According to this article, sent to me by my friend Ann, the phenomenon is a lot more common that we would think. A group of Dutch medical researchers, publishing in the British Journal of Psychiatry, studied a group of 8- and 9-year-olds to find out how many of them heard voices that other people couldn't hear. Ten percent of them reported having what the researchers call "verbal auditory hallucinations." Sixteen percent of children and teens are believed to hear such voices. That's almost one out of five.
You can read a summary of the article here.
Whoa. I found this fascinating on several points. First, because so few of the kids seemed to be bothered by the voices they heard. They took it totally in stride. Second, because there were no other symptoms pointing toward pathology, and in the end the majority of these kids were determined to be perfectly fine, i.e. no evidence of mental illness at all.
And third, because the researchers don't ever say what, exactly, the kids were hearing--don't you wonder what the voices were saying to them?--or speculate about what these voices might have been. I guess "verbal auditory hallucination" is a way of saying the voices were imagined, but it seemed to be real to the kids. What kind of mental process, outside of mental illness, would make voices appear in one's head?
Our family's story was different, insofar that our daughter did seem troubled--extremely troubled--by what she claimed she could hear. Still, whenever an article like this shows up on my radar I'm interested in it, since even after all this time I don't have a definitive answer about what plagued my daughter, only a story about an unconventional journey that by all accounts, seemed to help.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Trash Cans Never Sounded So Good
Took the girls to see Stomp on Tuesday night--the street percussion troupe that makes music out of every ordinary object known to mankind. Sheesh, they were good. We don't typically do things like this on a school night, Hollywood being a solid 45 minute drive from the house without traffic, but I lucked into half-price tickets that were available only midweek so figured, Just this once: why not? And to make it even extra special, since we got there a half hour early, we made a Pinkberry run before the show.
How is it possible that I've lived in LA this long and never been to a Pinkberry? If you live near a Pinkberry, run--do not walk--for an original vanilla with chocolate chips and peppermint shavings. Oh. My. God.
Anyway: Stomp. It's one of those shows that makes you sit in the audience alternately thinking, How do they do that? and We've got to try this at home. Whole percussive routines using only brooms. Folding chairs. Water-cooler bottles. Those dancers were seriously inventive. Incredibly talented, too. And they did an encore that encouraged audience participation to a rhythmic degree far beyond what you'd think a thousand people could manage--yet did.
In the car on the way to Hollywood, I was telling the girls about how I've seen Stomp twice before, the first time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1991 when they were still a scruffy bunch from Brighton and no one knew who they were. I was visiting my friend Sharon who was studying in England that summer, and we roadtripped up to Scotland with some of her friends for the festival. We wound up at Stomp because it was one of the few events that still had last-minute tickets available. I'm guessing most of the audience was there for the same reason, because nobody seemed to know what they were in for when the performers started doing their thing. If I'm remembering right, they opened with brooms back then, too, and also did routines with matchbooks, plastic bags, trash cans, and keys. It was fantastic and innovative and wholly new. Or at least that's how it seemed. After the show, the audience poured into the streets of Edinburgh and took off kicking trash cans and drumming against the sides of buildings. The most mundane objects suddenly looked like instruments, worthy of making music on the street.
Reading the show's program Tuesday night, I realized that the Fringe Festival performance had been Stomp's debut. Who knew? I guess those of us in the audience did, at some level, because of the electricity it inspired, the freshness it embodied. About five years later, after Stomp was already ensconced off-Broadway in the East Village, I saw them again and even though the U.S. troupe was equally as talented and the routines even more astonishing, the newness had worn off. The amazement of first contact was gone, replaced by the awe of their performance skills.
It's still an incredible show nonetheless. My kids loved it. It's playing at the Pantages Theater through Feb. 7. In lieu of driving to Hollywood on a school night, you can watch a short clip here.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Help for Haiti's Orphans
Like everyone else, I was glued to the internet in the 72 hours after the earthquake in Haiti, driven by an insatiable need for the minute details (inveterate nonfiction instructor that I am). How, exactly, were people being extracted from the rubble? Could all the reports about people going without any food and water for 72 hours be accurate, and if so, how was everyone still walking around? Who was doing what to help reunite parents and children, and how? And thinking, my god, all these people, all this suffering, how can one country contain it all?
As my mind always veers to the most vulnerable citizens whenever a disaster strikes, anywhere, I was also thinking, what about the orphans, who've already lost so much and now have lost even more?
In those first, early days I did as everyone else I knew did, sending whatever money I could to Doctors without Borders, and the Red Cross, and wondering how exactly those text donations were working and if Sprint really would send all the money to Haiti or divert some of it for corporate bonuses instead. And then, like everyone else, I hit the wall of disaster overload and had to stop checking the news every hour or two. Had to get back to regular daily tasks, with a prayer sent heading southeast and the faith that those in a position to do real, utilitarian good were down there finding ways to do it.
But there's one story that I can't get out of my mind, and so I'm going to take a chance here and introduce it to yours. It's the story of an orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti, one of the cities that sustained the most damage rom the quake. Our friends Martin and Sue, who live in Topanga, started it a few years ago and now support 13 kids full-time, some who are HIV+, others with special needs.
For the first few days after the quake, nobody knew if the children had survived, if the director and staff were safe, if the building was still standing. It was a tense time for lots of people in Topanga, since Martin and Sue have a large circle of friends and admirers, and many of us have been supporting their mission and cheering them on over the years.
Then, a few days later, word came through from Lia, the orphanage director, that miraculously, all the children were safe. Most of them had been at the park when the earthquake struck, and those who had been in the building--which is all but destroyed--managed to escape injury. But they're living in a tent in the street with their neighbors right now. They have barely adequate amounts of food and water and, thanks to people who donated generously and immediately, medical supplies that were just driven over from the Dominican Republic that will hold them for a while. This is particularly important, since going without meds is not an option for some of these kids. They're stable for the moment. But their long-term needs are great.
Lia has been keeping a blog of their experiences, and it's well worth checking out. The photos are surreal. The children are stunning in their capacity to nonetheless experience joy even under terrible conditions. Yet their plight is truly unimaginable to those of us up here.
You can read updates about the kids and the orphanage here.
So--if you're not suffering from disaster fatigue, and if you're looking for a way to help but want to know that your dollars will go right to those who need them most (and who doesn't?), and if your desire is to specifically help parentless children affected by the quake, I can personally assure you that this is a reputable charity, and that all of your money will go straight to helping the kids.
You can donate online at We Can Build An Orphanage. And blessings to you all for considering it.
As my mind always veers to the most vulnerable citizens whenever a disaster strikes, anywhere, I was also thinking, what about the orphans, who've already lost so much and now have lost even more?
In those first, early days I did as everyone else I knew did, sending whatever money I could to Doctors without Borders, and the Red Cross, and wondering how exactly those text donations were working and if Sprint really would send all the money to Haiti or divert some of it for corporate bonuses instead. And then, like everyone else, I hit the wall of disaster overload and had to stop checking the news every hour or two. Had to get back to regular daily tasks, with a prayer sent heading southeast and the faith that those in a position to do real, utilitarian good were down there finding ways to do it.
But there's one story that I can't get out of my mind, and so I'm going to take a chance here and introduce it to yours. It's the story of an orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti, one of the cities that sustained the most damage rom the quake. Our friends Martin and Sue, who live in Topanga, started it a few years ago and now support 13 kids full-time, some who are HIV+, others with special needs.
For the first few days after the quake, nobody knew if the children had survived, if the director and staff were safe, if the building was still standing. It was a tense time for lots of people in Topanga, since Martin and Sue have a large circle of friends and admirers, and many of us have been supporting their mission and cheering them on over the years.
Then, a few days later, word came through from Lia, the orphanage director, that miraculously, all the children were safe. Most of them had been at the park when the earthquake struck, and those who had been in the building--which is all but destroyed--managed to escape injury. But they're living in a tent in the street with their neighbors right now. They have barely adequate amounts of food and water and, thanks to people who donated generously and immediately, medical supplies that were just driven over from the Dominican Republic that will hold them for a while. This is particularly important, since going without meds is not an option for some of these kids. They're stable for the moment. But their long-term needs are great.
Lia has been keeping a blog of their experiences, and it's well worth checking out. The photos are surreal. The children are stunning in their capacity to nonetheless experience joy even under terrible conditions. Yet their plight is truly unimaginable to those of us up here.
You can read updates about the kids and the orphanage here.
So--if you're not suffering from disaster fatigue, and if you're looking for a way to help but want to know that your dollars will go right to those who need them most (and who doesn't?), and if your desire is to specifically help parentless children affected by the quake, I can personally assure you that this is a reputable charity, and that all of your money will go straight to helping the kids.
You can donate online at We Can Build An Orphanage. And blessings to you all for considering it.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Back in Blogging Mode
Ay yi yi, I'm not really fulfilling my end of the bargain here, am I? I can't figure out exactly what keeps me from blogging more often than I do. Though I have some ideas:
1. My own internal standards of perfection. Blogging, by nature, is a relatively off-the-cuff enterprise. Have thought, type it out, hit send. For someone who labors over every paragraph for hours, by nature, that's a foreign concept. And an unsettling one. Result: avoidance.
2. Time. Well, we all know about that one. Two kids, one husband, one house, two cats, a book that needs to be promoted, a book that needs to be conceived, students, the 2:45 school pickup daily, dinner every night, endless bills, taxes due soon. Structure and time management have never been my fortes. Why do today what you can't do today? Result: procrastination.
3. Fear of narcissism. Maybe I'm unduly affected by readers who accuse me (and other memoirists; I'm not alone) of being self-absorbed. With all that's going on in the world--Haiti, California's budget fiasco, nutso bank bonuses, the price of gas, and (god help us all) Scott Brown, who cares what I have to say? Even more to the point, is it fair of me to try to make other people care what I have to say when so many other more important things are going on in the world (see above)? Result: self-doubt.
If any of you have suggestions not just for how to get oneself on a regular blogging schedule, but also how to keep believing that one's own thoughts are worth sharing on a regular basis--I'm interested in hearing them. In the meantime, I'll be blogging when I know I have something worthwhile to say, not just to fill space and time. God knows, we all have enough demands on our time these days.
1. My own internal standards of perfection. Blogging, by nature, is a relatively off-the-cuff enterprise. Have thought, type it out, hit send. For someone who labors over every paragraph for hours, by nature, that's a foreign concept. And an unsettling one. Result: avoidance.
2. Time. Well, we all know about that one. Two kids, one husband, one house, two cats, a book that needs to be promoted, a book that needs to be conceived, students, the 2:45 school pickup daily, dinner every night, endless bills, taxes due soon. Structure and time management have never been my fortes. Why do today what you can't do today? Result: procrastination.
3. Fear of narcissism. Maybe I'm unduly affected by readers who accuse me (and other memoirists; I'm not alone) of being self-absorbed. With all that's going on in the world--Haiti, California's budget fiasco, nutso bank bonuses, the price of gas, and (god help us all) Scott Brown, who cares what I have to say? Even more to the point, is it fair of me to try to make other people care what I have to say when so many other more important things are going on in the world (see above)? Result: self-doubt.
If any of you have suggestions not just for how to get oneself on a regular blogging schedule, but also how to keep believing that one's own thoughts are worth sharing on a regular basis--I'm interested in hearing them. In the meantime, I'll be blogging when I know I have something worthwhile to say, not just to fill space and time. God knows, we all have enough demands on our time these days.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Virtually Yours
The national book tour ended about a week and a half ago, covering 15 cities in about eight weeks. Many thanks to everyone at home and elsewhere who made it such a memorable trek. From the SheWrites.com salon at Wicki’s loft in NYC all the way to Tami’s invention of the Possibilitini Martini in South Florida (see recipe below) it was an illuminating two-month dialogue with readers and new friends that I’ll not soon forget.
I’m now on Day Two of a virtual book tour, which involves a lot less physical travel but quite a bit of interaction nonetheless. It means logging on to different blogs every day that are reviewing the book or posting interviews with me, and interacting with the bloggers and their followers. The tour is virtual in every sense: Ballantine in New York contracted with a woman named Dorothy in Virginia who runs a company called Pump Up Your Book! so that an author in California can be introduced to readers all over the country—and nobody has to leave the comfort of their computer screens.
In my case, it means sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee first thing in the morning before my kids get up, to check the first round of blog comments from the East Coast; then logging on again later in the day—usually from a café in Topanga—to see who’s joined the conversation; and then checking in a third time at night after the kids have gone to bed, to respond to the final comments and thank everyone for participating.
What this online tour is revealing, right from the start, is that I’ve written a much more controversial book than I thought I had, and for reasons I wouldn’t have expected. On the physical tour I encountered mainly people who hadn’t yet read the book or who’d read it and liked it. The internet is where the divergence of opinion shows up, and sheesh, has it ever.
I knew I was taking a risk with this book, although I’d anticipated that most of the flak I’d receive would be because of its spiritual message. Instead, I’ve come under scrutiny almost exclusively because of…my parenting. Depending on the reader, my character in the book was either courageous, or irresponsible. Honest, or overanxious. Thoughtful, or (and this is a big one being leveled at many female memoirists these days) self-absorbed.
Admittedly, the choices my husband and I made nine years ago were not ones that many parents would make. One blogger—and I’m reluctant to use the word “reviewer” because blogs are personal opinions, after all—yesterday objected so strongly to us as parents that she couldn’t find much of merit in the book to recommend. (Yet one of the reader responses to her post was “I love books like this! Thanks!”—proving the point that all publicity is good publicity, I guess.) Then another blogger today at luxuryreading.com identified so much with the parents of a troubled child that she called the book one of the five best books she’d ever read.
And there you have it, my friends. The Mommy Wars. Alive and kicking on The POE blog tour.
If you really want to see the battle in action, check out the book’s Amazon reviews, where opinions range from “I couldn’t put this book down” to “I kept wanting to slap the author.” (Real nice, ay? Thanks, Marcy, whoever you are! Love you, too, sister!) And please feel free to weigh in and share your own opinion, if not specifically about my parenting—because why should the choices one mother made nine years ago matter so much to another mother today?—then about why mothers are so quick to judge those who parent differently than they do. And how at a time when unity and cooperation are so essential, the only purpose this kind of criticism serves is to help the poster feel more secure and confident about herself.
Let’s try to raise the dialogue above that level, and into a type of discourse that actually does some public good. Anyone game?
The Possibilitini
1.5 oz vodka
.5 oz Triple Sec.
.5 oz pomegranate juice
.5 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp sugar syrup.
Shake with ice and pour over 1 tsp pomegranate seeds.
I’m now on Day Two of a virtual book tour, which involves a lot less physical travel but quite a bit of interaction nonetheless. It means logging on to different blogs every day that are reviewing the book or posting interviews with me, and interacting with the bloggers and their followers. The tour is virtual in every sense: Ballantine in New York contracted with a woman named Dorothy in Virginia who runs a company called Pump Up Your Book! so that an author in California can be introduced to readers all over the country—and nobody has to leave the comfort of their computer screens.
In my case, it means sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee first thing in the morning before my kids get up, to check the first round of blog comments from the East Coast; then logging on again later in the day—usually from a café in Topanga—to see who’s joined the conversation; and then checking in a third time at night after the kids have gone to bed, to respond to the final comments and thank everyone for participating.
What this online tour is revealing, right from the start, is that I’ve written a much more controversial book than I thought I had, and for reasons I wouldn’t have expected. On the physical tour I encountered mainly people who hadn’t yet read the book or who’d read it and liked it. The internet is where the divergence of opinion shows up, and sheesh, has it ever.
I knew I was taking a risk with this book, although I’d anticipated that most of the flak I’d receive would be because of its spiritual message. Instead, I’ve come under scrutiny almost exclusively because of…my parenting. Depending on the reader, my character in the book was either courageous, or irresponsible. Honest, or overanxious. Thoughtful, or (and this is a big one being leveled at many female memoirists these days) self-absorbed.
Admittedly, the choices my husband and I made nine years ago were not ones that many parents would make. One blogger—and I’m reluctant to use the word “reviewer” because blogs are personal opinions, after all—yesterday objected so strongly to us as parents that she couldn’t find much of merit in the book to recommend. (Yet one of the reader responses to her post was “I love books like this! Thanks!”—proving the point that all publicity is good publicity, I guess.) Then another blogger today at luxuryreading.com identified so much with the parents of a troubled child that she called the book one of the five best books she’d ever read.
And there you have it, my friends. The Mommy Wars. Alive and kicking on The POE blog tour.
If you really want to see the battle in action, check out the book’s Amazon reviews, where opinions range from “I couldn’t put this book down” to “I kept wanting to slap the author.” (Real nice, ay? Thanks, Marcy, whoever you are! Love you, too, sister!) And please feel free to weigh in and share your own opinion, if not specifically about my parenting—because why should the choices one mother made nine years ago matter so much to another mother today?—then about why mothers are so quick to judge those who parent differently than they do. And how at a time when unity and cooperation are so essential, the only purpose this kind of criticism serves is to help the poster feel more secure and confident about herself.
Let’s try to raise the dialogue above that level, and into a type of discourse that actually does some public good. Anyone game?
The Possibilitini
1.5 oz vodka
.5 oz Triple Sec.
.5 oz pomegranate juice
.5 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp sugar syrup.
Shake with ice and pour over 1 tsp pomegranate seeds.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Writing About the Extraordinary
One of the best parts of being a nonfiction writing instructor is watching students transform over the course of a week as their stories come into focus and take shape. Not just because of the excitement that comes from watching a text emerge, but from witnessing the personal changes that takes place as they reach greater insights about what they’ve experienced and what it means in a larger, universal sense.
I had a similar experience while writing The Possibility of Everything. I spent twelve chapters explaining and analyzing my complete absence of faith and trust, both of which were shattered in 1981 when my mother died, and then, when I was within ten pages of finishing the book, I had what amounted to (for me) a revelation. In the middle of an otherwise innocuous sentence, I suddenly realized that if I hadn’t had at least a small amount of faith left I never would have agreed to travel to Belize at all.
It was my Dorothy and the Red Shoes moment, an illuminating insight that revealed a truth I’d been keeping a secret even from myself. I hadn’t strayed quite as far from my roots as I’d thought, and to me this was an emotional homecoming of sorts. Once I understood what it meant, I had to go back and revise some earlier sections of the story. The delivery of the manuscript was delayed by another week, but I think the final product is stronger because of it.
The journey my family took into the rainforest was life-changing, but so was the writing of the book. Because of both of these experiences, I’ve started teaching workshops for people who also want to write about their unusual, unconventional or just non-ordinary experiences in the hope that I can help them tell their stories in a believable manner and also discover new truths about themselves.
Next July at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival I’ll be offering a six-day workshop titled Writing About the Extraordinary. “Extraordinary” is defined broadly: it can be the story of an unexpected healing; a dramatic or unusual encounter; or a mystical story of transformation like the one in my bok. The ISWF online catalog will be posted in February and registration will begin soon after. If you’re interested in this one, I suggest committing as early as you can, since it typically fills up fast.
Even sooner, I’ve just been invited to join authors Joyce Maynard and Ann Hood to teach a weeklong workshop this February at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. Joyce has been running this workshop for several years and I’m very excited to be part of it. It’s different from other workshops I’ve done, insofar that students can work with one, two, or three authors at once, and also participate in a larger community of writers. We’ll also be joined by YA Author Francesco Sedita and possibly another writer, too.
The dates for the Guatemala workshop are February 13-21. If you’re interested you can get much more info here, or by contacting Melissa at writebythelake@yahoo.com. (Or by contacting me at hopeedelman@gmail.com.)
San Marcos la Laguna is a gorgeous, magical setting for writing, and the week offers the opportunity to get double or triple the instruction that most workshops offer. I’ll be there to work with students who have non-ordinary stories to tell, but I’m very happy to work with writers of more traditional memoir or personal essays as well. Plus, I’ll be taking a few exploratory outings during the week to look for native healers around the lake, including the renowned daykeepers who still keep time by the sacred Tzolkin calendar of the Maya, and you’re very welcome to join me on those trips.
Hoping to see some of you for either of these weeks!
Warmly,
Hope
Monday, November 9, 2009
Confessions of a Closet Mystic
As I've been traveling around the country, talking about the book and meeting readers, the number one question I hear is, "How much does Maya remember from your trip?"
Not "What does she remember from your trip?" or "Who does she remember from your trip?" but "How much?"
I find this a curious question, since I can't imagine what difference the quantity of a child's memories, nine years later, could really makes to a reader. So there must be a question behind this question, some impulse that makes people shape their inquiry this way even though there's another piece of information they really want to know.
I spent about the first six weeks of the tour trying to figure this out, and the other night at Women and Children First bookstore in Chicago, when an audience member asked the same question, an insight came to me in a rush.
I think people are asking this because what they really want to know is how much of the wonder and magic of early childhood gets carried into the pre-teen years and, by extension, how much of it might still survive in our adult consciousness today.
I'll try to explain.
A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with a friend and I was telling him how, despite all that happened to us in Belize, I'm still a skeptic at heart who applies a cynical eye to much that comes across my path.
He said, "Actually, I think you've got it backwards. I think this whole skeptic thing you've got going is just an act so people don't accuse you of being too woo-woo. I don't think you're a closet skeptic. I think you're actually a closet mystic but you're afraid to admit it to anyone, even yourself."
I immediately started crying when he said this, which means he's probably right.
Since the beginning of this tour, I've been trying to position myself as Everywomen, so that I can look out at an audience and say, "See! I'm actually very normal! I'm just like you!" in the hope that this will help them identify with my family and my story. When in fact, the more accurate statement might be, "I'm a normal person, yet I nonetheless have these beliefs. You're a lot like me!" Because I know that if you peek beneath the surface of most people, you'll find one or more stories of experiences they've had they defy easy explanation, or cross over into the mystical and cannot rely on common language for description. Whether it's a story of an incredibly coincidence that made you stop and say out loud, "What were the chances of that?" or a dream in which you received information you couldn't possibly have known when awake--it's something that can't be explained but that we nonetheless know can happen, because we experienced it ourselves.
So the reason I think so many people ask me "How much does Maya remember from your trip?" is not even because they want to believe that the open door of childhood can persist into the teenage years and beyond, but because they already know it can and are looking for validation through hearing our story.
Here's what I think: that we're a whole society of closet mystics who've been conditioned to believe only in the sanctity of scientific proof, yet who nonetheless carry within us the deep knowledge that a whole lot is going on that the scientific method cannot explain to our own satisfaction.
What would it take to get more of us to come out?
Not "What does she remember from your trip?" or "Who does she remember from your trip?" but "How much?"
I find this a curious question, since I can't imagine what difference the quantity of a child's memories, nine years later, could really makes to a reader. So there must be a question behind this question, some impulse that makes people shape their inquiry this way even though there's another piece of information they really want to know.
I spent about the first six weeks of the tour trying to figure this out, and the other night at Women and Children First bookstore in Chicago, when an audience member asked the same question, an insight came to me in a rush.
I think people are asking this because what they really want to know is how much of the wonder and magic of early childhood gets carried into the pre-teen years and, by extension, how much of it might still survive in our adult consciousness today.
I'll try to explain.
A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with a friend and I was telling him how, despite all that happened to us in Belize, I'm still a skeptic at heart who applies a cynical eye to much that comes across my path.
He said, "Actually, I think you've got it backwards. I think this whole skeptic thing you've got going is just an act so people don't accuse you of being too woo-woo. I don't think you're a closet skeptic. I think you're actually a closet mystic but you're afraid to admit it to anyone, even yourself."
I immediately started crying when he said this, which means he's probably right.
Since the beginning of this tour, I've been trying to position myself as Everywomen, so that I can look out at an audience and say, "See! I'm actually very normal! I'm just like you!" in the hope that this will help them identify with my family and my story. When in fact, the more accurate statement might be, "I'm a normal person, yet I nonetheless have these beliefs. You're a lot like me!" Because I know that if you peek beneath the surface of most people, you'll find one or more stories of experiences they've had they defy easy explanation, or cross over into the mystical and cannot rely on common language for description. Whether it's a story of an incredibly coincidence that made you stop and say out loud, "What were the chances of that?" or a dream in which you received information you couldn't possibly have known when awake--it's something that can't be explained but that we nonetheless know can happen, because we experienced it ourselves.
So the reason I think so many people ask me "How much does Maya remember from your trip?" is not even because they want to believe that the open door of childhood can persist into the teenage years and beyond, but because they already know it can and are looking for validation through hearing our story.
Here's what I think: that we're a whole society of closet mystics who've been conditioned to believe only in the sanctity of scientific proof, yet who nonetheless carry within us the deep knowledge that a whole lot is going on that the scientific method cannot explain to our own satisfaction.
What would it take to get more of us to come out?
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