Agnes and Grace Lichtner were the first wild card duo adding their mid-month suggestions. In September, the existential chapter, Agnes asked me to take my meditation practice a bit further by adding days of silence while her daughter Grace asked me to not take my mediation practice too seriously by adding humor.  Their wild card final touches on this chapter along with Amy Rothstein’s thoughtful challenges helped make it one of the most rewarding thus far pushing me physically, mentally and emotionally. In this post, Agnes reflects on her and Grace’s role in the Living Chapters process.

As per requested for some insight from us Living Chapters “players”, my daughter, Grace and I would like to express our thoughts.

First, to be asked to be a part of this endeavor by Beth was a shock and an honor as we didn’t know Beth all THAT well but we were definitely drawn to her energetic personality.  We were curious, excited and anxious for the experience and are grateful she considered us an important asset to her experiment of living chapters for a year.

Grace thought it was fun and enjoyed being the wild card because it let her do something different and challenging.  Grace also comments that Beth is a great hula hooper, for sure!  The things we learn about each other!

As for me, I definitely feel I got a deeper sense of Beth as a friend, artist and human being.  I have learned that people are so much more complex with their interests but have the common ground of goodness.  It seemed to be proven through all of us who played a role that we wanted goodness to resonate through the experiences.  There was an effort with positive intent about decisions, interactions with others and nature, desires and aspirations that all of us in one way or another exuded.  Now, I don’t believe we all knew it would turn out that way but we DID want the best for Beth and with that came a bond we all shared and expressed.  Even the “strangers” whom Beth approached contributed a positive role for this experiment.  I was impressed that Beth was able to integrate unchartered players and it shows just how much influence and willingness is out there.  So all in all I feel more connected to the players that Beth is friends with and how we have more similarities than differences.

We didn’t have expectations more than we did curiosity and I admit the month of logging all our usage in daily activities stressed me out and at the same time reiterated how much we conserve and take care of each other and our earth.  Every little bit helps.

A lot of time and focus went into these months and it reminded me how much stamina Beth has and continues to keep for this project.  She’s much stronger than she realized and I’m sure she’s reasserted that into her head by now!  Every month has had a favorite moment but I’m happiest being able to keep up through the blog.

As for future plans for this project – I’m counting on Beth to come out with her idea and will support it’s manifestation.  Course having a get together to celebrate with all players involved would be interesting! hehe

12/18/13

Just finding this blog today? Read more about the Living Chapters project here.