Awesome Books

Elephant Company
The Amazing Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II
by Vicki Croke

Except for loving birds, I don't think of myself as an animal person. But this story is totally gripping. It takes you through Burma (Myanmar) from the end of World War I into World War II. The hero bonds with, understands, and cherishes the elephants used to drag and push teak logs into the water. The bond he forges provides a means of saving many lives.

A Hope More Powerful than the Sea
One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival
by Melissa Fleming

I couldn't put this book down once I began reading. It was so helpful to read about her youth in Syria and how the ongoing war began.  My heart was in my mouth when this young woman who does not swim finds herself stranded in the Mediterranean Sea clutching two infants. Her strength and courage is mind boggling.

The Girl with Seven Names
Escape from North Korea
by Hyeonseo Lee and David John

A young woman wanting to experience life outside of North Korea leaves on what she thinks is a lark only to discover that she has left her previous life, endangering the family she left behind. After a decade hiding in plain sight in China, she seeks asylum in South Korea. Finally experiencing the freedom she sought, she risks everything to get her family out of North Korea

The Truths We Hold
An American Journey
by Kamala Harris

Not widely known outside of California where she was Attorney General before becoming one of her state's senators in 2016, Kamala Harris is a very strong woman. With parents from Jamaica and India who were active in the Civil rights movement, she and her sister were raised by her mother to be successful Black girls. Her successful campaigns for public office and the innovative efforts she spearheaded as a public defender will open your eyes to the amazing things that can be done through commitment and hard work.

Your Meaningful Life

Arabian Crossroads LiDoña Wagner 2018

THREE WAYS TO RECOVER MEANING – Viktor Frankl

Man's Search for Meaning 1946

Creative  
Write a book, make a movie, or create a business.

Experiential  
Go somewhere to change your life.

Attitudinal  
What am I living for? If you don’t have meaning, go on a search to find one.

Buddha's Mother Dreaming LiDoña Wagner 2018

FOUR PILLARS OF MEANING - Emily Esfahani Smith

The Power Of Meaning: Crafting A Life That Matters 2017

purpose - finding something worthwhile to do with your time. Your vocation lies where your deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet.

Exercise:Write for ten minutes on your hopes for the future and your legacy – the part of your time that will go on living.   

storytelling - creating narratives that help you understand yourself and the world. Stories help us make sense of the world and our place in it. They claim our identity. 

Exercise: Divide your life into chapters. Recount key scenes (high/low points, turning point, memories). Think about your personal beliefs, values and philosophy of life. Reflect on your story’s central theme.

belonging - connecting and bonding with other people in positive ways.  

Exercise: Present a legacy project to a group: represent how you want to be remembered. Telling stories to an audience is connecting with people and letting them know they are not alone.

transcendence (central to spiritual systems) - mystical experiences of self-loss.

Exercise: Jumpstart a process of ‘deliberate rumination’: for 3-4 days in a row - take 15 minutes to write about the most upsetting experience in your life. Explore emotions and thoughts about the experience. People can learn and change after a trauma. It is how you interpret what happened, what you believe about yourself and life that forces growth. 

India's Cultural Heritage LiDoña Wagner 2018

WHO I AM - Dali Lama 

The Book of Joy - Lasting Happiness in a Changing World 2016

• I am one of 7 billion human beings with global responsibility
• I am a Buddhist monk
• I am Tibetan - 1 of 6 million Tibetans
• I am here to revive ancient Indian knowledge
• I am secular - respect all religions and atheists
• I have to take care of myself
• I trust that change happens through education
• I live compassion. It brings self-confidence and involves telling the truth, being transparent, living with trust, and being warm hearted.

Middle Eastern Records LiDoña Wagner 2018

How To Be Happy

GREATEST INFLUENCE ON HAPPINESS 

• Ability to reframe our situation more positively

• Ability to experience gratitude

• Our choice to be kind and generous

HOW TO BE HAPPY

• Something wonderful is going to happen today

• What one thing can I do today that will move me closer to my highest purpose?

• Deflect partisan conversations

• Assume people have good intentions

• Eat high quality food slowly

• Let go of your results. Focus on the job at hand vs worry

• Do something you love

• End each day with gratitude

• Do something in nature or with plants 

FOUR INDEPENDENT BRAIN CIRCUITS THAT INFLUENCE OUR LASTING WELLBEING

• Our ability to maintain positive states – starts with love and compassion.

• Our ability to recover from negative states

• Our ability to focus and avoid mind-wandering – meditation 

• Our ability to be generous – cooperation, compassion, generosity 

SELF COMPASSION

• Accept there are personality traits that are not satisfying, but do not berate the self as you try to address them.

• When we go through a difficult time be kind and caring to the self. 

• When we feel inadequate, remind self all people go through these feelings/limitations.

• Things are hard. Recognize that all people go through similar challenges.

• When feeling down, try to be curious and accepting rather than rejecting or self-judgmental.

• Be of benefit to others.

• Sing, Dance, Hear/Tell Stories

• Be Comforted by Silence

BLESSING WAY

• Show Up: choose to be Present 

• Follow what has heart and meaning

• Tell the truth without blame or judgment

• Be open to outcome - not attached to outcome 

INTENTION REFLECTION INQUIRY

• What made me happy today?

• Where did I experience Peace, Comfort, Solace, Sanctuary?

• Who or what inspired me today?

HOW TO STAY CENTERED

• Gratitude 

• Meditation 

• Physical Activity

• Social Connectedness 

HOW TO STAY HEALTHY

• Know your value

• Maintain a moderate weight

• Eating: avoid trans-fats, eat 5 fresh fruits and veggies a day, watch daily dairy totals

• Exercise 3 times a week

• Relaxation/Spirituality

• No alcohol, smoking, drugs 

HOW TO BE CALM

• Breathe

• Listen

• Be Least in Need 

• Go Where Light Is

• Go Where Love Is 

BE A RESERVOIR OF JOY, 

AN OASIS OF PEACE,

A POOL OF SERENITY

Why I Vote

When I was a child only my father was allowed to speak at family events. 

But when I went to school, I learned that I had my own voice and could express my own ideas. 

As a young adult I worked in community development and that is when I discovered that when I vote I amplify my voice on issues that are of concern to me. 

Think about the issues that concern you. VOTE!

Completing Our 2017-18 Mandala Journey

Melody Carr

Melody brought her skills as a poet, gardener, and photographer to her mandala journey. From these she developed a distinctive ‘Folk Art’ style that reflects her strength of character and grounding in reality. As she began the mandala she was at a major life turning point. Thoughout our journey together she reassessed where she had come from and dreamed of where she wanted to go. 

Melody’s Story

I am a woman who

is walking onward, though there are no paths

who is swimming to the island of my soul

who is watching the mountain’s stillness

who is opening her heart and pulling all the bandages off

who is dancing in the fires of the people

who sings walking the hills in the autumn of time

who comes through the cataclysm

who is the spirit held in glass and the reflections of sacred forms

who is outlasting tragedy and violence all around

who is companioned by the spirit of the cyclone

who floats in dark waters 

and exhales her troubles.

Janet Asman

Janet was a clothing designer before becoming a realtor. She brought her highly developed sense of color and design to painting her mandala. Taking pride in all that she does, she worked with commitment toward giving her mandala a sense of completeness. Her mandala reflects a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment.

Janet’s Colors

The four main colors I see when looking at my mandala are blues, greens, whites, and golds. To me the blues and greens represent peace and calm, growth and earth. The whites and creams feel like spirit and the light, purity. The golds feel like wealth of spirit and the imprinted potential for wholeness. Gold balances out the colors. All the colors represent richness of spirit and the presence of grace. In my life I have always had a clear connection with spirit. I knew I wanted my mandala to reflect that connection. I have to feel peace in my existence along with inspiration and grace. This is the level I strive to operate on and to learn from.

Janet’s Journey

Janet chose to tell her story through creating a slide show of her step by step process. Click below to enjoy viewing her journey.

Janet's Mandala Journey

Hope Lewis

This was Hope's fourth mandala. She is a poet, quilter, gardener, and family matriarch with years of experience in doing dream work. Each mandala reflects her experiences expanding awareness and unique pointillist style. 

Worm and Snakes in Hope’s Mandala

Worm. Life reborn from corruption. Human race derived from the worm. Worm marks the stage preceding dissolution and decomposition. Points the way leading up from the primordial energy to life. Transformation and transition to a higher state. Passage of earth to light/death to life. Larval state to spiritual release. Snake. Mankind and snakes opposites. Serpent in all humans. Have no control. Lower psyche. What is unusual, incomprehensible and mysterious. Snake shocks the spirit. Snake a line that goes into infinity. Sacred made manifest. Old God. Dual symbol of soul and libido. Cosmic serpent bites its tail.

Hope’s Story

This is the story of a woman who remembers her inner child and loves her and has watched her grow into an older soul. Having gone through many life experiences, she realizes the mystery of lie is a journey to the center of all things, a journey to oneness with all things. Sitting in nothingness is sitting in all things. A paradox indeed. A mystery indeed. 

Opening to the dream world, to the symbolic world, has brought me to this oneness. This ever expanding view will continue I hope until she disappears exactly how she appeared 73 years ago. This journey is an alleluia experience if one can move forward knowing one is never alone while moving closer and closer to the unknown that somehow we sense to be present. This is the story of a woman who finds peace in knowing all is as it should be even in the worst of times, even when the mystery refuses to show itself. 

LiDoña Wagner

I was introduced to mandalas by Carl Jung over thirty years ago and have been drawing and painting mandalas ever since. After studying with Madeleine Shields in Victoria, British Columbia, I took what I knew about dream work, journal writing, meditation, creativity, and personal growth and designed a Dream Mandala Journey process using a Tibetan Buddhist structure. I have been taking women on Dream Mandala Journeys for nearly twenty years and every time I learn something new.  

LiDoña’s Story

This is the story of a woman whose natural joie de vie led to a denial that she had become old even as she experienced increasing physical difficulties. The colors in her fire ring expressed her yearning for deeper spirituality.

A year into her mandala journey her health was declining; she finally acknowledged that she was old. Her dream reflections and dialogues told her that the individuation journey was complete and it was time to begin a new journey of learning to express love and compassion. They also reflected her struggle to write the book that would accompany her completed Maiden Migrations installation. 

The color green kept appearing and reappearing, revealing her closeness to nature and her ability to nurture, parent, and protect. Another color, a warm yellowish orange called Gamboge, asserted itself as a powerful metaphor for change and reflected her energetic striving, sense of identity, and healthy assertiveness. This Gamboge color called out to her to recognize a developing sense of a more genuine and personal spirituality. 

As her mandala journey took her to the four portals into the Inner Garden, her diminished health was too blatant to ignore. Her naturopath put her on a diet that revealed her health issue was not arthritis. Her portals announced inner strengths: Root chakra/I am safe. Power chakra/I am whole and perfect. Heart chakra/I love and am loved. Throat chakra/I am light.

Working on the Inner Garden provided peace while she was negotiating a reassessment of her illness. Red is the dominant inner garden color. This color used in ritual celebrations marks an arousal of healing, life-giving potentials deep within the psyche. It also is a sign of progress toward achieving one’s great work. It represents the energy we need to survive, be healthy, and transform ourselves to greater inner wisdom.  

Completing the Inner Garden precipitated creation of a lace-like pattern in the Sea of Life to connect the Inner Garden to the transition ring and dream cycle. Her mandala work provided strength to go to Seattle and arrange for the first exhibition of Maiden Migrations in June of 2019. 

Then the bottom dropped out of her plans for the future as X-rays revealed that something was eating away her right hip bone. A total body scan revealed she had a metastatic bone disease in several bones of her body. More tests. Learning there were no tumors in any major organs was a relief. A bone biopsy gave a definitive diagnosis: metastasis from breast cancer 21 years ago. She learned that this is considered to be a chronic illness for which she will need to have treatment for the rest of her life.

This woman’s Inner Garden takes the shape of a cross, suggesting that she is waging a hero’s battle and may be called upon to endure a period of testing. She is balancing the contradictions that are part of human nature. The garden is filled with flowers  that suggest a growth process unfolding in her relationship to the self. It reveals her soul’s work. 

On Becoming Old

The fashionable cane that helps me balance to prevent falling.

I am old. Denial is no longer an option. As I approach the anniversary of my 79th year as a spiritual being having a human experience, my arthritic hip is a constant reminder that one cannot turn back the physical clock.

One would think that earlier brushes with death would have prepared me for the end of life. After all I could have died when:

• one of two engines failed on a six-seat plane on the way to Timbuktu; or
•  when our tent collapsed as we set out to march in Selma; or
• in the Chicago riots after the assassination of Martin Luther King; or
• on a Filipino bus set fire by protestors; or
• had my emergency appendectomy in the Philippines been a few hours later; or
• hitchhiking in Maharastra, India; or
• when I had breast cancer; or 
•  of grief when my only child died: or
• when I hit my head during a fall on the sidewalk in 2015.

But, no. None of those events foretold my struggles with aging. 

The pool where I walk and hang (traction) three times a week to keep my body supple.

Pioneering Meaningful Life

Nor did it help when my physical therapist met my complaint about how much time it takes to care for this aging body with a smiling response. “Isn’t it great that you no longer need to work so you have time to deal with your health issues?” I did not see any great benefit in what she said and while her comment stopped my complaining to her, I continued to rail to myself against what seemed to be outrageous healthcare demands.

What did help was when, after ordering X-rays of the hip, my young physical therapist said, “LiDoña, modern medicine has made it possible for humans to live longer, but the human body was not designed for long life.”

Suddenly, I realized that as baby boomers we are once again pioneering. Now we are leading the charge for living meaningful lives in bodies that are shutting down.

The elaborate bed that enhances circulation in my leg and reading in bed.

Extraordinary Time

Last week three deaths struck me in the heart.

• My dear friend Gail Katul, who shared my same age, died after a struggle with vascular dementia. She was in my first Eugene Dream Mandala class and was my first local art patron. She was bright, sensitive, creative, and generous.
•  Aretha Franklyn, Queen of Soul and singer for three presidential inaugurations, died at the same age that I am now. As President Obama said, “she gave us a piece of divinity”.
• Kofi Annan, the former courageous United Nations General Secretary, passed away just after turning 80. The world lost one of its great peace warriors.

These deaths of persons my age brought to mind something my friend Gordon Harper said after he learned of his diagnosis of Leukemia. “I intend to live this period until my death as EXTRAORDINARY TIME.” And he did.

A similar message is carried in the film The Last Word. Shirley McClain plays a former successful businesswoman facing (and even wanting) death. Yet she decides to make her final months into an extraordinary life - one inspiring others to be their best self.

As you become aware of your human clock ticking down, what kind of extraordinary time will you live?

Magic of the Mask

Painting of a Stag Shaman in Le Trois Freres cave in France.
Shamanism is thought to be one of the first religions practiced by humans.

Who has not felt the thrill of putting on a mask to become something other than you are otherwise seen to be? Whether it was a Vampire mask for Halloween, a Nefertiti mask for a New Year's Eve party, or makeup for a role in a play, there is something mesmerizing about taking on a different persona. And so it has been for hundreds of thousands of years.

The oldest recorded masks are 40,000-30,000 years old, depicted in Paleolithic cave art. Masks allow us to perform sacred, practical, and playful roles. In the Himalayas they were used as mediators of supernatural forces. Similarly, pictures of shamans in varied cultures reveal the use of masks to shape shift for viewers. 

Tigerman Fight painting in Bhimbetka caves in central India.

In Asia, masked characters usually represent divinities, visages of glory, and are used to ward off evil associated with both the animal and divine worlds. In the United States, Mardi Gras allows mask wearers to play and tell stories. In Oceania, where ancestral worship is prevalent, masks are instruments of revelation, giving form to the sacred. Throughout Europe there are regional folk celebrations that often employ animal masks.

Bird Woman

The magic of the mask was certainly on my mind when I created my five-session creativity workshop; one session was devoted to mask making. With plaster gauze normally used for setting broken bones, participants made a mask of each other’s face and then decorated it to imaginatively depict their inner selves. I got the idea and instructions from Goddesses In Everywoman by Jean Shinoda Bolen.

Joe Bolton - Carved cedar wood Native American mask Haisla, BC

It is my practice to do whatever I ask my students to do. I was living in Victoria, B.C. on Vancouver Island then and one of my favorite Sunday afternoon outings was to visit the Native American art gallery inside the Empress Hotel. They  displayed incredibly beautiful carved traditional masks by First Nations people of the region. Being on an island, water was visible; there were numerous beaches; and seagulls were everywhere. Perhaps it was the combination of all those factors that led me to create a bird mask using sand and sea shells I had collected on a visit to Mexico. I used a white shoestring for the top edging.

LiDoña Wagner Bird Woman Mask 1996

At that time I was aware of the symbolism of the phoenix rising from the ashes and since I had recently left a 30-year career as an international social activist, that felt appropriate. But birds are also seen as linking heaven and earth so in many cultures birds represent the immortal soul. In cave paintings at Altamira they appear to represent the flight of the soul or the spirit flight of a shaman. 

LiDoña Wagner Bird Woman Mask 1996

Although we wore our masks in the final workshop celebration, being shaped to our faces, they were not comfortable. One woman had painted both the inside and outside of her mask so she mounted it on a stick so she could turn it either way. Most of us attached a wire to the back and hung them on our walls.

This Stone mask from 7000 BC may be the oldest in the world.

Sea Nymph

Later, in a workshop in Eugene, Oregon I discovered that I really missed the water that had surrounded me in Victoria. So I decided to marble my mask with sea green and blue paints. I adorned her with a long pale green and white scarf. I called her Sea Nymph.

Everything comes from and returns to the sea. The sea represents the female aspect of the unconscious. It is the place of birth, transformation, death, and rebirth. I was recovering from breast cancer at the time which felt like a brush with death. I had also just learned of my daughter’s melanoma and knew the prognosis was not good. I was hoping that the sea’s representation of the dynamism of life would rescue my daughter. It did not.

LiDoña Wagner transformed Sea Nymph 1998-2017

Transformation

While working on my project of tracing our human migration from East Africa to all parts of the world I sometimes invite a friend to review the work and give me feedback. Captivated by the three-dimensional pieces I was making for each alcove, one such visitor spotted Bird Woman on my studio wall. She asked which alcove this mask would accompany. I told her I had made it twenty years earlier. She was adamant that it belonged in this installation of our global human journey. Oh, really?

I wasn’t sure where Bird Woman belonged but I was pretty sure that Sea Nymph went with her. However Sea Nymph began asking to be transformed. Since she was clearly of the sea, I decided to attach shells to the crown of her head. That did not work. I removed them, leaving a series of holes at the top of the mask.

Sea Nymph looked so plain and nondescript, my next thought was to carve a fish skeleton into one side of her face. The plaster started to crumble when I began cutting. So I just cut out the base form of the fish. This allowed me to create the fish skeleton separately and to make it more durable by applying additional layers of plaster gauze. Since this was a ‘sacred’ fish related to the numinous world of the unconscious, I painted the fish skeleton iridescent pearl. A small turquoise stone I have carried for years seemed an appropriate fish eye.

LiDoña Wagner transformed Sea Nymph 1998-2017

Since ancient humans used animal skins for many purposes, I decided to simply make knots in some white leather cord to fill the holes in her upper forehead. Then I began attaching shells to the area of her ears, also using white leather cord. That seemed to somehow work. I had thought to attach the fish to the nymph mask but nothing I tried seemed right, so I decided to simply hang them together.

LiDoña Wagner Gifts of the Sea assemblage 2017

Gifts of the Sea Assemblage

As I ruminated on the two masks, Bird Woman and Sea Nymph, I felt they needed to be assembled with fishnet. I bought a cotton net bag and cut it apart to resemble netting. I hung the assemblage in an available wall space until I decided it belonged with Southwest Asia. That alcove focuses on the animal life that teemed throughout the world until homo sapiens began to exterminate them and dominate earth. 

While homo sapiens were in the minority, we were keen observers of animal behavior. It was from the predator animals that we learned to kill critters and eat their meat, thus developing a hunter gatherer lifestyle. In many ways homo sapiens identified with the animals they hunted. It was natural for them to perform rituals involving the characteristics of different animals. The use of animal skins and masks impersonating animals enriched their ritual life.

My ongoing research had revealed that ancient humans used to beat bark and make it into cords and ropes. So I added some primitive rope for texture and color. I don't think the position of the rope is quite right yet. I also realize that for exhibition purposes, the assemblage requires a solid backing that can be more easily moved than creating nail configurations in every location. 

A Life’s Work

Frankly, it felt sort of dorky to be including some of my early artwork in this current body of work on our global human journey. But I have come to accept that these early masks are evidence that what I am doing is a life work. My fascination with global cultures, antiquity, communication with the gods, and empowering women are lifelong passions. 

Fang Ngil funeral mask from N. Gabon