{"id":29,"date":"2010-10-04T12:51:32","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T12:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/insweetcompany\/2010\/10\/who-woulda-thunk-it.html"},"modified":"2010-10-04T12:51:32","modified_gmt":"2010-10-04T12:51:32","slug":"who-woulda-thunk-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/10\/who-woulda-thunk-it.html","title":{"rendered":"Who Woulda Thunk It?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>&#8220;&#8230; Spiritual practice is making the bed, defrosting the dinner, and so on. It&#8217;s not magical or removed; it&#8217;s about how I discover and reveal myself as I do things that are ordinary.&#8221;<\/i> &#8211; Miriam Polster,&nbsp; IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE<\/p>\n<p>Generally, when I sit myself down at the computer to write an article or a story it&#8217;s because some nub of an idea is pestering me to give it its time in the sun. A fragment of conversation, a line from a movie, a powerful image or poignant memory repeat again and again in my brain. This mind-stuff congeals into the first line of the piece and I&#8217;m off and running. Words course through my fingertips like M &amp; M&#8217;s spilling into a candy dish &#8212; sometimes one pretty M at a time, sometimes as a niagara of language. I never know where the&nbsp; first sentence will take me, and I am always surprised at where I end up. I let it rip when the current is swift and ride out the debris that temporarily passes for writing because I love the crest of a congruent<i> Voila<\/i>! <\/p>\n<p>This morning I hunkered down at my computer waiting for the river to run, but no instant replay of compelling conversations or movies, no internal images or memories sailed the choppy mental waters of Lake Margaret. I&#8217;ve been thinking about &#8220;transparency,&#8221; about the need to tell the truth, or your truth; to be forthcoming and honest about what you think and feel. The risk, the fear of putting it out there. The leap of faith that can free you from the strain of keeping things on the down low.&nbsp; Genuine transparency &#8212; transparency that incorporates kindness and respect &#8212; brings in the Light and mitigates pain. It makes the space for transformation to occur. But that&#8217;s all I got. I thought about writing about the British Petroleums and the Madoffs and the Tigers who&#8217;ve been everything but transparent, the messes they made, yadda yadda yadda. But nothing about all that floats my boat.&nbsp; <br \/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br \/>I went into the kitchen and ate a tangerine. When I sat back down at the computer, the only thing swimming around in my head was the thought that I needed to call my hairdresser and have her trim the twist of hair she missed last time she cut my hair. Not much else I can say about that one.<\/p>\n<p>Other things drifted in and out of my mind: that my Elvis drinking cup is lookin&#8217; shabby; that putting on a new pair of white socks is one of life&#8217;s little pleasures. This gets me thinking about the Everyday Sacred, about finding the Sacred in the ordinary, in the little things, but where do I go from there?<\/p>\n<p>So here I sit. Waiting. Watching. Listening to the wind. Maybe what this piece is supposed to be about is letting go of my need to know where I&#8217;m going when the pressure is on, to just be in the moment and let that be enough. <\/p>\n<p>Whaddya know! I&#8217;ve do believe I&#8217;ve got myself a blog post after all. <\/p>\n<p>Your thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;&#8230; Spiritual practice is making the bed, defrosting the dinner, and so on. It&#8217;s not magical or removed; it&#8217;s about how I discover and reveal myself as I do things that are ordinary.&#8221; &#8211; Miriam Polster,&nbsp; IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE Generally, when I sit myself down at&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-transformation","category-spiritual-journey"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Who Woulda Thunk It? - In Sweet Company<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/10\/who-woulda-thunk-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who Woulda Thunk It? - In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;&#8230; Spiritual practice is making the bed, defrosting the dinner, and so on. It&#8217;s not magical or removed; it&#8217;s about how I discover and reveal myself as I do things that are ordinary.&#8221; &#8211; Miriam Polster,&nbsp; IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE Generally, when I sit myself down at&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/10\/who-woulda-thunk-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-04T12:51:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Margaret Wolff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Who Woulda Thunk It? - In Sweet Company","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/10\/who-woulda-thunk-it.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Who Woulda Thunk It? - In Sweet Company","og_description":"&#8220;&#8230; Spiritual practice is making the bed, defrosting the dinner, and so on. It&#8217;s not magical or removed; it&#8217;s about how I discover and reveal myself as I do things that are ordinary.&#8221; &#8211; Miriam Polster,&nbsp; IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE Generally, when I sit myself down at&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/10\/who-woulda-thunk-it.html","og_site_name":"In Sweet Company","article_published_time":"2010-10-04T12:51:32+00:00","author":"Margaret Wolff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/10\/who-woulda-thunk-it.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/10\/who-woulda-thunk-it.html","name":"Who Woulda Thunk It? - In Sweet Company","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-10-04T12:51:32+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-04T12:51:32+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#\/schema\/person\/9e1d77d12de19dd0d4fbc84d1f7fc52a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/10\/who-woulda-thunk-it.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/10\/who-woulda-thunk-it.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2010\/10\/who-woulda-thunk-it.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Who Woulda Thunk It?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/","name":"In Sweet Company","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Margaret Wolff","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#\/schema\/person\/9e1d77d12de19dd0d4fbc84d1f7fc52a","name":"Margaret Wolff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/673\/67331f0571f27a0987e8cbfde3e832b4x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/673\/67331f0571f27a0987e8cbfde3e832b4x96.jpg","caption":"Margaret Wolff"},"description":"Margaret Wolff has a gift of luring people into becoming who they really are. She speaks and writes about things women care about: how to make our lives and our work be about what we value most; how to navigate challenge and change; how to live with integrity and grace, to look at error in ourselves and others in a forgiving way and view life as an invitation to transform ourselves into instruments for the Greater Good. \"I laughed, I cried, I was silent, I cheered. Most of all, I loved.\" Spoken by a woman at In Sweet Company Retreat, these words express what women experience when Margaret engages them in dynamic, soul-searching conversations about their lives. Margaret holds degrees in art therapy, psychosynthesis, and leadership and human behavior. Her work takes her to universities, to conferences and retreat settings, to living rooms and board rooms -- wherever women gather. Her articles, essays, and stories are featured in numerous magazines; her women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spirituality retreats are held throughout the U.S. Margaret\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last book, In \"Sweet Company: Conversations With Extraordinary Women About Living a Spiritual Life\" (Jossey Bass), is a collection of intimate conversations she had with 14 famous women of various ages, faiths, and backgrounds about how their spirituality nourishes them and serves as a steady compass for their decision-making. Olympia Dukakis, Riane Eisler, Zainab Salbi, Margaret Wheatley, Sri Daya Mata, Lauren Artress, and other women artists, activists, religious leaders, and visionary thinkers shared their lives with her. 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