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Trebbe Johnson's Newsletter
April-May 2008
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Dear Questers, Friends, and Seekers of the Beloved,
Greetings in the springtime! In the past few weeks I've been traveling a lot, and every time I come home to lush, moist, emerald green Pennsylvania, I long just to stop moving and be absorbed into the beauty. It's as if the process of germination itself is seducing me to sink down and be seeded by something new. In this newsletter are three stories about the ways in which we notice--or fail to notice--invitations that beckon us in unexpected, sometimes challenging ways.
In the past this newsletter has reached you at the end of each month. However, I've decided that, since one of its purposes is to announce upcoming events, it would be best if it arrived at the beginning of the month instead. That's why the date on this one is for April and May.
To those who are receiving this newsletter for the first time... welcome! Here you'll find news of upcoming Vision Arrow events, reflections, profiles of extraordinary people, and stories of transformation that occur when we accept, in small, bold, startling ways the invitations that the world is always sending us.
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LOST TREASURE IN THE WASHINGTON, DC METRO
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 This year's Pulitzer Prize for feature writing was recently awarded to Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post for his April 2007 story, "Pearls Before Breakfast," about the opportunity that hundreds of Washington commuters missed when they raced past a virtuoso violinist in their eagerness to catch the subway.
Weingarten hatched the scheme with Joshua Bell, the handsome thirty-nine-year old violinist, who has performed in the greatest concert halls in the world, including, the previous weekend, Boston's prestigious Symphony Hall. The idea was that Bell, disguised as an ordinary subway busker, would play his violin at rush hour and they'd see how many people stopped to listen. At first the Post editors were reluctant; they thought that so many people would be mesmerized by Bell's playing, even if they had no idea who he was, that crowd control would become a major problem. How wrong they were.
In the forty-five minutes that the casually dressed Bell played his Stradivarius near the turnstiles, only twenty-seven people tossed money into the open violin case. A mere seven paused to listen. At Symphony Hall tickets for Bell's concert sold for more than $100; the subway concert brought in a grand total of $32 and change.
Weingarten's article, which is accompanied online by video of the experiment, avoids taking the easy path of indicting all those people who hurried past. Instead the author makes us all question whether we are willing to pause for life. "If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that--then what else are we missing?" Weingarten queries.
I think this piece offers two lessons. First, are we willing to recognize beauty as it beguiles our own sensibilities? Or do we depend on context to help us determine value: a frame in an art gallery, the stage of a concert hall?
Second, are we willing to pause in the midst of our supposedly uninterruptible schedule and say yes to some invitation that the world is offering us?
Weingarten's article is an invitation unto itself. It asks us to pay more attention to what fascinates us during the day, what makes us just a little bit curious, what wants to pull us out of where we are and give us a taste of something new and, quite possibly, marvelous.
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FOUND TREASURE FOR A YOUNG GIRL
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 At a recent Desire and the Quest for the Beloved workshop that I led in Morristown, New Jersey a woman told a moving story about how an unusual heroine came to her rescue when she was a young girl. "Meredith" was the child of an extremely dysfunctional family. Although she tried desperately to live happily, she constantly struggled against the darkness that surrounded her. Everything changed one Saturday morning when she was nine years old and her mother dropped her off, as she often did, at the public library. On this particular day Meredith discovered a biography of Helen Keller. Curious, she picked it up. And by the end of the morning she'd met a mentor. In the story of a woman who overcame blindness and deafness and became an articulate pioneer of creating one's own particular light, Meredith found a guide along her own path through the darkness.
In my book, The World Is a Waiting Lover, I call a person who affects us as Keller did Meredith, an "Escort to the Beloved," someone "who, in the course of being loved by us, grabs our heart, seizes our soul, and turns our life around." An early Escort for me was Emily Bronte, who taught me that a woman could funnel all her intensity, anguish, and desire into writing, and that nature was a mirror for even the most complex of human feelings. A friend of mine found the courage to be different through the example of the St. Louis Cardinals ballplayer Stan Musial. When we encounter these people as children they can serve as lifelines.
Who were the mentors who guided you when you were young, even though you never met them in person? Who were the historical characters, movie stars, writers, astronauts, or scientists who, by their own example, taught you something about yourself, gave you courage, made you believe you really could do what you dreamed to do?
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EROS IN MIDDLE AGE
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 When I myself was a young girl, I was extremely private and modest. I kept all my longings, doubts, and desires to myself. I thought that if you admitted you wanted something and didn't get it, you opened yourself to ridicule. All that changed when, at the age of fifty, I became wildly smitten with a young man who was assisting on a vision quest I was leading. That unexpected, overwhelming passion prompted me to explore the meanings and possibilities of desire in a book and in workshops I give on a regular basis. Now, in late middle age, I find that I'm accepting invitations to delve into the realms of sexuality and attraction in ever new ways!
On June 24, from 8:00-9:30 PM I'll be speaking (or rather being interviewed by the audience) at a new learning center and community in San Francisco, One Taste Urban Retreat Center. One Taste, which offers yoga (clothed or unclothed) and workshops that explore relationships and sexuality, declares as its vision: "Our people are experiential researchers who have dedicated their lives to understanding the nature of relationships, the meaning of intimacy, and the richness of connection." OneTaste is controversial, edgy. I'm a little nervous about speaking there--and excited about it!
You can now listen to the podcast of an interview that Francesca Gentille did with me recently on her radio show, Sex, Tantra, & Kama Sutra. Francesca is an amazing interviewer. She zooms into her own lively interest in a subject, yet never lassos the conversation away from her guest. What we shared was less an "interview" than a conversation between seekers probing the deeper meanings of desire and where it can lead.
Finally, you may notice that the photo of me above is different. Thanks to the inspiring idea of Julia Ponce, a woman I met two years ago when I was leading a workshop in my old hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, I celebrated my birthday March 10 by having new photos taken by a gifted local photographer, Kathryn LeSoine, of Dalton, PA. I love the results, and I am convinced that what every woman needs to do to make the most of her advancing years is to go out and bare herself, body, face, and soul to a really good photographer!
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BOOK AND WORKSHOP NEWS
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June 8-12, from 6:30-9:30 in the evening, I'll be in Washington, DC doing a Desire and the Quest for the Beloved workshop for More Than Skin Deep, Barbara Bitondo de Arčne's revolutionary new enterprise that invites both women and men to explore how inner and outer beauty are connected. For details and to register contact Barbara: bitondo@sprintpcs.com, 202-607-4906.
June 19-22 I'll be returning to Diana's Grove in the mountains of southern Missouri for a four-day Summer Solstice weekend. Each year Diana's Grove co-founder Cynthia Jones picks a certain myth, and participants delve into it from many perspectives throughout the seasons. This year the theme is astrology, which Cynthia, a true visionary, perceives in new, relevant ways that encompass self, community, and planet. To register email info@dianasgrove.com or call 573-689-2400.
June 27-29 Charley Tack and I will be leading a workshop on The Roots of Attraction at IONS Retreat Center in Petaluma, California. Charley and I met a couple of years ago through pure synchronicity and discovered that we have both been probing the ways in which desire acts on us. Charley has pursued ways of dealing with attraction on an interpersonal level, while my path has been more about transforming it into a spiritual search. We're collaborating to explore how attractions can feed our souls rather than eating us alive.
chastack@yahoo.com
For more information about these and other programs see the Vision Arrow website.
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