us as a part of our expanding community of like-minded, forward thinking folks. 

Strangers In The Night. We Met And We're Strangers No More.

Martin Luther King, Jr. is happy with us, today, if he looked down on us, last night as we celebrated his life.

I'm going to tell you about it later today or tomorrow when I've contemplated it further.

For now I will simply say this --

Frederick County Maryland, where New Horizons does most of its local activities; programs, projects, community involvement, presented the finest MLK event I have ever experienced because it made an impact on almost every person present; black, white, Has panic etc.

That's progress!

Overcoming The Polarization Of ……. Everything

Taking our show on the road

Among the things we have to offer, today, is one of our handout pieces on the –

Characteristics of Polarization

(Scroll to the bottom, if you wish to bypass my chit chat.)

As of today, our Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations project has moved into full steam ahead. Thanks to a key leaders planning discussion of last night.

Of course, carrying this project forth, successfully, is going to depend a great deal on New Horizons’ abilities to overcome the ubiquitous polarization that pervades our society and politics on every level. 

Even the most dedicated and seasoned activists will, on occasion, fall short of the aim. So we do expect a few bumps and bruises along the way.

However, in the three years we have been working on our Possible Human, Possible Society Study our eyes have been opened, wide, to the scope -- and the pettiness -- of our country’s polarization.

And, with close to forty years of working to develop and sustain thriving communities behind us, we believe we’ve got some expertise and a medicine bag full of health-giving potions to help remedy some of the dis-ease we’ve been finding.

Several of our most profound findings have been these –

• Better than 90% of interviewees have no significant relationships beyond their like-minded groups.
• Better than 90% of interviewees are unmotivated to interact with others beyond these groups.
• Better than 90% of those interviewed believe they are powerless or lack the skills or other resources to impact our national social and political crises.

Since awareness of a problem is an essential starting point for putting things aright, I keep trying to draw our readers’ attention to these items. They stand at so much of the base of what ails America today. 

I am not certain, however, that the significance these hold is being truly grasped yet.

I would like it better if it was. However, sometimes one must keep telling and telling and telling until the message hits home which eventually it will.

Since it is time, now, for us to take our collection of accrued knowledge, gathered through our study and our many years of programs and project, out and onto the road, I believe progress is in the making.

This means we will be meeting with more and more people directly – and – providing opportunities through workshops, seminars, discussions groups and public speaking engagements to assist folks in enhancing all kinds of community development and violence prevention tools; people-relating, communications and conflict resolution skills for starters.

Our Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations project is where we will begin on this next leg of our overall mission;  being builders of small “zones of peace” wherever we go.

This is a very joyful plan for New Horizons for 2015.

To get the project launched, I thought today  it might serve our intentions to share this one piece, extracted from our planned program for January 31, that helps clarify some of the most prominent features of the presence of polarization wherever it exists.

What are the characteristics of polarization?

• Emotional barriers;
• Defensiveness;
• Communication breakdown;
• Seeing the “other” as enemies;
• Anger, blame, criticism;
• Conflict, withdrawal, avoidance, collusion, secrets, aggression, violence – WAR!

Anastasia The Super Sleuth Says –

You might expand your consciousness by taking a pause for ten minutes or so in your busy day, today, to ask yourself where these characteristics of polarization symptoms are active in your life and relationships.

And, remember you are always welcome to contact me at: SuperSleuthDSW@aol.com to share your experiences and insights or ask for my guidance on whatever you are reading here.

“Violence and Deceit”: The Other Side Of The Coin

I’ve spoken recently about learning and teaching people the “what not to do” way of social interacting, as I learned it from my mentor, Martin G. Groder, M.D. and correspondingly the “what to do” way from my more recent mentor, Murat Yagan.

Following through on this theme of duality; what not to do and what to do, I got to thinking about my last article, Gandhi’s Gift, and how Gandhi’s words have served as inspiration for the “new” New Horizons’ Small “Zones of Peace” Project (circa 2006).  (‘Old”New Horizons was formed in 1980.)

These musings got me to wondering about the other side of the coin; if not “violence and deceit,” what then?

Gandhi suggests --

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. 

Well what then, if not violence and deceit?

Next I pondered if not “polarization,” then what instead of this?

Violence and deceit, to be enacted, require a cutting off from caring, concern and connection. (Groder’s tale of the “Experiment Not To Do” as I recounted it on our new blog site, Exploring YourDark Side: The Adventure Of A Lifetime, illustrates cutting-off at the extreme.)

This past year I developed a formula as an antithesis for cutting-off that I named the “The Lean In Legacy Template.” As a formalized alternative to cutting-off it has come to be recognized, discussed and applied by my associates. These days they are more and more likely to realize that the simple prescription of “leaning in” serves as a remedy for the poison of toxic polarization.

(Of course, not all polarizing is toxic, nor is all withdrawal. Polarization can be healthy when it serves to illuminate divergent views, attitudes, perspectives and so forth – and – from this prompts creative solutions.)

As time goes on these associates of mine have also started to explore the actual mechanics of my “Lean In Legacy Template” more thoroughly.

This brought me to conversing with my collaborator, Sue, today about how a corollary to the “template” might be that --

Storytelling is an essential aspect of the richness and – sometimes, even wonder -- that“ leaning in” can create.  This is especially so if “leaning-in can be extended to its further reaches.

Sharing a few stories of our own as Sue and I generally do, we were both surprised we hadn’t realized before that the message of storytelling being a path to peace which I have written of numerous times on this site illustrates this sumptuousness and delight.

Another article I wrote, Hidden beneath our masks: It’s About The Humanity, following the death of Whitney Houston, helps articulate the abundance accrued by telling our stories, person to person.

Why hadn’t I remembered that one, written almost three years ago?

So Anastasia The Super Sleuth Says (reminding both myself and you) --

Find someone – anyone – and take a long enough pause in your rushing about, today or tomorrow, to hear someone else’s story and share one of your own.

Then notice how much your life is enhanced.

It’s so darn simple. Why hadn’t I realized it before?

Do You See What I See?

Do You See What I See? Do you hear what I hear?

Long time coming? Or was I just lacking in patience?

September 11, 2001

It was shocking, horrifying, devestating that terrorists could breach our national borders and kill U.S. citizens in cold blood on American soil.

I could not SEE what you saw that day. I was blind at the time. (Now I am blind no more. I wish the same for you, spiritually as well as physically.)

But then mostly all I could do was listen to hear of what you saw; on televised newscasts in the newspapers, magazines and periodicals. Through a haze like two sheets of waxed papers I sensed images and heard the anguish.

I was a part of this world and yet not quite.

Nonetheless, we all still remember and read and talk about it.

We always will.

We were changed by what happened. Yet not quite enough – which is one of my main points here.

In the aftermath we came together in shock and fear. We gathered in churches and synagogues wherever two or more could meet to talk and pray. We sought comfort in one another and that which was somewhere beyond. That which we could not quite see, but longed to feel; peace and comfort and meaning in that which seemed to have no meaning at all.

After a time, too little time, however, most returned to business as usual.

As if there could ever again be “usual.”

What I saw in 9/11 because I could not see what you saw -- of the bloody aftermath was only that which I could see with my heart. And the images I sensed that went beyond the physical into the spiritual dimension.

For me the time brought close the words of  Helen Keller --

The spiritual world offers no difficulty to one who is deaf and blind. Nearly everything in the natural world is as vague, as remote from my senses, as spiritual things seem to the minds of most people.

This very much reflects how I “saw” 9/11.

For me there was little difference between the physical world and the spiritual. So I saw what you saw as best I could; the spiritual taking dominance as the physical was so very vague for me.

Since that day, 9/11, and the weeks and months after I came to realize that somehow I was able to hold onto my spiritual musings more easily than most.

After all I had no meaningful work at the time to distract my attentions – and – no lingering, terrifying and bloody graphic images to haunt me. Soon after that day I created a brief study of attitudes and such to explore with the limited number of people I had access to in those blind days after 9/11.

Not able to drive and living, as I still do, up in the mountains, I found comfort for myself and created it for some by drawing those few into storytelling about what 9/11 meant for us all.

Not realizing, at the time, that I would come to find storytelling to be a path to healing and peace, personally and collectively; a recognition that would come, a few years later, when I had, after eight years, recovered my eyesight and had begun to heal from the trauma the loss brought about.

Storytelling would come to play a central role in my life after blindness, continuing to this day.

Now as the vista of 2015 looms ahead, I am recalling that brief following 9/11. And I am seeing something that I hope you too are seeing.

That early study presaged what my latest study, the Possible Human, Possible Society Study, has revealed, sometimes inspiring -- through stories -- and – sometimes disappointingly in actions that demonstrate, too frequently, what our minds would likely choose to dismiss –

We are a nation of people who, typically, only take time to lean into one another others opportunistically. When tragedy erupts or when doing so serves some other self-centered agenda. Thus we neglect doing that which would serve the higher good of all for one, one for all.

For example, individuals and groups have come together in protests around upsets involving police violence against African American men.  Several years back an equal or greater number took up the call that became Occupy Wall Street, pushing those  protesters in our faces on a daily basis.

Did this make a difference for all its noise? I wonder. Now you barely hear a word spoken of it.

Protest can be a good thing, boldly affirming our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. Protest also can turn violent as we are seeing. Even the simmering can be a precursor to treachery and tragedy.

Today I am standing on the side of a mountain where I live, overlooking the historic town of Harpers Ferry. My backyard backs up on sites, once sheltering civil war soldiers from both the Confederacy and Union.

It is almost an effortless endeavor here to immerse oneself in the history of that era. It is correspondingly with relative ease, with scenes of bloodshed surrounding us on every side out here, to call up those long ago voices of death; the cries of young men, dying for freedom.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. It never did. War, even civil war is not an answer.

So let us come together as the New Year of 2015 birth its entry to make the coming year one of personal and collective growth as an ever more civilized humanity, striving to take our evolving another level up.

New Horizons will do its part with an emphasis on guiding whoever will join us to tell our stories and listen with to one another with our hearts on our path to healing.

Do You See What I See? The unity and peace!

Do you hear what I hear? The unity and peace!

We can do this, more and more in 2015!

Conversations Project on Race Relations To Promote Coalition

Press Release

Contact: Anastasia Rosen-Jones Phone: (240)409.5347

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Horizons Conversations Project on Race Relations To Promote Coalition

Anastasia Rosen-Jones, executive director of the New Horizons Support Network, has announced plans for her organization to hold—along with other community leaders and groups—a coalition-organizing meeting around the subject of race relations in Frederick County. The objective of the meeting will be to discuss how groups and individuals in the county can expand current efforts to work together on this issue.

The program is slated to be held at Dublin Roasters Coffee, 1780 N. Market Street, Saturday, January 31, 2015 from 3 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Announcing this latest New Horizons’ initiative, Ms. Rosen-Jones stated, “The protests and violence that erupted out of events in Ferguson, Missouri; New York and elsewhere show us that whatever has been done to date on creating an equitable society in our country has obviously fallen short. We need an expanded effort in this regard. New Horizons, recognized in Frederick County as a model program for building bridges of commonality across lines of division through community dialogue, wishes to contribute talent, experience and effort toward the attainment of this goal.”

The coalition-forming meeting will include brief comments by Ms. Rosen-Jones and other community leaders. New Horizons’ conversations format, specially designed for the issue of Frederick County race relations, will, however, take center stage for the majority of the meeting, with comments from the group at-large playing a central role. Follow-up plans for community involvement in the project will be the concluding step 0f the event.

Those interested in participating or attending should contact Ms. Rosen-Jones. Advance reservations are encouraged as space is limited.

New Horizons Support Network, Inc. is a non-profit organization that offers programs designed to teach community development and violence-prevention skills and strategies through the conversations model of its “Small Zones of Peace” Project. The New Horizons Conversations on Race Relations effort will develop out of this project. Information about the project can be found at: zonesofpeacenh.blogspot.com. Also, tune in to New Horizons’ “Possible Society in Motion” radio show: www.blogtalkradio.com/smallzonesofpeace. Ms. Rosen-Jones can be reached at: 240.409.5347 or zonesofpeacenh@aol.com.

-End-

Ferguson, Missouri As A Door Opener

Your heart and mind have many doorways to personal and collective transformation. 

Here is a story of one of my own transformations, opening doorways in me from the personal to the collective.

Thanksgiving weekend brought with it moments of serious contemplation for many of us. The uprisings erupting out of the grand jury ruling to not indict the police officer who killed Michael Brown took center stage.

At a time when Americans customarily turned to the holiday and what it is intended to represent of our blessings, the ruling shifted attention, dramatically, from the holiday’s objective.

Perhaps it was intended to do that.

Why else position the announcement for this time, if not?

So, I, like many others were called to incorporate our responses to what was happening in Ferguson and elsewhere into our Thanksgiving feast day. Each of us, so inclined, having our own personal angle regarding how the situation was touching us.

As has become typical for me I sat down and wrote a blog article, using writing as a vehicle for sorting things out. What came of the effort was an article I titled: “Tribal Mindsets: The Light And The Dark Sides,” my name for it capturing how I was holding the subject.

Typically when I write as a means for ordering my mind I feel a sense of clarity and completion.

But this time was different.

In the article, I wrote of pondering particular things the Ferguson situation aroused in me.  As a result I found  myself drawn to revisit an incident that happened at a New Horizons’ Abkhazian Dinner event that has  left  still  unhealed  scars and  breaches. The situation, growing  out of  an occurrence  at the event of  verbal abuse that had, also, had strong racial overtones.

To  date the situation remains without reconciliation ,  almost  three  years past. But it  didn’t have  to  be this way; it still does not! 

I have always believed this.

Similarly, I was believing this of Ferguson, too. But what was best to do, now, I asked myself.

As I wrote the article, and then later continued reflecting on that earlier situation up against the current mayhem around Ferguson, I asked myself what had I learned from  my experience of the Abkhazian Dinner upset.

And what could I/we do with what we have learned from this and other past situations of racial tensions.

I had believed that  I  had  done  all I could  regarding  the Abkhazian Dinner  incident.   But maybe  I had not.  So I pondered that past with this present – and – wondered at it all.

Thus over the Thanksgiving holiday, I found myself looking again at my part in racial situations, past and present, that lack healing, to date. 

Ferguson, Missouri prompted  me to do this.

Much more began to flow into my heart and mind once this process of personal de-cluttering began. Alchemy was at work again, turning the lead in me into gold.

Low karat or not, gold is gold!

The most amazing of it all was that in the process my mind, almost magically, shifted to a separation I knew full well I had created.

Irrational as it seems  now, out of these clearing efforts I came to realize that in my growing distress with President Obama  I had, without conscious intent, begun to develop a racist attitude toward others of color, turning away from people I love. 

Racism can be that subtle.

OMG! I could not believe it when all at once I grasped what I had done.

Never before a racist, I had, inadvertently, become a part of this country’s problems with race relations, instead of being a part of the solution. (Sometimes being born Jewish gives one a predisposition to social justice, you may realize.)

OMG! A doorway to a locked down area of my heart and mind opened.

What did I do with it? I followed my own prescription for the cure of polarization!

Almost instantly, I began to lean in to friends of mine of color instead of holding back.

Since few were around who could meet my almost instantaneous shift in awareness, I used my re-newed passion for social justice and creativity to draft a plan for New Horizons that we, collectively, could carry forth, born of an idea of  conscious concern this Thanksgiving holiday.

An Executive Director can take such liberties, even on a holiday.

So --- what’s happening next at New Horizons?

Out of Ferguson, Missouri we are, together, initiating a new project, building on our Small “Zones of Peace” conversations model  ---

Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations.

We do hope you will support this new effort of ours. Details will follow.

Tribal Mindsets: The Light and The Dark Sides

When volatile, violence-threatening incidents occur such as this past week in Ferguson, Missouri, many feel prompted to give voice to the problems and concerns such events mark, as they see them.

A Real Deal
Peace Buddy is...

For me, when I stand back from the mayhem, most significantly I see it in terms of the Dark and the Light sides of the happenings.

What is the good of it? What is the corrupt, the merciless; the Light and the Dark sides of it all.

And what does my taking a position on it, should I choose to, represent of me?

Given the recent launching of New Horizons newest blog site, Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure of A Lifetime, I feel particularly compelled to think of the Ferguson situation in terms of how it reflects the responsibilities of the individual, myself included.

For  each of  us,  according  to  my  own personal values  and those  of  New Horizons,  a facet of  our potential  for adventuring through life is to be an  active participant  in it. Rather than a  bystander to, at least, pay attention to  situations  such  as this. Even  if all that we contribute  is the simplest  of  positions;  to be that of an observer with a viewpoint,  contemplating for  a  brief  moment the  potential for learning from  went right or wrong here,  embracing both with compassion and understanding.

Thus a grave  situation  in this present instance  might  pave  the  way  to a better outcome  another  time  in  a similar  situation –and – hopefully what pains  now,  might in time be healed.

As Viktor Frankl, noted psychiatrist and  survivor of  the Nazi concentration camps, enjoined, we always  have the freedom  to decide  how  to  think  about  things.

Whereas  we  may  not  affect  what  has  happened  now  in  Ferguson – and – are  too far away,  geographically, to reasonably contribute  to the  immediate  healing so badly  needed  there,  what  can we learn  from  this episode  to bring about something  better?   And,  how  might  our being like that infamous butterfly  in  New  York ,  affecting what may  be happening  in far off Japan,  be a contributer,  in some  small way,  to  what Ferguson  will need over time?

Is  it  not a truth we can trust that  if  one  is not a part of the solution than one  is a part of  the problem?

Today,  as I look outside my office  window  at  the  falling snow on  this  day before Thanksgiving,  I am reminded of a  New Horizons’ Abkhazian Dinner event  that has  left  still  unhealed  scars and  breaches behind  it. These grew  out of  an  incident  of  verbal abuse at the event, without reconciliation to date.,  almost  three  years later.

And, while the divisiveness that grew of this episode was subtle, it remains as a wound that still separates.

It  didn’t have  to  be this way; it still does not! 

What can we learn from  this experience? And  what can  we do with what we  might learn?

I believe, to date,  that  I  have  done  what I could  regarding  the  incident.   

But maybe  not.  I must  look again at my part  in this.  Ferguson, Missouri reminds  me of this.

So,  today,  Anastasia The Super Sleuth  offers  you this –

If  you cannot  be wholly  thankful  tomorrow, on Thanksgiving Day, for  all  that  has  come  your  way  (or  the  way of our collective) this  day,  at  least,  be  thankful  for the  lessons  brought.  In the  sum  total  of  your life,  the lessons you take  from whatever falls before  you, near and far,  are  as much  a  part  of  the  bounty of your life’s adventure  as  the  gold.

This is the summing up of the Light and the Dark Sides for each of us. Use it well for your adventure, especially for exploring whatever might be of the Dark in you, even if only from your seat as an armchair judge.

In other words, keep pointing that finger back on yourself. And, especially remember -- don’t sacrifice the Light of your inidividual responsibility for joining in with the tribal mindset on the Ferguson incident (or any others) that would have you polarizing on this Thanksgiving holiday.