"Largest ever hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold found in Staffordshire
First pieces of gold were found in a farm field by an amateur metal detector who lives alone on disability benefit" -- Headline in Guardian newspaper Sept. 24, 2009 (Photo from Guardian)

If that doesn't give writers hope, then you're beyond hope. Just when I thought there was nothing new under the sun. Nothing more to be unearthed, discovered, revealed, this impoverished man living in public housing supported by government disability funds trips over not only the most lucrative treasure find in decades. But it is also another piece of history, from a dark era from which little has been salvaged.

Shades of King Arthur send me into paroxysms of fantasy and 'what if.' Just one find like this reminds me that there are still treasures hidden in our world. They have not all been found. Sadly it seems that treasure hunting and exploration and discovery doesn't get much attention. Headlines are reserved for some politician cheating on his wife and running off to Argentina or whether the government is legislating death squads. Or whether politicians are good dancers.... But legitimate archaeology, exploration or research never get past page 20. Unless, like this situation the least likely person makes the most extravagant find. Truly this is the fodder for fiction. And any fiction writer worth his salt has already begun at least one short story or novel or scene based upon this event.

Once in a decade a writer comes along who finds the mother lode in writing just as Terry Herbert found it in metal detecting. Of course J.K. Rowling comes to mind. These events prove that there is much out there yet to be mined. And, it doesn't take high tech or geniuses to make them happen. Everyday people. A teacher, a man down on his luck. Why not you? Why not me?

The one ingredient we need to add to our writing tools -- HOPE! Renew it each day. Focus on feeding it. For, when hope is gone creativity dries up.

How to grow hope?

1. I hate to channel Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, but he's right -- hope grows in a positive environment. THINK POSITIVELY -- it has power.

2. Write. Write for yourself. If your work isn't selling, so what. Just write. Write something that makes you happy and pushes you into a realm where you feel your creativity growing.

3. Challenge yourself to delve into strange and wacky combinations. Lewis Carroll gave a rabbit a pocket watch. A whole story was written around a princess who had a pea in her mattress. And another woman asked what if there was a wizarding school....

4. Read children's books. I keep repeating that Click, Clack, Moo by Doreen Cronin makes me laugh and jump starts my imagination. With a little juxtaposition, perhaps the pieces of your next great piece of writing will fall into place. And when my imagination is charged, hope grows exponentially.

5. Keep your mind and eyes open. Read and listen and learn whatever you can. Study things new to you. Grow your mind and your hope with it.

6. Look around you at the things you take for granted. There's a story there. Jane Austen recognized the value of everyday life.

There are still new ideas. There are still stories left untold. There are still treasures -- whether in gold or in words -- to be discovered. Why not you? Why not me?

Exercise: Pick a family photo. Maybe of your mother and her siblings. Look at the way they stand. The distance between them. The body language. Arms folded? Arms around each other? Look at their clothes, their hair, their faces. They setting. Lesson One: What do you learn from this photo about the people in it. Tell us their story. Lesson Two: Practice your descripition technique. Describe this group and give them personalities and depth just from the description.

No more piling on!

As I write this the interview between Barack Obama and Tom Brokaw is playing out on Meet the Press. I'm hearing a real discussion, not just sound bites and platitudes.

The election is behind us.

I'm breathing easier than I have for nearly a decade. That sounds strange, I'm sure, because we are probably in the worst situation economically and globally than in my entire life. But finally, I feel that we actually have a mature, capable, ethical, moral, problem-solving man at the helm. I see him building a reputable team to assist him.

The last few weeks I felt relief and hope filter into my thinking. But it became obvious that I have kept alot of frustration, stress and concern -- alot of just plain fear -- bottled up. I question everything and doubt most of what I hear from everyone. And I expect the worst.

When everything came to a head a few days ago, I realized that I needed to find a better way to deal with life's problems. I reached out to friends and colleagues on my favorite writing community, Internet Writing Workshop, and asked for their recommendations for meditation online, books, whatever. And while their suggestions began arriving in my inbox, I began doing my own search.

I believe in the divine. I believe that there is no such thing as a coincidence.

So, when I 'stumble' across a site, I have this faith that something has led me to it. And right now, I'm glowing with that synchronicity that brought me to the wisdom of the Living Life Fully website.

I shared the site with my fellow writers and just this morning I received this response:

"Thank you for this! I've been receiving the meditations for two mornings now. Wow! They are inspiring. This was a true gift. " --Ann

That's how I feel!

The first message I read on this site was exactly what I needed to hear after having been yelled at by my supervisor at work. While I was feeling like I was living the wrong life and wondering where the real 'me' has gone, I read:

Don't feel sorry for yourself if you have
chosen the wrong road--turn around!

Edgar Cayce

After a few paragraphs discussing this concept, it ended with another quote. Almost verbatim what a couple of friends -- fellow muses -- had been telling me:

When you find yourself overpowered, as it were,
by melancholy, the best way is to go out and do something.

John Keble

But the first quote I received in the daily meditations sent to my inbox is now copied and hanging in my locker at work:

Hold up your head! You were not made for failure, you were made for victory; go forward with a joyful confidence in that result sooner or later, and the sooner or later depends mainly on yourself.

Anne Gilchrist

I discovered that simply hearing positive reinforcement, an understanding voice, soothes my throbbing emotions and helps me find a better balance. We are all our hardest critic, worst enemy when it comes to cheering ourselves on. It is time that I stopped piling on when everyone else is down, or yelling or frustrated or attacking me. I don't need to 'feel hurt' I need to raise my chin, smile and remember that I am not made for failure.

With that in mind I can keep things in perspective and realize that it isn't so important what others think of me -- especially those who are not actually looking or listening or are aware of who or what I am. What is important is that I realistically see myself and ease up a bit and just let me enjoy life. Perfection is not my goal. Growing, learning, improving, and most of all enjoying the process -- that's my goal.

No more piling on! The goal has changed and I am the one in control of reaching it!

Americans What Have We Been Thinking?

Do you ever wonder what the companies who inundate the airwaves with their commercials really think about the very consumers they hope to attract? And how do those commercials make you feel, especially if you are a member of the target audience?

This morning the Capitol One credit card commercial, in the wake of the events last night and McCain's and Obama's words of unity and working together and sacrifice and making a change, seemed to reflect America consumers who need to rethink their priorities.

We have laughed at Captain Armadillo who retreats inside his shell when confronted unexpectedly with his wife. My husband says I over think these things for hidden messages. But it looks to me like we have a man who puts the needs of the universe on hold so that he can design a credit card. A card that is made simply to feed the greed for luxury and living beyond our means and purchasing things that polluted our environment in the making, cluttered our lives, pushing out what is truly important, and then ends up in landfills -- a whole 'nother problem.

In addition, he puts a photo of his family on the card and is proud of this 'image' of the perfect family. Yet, when confronted with a real flesh and blood wife offering him avocados (not sure what they represent) he, faster than a speeding bullet, insulates himself inside his protective shell and by the end of the commercial has not re-entered the world nor faced his wife.

Another Capital One commercial features a Captain Nemo type sea captain. He is more concerned with putting his darling Captain Barkey pet's photo on his card than rescuing his first mate who is in the clutches of a giant squid. Yes, I see the humor. But when you put the commercial in the context of a corporate giant seeking consumers -- I don't feel the love or respect. Is that how we are seen? Self-serving, selfish, blind to the needs of our fellow man, more devoted to our pets than to our fellow workers? Obsessed with more credit? Buying? Spending?

Perhaps now that we Americans are hearing a message from our leaders other than 'go out and shop', our behavior and priorities seem so shallow and well, embarrassing.

Would we be in the situation we are, economically, if we had more self-respect and civic pride? I wonder what our world would be like if we actually all gave 10 percent (or more) to improve our world, rather than improve our image of wealth.

Talk about a house of cards. Americans buying larger houses, adding technology that costs hundreds of dollars just because it is new and wearing clothes that copy the style of the rich and famous -- all purchased with plastic bringing us payments we can't afford. We work two and three jobs to maintain a fake lifestyle. When do we get real?

Maybe the change starts with a make over of each American in the image of our forefathers and mothers who knew what the priorities were and didn't spend their days worrying because the neighbor had a better lawn or designer dress or the latest appliance or technology. Yes, we must be consumers and grow the economy, but perhaps we need to make our purchase choices with a more discerning eye and look toward tomorrow, not just instant gratification.

And maybe we need to take another look at the commercials and determine just what those companies think of us? We have been gullible. We have fallen for the snake oil sales pitches. We have spent money we didn't have and never will. We have been childish in our choices saying "I want," rather than "How can I help." And we have taught our children these behaviors.

We all feel the need of change. I hope it will start with us.

Do I think Capitol One is the only corporation who has led us down the garden path to in the name of profit? No. Do I think the commercials will stop? No. It is up to us to make informed and responsible choices. We've made a good first step with choosing to elect a president out of hope, rather than fear.

Brainy Quotes offers several 'definitions' of Hope:

Hope

---

A desire of some good, accompanied with an expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable; an expectation of something which is thought to be desirable; confidence; pleasing expectancy.

---

One who, or that which, gives hope, furnishes ground of expectation, or promises desired good.

---

To entertain or indulge hope; to cherish a desire of good, or of something welcome, with expectation of obtaining it or belief that it is obtainable; to expect; -- usually followed by for.

---

To place confidence; to trust with confident expectation of good.

---

To desire with expectation or with belief in the possibility or prospect of obtaining; to look forward to as a thing desirable, with the expectation of obtaining it; to cherish hopes of.

And one step forward from hope -- faith: "...the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Let's put our faith to work and see what happens! Change, it happens one step at a time. One decision. One effort from every one of us.

It Could Happen....

When we share our lives with a rare, deadly, incurable disease like ALS, our thoughts tend to stray to what ifs and wishes as well as pleadings and prayerful deals.

Lately my thoughts have turned to synchronistic and outright unbelievable treatments and cures, medicines and science that makes me believe that a treatment and yes, even a cure, for ALS cannot be far away.

Brian Williams gave me hope -- hard to believe that the nightly news could instill hope in anyone. But watching the segment about dancing one's symptoms away, made me realize that stranger things happen than finding a way to defeat ALS.

In the segment people with Parkinson's Disease learned that dancing made their symptoms disappear. While dancing their hands no longer shook, their brains cleared, the voices returned to normal. They were, like Cinderella at the ball, magically transformed. Of course as soon as they stop dancing, the clock strikes midnight and they once again don the tattered clothes of Parkinson's Disease.

Doctors don't understand why dancing works. Which gives me even more hope that some strange and wondrous cure will be found for ALS. Recently a scientist in Italy combined riluzole, the one drug found to slow the progress of ALS, with lithium. Alone riluzole only brings about a 10 percent decrease in the progression. Together with lithium, they stop the progression. Stop it. Stopped it in every member of the study who took the combination of drugs. Stopped it for two years, I'm told. Maybe as long as they take the combination it holds the disease at bay.

It certainly is worth giving it a try.

What may be even more remarkable than a scientist figuring out the need to combine these two unrelated drugs, is the idea to use riluzole as a treatment for ALS. I've been told that it is actually a detergent. A cleaner. A cleaner as in laundry detergent.... I am still not sure I believe that information, although it came from a reputable source. Maybe I misunderstood. A laundry detergent slows down the progression of ALS. Amazing.

Maybe it ranks right up there with injecting a disease into a person to make them immune to the disease. Or what about people chewing on willow twigs to cure a headache or licking a frog for pain relief or sticking tiny pins in their bodies to cure whatever ails them. Maybe it ranks right up with meditation and prayer for miracles.

But, when you share you life with a rare, deadly, incurable disease like ALS, tilting at windmills, grasping at straws, believing in the unbelievable becomes a way of life. After all, accepting that such a disease has attacked my husband, changed our lives forever, is also beyond belief.

He takes the first step this weekend toward including riluzole and then lithium in his daily treatment. We welcome all prayers, good wishes, happy thoughts, glass slippers....and most of all we pray for 'happily ever after.'