Mystery Blogger Award

A couple of weeks ago, Toni at Wandering and Wondering nominated me for the Mystery Blogger Award and I want to thank her very much for the honour! And may I just say that, if you're not a regular reader of Toni's blog yet, well, you should be! There's no mystery about that!

This award comes with a list of rules as long as your arm, but I already told Toni that I'm going to break them all! Yes, that's me, the little rebel. I'm cutting right to the chase -- answering the specific questions posed by Toni.

1. What author would you want to write your biography?
I would exhume, resuscitate and dust off the late John Mortimer, the English writer most famous for creating the Rumpole of the Bailey mysteries. To tackle my story, I need an entertaining writer with an insightful perspective on life and a good sense of humour. A critic once accused Mortimer of being a lightweight author because of his habit of "covering pain with jokes." This criticism mystified Mortimer because, as he said, covering pain with jokes is the only possible attitude to life. I agree wholeheartedly.

2. If your life was a movie, what would the theme song be?

I would choose one of my favourite women's spirituality chants called "Powerful Woman." I taught this chant to many women over the years in my Women's Drumming and Goddess Chanting Circle and it never failed to be a group favourite. My life benefitted tremendously from reclaiming my power in any number of areas, so this song has always resonated with me.



3. Destiny or Free Will?
Free will all the way, baby. While our life circumstances can both benefit us and limit us in various ways, in the end it is up to us to make the most of Life with what we are given.

4. Have you ever read a book that truly changed your life?
Oh yes, several. But the one which had the greatest impact on me was Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women by Sylvia Brinton Perera, which I read almost 3 decades ago. This slim volume is a Jungian analysis of the ancient Sumerian myth of the descent, death and rebirth of the Goddess Inanna. I happened to read it a few short years after the most harrowing period of my life and was stunned to see my life experience symbolically mirrored in the ancient myth with a truth and an understanding that I had found nowhere else. Before reading this book, it had never occurred to me that my ordeal had a spiritual significance. That breakthrough moment of realization hit me like a ton of bricks, let me tell you! And it marked the true beginning of my devotion to the Divine Feminine In Her Many Guises.

5. Who/What has had the greatest impact on your life?
Well, for better or for worse, I'd have to say my parents, I guess. Their influence has shaped my life in almost every way. There's no underestimating the impact of our childhoods and families of origin, is there?

6. Funny/weird question: If you could bring any fictional character to life, who would you choose?
Well, at the moment, I am absolutely OBSESSED with the subtextually-queer coded narrative of Captain America and the Winter Soldier as being the greatest star-crossed tragic lovers since Romeo and Juliet, Heathcliff and Cathy, Mr Darcy and Elizabeth, COMBINED. So either one of those two angst-filled boys would be fine with me.

And now, I'm going to throw this award open to anyone who would like to claim it and answer the same set of excellent questions devised by Toni!

WHO will take up the challenge?