Concentric and Interwoven Circles
By the spring of 1975, Jim and I both felt we had done everything we had wanted to do in southern California: We had filled ourselves full of life at the beach, meals at wonderful restaurants, plays, symphonies, and fabulous vacations. It was time to move on. Then in the later summer, after we exchanged our fast-paced, money-making lives in southern California for a different one in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern California, we called what we were doing “voluntary simplicity,” a concept that was also being used by other people. We were furthering our quests to make sense out of the world and our existence within it.
Without most of our previous money-making activities (Jim still had some clients in southern California to take care of), we had large amounts of time freed for backpacking, hiking, exploring our area and adjacent ones, and numerous studies. For my share of our joint living expenses, I was still getting a small monthly payment from my first husband as my portion of a property settlement.
As Jim and I co-crafted our new lives, in 1970s and 1980s money-value terms, there were many years that we lived on approximately $4,000 a year. We had built a modest, mortgage-free home on three plus acres of land amidst a surrounding hundred acres of woods. We had also built a large organic garden/orchard that supplied most of our food needs during the seven years of eating a vegetarian diet. And our chickens contributed rich, orange-yolked eggs.
In the later 1970s I oftentimes felt as if I were standing in the center of my psyche, turning around in a 360° way regarding what had been and was happening in the whole area of spiritual activities. I developed a process where I would go into our local eclectic bookstore and focus on the energy coming from my mid section that I was certain was connecting with what was appropriate for me to read at that time … I explored a lot of worldviews and ideas about “life,” both mentally and experientially.
Then in the early 1980s, Jim and I added extensive studies about what was happening and had been happening all over the world, including historical understandings of the patterns used to bring events forth. Along the way we began to think about our future needs to make money. The only idea that appealed to both of us was to write a passionate book about our love of the natural world and what was happening to it, and our love of we humans and what was happening to us!
One day while we were walking in the woods near our home Jim stated that from his point of view no one was adding up all the numbers. He went on to describe how we were able to formulate quite good pictures in one area of our studies, more good pictures in others, but somehow, to his mind, no one was really connecting the various parts into a comprehensive, meaningful picture, overall. That was the moment the central theme for the book we were just beginning to write was born.
In what eventually became Something Different we tried to add up all the numbers and make the connections. During the development of the manuscript we took our potential readers with us in our daily lives as we probed various focuses such as the environment—global, national, regional, local; the economy—global, national, regional, local; human relationships—males and females in various cultures with one another, with people of other ethnic origins, and with people of different religious beliefs; and on and on.
Again and again we were seeing how a blend of the culture's religious, ethnic, gender, and other accepted society agreements from the past and present, formed most of a person’s basis for thoughts, actions, and identity.
Since our study/writing project was done primarily during the 1980s in the United States, when as a culture we were choosing to feel good and enjoy ourselves, Jim and I eventually discovered that there wasn’t much interest in understandings of the sort we were setting forth in our writings. And so we again moved on in our lives.
Nevertheless, during the 1990s when Jim and I were both intensively involved in building our real estate and financial services business in southwest Michigan, for many years I met once or twice a week with a wise, intelligent, and treasured female friend. Our conversations were sometimes held quite early in the morning at the local coffee shop. With considerable fervor we discussed events and reports of interest to both of us each week. To my way of thinking she brought her own unique brand of multidimensionality to our conversations, as I was furthering my quest for Understandings and expansions.
Over the years, while continuing to be aware of multiple ongoing events, I began to think about concentric circles—local, regional, state, national, and global—all being significant and also interwoven. Since clear understandings are important to me, I seek information that is written and described by others who are also trying to paint accurate pictures.
To my way of thinking, there is a big difference between focusing upon presenting the facts in as truthful a manner as one can, and another primary focus of using information selectively in order to persuade people to support a particular way of thinking or to behave in a certain way. Along with acquiring factual information, when I want to know what another person’s opinion is, I’ll listen to, watch, or read what she or he has to say. This also applies to analyses of situations. Certainly, what each person perceives is colored by their overall worldview, and at the same time what their purpose is with what they are communicating, seems to me to be central to what they say. Even so, what are said to be “facts” can be seen from different angles and interpreted in varying ways.
It should come as no surprise that Jim and I are registered as non partisan voters in the state of Michigan. There have been times we have voted for Republican candidates, other times we have voted for Democrats, and sometimes a mixture of both.
One of the ways I’ve kept some of my concentric and interwoven circles updated over the years is by selectively listening to National Public Radio (NPR). When I go online, oftentimes I can find out what forthcoming programs are being scheduled. Then I can coordinate exercising, cooking, cleaning, and mending with listening to interviews and discussions I’m interested in. This way, I’ve been able to hear hours and hours of factual information, ideas, opinions, perspectives, analyses, and conversations about our world of yesterday and today. These have included interviews with authors of recently published books, many of which have been about the current Bush Administration, and the Iraq/Afghanistan wars.
The Diane Rehm Show and Terry Gross' Fresh Air, weekday NPR programs, have been and are of special importance to me. On some occasions I audio tape one of them and play it later. This procedure is particularly helpful when I want to take notes.
From my point of view, George W. Bush’s presidency here in the United States has given all of us humans around the globe an opportunity to clearly Understand the results of some specific belief patterns in operation. I have seen President Bush and many of those around him in his inner circle energizing extremes of designs used in our culture to be a strong Western-world man and men. The first pattern is where a culturally programmed person takes a stand and fights for it. As I understand it, this is an often-used emphasis in the group male psychic structure. The taking-a-stand position is in contrast dualistically to being regarded as a weak wimp. For some, “a real man” is decisive, takes action, stands alone with steel-like resolve, and doesn’t need to seriously question what he ’s doing. Others can see such a person as unnecessarily stubborn, rigid, and enclosed.
Another cultural design extreme I think the current Bush Administration has used is to reward loyalists and punish those of different perspectives and worldviews, taking a past/present “carrots and sticks” approach further than most people do. This seems to be one of a palette of strategies for “winning,” whatever the contest is from their positions and perspectives. Overall, I see them energizing many opposites and opposition designs that include numerous domination, control, and fear patterns.
One of my speculations, which truly is said with Compassion and without criticism, is that President Bush quite possibly has a different version of God than I do. His God seems to have many similarities to the one described in the Old Testament who demands unquestioned loyalty and punishes dissenters. In the forthcoming chapter, “Dreams, Meditations, and Prayers,” I will be talking more about my version of God.
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