Two of my dearest friends are getting married on Wednesday, Valentine’s Day.  They found each other when they were 70 and have been happily together for 2 years.  Theirs is a story written in heaven.

I’ve been friends with Diane for over 30 years.  She’s an extremely gifted painter (https://dianewoodsdesign.com/)  and one of the most young-at-heart people I’ve ever known.

The wonderful poet, Louis Alan Swartz, asked Diane to illustrate a special issue of his love poetry to be published for Valentine’s Day a couple years ago.  Diane sent him 5 paintings to choose for his book cover.  Louis selected one and asked her to send it to his publisher, George, whom Diane had never met.

Diane accidentally sent George all 5 paintings … and George fell in love with her.  He took one look at Diane’s paintings and knew all he needed to know, all that was important, about her.  He knew he loved her.

I still laugh about the next conversation I had with Diane.  She and George hadn’t talked yet and she was wondering why the publisher’s emails to her seemed so unusually … she struggled for the right word … so unusually warm for someone she didn’t know.

During these early emails with George, Diane discovered that she could fully be herself without any restraints, that it was wonderful to share her innermost ideas and beliefs with him, that he deeply understood her, that he was a man she admired.  Diane fell equally in love.

They carried on a gorgeous correspondence via email and then had their first phone call …. which led to their first (nervous and fabulous) meeting  in person … which led to blissfully accepting George’s heartfelt proposal of marriage and Diane’s moving to Austin, Texas to make a home with George where they share a deep love and make each other ridiculously happy.

A love of Louis’ poetry brought them together.  His next volume of poetry, Magic Realized, was illustrated by Diane and published by George, two rejoicing, exuberant 70-year old kids who, inspired by Louis’ poetry, found love and adore each other.

And on Valentine’s Day, they’re getting married.   It truly is magic realized.

Needless to say, the poetry book Magic Realized is a wonderful Valentine’s gift.  For yourself and for anyone you love.

Wishing you a beautiful Valentine’s Day and love that makes your eyes sparkle all the days of your life.

Love,

Ingrid

 

I spend a lot of time dreaming.

It’s nice being grown up because now I don’t have to hide to do it.  When I was younger, there was never a place where it was okay.  I always had to have a subterfuge, like pretend I was reading if anyone looked over at me.

There’s something about sitting, looking out and doing nothing that made others anxious to get me “doing something”.

Except for my aunt.  My aunt was a dreamer.  She would often sit and dream.  Sometimes we would sit together and just look out her big windows.  She lived on the 17th floor of a beautiful apartment building in Philadelphia and her view overlooked the Schuylkill River and the Philadelphia Art Museum.  Or we’d just look at the ocean if we were at the beach, say nothing and, for a good long while, just get lost in our dreams.  It was so satisfying.

My aunt was the only other person I ever met who dreamed as much as I did.  This was one reason why I so very much enjoyed being in her company.

Dreaming triggers my imagination.  I love imagining things I know others don’t think possible.

We’re taught (brainwashed) to think so logically, constantly living within the borders of “reality”.  To keep our feet planted solidly on the road called “reality” and don’t wander off.

It’s so much fun to break through, just to look at the clouds, ignore “reality” and start imagining a completely different world.  One in which people say exactly the right things, do precisely the right things, where amazing things happen, it goes exactly the way we want, and joy explodes around every corner.

I looked up the derivation of the word dream.  Between the years 500 – 1100 it meant joy, mirth, noisy merriment.  Pleasure.  Good stuff.

Then in the 1500’s a dreamer became an idler and meant someone who spent their life in inaction, wasting time.  Empty and worthless [I’m not making this up] because they weren’t working.

Somewhere in there, as a world, we stopped dreaming.

It would choke the life out of me if I had to stop.  I spend a lot of time doing it.  Fully awake.

I never let practical reality taint my dreams.  I have no use for logic when I’m dreaming.

I imagine all kinds of situations that would give me great pleasure, men and women I would be thrilled to interact with, a world that would give me joy, happiness.

My dreams are beautiful.  Vivid.   Full of glory.  Pleasure.  They leave me completely satisfied and refreshed.

No need to tell me dreaming is healthy.   It restores my soul and my optimism.

I dream a little every day and sometimes a lot on weekends.

No need to hide it.  See the clouds in the photo?  That’s what I’m looking at.  I’m not reading, I’m dreaming.

Wishing you the most beautiful of dreams.

Love,

Ingrid

Someone asked me what I do in my free time. I couldn’t figure out why the question threw me off as much as it did, and then I realized that for me it’s all free time.

I started looking at the concept of free time and wondering what it really meant. I got the idea that it means time that is free to do what you want.

And it creates the idea that there’s time that you’re not free to do what you want, that you’re doing something that, if you were free, you wouldn’t be doing.  So that would be unfree time, time you’re not free.

Freedom to do what I want has been one of the most important things in my life.  It’s one reason I started a business rather than working for someone else.

Doing what I want, when I want, how I want.  I love that.  I only talk to people I want to talk to.  I only do work I’m interested in.  I only work with people I like.  Every moment of my life is free.

I’m terrible at doing what someone else wants me to do if it’s not what I want.  I’m actually incapable of it.  I have no problem finding people who want the same things I do, so it’s not really a problem.

I’ve learned and realized that doing what I want means I exchange freedom for security and safety.

I know a lot of people who have jobs they’re not crazy about, they’re doing things they’re not really interested in, working for people they don’t really like, but they do it for the safety and security they get in return.

They exchange freedom for “security”.

I’ve always played it the other way around. My life has been full of risks, sometimes nothing but risks, often daring.

I used to make my parents very nervous, and they’re not the only ones.  Right before my father died he said to me, “After seeing you take so many risks, I wish I had taken more in my own life.”

I believe in this not just for myself, but for the people around me. I believe it’s important for them to feel totally free.

It’s always fascinating to me how you manage working with people when something needs to be done but you rely on their sense of freedom and individual purpose.

My staff are very free. It’s often not convenient for me.  But I would rather have their freedom than my convenience at the price of their freedom.

So, when they do something, I know they really want to do it. I know they really want to be here. That’s priceless to me.

I can answer the question, the one they’re probably asking, what do I do on the weekends?   And that is study, ride my bike, hang out with friends, have great conversations about history and philosophy, go to concerts, hike, read, play with my cats, put the top down and drive Highway 1 along the ocean, walk through the redwoods, enjoy everything about living in the San Francisco Bay Area, try new restaurants, find new music, celebrate birthdays…

But I’m happy to say, I’ve never had a day where I felt not free.  It’s all free time.

I hope you have lots of free time too.

Love,

Ingrid

 

I’m posting this YouTube video called Freedom’s Song by Louis Swartz in honor of Martin Luther King Jr day.

This powerful video honors all freedom fighters of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Here’s the link to an awesome 3 minutes:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3EY-4w2A2A

Each one of us contributes to the fight for freedom, each one in our way.  It counts.  It matters.  We’re getting there.

Love,

Ingrid

Cobblestones aren’t easy to run on, but then again when they put these down in the streets of Philadelphia, nobody back then was jogging.  I’m loving it.  There’s history in these river stones.  If I had walked these same streets 250 years ago, I would’ve passed many of my heroes.

To think I could’ve had a beer at City Tavern, sitting around a table with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin and James Madison.  I would’ve done whatever it took to be at that table.

They weren’t just drinking and criticizing, they were inventing new rules, creating a new political system, they were architects of a new nation.

One of the things that set a solid foundation for their activism and their writings, both of which thankfully endure, is that they spent endless hours reading philosophy, especially political philosophy, often in ancient Greek, which many of them read fluently.

It’s rather unbelievable to note, especially since Thomas Jefferson was one of the first proponents of public education, that there were no schools when he was growing up. Tutors yes, schools no.   What they all did instead was study, on their own, study consisting mainly of endless reading.  For many years Thomas Jefferson read 14 hours a day, every day.

So, when he sat down to write the Declaration of Independence, he had the benefit of generations of wisdom, the benefit of others’ trial and error, the benefit of brilliant minds that had gone before.

In America today we don’t study our own American political philosophers, much less the ancients.

This past year I did a deep dive into the Greeks (source of democracy) and Romans (source of “what can we get away with” political experimentation).  I spent many hours reading Plutarch, Demosthenes, Cicero, Socrates, Seneca, the slave Epictetus and my favorite ancient Greek, Pericles.  Reading their own words, not just reading about them, expanded my understanding of political philosophy down to its roots, understanding the why of it, the why of freedoms, the why of liberty, of human rights.

Their writing is, on the whole, brilliant, moving, profound.  Often I read whole sentences out loud, savoring the vocabulary.  Sometimes I argued, sometimes I hurled the book across the room, sometimes I read the same sentence over and over again. My joy in reading philosophers intent on building something great is inexpressible.  These are conversations worth having.  It’s worth stepping back several thousands of years to directly experience the fruits of their unconventional wisdom.  Often finding wisdom then greater than that found today.

I was thinking about this when I was running in Philadelphia over the holidays.  These are the original cobblestones from a couple hundred years ago, of such uncommon quality that today they’re just like new.  They endure, just like our philosophical Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, our Republican Democracy, all of such uncommon quality.

The great women and men of that time built so that what they built was good enough, true enough to endure today.

I only wish I could have joined them at City Tavern and raised a glass.

Love,

Ingrid

 

I have boundless admiration for the man who founded Philadelphia and Pennsylvania almost 100 years before our famous American revolution.

William Penn was a Quaker who allowed himself to be arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London (I’ve been there – not a fun place) for his religious beliefs.

He most definitely opposed religious intolerance which he believed was illegal, immoral, against nature and a violation of humanity’s ability to reason.   He believed no one had the right to invade another’s conscience when it came to spiritual matters.

In 1681 He received a land-grant from the King of England for the entirety of Pennsylvania (which means “Penn’s Woods”) for annual rent of two beaver skins and 20% of any gold discovered (the King was hopeful, but none ever was, only lots of coal in later years).

Penn created and named the primary city Philadelphia  (from ancient Greek philia which meant love and adelphos which meant brother).  Penn’s meaning for Philadelphia was The City of Brotherly Love.  “Brotherly love” is the feelings of humanity and compassion we have for other humans.  His was to be a city breathing life into this compassion.  First city of its kind with this express purpose.  No second to follow.

And then Penn did something startling that has never been done before or since:  he invited all religions to come live in his new city, to peacefully coexist and live their lives side by side.

This was a CRAZY RADICAL idea back then.  Each colony at that time had its own religion and was utterly intolerant of outsiders.  In Virginia it was illegal to practice any religion but the Anglican Church of England, harsh punishment followed any who disobeyed.  New England had Puritans, famous for persecuting dissenters with uncommon fury, executing them in large numbers by hanging them on the public gallows.   There was no place in the colonies where Catholic Mass was permitted.  I could go on.  It wasn’t just America, religious intolerance knew no borders.

Into this international scene of stubborn intolerance William Penn issued a radical invitation to every religion to come establish itself in his new city where all religions would not only be tolerated, they were eagerly welcomed.   He invited them all to come and enjoy commerce,  common society and most importantly, discourse and dialogue with each other.

He basically said, “Sure we have radically different beliefs.  No doubt we will argue, we will disagree, we will passionately debate, but let’s SEE what happens, let’s see what comes out of it as we do it peacefully and with tolerance.”

He philosophically believed that the brotherly love inherent in all mankind would prevail in these discussions, however heated, and carry everyone through to an amazing outcome.  All that was needed was a place for true tolerance and discourse to happen.  He was profoundly curious what that outcome would be.

He realized no one knew or could predict the outcome of these dialogues because it had never been done.   And because of that, he called it the “Holy Experiment”.   In other words, he said, “LET’S TRY IT!”

Many passionate forward-thinking people of varying faiths took him up on it.

Philadelphia became the first place in the British Empire where Catholic Mass was allowed to be celebrated.  George Washington, John Adams and many others from the Continental Congress, none of them Catholics, attended these Masses at Old St. Mary’s (still there, still beautiful) in the spirit of religious freedom.   John Adams (devout Protestant) wrote to Abigail of the experience:  “The music, consisting of an organ and a choir of singers, went all the afternoon except sermon time, and the assembly chanted most sweetly and exquisitely. Here is everything that can lay hold of eye, ear, and imagination, everywhere which can charm …”  True religious respect.

Philadelphia is the birthplace of the Methodist, German Reformed, Episcopal and African Methodist Episcopal churches in America.  It is here that the first African-American bishop was named, the Hebrew Bible was first translated into English and the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America was held.

Many religions combined to build this city to be the most attractive, bustling, prosperous and successful of its time, the capital of our nation from 1790 – 1800.  It’s still beautiful today, especially the lovely streets they created that have lost none of their charm or character.

As I run through these streets of old Philadelphia on my morning runs, I am struck by the variety of these old churches still standing on every corner.  Not to mention the Jewish synagogues and historic cemetery, as Jews prospered here and contributed to making the city great.  Talk about close quarters!  In many instances their churches and synagogues were built right across the street from each other!  As one group went to worship, right across the street they could wave to neighbors entering their own church.  Unheard of at that time!

This is a painting of Christ Church, founded in 1695 by a William Penn charter, oldest church in Philadelphia, still standing, still beautiful.

William Penn extended his love and respect for humanity to Pennsylvania’s native American Indians.  He didn’t believe, like other settlers did, that land could just be taken from them.

When he first arrived, he wrote eloquently and respectfully to the Lenape Indians, having his words meticulously  translated into their own Lenape language, asking them to live in harmony with him and with the settlers that would come, to live as neighbors.

He attended their Councils, he learned their language in less than a year so he could communicate with them without a translator, he won their trust and negotiated a beautiful peace treaty commemorated in this very old paining.  As a result, the Indians and settlers enjoyed an unparalleled 70 years of unbroken peaceful relations and co-existence.  Completely unprecedented in this country, before or since.

William Penn laid such a strong foundation of guiding principles regarding tolerance and liberty, it is no surprise to me that Philadelphia was the site of the First Continental Congress where revolutionary independence from England was first discussed and debated almost 100 years later, that the beautiful freedom-proclaiming Declaration of Independence was penned here, nor that this is the city where our incredible Constitution and Bill of Rights were born.  The foundation was created not only for a city, but for a nation.

The city of Philadelphia has the richest history, beyond all other cities on this planet, when it comes to consciously and deliberately combining opposing viewpoints, sharply contrasting beliefs with freedom, debate, tolerance and brotherly love, combining all these necessary elements into progressive and effective discourse.  This city has invited free thinkers to do just that from the day of its birth.

Because he believed in the liberty of conscience, brotherly love, and the power of dialogue, because he had faith in the power of REAL communication based on mutual affinity, understanding and respect, William Penn did something no other man or woman has ever done.

Imagine if we had 50 of these men and women today.  What our world would be.

Perhaps you are one?

Love,

Ingrid

 

 

My run this morning was exhilarating and extraordinary.  I ran for 2 hours.  A number of times I stopped and gawked.

The street above is where I’m staying, a house built in 1850.  Being here is an experience at once primal, emotional, sentimental, and spiritual.

Pervasive spirit of revolutionary history follows my path through Independence Park and the elegant building where our Constitution was passionately debated, fought and ultimately born, past the charming brick house where, on the 2^nd floor, Thomas Jefferson dipped his quill pen and penned the words, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, the tavern where the founding fathers hung out, drank beer and continued their unparalleled techniques of persuasion.   (By the way, the City Tavern is still in operation and serving some of the same foods and wines from those philosophic days), past the Philosophical Society Ben Franklin got going where I would give anything to have been for just one night of conversation, the cobblestone streets where they walked, the boot scrapers by their front doors where the thick Philadelphia mud came off before going inside.

Even more recent history.  I lived in or around the city for the first half of my life.  My roots here go deep.  Every corner’s a vivid memory, a passion, an intense experience.

My first apartment, my first summer job, a corner where I was kissed, the streets my college roommate and I walked during our endless intimate “walk and talk” rambles, my first fancy restaurant with enormously polite waiters, the cavernous library with polished marble stairs where I spent hours choosing books to take home, a coffee shop open all night where a friend and I often stayed till 4:00 in the morning deconstructing everything important in our lives…

This city is deep in my bones.

And then there’s my family.   Someone asked me where I was going for the holidays and I said, “I’m going home.”  They looked surprised and said, “I thought you lived in California.”  I thought about why those exact words escaped my lips and recognized the fabulous primitive sensation that erupts when I’m coming here to be with my family.  I’m going home.  Home.  Even the plane ride feels different when it’s headed for home.

Being here I’m overcome by my indescribably potent love for my family, a love like no other.  My small, tight-knit family, distinguished by depth of character, raucous conversations, impassioned arguments, uncompromising refusals to compromise, fierce love and and even fiercer loyalty, has lost its immortal elders and is now my sister, Justine, and her 17-year old son, Gabriel, and I.   We hold on tight, the unique character and passion of our Gudenas nature undiminished.  As Gabriel says, it’s a bond of love that could never be broken, no matter what, a bond that resides, as Justine says, in the marrow of our bones.

I’m sitting here writing, watching handsome Gabriel chop onions and Justine gets ready for our traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve dinner called Kūčios.   An ordinary family moment, yet swimming in a soul-satisfying primal sense of truly belonging, profoundly rich, bursting with love and a spiritual beauty that brings tears to my eyes.

May your holidays feed your deepest soul.

Love,

Ingrid

Yesterday I was talking to some friends about two people from impoverished backgrounds who we all really like ALOT.  What we like about them is how innocent they are, how sincere, how not jaded.

We agreed they are ridiculously refreshing, a complete breath of fresh air. You find yourself trusting them without hardly even knowing them.

They haven’t lived in the same middle class world we have, they haven’t worked in the same corporate universe we swim in every day.

One of my friends asked, “ I wonder what it is that makes them different?”

On my morning run I was thinking about it, what IS it that makes them different?

I realized that when they say something, it comes straight from the heart.  When they smile, it’s a genuine smile that comes straight away, not preceded by any thinking.

It’s never manufactured.

In the world where I was raised and live in, we were taught to manufacture smiles:  for cameras, for guests, for bosses, even for people we didn’t like or didn’t feel like smiling about.  “Wear this, say this, don’t say that, agree.”

We were taught to manufacture how we look, how we act in order to create an impression.

So now grown up we manufacture responses, words, emotions, answers to questions.  You see this all the way up into job interviews where people spend endless hours working on how to manufacture the right impression.

We manufacture so much, it’s easy to come out looking mass produced.

These people we were talking about had the good fortune of living in a society which did not have wealth, but was rich in genuine expression. They grew up uncorrupted, pure, themselves.

Today looking at it, it makes me wonder which wealth is the greater.

When’s the last time anyone called us “a breath of fresh air”?

That to me seems the greater wealth.

Love,

Ingrid

I wanted to pass along this beautiful New Year’s message I received from Louis Alan Swartz,  The poem is from his wonderful book “Constructed of Magic”.

“I feel this is worth mentioning.  Although I grant there are a few individuals who do ugly, evil and criminal things to their fellows, the overwhelming majority of mankind in all religions and nations have a spark of goodness, care, love and compassion for their brothers.

 

Love,

For a brief moment we, as an entire country, will stop striving for achievement, we will stop everything to experience and celebrate the beautiful emotion of the heart known as gratitude.

Gratitude has a very old tradition.  The word gratitude comes from the 2,000-year old Latin word gratis which meant “thankful because it is pleasing”.

Gratis grew out of an even older Sanskrit word from 4,000 years ago, grnati, which means “he sings praises.”

Gratitude has the same ancestry as the beautiful word grace, which is why many cultures “Say Grace” to express gratitude before a meal.

Born long before we were, gratitude is deeply rooted in our humanity and the human experience.  This beautiful, very human, emotion has withstood the ages, crossed oceans, cultures and civilizations … to be richly celebrated yet again tomorrow.

This weekend our country is united by enormous portions of good, comforting food powered by old recipes, prepared by loving hands, we’re united by joyful reunions, warm hugs, big appetites, united by the deeply satisfying camaraderie of family, friends and home, united by gratitude.

I’m wishing you a beautiful Thanksgiving weekend full of love! May this special holiday abundantly fill your belly, soul and emotional heart too.

 

As for me, I feel very grateful our paths have crossed – I have been truly enriched by it.  I am grateful we are part of a growing community dedicated to making the world a better place and to our belief in the power of real communication.

Love,

Ingrid