Although the theme this month is Contrast, I’m hoping (fingers crossed) this goes off without a hitch.
You see, this is my first newsletter sent using the new Substack tech platform.
As I said last week, none of this needs to affect you in any way.
I’m committed to offering Vlad and my weekly adventures along with the monthly meditations (September’s HERE) as my gift.
(ie, FREE)
You might reasonably then ask, why are we switching?
Besides the promotional advantages, this platform allows you to access premium bonus content––just FYI, the Transformational Book Club was the overwhelming winner in the survey––or simply show us some love.
Regarding the latter, I have a binder full of letters from people telling me how much what I’ve shared has resonated, often at the perfect synchronistic moment.
I confess that when the going is tough, and the internet seems a particularly lonely place, reading through those pages reminds me that I’m adding value.
Thus, you can absolutely continue to read on for free, my friend, as my guest…or, if it resonates, consider contributing $5 towards Vlad’s College Fund.
Speaking of love, Vlad’s enjoyed not one, but two salon visits this summer.
The first was joining me for a hair cut, something he’s done several times before at our local old school and thus super-hipster (and very dog-friendly) barber shop.
This week, however, Vlad accompanied me to our friend Elizabeth Block’s Beyond Vanity book signing.
According to her publisher, the book is “a riveting and diverse history of women’s hair that reestablishes the cultural power of hairdressing in nineteenth-century America.”
Appropriately it was held at a unique beauty salon in Williamsburg, one that has the first and only public library dedicated to hair research.
(I’m not kidding).
Although this isn’t really the focus of her scholarship, I couldn’t help but think about how contrast plays into so much of what she’s writing about as she explores the pressures in a society (like our own) very much obsessed with appearances and external validation.
Here the contrast is between ego and spirit, between illusion and reality.
Given the historical distance, it’s sometimes easier to see that transformational path and its pitfalls than it is our own.
In any case, Vlad received many compliments for his good behavior especially during the Q&A portion of the evening.
That may be, however, because rather than listening to the lecture about the history of hair, Vlad was mostly focused on flirting with the other well-coiffed attendees.
One of the difference between the newsletter platforms––confirmed by the AI chatbot––is that I can’t center or indent text.
Instead, I have to go to the pulldown menu labeled “More” and select “Poetry Box” and do the spacing manually.
Fittingly for this month’s theme of Contrast, I think there’s just something so ironic about the term “Poetry Box.”
After all, poetry is about expressive freedom, or as Wordsworth wrote, “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”
It’s basically all about “unboxing.”
Indeed, as Carl Sanburg penned, “Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air.“
Musing further on the “poetry box,” I had to share one of my favorite poems by the incomparable Mary Oliver, one that speaks of Contrast using the metaphor of another unfathomable box.
The Uses of Sorrow
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift
Sidebar: I hope you appreciate that I had to manually add those indents above.
Moving on, it’s never felt like the perfect metaphor for me, but much of it still resonates.
Specifically, many spiritual teachers (include Abraham-Hicks and Bashar) have used the Rubber Band as a metaphor for the relationship between Contrast (this month’s theme) and Expansion.
The idea is that when you experience contrast (something unwanted or uncomfortable), it’s like stretching a rubber band.
There’s visible tension, and the more you stretch (or the more contrast you experience), the more potential energy is stored in the rubber band.
Releasing the rubber band causes things to snap back but with added momentum.
Extended to life experience, contrast creates the potential for growth and expansion, and when you let go of resistance, you experience a powerful shift toward what you desire.
Unlike other transformational teachers, however, I’m not going to omit mentioning the obvious: sometimes those rubber-band snack backs can really sting.
As I navigate some particularly stinging contrast in my life right now, I’m reminded of something I wrote two years ago
“It’s very unwise to help a butterfly emerge from its cocoon.
Not only is the timing essential, the right moment to emerge is known only to the butterfly.
Most importantly, a necessary part of the butterfly’s process IS the struggle.
The challenge of trying to emerge from its confines releases essential chemicals, ones that strengthen and allow their wings to form properly.
Without enough resistance, prematurely freed, a butterfly will never be able to take flight.
Thus, however well intended, trying to help a butterfly emerge too soon from its chrysalis is almost always a mistake, often a fatal one.
The kindest thing you can do is let them struggle.”
Without enough contrast, in other words, even the most fragile things perish.
Speaking of butterflies, and yet at the risk of being coy…
I’m excited by sharing some things with the premium members first.
One of them is the art project I’ve been working on behind the scenes for the last year.
(There’s a butterfly reference in the pieces).
The website is password protected for many reasons, chief among them I’m waiting for a few elements to fall into place before a big public reveal, yet honestly it’s more than that.
Like the butterfly, artistic dreams can get crushed all too easily if they’re not ready for the world.
Contrast has its limits after all.
Yet this week as we were moving to Substack, I suddenly got excited about sharing it now with those I know would be on board, with those who would help uplift.
I invite you to be one of them.
There will be a public unveiling soon, but if you want a sneak peek at the art project––and other bonus content like the Transformation Book Club––plus the infinite joy of contributing to Vlad’s College Fund, here’s how:
Please also note: if Vlad wants to go to beauty school instead of Yale, I’m totally cool with that, too…even if he decides to drop out!
Finally, Joseph Murphy has a quote I love about problems:
“The Joy is in Overcoming.”
In that spirit, I wanted to share how I’ve been delighted by contrast around one of my addictions: word puzzles.
I’ve been doing all the puzzles in the New York Times (the mini, Wordle, Spelling Bee, Connections, the full puzzle, and now Strands) every day for I don’t know how long.
One of the hallmarks of the full puzzle is that Monday is the easiest day, progressing through to Saturday being the most difficult.
(Sunday, just FYI, is Wednesday-level challenging, just much longer).
In the last month though, I also began doing the New Yorker’s daily puzzles which are guided by the opposite philosophy:
Monday is the hardest and Friday is the easiest; the week starts out rough but ends with a breeze at your back.
Life seems to operate similarly.
In some areas, challenges seem to be endlessly increasing, whereas in other lanes things are genuinely getting easier.
There’s comfort in knowing that there can be opposing systems at play, some where the contrast heightens and others where it decreases.
In the same way, it’s also good to remember that rubber bands do snap back.
Ultimately, perhaps every cocoon is a Poetry Box, one where we must carve out the space we need by hand, patiently waiting for the right moment to break free.
Namaste for Now,
