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AN ADOPTED CHILD’S STORY MANDALA OF CONNECTING, REUNION, AND BELONGING

DR. SUSANReview MOSSMAN RIVA

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Virginia Homing In: An Adopted Child’s Story Mandala of Connecting, Reunion, and Belonging © 2020 by Susan Kay Mossman Riva. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or digital (including photocopying and recording) except for the inclusion in a review, without written permission from the publisher. Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibilityCopy for them. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: all effort has been done to ensure accuracy and ownership of all included information. While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created by sales representatives or written promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. The publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services, and you should consult a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages incurred as a result of using the techniques containedReview in this book or any other source reference. The personal experiences detailed in this book are those of the author and are told from that perspective. Published in the United States by WriteLife Publishing (An imprint of Boutique of Quality Books Publishing Company, Inc.) www.writelife.com Printed in the United States of America 978-1-60808-227-8 (p) 978-1-60808-228-5 (e) Library of Congress Control Number 2019957781 Book design by Robin Krauss, www.bookformatters.com Cover design by Rebecca Lown, www.rebeccalowndesign.com First editor: Olivia Swenson LibrarianSecond editor: Caleb Guard PRAISE FOR SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA AND HOMING IN

“In this beautifully written work, Susan Mossman Riva shares herCopy fascinating journey to discover her family of origin, and her own identity. It is indeed a poignant journey into herself, as she explores her longings, her doubts, and her joys. The work is especially relevant to this era in which the seals on adoption cases are being removed. For us, it was an enthralling adventure on its own.” ­— Mary and Kenneth Gergen, founders of the TAOS Institute

“Homing In is an autoethnography of the highest quality that examines adoption and kinship through the holistic and comparative lens of anthropology, convincingly arguing that nature and nurture areReview inextricably intertwined, exemplified through the author’s personal story that is akin to a transformative journey and comparable to a spiritual pilgrimage.” ­— Alexander Rödlach SVD PhD Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology and Psychiatry Chair, Department of Cultural and Social Studies Creighton University

“Against the backdrop of the early 21st century, with its spiritual ennui and cyber (dis)connectedness, Susie Riva, in this remarkable book, deconstructs her sense of humanity. Her text is holistic and interconnected. She uses a three part structure to explore her life history from multiple temporal and conceptual vantage points. LibrarianWriting from the present from Switzerland, she first explores her beginnings. In this section, she recreates and deconstructs the dialogue between her lived experiences iv HOMING IN

and her family narratives, initially locating herself with the multi-generational narrative of the prominent adoptive Nebraska family in the Midwestern part of the US. She next describes the complex process of reconnection to her birth family, creating an awakening of unknown deep roots and shared meaning with a family she comes to know and love. Drawing from Native American spiritualism, she explores these two sides of herself not as a parallel or as lineal story lines, but rather as connected aspects of a personal mandala of life. The third part of the book moves to a higher level as she explores various cultural, spiritual, and personal dimensions of her circle life. Her book is not only the story of an amazing journey of life, it is also a scholarly autoethnography of one’s life.” Copy ­— Dr. Richard Sawyer, Professor of Education, Washington State University, Co-developer/author of duoethnography

“Homing In is a compelling and passionate must read for both adults with adoption histories seeking to better understand the fabric of their evolutionary and psychological DNA through the process of autoethnography, and seekers of a higher communicative pathway to integrated spiritual enlightenment. Through the captivating telling of her personal story of adoption, reunion and belonging, Dr. Riva provides a brilliant roadmap Reviewto healing and personal transformation using illuminating, poetic prose to reveal the therapeutic power of th personal story mandala, the importance of consciousness raising synchronicities, and the road to inner peace and a sense of anchored belonging. By embracing the oneness and synergistic connectivity of the human spirit at the level of family, community, and society, Dr. Riva masterfully communicates to the reader the importance of walking the road less traveled, consciously connecting to the tapestry of human life, and discovering and weaving one’s own story mandala along the way. Through the sharing of our own transformation process we have the power to transform others. Homing In is the equivalent of life’s poetry and Dr. Riva’s beautifully narrated prose and deep dive into history, anthropology, and human behavior will leave the reader fully engaged, illuminated, and ultimately transformed.” ­— Dr. Connie Morror, Psychologist, Librarian Research Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Copy This book is dedicated to my descendants.

“You’ve no idea how hard I’ve looked for a gift to bring you. Nothing seemed right. What’s the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the ocean. Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It’s no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So I’ve brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.” —Rumi, translated from Coleman Barks Review

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Preface: A Story Mandala Connecting Adoption, Reunion, and Belonging ix Acknowledgements xv Relational Lexicon Copyxvii Part 1—Adoption: Re-collecting and Re-membering My Life’s Beginnings 1 Chapter 1: The Giveaway Girl 3 Chapter 2: Intergenerativity 15 Chapter 3: Blackbird Bend Farm 25 Chapter 4: Seasons of Adventure 33 Chapter 5: Responding to the Call 47 Chapter 6: Faith and Community Service 57 Chapter 7: Concrescence: Wedding to Become One 65 Chapter 8: International Ski Tribes 73 Chapter 9: A Coat of Many Colors 79 Chapter 10: International AffairsReview 87 Chapter 11: The Tragic Break 93 Chapter 12: The Sundance Way of Life 101 Chapter 13: Kinning: Becoming a Child of Multiple Families 107

Part 2—Reunion: Finding My Birth Family 111 Chapter 14: Nature and Nurture within the Epigenetic Paradigm 113 Chapter 15: The Rebirthing Process 119 Chapter 16: The Love Letters 127 Chapter 17: Engaging in Polyphony and Dialogism 137 Chapter 18: Once in a Blue Moon 143 Chapter 19: Pictures in a New Family Album 155 LibrarianChapter 20: Welcoming Cathy into the Family Circle 167 Chapter 21: Embodying and Integrating Change 177 Chapter 22: Being Other 181 viii HOMING IN

Chapter 23: Spinning the Family Tale 189 Chapter 24: The Dark Archetypical Forces 193 Chapter 25: Adieu 203 Chapter 26: Trying to Fit In 209 Chapter 27: Balancing Work and Family Relations 213 Chapter 28: The Eulogy 229 Chapter 29: Weaving a New Pattern 237 Chapter 30: Finding the Path Forward: Beyond Barriers of Belonging 243 Part 3—Belonging: Designing My Medicine Shield Copy251 Chapter 31: The Meaning-Making Process 253 Chapter 32: Mind-Body 259 Chapter 33: God’s Many Faces or “Showings” 271 Chapter 34: The Golden Pocket Watch 277 Chapter 35: Journeymanship: Encounters in Pursuit of Higher Knowledge 283 Chapter 36: Developing Moral Imagination 289 Chapter 37: Earthrise: Expanding Our Circle of Caring 295 Chapter 38: The Weighing of the Heart 301 Chapter 39: Stewardship 315 Chapter 40: From Kinship to EarthshipReview 327 Chapter 41: Future Forming 335 Chapter 42: Liminal Space 343 Chapter 43: Making Mandalas of Wholeness on the Medicine Wheel of Life 355 Chapter 44: Engaging in Healing Conversations 369 Chapter 45: The File 383 Chapter 46: Pilgrimage as Process: Cultivating Radical Amazement 391 Chapter 47: The Anthropology of Becoming 407 Chapter 48: Knocking on Mercy’s Door 417 Chapter 49: Beholding the Sacred Vessel 427

Postscript 435 LibrarianAbout the Author 439 Key Concepts 439 Bibliography 443 PREFACE

An Adopted Child’s Story Mandala of Connecting, Reunion, and Belonging Copy “Thus sprung, why should I fear to trace my birth? Nothing can make me other than I am.” —Sofocle, Edipore1

This is a true story about lines of inheritance, interconnectivity, and belonging. I tell of how I found my birth family and discovered that I was the oldest of five children. My search for my birth parents coincided with my birth sister’s search for our parents. In the early 1960s, she was adopted the year following my own adoption. I didn’t know about her existence.Review We were united with our birth family before our maternal grandmother died of cancer. The miracle of our coming together from separate lifeworlds to be at our maternal grandmother’s side before she died is the seed for this work. This demonstration of interconnectivity made me wonder if heartstrings connected us. Our reunion story provides valuable insight into the human condition and our ability to home in. Interweaving the relationship between lineage and inheritance, I address what we receive, what we keep, and what we decide to pass on to our line of descendants. My experience underscores the difficulty an adopted child has in balancing their rightful place in both their adopted family and their birth family. The intercultural dimension is an intricate part of my narrative—I grew up in Nebraska, married a Swiss national, and am currently raising my own five children in the Swiss Alps. My heritage as an American child born in the state of Nebraska grew to include Swiss Librarian 1 Quotation, Family Matters: Portraits and Experiences of Family Today, Family Matters, CCC Strozzina Museum, Florence, Italy. x HOMING IN

heritage transmitted through marriage. My search for belonging traces multiple forms of kinship, mapping out relational connections. Becoming ready to tell my story took developing professional experience and practicing as a mediator, a medical anthropologist, and a social psychologist. As my children grew up, I had more time to write. Over the years, daily contemplation kindled a desire that flared with words describing my self-realization process, suggesting that inherited family patterns might be transformed through writing and conscious dialogue. This unique narrative of letters, poems, and creative writing pieces from my past show the construction of an adopted child’s identity throughout a lifetime. Motherhood, friendship, women’s sexuality, the challenges women faceCopy balancing motherhood and careers, as well as the complexity of international relations are social themes woven into the fabric of my book. I hope that my own search will inspire healing conversations in other families, especially those concerned by adoption. My personal quest allowed me to embark upon a healing path, facilitating self-discovery and leading me back to my birth family. My story resonates with the archetypical metaphor of the lost child searching for her roots. As my story unfolded, I understood that an adopted child has strands of inheritance much like optical fiber, using photonic crystals. This transparent fiber functions as a “waveguide” transmitting forms of communication. The fibers of my identity came from my birth family and my adopted family. Though the fibers from my birth family were informing me allReview through my life, I was not consciously aware that they were transmitting information to me. A shared resonance with my birth family acted as a guiding force in our relational energy field. Epigenetics is a growing field of study that explains how our DNA does not influence genetic expression alone. Our environment and perceptions have an important influence on our genetic expressions. Trans-generational memory passes on characteristics gained through our life experiences, influencing future generations. These discoveries force us to become aware of the incredible responsibility we have as we make lifestyle choices that will influence our offspring for generations to come. Epigenetics underscores the power of our perceptions as well as our environment to transform our life and give form to the future. We are the stewards of our genome. Evaluating what we receive, what we keep, and what we pass on to future Librariangenerations is essential, as we are also the Keepers of Life on Gaia. The Gaia principle describes how the complex self-regulating Earth environment maintains SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA xi

the conditions for life on the planet. We must pass on a tradition of sustainable development in the face of the Anthropocene, or the current epoch in which humans have a significant impact on the Earth’s geology and ecosystems. As a social scientist and researcher, I am interested in understanding the mechanisms at work in my own identity construction process as an adopted child. Having asked “What could my story be telling me?” I proceeded to develop an explanatory model, inspired by psychiatrist and medical anthropologist Arthur Kleinman’s approach exemplified in his book, Illness Narratives. Engaging in “metalogues,” in reference to Gregory Bateson’s seminal book An Ecology of Mind, has involved engaging in problematic conversations using an interdisciplinary social science referential framework. By eliciting conversations with greatCopy thinkers, I searched for theories that might help to explain the ineffable dimension of our reunion process. I first became familiar with the concept of synchronicity through Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Carl G. Jung’s analytic psychology. His writings expand upon theories including the individuation process, archetypes, collective consciousness, dreams, and mandalas. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin uses the term noosphere to describe an evolving sphere dominated by the mind, consciousness, and interpersonal relationships. My story illustrates how we are linked by the fundamental element of Akasha that Ervin Lazlo refers to as “fundamental underlying connectivity.” Another framework of understanding is Rupert Sheldrake’s morphogenic fields, which hypothesizes that memory is inherent in nature as observed in the emergenceReview of organizing fields that give rise to different life forms. Possibly another theoretical explanation, from a social constructionist stance, is Kenneth Gergen’s ‘Relational Being’, highlighting the social construction of relatedness. Nassim Haramein’s work in quantum science has shown a similar idea: we live in a connected universe. More specifically, this story further investigates what La Vonne H. Stiffler referred to as the homing in mechanisms of children separated from their parents at birth. In archaeology and anthropology, the term provenience is used to refer not only to the spot where an artifact was found (the “find spot”) but equally encompasses where it has been since it was found. Not only do I trace my beginnings to find out where I come from, but I also tell about where my life’s journey has taken me, illustrating the landscape of meaning tracking my own adventurous expedition through life. My own “find spot” is not just an outward, earthly landmark, but also Librarianan inner place of peace and relational balance. My story begins in Part One by re-collecting my past, describing my childhood xii HOMING IN

upbringing in Nebraska and the unfolding of my life as a young adult, studying at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and moving to Switzerland to start a family, all before searching for my birth family. While remembering my past, I give importance to the many synchronicities that occurred, contributing to my meaning- making process. I present the multiple families that I have come to belong to through adoption, my parents’ marriages and my own union, as well as my circle of family friends, who are truly a special clan. I explain how I met my Swiss husband and the founding of our own intercultural and international family. This “kinning” process is illustrated through ethnographic descriptions of how I became part of my adopted family and then later my biological family, entwining multiple threads of relatedness inherent in an evolving kinship. Copy In the second part, I tell the story of finding my birth parents and our reunion. I explain the process of searching for them and share the love letters we exchanged before we met. Following our initial meeting, my birth sister Cathy found our family. Her exchange of letters with my birth mother bears witness to the extraordinary episode in our lives when we were pulled back together before our maternal grandmother passed away. After we were all reunited, our relationships came full circle. My story goes on to explain the challenges I have faced maintaining my relations in my multiple family circles. The third part of my narrative brings together my recollections of the past with the reception of my adopted grandfather’s golden pocket watch, which allows me to introduce the notion of divine timingReview in our lives. What was rightfully mine found me and served to reestablish my place in my adopted family, while offering a needed form of validation. I show how my Medicine Shield, a Native American symbol of personal vision, protected me with magical power, allowing me the space to transform my perceptions as well as my identity by weaving together the many strands of my Self. I ponder what is truly important to pass on to my children and future generations, analyzing different forms of transmission. My quest for my “true” identity was part of a transformational process possibly best understood in the words “Healer, heal thyself ” and “Healer, know thyself.” My story generates a healing space that informs future generations by sharing my adoption and reunion story, my vision, as well as my meaning-making process. Belonging is revealed through possibilities to contribute, realizing potentiality in its fullest. In the end, I find what appears to be a sacred chalice and container of Librarianconflict and illness narratives: the Holy Grail, or rail-Way. In a visit to Drammen, Norway, for a conference, I noticed a ship hanging SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA xiii

from the ceiling in the center aisle of a Lutheran church. I used that metaphor to guide my group work at the conference. I was a chosen “dream weaver,” weaving together the conversations that took place between the participants from twenty- four different countries. The ship inspired me to guide my group with the phrase “setting our course.” I realized the word “ship” appeared in words like friend- ship, companion-ship, fellow-ship, and steward-ship. Indeed, divine guidance has a way of blowing into our ship’s sails, carrying us forward to new horizons. The Holy Spirit breathes the sacred life force into us, filling our human containers, and allowing us to stay buoyant as we set our life course. Just as the word suggests, we are not alone on the great waters—there are fellow-ships. The recognition of the root word “ship” became a guiding force,Copy taking me on a meaning voyage to other words and their significance. “Ship” as a suffix means to create form. It can also imply quality, condition, skill, power, number, or profession and rank. Though its meaning is not related to ship as a vessel, it does give form. Words, like ships, are containers, fashioning consciousness into expression and shaping form. My family experienced a “convergence” that reset our life-courses. Our hard- ship became a new kind of companion-ship, catching the wind of destiny, and taking us full speed ahead. As I trace the trail of my roots, anchoring me in both my adopted family and my biological family, I analyze worship, or “worth-ship,” stemming from the Old English definition. The writing process brought out all that I truly revere, shedding light onReview how “worship” is living in a daily dialogue with the divine, revealing that which we treasure and value most in life. The vessel of authorship has transported me to a place of transformed relationships while searching for “the good life” (Nebraska’s slogan). This autoethnographic process metamorphosed into spiritual journey, accomplished through mediatorship, or faith in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, the Way to wholeness. The transformational process is ultimately crowned by Christ’s kingship. The chapters of this book unravel the different fibers, separating them into the stories that have structured my life. Each chapter is a part of a story mandala, linked together in a story arc, cross-webbing three phases of my life quest. My mandala frames my life’s story in a meaning-making process seeking wholeness. It is a teaching tool allowing me to create sacred space to better understand and communicate my performance as an adopted child. In my three-part drama, I Librarianam the actor appearing with different masks, portraying my complex personage enacting a “performance pedagogy of radical democratic hope.”2

2 Norman K. Denzin, Interpretive Autoethnography. Second edition. (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2014) 80. xiv HOMING IN

My narrative is a case study that seeks to show how the waveguide informed me through the many synchronicities that I was able to recognize. The synchronicities were like images traveling by way of photonic crystals in optical fiber. As I was searching for my Self, I was in fact linked to my birth family and guided by genes informing my beingness. The waveguide leads me back to my beginnings, activating a kind of relational resonance on the trail of human becomingness. The unfolding events that are portrayed suggest there is a linkedness, a mysterious connectedness that actively configures our lives and the unfolding of destinies. I define mediation as linkedness. The chapters don’t follow linear, chronological time. Instead, they emanate from a flow of consciousness that represents the holographic matrix that connects space-time events with interlaced perceptions,Copy linking emotions and insights with happenings in symbolic places. In this way, life-course is connected in a series of life-o-grams—something like story fractals. Lifescaping, the practice of transforming lifecourse trajectories, reconfigured chronological order with connected memories and meanings in a generative “storymind.” In flow, this relational mind emerged, harnessing the power to perceive patterns and make meaning with the purpose of sharing the miracle of our reunion. This autoethnography seeks to give out “viriditas” or “greenness,” a terminology used by St. Hildegard von Bingen to describe how people give out viriditas through virtues. It was believed during her time that divine forces of nature and creative powers of life were transmitted into the plants, animals, and precious gems. When people ate the plants and animals andReview wore precious gems, they obtained their energy or viriditas. In the chain of being, humans give their own form of greenness through their virtues. She also used mandalas to express her sacred visions. My hope is that this story will transmit my own life’s “greenness” to the reader, offering its generative potential to other Seekers.

Librarian ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A special thanks goes out to Olivia Swenson whose editing and guidance has allowed the manuscript to become more coherent and whole. I would also like to thank Jeff Forker for helping me work on the story arc at the beginning of my writing process. Another thanks to Sheila McNamee, Gaia Del Negro, and Amy MilnerCopy for reading the manuscript and accompanying me through the creative and editing process. I will be forever thankful for my families who have supported my autoethnographic process, allowing me to share our story with the world.

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Librarian RELATIONAL LEXICON

Susan, the author, was born on July 5, 1963, and adopted by Janice and David Mossman. She grew up with two younger sisters, Nancy and Leigh, both natural children of Janice and David. Janice and David raised their family in Omaha, Nebraska. David grew up in Omaha, Nebraska and Janice in SouthCopy Sioux City, Nebraska. David’s parents, Harland and Marion Mossman, grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. David was also raised in Omaha. He was an only child. Janice’s parents, George and Marion Shrader, were from South Sioux City, where they also raised Janice. She was an only child. After David and Janice divorced, David Mossman married Dorothy “Dody” Doane. Dorothy has one daughter, Angie. Janice married Robert Falk. Robert’s four children from a previous marriage are Carolyn, Nancy, Carl, and Kristine. Janice lived in Fort Calhoun with Robert until his death, whereupon she moved back to Omaha. Susan’s birth parents are MichaelReview and Ruth Ann Wylie, who lived all their lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. Their first two children, Susan and Cathy, were adopted by families in Nebraska. They raised Michelle, Ryan, and Kaitie. Michael’s birth father was John Murphy, and he was raised by his mother Elisabeth and her husband Everett Wylie in Lincoln, Nebraska. Michael grew up without knowing his birth father’s existence. Ruth Ann’s parents, Katherine and Harland Wiest, raised five children in Lincoln, Nebraska. Susan Mossman, the author, married Angelo Riva from Valais, Switzerland. After Susan’s graduation from the University of Colorado in Boulder, they moved to Switzerland and had five children: Katrina, Sven, Nils, Yann, and Jessica. As of this writing, they have one grandchild, Nevin Schyrr, son of Katrina and her husband Bastien. The Rivas and Schyrrs live in Switzerland. Angelo’s parents were Jean-Robert and Lily Riva, both Swiss nationals. The Heartstrings mother-daughter group includes Sharon Marvin Igel and her Librariandaughter Melissa, Carolyn Hansen and her daughter Cathy, and the late Diane Westin and her daughter Karin. They all live in Omaha. xviii HOMING IN

Timeline of important events in Susie’s life

Burke High School graduation: 1981 Exchange student in Switzerland: 1981 Susie and Angelo’s Wedding: March 15, 1986 Graduation from the University of Colorado, Boulder: Spring 1986 Grandpa George’s death: January 15, 1987 Katrina’s birth: May 5, 1987 Sven’s birth: July 22, 1990 Jan and Dave’s divorce: December 1991 Nils’s birth: October 26, 1992 Copy Jan and Bob’s wedding: November 28, 1992 David and Dody’s wedding: April 1, 1994 First letter exchange with birth parents: 1995 Yann’s birth: October 18, 1995 First physical meeting with birth family: 1996 Father Bob Wiest’s death: January 3, 1997 Michelle’s wedding: May 1997 Great-grandma Kay’s death: December 18, 1997 Grandma Marion’s death: September 19, 1998 Harland or Poppy’s death: September 3, 1999 Great-grandma Betty’s death: OctoberReview 15, 1999 Marion or Marnie’s death: May 14, 2002 Jessica’s birth: June 30, 2003 Dave’s death: July 23, 2007 Bob Falk’s death: February 20, 2014 Nevin Schyrr’s birth: April 29, 2018

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ADOPTION

Re-collecting and Re-membering My Life’s Beginnings

The Image Thunder comes resounding out of the earth: The image of ENTHUSIASM.Review Thus the ancient kings made music In order to honor merit, And offered it with splendor To the Supreme Deity, Inviting their ancestors to be present. —Translation from Richard Wilhelm, I CHING or book of changes3

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3 Richard Wilhelm, I Ching or Book of Changes, (London, England, The Penguin Group, 1989). Copy

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Librarian CHAPTER 1

THE GIVEAWAY GIRL Copy hen searching for the words that would tell my story, I opened the I Ching to the image of Enthusiasm. The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is an W ancient Chinese text used for divination using hieroglyphic symbols. The hexagram of Enthusiasm refers to leaders who are able to tap into a kind of electrical energy, bringing the group forward by guiding the positive energy to a favorable destination. Sacred reverence for the ancestors and the past establishes a bond between God and humankind—the invisible sound that moves all hearts, draws them together, uniting the heavenly and earthly world in mystical contact. My adoption and reunion story elicited a kind of electrical energy as the events unfolded, altering life trajectories as the hearts of me and my biological family members responded to a soundReview that drew us together. We used our innate capacity to home in, following heartways. Even though I was given away, there were heartstrings that connected me to my biological line of inheritance. As my biological family let go of my tiny baby hand, another family grasped on, receiving me into their family circle and transmitting their own lines of inheritance through nurturance. This created two ancestral lines of transmission. It all began in Nebraska. I’m the girl given away to adoption—the giveaway girl. In Native American culture, the Giveaway is a ceremony where beloved possessions are given to others with no strings attached and no regrets. It is believed that in sacrificing something important, personal growth will be attained in the future. In contrast, when a child is given up for adoption, there is a sense that their intrinsic value is diminished when unrecognized by their kin. When my young birth mother gave me up for adoption with no legal strings attached, I arrived like a ceremonial Librarianoffering on a sacrificial altar. After birth, I was taken directly to the children’s hospital for blood transfusions 4 HOMING IN

as I suffered from blood type incompatibility with my birth mother. I was placed in foster care for four months before my adopted parents, Dave and Jan, received a call from the Nebraska Children’s Home announcing my arrival on the day President Kennedy was assassinated. I made a grand entrance by arriving in my family at that historical moment of time. My arrival was a portal where adoption’s gift and human sacrifice joined in the politics and poetics of the moment. Dave and Jan, my adopted parents, were unable to have children and were in their late twenties when my adoption was confirmed. When I arrived on Thanksgiving Day, they received a letter from the foster care parents explaining my routine and schedule. There were details about the food I ate and my bottles. I was a perfectly broken-in baby. Copy As a child, I wasn’t sensitive to what they had gone through before the adoption. They never spoke of that time as associated with any kind of sorrow or disappointment. Jan worked as a gym teacher and Dave was part of the family real-estate business, working alongside his father and uncle. Their friends were all having children and founding families. My first real insight came when, as a young mother myself, I read my mother’s handwritten words in my baby book saying how I had made her complete. The first time I asked where I came from, they explained that I was special and that they had been able to choose me from all the other children at the adoption agency. That story made me feel loved and handpicked. A memory I hold to this day is sitting on someone’s lap in the velvetReview armchair in my paternal grandparents’ high-ceilinged living room. I was surrounded by my parents and grandparents, and each parent told part of the story about me coming to them. It seemed very normal as they explained that I was special and chosen. My way of coming into my family was sealed by their unified testimony. My adopted parents also explained that my biological parents loved me very much. They were too young when I was born and had given me up for adoption at birth because they knew they couldn’t take care of me themselves. That perfect story was like a birthday present carefully wrapped and tied up with a bow. I must have been around two or three years old when they shared my adoption story. It took years before I was ready to unwrap the package and see what sort of present was waiting for me inside—before I was ready to experience the day of my re- birthing. LibrarianMy adopted father, Dave, became a millionaire at a young age. He had developed apartments and commercial space in the western expanding suburbs of Omaha. He SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 5

had a good eye for beautiful properties and Mossman Co., a three-generational real estate company, allowed him to benefit from generations of experience in the business. He had decided to go into the family business instead of going to law school. His business success meant that my adopted mother, Janice Shrader Mossman, could stop working and take care of me. A portrait in my Grandmother Shrader’s house in South Sioux City showed my mother as a regal young woman in her University of Nebraska homecoming dress, an elegant, light-blue gown. As a mother, she loved to dress me up and scotch-tape a little bow to the little wisp of hair she was able to pull together. There are many baby pictures of me in pretty smock dresses with laced bloomers. Copy My mother had me take White Gloves and Party Manners as a little girl. I learned how to eat properly, to wave and clap in just the right way, and to pull off my white gloves one finger at a time before putting them into my purse. She also signed me up for cotillion, or dancing classes, at Brownelle Talbot, the local private school. There I met all the young boys that came from the established families in Omaha. We learned to dance and knew “who was who” at age seven. My mother loved to bring me along for all her social events and show me off. She was very involved in the community, serving on many boards and in many organizations where she was a devoted member. She served on the board of the museum and symphony working for the arts in the greater Omaha area. Going to exhibits and concerts and developingReview a taste for the fine arts was possible because my mother believed that these were important ingredients in “the good life”—our Nebraskan way of living. Several of her dearest friends had little girls the year I joined the Mossman family—1963—and we all became very close, sharing mother-daughter birthdays and celebrating our lives together with a form of loyalty only those from tight families know about. These friendships developed into our Heartstrings Group, a community of loving mothers and daughters. These strong women in my life have been the cornerstone of my confidence, strength, and happiness. We made up our own code of honor based on unconditional love and acceptance for all members of the group. We always saw the very best in each other and worked to bring out the unique qualities we each had. Our mothers were models of community service and had all studied to be Librarianteachers at the university. They used their skills to bring us up. They portrayed a kind of friendship that we girls sought to emulate. Entertaining, dressing, and 6 HOMING IN

picking out just the right gift were all talents to be cultivated. One of my favorite pictures is of our future Heartstrings Group at age three in dresses with party purses; I am holding mine up high over my head! My mother was particularly close with Sharon, my godmother, and my mother was godmother to Sharon’s daughter Missy. Missy and I were the best of friends. I have always referred to Missy as my god-sister. My godmother has been a guiding light. I remember when my godfather had a heart attack and underwent surgery. I found my godmother in the waiting room with a Bible on her lap, praying. Sharon rarely spoke of her worries or her challenges, facing hardship with faith and discipline. She has modeled a life of hard work and service. She has a warm smile and is always immaculately dressed. She has never once forgotten myCopy birthday in all these years! How lucky I was to have such strong women raising and supporting me. These ties have held us together regardless of the distance separating us. My mother and her friends created a circle of caring mother-daughter relationships. She brought me into that sisterhood, enjoying her role as mother and sharing those years raising me with her entourage. She was fulfilled and actively participating in Omaha’s social world. But the words she wrote into my baby book revealed that something was missing. Mothering me brought her contentedness.

Though my adoption filled that originalReview emptiness my mother experienced waiting to conceive, eventually she was able to have the experience of giving birth, and she and my father pass on their unique biological lineage to my two sisters, Nancy and Leigh. Nancy is four years younger than me, and Leigh is ten and a half years younger. Two other close family friends had adopted their first child and then were able to become pregnant, which made it that much more normal for me as an adopted daughter in a family that also had biological children. At that time, the Nebraska Children’s Home placed children in families that were matched with the baby’s background through an interview process tracing family history and commonalities. Thus, I looked like my parents and my sisters. We would always kid about who was the adopted child. I didn’t stand out in family pictures. Family portraits were common in the 1970s, and I remember the photographer coming to take our family picture down by the lake on which we lived. We posed Librarianwith our dog, Brownie. Our portrait was hung with other Omaha families at the Clarkson Hospital where the Service League organized the yearly style show and SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 7

exhibited the chosen family portraits. Our pictures were often in the Omaha World Herald, mostly due to my mother’s accomplishments as a volunteer for the hospital, the Junior League of Omaha, the Josyln Art Museum, and the Omaha Symphony Guild. When Nancy was born, my grandparents took me to the hospital, but I couldn’t go in. From my seat in the car in the parking lot, I could see the shadows through the hospital window where my parents and little sister were together. They held her up to the window for me to see her. My mother had received me when I was four months old with a list of all the food that I liked to eat. When Nancy came home, she had colic and cried a lot. My mother had a broken tailbone from the birth, and she was in pain asCopy she sat on a special round inflated seat. I remember my mom calling the doctor in tears. Nancy didn’t keep the little scotch-taped bows in her hair and she wouldn’t wear dresses. One day when my father was driving home from work, there was a traffic jam at the intersection near our house. He saw a little child on a tricycle blocking the cars during five o’clock traffic. What kind of parents would let their child ride in the street like that? he thought. As he got closer, he saw that it was Nancy. He rushed to get her off the road and out of harm’s way. When my mother had her first parent-teacher conference for Nancy, she came back in tears because the teacher explained how Nan would take other students’ crayons and interrupt their work. She had a hard time behaving in class. As both my mother and my grandmother were teachers, that was hard to hear.Review But as Nancy grew up, her strengths started coming out. I remember walking on the sidewalk on the way home from school with Nan, who was on her tricycle. Most of our neighbors’ children attended St. Margaret Mary’s, a Catholic school, but we attended Dundee Elementary School and I felt that we were kind of outsiders. The neighbor boys stopped us and wouldn’t let us go beyond the crack in the sidewalk to our house. They were busy threatening me when Nan hopped off her tricycle and bit one of the brothers on the leg, opening up our path home! A few years later, five-year-old Nancy set off to walk to school with a classmate during a snowstorm. School hadn’t been called off, despite high winds and drifting snow, and our mother wasn’t one to worry about the natural elements, having grown up in the harsh prairies of Nebraska. As they were walking across the large Librarianabandoned field on their way to school, Nancy’s friend couldn’t make it forward against the strong wind. Nancy must have instinctively known that if she left 8 HOMING IN

her friend there, she might die. She courageously carried her across the school grounds to safety. She saved her life. After that experience, the teachers looked at Nancy differently. She had an inner strength and natural assurance that impressed people—even though we couldn’t get her to stop sucking her thumb.

My life before Nancy was spent with the elders of the family who transmitted ways of being simply through their presence. What I received during those special times differentiated me from my sisters. I was greatly influenced by my relationship with my great grandfather. Our lives overlapped, allowing me to encounter not just my great grandfather, but an entire historical period that he was connectedCopy to and embedded in. When I was adopted, my parents were living with my great-grandfather, Carl Wilson, whose house joined my paternal grandparents’ house and my father’s uncle’s yard. An orchard joined the three homes. They referred to this place where our joint properties met as the Hill. I can remember the gardens full of peonies and lilac bushes. The abundant flowers attracted butterflies, and trees were full of squirrels. The Hill was an enchanted garden for me to discover. Pretend playing in the garden, I was wonderstruck by the natural world where my imagination and fantasy world opened up doors where I was emboldened to explore. The freedom and love that surrounded me in those enchanted gardens allowed me to flourish. As I was developing a sense of self, theReview landscape was “scaping” me. The beauty and wonder was sculpting my perceptions as I began making “mental ‘maps’ of causal relations between things and people.”4 About a year before Nancy was born—I was three—we moved from Grandpa Carl’s house to a house on Farnam Street, and there is where many of my childhood memories take place. Some of my favorite playmates were my friends Missy and Scott, and of course my sister Nancy. During one of our more memorable play dates at our house on Farnam Street, I decided to put Vaseline in Missy’s thick, curly, chestnut-colored hair. As I applied the gel to her beautiful locks, I realized that I had done something wrong and that we would probably end up getting punished. While our mothers were chatting over coffee, I escorted Missy to a secure hiding place, where we silently remained Librarianuntil our mothers must have realized that we weren’t making any noise. 4 Caspar Henderson, A New Map of Wonders, A Journey in Search of Modern Marvels, (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2017) 196. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 9

They never found us in our perfect hiding place and amazingly enough, we stayed put without making a sound, listening to our frantic mothers as they searched for our whereabouts. After searching our house and the block, they decided to call the police. We finally came out of our hiding place to be scolded. I recall the embarrassment I felt watching my godmother’s horrified expression as she saw Missy’s hair. However, the fear our mothers had experienced thinking we were lost saved us from spankings. Poor Missy had to endure multiple intensive washings in the kitchen sink to get her locks free of the sticky gel. This and other incidents, like filling the basement with bubbles from the overflowing washing machine, gave me a reputation as an instigator of mischief. At Missy’s house, we developed a more docile playtime tradition.Copy We would sit on her entry steps and imagine that the bookcase facing us was a cinema screen. We would flip the light switch to turn on our movies, inventing films and commenting on the events we saw in our mind’s eye. It became a part of our play ritual. Only we could see the film reels played on our private movie screen. One hot summer afternoon at the Farnam house when Nancy and I were upstairs resting, we heard a truck pull up. We watched from the upstairs window as my mother’s father—Grampy—delivered a playhouse for my birthday. We would play house together with our dish set like little sisters do, making soup from cut grass and mud. The playhouse became our special hideout where adults didn’t care to venture, as it was too small for them to enter or sit comfortably. It was our domain, especially in the summer becauseReview it shaded us from the hot sun. Memorial Park was just across the street from our Farnam house. Its centerpiece is a large white memorial created in 1948 for all the men and women from Douglas County who served with the armed forces. I remember catching butterflies with butterfly nets in the park with my first love, Scott Barker. We were the same age and attended kindergarten together. We grew up in a time when there was a prevalence of monarch butterflies. His mother took us to the park one afternoon, and when we caught a butterfly, she would burn it with her cigarette so that we could conserve each one for our collection. Looking back, butterfly catching was a sacred art. We chased after butterflies, lifting ourselves higher, reaching out our nets for the capture. We have both become “inspirational idea catchers,” looking to the sky to find inspiration as it flutters around us. He is now the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska. LibrarianScott and I used to plan out pretend wedding rituals with our other neighborhood friends using a makeshift veil and a plastic ring. Scott always enjoyed performing 10 HOMING IN

the wedding ceremonies. I am sure our childhood play of arranging wedding ceremonies was good practice for performing the church rituals. Of course, Scott always asked the bridegroom to kiss the bride, which added yet another emotional level to our childhood playing. Kindergarten involved playing in the class’s playhouse and taking naps on floor mats. We were asked to bring things from home for show-and-tell, and together we’d sit on the floor and listen attentively to our schoolmates present their special object brought from home. Our mothers participated in our class activities by functioning as “room-mothers,” bringing cookies and preparing activities for the different holidays. At my mother’s first teacher-parent conference, my kindergarten teacher referred to me as being a “social butterfly.” She shared with myCopy mother that I was a socially gifted child. My relational and transformational way of being in the world was expressed through my teacher’s metaphor. My social intelligence made me more aware of the social transformation that was occurring around me and how it was performed. Dundee grade school was in a neighborhood close to the University of Nebraska at Omaha. I could see the university from the sidewalk as I walked to school in a neighborhood where families lived within the protected walls of brick homes. The student body at the university was resonating with a call for social transformation. Stripping down in protest, they waved their shirts like liberating flags. My sensitivity to the changing times was especially felt during the many manifestations happening on campus. I could feel the ripple ofReview change running through the student body that was altering the course of history. When I was eight years old, it was the beginning of the 1970s and the hippie movement. The hippies and students from the university rioted for numerous reasons, including the new hours enforced at Memorial Park. The protestors and onlookers made their stand at the park, often overflowing across the street and into our yard. My father sent me to stay with his parents, who lived in the western part of town. I returned home from my grandparents the last night of the riots. I remember seeing about twenty people, many wearing flowered shirts, just sitting in our front yard, like it was normal to be passive spectators on a warm night. Farther down the intersection, university students were lying down in the middle of Dodge Street in protest. I had seen the reports about the riots on the local news, but this first-hand experience was unsettling. LibrarianJust before sunset, the police came to break up the riot and started spraying tear gas. The onlookers began to run, and some of them hid in our playhouse to SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 11

get away from the tear gas. As I saw the tiny flame of the intruders lighting up a joint inside our special place, my father ran out to defend our territory. When those fleeing started screaming for fear of being attacked by the police, the surreal scene suddenly became an uncomfortable form of realpolitik playing out on my neighborhood street right before my eyes. I recall hearing screaming coming from the bottom of our front yard steps at nightfall. My mother opened the front door and saw a police officer beating a black man with a stick while the man pled to be left alone. At each blow, he cried out in pain. My mother intervened, ordering the officer to stop beating the man on our property. My parents pulled him to safety on our front steps and tried to get an ambulance to come, but the traffic was gridlocked. I can still see Copymy mother on the phone, trying to indicate to the 911 operator where our house was. The whole evening seemed like a documentary film, minus the background music. The difference between my world and the world of the onlookers in my front yard was apparent even to an eight-year-old. The protestors wore bell-bottoms and flowing, pirate-like shirts, and the men had long hair. My parents wore classic attire and didn’t smell of weed, and my father had short hair, like other adults in our social circle. The riots had been like a show, and these young revolutionary students who thought they had the right to invade our private property were disturbing my safe, orderly world. The riots brought unwanted chaos and police, who were capable of a form of violence that I had never before witnessed. The music on the radio sang the words of the social revolution inReview the making that I could feel, but the reality of drug-overdosed students dying in the park seemed more to me like a threat to my security than real social progress. But living on Farnam Street provided me with a lens giving insight in to the social milieu of Omaha’s Midtown.

When I was eight, we left behind the landmarks of the university and Memorial Park where many of the protests took place, going west—at least, to the western part of town on 120th and Pacific Street. We moved from our brick house on Farnam Street to Boardwalk Apartments while our house in the Candlewood Lake development was being built. Moving to the new house would mean going to a new school, and I felt saddened to leave my schoolmates. However, the excitement of building our new house made it all seem as if we would be moving up in the world, Librarianliving in a prestigious new neighborhood that my own father was developing. We lived on the third floor of the apartment building, right across from my 12 HOMING IN

grandparents, whom we called Marnie and Poppy, and adjacent to my father and grandfather’s real estate office. It was very convenient, and my grandparents watched Nan and me while my father and mother took a trip to Europe, visiting London and Paris. They brought back red patent leather jackets, an impressive lock and key with an old wine opener for my father’s wine cellar in the new house, a belt buckle collection, and, most importantly, a new life. They had conceived Leigh on their trip. One afternoon when my mother had a meeting, Marnie was taking care of Nancy and me. We were swimming at the pool behind our building when suddenly Nan’s round inner tube started losing air. My grandmother, who could not swim, panicked and started throwing other inner tubes her way, but the windCopy was too strong. The other adults around the pool sat there, frozen. I knew I had to act quickly if I wanted to stop her from drowning, so I jumped in. As soon as I got to her, she wrapped her arms around me, blocking my arms and legs from being able to swim. I was able to keep our heads above the water until a man jumped in to help us. I found out later he had been on his way to meeting with my father when he saw us. He stripped off his clothes and came through the pool gate while the sunbathers in their bathing suits just watched. That was a lesson for me—the courage to act isn’t given to all. During that summer living in the apartment next to my father and grandfather’s office, I enjoyed dressing up and trying on different roles. I liked to read and was very fond of Little Women by Louisa MayReview Alcott, particularly the character Jo, who was an aspiring author. I too wanted to be a writer, and I got my mother, who was a good seamstress, to make me a Jo costume. I started writing my first poems. My own family was growing, and we would soon have another sister, just like Jo’s. But Little Women was not the only book I checked out of my elementary school library. I also chose Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, written in 1962. How did my fingers know to pick that book out from all the others on the shelf? Somehow I was drawn to learn from an environmental science book documenting the adverse environmental effects caused by pesticides. During the same period, John Denver came out with his best album. I enjoyed listening to “Poems, Prayers and Promises” and “Follow Me” and began making choices about the music I wanted to listen to and the books that I wanted to read. While living in the apartments, I watched as my mother endured morning Librariansickness and as her pregnancy began to show. The secrecy of the pregnancy was kept from Nancy and me, though I had read the prescription on the pills I saw my SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 13

mother taking for nausea. I guessed she was expecting. There were great changes whirling around me as we prepared to receive a new baby and move from our apartment complex into our new home on Candlewood Lake. Soon after the move, I wrote the poem “No More Shall I Live nor Die.” The strong emotions I felt as I left my best friends at Crestridge Elementary School are evident. I moved forward, through the pain of separation, hoping to make new friends at Thomas Edison Elementary School. The beauty of our new home on the lakeshore and the spaciousness of our surroundings were a comfort, as were my dogs. Still, leaving behind my dear grade school friends hurt deeply. No more shall I live this morning, Copy No more shall I die. No more shall I see my loved ones, But just once more I’ll cry. Baby’s lying by the bedside, not understanding why. Father and sister don’t seem to care, but don’t really understand. My best friend is losing life-remembering things we’ve done. Now the shadow passes above me, And now I shall die, Remembering the love that once surrounded me, And the new kind that shall come. My first poem always takes me Reviewby surprise, especially considering I composed it around ten years of age. Why was I so taken by this image of death? What was I remembering? Now, as I recollect the pieces of my past, I see that my poetic expressions were helping me to give voice to the love I must have felt for my birth parents that I had known in the womb. Separating from them was a form of death. But the poem interestingly stresses the sure belief that new love shall come. My adoption brought new love and a wonderful childhood. Still, a part of me, deep in my subconscious, was “remembering a love that once surrounded me” when I was in my mother’s womb. That remembering would drive me to search for my biological family as an adult. Coming from a place of relational giving and receiving developed a memory talk that allowed me to see connections and describe what I was seeing in an evolving form of reciprocity. After experiencing a form of root shock at birth, I developed a homing in mechanism to repair the rift, tracking the Librarianmemory prints. Copy

Review

Librarian CHAPTER 2

INTERGENERATIVITY Copy ften Europeans will try to tell me that we Americans don’t have any roots. Indeed, we do. Our roots go far back and can be traced to the continents O that our ancestors came from. They can be traced through family recipes handed down from mother to daughter. Our traditions are kept alive through our practice of faith, the songs that we sing, and the children’s stories that we read. Our virtues are passed on through our culture and our relations, maintained over generations. When we aren’t sure, we look back—and we also look deeply into our children’s eyes to see where we should go. Intergenerational relationships engender a form of generativity, enkindling interactions and concern for others. Relationships between grandchildren and grandparents permit a relational spaceReview for all that is symbolic and spiritual to exist. Grandparents don’t have the same direct, material responsibility for our development. I understood as a child that my time spent with my grandparents was limited and that they would most likely die during my lifetime. Yet, in subtle ways, we created ties that bound us beyond the material world. We passed on love through gestures, linking us through family rituals passed down from our ancestors. Each of my grandparents and great-grandparents created bonds with me that shaped who I am and, as I pass along their wisdom and traditions and values, who my children and grandchildren are. One of my earliest experiences feeling bonded to my forebears happened when Grandpa Carl (my father’s mother’s father) gave me my first doll in the apple orchard. That moment was like a bookmark in my early childhood memory book. In that threshold moment in the first years of my life, symbolic connections were Librarianmade through the lines of inheritance that tied me to my great-grandpa Carl. The gift that I received from my great-grandfather bound me to him in a family timeline, 16 HOMING IN

allowing me to take the doll like a relay stick with the intent of passing it on to the next generation of runners. The archetypical meanings Grandpa Carl passed on to me were part of the collective consciousness of his time. I meshed with those shapes and forms that I wasn’t able to understand as a child. Still, I wore them like a cloak; I sensed their texture, their smell, and the feelings they evoked. Later, I followed their trail much like a child follows the smell of a fresh baked pie, leading to the kitchen table where the afternoon tea party is set out. Perhaps the strongest pull inspired by my first doll was to become a mother. I developed an attachment to my “Koo-men-slag,” the strange name I gave my doll. My daughters later inherited my precious doll. She initiated meCopy to a sense of motherliness, a seed of desire that was planted deep within me during the first years of my existence. Living in Grandpa Carl’s house and playing in his gardens fostered a deep connection to an enchanted world. Grandpa Carl was a magician and had taught Johnny Carson his magic tricks before he left Omaha and became the famous host of the Tonight Show. He had hidden rooms in his house. I remember a secret room that was accessed by pushing on a hidden opening in the wallpapered hall. It was exciting living in a magical house surrounded by an enchanted family garden. Grandpa Carl had an amazing library, and all his old books fascinated me. Though I don’t remember seeing them in our first house that we shared with him, they took on a great importance later Reviewwhen they were placed in my father’s study in the house he built on Candlewood Lake. I wanted so badly to know, as I imagined my great-grandfather knew from reading the Harvard Classics and the old leather- bound volumes of Don Quixote in Spanish that my sister Nancy retrieved and keeps on her own desk. The books called to me, inviting me to absorb what was written inside, the wisdom of the ages. The symbolic representation of books resonated in my young mind, associating with the pursuit of higher knowledge, another core theme in my life. During those first years, the encounter with my great-grandfather linked me to my adopted lineage as well as my psychic connection to archetypical information that I later believed to be hidden within the pages of his books. Grandpa Carl’s books spoke to me, waking me to my strong desire to achieve scholastically and become erudite—a word used much later by a professor describing my doctoral thesis. The books were an interface guiding me toward scholarship Librarianwhile whispering into the ear of my childhood imagination. I wondered what was inside the books and why they were so important. I was convinced that they held SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 17

answers to the meaning of life that was passed on through generations in mysterious ways. As I didn’t have the biological imprint from the Mossmans and Wilsons, my only way to become like them was to learn from them, modeling their examples and carefully listening to their family stories. Hence, the importance that I give to teaching stories and their power to fashion our lives.

My father’s parents taught me to be a Mossman by weaving me into the family practices, teaching me the mannerisms, and modeling the love and caregiving bestowed upon loved ones within the family circle. They tutored me in Mossman family history. Our roots can be traced to ancestors who left EuropeCopy hundreds of years ago. I suspect those same roots pulled me back across the Atlantic to found my own family. The head of the Mossman family had been the goldsmith or jeweler to Mary, Queen of Scots. He was beheaded after trying to protect the queen, who was being kept in a castle in Scotland. Later, Mary was also beheaded. The violent imagery of that storied description never affected me. It seemed so far back in time that I felt almost immune to the tragedy. The family lived in what is now known as the Knox House, a historical site in Edinburgh, Scotland, where John Knox, a prominent Protestant reformer, also lived. Following the beheading, the Mossman family members immigrated to the new colonies in North America. As loyalists,Review they moved to Canada for the duration of the American Revolution. My grandfather had a parchment from the king of England thanking our family for their loyalty during the revolution. My paternal grandfather, Harland Mossman, was a methodological man. A true Methodist, he would do his daily exercises and take his daily walks, faithfully saying his prayers and assuming his family responsibilities. The Bible speaks of our body as a temple and stresses our responsibility to treat it well. He went to the YMCA as a young man and explained that working out and remaining disciplined helped him and my Grandpa Carl survive the difficult years during the Depression. He went to the office every day until his mid-eighties. I called my grandfather Poppy as soon as I could speak. It stuck all through his life. My paternal grandparents came from families that valued and provided higher education. My grandfather’s father was a prominent Omaha lawyer who died Librarianyoung of Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Poppy was the oldest of six children. He used to say jokingly that his parents were irresponsible Protestants to have such a large family. 18 HOMING IN

At that time, there wasn’t insurance and the family had to sell their home to provide medical care for their dying father. His wife had majored in music, studying in the late 1800s at a university in Iowa. As an adult, my grandfather used the family’s extra income to collect Steuben and Tiffany vases, but it was really a kind of investment portfolio. He sold his collection when my father went to college, reinvesting the money from the vases in my father’s education. My grandfather’s choice taught me that things are bought and sold, but that education, with its opportunities to cultivate ourselves, is worth more than material goods. Access to higher education has been one of the most important strengths of the American people following the Second World War. Copy The Steuben and Tiffany vase collection is one example of how my grandparents cultivated a love for the finer things in life, and they shared with me their discoveries of treasured Americana artifacts. They took me to the auctions with them on Saturdays and collected Gilder paintings of the Nebraska landscape, which they hung in their living room. I have always felt connected to Gilder’s work through my grandparents’ prized collection. From his cabin, called the Wake Robin, on the grounds of Fontanelle Forest, Robert Gilder painted many of his landscapes. His snow scenes play with the shadows of light in the forests he depicts. His trees seem to reach into the sky, as if their branches were rooted in heaven. Gilder was also an archeologist. HeReview received the title of Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Nebraska for discovering the oldest human remains, known as the Nebraska Loess Man. Dr. Gilder’s published article in the American Anthropologist about the burial sites and his findings in relation to human skulls at the beginning of the 1900s make him an even more fascinating figure to me. After my father went to college, my grandparents found other pieces of Steuben and Tiffany and reconstituted a collection. Their collections I prized as a child were eventually divided up, and each granddaughter inherited pieces of cut glass, Steuben and Tiffany vases, and Gilder paintings. When I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American collection as an adult, I realized how the pieces collected by my grandparents were much like what could be seen in the American collection. The detailed designs that influenced that period, including the stained-glass windows and the American impressionists, inhabit my subconscious, representing Librariana blueprint for beauty that orients my tastes and artistic pleasures. More than their value, their presence in my home mediates my bond to my grandparents. Their SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 19

example continues to orient me as I search for higher meaning and the way to live “the good life,” the life I knew as a Nebraskan. Marnie is the name that I gave my paternal grandmother one day as she walked by the window of Grandpa Carl’s living room. I pointed to her and spoke that name, later repeating the same pronunciation when she came to see me at our house. Just like with Poppy, Marnie stuck. Marnie adored me just as I adored her. We spent hours together. She would listen to me, as I always seemed to have a lot to speak about. We would do errands and cook together. When I was eighteen, I learned to bake bread. She would have me make several loaves for her friends. We would call Poppy at the office just as the bread was coming out of the oven. He loved the smell of fresh Copybread and he would get the first bite, spreading butter that melted on the still-warm slice. We even entered my bread in the State Fair’s baking contest. I won a blue ribbon for my braided bread recipe. When I was a little girl, Marnie taught me to make May Day baskets. We would fill them with homemade candies and spring flowers that we picked from her garden where abundant bushes of lilacs offered deep purple bouquets. The tradition was that you had to place the May Day basket on the doorstep, ring the bell, and run. We would make the rounds with our little baskets, leaving them at the homes of our dearest friends. At one doorstep, an elderly lady, one of Marnie’s friends, waited for me in the entryway of her home. She presented me with a special teacup and saucer carefully wrapped in a white Reviewbox and protected by tissue paper. The teacup had painted symbols on the inside, used to tell fortunes. I always wondered why she had chosen me. Had she seen in the teacup that I was the child with the gift to see into the future? What influence did the tealeaves of the past have on the future? What had that cup revealed to Marnie’s dear friend? I was always intrigued with the divinatory arts and the different tools that were used to see into the unknown. That mystery accompanies the beautiful teacup even as it sits in my secretary desk. Marnie’s enthusiastic adoration of bright colors and sparkling stones might have come from her early years at the University of Nebraska when her theatre studies influenced her tastes and love for preparing for the stage and getting in costume. Poppy always wore a hat and coat to work, carrying a clean white handkerchief in his pocket. Marnie’s love for bright colors and especially the color blue added to a Librariancertain eccentricity that was part of their shared aura. When pain from her chronic illness increased, her clothes became more practical than sophisticated as she found 20 HOMING IN

polyester suits to be more comfortable. Marnie had a long scar on her arm from a car crash and deformed hands from arthritis. Her jewelry camouflaged those imperfections. Like her father Carl the magician, she used the “slip of the wrist” to create an illusion that there were indeed no handicaps. She was flamboyant, sitting at her dressing table where a collection of crystal and Lalique perfume bottles sat on a silver tray. Special boxes held sets of earrings and necklaces. When I spent the night at their house, I had the privilege of choosing what she would wear for the day. She was the star performer, sitting in her dressing room, while I, her adored assistant, prepared her for the first act. I loved her diamonds with settings from the beginning of the century. The intricate designs from the art deco period caught my eye as a young child. That period continued to fascinateCopy and inspire me as my tastes developed. I so enjoyed being her little costume designer, preparing for the performance of the day. We lived in our make-believe world, writing our own script. Marnie was privileged. Would I have thought she was spoiled if I were her con- temporary? In any case, she did spoil me. One day after receiving one of her special treats, I said, “Marnie, how will I ever be able to repay you?” She said that I was to pass on all my love to my children. She explained to me that people often don’t know how to love and are doing their best by modeling the manner in which they had been cared for as children. My grandparents had a tight group of friends, most of them medical doctors. They would meet weekly for drinks andReview dinner. They called themselves the Wild Kingdom. The women would talk more than the men. They were good friends from college, sorority sisters. They told jokes and enjoyed each other’s company. I would often go to my grandparent’s house during cocktail hour to meet with them. They would always have a couple of drinks and then go to dinner early so that the doctors could make their early rounds at the hospital the next morning. Being a part of their group as a child, sitting in with these wise elders, framed my way of looking at life in subtle ways. As I listened to their conversations, I perceived what guided their lives. One of their friends was Dr. Aita, a well-known psychiatrist who had not only practiced but had written extensively. However, it was his wife who would tell about the weekly books that she checked from the library. She modeled lifelong learning and the importance of reading. She made it a practice to find new subjects every Librarianweek and continue to discover new avenues that might lead to a better way of life, or simply a more cultured appreciation of the good life. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 21

The Wild Kingdom was from a different generation than my parents. They had another lifestyle and different values. Their lives had been shaped by an era in history much different than my own. Their good company was a bridge that linked me to their way of living that was comfortable to me. I always felt at home in my grandparents’ house. It was a privilege to be able to know them so well and to have so much of their undivided attention. I never realized as a child that I was sitting in a circle of healers who were participating in the configuring of my own intellectual pursuits. Marnie and Poppy modeled a loving couple relationship that I aspired to find one day. They always held hands in the car and used loving endearments when they spoke to each other. She was his darlin’. Poppy was tender and caring.Copy Because of Marnie’s arthritis, Poppy had to help her carry heavy casserole dishes or do certain maneuvers in the kitchen that her crippled fingers didn’t have the strength to manage. He loved her dearly, offering her beautiful precious stones to wear on her deformed and painful fingers. During the first years of their marriage on the third of every month, their anniversary day, Poppy brought home a piece of sterling silver to complete their silver set. He celebrated their love with thoughtful attentions. After completing their sterling silver set, they continued to exchange their wedding vows each third of the month throughout their entire life together. I inherited their sterling. Each time I set the table, I am reminded of their devotion to each other. The differentReview pieces speak of a different period when families would spend Sunday at the dinner table drinking mint tea and stirring their summer refreshments with a long silver spoon. There are tongs for pickles and dessert forks, and even an angel food cake cutter. I have a list of the silver pieces and their different names explaining what they were used for—an ethnographic insight into the way my grandparents and parents served their traditional family meals. The example of Marnie and Poppy has stayed with me. Though others saved their silver for special occasions, Marnie modeled how the beautiful silver pieces should be used daily, contributing to the aesthetic quality of life. She lived in the midst of beauty. Paintings lined her walls and her art collection included beautiful cut glass pieces with vases of all sizes and shapes. Instead of going on vacation, Marnie explained that what was important to her was living a meaningful life daily Librariansurrounded by the people she loved. Every day was a special day. She began by choosing her lovely jewels to be worn with pride and elegance. She set her table 22 HOMING IN

with the finest china and silver. And she always had a good book sitting next to her favorite living room chair. There is an oval portrait of Marnie’s mother Pearly, who is veiled, holding Marnie, a baby swaddled in a white cloth. The photograph hangs next to my antique dresser. That image and those women accompany me every day when I wake from an ephemeral fabric of dreams. Their portraits were more iconic than the pictures of my country grandparents who didn’t have the same cultural refinement and influences from the city. But I benefited from both of those models, enjoying the amenities and social life Omaha offered while spending weekends in the countryside with the animals, the crops, and the wide-open pasturelands. Copy

The Country Mouse and City Mouse Adventures, a children’s book I read as a young girl, depicted the different lifestyles that were constituting my becomingness. While Marnie and Poppy were my city grandparents, my maternal grandparents were “salt of the earth people,” as we say in the Midwest. My mother would often say, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” Her mother had lost her father in a tragic train accident in South Sioux City, Nebraska. Grammy, as I called her, used to tell the story that a mean-spirited man driving the train ran over her father. Grammy was three and her little sister was six months old. Her mother, Blanche Savidge, had to clean homes and work in a biscuit factory to support her children. Grammy said they were so poor when she was growingReview up that her legs had bowed from not getting enough milk and other food to eat. Even though her life was difficult, my great-grandmother Savidge lived a long and good life, dying at the age of ninety-six. Mary Pipher, a Nebraskan writer, talks about a discussion she had with her own grandmother in her book Writing to Change the World. When Mary asked her grandmother if she had had a happy life, her grandmother replied that for her generation it wasn’t as important to be happy. She had been personally motivated to use her talents to make sure that the world was a better place when she left it behind. Using our talents and skills to do the next good thing and living a life of principle may have been more important for our ancestors. It certainly seemed to be true for Grandma Savidge, who assumed her responsibilities and raised her two daughters well in spite of the tragic circumstances of her husband’s death. I wonder today Librarianhow she would have spoken about her life. What guiding principles allowed her to overcome the hardships that she encountered? SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 23

Grammy had a talent for teaching and was an adored and honored first grade teacher. She also had an ear for music, which was a special gift that allowed her to pay for her studies and become a schoolteacher. She would play for the radio live in the 1930s. That money allowed her to assume her tuition and costs. On my thirty- third birthday, Grammy played the piano non-stop to the tunes of the 1930s while we danced. Parts of her memory had faded, but she still remembered her favorite piano pieces she had performed for the radio so many years ago. Her piano had kept her company all throughout her life. She said that just a sheet of music was the best Christmas present when she was a young girl. Her husband, George—we called him Grampy—was the oldest of ten children from northeast Nebraska. He didn’t talk much. He was a man ofCopy action and a caretaker. We would stop by to see him at his store where he sold farm supplies to locals. We loved the little chicks that he raised and sold to the farmers. They were soft, yellow fluff balls peeping in unison. After his retirement, he became an elected official and worked for the betterment of the greater community. He was a Shriner and I remember seeing him wearing his Shriner’s hat with a pom-pom in the small- town parades. Grampy spent most of his time after retiring at Blackbird Bend Farm, the farm my father bought in conjunction with both sets of my grandparents when I was very young. A hard worker, Grampy took care of the cows and pigs, made sure the yard was cut, and tended a large vegetable garden. He wore striped overalls and often had a hired farmhand to helpReview him with the chores. I can only be thankful to have been raised by these Nebraskans who were hardened by the demanding life of settlers but who had the pioneer spirit that made the Midwest the breadbasket of the world. Small-town life in South Sioux City was different from my life in Omaha. But the example of my country grandparents and my city grandparents allowed me to know about the different ways of life that existed in our great state. Even more, the strong relationships that I had with my grandparents fostered a rich form of intergenerativity that made me aware of the importance of where we come from, our family and life histories, and how they influence who we become. This process of becomingness ties the intimate experiences lived within family relationships to larger macro dimensions, mapping Librarianout what constitutes us in an epistemology of the good life. Copy

Review

Librarian CHAPTER 3

BLACKBIRD BEND FARM Copy alking our farm ground shaped and fashioned me so profoundly that I cannot describe my inner landscapes without connecting them to the W landscapes I grew up on. My very identity was intertwined with the prairie grasses, the mighty Missouri River, and the bluffs overlooking the winding river valley. Blackbird Bend Farm was around 750 acres and surrounded by the Omaha Indian Reservation. The land, owned jointly by my parents and both sets of my grandparents, was considered sacred ground. The bluffs overlooked the Missouri River and the fields were among the most fertile in the world. We raised soybeans and corn. We split the profits with the farmer, who had the equipment and farmed the land for us. I spent my weekends growing upReview on that farm, on my land, riding my horses, free to roam the acres that sprawled before me. From the time that I was five years old until my college days, my refuge was that farm ground where my roots had taken hold in the gumbo mud. My identity was intimately linked to our farmland. I was part of the land and thought I could always survive if I had that land to fall back on. Just as Poppy had an eye for beauty as reflected in his art collection, my father had an eye for beauty collecting unique properties as a real estate developer. He had found this piece of land right off the highway that followed the Missouri River north from Omaha. The view from the highway was extraordinary. The land curved with the river and the bluffs rose from the fields. The farmhouse was nestled close to the border of trees that covered the hilly landscape. It looked out onto the fields and the river. It was a simple two-story farmhouse with a porch and a cellar to hide Librarianin during tornado season. Over the years, the screened-in porch was turned into a bedroom and a wooden deck was added. The farmhouse was surrounded by a 26 HOMING IN

large farmyard with a gravel road leading up to the barn. The old farmstead was surrounded by lovely grounds, protected by the surroundings hills. The barn sat behind the house. On one side, there was the hog pen, and on the other, pastures provided grazing for cows and my horses—Twinkle, Annabelle, and Peppermint Patty. The horses were hard to catch in the spring after the long winters when they were free to run wild. There was always a good old farm dog wagging its tail to greet me. On the hot summer afternoons, the older folks would take naps on the screened-in porch and I would look for kitten playmates between haystacks in the barn. Monarch butterflies would fill the backyard in early summer when the peonies were in bloom. I had a tree fort in the back garden with a tree swing made from heavy rope that must have been used to tie up a riverCopy barge. I spent hours swinging and climbing, always inventing my next activity. An aerial photo of the farm and its land was taken and hung on the wall next to the heavy oak wood dining room table. The photograph showed how the land had been piecemealed together over years as my father acquired adjoining acres. I would get an explanation of the layout as he proudly explained how the new pieces fit together. Mapping our ownership was a skill that my grandfathers and father taught me to do visually and on foot, familiarizing me with the land’s borders. I remember a newspaper article describing Blackbird Bend, named after Native American Chief Blackbird, as one of the most beautiful scenic sights in Nebraska. My father chose this name because Chief Blackbird is said to have been buried on one of the bluffs overlooking the MissouriReview River near our land. He traded with the French trappers that came up the river selling goods like arsenic to the Native Americans. Chief Blackbird would use the poison to kill anyone who crossed him or who might be considered a threat to his power, including his own tribesmen. The seemingly mysterious deaths of his foes gave an illusion that he possessed supernatural powers. As the story goes, Chief Blackbird wanted to be buried on a live horse. He was a powerful and feared chief. A well-known artist that specialized in Native American portraits painted Chief Blackbird for my father. The painting has a bright yellow-and-orange background, bold colors for a cruel chief. We would often walk to the high bluff in the north part of our farm where there were several Indian graves and where we imagined Chief Blackbird might be buried. At the foot of the bluff, my father organized campfire parties with storytelling and masks that sent a chill up my spine. Native American lore was part Librarianof my upbringing. My feet walked the sacred land. My grandparents often told the story of how I insisted at age two on walking SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 27

alone down the red dirt road from the bluff to the farm as they followed in the car. That was one of the first family stories describing my ability to persevere. That dirt road symbolized the relationship between the sacred Native American ways and my own becomingness. It was hard going up the north road that led to the top of the bluff and the graves, connecting the farmhouse to the highest reference point where the activity on the river could be watched. Walking down that road was exciting as a little girl, with tractor wheel prints cut into the dirt and corn fields lining the side, so tall I couldn’t see anywhere but down the road. I followed that road to the bluff ’s landmark sentinel that seemed to be calling me to come see from a higher vantage point. Often on my own, each walk on the northward path was an adventure toward discovery. Copy I was accustomed to having both sets of my grandparents at the farm for our family gatherings on weekends and holidays. On a few occasions, Grandma Savidge, my great-grandmother on my mother’s side, would come down to the farm. She looked so old to us. She liked Horehound candy, which we thought tasted like medicine. As little girls, Nancy and I would awake to the sound of sizzling bacon coming up through the vents that connected the kitchen with the upper bedrooms. Coming downstairs to the kitchen with rumpled hair, we would wait for our toast to come up and our eggs to cook as our parents and grandparents conversed over coffee. In the fall, morning rays of sunshine would warm the frozen earth. Turkeys and guinea hens gobbled and squabbledReview among themselves; pig feeders crashed and banged as cows began their mooing. In the barn, the cats and kittens uncurled themselves from their hay beds. In the garden, the pumpkin patch was all that was left, next to the ghostly appearance of the tree swing hanging from a barren tree branch above the fallen leaves. Each season welcomed our family with a changed landscape. We would play games on the old shag rug, scared to look for any dropped pieces in case we found a boxelder bug, which to me smelled like bananas. In the afternoons, Nan would be forced to take a nap. She would spy on my mother and grandmothers through the grate in the ceiling that connected the bedroom with the kitchen while they cleaned up the dishes and chatted. The men would often smoke cigars and talk about crop yields. In the middle of the night, my sisters and I would sometimes wake up and join Librarianour father on the porch bed. It was often cold out there, and we would have to cuddle up to keep warm. We called that “spooning.” We all liked sleeping in the 28 HOMING IN

fresh, crisp country air. The beds were all old and creaky. The mattresses dipped in the middle, and the bedding smelled like the old farmhouse. Sleeping on the screened in porch brought me even more in touch with the outdoor smells and night sounds floating in the nighttime air.

My seasons were the land’s seasons. There was the flowering tulip tree in spring with its soft pink and white flowers as the fields began to grow and the bluffs filled out with lush green trees and prairie grasses. Then there was the beauty of summer and the Missouri River that flowed at the far end of the fields with an incredible current that could drown even the most experienced swimmers. Copy The heat and humidity, the tall cornfields, and the sounds of the grasshoppers would fill my senses. Fall was hunting season. There were pheasants, Canadian geese, and ducks that would land on the swamp ground. There would be days that my dad and grandfather would stay out at the farm to hunt the deer and speak of the large bucks. Wild turkeys could be heard gobbling from their hiding spots in the trees and in the bluffs behind the farmhouse. Grampy, my mother’s father, would sometimes shoot us a turkey for Thanksgiving off our own land. The incredibly cold winters mostly kept us away from Blackbird Bend Farm, but one year I organized a New Year’s Eve stay over for some friends. My date was a neighbor and high school friend who had graduated and had a baseball scholarship. Another young man had just gotten pinnedReview to my god-sister Missy at her sorority on the University of Kansas campus. (Pinning involved fraternity members giving their fraternity pin to their girlfriend as an engagement promise.) The third couple comprised two old friends—my first boyfriend from Dundee Primary School and the daughter of one of my mother’s sisters from P.E.O., a women’s organization. To celebrate our victory over the challenges of our sophomore year, I walked with my date to the top of the bluff overlooking the river and opened a bottle of champagne. That year I had transferred to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and though I was closer to home and old friends, I felt a bit out of place and needed to get a higher view of life and where I wanted to ultimately go. The others stayed back in the warm farmhouse while our jeans froze to our legs. It was more my character than my muscles that lifted my legs up and out of the deep snow as we made a path that looked like button holes Librarianin a coarse fabric. The next morning, I drove my male guests down to the river. They were happy SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 29

to have me take the wheel and drive through snow drifts off the road and into the barren fields to get to the river’s edge and watch as the huge pieces of ice cracked and grated against each other, making a sound as crisp as the cold morning air. The sun was out, but even its brightness couldn’t warm us up from the below zero continental cold. It seemed like we were the only humans watching the incredible flow of ice heading down the Missouri. With no sign of humankind’s imprint in the landscape, we could choose our century and imagine that we were trappers witnessing the stunning grandeur before us. To make it back to the farm I had to hit the gas and make the jeep fly up and over the snowdrifts. I can remember the scared eyes of my passengers hanging onto the bar in the back seats of the jeep. I had fun scaring the city boysCopy in the back. I was Dave’s daughter and I believed that I could do anything! I wanted to impress them by emulating a kind of male courageousness, demonstrating to them that I was adventurous and afraid of nothing. Being on the farm without my parents gave me a kind of freedom to forge my own personality in relation to the wide-open space, inviting me to come play no longer as a child but as a young woman. When I was in junior high school, I wrote a creative piece for school describing the farm:

Looking north, out across the harvested cornfields, the bluffs seem colorless compared with their amber, yellow, and brown hues of past weeks. The bluffs curve around the backside ofReview the farmhouse and stretch northward parallel to the river. Pastures and fields lie east and west from the foot of the bluffs to the riverbank divided by a dirt road that leads to the north farm. At the north farm, the country road continues to wind up the highest bluff through trees and brush ending at a grassy plateau where cows graze and gravestones mark the resting place of Indians. In the distance, the powerful Missouri divides the land into Nebraska and Iowa. The river is lined by tall, slender trees that create a light, airy border like the gingerbread trim on a house. Barbed wire fences cut out farm plots like a square cookie cutter, and occasionally a grouping of three or four buildings form a small town. The sky’s color is reflected in the river. At times a careful eye may spot a motorboat making its way through the river’s strong current. It is a legend that Chief Blackbird was buried here on the Librarianbluff ’s high ridge, so that he could watch the French traders travel the great Missouri. But the Indians are gone. The pioneers that made their mark with 30 HOMING IN

the plow are gone too. Today, the stewards of the land are city people: the Mossmans.

The farm was our gathering place. My parents were both only children and Decatur, was halfway between Omaha and South Sioux city, where my mother was originally from. I didn’t know what having cousins was all about. My parents’ close friends were like family. I would bring my friend Cathy up to the farm to ride horses and play in the fields. We started going up to the farm when we were in kindergarten. Cathy Hansen was of Danish descent. She had wide cheekbones, a mischievous smile, and brown hair. We would stay out all day under the sun withoutCopy hats or sun cream in those days. I always returned with painful sunburn while she just tanned. We both had pigtails or braids to keep our hair from catching burrs. I remember visiting the clay birdhouses on the bluff walls that were like cliffs falling into the river. My parents would let us play all day together, allowing us to hike down to the river and blaze trails through the brush. Our favorite activities consisted of corralling the horses, coaxing the cows to stampede, and running across the hog pen without getting trampled. We loved to dare each other to do what seemed to be dangerous or even impossible at that age. Our curiosity included interest for the barn sparrow eggs and any bugs or snakes that appeared threatening. Sounds marked the day’s progression—morning broke with the cuckoo bird, grasshoppers and crickets warned of heatstroke inReview the afternoon, and coyotes howled around sunset to announce the arrival of the moon. Lazy summer days would end with us looking for ticks in our hair before driving home through the small towns along the highway. We would light a match and press it to the tick’s body to get it to fall off. After we checked our hair, we would go over the farm dog’s coat to take off whatever ticks we could find. Going to and from the farm opened my perspective to a kind of no-man’s-land, where rundown buildings and rusty tractors and abandoned old cars dotted the landscape. This made me aware of the suffering that farmers were experiencing during the years of economic transition that forced farmers to sell their land and move to the city. The main road leading to Decatur, where the farm was located, ran through small towns that showed the telltale signs of increasing poverty in the farming communities. We imagined who might live in the shacks lining the Librarianroad, with their leaning frames and broken window panes. Ply boards were nailed over abandoned barn doors, and lonely churches marked the highway road, each SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 31

representing another denomination. One structure had bullet holes in the wood siding. I can still hear the snapping sound of the thin wooden screen doors fixed to the local burger joint and the Dairy Queen, where we could spend our change to buy ice cream. There were often more flies than customers. We were able to buy pieces of land because of the hard times farmers were facing. We were wealthy landowners that didn’t live from the land. It was our recreation and not our livelihood. Our farmhouse was a vacation home that represented a meeting place where we celebrated birthdays and holidays. It was the place where my father hunted, I road horseback, and where we all boated. It symbolizes my childhood and all I hold dear. The sacredness of the Native American lands crafted a magical memory catcher, holding together stories and memory-talk.Copy Today, a painting of the farm by well-known artist J. F. Groff hangs on the most prominent wall of my home, reminding me of all those special times. My father had bought a watercolor painting of a gingerbread-roofed house by Groff, who is known for his treatment of unique houses. Dave mentioned our farm and told Groff where he could find it, suggesting that it would make a wonderful painting. Months later, the artist’s gallery called and told my father that the artist had indeed found the farmhouse an intriguing artistic subject and invited him to come see the painting on display. Of course, my father and grandfather couldn’t resist purchasing the painting. The painting hung in my grandfather’s living room for many years before it was given to me when my grandparentsReview sold their house and moved into an assisted living apartment. All agreed that the painting should go to me, as I loved the farm more than anyone except Dave. The painting reminds me of where I came from as well as the vast space that was mine to roam freely. Even more, it illustrates the farmhouse walls that sheltered my youth. The barn is situated behind the house, nestled in the bluff ’s trees, cuddled by the rolling pastures that extend outward toward the soothing waters of the Missouri. The view from the porch isn’t captured in the painting, but superimposed memories add that scenery. Whenever I look to admire that central piece, I am reminded of the fertility of the land, the comfort of the homestead, and the wildness of my childhood spirit. Over the years when I struggled to make my life and raise my family on foreign soil, my mother often counseled me to “grow where you are planted.” Growing up on the rich Nebraskan soil allowed me to spring up tall like Librarianthe cornstalks and ultimately thrive in the Alps. Copy

Review

Librarian CHAPTER 4

SEASONS OF ADVENTURE Copy hen I was ten years old, we moved to our new house on Candlewood Lake in what was then the western suburbs of Omaha. The house had W been designed by John Offutt, an architect known for his modern wooden homes with high ceilings and open window space. My father had bought the land—at the time just cornfields—with another friend and developer. Then they dug out the land and made a big dam and brought in the natural spring water from the grounds to make a lake that was bordered by residential zoning on which to build custom homes. The excavation of the grounds took a few years. I can remember riding on the back of my mother’s dirt bike over the lake ground when the big bulldozers were digging the hole that would soon beReview filled with water. There was a huge boulder dug out of the cornfields during the excavation. Poppy had the boulder placed on the shore of our lake lot. My grandparents eventually built their own house on another lot one house away. My father and grandfather would often take large trees from areas about to be developed and transplant them into their developments. Our yard was planted with full-grown trees that my father had saved. My grandfather especially loved ginkgo trees, the oldest trees on our planet that are keepers of the earth’s memory. It was important to preserve the roots and then make sure that the transplanted trees got enough water. Poppy tenderly cared for the trees, just as he cared for me, making sure that I was nourished with love and attention. He tended to my rooting process, assuring that I would take root in the Mossman family and grow strong in spite of my transplantation. He somehow knew I required extra care. LibrarianOurs was the first house on the lake, and all the land and space was mine to roam with Brownie, my Chesapeake Bay Retriever. Her incredible protective instinct drove her to follow me wherever I went. She was a strong swimmer, originally bred 34 HOMING IN

in part from Newfoundland dogs, and her paws were like fins that allowed her to swim for hours. Her wavy brown coat had a kind of oil that repelled the cold waters, making her an ideal bird-hunting dog. I could latch onto her back, and she would swim me back to the shore for fun or if I got too tired. We had a large deck overlooking the water and a big trampoline in the back yard. Cathy was also a frequent companion, and we had an extraordinary freedom to play, swim, ride, and discover our natural environment. We were out on our own, full of spirit and confidence, two teenagers bound to overcome whatever obstacle got in our way. Before the residential area was developed, I had my horses at a stable at one of the far corners of the Lake Candlewood area. We moved them for a short time from the farm to these stables while the lake was being constructedCopy and the cornfields were being transformed into prime real estate property. We would ride out to the dam through the tall grasses. Then the quarter horses that we couldn’t keep in rein would take us full speed ahead back to the stables. I remember being thrown off my horse Annabelle when she reared, scared by a wild bird that flew up from its hiding place in the tall alfalfa fields. One winter Cathy’s horse slipped on the ice and fell on her. I had to ride quickly to get help. Luckily, she wasn’t seriously injured. We would spend hours swimming in the lake and often canoe to the far shores, followed by Brownie. We loved to catch tadpoles by the dam, walking barefoot over the large boulders until our bent-over backs were burned from the hot prairie sun. Across the field, we dug a hole in theReview ground and created a fort with the neighbor boys where we would work together to dig and maintain our secret hideout. We were given the freedom to play, to roam the area, and to invent knew activities. We could be very mischievous. We lost the mast of my sailboat to the bottom of the lake when the little boat overturned one too many times while riding the strong gusts of wind. My father was furious! We ran and hid in the upstairs bathroom, trying to escape his wrath. He found us standing on the toilet seat, clinging to each other in fright as he cursed our unfortunate loss of boating material. I was scared his irate words would find expression in his hands that appeared to want to take us and shake us till all the stupidity and irresponsibility fell from our entwined skinny frames. We escaped the ire of his clenched fists but were marked by his lividness. Certainly, his indignation was understandable, but the force of his temper suggested he was on the verge of losing control. LibrarianIn the winter, we would take the snowmobile out on the ice. We had no fear. We made jumps from the snow to catch air. One time I screamed, “Hold on tight” to SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 35

Cathy as we took a big jump. But the force of our flight over the thick ice was so great that Cathy flew off the back end. I swung around on the snowmobile to pick her up. Again, luckily she wasn’t hurt. We laughed and laughed, proud to have yet another adventure to tell about. On another occasion, this time with the neighbor boys, I was chasing after Brownie on the ice. She was running after a wild goose, and I tried to stop her from catching it and breaking its neck. The ice appeared strong enough because it was holding Brownie. Suddenly I heard the cracking sound, and then I was falling through the ice and into the cold water. I swam to shore by breaking through weakened ice chunks. The neighbor boys picked me up, all frozen and wet, and carried me home along the shoreline. The dangers I confronted as Copya youth were, to me, just part of growing up. In many ways, my father encouraged my adventurous spirit. He had spent the summers with his parents, hunting and fishing in the wild forests of Canada. His love of the outdoors had been cultivated during those long summer excursions. He knew how to survive in the great outdoors and considered them to be his teacher. The expeditions he planned for me and him, exposed to the harsh Nebraska elements, brought me to discover my inner strength. He tested me by expecting me to handle strong horses, fast dirt bikes, and powerful motorboats. For my first car, he bought me a Jeep Renegade. He took me to the top of the Colorado Rockies and insisted that I ski down black slopes without lessons. He taught me to swim in rivers and lakes where nobody would be Reviewable to come save me. He pushed me to find my inner steel. He formed my character, teaching me to shoot well, as he himself was an excellent marksman. He bought me a Kelty backpack for my thirteenth birthday and took me hiking for eight days with my best friend and her father in the Medicine Bow Peak area in Wyoming. The next year we all went down the Niobrara River in Nebraska on a guided canoe trip. He was a philosophy major and could talk with me about all the topics I would bring up. His sharp intellect wasn’t taken aback by my curiosity and my passion for justice and human rights that developed at an early age. My father’s risk-taking in business as well as in his outdoor adventures was a narrative trigger engendering stories or tall tales that we were proud to tell each other. The adventures he had experienced were some of the most meaningful moments in his life—or so it seemed to me. On one of his own expeditions, my father left Librarianwith a good friend Barney on a fishing trip on a large Canadian lake. The first day of their trip a bad storm came up and the waves almost capsized their boat. They 36 HOMING IN

had to throw the motor and some gear into the water to stay afloat. By chance, the wind blew them towards the only island on the lake. They knew that some winters the wolves got stuck on the island when the ice melted too quickly. Still, they had no choice but to throw the rest of their gear into the water and swim to the shore before the boat was broken on the rocky lakefront. The island was a godsend. They were stranded for three days on the island. They made a fire to signal in case a plane flew over. They also had a gun. No one suspected that they were stranded because it was the first days of their trip and family wasn’t expecting to communicate with them. My father had to face his possible death on that island, as he and his friend didn’t have enough food to survive for more than a week. A plane finally did fly over, and their fire and gunshot alertedCopy the pilot who sent a rescue mission to search for them. My adopted father was confronted with the bigger picture, the life-or-death experience. When he finally returned, he wept while he explained what had happened and how he had thought he would never see us again. He and Barney had prayed alone on that island for strength and protection. Their only way out was a miracle. David was like a cat with nine lives. He always came close to the edge, but somehow made it through. As if that summer outing wasn’t enough, he left the next winter to hunt on the same lake with snowmobiles. Again, he encountered difficulties on the ice that could have cost him and his buddy their lives. He brought me back a pair of beaded moccasins with white rabbit fur as winterReview slippers. My father had a motorboat and would often take us down to the Lake of the Ozarks near Osage Beach, Missouri, for our family vacation. Confident I could handle the motorboat, my father would send me out alone with my little sister on our motorboat to waterski when I was around twelve and she was about eight. He sensed how conscientious I was, and he knew that I would not disappoint him. He trusted me. Maybe it was his great confidence in life itself that allowed him to believe there was nothing I couldn’t do. One year we even got to stay at the Tan Tara Resort. We weren’t accustomed to vacationing at a resort with luxury condominiums. There I learned to waterski and enjoyed the many coves along the lake’s shore. Another year my parents took us to a rope swing on the lake’s edge. The excitement was fortified by the real danger that if you didn’t let go in time, you fell on the rocks. Our own little daredevil, LibrarianNancy, didn’t let go and cut her knee open on a rock’s edge. She was always more audacious than me. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 37

My dad had his own beaver fur coat, and he wore it every Christmas Eve day during my teens when we would meet for our father-daughter gathering at the French Café in the Old Market. He was the only one who wrote letters over the years spelling Susie with a “z.” Suzie. Adopted or not, I grew up knowing that I was Dave’s little girl, Suzie Q, like in the song, and he loved me dearly. Dave was a maverick and I wanted to be independent-minded just like him. My daily escapades and recreational experiences became proof of my bravery. I reveled in the stories that spoke of danger and silliness, forever looking for yet another daring exploit. Amid the adventures with my dad and Cathy, I wrote a piece for creative writing entitled “Only Me.” It can be understood as testimony tracing my personal individuation process. Copy

Oh! How I love the rolling plains of Nebraska, the grass bending toward the ground in the wind, and the indescribable colors of the prairie sunset. There’s also another side to Nebraska: the rhythmic sound of horns honking and the many people’s voices talking on the city streets. I live between all of this about a mile from the Omaha City limits on Lake Candlewood. At times the wind dies out and the lake is still with only small ripples of water caused when fish emerge from the cool liquid. The lake looks like my paradise and sends a memorable scent to the nose. In my mind’s eye, I see trees moving their branches with the wind’s voice and then a calm lake, which, in my mind stand for peace. I see sandy beachesReview circling the lake and our yard with short green grass; then, of course, there is our rock. In the summer nights, I sit on that rock and let moonbeams shine down onto my face and make my golden hair shine brightly while the summer breeze passes through my clothing. In the yard, my dog Brownie is romping with the cats. Now I’m lying down in the meadow across the street, buried deep in the tall grass with memories dangling in my head. Some are recent and some are in the clouds of the past, but they all still shine brightly in my mind. I imagine the mother I was born to of medium height, good looking, and blue eyes. She probably would have been good to me. I think she died. Then my imagination wanders to when real parents signed the adoption papers. Their hearts must have been full of glee. Now I see their wide smiles stretched across their faces. I bet they were holding hands. LibrarianI remember the house I lived in when I was two. It had a joined yard with my grandparents and my dad’s uncle and aunt in the back. I remember the 38 HOMING IN

orchard, the tall trees dropping large round red apples on the ground, and I still feel the one that fell on my head. Then I remember the red brick house in which I spent most of my life. In that old brick house, I remember the birthday present I received from my grandparents when I was six years old. It came in my grandpa’s pickup while I was having my nap. I awoke and ran downstairs to tell Mommy I was up and seeing she was not there I ran outside in my underwear and found the new playhouse and my mommy. Oh, that was long ago. It is now a faint blur in my mind. My sister Nancy was born when I was four. I remember betting my grandpa a quarter that it would be a girl. Luckily, I won. SittingCopy in the car I saw my mom’s shadow through the hospital window holding my baby sister Nancy. When I saw that, I about jumped out of the car I was so excited. And then of course I remember when Nancy came home. She was all pink in my memory and crying softly. I loved her a lot then and love her a lot now. We lived in the old brick house until the beginning of fourth grade. I cried many a time when I moved from that house. I left my lifelong friends to travel on un-solid ground. To me it was a hill I had not yet climbed. I remember the moving day and I was excited. It would mean new adventures for me. I hoped to have many new friends and it turned out I did. We moved into an apartment house called Boardwalk; I think my Dad named them well. Our apartmentReview was across the hall from my dear grandparents and we spent the first night there, all snug in the third-floor apartment. We left both doors open and the hall doors locked so it was like living in a small house. That first night I cried myself to sleep remembering my two best friends. Amy and Kathryn were pretty hard to leave behind. Now I have a reserved spot for them in my heart and always will. Dundee, my old school, was pretty hard to give away to the other kids, especially my teachers. Miss Goddard, my kindergarten teacher, had an Easter egg tree that I remember well. It took many hours to decorate. My first-grade teacher, Miss Hammig, was nice and I learned an awful lot in her class. Miss Conreg was my second-grade teacher and I always felt she was trying to hurt me because my good friend Amy and I were very competitive and she knew it. Still, she Librariangave Amy the best. I survived that year but had a broken heart. Amy and I were never the same. My third-grade teacher Miss Raznick was my favorite, SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 39

and she was also the prettiest teacher I have ever had. She was nice to me and I had many privileges. I’m glad I spent a year of my life with her. The first day at Crestridge was very sunny but confusing. It wasthe second school I had ever gone to. There were friends I had already known there so it was a lot easier. My best friend at Crestridge was Cathy Hansen. I had known her ever since I can remember. We must have shared diapers because in fourth grade and fifth grade we shared clothes. I remember my last day at Crestridge sitting in my fifth-grade teacher’s room. I was thinking of all my old friends. When the bell rang my friends came to me and said, “Sue, don’t leave.” Almost in tears thinking of the thought of leaving, I said, “Goodbye,” kissed the school wallCopy and with red eyes left. It was much harder to leave Crestridge than Dundee, but I didn’t cry as much. A month before I changed schools we moved into our new house. It was fun living in a half-carpeted house with a new baby sister who had arrived a few weeks earlier. Her name was Leigh and she is now one year old and going strong. The first day at Edison was fun. I remember that I wore blue jeans and a pink blouse. My new teacher was Mrs. Smith, and she was nice. I didn’t make any friends that last nine weeks; I just kept on seeing my Crestridge friends and playing with the neighbor boys Bill and Steve. That summer I was in the Reviewwater or with Cathy and Karin. Rarely did you find me anywhere else except when we went to Tan Tara with our friend. At Tan Tara we stayed in a condo. The whole vacation we water skied and played in the sun. I really enjoyed water skiing because I love the water and skiing builds muscles. The 1975 school year has been a fun year for me so far. I have met a lot of new friends and enjoy my teacher, Mrs. Brady. The girls in sixth grade are different than Dundee and Crestridge, but I wouldn’t want them to change. I love my situation as much as I love my mom and dad and two sisters. When I’m older I want to become a writer. Wish me luck and goodbye.

At twelve years old, I described my “re-memberings.” I attempt to make sense of my identity as an adopted child. Searching to see the past in my mind’s eye, and Librarianwithout the memory of my birth mother, I am left with my assumptions of who she may have been and why she wasn’t able to keep me. I decide she must have died. 40 HOMING IN

Great importance is placed on the houses I lived in and the relationships that I was forced to relinquish with each move. There is also an importance placed on the repeating pattern of separation and loss. However, there is a positive acceptance of my life situation and a willingness to let go and move forward. The natural environment, Mother Earth, described in detail appears to sustain and invigorate me. It is the source of my vitality. I state that I want to become a writer and I take great joy in re-collecting my past.

As I transitioned from a little girl to a teenager, summer adventures brushed against unforeseen risks and dangers. My friend Ginny—her father was my father’sCopy business partner—would invite me to her family’s cabin on Lake Bemidji in Minnesota. The main cabin was hidden on a large property on the shores of the lake, surrounded by smaller cabins for family and guests. Ginny and I rode dirt bikes with our long fake fingernails wrapped around the accelerator, revving the engine and jumping over bumps and fallen trees. We listened to Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” mesmerized by the deep experience of music, capable of moving our young souls. Ginny’s big brother Scott, of course, influenced our choices. We looked up to him and did all we could to get his attention. When Scott would bring back a girlfriend to make out in his cabin, we would bang on pots and pans, rousing his anger and deterring him from creating a private moment in the wilderness. We even went so far as to capture a long snake and plantReview it in his cabin in the hopes it would come out of the corner and frighten his girlfriend when he was moving toward her for a romantic kiss. Those were the summers of the ’70s, before tragedy hit. Scott became involved in drugs and ended his life with a bullet in the neighborhood park. It was my first experience with tragic loss. He was so handsome. Ginny still spends her summers at Lake Bemidji surrounded by our childhood memories. On one particular trip when I was fourteen, I flew up with Ginny’s father, who had a private plane. After my father dropped me off at the airport and entrusted me to his partner, he returned to his office and opened the Omaha World Herald. There was an article that reported that the Mafia was threatening his partner. My dad feared for my safety and sent Marnie and Poppy to get me. Soon after I arrived at the cabin, I got a call from my grandparents explaining Librarianthat they were driving up to Minnesota to pick me up and take me on a trip to Canada. The vacation I had been expecting with Ginny became another sort with SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 41

my grandparents. When we arrived in Winnipeg, we reserved spots in a sleeper train that took us through the forests up to Churchill on the Hudson Bay where the polar bears came during certain periods of the year. As we approached the tundra, I ran to see the water, never suspecting the danger of the bears that often hide in the crevices of the terrain. We saw a polar bear and her cubs from a distance off the shore. We also saw whales at the national park. It was quite a trip, sleeping in our compartments and eating our meals on the train that took us far north into a barren country of cold, white landscapes even in the summer. Out-of-state and foreign adventures aside, the long summer vacations were mostly spent with my friend Cathy swimming either at the Happy Hollow Club or in the lake. We would jump off the high diving board over and overCopy again at the swimming pool. When we got hungry, we would order French fries and cherry coke. We got sent off to horse camp and between homesickness and bubble gum, we learned about caring for our horses and becoming better horsewomen. Our summer camp at Lake Okoboji in Iowa taught us to canoe and be strong in all the water sports. One of our favorite stories is our escape from the camp, only to be found later by a drunken bunch of camp counselors that were driving down the dirt road on their night off. We thought we were very daring to leave on our own. On my antique dressing table I keep a card that Cathy sent me. It is a picture of two young girls with braids wearing rain boots. The picture frames them from the back as they embark upon a muddy road that stretches before them. The photograph catches our youth spentReview at Blackbird Bend Farm. We would wake up in the morning eager to go down our country road and find some mischief to get into. We often came back caked in gummy mud. We rode horses, hiked, threw stones in the Missouri River, and captured garden snakes. We explored the land with rare enthusiasm. We collected silk from milkweeds to make pillows and investigated barn swallow nests. We were convinced that that dirt road would take us on an exciting adventure. We enjoyed a rare freedom and close companionship that forged in us the belief that life’s road was taking us somewhere exciting. We were eager to go. Cathy’s father would take us to “the Property,” where a towering wooden lodge was built on top of the central bluff off the Iowa interstate heading south. We would drive over the bridge separating Omaha from Council Bluffs to get to this large piece of land that several families bought to enjoy as a nature reserve. There was a pond where we could canoe, stables for Cathy’s horses, and a shooting range. That Librarianvast space of land entertained us on weekends before we became too involved in school activities. We were let loose on the Property, which allowed us to develop our 42 HOMING IN

sense of adventure. We would ride the horses topless over the trails, hidden by trees and separated from civilization. Parents weren’t as worried about sunburn in the 1970s. My parents thought it was cool to have a good tan, though Marnie would always warn me that ladies should take good care of their skin. Cathy had skin that would tan very easily but I didn’t, and all of that summer sun on the lakes got me blistered more than once. One summer day, when we went to the Regency Club, I stayed bent over on the shore of Regency Lake collecting tadpoles all day. They literally had to pull off my skin in strips after the blisters went away. Most of my free time was spent outdoors, weathering the heat and the bitter cold constituted by the sometimes extreme forces of nature. Copy

Though Nebraska had lakes and rivers, we didn’t have mountains. In the winter, my family would drive out to Colorado to ski. Skiing became very popular in the 1960s, and my parents had been taking me since I was a little girl. It was a twelve- hour ride out to Colorado from Omaha, Nebraska. Interstate 80 went through western Nebraska. One four-hour stretch was without a town or gas station. We always had blankets and candles in the trunk in case a blizzard came along and we had to wait it out in the car. That’s the Wild West. There is unlimited space. Open skies and prairies escorted us to the Rocky Mountains every year. We would organize family vacations withReview college friends of my parents, the Larkins, who also liked to ski and had a condo in Aspen. That was my first experience in a “ski tribe.” I can remember being on top of Aspen Mountain when I was three years old, between the legs of my parents’ good friend Lucette Larkin. My father had learned to ski with his good friend Fred Larkin, who had taken him to the top of the mountain, under the lift, in the powder, and made him ski straight down. They had been fraternity brothers at the University of Nebraska, and this kind of initiation was a part of the old boy’s school. My dad thought that I too should learn the hard way. I can remember being stuck in heavy powder snow, unable to get myself out, with my father at the limit of his patience. But he had chosen the black slope! My sister Nancy got the ski school medal without any effort. She could simply, naturally ski down the slopes, her strong, sturdy legs guiding the skis with precision. LibrarianMy ski performance was unremarkable. My long, skinny legs weren’t nearly as stalwart, and when I fell—which I tried desperately to avoid—I struggled to hoist SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 43

my lanky frame out of the snow. It didn’t help that my toes were always freezing cold in my ski boots. Skiing became a way of life and I could never get enough of the snowy mountain slopes. The Colorado lifestyle attracted me. “Rocky Mountain High” sung by John Denver, my favorite singer when I was a teenager, was like a personal call. Somehow, the words to his famous song “Follow Me” made a deep imprint. I remember buying his albums of country songs that seemed to sing the mood of the mountains, configuring a specific form of popular culture around the USA. His song “Poems, Prayers and Promises” as well as “The Eagle” sang of a world I loved to enter as I sang along. The Larkins, and Lucette in particular, had a flair for the art of Copyliving. Wendy, their oldest daughter who was also adopted, describes it as a kind of natural panache. They drove a vintage cab that they transformed into a family car. They also collected art. The Larkins had an original painting by Jamie Wyeth entitled “Black Angus” that was on loan for an exhibit at Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha. I remember meeting the artist Mr. Wyeth at the exhibit. There was a lovely painting of a Newfoundland dog that I can remember to this day. Chesapeake Bay Retrievers have been bred in part from Newfoundland dogs, and that painting made an impression on me, reminding me of the majesty of my own dog and her breeding line. Meeting the famous American painter was a privilege and an experience that allowed me to gain an appreciation for artwork as well as the art of living. I am reminded of both WyethReview and the Larkins when I look at the Larkins’ wedding gift to me—Fred Larkin’s photographic interpretation of “Black Angus.” After meeting with the famous American artist, we all drove to the farm, our own Americana landscape. My father proudly invited our family friends to his property. The unique beauty of our land was an inspiration, showcasing wide-open spaces that called to the adventurous. Here we inhabited our territory in style, in keeping with the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who founded the Prairie School in congruence with the wide, treeless expanses that characterized the native prairie landscapes in the Midwest. We were the new settlers, come to cultivate our own kind of beauty.

But artistic and natural schooling was only part of my education. Though my eye Librarianwas trained to recognize aesthetic beauty by the wildness of the Midwest, my heart learned about social justice in other learning environments. In opposition to the 44 HOMING IN

long summer vacations and the freedom of the countryside, the rhythms of the year imposed encounters with institutional authority, forcing me back home to the beginning of ninth grade in a faraway neighborhood that brought many ninth graders from West Omaha to an inner city school. I started high school in 1978 not quite knowing what to expect. Busing was enforced in the late 1970s in Omaha. My ninth-grade year I took a school bus downtown to Horace Mann Junior High School with all the ninth graders from our area. It was in the African-American part of town. The students were fenced in the school grounds and told that we would be in danger if we left the school premises. We were all participating in an attempt to right a form of unjust segregation. My parents believed that busing could serve to open me up to diversity,Copy teaching me the relational skills necessary to get along with people from all walks of life. They didn’t move out of our school district to avoid busing. They encouraged me to make the best of my year. We spent long hours on the bus going down and coming back home. During that year we all bonded. We spent so much time together that we truly got to know each other. One of my friends riding that bus was Jeff, a military enthusiast who later became a member of the Special Forces. He told me that he had seen me as being somehow different from the other teenage girls on that bus. He described me as an “old soul.” During that school year I met Rome. He was in the special education class and I was a cheerleader. He wrote me notes,Review and we became good friends. Rome was from one of the neighborhoods near the school. He knew about racism and poverty and what it meant to be street smart. His father was in prison, and when Rome came home with the groceries, he had to be careful to avoid being robbed. That year allowed me to better understand his part of Omaha and the challenges he confronted on a daily basis. Unfortunately, he was expelled from school that year. That didn’t stop us from talking on the phone. I believed in Rome. I was sure that if he could get accepted to another school, he could successfully graduate from high school. Ultimately, he did. He proved to me and his community that force of character and resolve can overcome. He found good employment and has led a life much more stable than he did in junior high school, bravely overcoming the hardship of his youth. We have been writing to each other ever since we were in ninth grade. I enjoy the monthly letters Librarianand cards that he sends, filling me in on local and national politics. His friendship has allowed me to understand my city from a different perspective. My friendships SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 45

with Jeff and Rome, which wouldn’t have occurred without busing, are enduring testimonials to those years of my life. The next year I attended Burke High School in western Omaha. I was a member of the student government, a Burkette Pom Pom Girl, the chairman of homecoming, and one of the editors of our high school yearbook. Cathy and I were both nominated for homecoming each year by our class of 1981. We were so inseparable that after my speech when I ran for president of our class, many people told her that she had spoken well. They had confused our identities. As we entered high school, Cathy and I left our horses for our men. We proudly wore our black-and-gold uniforms with short skirts and saddle shoes, setting our cowgirl boots on a shelf. Those years were filled with dancing and funCopy as a Burkette with my pom-poms at halftime to “Crocodile Rock” and the other songs of the time. The young women of my generation received a paradoxical message: good girls don’t have sex but they should have a boyfriend. My mother was very clear that good girls didn’t have sex before marriage. There was just no discussion about it. My father, on the other hand, was more of a pragmatist. I recall our conversations about sexuality and birth control. As an adopted child, I have always been pro-life because I had been given life in spite of the difficulties surrounding my birth, but I also respect individual choice. Though my parents said that pre-marital sex was wrong, I was living in a culture that endorsed sexiness in women and girls, creating social events that encouraged young couples to be intimate. PromReview night consisted of finding a gown and often renting a hotel room. However, we were told not to lose our virginity until marriage. We were playing a courtship game that mirrored the late nineteenth century, with prom dances and balls. But the passions of our youth were being played out under another set of rules ushered in by the 1960s. The mirage in place was contrary to the reality of my intimate relationships. The double bind generated a form of anxiety that must surely have resonated with my birth mother’s own feelings and experience. The double standards—or should I say quadra standards—that women are confronted with undermine their psychological balance and well-being. We are often forced to give in to the pressures of a dominant male society even though we don’t think the rules are fair. Unfortunately, too many women play into the game, supporting the rules of collective male domination. Women continue to pay a heavy price for their sexuality compared to their male Librarianpartners. How can we move beyond double standards and forms of hypocrisy that characterize our relationships? How can we truly liberate our partners and 46 HOMING IN

ourselves from intolerable forms of sexism? A balance must be struck between the desires of men and women. I had been brought up to be free—free as the wind blows and free as the grass grows—but I discovered that gendered relationships could imprison. The independence I cultivated on the land met with all a girl had to give up to be with a young man. My wild inner nature met with a cumbersome armor of social conditioning that I felt I should wear. Arising in me was a strong need to be loved by another, though it was impossible to foresee whether a serious relationship would further constrict or fully release me. In any event, I heard a call to adventure.Copy

Review

Librarian CHAPTER 5

RESPONDING TO THE CALL Copy hough there were few exterior signs, I could sense the storm that was brewing in the Mossman family as I graduated in 1981. I planned to study T international affairs at the University of Colorado in Boulder—the Rockies had called to me ever since I learned to ski—and I chose French as my second language, one of the requirements of the major. I felt drawn to Switzerland, and the summer after graduation I traveled to Sion as part of an exchange program. I wasn’t conscious of the forces that were taking me so far away, nor what exactly I was looking for, but I was called to the Alps. Ever since I was a little girl, I had been interested in Switzerland. My first school report was on Switzerland. I can remember reading about the country in the encyclopedia. I even dreamt of buildingReview my own chalet, sketching out building plans on a sheet of paper. Once in a science class in junior high school, our teacher showed us a film about Alpine environments with images of the incredible beauty of the Alpine flowers and meadows. My heart longed for the alpine pastures full of colorful mountain flowers. After watching the film, I can remember saying to a science class buddy, “I am going to marry a ski instructor.” I guess my soul had a plan. These were glimpses of the blueprint that had been designed to direct my life. Through the exchange program Youth for Understanding, a volunteer woman named Kathy McConnel (who would later become Nancy’s mother-in-law) oversaw my placement in a family in Sion, Switzerland, for the summer after my high school graduation. Destiny’s hand had subtly placed me where I was to belong. I stuck to the decisions that I had made even though it literally ripped my heart to shreds. I left behind the comfort of the relationships that had enrobed me over Librarianthe years. I left the embrace of my high school boyfriend, Bob, with a collection of tapes of the Beetles, Genesis, and George Benson he made especially for me. The 48 HOMING IN

imprints of love from my hometown have bonded me throughout my adult life, even though I have been geographically distant. I left looking for a life that would fulfill me, not knowing what was missing. How could I have known? I had it all, didn’t I? I followed some distant call that took my feet to a different continent and a very different way of life. But I kept coming back to the people I loved so dearly. On my way to Switzerland, there was an air controllers strike that grounded me in New York City. Drowning in my tears in a phone booth in a New York City hotel as I talked to Bob, I felt my primal wound, a relational disruption that occurs when children are separated at birth from their mother, wake up. The membrane in my heart had been transpierced, and a profound sensation of sufferingCopy oozed through. I was terribly homesick. I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t eat. I was trapped in my hotel room in an in-between space, waiting for my plane and my life to take me across the Atlantic. Separation conjured up feelings in a liminal plane of consciousness containing memories of birth that made me “sick to death.” In one of my favorite passages from O Pioneers!, Willa Cather describes a form of homesick suffering mixed with melancholy, a psychic linking point between birth and death in a landscape of painful separation:

Ivar, I think it has done me good to get cold clear through like this, once. I don’t believe I shall suffer so much anymore. When you get so near the dead, they seem more real than the living. Worldly thoughts Reviewleave one. Ever since Emil died, I’ve suffered so when it rained. Now that I’ve been out in it with him, I shan’t dread it.5

Leaving Nebraska was like experiencing death. The world I left died, never to be resurrected in the same form. The journey across the Atlantic brought me to a place I had thought I wanted to travel to, but the reality of that place was so different that it conjured up a powerful emotional response of remorse and suffering. I was transported to a place where the dead dwelled in me, a place where my family and my boyfriend were buried in the graveyard of my previous life. The only living people I had to relate to in this new world were my host family. The host family I had been placed with lived in Sion, though the mother had grown up in the mountain village of Isérables. The mother of the family, Marguerite, Librarianhad gardens that she tended just below the village. She brought me to work in the

5 Willa Cather. O, Pioneers! New York, (N.Y: New American Library, 1989), 276. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 49

gardens and to pick cherries from the orchard tree. She explained how her mother was the midwife for the village and that her father cared for the cows. She told me about the small apartment in the village that they lived in during the winter. As they were a large family, there wasn’t much space. They moved to the mayens, or barns for the cows, sheep, and their herders in the summer months. The older children were sent off to work on farms or with families in the city. They traveled on small mountain paths. Marguerite explained that women with babies carried them in wooden baby cribs balanced on their heads. There was a circular form that sat on top of the head, tied around the chin to help secure the crib. While walking, these sure-footed women would knit without stumbling. As I walked with Marguerite from oneCopy garden plot to another, she too knitted. She taught me to knit. My first project was a pair of beige socks with cables. When I successfully completed my socks, I bought yarn to make a turtleneck sweater. Like her mother, Marguerite was a midwife. However, she had given up her profession to help her husband run the cafeteria in the town’s professional school. Her sister Lili ran a café in the nearby ski town of Mayens-de-Riddes. All of Marguerite’s eleven siblings had settled in the region. Lili and her husband, Jean- Robert, had left the village two years before I arrived to live in the developing ski town. Jean-Robert had a painting and plastering company and was involved in the construction of the large apartment buildings and chalets. The ski town was known as the “heart of the four valleys.” ItReview is now officially called La Tzoumaz; in patois, or local language, it means “where the cows rest.” When I went with my host family to Lili and Jean-Robert’s chalet on weekends, I met their son Angelo, who was on break from his training with the Swiss Ski team. The economic influence of tourism and skiing allowed for the young children in the Alpine villages to be a part of an international world through skiing. Angelo was a downhill and giant slalom racer. His experience on the team allowed him to travel around Europe. He trained with the ski team in Zermatt at the foot of the Matterhorn, allowing him to learn the Swiss German language well. When I met Angelo, he represented the authentic mountain man to me. He embodied the alpine way of living as a downhill skier from a mountain village, and he proved himself to be as rugged as the rock upon which his hometown was built. I was outside on the lawn in front of the chalet with the other family members Librarianwhen Angelo arrived on foot, walking up the small mountain path, the only access to the chalet. He was eighteen and I was turning eighteen that summer. We were so 50 HOMING IN

attracted to each other and yet unable to say very much as we had limited knowledge of each other’s languages. Angelo taught me French by reading Gaston Lagaffe, his favorite comic strip character, by the fire in the chalet on rainy afternoons. Later in life, my mother asked Angelo when he fell in love with me. He replied that he fell in love with me the first time he saw me. I was the young woman that he had always dreamed of, referring to my tall, slender body, long sun-bleached blond hair, and blue eyes. I had shown up at his doorstep, wearing my Levi 501 jeans. He saw that I came from another world and was attracted to that place that marked me and made me stand out in the Swiss environment. On one of my last days in Mayens-de-Riddes, I took a long run up to the Vallon d’Arby where a waterfall turned into a mountain stream that flowed overCopy rocks and stones until it reached the Rhone River. The alpine flowers were in full bloom at that altitude. There were so many colors and shapes. The green forest of larch trees and pines was lush. The view from that spot framed the mountain range across the valley in a V shape with the mountainsides of Isérables and La Tzoumaz holding in the scene. That place was so beautiful and I felt so connected that I prayed with all my heart that God would bring me back. My last day in La Tzoumaz, I went to Mass with Angelo in a little chapel under the trees. I felt connected to him too in spite of our inability to express ourselves through language. It seemed that our souls had meshed and that there was an understanding that existed on another plane. We said goodbye and returned to our lives. He was racing, and I beganReview my bachelor’s degree. We didn’t make any promises to communicate or to see each other again. But the seeds of summer love had been planted. And just like perennials, that love came back, forever flowering throughout the summers of our life.

After completing my first year at the University of Colorado studying international affairs and taking French, I organized a waitress job for the summer of 1982 at a café in Isérables so that I could practice my French. The café was called Le Café de l’Avenir, which means “the café of the future.” The café was run by a ski instructor and Angelo’s first cousin. The job offered room and board and covered the costs for my airline ticket. I was free to practice my French and see Angelo again. I got a firsthand view of the mostly impermeable society of the Swiss in the rural Librarianarea where I worked. They spoke a dialect that I couldn’t understand. Many of the women wore scarves on their heads. The men at the bar acted in a way I had SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 51

only read about in English literature. In D. H. Lawrence’s short story “Odor of Chrysanthemums,” the barriers between men and women playing traditional roles in the mining society described what I witnessed in the bar. One evening a woman with a scarf on her head came with a broom to beat her husband out of the bar and bring him home. The men hovered around the bar buying rounds of drinks. As soon as one man decided to part from the group and return to his family, there would be an uproar and another round of drinks was ordered. Angelo came to see me at the café with his little brother Fabio. He explained that he had decided to quit the ski team and was interested in becoming a ski instructor. In order to pass his exams as a professor of skiing, Angelo needed toCopy be proficient in German and English. He told me he was interested in coming to Omaha to learn English. My parents agreed to have Angelo come and stay with us while he was a student. I found the English program for foreigners at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and organized the paperwork for him to apply. The process took a few months to organize. Angelo arrived in the spring of 1983. The bond that we forged between us that first summer in 1981 continued in the summer of 1982 when I worked at the café and then when he came to Omaha the next year. Our relationship began by exchanging and sharing our newly discovered worlds. We each acted as hosts, inviting the other in. We acted as cultural mediators for each other. Following my summer abroad waitingReview tables in Isèrables to learn French, I transferred to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln to be closer to my family. This move also allowed me to be closer to Angelo when he came to Nebraska. That spring there was a lot of snow, and Vail reopened the ski slopes during the month of June. I took Angelo to stay with our old skiing friends, the Larkins, so that he could experience skiing the Rockies, so different than the Alps he was used to. When Angelo finished his English classes in the fall of 1983, I returned with him to Switzerland and attended the University of Lausanne. He was teaching at the ski school and working for his father in the family business of painting, plastering, and construction. In February, I left the University of Lausanne and worked for his mother as a waitress in her café. I got to see what the ski season in La Tzoumaz was like and perfect my French. The international group in Lausanne all spoke English and it was hard for me to have contacts in Lausanne to speak French. In Librarianthe resort café, I was surrounded by people who didn’t speak English. It was a better environment for me to become fluent. 52 HOMING IN

That spring, after training, I joined Angelo and a group of excellent skiers and mountaineers as they did the “Haute Route,” a form of ski touring with skins on the skis that allow you to slide your skis up the mountain, take off your skins at the top, and ski down. We had a good group and a guide that organized the trip and our stay in the cabins that connect the “high road” from Mont Blanc in Chamonix to Zermatt in Switzerland. The backpacking trips that I had done with my father had partly prepared me for the experience, but ski touring in the mountains was even more technical. Even though I had learned to ski as a little girl in Colorado, my level of skiing couldn’t compare to the men and one young woman in our group. I lacked the technical expertise needed on the steep trails to make conversion turns and theCopy surefooted instincts required on the summits when you have to place your feet just in the right place to climb over the steep rocks with your equipment on your back. Where my ankles rubbed against my ski boots, giant bleeding blisters formed, making it painful for me to keep up. The young guide that led us had me stay right behind him. For most of the trip, I concentrated on following the back of his Rossignol skis, and I saw little of the scenery. If I happened to fall more than a foot behind, Angelo would yell at me to increase my pace. We left before sunrise with frontal lamps on our foreheads. One early morning, when all you could see were the tracks of the guide’s skis, the guide decided to ski ahead of the group. He left me in front to follow his tracks. I knew from the day before that on the left was a steep precipiceReview and that one wrong move could be very dangerous. I did my best to concentrate and keep the rhythm, moving forward to safer ground. With all those hours to think, I realized that there is a dimension to survival as a group with the mountain guide, but each member of the group must be self-reliant. I had visions of leaving the layers of society behind, taking only what I needed for survival. The effort peeled off the layers. The pain of the blisters on my feet was forgotten at a certain point when the difficulty of the terrain blocked out everything peripheral, freeing energy for the moment’s next precise movement that I couldn’t afford to miscalculate, taking me to the ultimate goal, the top, wherever that was. As our group arrived in Zermatt, our final destination, a huge piece of snow called a cerac broke off and came pounding down like a tidal wave toward us. We were at the mountain’s mercy. Once you venture above the tree line, you have to Librarianaccept the risk. We were guests of that extreme mountain environment, and it was the mountain that decided if we would make it to our destiny. The group took SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 53

cover behind the boulders along our path. Luckily the wave of snow held on a shelf, saving us from an avalanche. Ski touring required endurance and skill. There were many technical turns that had to be made as we went over glaciers and down steep mountain faces. But the thrill of being in that extreme mountain environment allowed me to persevere. My mountaineering experiences helped me to develop the ability to keep on going in the face of difficulty. That ski touring trip was a form of initiation and proof of my tenacity. I had made it across the “high route.” For Angelo, who had a level of training that allowed him to pass almost with ease, it was a challenging experience, as well for the other Swiss who were experienced skiers. But for me it was moreCopy than that. I had gone “out of bounds,” or beyond my abilities, and succeeded mostly because of my tenacity. I remember Angelo criticizing my technique as we made our way down the paths into Zermatt, but he couldn’t take away my feeling of accomplishment. I had surpassed myself. As we left the snow-covered peaks and descended into Zermatt, we were thankful to be alive. The avalanche could easily have continued and covered us. We slept in a hotel for mountaineers like us, coming in with just a change of clothes. I remember borrowing slippers from the hotel to wear out that night. The next day we took the train down the mountain to the altitude where orchards filled with fruit trees were in full blossom. The blisters in my heels were so deep and sore that the scars were visible for years. Review There is the saying, “If the shoe fits, wear it.” I was trying on lots of different shoes. The moccasins that my father brought me from Canada, the ski touring boots, my running shoes, my princess high heels, and the ballerina flats that I often wore were all different expressions of the facets of my complex life. Maybe the blisters I got pushing myself on the mountain while trying to prove myself were physical signals aching to speak to me. I thought I loved the Alps, but it was a painful route that not even my grandparents could steer me away from. In July that same year, my grandparents arrived to tour Switzerland before escorting me back to the United States to complete my studies. Angelo drove us around, sightseeing and appreciating the diverse landscapes and scenery. My grandfather kept a daily travel journal describing the places we visited and the meals we shared. His detailed descriptions of the food and the abundant wine take Librarianme back to those special weeks we had together in Switzerland. Poppy noted that in 1984 he exchanged one US dollar for two Swiss francs and 45 54 HOMING IN

centimes. Today, the Swiss franc is worth about the same as the US dollar, depending on fluctuating exchange rates. My grandparents experienced Switzerland in an era when the dollar went a long way. They took in the sights and learned about the lifestyle I had become very familiar with as a student. Marnie and Poppy were eager to try new things and see new places. They were well received by Angelo’s family and friends. I even played in a tennis tournament organized by our local tennis club with Poppy. My grandparents were acting as scouts, checking out the territory before they agreed to send me over for good. I returned to Boulder, leaving Angelo, the Alps, and the French language. I didn’t leave skiing, though. I signed up to be a part of the ski team that was a kind of ski club. We trained in the afternoons during the fall season at theCopy foot of the mountains. Chitaqua Park was close to the campus and the group of us trained by going on long distance runs up mountain paths and across the mountain range. Then in November we would start skiing and training on nearby slopes at Eldora. That Christmas break, I continued my dryland training when my family vacationed on the Big Island in Hawaii. My sisters laughed at me during the whole trip, referring to me as Tumbleweed for picking up things wherever I went. I bought a straw hat with wild flowers braided by the local women, earrings of iridescent blue shells, and beautiful island fabric with the stylized flower designs only found in the Hawaiian Islands. We visited the rugged volcano on the top of Mona Kea, and I went alone to Waipio Valley to ride horses on the black sand beach. On the lookout for running trails,Review I happened to meet a local runner who worked at a sporting goods store. He counseled me about the running paths and even agreed to meet with me early the next morning at the Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site for a run on the Hawaiian King’s lava paths connecting the beaches. There is a legend that the Hawaiian ancestral spirits sometimes appear at that site. The shamans of Hawaii, called kahunas, keep the traditional Hawaiian ways alive, maintaining the sacred ways on the Big Island. I met my running partner the next day at dawn. He later told me he was surprised that I could keep up with him. He ran the Ironman race and his level of endurance was impressive. I could keep up because of my training for skiing. After our morning run following the almost hidden paths, we jumped into the Pacific Ocean off a shelf that only the locals knew about. As we talked, I mentioned that I was adopted. Being adopted was part of my Librarianstory that I shared with people when I entered into more in-depth conversations. My sharing started a kind of reciprocity leading him to tell me that he had given SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 55

up a child when he was a high school student in Iowa. The child would have been just my age. It was a strange coincidence to “run” into each other on the Big Island. That encounter made me more inquisitive about synchronicity, reinforcing my appreciation for “signs and wonders.” The energy on the Big Island is truly sacred mana that gifted me, opening up a portal to finding my integrity or wholeness. The Polynesian culture refers to mana as a supernatural power. I believe that the ancestors at Pu’ukohola Heiau must have united my running guide and me for the week. He continued to take me to the most beautiful spots in the area, and we continued to discuss our experiences—the adopted child and the young parent that gave up a child. As I ran behind the Ironman that was approximately the age of myCopy birth father, I came closer to another reality that was at that time virtual and unimaginable: the realness of my birth parents. As the soles of my feet absorbed the island energy on the lava paths, I began sensing the way back. Wondering how their lives had unfolded, I picked up the vibes of a future wave that placed shells at my feet. Putting them to my ear, I heard whisperings, the call of distant ancestors, inviting me to listen in and connect with a yet unconscious sound frequency—the voices I had heard in the womb. The young woman flowering inside my breast was picking up the scent of secret gardens of identity, hidden in the sense recognition of a babe. The fragrance was so enticing that it triggered the unfolding epigenesis of becomingness. The experience had to lay wait for the upsurging forces of reunion to ultimately triumph. Leaving behindReview the Big Island’s kahunas and their invisible rituals, I followed the wave guide.

Librarian Copy

Review

Librarian CHAPTER 6

FAITH AND COMMUNITY SERVICE Copy wo of the most important factors to the family who raised me and the Nebraskan culture I was raised in were commitment to community and T commitment to God. I carry these commitments with me to this day, transposing them to fit my environment. We traversed experiences that illustrate what faith has come to mean to me, a faith modeled by my adopted family, but also a faith that has been enkindled in my heart from inside. During spring finals of my freshman year at Boulder, my mother called to tell me that my sister Leigh was very sick with Rye’s Syndrome, a rare disease that is now known to be brought on by administering aspirin to young children. My mother explained that she had stayed home from an important meeting to care for Leigh, who was throwing up a lot. Her friendReview Carolyn, Leigh’s godmother, happened to dial the wrong number and was surprised to get my mother. My mother shared Leigh’s symptoms and Carolyn, whose nephew had similar symptoms and died, urged Jan to go immediately to the emergency room and demand a specific blood test for Rye’s Syndrome. Thanks to a seemingly accidental phone call, Leigh was treated at the Methodist Children’s Hospital by a special team of neurosurgeons and nurses that had developed a specific intervention for this rare disease. She was diagnosed very early, and they were able to put her in an induced coma and control the pressure in her brain. I was at least ten hours away from home, but as I prayed, I knew that my place was by Leigh’s side with my family. My parents insisted that I didn’t need to come home and that my finals were more important, but I listened to my heart. I called Librarianall of my professors, who were willing to postpone my test dates. I emptied my drawers into my white eyelet comforter and jammed it in the trunk to save time 58 HOMING IN

packing. I put the finishing touches on my final paper on the famous psychologist Piaget and left around midnight by myself. As I drove into the Sand Hills, so big and wide, I entered a place of liminal space and time travel. Driving across Nebraska on Interstate 80, I prayed for divine intercession with a force that transported me. In the vastness of the prairie grasslands I appeared to be lost, engulfed in the wide opening. When I arrived at the hospital, my high school boyfriend Bob was by Leigh’s side, holding her hand. He later went on to become a neurosurgeon, practicing the same specialty as the medical doctors attending my sister—saving lives, just as she was saved. I had read that patients in comas like Leigh responded positively toCopy the voices of loved ones, so I held her hand at her bedside and talked for hours. As I explained to her that she had been very ill but had been diagnosed early and that surely was a sign that she would recover, she crossed her little eight-year-old index and middle fingers. I understood her gesture to me to meanI cross my fingers, I hope so! That was the first tangible sign that Leigh would indeed recover without severe cognitive or motor impairment. All over town different church congregations were praying for Leigh’s recovery, including the Catholic nuns. Poppy had asked the convent to pray for her. At the hospital, our family friends brought food and were present to support my parents. I observed all of this support as well as the twenty-four-hour surveillance of the special medical team and their dailyReview visits and communication about her vital signs. Facing the possibility of Leigh dying was the most difficult moment in my life. However, in my heart, I knew that my mother had been divinely guided to get Leigh to care. I could see from the very beginning that God’s presence was with us. The chance phone call from Leigh’s godmother telling my mother to go immediately to the hospital and informing her on the specific test that she needed was indeed a miracle. The fact that the children’s hospital had developed a specific form of intervention for her rare disease was an amplified blessing. The prayers said in Leigh’s name were a strong supportive spiritual energy working for her greater well- being. And I saw her fingers cross, confirming that she could indeed understand me and hoped from the bottom of her heart that she would be okay, demonstrating her neurological abilities to respond to my heartfelt words of encouragement. LibrarianOne night during that difficult period, I spoke with my mother in the study of our home where she was working at her desk. Her expression was serene as she SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 59

said without tears and with great strength and sincerity that Leigh had been a gift from God, that she was God’s child, and that she would have to accept it if it was his will to take her home. It was at that moment that I saw one of the strongest facets of my mother’s personality—her unshakable faith and her unwavering strength. I am thankful that I was brought up in a family of religious faith. My parents and grandparents were examples of strong Christian believers. They were spiritual people. Their belief went beyond the traditional participation in their Methodist congregation. Marnie told me that after her mother’s death, she felt her mother’s presence with her daily. She believed in life after death, and faith and spirituality were natural conversations. When Grandpa Carl died, I asked my parents how I could talk Copyto him. I was only two years old, but I have vivid memories of that moment in time. They told me that I could talk to him on an inner telephone line that connected me directly to heaven, which forged my belief in life after death. Having the conviction that I could continue to communicate with Grandpa Carl reinforced my openness to spiritual dimensions where guidance could be received by loved ones. Faith was at the center of our lives and guided us on our path. My adopted family taught me to worship, to pray, to serve God’s will, and to believe. Their faithful examples have indeed been one the greatest gifts that I received from them as a child. From them I learned to recognize divine presence and to see the signs. Poppy would often tell me, “You will alwaysReview be taken care of,” and he did, even after his death with a small trust fund. His loving-kindness seemed to me to be the image of a loving God, the father. In the end, we didn’t have to give Leigh back to God. She miraculously recovered without any cognitive or motor handicaps. She was indeed a rare case. That experience taught me the importance of faith and prayer.

Not only did my family model faith, but they gave value to community service. When I was seven, I was chosen to be a page at the Aksarben Coronation Ball. Ak- sar-ben is Nebraska spelled in reverse. The ball, a very important Nebraska social event, is a form of pageantry, creating a royal court based on the recognition of volunteer work and community service. From behind the scenes as the princesses Librarianwalked out in their beautiful gowns, my mother, who was responsible for the pages’ entry on stage, whispered in my ear, “If you do everything right in your life and 60 HOMING IN

make the correct choices as a young lady, you too might one day be a princess in the Aksarben Ball.” But another step came before I could be a princess. Over Christmas break during our freshman year in college, Cathy, Karin, Missy, and I were all Symphony Debutantes, which involved a formal presentation of young ladies to polite society. We got to choose our white debutante dresses and long white gloves. It was a defining moment, as we would each be on stage wearing our chosen dress. On the arm of our fathers, we were formally presented to the greater Omaha community at the debutante ball. We belonged to an elite social group, but it all seemed so natural in the context of our city. My escort worked for my dad during the summer doing maintenanceCopy work. He was a pre-med senior at the University of Colorado in Boulder. His girlfriend was a sorority sister of mine. He drove me up to the entrance in an old, broken-down car. I remember that the car door couldn’t be closed shut, and he fastened it with a piece of rope. I guess it was a message of rebellion against the establishment codes. When my escort brought me home from the Debutante Ball, my boyfriend was waiting for me. I wasn’t allowed to choose my boyfriend as an escort. My parents thought it was much wiser to choose a family friend as my escort, someone that I wasn’t emotionally involved with. So much was about appearances and being among the chosen, though there was also a lot of dancing and fun to be had. My senior year of college, I was asked to be a princess in the Aksarben Ball. It was a great honor for me to representReview my family as a princess. The parties and royal treatment I experienced as a princess chosen by the Aksarben Ball Committee make up one of the most memorable weeks of my life. The Aksarben princesses and countesses wore ball gowns created by Oscar De La Renta in the fall of 1985. Each dress was made from the same fabrics but had a different design in the bust. The gowns were an important part of the pageantry. My dress had a black velvet upper body with only one sleeve and a full pink satin skirt that flowed elegantly to the ground. Though part of me thought recreating royalty was very un-American, the experience of being a princess forged in my moral character that no matter where I established myself, I had the obligation to serve my community and contribute to social progress, never forgetting that with privilege comes committed obligation to serve the greater good. LibrarianThe main reason I had been invited into each of these honorable roles in the Nebraska community was due to my mother’s community service work. I am a fifth- SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 61

generation member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood, an organization promoting women’s education internationally. My mother and Marnie were members of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. It was a real disappointment when I pledged to be a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. My sisters, however, pledged Pi Beta Phi and carried on the tradition. Sororities create a unique opportunity and form of sisterhood, a kind of solidarity that few other nationalities and cultures have been able to emulate. Kappa Gamma and P.E.O. taught me how to be a good, caring friend. My experience in these women’s organizations impressed upon me the value of protecting each other. They also taught me the importance of being independent and educated. Generations of American women have learned through these organizations how to build and maintain strong families and communitiesCopy and how to be available when a friend is in need. I am proud of my midwestern background and the women’s organizations that have fostered my values. The intent to serve my community has resonated through me, though I have answered the call in a different way than my mother Jan. When I first read Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls in college, I was moved. I have always had the desire to give of myself and to make a better place—a more just and aesthetic lifeworld. Many of the social stereotypes that were the framework of my mother’s social life and representations have fallen away, revealing that there are fluid and supple ways of bettering the world that beg to be discovered. When faced with suffering, I have sought to develop practices that can alleviate it. The traditional practices of women were often tiedReview to their household chores and raising the children. They had to beautify objects that were utilitarian, used in daily household rituals. But relational practices too can be beautified by developing loving care. The traditions of handcrafts, passed on to me by my great-grandmother Savidge and my mother, ground me. My dishtowels are made from soft white cheesecloth embroidered by Grandma Savidge with scenes of women’s daily chores that structured the traditional work activities of the week. Grandma Savidge also made a crazy quilt from silk ties when she was only thirteen years old. It hangs in my staircase. The lack of fabric led to this remarkably creative use of old silk ties that were put together in a crazy pattern that was then embroidered. I used the theme of patchwork designs to decorate my home, inspired from the traditional patchwork patterns, a practical art form that brought women together to quilt. I have built on the values that my mother cultivated through her 4-H club. There Librarianshe learned to cook and sew. She was an excellent seamstress and made many of my clothes. She made most of my prom dresses and still sews my nightgowns from 62 HOMING IN

seersucker and flannel that she finds on sale. I get a nightgown every somany years to replace the worn-out models. But used flannel is so soft to sleep in that it is difficult to let them go. Cooking, sewing, and knitting are skills that I learned at a young age. They have been the foundation of my skill set as a homemaker. Growing homegrown produce has become an even more prized ability, assuring my own family’s good health. Taking the time to give value to these activities is challenging in the post-modern world, but the wonderful feeling in accomplishing work well done remains. In our household copy of Cather, Early Novels and Stories, there is an inscription to my daughter reading, “To Little Katrina, Have your Mother read these wonderful stories to you until you are old enough to read them yourself. And Copythen dream about your Mother’s roots far across the sea.” One of my mother’s dear friends had wisely chosen her gift. In Willa Cather’s work O Pioneers!, the famous Nebraska author wrote about the pioneer life. The Willa Cather Foundation in Red Cloud, Nebraska, honors her life’s work. The immigrants from Europe came together in small communities dotting the Nebraska plains. Their desire for land to cultivate gave them the courage to face the extreme climate on the Great Plains. These farmers became prosperous landowners that defined our modern vision of progress. The barns constructed by the settlers modeled their traditional architecture reproduced on a new continent, allowing us to know today where they originally came from in Europe. The church communities founded by the pioneers were an integrating force that allowed each pioneerReview to find their people and their rituals in the worship services filled with their European, Old World values and traditions that lived on in the New World through the settler’s bloodlines. The pioneers carried their memories with them, fashioning the buildings and social practices from the designs they had known in new lands of opportunity. My mother’s active participation in her community has shown me how to bring forth innovation while serving the interests of the many, just as the settlers did. It was through my mother’s community connections that I became a member of my different women’s organizations. Her close friends wrote me recommendation letters as part of the selection process when I chose to become a Kappa Kappa Gamma. I try to artfully translate the language and traditions from where I came from into shared understanding where I find myself now. Respecting women’s work and values of caring for each other and our Librariancommunities needs a concerted universal expression. Just like the pioneers that brought with them the traditions of the Old World, I traveled back, bringing with SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 63

me the innovations and practices that they had co-created on new soil. Tracing the processes so that I could connect with the deeper meaning of their expressions, I have reconnected with women’s practices as both a mother and a professional. The pioneer spirit that inspired my American ancestors animates me, making me more alive. As I can’t simply reproduce my Midwest culture in the Alps, I am constantly considering the roots of my values, beliefs, and actions. I analyze the utilitarian value of my practices before finding a way to enact my inherited way of life and way of being in the world. Before I can pass traditions on to my children, I go through a process of evaluation, ultimately giving value and expression to what I have found meaningful. This translation of principles into a hopefulCopy pedagogy of lifelong learning has become a kind of method, based on Appreciative Inquiry as well as a form of radical presence, an exploration of a broader relational context that allows us to be more responsive, present, and open to the multiplicity of life forms, which ultimately enhances our ability to coordinate complexity.6 By being appreciative and grateful, we home in on what we value most. My process meets with my husband’s process in the circle of our family, taking on the pattern of my wedding ring quilt, two intertwined circles. Review

Librarian 6 Sheila McNamee, “Radical Presence: Alternatives to the Therapeutic State”, European Journal of Psy- chotherapy & Counselling, (2015). Copy

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Librarian CHAPTER 7

CONCRESCENCE: WEDDING TO BECOME ONE Copy fter having been debutantes and princesses, my best friends and I from the Heartstrings Group were preparing for our next social step as brides-to- A be. We played the game of courtship with our beloveds. We were seeking blessed union and life-long companionship. And, just as we had imagined, our weddings were all beautiful celebrations. Now when we get together, we sew the patchwork of our joint memories, creating a beautifully embroidered quilt of our past stories. We all got wedding rings, joined with life partners that would enable us to found families. The rings of love worn on our fingers were also symbols of the circular nature of relationships. We share our tall tales with our children, laughing and turning into the silly girls that we used to be. In this narrative space even more stories are enkindled, lighting the Review fires of friendship as we bear witness to our life stories. Together, we are keepers of our life histories, honoring our lives with remembrance. During that period of my life—my senior year of college—I felt confident in my social circle. Jan had done her job, raising me well and offering me a recognized place in our Omaha society life. Just like my mom, I had been in the Omaha World Herald on the social page numerous times as a Cover Girl model contestant, a debutante, an Aksarben princess, and soon as a bride. She had made me into a Nebraska princess, fashioning my manners and looks, making sure that I was chosen to be part of the social balls and women’s groups. She had equally taken care to teach me values, like the respect for differences and the importance of fairness, service, and discipline, by modeling leadership in a heartfelt way. Angelo came over to the United States on a fiancé visa on December 15, 1985. LibrarianThe visa allowed Angelo to stay for three months before marrying. I had met with the director of the ski school at the Winter Park Ski Resort in Boulder in the spring of 1985 to convince him to hire Angelo for the ski season. As it turned out, the 66 HOMING IN

director was planning a vacation to Switzerland that very summer. He met with Angelo and agreed to hire him for the 1985-86 winter season. Angelo’s family flew in for our March wedding from Switzerland, offering a beautiful Swiss clock to my parents. His father suffered from a rare form of cancer affecting his lymph system and blood. They had never taken such a long trip before. His brothers, two cousins, and one of his best friends all came for our wedding celebration. Many of the mothers and daughters from the Heartstrings Group were also present for the wedding. At the prenuptial dinner at the Omaha Club, I read the following speech to the gathered family and friends. It begins with a poem about my adoption anniversary that I had written for my parents as a Christmas present in my early teens.Copy Angelo was born on November 24, 1962, very near the date I was adopted into my family. November, the month we were born into our families, links us together. March is the month we created our own family. The speech went as follows:

As a gift from God I came to you on Thanksgiving Day, And in my heart I’ll always know it was my special way, I love you my dear family; you’ve given me so much, Your laughter, your smiles, your warm and tender touch, So on this special evening let us celebrate our love, Our union as a special groupReview arranged by God above.

God’s love has the power to transform. God took me, a newborn baby, and kept me with the Nebraska Children’s Home for four months until it was decided that I was the perfect baby to be placed in the Mossman family, the family that he had chosen for me. There I grew in a home with two loving parents, a doting great-grandfather, and four loving grandparents, later two wonderful sisters. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, nurtured by a generous and supportive community that I am honored to be a part of. Our family friends I consider to be relatives— you are my aunts and uncles, my brothers and sisters. My family has so generously provided me with education, experiences and travel. They have allowed me to pursue my interests and my goals. My Librarianparents and grandparents developed within me two important things: a critical mind and a relationship with God. For this I am eternally grateful. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 67

They have allowed me to challenge beliefs and values in pursuit of truth. They have loved me so much and yet have been strong enough to let me go. I have come back. I will be always with them: “Boats were not built to be tied up in harbor; they were built to sail the high seas.” One form of immortality is the passing of ideals and values on to children and grandchildren. In this way families are spiritually, not just biologically, bonded through generations. Within me are some of the most beautiful ideals and values given to me by my family. Wisdom I perceive as precious art treasure. Such wisdom I cherish and hope to share with my children. When I look at my grandparents I don’t see people in their seventies and eighties. Instead, I see young spirits who enjoy life and whoCopy continually reach out in the spirit of love to family, friends, and community. When I look at my parents, I see two individuals who are living out their ideals. It takes time for children to understand how sacred family is, how precious family is, how difficult it is to create and preserve. I appreciate your efforts in creating and preserving our family and for making our family something that is both unique and special. I am proud and honored to be a part of my family. My sister, Nancy, is my maid of honor because she is my true sister, my forever loyal and faithful friend. And if I could have two maids of honor, Leigh would stand right next to Nancy because Leigh also is my true sister, my forever loyal and faithful friend. Age does not separate us but only brings us even closer through time. Review The last line of the poem I recited reads, “Our unity as a special group arranged by God above.” The Rivas have flown many thousands of miles to make our families truly united this evening. Here, truly, is an expression of how powerful God’s love is and how miraculous God’s love is. From two different countries, languages, cultures, and families, Angelo and I come. But over the past five years we have been molded, we have been made into Angelo and Susie, who today have experienced and become a part of each other’s countries, languages, cultures, and families. We have made our own world from two different worlds, and now we are ready to become one. We have been two individuals climbing up a very steep mountain peak. Now that we are reaching the top we are not going to limit ourselves to the physical world, but upon reaching the summit, our goal is through faith to Librarianbe united as one, and like two young doves whose wings are bonded at the tip, will flap our wings in unison so that we can go beyond the physical goal 68 HOMING IN

of reaching the mountain peak, and soar high up in the sky and clouds in the unity of the Holy Spirit. When I first went to Switzerland as an exchange student, I knew that there was something special there for me. My last day in the Alps, I took a long hike up to the Alpine pastures, gathering along the way the different wild flowers and pine cones. And as I walked up the mountain path I sang, I cried, and I prayed. I asked God, “If I am so content, so happy, and so complete in this place, please don’t let other priorities become more important. Please, Lord, bring me back to where my soul is in harmony and peace.” And he brought me back. It was my second summer in Switzerland, but that time not as an exchange student. Instead I was a waitress Copyin Isérables, the village where Angelo was born. The day I arrived I saw Angelo and his brother Fabio in the café where I was to work and I said, “Lord, he is the one for me.” I believe that you are never given a wish or desire that you cannot fulfill. But you may have to work for it. My own climb up the mountain has required perseverance and faith in what God revealed to me. And tomorrow night, God’s promise will come to pass. In my heart, our wedding is for the glory of God and it is my wish that Angelo and I as husband and wife will be a light in the world that will shine with God’s love within our family, our community, and our world. I look on the sacrament of marriage as the binding of our two spirits that will challenge each other to be worthy of each other’s love in this world and throughoutReview eternity. I would like to close by thanking all of you for all that you have given me, for your support, generosity, and love. But, most of all I would like to say how honored I am to journey through life with you. What you have given to me, my family and friends, I hope to pass on to the others that I may meet along my journey. I would like to read from the book of Ruth, addressing the most familiar passage that Ruth spoke to her mother-in-law, to the Riva family, “Your people will be my people and your God will be my God.”

On March 15, 1986, my father gave away the bride and my husband took me as his lawful wedded wife at the First Methodist Church, where my family had been longtime members. It was the second time I was given away. My family knew the Librarianrisk I was taking, but they supported my decision to marry Angelo and live far from SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 69

my hometown. When Angelo married me, he didn’t think of who I might have been if I had been raised by other parents. He didn’t know that hiding under the wedding veil was another identity yet to be discovered. He too was taking a risk, one that he hadn’t yet calculated. He married Susan Kay Mossman. But inside me was a person who hadn’t yet stepped out. The wedding was in the evening. Candles lined the aisle as I walked down the aisle, smiling radiantly at our five hundred guests. My bridesmaids wore long burgundy dresses, and Angelo’s groomsmen were in tuxedos with tails. Angelo’s face was tanned from skiing and he had marks from his sun glasses. My white wedding dress had a train that followed me with more than white satin and lace. At my wedding reception, there was a unique backdrop. Karl BodmerCopy was a Swiss artist who accompanied Prince Maximilien during an expedition along the Missouri River in the late 1800s. His drawings of their trip depicted the landscapes of the era, of the Native Americans and their way of life. In 1986, the year of our union, the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha received the largest Bodmer collection in the world as a donation. Our wedding reception was held at the museum in the Italian mosaic courtyard, complete with a tiered fountain in the center. The Swiss artist’s collection hung on walls bordering the courtyard. It was a meaningful metaphor, having his prints and sculptures with us for our celebration. The exhibit seemed to be a kind of adhesive band, taping us all together as we danced in the Joslyn Fountain Court. A wedding, or the exchanging ofReview rings, allows two people to become one. This growing together is the foundation of life, allowing the tree of life to grow strong through the ages. Clarifying who we are by questioning cultural and family patterns and working consciously to free ourselves from undesired patterns is an important part of our lifework. Each generation desires to become more. Jung affirms that what we do not allow to enter our conscious mind is brought to us as fate or circumstance. Another term for this understanding of destiny is expressed in the word kismet. Liberation requires both unwavering determination and grace. Dialogical space provides increased reflexivity that can carry forward the transformational process in careful conversations—that is to say, in conversations filled with loving-kindness. When walking on the mosaic of the tree of life growing under our feet, our own pathfinding process orients every step. The tree of life carries us forward like a virtual escalator, magnetically guiding the soles of our feet that touch the ground Librarianwhile the fixed attention of our soul’s captured gaze looks to a blazing star. Our 70 HOMING IN

journeys add on new branches, sprouting from the strong roots that support the tree trunk of our living heritage. The tree of life grows into the future bearing sophia’s fruits as its branches reach for completion. Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom. Through a stepwise approach, insights serve as signposts on a way forward that has a traceability imprinted within synchronistic events that serve as a waveguide for homing in to wholeness. My experience suggests that we are finely tuned pathfinders. Possibly adopted children that reunite with their birth parents exhibit this pathfinding ability in a more visible way. A form of concrescence,7 or growing together, occurs when lines of inheritance join with the unfolding process of self-knowledge. At our prenuptial dinner,Copy while imagining the future and our children yet to be born, I expressed how I especially want to give away the “beautiful ideals that were given to me by my adopted family.” I have a strong desire to transmit all that has been given me. A Book of Life or Book of Love, my Book of Susan, is an attempt to impart the living wisdom that I have discerned in a story that is a form of legacy. The concrescence of two lives becoming one in an intertwined tree of life is represented in the stained-glass window in our living room. The roots are depicted with two different colors of brown and wind upwards to form the trunk and branches. Autopoiesis is a concept developed by philosophers Maturana and Varela referring to the properties of a living system that allow it to maintain and renew itself by regulating its composition andReview conserving its boundaries. “Maturana has constructed a comprehensive and consistent explanation of living and cognizing organisms from the basic processes of the cell to the complexities of language and self-consciousness. In so doing he generates a radical view of cognition in which the world we experience is a subject-dependent creation constrained only by our basic autopoiesis and our structural couplings.”8 Autopoiesis suggests that we maintain our form while structurally coupling with new systems. When we come together in marriage, we make a couple, but it is vital that we maintain our own sense of Self while creating a new family system. Mantura’s theories address structure-determined systems. “Indeed, it is the structure itself which determines what can and what cannot be a trigger.”9 Narrative triggers act

7 Alfred North Whitehead, David Ray Griffin, David Ray, and Sherburne, Donald W. “Process and Re- Librarianality: an Essay in Cosmology.” Gifford Lectures 1927‑28. (New York: Free Press, 1978). 8 John Mingers, “The Cognitive Theories of Maturana and Varela,” System Practice, Vol. 4, (1991): 319. 9 Ibid, 320. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 71

on storylines just as events are triggers interacting with the lifescaping process. There are important placeholders in any storybook that define the storyline. There are many interactions that give rise to system design, configuring the way of the pathfinder. “This leads to a view of the social world as constituted by recurrent conversations—interactions between structurally coupled organisms intertwining language, emotion, and the body in diverse but equally valid domains or, indeed, realities.”10 Marriage is the coming together or wedding of two lives. The Bible says that what constitutes a marriage is that a couple should leave their parents and cleave to each other, becoming one flesh. While searching for what defines a good life, the question “What defines a good marriage?” inevitably comes up. A good marriage continually cultivates renewed love in an evergreen forest,Copy allowing spouses to give the very best of themselves to all they have created together and hope to bring into the world.

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Librarian

10 Ibid, 336. Copy

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Librarian CHAPTER 8

INTERNATIONAL SKI TRIBES Copy kiing has been a way for me to move in the world, carving down the slopes. Vacationing in the Rockies allowed me to fall in love with the mountain S lifestyle. Good family friends from Omaha would vacation together, enjoying the mountains while learning to ski. Our parents organized these ski trips, taking us across the state of Nebraska on a long drive through the western grasslands to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and then on up to the ski resorts. We skied together, forming a tribe of families. This relational model set the template for future ski tribes in my life. My first experience with a ski tribe was with my parents’ friends, the Larkins, who had originally come from Omaha. That was when I learned to ski, but our families’ connections extended beyondReview the slopes. The Larkins had five children. Lucette, the mother, was an art major from the University of Nebraska. Their oldest daughter Wendy was adopted like me. My father was the godfather of their only son Jay, who drowned in a rafting accident at the age of eight. We drove out for the funeral that was on the lake where they lived. The beauty of the simple funeral by Bow Mar Lake where their house stood softened the intensity of the tragedy. Bringing together the living on the shore of their lake, the Larkins modeled how to continue to live on in spite of hardship. Wendy and I started at the University of Colorado the same year. I pledged Kappa Kappa Gamma, like her mother, and she pledged Pi Beta Phi, like my mother. During the college years we went to parties and skied in Vail and Aspen together, where her parents had apartments. They were always generous about letting me stay in their condos. The Larkin family opened their doors to me and allowed me Librarianaccess to the mountain lifestyle. Their hospitality marked my young soul, offering me a view of a world from the top of the Rockies. I was taken by what I saw. 74 HOMING IN

Another ski tribe was with my fellow skiers of the ski C team at the University of Colorado. I joined the ski club after my year abroad studying in Lausanne. Many in the group were Scandinavian, including my dear Norwegian friends, Cathrine and Nick. There were lots of Scandinavians in Boulder because they loved the mountains, which made it easier for them to be away from their native lands. Their ways seemed more fitting to me, somewhere between the Swiss Alps and the Boulder campus, and my friendship with them was a way to build a bridge between my two worlds. Together we danced to a-ha’s popular song “Take On Me,” taking on both life and each other. We did dry land training every afternoon in Chataqua Park and the Flatirons, running the mountain paths after our stretching routine, preparingCopy for the ski season. When snow fell, we hit the Eldora ski slopes. We made group dinners with good wine and planned a special Christmas celebration, importing aquavit for the occasion. We were exchanging ways and hosting each other’s becomingness. We bonded, forming a ski tribe that transcended the mountain and informed our lifestyles. With Cathrine, my roommate Heidi from the East Coast, and another Norwegian girlfriend Marianne, we would sit in our apartment, knitting and drinking Earl Grey tea. Just as the Mossman family made its plaid kilts from the Royal Stewart tartan, each Norwegian family had its own sweater pattern. The Norwegian girls knit their family patterns into their wool ski sweaters. I learned with them how to knit their patterns and other mountainReview ways. Knitting together gave us a safe and homey place to share when we were all so far from our families. We depended on each other and watched out for each other, making sure we were all safe. During that period, I knitted a beautiful blue sweater jacket for Angelo out of Icelandic wool. I even found pewter buttons with skiers for a finishing touch. Knitting somehow kept us connected with the activities of past generations, though we were young women studying to enter the working world. Much later, when I went to my godson Fredric’s baptism, I bought Norwegian yarn to make sweaters for all my young children. In a womanly way, we knitted our families together with quality yarn. Heidi and Cathrine came with me on a ski trip to Aspen over Thanksgiving. There, we ran into one of our ski coaches, Neal Beidleman, who was also an aerospace engineer. Neal was originally from Aspen and was staying with his family Librarianover the holidays. After graduating from CU in 1981, he worked in Boulder and coached. We had a dinner date in Aspen and later at a Kappa Kappa Gamma party. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 75

Neal had a different way of looking at life. He talked to me about altered states of consciousness, daring me to look differently at our surroundings. Much later, when I lived in Switzerland, I opened up my Time magazine to read about the 1996 Mount Everest Disaster and was surprised to see Neal in the team picture. After climbing up the mountain, he came down a hero, bringing together disoriented climbers in a huddle to recollect their strength. During a sudden break in the storm, starlight had miraculously shown through, enabling Neal to guide the majority of the climbers back to camp. His story has allowed him to teach about risk-taking and decision-making. The charisma he embodied as a young man came to the attention of the world as he responded with heroism to the plight of his fellow mountaineers. Copy Coming back from my haute route touring experience in the Alps, I was opened to the world of mountaineering. For me, Neal was a Sherpa escorting me into the world of mountaineering in Colorado, where he did ice climbing and other dangerous extreme sports. Later, I too would be faced with disaster and its consequences when I was called to aid those affected by an unfortunate helicopter accident. Events initiate us, fashioning our capabilities to respond to the unexpected. Daily life in the Alps requires dealing with the risks of those who adventure above the tree line. My son Nils has traveled to Nepal to climb the Ama Dablam at the heart of Everest’s Khumbu Region. His love for mountaineering has brought me even closer to what it entails to climb into thin air. My CU ski team friendships haveReview endured. Nick and Cathrine came to our wedding with Joakim, another ski friend. Joakim was raised in Geneva, though his parents were from Norway and had close ties with Nick’s parents. Cathrine, Marianne, and Heidi were all next to me at my wedding, dressing me and preparing me for my grand entry as the bride to be. A few years later, Angelo and I were a part of Cathrine and Nick’s Norwegian wedding celebrations. Nick’s mother was head of protocol for the king of Norway at the time, and so we discovered the social protocol of the Norwegian nobility. A remarkable hostess, Nick’s mother received us in their castle by the fjord in Oslo. Opening up her home allowed us to experience traditions perpetuated over centuries in the Scandinavian countries. The traditional costumes, etiquette, and elegance of the setting provided an extraordinary invitation to participate in their noble ways. We also got invited to the Geneva Country Club for Joakim’s wedding reception, which opened the door Librarianto yet another kind of privileged lifestyle. We named our first daughter Katrina after Cathrine. At that time, I didn’t 76 HOMING IN

realize that I was also linking her to my biological maternal grandmother’s namesake. Angelo’s grandmother was also named Catherine. Nick and Cathrine became Katrina’s godparents, and several years later I became their son Frederic’s godmother. As young students, we planned how we would spend time together with our children someday in the far-off future. Nick and Cathrine had spent a lot of time together on vacation in Verbier, Switzerland, on family ski trips, and we talked about how we would raise our children and go skiing in Verbier. We made a pact to share our love for the mountains, skiing and passing on our dedication to winter sports. Amazingly, that is just what we have done. We have a special meal on the slopes each year with all the children that can join us. Skiing is a practice we modeled and passed on. Copy But before the family ski trips in Verbier, Angelo and I had to first make our own family ski tribe. We lived together in Boulder until I graduated three months later, and then, on the way to Queenstown, New Zealand, where Angelo had made contacts with the Coronet Peak Ski School, we stopped in Maui for a late honeymoon. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, we found ourselves alone together for the first time, allowing for our bond as a family tribe to strengthen. We decided to take a boat tour out to a coral reef area. We were with a group and had access to snorkeling gear to better appreciate the underwater scenes. Our underwater guide had full equipment and a gun to protect us from sharks. They had explained that there might be small sharks. However, a large shark suddenly appeared, sending the group franticallyReview swimming to the boat. My reaction was different. I wasn’t going to let that shark scare me. I swam above him, slowly following his path out to the deeper waters. The underwater guide tapped me on the shoulder, signaling to me that I should return to the boat, which I did. For some reason, I believed that by holding my own space, the shark and I could share a common space. Most of all, I wanted to be brave. I wanted to face danger calmly. My new husband had quickly returned to the boat, leaving me to swim back at my own speed. New Zealand provided a wonderful opportunity for Angelo to experience yet another way of managing a ski school and winter sport activities. When we arrived in Auckland, however, we were told that the restaurant and ski lodge at Coronet Peak had burned. We rented a house on the lake thirty minutes from Queenstown with three other ski instructors. It was so poorly insulated that we could see our Librarianbreath while we ate our morning porridge. After breakfast, we would put our skis on our shoulders and walk along the highway in the dark to the employee bus. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 77

Then we had a forty-five-minute ride up a dangerous dirt road to the ski lifts. The humid cold penetrated us like nothing we had ever experienced. Some mornings the lifts couldn’t run because of the ice hanging from the cables. We lived on a lake, on an island, in the middle of the ocean. The scenery was pristine, as there were still very little signs of human development. In that setting, we continued to develop our family ski tribe as husband and wife. One of our lasting friends from our three months stay in New Zealand is our dear friend Sandy. Sandy studied international business and French and was a waitress in a Mexican restaurant for the ski season in Coronet Peak when we met her. She wanted to find a job in a French-speaking country. I agreed to help her get a job as a waitress with my mother-in-law’s café. Sandy traveled to AustraliaCopy and left me an address to reach her. Everything fell in place for Sandy to come and work for the next winter ski season in La Tzoumaz. When I met her at the train station to take her up the mountain, I said that I was sure that something special was awaiting her here in Switzerland because it had been so easy to arrange her job and working permit. It appeared that her arrival was meant to be. She soon met our good friend Jeff Meeker, who had spent the summers with his Swiss mother and American father in our ski resort on vacation. It was love at first sight, and Sandy and Jeff have been together ever since. Jeff and I first met when I had been an exchange student, and we had taken a long hike up the mountain to the Lac des Vaux, where there was still some snow, bringing along traditional Swiss picnic food consisting of GruyereReview cheese, dried sausages, and white Fendant wine. He had then accompanied Angelo and I on the haute route before being a groomsman in our wedding. Jeff and Sandy have come every year to La Tzoumaz on vacation to either hike or ski. We often spend the Christmas or Easter holiday together. They are our daughter Jessica’s godparents. The friendships that we made as young adults have been kept over the years. We continue to love the mountains, sharing our love for the sport with our children. We live within these international ski tribes that have bonded us in a common lifestyle. Our meeting was meant to be, reinforcing the importance of relationships through time. These bonds are treasured friendships that have endured over the years in spite of the distances that have separated us. When we moved to Switzerland, we founded and grew our family ski tribe. All of our children have their father’s skills as an instructor. Nils has surpassed us, Librarianbecoming an adept mountain guide and even working as an expert ski instructor in New Zealand. Together the boys participate on the demonstration team, artistically 78 HOMING IN

carving out patterns on the mountainside. Angelo has successfully transmitted his skills learned while participating on the Swiss Demonstration Team in the early 1990s. Now our boys train together on the Swiss ski school demonstration team, participating in yearly cantonal and national competitions. They snow dance on skis, crisscrossing each other at great speed. Our children have learned to climb and relate to the mountain in ways beyond ours. The mountain has been both their friend and teacher. The mountains have been a faithful companion to my children and me. My husband wouldn’t possibly survive anywhere else. We share our love for the outdoors and simply being together in our Alpine environment, constantly reminded of the natural beauty of the panorama that surrounds us. On the mountain we welcome people from around the world,Copy sharing a way of life that binds us. What bonds any ski tribe are the mountains they traverse together, both physical and metaphorical. Our characters and identities have been chiseled by our shared adventures, which modify the terrain like the face of a mountain rubbing up with glaciers over time. Living in this pristine natural environment, walking and skiing the mountain, has bonded us in a mountain lifestyle that allows us to celebrate our interconnectedness. Review

Librarian CHAPTER 9

A COAT OF MANY COLORS Copy eing the oldest of three girls allowed me to have the privilege of receiving the teachings of my grandfather. Not only was family history important to B me, but I felt that it was my responsibility to learn about our genealogy. I listened intently to my grandfather’s explanations that included letters, pictures, and a detailed family tree that he had carved from wood and hung on the wall. He hung pictures and names on the branches, which allowed me to envision the intergenerational connections. My adopted family’s story and roots became mine. My ancestors have colored my career and academic endeavors. When my grandparents visited Switzerland after my semester in Lausanne, we went together to visit the League of Nations that became the United Nations. That was a transformative experience for me—WoodrowReview Wilson, the American president who founded the League of Nations, was the cousin of my great-grandfather Carl Wilson. I followed the trail blazed by Wilson to Switzerland. I am grateful that Switzerland welcomed his vision and gave it a home. Much later, I would learn that my biological brother also chose to study international relations at West Point Military Academy. Some form of a morphogenetic field of becomingness was cross- pollinating our individuation processes long before we even met. Though my narrative speaks of many of the social as well as cultural artifacts that served to construct my identity from my American heritage, my husband’s family offered me a lineage of citizenship and a way of life in the French-speaking Swiss Alps. It is an inheritance allowing me to belong here through my marriage. Our alliance formally took place at our wedding ceremony, giving me the possibility to learn and grow into the international woman that I have become. When I met Librarianmy birth family, I learned about my great-grandmother Clara, an immigrant from Germany in the early 1900s, who had come over to the United States as a young woman. She was my birth father Michael’s grandmother. She told my father that 80 HOMING IN

many in our family were worldlings, or children of the world. She and I share this identity of worldling, living between two continents. Another similar word is wayfarer. Footprints are narrative triggers, generating experiences that give rise to storytelling. Each step is place binding, linking us to where we have walked. Bakhtin, the Russian philosopher, is known for saying that in order to break through the Self, the hero must travel a very long road. The seeds planted in my youth by the leaders in my hometown have given me the strength to endure in a foreign land. A symbolic statue adorns the top of the Nebraska State Capitol Building, one of the eleven architectural wonders of the world. On top of the golden dome is a sower, sowing seeds. Those seeds took hold in my heart and flowered in another land. Copy My international studies at the University of Colorado, in Lausanne, and in Lincoln made me into an international citizen. My friends were from many different countries and backgrounds. I wanted to experience the European lifestyle and my attraction for the Alps grew stronger over the years. There was a traditional way of life that attracted me. The old mayens, or barns for the cow herders and cows, dotted the Alpine meadows. The mountain folk were fascinating to observe. The anthropologist in me enjoyed seeing their culture from what felt like a past generation. Isérables, the mountain village where Angelo grew up, is at an altitude of almost 3,000 feet. It is suspended on the southern side of the mountain with a maximum exposure to the sun and overlooks theReview Rhone River Valley. The people are called the Bédjouis as it is believed that deserters from the Saracen armies that had made their way across Europe from Northern Africa around 800 AD had settled in the village. Isérables is part of the canton Valais. The region of Valais, and specifically the Great Saint Bernard Pass, has traditionally been where travelers crossed over the mountain passes linking northern and southern Europe. Christianity came over the Great Saint Bernard Pass to the abbey at its foot, St. Maurice, in 515. German tribal lords often ventured south to receive the Pope’s blessing in Rome, an act that legitimated their political power. The Great Saint Bernard Pass was a kind of gateway. The Abbey in St. Maurice is the oldest functioning abbey. It celebrated 1,500 years in 2015, remodeling the presentation of the abbey’s treasures. St. Maurice, the honored Christian martyr, was a black man from Egypt who refused Librarianto kill fellow Christians. The culture of the river valley and the culture of the mountain village evolved in SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 81

a parallel manner. The Walser people—Angelo’s ancestors—created a way of living that extended across the alpine regions, migrating into the lower Valais region between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Roads crossed mountain terrain to join these communities. They shared their patois, or local language, and their production skills adapted to the mountain environment. The alpine regions we know today as Italy, France, and Switzerland were long ago one area controlled by Charlemagne and then the Savoyards. It was only in 1815 that the Canton of Valais became the twentieth canton of Switzerland. It was then a Catholic canton ruled by the bishop-prince. The people of Isérables had a way of living that changed little from the Middle Ages to the mid-twentieth century. Only a small footpath connectedCopy the village to Riddes and other larger towns in the valley. If a doctor was needed, he rode his donkey up the footpath. Many of the village people walked down to their vineyards. The grapes that were produced to make wine allowed them to earn extra money. The women worked their fertile gardens to produce strawberries, raspberries, apricots, and plums that could be traded at the local agriculture cooperative. School was only six months a year until the 1960s to allow the children to help with the gardens and animals. Families with milking cows followed the greening pastures up and down the mountainside, allowing their animals to graze. This seasonal movement of livestock is called transhumance. Families would move from the village to the little mayens dotting the landscape that allowed themReview to have shelter as they minded their herds. La hotte was a form of basket with leather straps carried on the back of the peasants as they transported the animals, utensils, and other possessions from the village in the winter to the mayens in the summer. La hotte is still used today to carry hay for the cattle or berries to market. I metaphorically carry la hotte heavy with the traditions of this area, which I can transport with me or take off now and then to be free from burden. After World War II, a gondola was built from Riddes to Isérables, linking the mountain village with the Rhone River Valley. The vestiges of Isérables’ culture were picturesque reminders of times past to visitors while the mountain people were required to make a large jump into the post-modern era with little preparation. The cultural transition meant that the peasants who had survived over centuries with their cows, small plots of wheat and other grains, and garden produce were Librariansuddenly the owners of prized land being used to create ski resorts and attract the wealthy Europeans from the cities. There were cultural clashes, but the nostalgia for 82 HOMING IN

the traditional mountain life brought new economic revenue to the area, creating jobs and mixing the population with foreigners. I inherited the love of the mountains from my experiences as a young girl in Colorado. The development of the ski industry and winter sports attracted my father’s generation. He related his memory of crossing Bobby Kennedy and his wife at the Crystal Palace in Aspen. The elite of the world were vacationing in the mountains, and the rising middle class was following suit. Yet the sheer beauty of nature has always attracted me more than the glamour. My relationship with the Rocky Mountains, the ski slopes on the South Island in New Zealand, and the Swiss Alps have forged an enduring bond with both friends and nature. I have become my Self in interaction with their rugged form, transformed by the mountain’sCopy face, interacting as if I was picking up on mirror neurons embedded deep under the rocky surface, facilitating my self-awareness and allowing me to feel at one with this place and natural habitat where I belong. The symbolism of Angelo’s midwife grandmother, Catherine, and her husband Emile, the cow-herder, link our family to a history of birthing and shepherding. My husband’s name, Angelo, contains the root angel, hinting to a role of protector—my husband, my protector. The Swiss Alps have their own spiritual heritage with the mission of Saint Bernard Hospice located in the Great Saint Bernard Pass and the religious fraternities that have offered shelter to travelers crossing the Alps. Just like the Tibetan Buddhist tradition that resonates with many Westerners, there is a unique spiritual tradition practicedReview and carried forth by the people of this mountain region. My coming here brought me to a place of pristine beauty. My children carry with them the traditions and wisdom of these mountain people and their ways. It takes a trained eye to recognize beauty. Beauty, truth, and goodness are cultivated virtues. We teach children by modeling what we have come to consider important in life. Family culture and our natural environment orient and develop our definition of the good life. Catherine and Emile, Angelo’s maternal grandparents, were both caretakers: birthing and sustaining divine balance. Their heritage lives on in the many children and grandchildren that they had together. Our family chalet is on their grazing land, surrounded by old wooden frames, their mayens, that will soon fall to the earth if unattended. If their lifestyle was dominated by hard work, ours is Librarianinfluenced by the leisure culture that brings tourists to the area to ski, hike, and SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 83

practice extreme sports. We now live in a lifeworld of experiential tourism and international encounters. As my husband is from the village of Isérables, his family’s lineage is an important part of my inheritance that has been grafted on to my life history. Over the generations, a new way of relating to the environment has evolved. And a new form of migration has allowed for intercultural encounters to happen, transforming the lifestyle on the mountain. New Highlanders are transforming the mountainscape.

Stories can be told from many different angles, allowing multiple perspectives to generate storylines that are like footrails leading up the same mountain.Copy If I take yet another vantage point, looking at the pathway that brought me to the Alps, I can see the process that wove me into the regional social fabric somewhat like a sturdy rope assuring my safety on the steep trail as well as my belonging. Though I grew up in the Great Plains, I was always attracted to the mountains. Our family vacations led to my desire to be an exchange student in the Swiss Alps and to attend the University of Colorado. Meeting Angelo as an exchange student fostered the bond that grew so strong that I dared to come to the Swiss Alps to live and raise my family. As I climbed up the face of the mountain towards the summit and my life goal, I needed to assure myself, like a mountain climber. The goal, the summit, was out of sight, and there was only the pathReview and the immediate scenery of larch trees, pastureland, and wild flowers. But I could sense that my life history and life trajectory were mapped out over a rough mountain terrain, binding me to mountainscapes that were triggering my becomingness. It was difficult to find holding points where my fingers could grip the rock. At times, I felt in danger. The paradox was that as I kept climbing higher, the risk of falling became more fatal, although successfully negotiating the next move upward assured the ascension to a destination that was above the clouds. Living in the heart of Europe, studying with international professors, and skiing with tourists from around the world have molded my present form. Our chalet provided a healthy environment for us to raise our children. I have voted, participated in civil society, and worked for the various cantonal departments informing and performing for the Valais museums, special education department, Librariansocial services, police, hospitals, and health department. I have ventured to 84 HOMING IN

Lausanne to expand my range of research activity, enjoying a career of community service in multiple forms. This interaction with the Swiss natural environment, as well as the social, cultural, and political landscapes that encircle it, has transformed me. I am an adopted child of Switzerland, receiving my citizenship through marriage, another important lineage and an inheritance that I will pass on to the generations that will follow me. My narrative has already touched upon certain parts of the ski tribe story. This is the solid cord that is intertwined with a rugged natural rope, binding me to another aspect of the storyline. I tie together the chapters with a rope, like a guide assures his clients as they make their way across mountaintops. There is a guiding principle. Like the mountain guide that goes first, bringing the othersCopy along, some force has been assuring the ascension. I have been bound to ski tribes throughout my life. My place is on the slopes and in the Alpine meadows. I do belong here. As a young bride in Switzerland, I was faced with the difficulty of forging my identity in a new cultural setting. None of my recognitions from my American past could be easily translated into the language of my new Swiss world. None of the relationships and women’s groups that I belonged to, nor the schools and universities that I attended, were recognized in my new lifeworld. Even the clothing styles were different. I traded in my ball gowns for ski outfits with matching sweaters. Angelo once explained to me that the people in Zermatt had a special name for spouses that married into the bourgeois families from the mountain village, giving them access to what they consideredReview to be a tourist goldmine. They referred to those outsiders as beggars in a word from their local dialect. The people from the mountains prospered because of the tourist industry and yet resented the foreigners that came to appreciate the beautiful scenery and mountain sports. It is a complex paradox. The rising xenophobia in Switzerland seems to consider each foreigner as a kind of “beggar” taking from the original inhabitants, instead of appreciating the contributions that new arrivals bring to the country. Over the years that connotation has both infuriated me and hurt my pride. The Swiss, just as do the German nations, look at nationality as a blood right. Even though I was Swiss through marriage, I was still perceived as a foreigner. I didn’t have their blood. The clans in the mountain regions are notorious for keeping to themselves, but also infighting. Those who are not loyal to the clan risk banishment. In some villages, children suffer from rare diseases because of Librarianinbreeding when cousins intermarry. I took one of the best from the village, and neither my husband’s mother nor his community were happy about that. I had not SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 85

imagined the implications of marrying someone from a small village, where the mountain ways had understandings of kinship that didn’t match my own. Though Angelo had sought out the American experience, his traditional, cultural ways set in as soon as we settled into our life in the ski resort, La Tzoumaz. His openness closed down with the pressure emanating from the powerful village social patterns. The family history won out over his own personal dreams and desires to break free. Returning to family responsibilities was like having a heavy yoke placed on his back and his flanks being whipped, urging him to carry the burden forward and hoe his row with the rest of them. He seemed to be enrobed with memes that were a constricting armor. Memes can be understood as cultural transmissionsCopy of ideas and practices. Angelo seemed to be hosting memes replicated from the Middle Ages, carrying forward a clannish approach to social life where men dominated women and new ideas were a threat to stability. Not only did he have to take on the cultural practices to fit back into life in our ski resort, he had to take on the responsibilities of his father’s business. He carried the family business through the period of his father’s illness and death. He also supported his younger brother Fabio as an apprentice within the painting company. He took on the heavy burdens that life presented him. His incredible strength allowed him to carry his family business as well as the responsibilities he had as director of the ski school. He worked hard, completed his master craftsman diploma, and managed his workers Reviewand ski school team. At the same time, he had me to take care of as I learned to adjust to our new life. Katrina was born in May 1987, fourteen months after our marriage, and added to his responsibilities. We married before most of Angelo’s friends, forcing a lifestyle change that didn’t match with his social circle. While his friends were partying and traveling, Angelo was facing his father’s illness and preparing for his death while learning the ropes of taking over the business and finding a way to pay the salaries of the workers that depended on him. Having moved away from my hometown, first as an exchange student and then as a student in Boulder, I had already created wiggle room, or growing space allowing me to detach myself from my constraining memes from the Midwest. I was designing “A Coat of Many Colors,” like in Carole King’s song on her album Tapestry. And it was Beautiful, like the title of the recent Broadway musical about Librarianher life. Waking up and putting a smile on my face, I was feeling beautiful. Becoming a double national and living in my second language opened me up to 86 HOMING IN

new possibilities. I thought that I could ride the continental rift in a space that I was free to fill, experimenting with memetics by trying on cultural practices and testing ways of being, then choosing what to replicate in my own home that we founded together. Just as I had been attracted to Switzerland and the mountains through Angelo, my husband had been attracted to the American dream through me. But when he finally brought me home as his wife, that novelty wore off. A confident, free- thinking woman was more than he wanted or knew how to deal with at times. As a result, I was left virtually unprotected from the attacks from his close family clan that repeatedly tried to wedge us apart. The married couple had a different connotation in American societyCopy than in the mountain villages. In our Swiss village, the first loyalty of kinship was with one’s own family. The brothers and sisters-in-law of the large peasant families were of secondary importance in their system of loyalty, or so it appeared. It was difficult for me to get Angelo’s attention to face our own family matters, especially when his family needed him so much for their own survival. His family’s suffering was at times overwhelming both for him and for me. The first years of our marriage were all but blithe. Yet we kept carving out a space on the north face of the mountain where we lived, building our chalet, filling it with children, entertaining guests, and hoping for the best. While we faced the challenges presented to us from Angelo’s side of the family, we couldn’t yet see the tidal wave that was swelling across the Atlantic. Review

Librarian CHAPTER 10

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Copy anging in our chalet’s entry are invitations addressed to my grandfather Carl Wilson announcing the weddings of the daughters of his cousin H Woodrow Wilson. Most people that come into our house don’t notice them. But they link me with the past and the vision of the League of Nations that the Princeton president had conceived during his years at the university. Switzerland offered his vision a home. The Palais Wilson in Geneva was home to the organization that he created in the hopes of avoiding a second world war. Unfortunately, Congress, too influenced by the isolationist movement following World War I, didn’t support him. My choice to study international relations was directly influenced by Woodrow Wilson’s vision to bring countries together in constructive projects to assure peacefulReview relations and forged my belief that I could also transform the world with my higher ideals and will to do good. Inspired by Wilson’s life history, I studied both international affairs and mediation. In 2004 I was on a special mission for the police in Valais in which I translated between Cheri Booth Blair, wife to former Prime Minister Tony Blair of the UK, and the president of the government in Valais. Cheri had come to Geneva at the request of Louise Arbour, the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Human Rights. The two women gave a conference in support of the Geneva Convention, favoring the respect of human rights following Saddam Hussein’s downfall. While the military helicopter flew us over the Grand Dixence Dam, an engineering feat that is a pride of the Swiss government, I joked that I was an international affairs major and my husband was my first. Cheri, a very witty English woman, retorted, “And how many more did you have?” LibrarianMy experiences in Switzerland shaped me into an international citizen. My relationship with my husband was a love affair that brought me in close contact with another way of living. My Swiss boyfriend gave me a firsthand experience of western 88 HOMING IN

Europe while I was studying theory at the university. Whereas Americans like myself are taught to believe our social position is dictated by our personal ambition and hard work, Angelo was born into a social class in Europe that restricted his ability to achieve. When we were dating, Angelo said to me, “You can be anything because your dad is Dave Mossman.” I looked at him and said, “Pretend your dad is Dave Mossman and now tell me what you are going to do.” Angelo’s father and grandfather had been painters. He had followed suit. The American Dream is based upon the Declaration of Independence affirming our right to pursue happiness. The French may have first articulated the political aspirations present in the Declaration of Independence, but the young American nation was the first to implement the people’s desire for “liberty andCopy justice for all.” As a young international relations student, I learned to question my own culture as I was shown another way of doing things. It was hard going back and forth between two very different continents. Yet it had been done before. Men like Lafayette had left France to support the American Revolution, later returning to France to implement the same principles. His vision of human rights inspired both the Old World and the New World. And his destiny was intricately entwined with the destiny of the two growing democracies. Living in the heart of Europe and studying with international professors has helped me consider political issues from a Swiss and European point of view, framed in another cultural context, and has kept my mind open to new ideas. As far away from civilization as I was on top of myReview mountain in the Swiss Alps, life provided me incredible opportunities to meet with outstanding people who were partaking in the unfolding of an incredible era in history. One such opportunity arrived during the Christmas of 1989 when I was expecting Sven. Family friends from Omaha contacted me asking me to help organize their Christmas ski vacation. Alan Rogers had been the head general at the Strategic Airforce Command (SAC) at the Offutt Airforce Base in Nebraska and was then the commanding chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Belgium, a traditionally diplomatic position during the Cold War. NATO is an international alliance of countries in Europe and North America that have agreed that if an armed attack occurs against any member state, all other member states will assist the attacked member. During their stay, Alan, Linda, and their children got to hike and ski. At the Librariansimple New Year’s Eve party in our condominium, we ate chili and talked about the world’s geopolitical situation. The Berlin Wall had fallen not two months before SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 89

and the NATO allies as well as the Soviet Union were begging for a strong American presence in Europe. If the Americans reduced their troop numbers, there was the possibility of creating a vacuum of power on a continent that was undergoing a major political transformation. In the coming years, when the Cold War ended and the First Gulf War began, General Alan Rogers was put in command of the American air force, organizing air strikes from Turkey. Having gotten to know him personally gave me confidence that the best man possible was making the calls. No one was better trained and schooled for the job than General Alan Rogers. I admire leaders who uphold our world order, making tough decisions and taking on difficult responsibilities for us all. Copy That Christmas in La Tzoumaz gave me the chance to discuss international relations with a general who was in an extraordinary position. His position as the commanding chief of NATO during a period of great change made him a major actor in a time of conflict. The next year, 1990, Linda came with her son. The First Gulf War had begun, and General Rogers was at his command post and couldn’t be a part of the family ski trip. After the Gulf War, General Rogers returned to Washington and joined the joint chiefs of staff under Colin Powell. I received an invitation for his retirement party in Washington, which was quite an honor. Linda had a master’s degree in family counseling and later went on to finish her PhD. We had wonderful conversations and I learned about the military life and the dedication of the military wives whoReview provide great support for the families under their husband’s command. Following the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, Europe came together with the European Monetary Union and the European Union. Switzerland voted not to join, creating a sovereign island in the center of Europe. As Europe created their new identity, they often referred to the United States of America, making comparisons while competing with the most powerful nation in the world. In this way, they constructed their federated identity. This identity construction was often done in opposition to American representations of culture, though behind the scenes strong collaborations assured democratic security and European union. The Europeans often speak of becoming a union to strengthen their alliances and assure peaceful relations, but also to break from American control and dominance that they might consider oppressive. However, one mustn’t forget that the United LibrarianStates arose as a world power only after World War II. The many European immigrants that settled in the United States often fought against cousins in World 90 HOMING IN

War I and II. The strong cultural ties that join American and European citizens are complex. Though Europeans often see American cultural influences, they forget the influence their countries have historically had on the founding of the United States and the shaping of the current culture. When the Swiss and Europeans criticize the United States, they often forget that the strong military presence provided by American military leadership following World War II has allowed them to flourish as both peaceful and prosperous nations. The American people have shouldered the military budget during this phase of transition, allowing the European Union to take form. Many debates have taken place about reducing American commitments abroad and investing in our own interior economy. Many European people are not aware of the key roleCopy the United States has played supporting the development of the European Union. Nor are they aware of how the shouldering of the military budget has at times constrained economic development, taking resources from socially progressive programs that many Europeans benefit from in their own countries. The Old World has depended on the New World to assure and protect their democratic values under the NATO umbrella. Still, political party divisions keep many Europeans from recognizing any indebtedness to American military leadership, often refusing to contribute economically. As the European Union emerged in a new geopolitical configuration, the Swiss have continued to negotiate their separateness. On a personal note, it is difficult as an American citizen abroad to take the criticism that I hear aroundReview me, especially since it is often directed at me during dinner conversations or over a casual drink. The challenges seem to increase over the years. It is a balancing act trying to manage dual citizenship, especially when political tensions are increasing. The NATO Alliance has been able to assure peace and prosperity for Western democracies during my lifetime. It is at times uncomfortable for me to be in Switzerland, a neutral country. The Swiss- NATO relationship can be understood as being engaged but not married. The Swiss military engages in peace-keeping missions with NATO, all the while safeguarding their neutral position. Sven was born in July 1990 as the world entered a new geopolitical phase. The first time I took him out of the house there was the August 1st celebration, which is Switzerland’s national holiday celebrating the founding of the country. During a contest to see whose balloon would fly the farthest, I entered Sven’s name. Sure Librarianenough, he won. His balloon flew all the way to La Clusaz in France. I have always told Sven that he would go far, just like that balloon. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 91

Sven’s research on block chain technology and artificial intelligence has allowed him to participate in an international platform working to create legislation that will provide a needed international legal framework, assuring the viability of future exchanges, co-ordinations, and collaborations of a new kind. Our interpersonal development is linked to social and global contexts. Though some folks never venture out of their hometowns, others keep expanding their conscious awareness. International citizens continue to grow, enlarging understanding and interest beyond the national to the international, expanding their intellects like a balloon that is blown up to its fullest, then let go to travel through the air with a higher vision of the earth-human forms below, freed from anchorage in just one spot. From a higher vantage point, human affairsCopy appear to be interconnected and larger patterns can be discerned. But getting to that level requires the continuous cultivation of knowledge, integrating new perceptions and linkages, all the while connecting with people from around the world in authentic human encounters. The League of Nations grew into the United Nations, and today new forms of collaboration are being developed to meet current challenges and technological advances. Review

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THE TRAGIC BREAK Copy y mother Jan is an organizer. When she wasn’t organizing the Junior League, the Ball Committee, the Josyln Art Museum, or the Omaha M Symphony, she was providing organizational rules as a parliamentarian. She even taught Robert’s Rules of Order. When her volunteer work wasn’t occupying her time, she was invariably cleaning a closet or organizing pictures and putting them in just the right box. Maybe her ability to categorize allowed her to carry on with daily business, putting the fact that my father was having an affair in a mental box labeled “Do Not Disturb.” My first memory of Dody is when I was eight, and she arrived, unaccompanied and with her hair up in a bun, at a party that my parents were hosting at our house on Farnam Street. Her arrival markedReview the end of an enchanted period in my life and was an ominous sign of things to come. It all appeared so cordial—hence the cautionary tales about not letting the wolf get in the house. I can remember my dad taking Nan and me to the neighborhood park on his motorcycle; I almost fell off the back end. In the 1970s, the hippies hung out in Elmwood Park and music expressed the culture changes, touching the heart of even young children like me and ushering in a whole new social and cultural context that broke with the past. There, in the park surrounded by the old trees, the playground, and in the presence of the hippies, my dad explained to us that he was difficult to live with and was going to move out. I can remember my mother crying in the kitchen when we got home. And somehow, little Nan picked up the phone and dialed the right number to summon our grandparents and see what was wrong with our mom. They came immediately; Librarianmy father’s parents adored my mother. They supported her and truly loved her as their own daughter. Later in the week, after sleeping a few nights in his office, so he said, my father returned home. The fear of abandonment that swept over us that 94 HOMING IN

summer subsided. But our happiness and security seemed to be that much more fragile. My father’s life was a precarious balancing act. He worked daily with his father and mistress—Dody was my father’s secretary in the family real estate business. He returned home every evening to be with his wife and children. His parents lived next door. His office was only fifteen minutes from our house. His mistress was conveniently placed in an apartment across the street from his office. Over time, the close proximity of his relations tightened around him like a self-made lasso. We were all used to Dody’s presence at work, and she was even invited to our family celebrations. Everyone simply accepted the situation. As I started waking up to the reality of the adult world of relationships encircling our family nutshell,Copy I sensed that their bond was more than friendship. However, the family members around me weren’t ready to see the obvious. After my little sister Leigh’s illness, I remember confronting my mother about the relationship my father had with Dody. I told my mother that if she didn’t fight for her marriage, she was going to lose her ground to Dody. She looked at Leigh, who was recovering, and put that information in the back of her mind. I couldn’t follow my mother’s reasoning then. Now I can understand. When you have children, there is a lot you can overlook so as to assure their security and welfare. How could my father’s infidelity be explained? How could I learn to accept my father’s choice? Maybe when he had arrived at his peak in the 1970s, he got bored and started taking risks. After the marketReview changed, it was more difficult for small companies to get the investment money for projects from the banks. A mixture of circumstances and personal choices, just as in everyone’s life, took him away from us and on a life track that wore him down morally and physically. The father of my childhood who radiated such a natural class had lost some of his shine. His easy- going smile was no longer as spontaneous or genuine. The tall, handsome father that I longed to cuddle with, losing myself in his generous strong arms, wouldn’t let me in close like he used to. In 1989, my parents separated, and that summer, Leigh came to Switzerland and accompanied me to the south of France in the Cevennes. We stayed in an old castle that was far from luxurious. The ground floor had animals—goats, sheep, and chickens—that provided food at the hostess’s table. I was attending classes with a group of alternative and complementary health practitioners. Leigh Librarianbecame increasingly agitated. Instead of being comforted by the remoteness and SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 95

uncustomary setting, the change of scenery was too extreme for Leigh, who had just finished her sophomore year in high school. Leigh had been brought up on Wendy’s hamburgers and fries. She ate her favorite breakfast cereal in the morning and fast food most of the time after school. The family meals that I remember had been replaced with the drive-through. Coming into my world was a culture shock for her. She couldn’t just get into the car and drive away. But life brought Leigh to me that summer. Distanced from the situation at home, she had to slow down, and that allowed her to face the reality of the situation, letting her feelings come to the surface and admitting the pain. She told me about the dreams she had been having where she was dressed in her cheerleadingCopy clothes and drowning in front of all the spectators. Yet no one could see her. She was being pulled to the bottom, but no one came to save her. The adults in Leigh’s life were so involved with their own problems that, like the spectators in her dream, they couldn’t see how the situation was affecting her. She was trying desperately to carry on and to keep up a facade, but she was being pulled down by the weight of the adult conflict swirling around her. I wasn’t aware of Leigh’s suffering prior to her arrival in Switzerland. She hadn’t shared her distraught feelings, emotional pain, and lostness with me by phone nor in letters. In the midst of the conference of healers, she received care and a safe space far away from Omaha to vent her distress. As the facades fell, she was able to reemerge from the whirlpool. I recognizedReview her suffering. I knew how brave she was trying to be. It wasn’t just the divorce that was upsetting her, but also the loss of the family’s prestige as my father’s conduct tarnished the family’s reputation. She, just as all of our family members, felt ashamed. Each of my sisters have added on new kinship relationships, much like I did when I found my birth family. In Leigh’s case, she had bonded with the Walkers, our neighbors on Candlewood Lake, since she was just a little girl. They had a son her age that became a kind of brother. She became part of their family during the years that my father distanced himself from us. The relationships that she cultivated with the Walkers have continued to endure, providing a surrogate family for her. Leigh was able to make strong protective bonds that allowed her to belong to another family during the period when her own family was breaking apart. In 1991, when my little sister Leigh was close to high school graduation and my Librarianparents would have been faced with an empty nest, my father chose his love nest. 96 HOMING IN

My father brought the divorce papers to my mother while she was in the hospital after a bad car accident. She had broken her pelvis. In one sense, it took the car accident to “break” the bond, allowing my mother to give birth to a new life-form. Sometimes our accidents can speak to us symbolically and provide us with the space to initiate needed change and healing. The pelvis bones, or sacrum, have a special symbolic signature. They look like a butterfly. Butterflies represent the possibility to enter into the cocoon and emerge transformed. The pelvic region is where women birth babies, but men and women share the same bone structure that resembles a butterfly. It is possibly the seat of our creative energy. The divorce forced my mother into a transformation stage. Feelings of utter devastation overcame us all when the finalCopy blow to my parents’ marriage severed the relational bonds that sheltered us in our family. The deception that had been cultivated over the years added to our shared misery. Our family’s security was threatened by an alliance that redistributed both loyalty and inheritance, placing more value in Dody, so it seemed—the other woman in my father’s life. We found ourselves without means to reclaim our lost territory. After the fairytale childhood that I had known, as a young married woman I was faced with my father’s fall, pregnant with my third child. Far away from my family, a poem flowed through me, pouring my heartfelt anger and sorrow onto pages found lying around the house. The specter of Christmas future showed me the tragedy of D. W. Mossman. The Wilson lineage that Carl had passed on to David was in peril. TheReview poem versed through me until, with sleight of the hand, the magician Carl allowed me to pull the sword from the stone—in my case the large rock on the edge of Lake Candlewood that marked where I had grown up. Having freed the sword, the inheritance of Carl’s legacy was mine, and it would not be lost. My sisters didn’t have personal contact with Carl, and as the first child, I became the keeper of the memories transmitted through the relationship with my great-grandfather and the impressions that I carried with me through our loving exchanges. I learned later that my parents had mediated their own divorce. My father had sought resources that would allow for conciliation instead of a long, drawn-out war. Only then did I understand that my father had done his best to divorce with dignity and respect for my mother. That was comforting to me, especially as I was getting a master’s in mediation at the time I discovered that my father valued mediation and Librarianhad used mediation, likely at the advice of one of his best friends, Yale-educated lawyer Warren Zweiback. He handled my father’s business in the years that Dave SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 97

was building and expanding. Though Dave had fallen hard from those successful days, he still trusted Warren’s advice. The divorce untied the family knots and left everyone drifting. Like driftwood in a lake, the pieces finally do come to shore, having taken on a softened, polished glow. After my parent’s divorce, I spoke weekly with my grandfather Poppy, trying to help him reconcile with my father and his choices. My grandfather would often say that my father had given up his birthright when he chose the lifestyle with his mistress. I think what he meant to say was that when you are born healthy into a prosperous family and have the privilege of receiving higher education, it is tragic to not use your gifts wisely. My father did not use his gifts to their potential, and he seemed to forget that the peopleCopy with whom we choose to spend our lives influence us greatly over the years. The divorce broke the legal bonds that held my parents together, allowing them both to give new form to their lives by remarrying. We each have our own chrysalis periods that create a protected, sacred space, allowing us to change what no longer corresponds to our desired life-course. We hang upside down until the metamorphosis is completed and we can break free from our holding position. My mother didn’t date until the divorce was final in the spring, but she did remarry less than a year later. Bob Falk was part of her social circle and sought her out as soon as he heard about her separation. His wife had died of breast cancer, leaving him to raise his youngest two children in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska. Bob had been a few grades ahead of my father,Review and they attended the same high school. Marnie and Poppy gave them their blessing, happy that my mother would be well taken care of by a man they esteemed highly. Bob’s family was of Swedish descent and he was very active in the Swedish Council of America, a national organization. He was also a highly recognized mason in the Masonic order. His father had been a stockbroker, and Bob too had gone on to be a stockbroker, living in New York City as a young man and then returning to Omaha. Bob’s father was in business with Warren Buffet’s father. When Warren’s father was elected to Congress, Warren was in high school and decided to live with the Falks to finish his senior year in Omaha. Bob and Warren were good friends. Warren’s ascent as a businessman establishing the largest fortune in the world has certainly affected Omaha culture, just as the Nebraska culture influenced the values of Warren Buffet, contributing to his success. LibrarianWhen I was a little girl, I walked past Warren Buffet’s house every morning on my way to school. As he is an important financial leader, Time Magazine and 98 HOMING IN

other news sources often cover his perspectives concerning economic issues. His belief in strong infrastructures and good public schools reflect Nebraskan and Midwestern values. His support for higher taxes for the wealthy like himself, which can be used to attenuate economic inequality, model a progressive social vision. Egalitarian principles emerging from the agrarian regions have created great wealth distribution in the past. Not only is the center of the United States the bread basket of the world, but it is also the region that produced the most successful business man of our times. Warren Buffet’s great wealth was made in an era underlining a strong work ethic, good public schools, the possibility of upward mobility, and an overriding vision of progress that the pioneers passed on to their descendants. WarrenCopy Buffet’s discretion portrays a unique style that wealthy Midwestern families emulate. They contribute greatly to community charities and the arts, making Nebraska’s good life an ever-increasing social capital. The destinies of Bob and Warren were different, though both followed their fathers to go on to be stockbrokers. Warren’s destiny was to become the wealthiest man in the world. Jan and Bob’s marriage connected my mother to Bob’s prominent Omaha family. They belonged to a generation of people that had built Omaha into a thriving Midwestern city. Their destinies seemed to be intertwined with the older establishment families in Nebraska, upholding the Midwestern values that Warren’s family exemplified. Bob’s unique friendship to Warren made him part of an amazing international success story, and consequentlyReview Jan, his new wife, joined him. Jan, his new wife, joined him in the inner circle. Jan and Bob chose to marry in November. It all happened so quickly. I felt an amazing, aching conviction that I needed to be present with my mother and participate in my American family celebrations. I came to her wedding with my son Nils, who was only a few weeks old. It had been quite an effort to go to Bern, Switzerland, and get his passport made for the trip just days after his birth. A strong sense of loyalty brought me to my mother’s second wedding. It was a time to bond with her new husband, Bob, and his four children. We were becoming a new, recomposed family. I hoped that witnessing the ceremony would truly allow me to be part of the new family configuration. Bob’s oldest sister had been married to Walter Scott, a prominent businessman in Nebraska. When Bob’s sister died of cancer, Walter remarried. His new wife was Librariannone other than my high school boyfriend’s mother. In the new arrangement of family ties, my high school boyfriend Bob became a kind of cousin through marriage. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 99

In any event, it meant that our parents had even stronger bonds, attending social organizations and even going on trips. The Scotts later invited Jan and Bob on their yacht to tour the coast of Alaska. We were all floating on a growing vessel of kinship. Not only was I getting a new family, but I was also being tied even more tightly to my past heartstrings, like ribbons folding back on each other through time. The theme of multiple families dots my landscape of meaning like wildflowers in a meadow. There are so many to pick from and I add them to my bouquet, tying them together with a satin ribbon. The blessing of many relations comes with the responsibility to cultivate clarified relations of love in each family hologram. I am in the middle of many joinings that have ultimately reinforced the fabric of my relations. I pray daily that all my relational bonds ring clear like the soundCopy of crystal clinking when we raise our glasses in a toast. A-ho, metakuye oyasin is a Sioux blessing and greeting meaning “For all my relations.” As a young mother making my own family, I did my best to accept my parents’ choices and find a way to go on with them and their new families. When my mother appeared to be happily remarried, I gathered my courage to search for my birth family. My father had challenged my mother’s role as wife, and I didn’t want to add to her suffering by questioning her role as mother. But I felt the homing in call, and I waited for what seemed to be the right time to seek out my roots and understand more about my own self. “And he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down”—and so it was time to rebuild on more sturdy ground,Review using better materials that would hopefully stand the test of time as well as provide safety from those that might try to get in. Embracing the situation with acceptance and dignity, it was time to open the door to parts of myself I had kept hidden. It was time to look into my own family secrets that were waiting patiently for me to discover. I began tuning in to the distant sound of another tribal drum, beating in my heart.

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Librarian CHAPTER 12

THE SUNDANCE WAY OF LIFE Copy hen the sun comes up over the mountain, it is a sacred moment. Sunrise is a time for prayer and communion. In daily meditation, I connect W with the morning sun and the blessings of the new day that come to me as rays of light emanating from the source. Praying for all my relatives, especially my husband and children, I gratefully begin the day. In this way, I connect to the ancient ways, the rituals and healing traditions, integrating them into my way of life on the mountain. This connectedness can be understood as the Native American Sundance Way of Life, a sacred ancestral ritual and way of being in the world. Seven Arrows is a teaching story, a story of the Sundance Way. “Questioning is one of the most vital paths to understanding these Stories,Review which will Teach you of the Sun Dance Way. When you question, the Medicine Wheel is turned for you. These Stories are magical Teachers in this way. They are Flowers of Truth whose petals can be unfolded by the Seeker without end.”11 Teaching stories transform perception. They are reflections of life in the Medicine Wheel, a circle that is a mirror. Our life experiences color our perspectives. Our vision quest is a perceiving quest to learn how to see ourselves and to find our place in the world. To find our place, we must give away. “The Sun Dancer believes that each person is a unique Living Medicine Wheel, powerful beyond imagination, that has been limited and placed upon the earth to Touch, Experience and Learn.”12 In 1995, I was thirty-three years old, married to a Swiss husband, living in a ski resort in the Swiss Alps. I had four young children. Katrina was born May 5, 1987; LibrarianSven, July 22, 1990; Nils, October 24, 1992; and Yann, October 18, 1995. Jessica 11 Hyemeyohsts Storm. Seven Arrows (New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, 1988),10. 12 Ibid, 7. 102 HOMING IN

arrived on June 30, 2003. My life since 1987 had focused around founding my family, building our chalet, and caring for our children. Part of their care involved learning about alternative and complementary medicine so that I could address my family’s health needs. Turning on the Medicine Wheel brought me to discover various healing techniques, each based on a different conceptual framework. Studying these different medicines, or healing ways, opened a portal of growth and giving. Each medicine had its own healing virtues and transformative effects. Over the years, discernment has allowed me to judge which medicine or healing technique is the most appropriate considering the circumstances. My interest in alternative medicine led to the a previously unknown connection with Marnie and Poppy, who had already explored homeopathy. MarnieCopy had my father in a homeopathic clinic. When they were younger, their good friends the Fletchers had a unique clinic that made homeopathic remedies in Omaha. I would joke with Marnie that we would come back in our next lives and become doctors. I think she would be glad to know that I didn’t wait for a chance in another life but became a social scientist: Dr. Susie Riva. I delved into Dr. Hahnemann’s books and learned how to find remedies that corresponded with observed symptoms, allowing me to develop a watchfulness and awareness in relation to my children’s illnesses. Dr. Hahnemann’s homeopathic remedies are based on similitudes. They heal by stimulating the body’s own healing responses and immune system. Homeopathic remedies associate physical and emotional states and even environmentalReview changes that may act on a person’s well- being. In those first years I even studied about the healing properties of stones and crystals, using them in various ways to bring about healing and balance. The beauty of each stone and its healing attributes fascinated me. The natural elements have many healing properties to be discovered. The more I learned about alternative medicine, the more I wanted to learn, and I found time to read and to take classes pertaining to different healing methods. I learned about the medicinal flowers and plants in the Alps from an older woman in our ski resort. She had learned from her father. I lived in the middle of the Alpine meadows, God’s natural pharmacy. The first medicinal flowers came out in March around St. Joseph’s Day. Each week brought forth another flower, leaf, or even pine needles to be picked and dried. I enjoyed my walks with the children, identifying Librarianthe flowers in my books. I picked flowers to be dried or macerated in alcohol and set out in the sun. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 103

My interest in herbal remedies grew to include the Bach Flower Remedies. I found books that described how each flower remedy could reestablish balance within the emotional bodies. Each flower had a signature that Dr. Bach, an Englishman, had come to experience, writing down the healing properties in case stories. Rescue Remedy, a concoction of several vibrational flower remedies, can be used for shock and accidents. I always have a little bottle with me just in case. I followed classes developing sensitivity in my hands to balance energy with osteopathic techniques. In classes in the south of France, we used our hands to balance the sacral cranial energy, applying a form of gentle witnessing to bodily rhythms. I also studied acupuncture, learning to take the pulses in the wrists while identifying the meridian systems flowing through the body. The five-pointedCopy star in acupuncture is a complex system of energies associated with meridians, generating energetic exchanges throughout the seasons. This ancient healing tradition opened my mind to new ways of conceiving the body and its functioning. The healing power of therapeutic touch became part of my healing tool kit along with the other traditions and medicines I studied. It seemed that my mother’s generation had given up their healing powers to the doctors and medical professionals, forgetting the wisdom that had been passed down over generations. My knowledgeability was aimed at recuperating the practices that had been lost and forgotten while empowering myself to take care of my family. Birthing practices, including water births, were also of interest to me. Seeking to ease the trauma of birth for each of myReview children, I studied techniques and practices that reinforced women’s capacities to give birth naturally. This led me to find progressive maternity hospitals in Switzerland equipped with trained midwives and doctors that had access to birthing rooms with water birthing pools and other possibilities working to assist women and allow gentler, couple-oriented births for families. In my study of alternative medicine, I came across Edgar Cayce and his use of “The Book of Life,” also known as the Akashic Records or God’s Book of Remembrance. Edgar Cayce was a clairvoyant who lived from 1877-1945. The Akashic Records are not a definitive written work but rather embody every human word, thought, and deed, creating a nexus of experiences that link all humans. Cayce sought to share elements of God’s Book of Remembrance that would generate helpfulness and hopefulness for his clients. The quintessence of energy held within “The Book Librarianof Life” seemed to impact lives as well relational potentialities that in turn could 104 HOMING IN

influence shared tomorrows.13 The Bible also makes references to a celestial tablet and Book of Life. I extensively read about psychic healers and teachers, following classes in the south of France inspired by Alice Bailey’s writings. In castles surrounded by beautiful wine country, I learned about mystical healing techniques, energetic osteopathy, and homeopathy. Through studying these integrative approaches, I came to understand different conceptions of the human body and the energy systems flowing through our physical and spiritual forms as well as the different workings of various healing practices. My interests in alternative and complementary medicine had motivated my father to put me in contact with a Native American healer, or medicineCopy woman, named Ramona who lived near Blackbird Bend Farm. After retiring, my father had moved to the farm with Dody and had strengthened his friendships with the locals. He introduced me to Ramona when I visited the farm as a young mother, and we discussed traditional healing methods for hours. I gave Ramona my quartz crystals and in exchange she gave me a colorful beaded American Indian barrette for my long hair. When I would return to the farm, she would come to visit. Ramona had the gift to heal women’s health problems. She was known to heal infertility even at a distance. She often organized sweat lodge ceremonies in a dome-shaped hut. These Native American purification rituals were performed in a sauna-like lodge for the local people on the reservations near our farm in Decatur. She explained that a chosen person wouldReview climb to a high spot and fast until they received a message from an animal spirit. That spirit would guide the ceremony as the participants tied tobacco, as if they were prayer beads. On another visit to the farm, Dave and Dody took us to the local pow-wow. Different tribes came to participate, bringing along their tribal drums. On the inside of the circle the men, dressed in traditional costumes, were invited to dance and perform. At one point the head of the pow-wow invited any guests to come and dance in the healing circle. I remember taking Sven with me to step with the beat of the drums. The Native Americans surrounded us, dressed in traditional costume, participating in their ancient healing ritual. That experience remains a symbolic moment of healing in my life. They showed me a way to go forward in community. They knew how to create sacred space and fill it with renewal in the Librarianform of dancing and colorful, feathered performance. 13 Association for Research and Enlightenment. “Akashik Records—The Book of Life.” Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. https://www.edgarcayce.org/the-readings/akashic-records/ (Accessed April 26, 2019). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 105

The Native American healing rituals inspired my professional practice taking form deep inside of me just as I was taking the steps to heal my own life story. I needed to make peace with my ancestors. I needed to connect with my roots. These tribes had been using the pow-wow to come together and heal for centuries. I learned from their sacred medicine. This learning took place because of my father’s engagement with the Native American people’s culture, a place white Nebraskans don’t often venture. Dave loved adventure. He took pride in stepping out of the confines of the establishment society. He taught me to dance to the beat of my own drum, helping me to find my brave heart. At the same time, my father had become the man who had had a long affair, dabbled with cocaine, and given up on his own business ventures.Copy Eventually, he sold the beloved family farm on terms, allowing him to be able to live with his new wife until her death in the farmhouse but leaving the fertile fields for the new owner to cultivate and harvest. He sold the one place I always thought I could go back to. Yet he took me to the pow-wow, initiating me to the Medicine Wheel of Life, which became a powerful symbol of communion and healing in my life. He also gave me the Seven Arrows book, explaining the Native American traditions. I will never forget dancing with young Sven in the circle surrounded by tribal people who had invited us in to chant and step to the beat of the tribal drums. Review

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KINNING: BECOMING A CHILD OF MULTIPLE FAMILIES Copy

he term “kinning” is used by Signe Howell, a Norwegian social anthro- pologist, to describe the process by which an adopted child is brought into a significant and permanent relationship that is expressed through a form T 14 15 of kinship. Cross-cultural studies on adoption shed new light on kinship. Parents and adopted children participate in kinned trajectories that overlap. My case study not only illustrates the kinning process that was initiated at the moment of my adoption but goes on to show how it continued when my adopted parents both remarried, creating new family bonds. Understanding family-building processes is a central theme in this family memoir. I was adopted into the Mossmans’Review kin-based networks and histories, learning the stories of our ancestors and honoring the close relationships that I shared with my grandparents. When my parents divorced, I wanted to support them and honor the new family bonds, finding new ways to belong, especially with Bob’s four children. Not only were we children transformed through these kinning processes, but our parents’ identities were also transfigured. The search for and reintegration in my birth family allowed me to experience yet another form of the kinning process. Becoming a relative is a complex process. My multiple families engaged in the kinning processes, creating new forms of relatedness that ultimately transformed our life trajectories. Howell describes the space when a child begins kinning with his or her adopted family. “There is a liminal place between the stripping of a child’s original social identity and

Librarian14 Signe Howell, “Kinning: the Creating of Life Trajectories in Transnational Adoptive Families.”, Jour- nal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Volume 9, Issue 3, (September 2003), 465-484. 15 Fiona Bowie, Cross-Cultural Approaches to Adoption (London; New York: Routledge, 2004) 227. 108 HOMING IN

obtaining a new one. This period I have called the birthing of the adopted child. In temporal terms it coincides with the moment when a child is allocated by the donor organization (usually an orphanage) to the prospective parents, and ends with the actual handing-over from the donor to the recipient. This birthing period lasts from anything from four months to several years. From the adoptive parents’ point of view this period can be used to start the kinning process, and strong emotional bonds are forged when immediate information is received about the adopted child. They are sent a photograph and brief biological data of the child that is being ‘born’ to them.”16 The birthing period experienced when I was adopted at four months was much later completed by a second birthing process. When I re-birthed through the search process, which involved sending photos to and receiving Copyphotos from my birth parents the Wylies, we began forging strong emotional bonds that had abruptly been put on hold at my birth. Our letters were an important element in our bonding process. Being in their presence, I once again began incorporating my birth family just as they began incorporating me, in the hopes of becoming loved relatives. When we finally met, the embodiment of our family traits became even more consciously lived and experienced. The deep descriptions in this autoethnographic work are an attempt to show the ways in which a sense of belonging is transmitted. Searching for my roots transformed the familial futures of all my relationships. New life trajectories were subsequently co-created. “Autoethnography is a way of caring for the self. We often write to work something out for ourselves,Review and when we do, we must take into account how we care for ourselves, as well as how we experience tension and conflict with others.”17 The autoethnographic process has allowed me to work through my story, giving self-care to my becomingness. Finding ways to belong in Switzerland was also part of my kinned personal relatedness to others and new places, forming identity and personhood. Research illustrates how kinship relates people together in new shared temporal and spatial universes. Here, in the space of these relationships, belonging to a place plays an integral part in the personal development of narratives.18 Seeking acceptance in my husband’s family and country, I adopted the Swiss ways, learning about Swiss history, culture, and ancestors. Kinning was like knitting, each slipknot added to

16 Ibid, 223. Librarian17 Tony E. Adams, Stacy Linn Holman Jones, and Carolyn Ellis. Autoethnography (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 62. 18 Fiona Bowie, Cross-Cultural Approaches to Adoption, 227. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 109

the pattern. I tried relentlessly to belong, following the Biblical model of Ruth: “Your people will be my people.” Rootedness and uprootedness provide another perspective on kinning, suggesting that we are like trees, placing our roots into the earth. Being transplanted would illustrate another way of existing. Just as we kin, we root—an earthy way of homing in. My studies in alternative and complementary medicine, psychology, and spirituality convinced me of the importance of healing my relationship with my birth mother. I was the only one who had the right to seek her out offering forth my hand in an attempt to reconcile the past, with the hopes of healing the present as well as the destiny of future generations. I am convinced that each generationCopy has the responsibility to clear family patterns, lightening the load inherited by the next generation. I wanted to heal my past and find peace with the circumstances of my conception and birth. I also hoped that finding my birth mother would allow her to heal, knowing that I was well and offering her the possibility to know my offspring. I wasn’t motivated to know about my genetic background. My search came from a spiritual motivation, praying for reconciliation and forgiveness. As I reached out to my unknown mother, I was asking for grace. From the deepest region of my being, the beginning point, I asked to please find her. The heartstrings of love that tied us together were invisible. But somehow, my intention to find my birth mother gave light to, or highlighted and reinforced, the connections that linked us together.Review My desire to search sparked a growing flame, shedding light on an opened door that I would walk through. An intense kinning process began when I discovered my origins and experienced their kinship for the first time.

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REUNION: FINDING MY BIRTH FAMILY

Like its parallel in physical passion, the early stage of a relationship cannot continue always at the same pitch of intensity. It moves to another phase of growth which one should not dread, but welcome as one welcomes summer after spring . . . But woman refinds in a limited form with each new child, something resembling,Review at least in absorption, the early pure relationship. In the sheltered simplicity of the first days after a baby is born, one sees again the magical closed circle, the miraculous sense of two people existing only for each other, the tranquil sky reflected on the face of the mother nursing her child. It is, however, only a brief interlude and not a substitute for the original, more complete relationship. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea19

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19 Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Gift from the Sea. (New York: Pantheon, 1997), 66-67. Copy

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Librarian CHAPTER 14

NATURE AND NURTURE WITHIN THE EPIGENETIC PARADIGM Copy

dopted children are often associated with water. Moses came to his mother by floating in a woven basket down a river full of reeds. My element is water A because I was born under the sign of Cancer, which means waterborne. My name Susan means lily in Hebrew, and I see myself as being like a water lily. Where most people’s roots thrive in soil, my roots go into the water. Like the water lilies in Monet’s paintings, lushly growing in their pond surrounded by an immortalized French garden, I am an adopted child living in a magical world of eternal life, with no mirror of how I will grow older. It wasn’t until I met my biological mother and saw the wrinkles around her eyes that I realized I too was mortal. Moses and Jesus both have doubleReview lineages. Moses had both a Hebrew and Egyptian heritage. Prophets tell of the carpenter’s son’s lineage long before he is born. He is the son of Joseph, just as he is the Son of God. The New Testament bears witness to Jesus’s life, telling the story of his earthly and divine heritage that brings forth Christendom as we know it today. The assemblage of these lineages is the challenge both Moses and Jesus faced first in the Old Testament and then in the New Testament. The testaments are filled with careful accounts of their origins. The adopted child is also faced with a complex heritage where multiple lineages converge and are woven into an intricate fabric of identity. We embody not only earthly but heavenly lines of inheritance that reveal themselves through personal calling. Friends explained to me that they thought I was original until they met my birth family and realized that I was just like them. It is interesting how our genes Librarianconnect us in ways that seem impossible to admit. My birth mother’s favorite colors, deep purple and magenta, are also my favorite. Amazingly, my birth mother and 114 HOMING IN

I shared the same favorite book growing up, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. My birth mother’s family, the Wiests, had a favorite series: The Lord of the Rings. These books were the first I read after finishing my bachelor’s degree and could finally choose what I wanted to read myself. My birth mother collected heart-shaped jewelry, as do I. And my intellectual interests and political orientation followed my birth family’s convictions—they are dedicated Democrats. How did that information get passed on to me? When I finally did find them, I saw that genes indeed carry the dimensions of the soul. The family patterns that I displayed were coming down lines of inheritance unbeknownst to me. These hidden patterns spiraled into my relationships unconsciously, only to surprise me like a hidden snake in tall grass. Transgenerational psychology has now madeCopy this passing on more understandable, yet the stunning connections that became apparent to me as my life unfolded have never ceased to awe me. How is this family memory passed on and how does it continue to inform our relational matrix? I am grateful that I was adopted. Ever since I was a child, I saw my adoption as a godsend. It was my unique destiny. I see the divine hand of God in the way that my life has unfolded. I have never regretted that I was adopted. I feel awe for the sacredness of my life’s unfolding process. I needed my adopted family and their nurturing and care as well as the genes and family patterns of my biological family for my path of individuation to be complete. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, spoke of individuation as the process of becoming the Self. My nephew from Reviewmy adopted family spoke of my “real” family in a recent discussion. I tried to explain to him that every person seems to have a different idea about which one of my families is the “real” one. It all depends on personal vantage point. In my heart, I have come to accept the uniqueness of my origins and consider them to be equally important. I am a rare form of assemblage, a wine of blended base wine varieties. The poem “Legacy of an Adopted Child,” author unknown, describes the two different kinds of love that adopted children experience.

Once there were two women who never knew each other, One you do not remember—the other you call Mother. Two different loves shaped to make you one. One became your guiding star—the other became your sun. LibrarianThe first one gave you life and the second taught you to live it; The first gave you a need for love, the second was there to give it. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 115

One gave you a nationality—the other gave you a name, One gave you a talent—the other gave you aim. One gave you emotions—the other calmed your fears, One saw your first sweet smile—the other dried your tears. One sought for you a home that she could not provide, The other prayed for a child, her hope was not denied. And now you ask me through your tears the age-old question unanswered through the years: Heredity or Environment—which are you a product of? Neither, my darling, neither—just two different kinds of love. Copy I belong to both of my families. As the nature and nurture debate continues to evolve, I find epigenetic theory fascinating because it allows me to better understand the complexity of my identity. Epigenetic theory explains how cellular memory is passed on from generation to generation, but also how our environment, perceptions, and lifestyle choices bring out the expression of our DNA. DNA is not our destiny. Our positive life choices actually elicit epigenetic transformation. Nature and nurture are intertwined. Transgenerational memories are passed on; however, genes’ expressions are transformed by our daily choices, the quality of our environment, as well as the manner in which we perceive the world we live in. “The word inheritance was originallyReview used in connection with the transfer of wealth between generations, notably in connection with land. Immanuel Kant’s anthropological writings were extremely influential in broadening the idea of inheritance and, in 1788, he created the verb ‘vererben’ to signify the ‘transmission’ of biological properties. Kant struggled with the age-old problem of how similarities and differences among humans can be accounted for.”20 I am especially interested in the patterns that seem to flow through generations. How these intergenerational transfers operate through multiple lines of inheritance is intriguing. As an adopted child, I wonder how adoption changes who we were meant to be, creating two lines of transmission. The patterns of synchronicity that I have identified over the years are markers that led me home. My search for reunion has been an emancipating process and Librarianjourney. I am fascinated by the different patterns running through the different 20 Margaret Lock and Gísli Pálsson, Can Science Resolve the Nature-Nurture Debate? (Polity Press, Cam- bridge, UK, 2016), 34. 116 HOMING IN

families that I belong to. This fascination has ignited a curiosity in relation to biological as well as other forms of transmission that are less understood. I not only see physical resemblances but have also become aware of emotional patterns that play out in the form of dramas that appear to be linked to theories of transgenerational psychology. Our family case study has allowed me to look at family building as well as intergenerational transfer from a unique vantage point. Epigenetic theory explains that our environment and our perceptions influence our genes. The choices we make bring out the positive or negative potentials that are latent in our genetic heritage. The ancient wisdom that spoke about how the sins of the fathers would influence future generations has come to be understood through epigenetic theory. Swedish studies suggest that our health outcomesCopy are influenced by what our grandparents ate. Scientists can confirm that we do modify our genes by our choices in lifestyle. The intricate patterns of our genes meet with our daily choices, influencing our lives and our offspring’s lives. The Bible speaks of destiny and choice, and as a young girl I wondered how these two coexisted. Now science explains, in part, how they do. The ramifications of epigenetics often elicit a form of denial because of the burden of responsibility full consciousness brings home. I was swept up by new understandings of these biocultural becomings, truly amazed by the intensity of my own experience and the revelations gained through participant observation as I analyzed my multiple family kinships. Biocultural approaches study embodiment. MedicalReview anthropology looks at how experience gets written on the body in measurable ways, describing physiological, psychological, and morphological outcomes. There is a growing understanding of the processes of interaction between biological contexts and environmental contexts that can be understood as developing system interactions. Adopted children who find their birth parents are influenced by two family cultures as well as epigenetic transmission. My case study goes a step further and suggests that there are forms of connectivity that act on separated family members, calling them to home in. This realization implies yet another form of influence that resonates beyond biological and cultural transmission. Studies comparing identical twins separated at birth show how many similarities seemed to run through their lives. But a less well-known inquiry looks at synchron- icity in relation to adopted children that reunite with their birth families. In “Adoptee Librarianand Birth parents Connected by Design: Surprising Synchronicities in Histories of SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 117

Union/Loss/Reunion,” published several years before I found my birth parents, LaVonne H. Stiffler explains the study’s perception of significance:

For reconnected families, synchronicity seems to give a sense of focus to a backward look at a hazy past. Interpretations do not belong to the outsider, nor are they necessarily subject to Jungian analysis. For those who have endured the trauma of separation by adoption and the struggle of search, in the absence of a lifetime of other evidence, the discovery and integration of synchronicities serve to confirm, support, and deepen their bond.21

Stiffler explains the concept of Möbius-connection paradigm thatCopy represents the mother-child nexus throughout the union/loss/reunion experience.

Each life is like a woven, flexible ribbon, occasionally crossing the expanse and touching the other at various points or intersections. It is then that an inconstant connection through contingence, equivalence, or meaning occurs (synchronicity). Like a short power-blast of energy, anomalous connecting information or behavior is transferred and recorded. In the meantime, the life-source arrows of mother and child keep moving, now growing closer, pointing toward the other rather than away, until they meet at the space-time conjunction of reunion.22

The band that represents this Reviewidea looks like a ribbon: a kind of enfolded heartstring of love. The book brings together narratives of reunion that reveal a form of meaning-making from ineffable and numinous experience. Through this image of Möbius connections, we arrive at non-orientable wormholes and chirality, where understandings of boundaries, mirror images, and space are transformed. Reunion stories seem to allude to the fact that other dimensions, if understood, might be able to explain the phenomena experienced by so many adopted children that reunite with their birth families. A homing in mechanism seems to guide adopted children throughout their search process. When I met my birth family, I realized that there were dimensions to our genes that we have only partly come to understand. How did so much of who I am get passed on? How did I become someone so close to my biological family’s

Librarian21 LaVonne Harper Stiffler,Synchronicity and Reunion: The Genetic Connection of Adoptees and Birth Parents. (1st ed. Hobe Sound, Fla: FEA Pub, 1992), 168-169. 22 Ibid, 14. 118 HOMING IN

psychological and intellectual make-up? And what universal organizing force pulled us all back together at just the right time? Our story is a case study of interest. The age-old debates of nature versus nurture are now understood to be nature and nurture interacting. How heredity and environment shape who we are come up time and time again in psychology, sociology, and anthropology. “Science alone certainly cannot resolve nurture/nature debates, nor, for that matter should such debates ever be resolved. They inform us how we are situated in the universe physically and morally.”23 Questing has allowed me to delve into the nature and nurture debate, seeking answers to my own personal questions, as well as bringing light to a fundamental understanding of our origins and how they are transmitted. My life story is my own unique expression of synchronistic connectionCopy suggesting that there is indeed a psychic nexus that transcends space and time. We gracefully converged, transforming our life trajectories. The awe that I experienced when I held the first picture of my birth family lifted me. That moment enclosed the offering of a miracle capable of inspiring a strong sense of wonder and was the impetuous motor for this autobiographical work. It was a moment of radical amazement. When I received my first picture of my birth family in the mail, I laid eyes on a portrait of the ineffable. Review

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23 Margaret Lock, and Gísli Pálsson. Can Science Resolve the Nature-Nurture Debate? 158. CHAPTER 15

THE REBIRTHING PROCESS Copy s a young mother settling into life in Switzerland, I became a member of The American Women’s Club in the Geneva-Lausanne area. In one of A their newsletters, I saw an advertisement offering spiritual growth and development using the breath. I made an appointment with Joy Manné, who used the rebirthing technique to work with clients. She had her PhD in Buddhist psychology. She had grown up in South Africa and later moved to England. She was married to a Dutchman, a professor of Sanskrit at the University of Lausanne, bringing her to Lac Leman (or Lake Geneva). At our first session, I explained to Joy that I was adopted. She looked at me with her wise old owl look and said, “How sad that your birth mother can’t see how beautiful you are.” Her words planted a seed. Joy’s teachingsReview accompanied me along my path of self- discovery as I attended her workshops and borrowed the books that she suggested about rebirthing and spiritual growth. I followed Joy’s guidance. Indeed, she gently accompanied me during my journey of “rebirthing.” I had asked my father about finding my birth parents when I was a teenager, and he said that he would help me find them. His willingness to help had been enough for me at that time. I didn’t ask again until I was the mother of four young children in my early thirties. I’ve since learned that this is a common age to look for birth parents. Poppy and my father David knew the director of the Nebraska Children’s Home, and when I decided to search for more information about my origins, they got me in touch with the social workers that placed the children. When I began inquiring about my past, I was sent a document describing the medical history of Librarianmy young parents. In that letter, I learned about my blood incompatibility with my birth mother. I also learned that a medical specialist had seen me while I was in foster care because my feet turned inward. 120 HOMING IN

All that information was the first phase of discovering my identity. I imagined not having known my own babies during those four months. So much bonding takes place in the first week of life, as well as the gestation period. When I arrived in my adopted family, I had already left my birth mother and foster family. Those separations must have been difficult. Though I couldn’t remember, I did know how important it was for me to found a family and care for my children. It was an overpowering need to first make my own family and then to worry about my career, as if I had to establish my own family before I could move forward and use my other talents and gifts in the world. My search for my birth parents was quite unsettling for Angelo, who didn’t understand my personal process. My husband has always harbored Copya fear of my knowing and my need to know. He has often joked that if I would have arrived in Switzerland several centuries earlier, I would have been burned on the cross. Sadly, he perceived my searching process as a threat. He already had one mother-in-law and didn’t see the need to add on other family relationships. He was also quite worried about what I would find. I never shared his worries. I never doubted that I came from good people. Angelo had come to Omaha as a student, lived with my family, and studied English at the University of Omaha’s program for foreign students. He had been “adopted” by my family and his loyalties were with the Mossman family. But for me, my search was not about questioning my loyalty to my adopted family. It was about reconciliation and greater understandingReview in relation to who I am and where I come from. I sought to heal the past and under the adoption laws, I was the only one who could try to reconnect. At age thirty-two, I was advised by Becky Crofoot, the social worker at the Nebraska Children’s Home, to write a letter to my birth mother. She explained that she would do her best with the information in my file to find her and send her my letter. It would then be up to my birth mother to respond to my letter. I had always been told that the social worker that placed me was amazed by the similarities that existed between my adopted family and birth family. She had done extensive research on the two families. My grandmothers were teachers and had musical talent. My fathers were only children. My parents were all excellent students. And my fathers both were swimmers and lifeguards as young men. The social worker considered my placement to be a perfect match. LibrarianAs I wrote my letter and sent it off in the hopes that it would somehow find my birth mother, I embarked on an incredible adventure that was infused with a SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 121

determination to find her and a strong conviction that it was the right path to take at that moment in my life. I never doubted that I was doing the right thing. I knew it was time. When I prepared my letter to my birth mother, I began an introspective thought process that forced me to account for my life and my intentions. My reaching out to her required that I go inward on a deep-sea voyage. The reflective process that I initiated demanded that I take heed of my life and attempt to communicate my identity in a coherent manner. As an adopted child, I unconsciously tried to explain who I was to the Mossmans. My different character and ways weren’t always understood. As a young bride in Switzerland, I needed to explain my American origins. Embarking uponCopy the search for my birth mother, I was again faced with the challenge of communicating my life biography, a writing task most people are never confronted with. I was learning to translate from one family to another, just as I had learned to translate from English to French and vice-versa. At times, I found it difficult to find the words to describe certain passages of my life. Some meanings couldn’t be translated, and some connotations were culturally encoded. This letter is an original artifact, the beginning of the autoethnographic process. My handwritten letter was dated January 28, 1995. To my dear birth mother, Review First, I must thank you for your great act of love, your decision to give birth to me. I was adopted by a very loving family. My parents’ names are Janice Shrader Falk and David Wilson Mossman, as they were recently divorced and now are remarried. They live in Omaha where I was born and raised. I had four loving grandparents all to myself until my mother gave birth to my sister Nancy when I was four, and then ten years later my sister Leigh came. We lived on Lake Candlewood, 1211 North 126th Street, from 1972 until my parents sold their house three years ago. My father is a real estate developer and now manages his commercial building “Boardwalk” in West Omaha. Before that, I lived on Farnam Street across from Memorial Park and when I was a baby, we shared my great-grandfather’s house until he died, on a property connected to my father’s parents and his uncle. I am Librariannow living in Switzerland. I am married to a Swiss man, Angelo Riva, and live in a small ski resort in the Alps. I have three children: Katrina, seven; Sven, four; and Nils, two years old. 122 HOMING IN

I grew up with everything a little girl could possibly need or want. I was a good student, have always had many good friends, and was very involved in school activities. I participated in student government, the yearbook, and drama, was a cheerleader, pom-pom girl, homecoming chairman, sang in the choir, and at thirteen, won a modeling contest sponsored by Co-Ed Magazine and Cover Girl Make-up. I flew to New York City, was photographed with nine other girls from across the country and we appeared in Co-Ed Magazine. Because of my mother’s volunteer work, I was a page in the Ak-sar-ben Ball and my senior year in college I was asked to be a princess. I was also an Omaha Symphony Debutante. My family has a farm on the Missouri River and I spent Copymuch of my childhood enjoying the countryside, the river, boating, and my horses. And as I grew up on Lake Candlewood, I swam, canoed, sailed, and water-skied with my friends. I learned to play tennis and gave up piano lessons. My parents took us on ski vacations in Colorado, which I especially loved, and boating in the summer in the Ozarks. I studied international affairs at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I learned French when I was a Youth for Understanding exchange student here in Switzerland during the summer after I graduated from Burke High School in 1981. I pledged Kappa Kappa Gamma at the University of Colorado and spent my sophomore year at the University of Nebraska, as my little sister had been sick and I Reviewhad been away in Switzerland and Colorado and felt I needed one year closer to home. Angelo and I married March 15, 1986, during my senior year of college. My husband is thirty-two years old. His birthday is November 24, 1962. He taught skiing at Winter Park Colorado Ski School while I finished school in Boulder. When I graduated we went to New Zealand where he taught skiing in Queenstown. When we returned from New Zealand in the fall of 1986, Angelo began his master craftsman’s certificate in painting, plastering, and wallpapering. He took over the family business in 1988 when his father died of cancer. He is the director of the Swiss Ski School in our resort during the winter months. Angelo was a downhill and giant slalom ski racer for the Swiss B Team. He will be performing in Japan at the Interski Meeting, an international event taking place every four years in different countries Librarianaround the world. We recently built a chalet on land that Angelo’s mother inherited. We are beginning to feel settled in with our three growing children. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 123

Katrina has been dancing and skiing since she was three and is now learning to play the piano, as is her little brother Sven. Sven takes dance in an experimental dance class with boys and girls. He is also a good skier. Nils is learning to talk and to ski. We have an eight-month old puppy, a Swiss Bernese mountain dog. They are all in good health and are very active! I have been following classes in holistic medicine and read a great deal on my own since our arrival in 1986. We live in Mayens-de-Riddes, a small ski village that is linked by the gondola and ski lifts with one of the largest areas in Europe. Verbier, a very famous ski resort, is just over the mountain. I have never had a full-time job, but I have taught skiing, modeled at the Auto Show in Geneva, and am now teaching a course in wellnessCopy and protocol to the hostesses at the Institute of Tourism in Sion. I am currently working on a project to create an artisanal school in our canton, and I have a small business where I decorate sweatshirt clothing for boutiques and friends. I have written some children’s stories that I would someday like to publish. I have just begun a training where I am learning about connected breathing, regressions, and humanistic psychology, which I hope to be able to integrate into my healing and counseling approach. This year I felt the need to make contact with you and share with you who I am and how my life is unfolding. I just want you to know that I am well, content, have three beautiful, healthy children, and daily rejoice in this gift that you gave me, my life! I wouldReview like to know about you and your life too. I hope that it will be possible to correspond or to speak with you.

Love and Light, Susie

I had my fourth child during the period that the Nebraska Children’s Home was trying to contact my birth mother. The social worker told me that she had found my birth mother and was trying to call her at home. Ruth Ann, my birth mother, didn’t respond right away to my letter. I am sure that it took some time to reflect before answering. Her daughter—my little sister Kaitie—was still at home and in high school. In Lincoln, Nebraska, my birth mother was the teacher’s union president, a high-profile position in which she was often called to give her opinion to the press Librarianconcerning the position of the teacher’s union. My birth father was an elementary school teacher. My birth mother got her master’s degree in school curriculum and 124 HOMING IN

ultimately did another post-graduate administration diploma allowing her to be a school principal. Professionally, my parents were faced with a hard choice. From a personal standpoint, admitting to their children and the rest of the Lincoln community that they had put a child up for adoption was not an easy step to make. However, my letter arrived while my maternal grandmother, Grandma Kay, was receiving intensive chemotherapy. She had explained to my aunt Marilyn that she had three wishes before dying: to see her youngest son, Michael John, marry; to find me; and to have grand babies. Amazingly, her three wishes were granted before her death. Later, Grandma Kay explained to me that she had been looking for me all her life, wondering where I was and if she would possibly recognize me if Copyshe ever saw me. She awoke from her treatments explaining that she so wanted to find me before she passed away. I believe that it was that call from her heart to mine that inspired my search. I came back to their family while Grandma Kay was still alive and well enough to meet my children and me. That incredible synchronicity confirmed to me that, yes, we do indeed have heartstrings that bind us through time and space and can pass on messages from the soul if we are attuned. Our family’s “collective consciousness” had been activated. Ruth Ann wrote to me in May 1996, saying, “I’m sitting here at the University Medical School in Omaha with my mother. She is receiving chemotherapy for her ovarian cancer. As I told you in my first letter, the topic of your adoption has never been spoken between my mother andReview me. Knowing how much motherhood and babies mean to my mother I decided today should be the day to share your letter with her. As she read your letter she said, ‘This means more than you will ever know. I think about her every day.’” As my mother was a minor, it had been Grandma Kay’s decision to put me up for adoption. She had five children, the youngest only five years older than me, and her husband was suffering from a heart condition. There were financial and relational tensions in the family that didn’t allow her to raise me. When they discovered that my mother was pregnant, she was at the end of her senior year. She and my father were both honor students and were planning to attend the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. My father even had a military scholarship to study physics that he did not accept due to the circumstances. My father and mother hid me from the world, living with their secret until it Librarianwas close to my birth date. When I was discovered, my mother was put into a home for unwed mothers in Omaha. She was not allowed to continue attending school in SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 125

1963. Nor were they allowed to go to graduation. It was the institutional price to pay in those days. Ruth Ann explained, “Back then, once a student was found to be pregnant, both the girl and the boy were not allowed to go to school. They didn’t notice my pregnancy until middle May. The family pediatrician, Dr. Paul Bancroft, spoke on our behalf to the school district, stating that we had had perfect attendance. We were straight-A students. Ultimately, we were given the opportunity to finish. For the last two weeks of school, we were allowed to attend Lincoln Public School ‘extension school’ and finish our course work. We both graduated, we just didn’t get to walk across the stage or participate in graduation activities.” Grandma Kay decided that Ruth Ann would live in an institutionCopy for unwed mothers in Omaha until the birth and that I would be put up for adoption. All of her life, Kay carried around the burden of that decision, watching my mother finally marry my father and continue to have a growing family with him. When she had spoken with her husband, Harland, about the situation, he had been clear that he wasn’t able to support another child. I am sure that she must have wondered more than once if she had made the right decision. Finding my Grandma Kay was an answer to her prayers and mine too. When I learned that the social worker had been in contact with my mother and had sent on my letter, I was thrilled. When she explained that my parents were married and had other children, I could hardly contain the powerful emotions that overcame me. It was a moment of Reviewepiphany. Maybe there aren’t words for such states of ecstasy and bliss. I was living in a dimension beyond normal experience. It was truly a moment of grace. Life presented a conjuncture, like a hexagram description in the I Ching. There was a life that was behind me, barred by a river of time that had overflowed, and a life ahead of me that could only be reached by an inviting trail that passed through an ominous passage before reaching the summit. There was no assurance that I would make it to the top, but then I really had no choice but to keep moving forward out of the conjuncture, where the human and cosmic dovetailed, giving rise to inevitable change. This special moment was like catching a glimpse of a moonbow before sunrise. Just as all wondrous visions hold within them an enormous potential by conjuring up intense feelings of hope, I too was lifted. It was as if threads of light were arching Librarianover us, connecting us through a blessing of reunion: a pathway revealed. God’s promise appeared to be written in the sky. Both symbol and synchronicity were 126 HOMING IN

the messengers, coming over a bridge linking heaven and earth. Sacred markings gave me needed confidence, serving as wings enabling me to navigate the newly revealed fly way. But I was not left alone to follow the patterns, processes, and change. We were like a flock of birds aligning in flight, whose homing in capacity had been reinforced and intensified. Before Ruth Ann and Michael told their children about me, they had sent pictures and letters explaining who each child was as well as giving details about their lives. With those details, my little sister Leigh was able to discover who my brother Ryan was, as there were few West Point cadets that had played soccer in high school in Lincoln, Nebraska. One of her friends was even able to find a team picture. We were so curious and impatient to meet that we found secretCopy routes to connect. The summer I met my birth parents—even the months leading up to it—was filled with synchronicity. Each sacred metaphor seemed to confirm the perfect timing of our meeting, allowing me and the other members of my birth family to recover the missing parts of our collective Self. The recollecting process plunged us into an intense period of communication and sharing. Somehow, we had each found a trail leading back to the beginning. A form of “truth force” was surging through our veins, invigorating and liberating us as the law of love physically reunited our family. When I discern a synchronicity, I feel as if the divine hand is guiding me and speaking to me in sacred metaphor. TheReview weekend that I finally came together with my birth parents I turned thirty-three, the same age that Jesus was reunited with his heavenly father. And just like the saying “Once in a blue moon,” that weekend was astronomically marked by a blue moon, symbolizing a rare happening. As I unwrapped the carefully tied package with the pretty paper print and ribbons containing the script of my life’s beginnings, I began a journey of self- discovery that was intense and all-encompassing. I experienced the incredible joy of being reunited, the reconciliation and peace that came over us all, and the intense pain contained in the deep relational wounds awakened by the search process I had initiated. It is one thing to find your birth family. It is yet another to maintain long- lasting relationships within such complex relational configurations while facing the shared sorrow that led to them making the choice to give me up for adoption and Librarianthen keep on trying to live a normal life. CHAPTER 16

THE LOVE LETTERS Copy he day I actually received a return letter from my birth parents with a family picture, I felt like I was literally walking on air. I think of this period T as the falling in love period, like when a young couple gets engaged. The love letters that I exchanged with my parents brought forth a deep need to communicate who I was to them, to really tell them the details of my life and my most profound longings. As I wrote to them, memories and emotions gushed onto the paper, like a geyser erupting. The excitement of connecting with them was a palpable energy around me. I was in a state of bliss. Each time I would tell my story, people would get goosebumps and tears. It was an incredible story. It was my story! Our mirror neurons allow us to relate to other people and to read their emotions. We literally feel the emotionsReview of others as we watch them act out their life’s scenario, on the screen just as in real life. Explaining how I found my birth family elicited strong waves of emotion that passed between me and those I was speaking with. It was like tapping into a cosmic electrical current that sparked a shared awe. Watching me tell about our reunion seemed to trigger my interlocutors’ emotional responses, linking them to the archetype of finding one’s origins. The excitement and enthusiasm rippled through us, creating a shared skin reaction of goosebumps. My homing in story resonated strongly with my entourage. Through all the excitement, my relationship with my adopted mother was so strong, and her love so unconditional, that I could call her and share the incredible events that were unfolding. Here is Ruth Ann’s first letter to me: Librarian 128 HOMING IN

April 1996

Dear Susie, Where do I begin? We are so glad you attempted to make a contact with me. We so enjoyed your letter. It seems the best place to start is at the beginning. Your father and I have been best friends since we were 12 years old. We met in seventh grade and were very good friends from then on. My birthday is October 1, 1945, and your father’s birthday is October 4, 1945. We both were born and raised in Lincoln and grew up just a mile from each other. We started dating as sophomores. We were both very good students, especially your father, and participated in lots of activities at Northeast High School. I had always wanted to be a teacher from the time I was in 3rd gradeCopy and your father wanted to be a physicist or an engineer. His name is Michael Warren Wylie and mine is Ruth Ann Wiest Wylie. Michael was an only child born to older parents and I was second oldest in a family of five children. I have three brothers and one sister. Your father and I were madly in love and in the fall of 1962 in our senior year I got pregnant. We hid it from everyone very effectively. I was a skinny kid, 5 foot 5 inches tall, about 90 lbs. No one knew, not even my mom, until May before we were to graduate from high school. Back then, you couldn’t be in school and be pregnant, so Michael and I finished the last two weeks of school in classes away from school. We both got to graduate but we didn’t get to participate in the graduation ceremony. In order to protect my little brothers and sister, and partly to keep me away from Michael, my parents sent me to Nebraska Children’s Home Reviewto live until you were born. I was only there five weeks before you were born. I remember the day well. When labor started, I went up to the medical area. I was so scared and so alone. They put me under with something because the next I remember was waking up groggy and they told me it was over. I went home a day or two later, went back to work at Miller and Paine Department Store, and started in teacher’s college at the University of Nebraska the fall of 1963. I did not ever see you or hold you. I assume they immediately took you to a real hospital. Someone came in and told me that you might need a blood transfusion due to jaundicing, a blood incompatibility. It wasn’t until our son was born in 1975 and they came into us and said that he would need a blood transfusion due to jaundicing that I knew what that meant. Ryan also had an ABO incompatibility. I have A blood, Michael has O, and Ryan has B. Our blood mixed at birth. He had two blood transfusions before his bilirubin count went down to normal. What is your blood type? LibrarianI graduated from UNL in June 1967 and Michael graduated from UNL in 1971. I went back and got my master’s degree in 1970. I have been the elected president of SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 129

the Lincoln Education Association as full time release. I have taught first and second grade all of those years. Michael and I were married the summer before our senior year of college and we had Michelle February 26, 1967. We had Ryan September 3, 1975, and Kaitlin February 3, 1980. I have silently thought of you many times, but at that time of our lives it was so embarrassing that we have not discussed the situation or spoken of it ever again—even with my mother. No one else knows the full story, nor have we ever mentioned it again to anyone. We tried to move on as if it had never happened. Hearing from you now at the age of 50 years and knowing how well you have done all of these years is overwhelming for me. Seeing your handwriting I see our Michelle’s writing. Knowing that you have children makes me a grandmother, which I have wanted to be for years.Copy Your daughter’s name is Katrina—we named our Kaitlin (the Irish name for Katherine) after my mother Katherine, and her mother Katherine. We are sending pictures. We would love to hear from you and see pictures of you and your family. This is an initial communication. I have so much more to tell you. I am sure you are interested in knowing about your family history and genetics. Looking forward to hearing from you again. Love, Ruth Ann, your birth mother Ruth Ann and Michael wrote separateReview letters. Ruth Ann’s letter was handwritten, and Michael’s letter was typed and much longer. He explained that he often wrote long, meandering letters. I have included parts of his first letter here.

April 19, 1996

Dear Susie, For many years your mother, Ruth Ann, and I seldom talked about your existence. We didn’t know much about adoption procedures and rights of natural parents or rights of children to information about the other. Then one of our acquaintances told us a story about his interest in meeting his birth mother, and all that he had done to arrange a meeting, and what had come of the meeting, and his sense of relief at finally having brought some definition to his parentage. That started us wondering about what lay ahead in the future with you. We have discussed actually the topic very Librarianinfrequently since hearing our friend’s story but had an understanding from the story that an adopted child might have similar curiosities about their natural parents . . . 130 HOMING IN

I have decided to write so that you might meet your father as well as your mother. I am the letter writer between us. I wrote her six-page love letters in high school to which she responded with half-page notes . . . I was interested in becoming a nuclear engineer. However, it turned out that at the end of my freshman year, when I was about to be awarded the honor sword as the outstanding Midshipman of my class and needed to make my commitment to the Navy, that our inability to live without each other suggested that I not become a Navy man, like Ruth Ann’s older brother was about to become . . . Be assured that you have excellent genetic intellectual heritage on both sides of the family . . . It sounds from your letter that you have had a wonderful adoptive familyCopy raise you. I suspect that your life would have been much more austere if we had wed when we were 17 and raised you as we went to college . . . It turned out that they didn’t teach sex education in high school in the ’60s, nor were our parents the type to broach such a subject. I am an only child and am not sure what role sex played in my parents’ relationship—very little, it seemed. We certainly never talked about it. So your mother and I were bright, sexually driven, biologically ignorant youth. We are so glad to hear of your children. We have loaded our children with such ambitions that we have begun to suspect that we’ll never be grandparents. I have truly worried that genetic material from our families might come to an end with our children . . . Review After he explained about our family history and my siblings, he wrote,

I am writing you things which I have really never had much of an occasion to tell anybody else. Hopefully it will be meaningful . . . This has become a stream of consciousness piece, but I have never tried to lay out 34 years of history before. Thinking about writing you, I have wondered what Michelle, Ryan, and Kaitie would make of the opportunity to write you their own autobiography. I have also wondered what sort of an experience it will be, if that’s where we decide to go, with telling them about you and perhaps getting to meet you and perhaps getting to meet your family someday. Perhaps this is not what should happen. Our children are such great competitors and mutual supporters that it seems like it would be a shame not to connect with them at some point. LibrarianAnyway, that’s my beginning opinion. That may be the farthest thing from your mind. Love, your birth father, Michael Warren Wylie SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 131

The first letter I received came with the family Christmas picture of my parents; my sister Michelle, a Broadway performer; my brother Ryan, an international relations major at West Point; and my little sister Kaitie, a junior in high school. My parents began their letters by telling me about our family history. I found it fascinating that my birth father would start with the past and then work toward telling me more about who he was over the course of our exchanges. The Wylies were of German descent. One ancestor was an orphan that had left from Hamburg to come to America, but most came from the southern part of Germany. As my father was an only child, he wrote about his mother and aunt. His aunt was an outstanding violin player, and his mother would accompanyCopy her on her piano, a role I was told that she resented. That aunt became a music professor in Hawaii. They traveled back to Germany often before the war. They were influenced by the opened-minded cultural scene in Germany. My father’s aunt never married and died in her forties of cancer. My father grew up close to his mother, who tended their family yard and garden. My birth parents owned several rental properties that my father looked after. He spent most of his free time caring for the rental yards and his mother’s yard and garden that connected him to his youth. My father’s mother was called Grandma Beezy. When I met the family, I was taken to her home. She was in her eighties and her memory was already slipping. She could remember parts of the past but was mostly content to rest on her couch. My father cared for her daily, bringingReview food and making sure that she took her medicine. She occupied quite a lot of his time as he was the only child that could assume her care. Her role as a parent at the moment of my birth was difficult to comprehend. I was told that she had driven to Omaha so that my father could visit my mother before my birth. As my father was a good student, there must have been expectations that he would continue his schooling, and his responsibility toward a child didn’t seem to be a pressing issue. Most everyone described my father as someone who could be self-centered at times, an only child with a doting mother. Grandma Beezy’s mental health was also questionable. She had been hospitalized as a young woman after my father’s birth and the treatments given to her had possibly weakened her over the years. Grandma Beezy’s closets were filled with beautiful silk scarves. She also had a collection of costume jewelry. I received a pin and earrings that I enjoy wearing Librarianfrom her collection. In the photo albums, she is dressed up in her Sunday best with hats and gloves, posing in the garden with her mother and sister. 132 HOMING IN

My father Michael described his German grandmother, Clara, as a “weltkind,” or a worldling. “Clara was a worldling because she left her home in Germany at sixteen to go to the United States to live with relatives in Nebraska. The man she would marry, Henry Alpers, was a worldling because he joined the North German merchant marine company and circumnavigated the earth five times while working for them and later landed in Nebraska also with a brother. You, Michelle, Ryan, and Kaitie have all traveled abroad, and so you too are all ‘weltkinds.’ Your mother and I have only been to the Caribbean and Canada. We hope to travel more broadly when we retire.” My family referred to my kind as worldlings and this became part of my new identity. I came from a nest of worldlings built in the Great Plains, andCopy somehow my egg was hatched under the warm care of another mother duck. One thing was sure. I was a prairie girl who set out to travel.

Carl Sandburg, a famous Midwestern poet, sings the song of searching in his poem “Who Am I?”

My head knocks against the stars. My feet are on the hilltops. My fingertips are in the valleys and shores of universal life. Down in the sounding foam of primalReview things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny. I have been to hell and back many times. I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God. I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible. I know the passionate seizure of beauty And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.” My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.

Just like famous poets before me, I too was searching. I was ready to get at the truth. The territory of my identity that had been marked with the sign reading “Keep Off ” was now open for exploration. Barriers that had previously kept us apart were lifted away. My first letter to my parents was the beginning of my Librarianautoethnographic journey. I prepared a picture book for my birth family with pictures of me as a baby, of SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 133

me growing up, and of my family in Switzerland. My husband participated in its creation. I then poured myself into several long letters trying to tell them about my life. I was enthralled in the process of communicating with them. It was all- encompassing. In one of my letters I told them of my strong desire to be reunited and stand among them for the first time for my birthday. Amazingly enough, my next birthday was a beautiful family reunion. Angelo made a personal effort to connect with them before we met and explain about his Swiss origins before coming to meet them in Nebraska. Here is what he wrote:

Dear Ones, Copy Before meeting you next July, I want to give you an idea about Switzerland and where I come from. When you take a map of Switzerland, we are located in the southwestern part between the Lake of Geneva and the Rhone Glacier. The Rhone is a river that goes all the way down to Geneva and then through France and ends in the Mediterranean Sea. Our state is called Valais because of the numbers of valleys going up sideways from the main valley. Our state, or more common appellation “canton,” is split in three parts. We live in the middle part and in a ski resort in the 4 Valleys near Verbier and Zermatt. The Valais canton is a very special place because of the many passes going either to Italy or France. In the past, manyReview tribes fought to take over this region because of its strategic location. The main valley used to be flooded and therefore wasn’t fertile land. So, the villages were located on the mountainsides. It was also a way to get away from the many attacks. There are still many castles in our area. We speak French and German in our canton because of the many battles, historically there have been different warring tribes. Today the canton is also referred to as the “California State of Switzerland” because of the sun, slopes, and girls . . . and because of the very unique climate. Because of the warm sunny weather, we grow lots of vegetables and fruits. There are also many vineyards. Our wine is popular and known for its good taste. Of course, tourism has become a big industry with skiing, biking, and hiking throughout the Alps. Our ski area is linked with four other valleys. We have more than 100 lifts and 400 km of slopes. It is a very famous ski area. In the summer, the scenery is gorgeous and Librarianmany people come to enjoy hiking on the numerous hiking trails. I was born in a town called Isérables, about ten minutes by car from where we now live. My village has greatly changed over the past fifty years, much like the other 134 HOMING IN

mountain villages in our region. The village is located up high on the mountainside. Until 1949, when a gondola was built, there was only a footpath connecting Isérables with the valley. The gondola changed the lives of the village people that had lived closely to their traditions without much influence from the outside. In the early 1900s the English began coming to the Alps. They opened up the tourism market and many resorts were developed with hotels, thermal baths, and clinics. My parents moved to La Tzoumaz in 1978 and took over a small café-bar. My mother always wanted to run a hotel or restaurant. As my father’s construction business was mostly in our growing ski resort, it was more convenient to move here. As my parents built a chalet in 1972 in La Tzoumaz, we were already spending a lot of time skiing there. Copy I always loved skiing and I have been racing since I was eight years old. When I was seventeen, I was a member of the Swiss Ski Team. At 21 I quit the team and passed my ski instructor exams. After my experiences in the United States in Winter Park, Colorado, and in Queenstown, New Zealand, I was elected to the position of director of the ski school in La Tzoumaz when I was 25 years old. I have been running the ski school ever since. There are ten people working full-time and during the busiest weeks we are around forty ski instructors. Many of the instructors are students working during their school breaks. Most speak French, English, and German. The ski season starts December 1st and ends April 30th. We work full-time without time off during the ski season. The work is very interesting, meeting people and showing them the area. Of course, it is hard Reviewto make everybody happy. Maybe someday I will be able to show you our mountains . . . I’m looking forward to meeting all of you this summer. I’m very happy to have two more great sisters-in-law and a great brother-in-law. I haven’t been able to find my feelings about a new father- and mother-in-law! (I’m just teasing.) Angelo

My husband’s fears of me finding a family that might disgrace him and shed a shadow on his children’s lives were calmed. However, it took an incredible effort for him to integrate my transformed identity. I wasn’t who he thought I was. Finding my parents modified my identity and added a challenge to our relationship. The strength of my birth family standing close by my side rippled through the power Librarianrelations in our marriage. His dominant position was questioned. I was one of theirs and that changed the balance of power. On top of it all, I was becoming a new person right before his own eyes. I wasn’t the woman he thought he had married. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 135

As I entered into the new matrix of relations as a Wylie child, I was transformed. Their family narrative opened up a family history that was steering my future toward unimagined horizons and new storylines that were shape-shifting the future; my personal diary was being transposed into a new novel.

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Librarian CHAPTER 17

ENGAGING IN POLYPHONY AND DIALOGISM Copy iving in Switzerland created a space between me and my birth family that we could only fill with letters and occasional phone calls. I also began to L understand the relationally complex situation both my parents and I were in. I had to be careful not to hurt my adopted family, and yet I wanted to share everything with them. Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian philosopher, wrote about polyphony, or multiple voices in relation to literature.24 By engaging in a dialogue with multiple perspectives and voices, a process of self-actualization opens to an enriched becomingness. Transformational processes arise from this open-ended dialogue. The question and the response create a polyphony of voices and meaning. By asking “Who am I,” a response ensues. Bakhtin contemplated the spiritualReview dimension of the word, written and spoken. “For the dialogical word is breath by which we live, when dialogue ends, everything ends.”25 Our letters or written exchanges attest to the relational and dialogical processes that reveal the spiritual truth embedded in our relatedness. Because our words summon or elicit a response, they are forever in dialogue with life and being. While writing and exchanging with my parents, I was engaging in the process of authoring self. This process of self-actualization opened up new possibilities of becomingness by allowing the different voices and perspectives to interact. Dialogical imagination gave rise to a form of dialogical creativity. In this way, our letters and conversations offered us a way forward. Our relationships were informed and configured through the transformational processes we all engaged in during this intense period of revelation. Our letters bear witness to this creative narrative

24 Andrew Robinson, “In Theory Bakhtin: Dialogism, Polyphony, and Heteroglossia,” Ceasefire LibrarianMagazine. 25 David A. Patterson, Literature and Spirit: Essays on Bakhtin and His Contemporaries. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2014), 4. 138 HOMING IN

interplay. Each word summoned a response. In this multi-voice or polyphony, our nakedness was revealed and our relational exposedness opened up a pathway that ultimately allowed us to become more whole. Here is the letter that I wrote to my adopted mother Jan, reassuring her while testifying to the unconditional love that characterized our relationship:

I was your first child. I was the daughter you dressed up and put bows on, scotching them to my hair. I, the one that made you so “complete” as so you wrote in my baby book. I was the first to go to school, to be a “Page”, a “Deb”, a “Princess.” I was the first to marry, to have children . . . We initiated each other through the different phases of our lives. We’ve been friendsCopy since the beginning, always confiding in each other, analyzing, comforting, enjoying— the best of what a mother-daughter relationship can be on this earth plane. You gave me a home, you loved and nurtured me, you allowed my gifts to come forth. You helped me to develop myself in a balanced way. You made all the special time of my life into fairytale moments—perfect in every way. You worked hard to provide for us and to make a place for us in an elite circle where my dreams have come true. Maybe some of my dreams are yours too. They are shared dreams. Now at this unique moment in my life when I can embrace my birth family, I call home to tell you all about it, because you’re my mother, my best friend and my fairy godmother, who with aReview magic wand has always been there telling me that dreams do come true and empowering me to make mine real. I love my birth parents. They brought me into the world, and we have so many similar themes running through our lives. But you will always be the central point, the place I come back to, to sort it all out before I go out again into the world. You are beautiful in so many ways. I guess I need four parents to realize my life mission, whatever that final product may be. At this point, it is a won- derful, exciting adventure that I am happy to share with you. Your confidence and your openness allow me to embrace this unique moment in my life. Because you operate on such a level of unconditional love, I can now go forth to heal an important part of my life—my birth. The healing of birth is truly a miracle that is bringing many unexpected gifts into Librarianall of our lives. Let us enjoy this together, as we walk a path that few have ever walked before us. And we will leave behind a trail that, who knows, may SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 139

take us and others to a place—over the rainbow—“where skies are blue and dreams that you dream of, really do come true.” All my love, Susie

For my birth parents, who had never told their children of my existence, it was even more difficult. They put my picture book and letters into a pretty little gift sack and finally told my brother and sisters their story. They shared my letters and the pictures with their children, who could hardly believe their ears and eyes. My sister Michelle, four years younger, told me how she kept theCopy gift sack with her for the week following my parent’s presentation, showing everyone her long-lost sister. She read and re-read my letters, allowing my words to interact with who she too was becoming. The immediate attraction between us got stronger as we got to know each other and searched for resemblances that reinforced our belongingness. Our entourage and all those we spoke with could feel the incredible nature of our story. It was a fairytale that danced off the pages, transforming our daily lives and realities, even setting off emotional ripples of tingles. For my birth parents, I represented a part of their lives that had been hidden for so long that it was as if they were recuperating a part of who they were. My birth father explained to me in a letter that I was his “love child” and that finally having me back in his life made him whole. MyReview spiritual beliefs somehow rekindled his own faith and spirituality, a part of his being that he had put on hold or at least on the back shelf. They even shared that I had been conceived in the back of a car, which adds a dimension to the young love they so romantically experienced in the early sixties. They had been young adolescents on the cusp of a social as well as cultural revolution. Their hearts were filled with the desire to break with the establishment, but the dominant structural powers in place were still holding, binding them tightly to a form of convention, forcing them to give up the fruit of their love. The repressed issues in both their households probably gave rise to a form of intimacy that protected them from the dysfunction in each of their families. Michael wanted to protect Ruth Ann, and somehow his presence was interpreted as a threat. Ruth Ann’s family got a restraining order against Michael. Michael’s parents’ ambitions for their only son got in the way of Michael assuming his parental Librarianresponsibility. In the end, whatever opportunities and scholarships he might have had seemed to be carried away by a current of destiny. His life path and his dreams separated during those early university years. 140 HOMING IN

However, my mother’s tenacity got her through her master’s degree in curriculum development and opened a clear career path ultimately leading to success and recognition from her peers and community. Later, she completed her education with another master’s degree in educational administration that allowed her to ultimately retire with recognition and honors as well as an article on the front page of the Lincoln newspaper. But when they decided to respond to my letter, they took a risk. We were exposing ourselves to vulnerabilities that had been covered by layers of life histories that had served to cover the story of my birth, that was cafefully hidden between the lines. Being in touch again was like pulling off a band aid to let the wound air and heal. Our conversations relieved theCopy pain.

During the spring months, as we exchanged letters and called on the phone to actually hear each other’s voices, I began organizing my return. It was exciting to plan my trip back to Nebraska. The summer of 1996 marked a journey of discovery. Flying back to Omaha with my four children and two young Swiss au pairs, I had the extra hands needed to make the long trip and care for the children during our prolonged stay. Frederique, whose parents had a chalet in La Tzoumaz, came to help me care for my children, staying with me at my mother Jan’s house. Valerie, who was from La Tzoumaz, came to help my dear friend Karin, Sven’s godmother, with her three young children. Both young women were excited to visit the United States and perfect their English skills Reviewover the summer holidays. A few weeks before leaving for the United States, I was reading in bed when an excruciating pain came over me. The pain seemed to come from my hip and was so intense that I felt as if I was going to pass out. I called the pediatrician and pediatric nurse who cared for my children and who were also good friends. They were concerned when I described my symptoms, and they said they would meet me at the emergency room. After many tests, there was never an explanation of what was causing my discomfort. It was as if waves of pain just kept coming over me. One of the doctors holding my hand asked if there was an important event in my life. I explained to her that in just a few weeks’ time I would be meeting my birth parents for the first time. I will never know what came over me that night, but the experience made me Librarianmore vulnerable. The overwhelming pain of that night seemed to weaken me, making me conscious of my physical limits. I have tried to explain the causes and SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 141

understand what hit me, but it still remains a mystery to me. Did a powerful energy from the past enter my being with an unexplainable force? Did my cells awaken to past memories of abandonment? Possibly I became aware of the fear of being abandoned at that moment in time, touching upon unconscious energy associated with the trauma of separation. I had embarked upon a journey that was not without risk. It was a risk to search for my parents, exposing myself to possible rejection. What if they didn’t want to bring me into their life? What if they rejected me a second time? Though the people closest to me were protective and sensed the vulnerable situation I was putting myself into, the fear of being abandoned yet another time hadn’t consciously occurred to me. Possibly my cellular memory was speaking to me. Another explanationCopy might simply be exhaustion. The joy of our reunion and the anticipation of traveling with four young children was taking its toll. I was definitely putting myself in a vulnerable position. But my optimism overran any doubts that may have been considered by those in my close family circle. My husband and adopted parents wanted me to be cautious. They held feelings of resentment for parents that had left me and had not assumed their responsibilities. I had to make a show of confidence to convince my family and friends to support me. Possibly the emotional strain simply broke me open. Whatever it was, it made me more sensitive and aware that in spite of all the joy enveloping our reunion, there were deep layers of pain that Reviewneeded to be healed and transformed. On the subconscious level they might have been kept in profound recesses of my mind- body. I had finally opened up the perfectly wrapped box, and though itwasa fairytale story, like all fairytales, there was a shadow side. I would discover step by step that the circumstances surrounding my conception and birth were tainted with the loss that my birth parents and their families had experienced when they made the decision to put me up for adoption. It is interesting to note that in the French language, people refer to my adoption as my being “abandoned.” In my youth and in my mother tongue, I was adopted. But as a young married woman in Switzerland, I was abandoned. The French language added a new connotation to my life experience. It was the other side of the coin that I had not been aware of as a child or a student. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized the tragic aspect of our story. LibrarianI had never understood what a great loss it had been for my mother until I gave birth to Sven. At that moment, I felt my birth mother’s pain. Again, my mind- 142 HOMING IN

body released patterns of suffering that must have been imbedded in my cellular memory. I had Katrina by cesarean, as she was a breach baby. Sven was my first natural birth. My severe hip pain and emergency room experience marked the beginning of a healing process that I had put in motion unbeknownst to the possible consequences of my initiative and search. All that had been in my imagination and my subconscious was being felt in my physical body. I was possibly embodying the reality of my life story in a more integral way. My adopted father used to say to me, “Healer, know thyself.” There was no turning back. Though we were partially aware of our vulnerabilities and the relational risks involved, we were determined to move forward together. Our sharedCopy relational matrix was integrating new forms, ultimately beautified by the complexity. Whatever needed to be released, unexpectedly coming to the surface, would have to be faced with courage, confidence, and trust in divine unfolding. “Thus seen, we are exposed. One is never naked alone; nakedness is always before the other.”26 Indeed, our relational exposedness made us all more vulnerable. We stood naked gazing at each other without the clothing of our former identities. But engaging in polyphony lifted our words to a higher dimension of revelatory dialogue that sought to understand as well as explain. In this dialogical process we questioned what constituted us as well as the responsibilitiesReview that were now confronting us.

Librarian 26 Idem, 113. CHAPTER 18

ONCE IN A BLUE MOON Copy f the period of letter writing may be compared to a gestation period, my ac- tual arrival and rebirth was long and drawn out. When I arrived at the Omaha I airport, my best friends were standing with my adopted family, waiting for me to get off the plane with my four young children. Standing among them was my sister Michelle, only four years younger than me. The excitement was palatable. Our reunion happened under the auspices of a blue moon, which seemed to mark the special event. A blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month. In July 1996, the 1st and the 30th had full moons, as if even the moon was part of our reunion celebration. For a moon child born in the sign of Cancer, that synchronicity felt like divine confirmation. It was my heartfelt conviction that God’s will was expressed through our reunionReview and the expression “Once in a blue moon” resonated with my belief that my homing in was divinely orchestrated. Michelle was the only Wylie family member at the airport because my birth parents and little sister Kaitie were in Washington, DC, for the national teachers’ union conferences. Upon reading how much I wanted to meet them for my birthday, my birth parents had offered me a plane ticket from Nebraska to see them, and then together we would travel north to visit my brother Ryan at the West Point Academy. As I got off the plane to meet my dear sister, my friends and family witnessed our first embrace. For my young children, the moment was possibly even more profound as they were so connected to my feelings. Tears of joy overcame us all. The joy of being reunited filled the airplane terminal like bells ringing in a church chapel. Hugs, laughter, and tears were shared, and somehow a picture of our first Librarianmeeting was taken. My adopted family couldn’t believe how much we looked alike. Our laughs and mannerisms resembled each other even though we hadn’t been brought up 144 HOMING IN

together. We even added the same hearts and flowers in our handwritten letters. Our penmanship had a strikingly close resemblance. Michelle followed us to my adopted mother’s house and spent the night with us. We spent the next morning telling stories and sharing pictures at the breakfast table. My adopted mother took Michelle in and gave her a special place in our family. There were so many stories to tell and so much time to make up for, so it seemed. Michelle was a Broadway performer. She had begun by working at Walt Disney’s in Japan and then got performing jobs on cruise ships. She finally got an artist’s card and toured Europe with the show 42nd Street. She then toured the United States with Jesus Christ Superstar. After injuring her back she returned to the UniversityCopy of Nebraska at Lincoln to finish her degree in communications. If I had grown up with Michelle, would I have gone on to be a model after winning the Cover Girl makeup contest sponsored by Co-Ed Magazine at age thirteen? Ten girls from the United States and Canada had won their regional contests and were flown first class to New York City. I was picked up by a limousine at JFK airport and taken to the Waldorf Astoria. We had our hair and makeup done, special clothes were made by Simplicity patterns, and photos were taken in Central Park by a well- known photographer. I can remember Margaux Hemingway’s pictures on the wall of the photographer’s studio. She was Ernest Hemingway’s granddaughter. I had read A Farwell to Arms, which describes the area where I nowReview live. Hemingway’s description of Europe enticed me. In For Whom the Bell Tolls, the love experienced between a man and woman in extraordinary times of war left a romantic mark on my young soul. Angelo used to call me Rabbit, Maria’s nickname in that famous novel. During the contest I was connected with the thriving art of the city and those who were making their name. We were taken to the best restaurants and were invited by the editor of the magazine to a loft apartment party with a hypnotist who did a show for us. Young men our age were present at the party, and I remember watching the older girls flirt. After the shootings, selections were made for the final contestants and the winner who would appear on the magazine’s cover. I had sent an essay with the pictures for the contest. They asked us to write about our beauty routine: “Looking my best means a lot to me. Although I try not to overdo it, I am concerned. A twinkle in my eye and a smile on my face really Librariancount. Exercising regularly, eating wholesome foods, and drinking water are also SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 145

important. I use makeup, keeping it natural. I wash my face twice a day following with moisturizer. Eye makeup helps me the most. The simpler my routine, the better I look and feel.” My mother carefully collected the pictures, letters, and newspaper articles linked to the contest and trip to New York City. I can remember being called into a private party room at the Waldorf where the finalists were announced. I was not chosen, but I was told that they would send my portfolio to agencies in the city. As much as I had loved the experience, I remember how I felt as I was touched at the fittings. There is an eerie feeling of becoming an object of beauty. I was an outstanding straight-A student that year and though New York had enticed me, I could see how easy it could be to get lost there. I knew deep inside me that my studies were more important than the risk of goingCopy back to New York City and hitting the streets trying to get a modeling job. When we were taken by limousine to the photographer’s studio, I saw how the neighborhood wasn’t the best. In the elevator going up with us were people that didn’t seem to be people I wanted to be alone with in such a small space. But what if I had had a sister to accompany me? Would our talents and natural beauty have taken us together to the Big Apple? Would I have had the courage to pursue a modeling career? In spite of all the wondering and what-ifs, destiny had separated us at birth and those thoughts couldn’t alter the past. Another story had been written. Yet, we were together, reunited in the summer of 1996, and in that moment in time we were young adult women. Our reunion would indeed change our lives forever. Review As we were close in age, we immediately felt a strong connection. Our new sister bond inspired a poem that I wrote for Michelle before we met in person.

Take my hand, You’re the one I’ve been feeling. It’s as if I’ve always known that you were there. Our paths have crisscrossed for all these years, And yet you were always in my heart. What you were doing, What you were living, I felt it, Somehow you lived within me too. LibrarianNow we do know, 146 HOMING IN

Sisters we are. So, let’s sing this song together holding hands. We have both traveled and discovered new worlds, You through the stage and me through my new home, I’m so very glad to find you now, My sister, my sister . . . I love you.

My children were amazed to meet someone who resembled me so much in so many ways—a long-lost aunt. At one point, Nils confused Michelle for me and cuddled up to her. Despite jet lag, they were so supportive of all thatCopy I was living through and enthusiastically reached out to their new grandparents, aunts, and uncle. My three oldest would stay with Jan while I took Yann, my nine-month-old baby boy who was still breastfeeding, to Washington, DC, with Michelle. I breastfed all five of my children without the support of my adopted family, who didn’t consider my approach very socially acceptable. They seemed to be averse to breastfeeding even though my adopted mother had been breastfed by her mother during her first year. Jan had breastfed Nancy for three months and that was enough for her. I knew how important mother’s milk was for the health of the baby’s immune system. Research was very clear on the facts that mother’s milk and the bonding that breastfeeding provided made healthier children. I breastfed Jessica, my youngest, for three years, Reviewthe longest of all five children. I had been motivated through my readings on rebirthing techniques, to have some of my babies born in the water. I had gone to the most progressive hospital in Switzerland that provided a birthing environment sensitive to babies and mothers. Providing an optimal setting at the moment of a child’s entry into the world was an important factor for good physical and mental health. I was forced to have Katrina, a breach baby, by cesarean. However, the other children I had naturally and without anesthesia. Dr. Michel Odent27 has written extensively about the importance of providing calm birthing environments for mothers and babies so that women can find their innate strength to give birth with the least amount of medical intervention. Allowing babies to bond with their parents after the birth, bringing them gently out of the water to immediately Librariannurse, enhances relational closeness as well as the biological instinct to suck. I was 27 Michel Odent. Birth and Breastfeeding: Rediscovering the Needs of Women in Pregnancy and Childbirth (Re- printed. Forest Row: Clairview, 2007). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 147

convinced that water births reduced the stress of the newborn by gently bringing the child into the world. Passing through water before taking the first breath of air, while attached to the umbilical cord, allows a baby to receive the oxygen that it needs as it is born into the water. I felt that changing the world and bringing in nonviolence started with birthing practices that empowered women and babies. My birth parents understood my concern. Our family had been aware of progressive birthing practices as my aunt Marilyn started one of the first midwifery practices in Omaha. She had her master’s degree in nursing and was finishing her midwifery degree when we met. This synchronicity underscored the innate knowledge that seemed to be inside of me that was not modeled by my adopted family. How did I receiveCopy these natural tendencies? Finding my birth family allowed me to learn about their beliefs and to understand more about where some of my convictions stemmed from. My own gestation period was a well-kept secret and my birth mother didn’t have any medical exams until the very end of her pregnancy. I was abruptly taken away from my birth mother at birth. She told me that they had sedated her so that she wouldn’t see me at the moment of birth. I was then rushed to the children’s hospital for emergency treatment and blood transfusions. Then I was put in foster care for four months. My arrival was quite different than the birthing experiences of my own children. I didn’t seem to suffer physically from my more chaotic entrance, but there is a growing body of research that suggests early childhood adversity does affect children’s health outcomes.Review My deep interest in birthing practices was certainly sparked by my own experience. I wanted reparation. The strong bonds I had with my children fulfilled me as a young mother even though I was exhausted at times by the energy it took to take care of them. Baby Yann shared the special moment with us, traveling in my arms across the country. Riding on my hip, he took it all in. Each child arrives at a different moment in a parent’s life. Yann came at an intersection. He would only remember me knowing all my parents and families.

When Yann, Michelle, and I left for DC, Jan and Frederique, one of the Swiss au pairs, took care of my three older children. Frederique, was behind the scenes, observing what was being performed on stage. She later told me that summer Librarianprepared her well for military pilot training. Taking care of children increased her 148 HOMING IN

ability to respond quickly to the unexpected, a useful skill. Her insights add yet another dimension to the events of that summer of 1996. She was our witness. Nils was just a little boy that summer. Frederique laughed as she remembered him venting his frustrations by kicking the tires of the car. He was fed up with everyone speaking English. He couldn’t express himself well, as he was used to speaking French at home in Switzerland. So much was happening around him and he couldn’t find his words. One day she saw Jan and Nancy crying as they emptied the dishwasher. Fred- erique’s young eyes witnessed the pulling apart and the coming together. She felt the incredible welcoming in each family group that so impressed her. But she could also pick up on the emotional strain that was pulling on our family ties.Copy In a letter to Angelo, Jan wrote:

Dear Angelo, Susie left yesterday on her birthday with Michelle to go to Washington, DC, and then up to West Point in New York State. She took Yann with her. It is an exciting time for her to meet her birth parents on her 33rd birthday. And I think it is exciting for all of them too. I am pleased and excited for all of them. She has always been such a special gift for me and for David too. We have enjoyed her, learned from her, and found her to be a very special person. She has many talents and interests and so very much love to give. She needs a lot of loveReview also, and I know that you are the very most special person in her life. She so wants to be what you want, for you to approve of her and still to maintain her own identity—to use her abilities not only for her own self-satisfaction but also for you and the children. She needs you and your support just as you need her in the same way. This meeting of the birth parents is an extension of family and brings life full circle for many people. The whole family is so happy for this reunion. All of the birth relatives are so receptive and responsive and so are we. I am so pleased and truly can hardly believe that it is such a positive set of circumstances. Nancy, Leigh, and I feel rewarded and happy for Susie and for ourselves as well. We have been privileged to have been able to raise her and to know and love her as her parents and sisters. You are so special to me, also to Nancy, Leigh, and David. You have been a wonderful son and all of us love you—me in particular. You take good care of my daughter and you have beautiful children, and I am most grateful for all of your hard, hard work and Librarianall you do for them. I love you dearly and I want you to know that. I am so anxious for you to be here and see the farm and how beautiful it is. Bob is anxious for you to be here and see where we are too. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 149

Lots of love always, Jan

Each member of the family was deeply implicated in the coming together process. We all needed to be reassured of our family’s loving bonds. The relational landscapes offered uncharted territory that had to be mapped out. The rule of thumb wasn’t written down nor modeled, providing us with a guide. There was a feeling of otherworldliness. Each sublime encounter opened up new opportunities, challenges, as well as risks. The otherworldliness that enrobed us seemed to follow us across the country to the East Coast. Copy

When Michelle and I boarded the plane for Washington, DC, people’s heads turned. The co-pilot even made an origami frog and invited Michelle on a date. He walked back to speak with us during the flight, leaving the little paper frog on the tray holding her drink. We were overflowing with the joy of our newfound sisterly love and the incredible fun we were finally having together. We were walking on air, in an altered state of relational being that people could tangibly feel. There was a kind of electricity that surrounded us. When we got to the hotel in DC, my little sister Kaitie was waiting for us. My birth parents were still in their meetings. My birth mother was serving her second elected term as president of the teacher’sReview union. The national meetings were important moments in the year for networking and learning about best practices. Both Ruth Ann and Michael had given their lives to their careers as teachers. It was their vocation and their political belief as Democrats that quality education was the cornerstone of American society. Good public schools, they would later tell me, allowed equal opportunities for all children, including special needs, immigrant, and minority children. My birth parents had actually met my adopted mother at a Nebraska teacher’s convention. They had hired her as a parliamentarian for one of their meetings. They all three remembered meeting during that particular state convention as they rode together in the same elevator. I had bought a soft, yellow silk suit to wear to meet my birth parents and go to dinner. It was an extraordinary moment in my life. Roberta Flack’s famous song Librarian“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” probably best expresses the beauty and intensity of finally seeing your parents face-to-face. What is love? One may ask that 150 HOMING IN

question over the years, as I certainly have. Love, I can affirm, is looking into the eyes of your child for the first time. Truly seeing that child, receiving that child, and honoring that child’s unique life is indeed an expression of one indomitable form of love. In Avatar, James Cameron has his characters use the words “I see you” to bring new meaning to our common use of “I love you.” There is a certain power in seeing the goodness and beauty in those who we are given to discover. In that moment, when my birth parents arrived in the hotel room, they saw me. Their recognition that I was their beloved child transformed our lives. And as I saw them, I reconnected with my biological lineage. Seeing them face-to-face confirmed my biological ties. Describing Ruth Ann’s and Michael’s physical attributes with wordsCopy remains challenging. The first photo and letter hit me with a force that bowled me over. Our exchange of love letters allowed us to establish a relationship through cor- respondence and sharing, anchoring our bond of trust in the first phases of getting to know each other. Our first physical meeting brought us together in an embrace that allowed us to feel each other’s presence. I saw Michael as a tall, balding, middle-aged man that looked the part of a professor in his tweed jacket worn to the official meetings in Washington. We shared the same fair hair and height. Ruth Ann’s hair was cut short and dark. The structure of her face, especially her cheekbones, mirrored my own visage. My smile matched my mother’s open smile with prominent, rounded, white teeth. My features are a blend, a mixed composition. I have oftenReview been told that I resemble Aunt Blanche, Ruth Ann’s aunt, who was tall and fair colored. Meeting all the relatives was like pasting together parts of myself into a new collage. It was hard for me to see my parents without seeing parts of myself. I was identifying the resemblances in those first gazes. Unlike a baby, who learns to recognize their parents through the normal developmental phases, I was taking them in with the cognitive capacity of an adult. There was no magic technology or facial recognition button that could assist the process in that moment, seeing the faces that had fashioned my own. From a developmental point of view, I was experiencing an anachronistic moment. Though I knew they were my generators, their profiles never replaced the faces of my adopted parents that were imprinted in my early memory with an infantile recognizance associated deep within my psyche Librarianas my protectors. How could this not be a kind of double-bind phenomena in SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 151

reference to Gregory Bateson’s work?28 The communicational matrix was sending contradictory messages as I processed the facial recognition of my yet-unfinished self-portrait. Both identity and recognition were woven into the interlaced frame that displayed the picture coming into focus. There was no more wondering about where I came from. My biological heritage became confirmed in that moment. A part of me that had been floating around like a kite in the air was pulled more intensely into my physical incarnation as I became more rooted in my own mortality. I experienced a new embodiment within a framework of enactivism that elicited an agency in relation to our family reunion and the multiple dimensions of our entwinement. Coming together enacted a new world for us all. Copy Behind the joy of our reunion was the pain of the circumstances of our sep- aration. My mother was a young girl when she had me. She didn’t feel the guilt of the decision that she wasn’t allowed to make. She had been resilient, and she had moved on after my birth. But possibly the humiliation of not being able to attend her high school graduation fueled her ambition and her excellence that would take her to be an honored Lincoln Public School principal over the span of her long career. That evening we ate at a restaurant on the water in Washington DC. We walked the red brick streets of the old town, taking in the ambiance and just being together. The next day we left for New York to meet my brother Ryan. Michelle had brought along the CD from the musical Dr. JekyllReview and Mr. Hyde that was currently playing on Broadway. The lyrics spoke to us as we sang “Take Me as I Am” in the back of the car. Little Yann was strapped in his car seat along for the ride. We passed New York City before entering onto the winding roads through the forest that took us to the academy situated on the banks of the Hudson River. My brother met us in the company of his best buddies that he was training with, men who would follow each other through the rites of passage required by their military career. Ryan is tall with blue eyes and short blond hair. His uniform and the stateliness of our meeting point added an interesting backdrop to our family’s reunion. Not only was Ryan following in my footsteps by studying international relations, but we both had the same B+ blood type that caused blood incompatibility with our mother’s blood and required us to receive blood transfusions. LibrarianThe first night we ate at one of the oldest restaurants in the New World. Beekman 28- Gregory Bateson. Steps to an Ecology of Mind (University of Chicago Press ed. Chicago: Univer- sity of Chicago Press, 2000). 152 HOMING IN

Arms Restaurant in Rhinebeck, New York, is said to have served guests as far back as 1766. Ryan held little Yann and we spoke about politics and international relations and his military studies. We were both passionate about the United States’ role as a world leader. My perspective as an American living in Europe added another appreciation of international politics, as I was able to see the US from the eyes of the European press and citizens. Ryan’s pursuit of honor through his military service has brought great pride to our parents. As a West Point Officer and Ranger, Ryan was able to carry out our father’s original intention to study with a military scholarship. Michael’s only son carried through time his academic dream that had been compromised in youth. Ryan’s ambition has continued to be a positive force asserting his Copyoutstanding capabilities in an arena where glory and honor are highly valued. He is a gifted instructor, training military forces in the United States as well as in Europe. Ruth Ann’s Aunt Blanche had served in World War II as a nurse. She later obtained her master’s degree in nursing and was the head of a nursing faculty in California. Her outstanding military service had been an inspiration for the entire family. Blanche was also Ruth Ann’s godmother. Her example provided a strong model for our mother, who taught the importance of academic achievement and service to her own children. Blanche was featured in Time Magazine photographs, setting up a military hospital in Norway. Her courage during the war made her a unique female leader. The next day we drove to Cold Spring,Review a resort town famous for welcoming New Yorkers from the city for a weekend getaway. In the quaint shops and antique stores, I found a lovely wedding ring quilt that seemed to symbolically represent our coming together. It decorates the living room in our chalet today. We took lots of pictures, but mostly we got to know each other and savored the day. I can only imagine what it felt like for my parents to have us all together. Bringing me into the family also meant becoming grandparents with a new role to play for my four young children. It also meant revealing a whole new aspect of their life to their children. There was a part of their story that they had never told. And now that part of their life was coming back to them and asking to be integrated into the present. Our meeting activated a force that would bring one more person back to us. But on that special weekend, my siblings and I had no idea that a sister was missing. LibrarianAs Michelle and I got back on the plane that would take us back to Nebraska, we felt the terrible pain of saying goodbye to our dear parents, especially our mother. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 153

The emotional scar that remained after my adoption seemed to be present at that goodbye. Even though we would see each other again in only a few days, it still hurt to wave goodbye. Meeting had unleashed a flow of powerful emotions. Even a short separation felt unbearable.

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Librarian CHAPTER 19

PICTURES IN A NEW FAMILY ALBUM Copy hat first summer was full of meetings. I balanced special time with new family while organizing weekend adventures with old friends. I needed T the support of my circle of family and friends as I bonded with my newly found family. My adopted family generously allowed me to experience that spring and summer falling in love with my birth family with very little resistance. Their understanding and their respect for my need to reunite with my birth family exemplified their unconditional love and the unquestionable strength of our family ties. Angelo flew in to be a part of the many family reunions and special parties that had been planned. When Angelo met my birth parents, he discovered another family and another America. My birthReview parents were teachers and Democrats. They had land in Montana, where they had camped in a teepee every summer vacation with my brother and sisters, reading the chosen family book by the fire. They were intellectuals and supported my convictions. The family dynamics changed for all of us. If I had been the oddball in the Mossman family with all my “crazy ideas,” I was one of many in the Wylie family holding the same beliefs. One of my uncles was a sociology professor in western Nebraska, and intellectual debates were quite common at family reunions. My newfound mother and aunt were engaged, professional women. My birth parents returned to Omaha a few days after Michelle and I had flown in from Washington, DC. Together we celebrated their wedding anniversary in the company of my birth mother’s family with my sister and my children. It was a wonderful family reunion held at my aunt’s house in the suburbs of western LibrarianOmaha. I cut my long hair to shoulder length before the party and looked even more like Michelle. During that summer, my sister Michelle met her future husband, which meant 156 HOMING IN

I not only entered into a new family, I also accompanied my sister as she entered into a new phase of her life. We went to the Henry Doorly Zoo, one of the best in the country, and lunched with Marnie and Poppy. As her new love Allen pushed the stroller and herded my children through the zoo, he passed the test. Michelle, Allen, Angelo, and I went to dinner at the Old Market one night that first summer. I went up to the live band and asked if my sister could sing. I explained that she was a Broadway singer, that we had just met after all these years, and that I so badly wanted to hear her sing. She was quite nervous, but she sang for all of us “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” And yes, somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue and the dreams we dream really do come true. This certainly was a dream come true for Michelle and for me. It wasn’t a Disney show. ThisCopy time it was our story. The energy present as she sang and the beauty of her voice enchanted us all, adding to a kind of summer magic similar to that present in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. When I looked at my sister Michelle, it was with a special kind of stardust. The unexpected had happened to us both. We had found each other, never realizing what we had been missing. Michelle gave me a beautiful gold locket with the picture from our first meeting inside. We were somewhere over the rainbow. It was a new field to play in, dotted by unearthly flowers in meadows that resembled those depicted in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy finds herself transported. We were living in a dream where colors and emotions were visibly enhanced. It was exciting and invigoratingReview to discover each other. Sharing in long conversations, trying to catch up seemed to mutually affirm our identities. We spent hours talking and discovering our ideas and opinions about worldly subjects, transitioning from stories of our youth to the social sciences. Reconnecting with my birth family circle reinforced my political convictions. After discussing my political beliefs with my newfound family members, I realized that I came from a very politically active clan. Social and political advocacy was a way of life amongst our relatives. I can remember speaking with my uncle Jim, the sociology professor, about my Olympics project. Sion, the capital of our canton in Switzerland, was a candidate for the 2006 Olympics, and I had created a concept entitled “A Candidature for Sustainable Development” in the hopes that the ecological values put forth when the Norwegians hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer would Librariancontinue to burn brightly just as the Olympic torch. Sion’s Olympic committee SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 157

adopted my concept and my logo, a five-pointed star, defining the major elements of a dynamic vision of sustainable development. I negotiated a position on the sustainable development committee and worked to accompany our candidature. My project, “The Olympic School,” was published in the Rainbow Book with other sustainable development projects that had been chosen by a jury. The Rainbow Book accompanied the official candidature’s publication that the Olympic committee received. My uncle discussed my project, reminding me that the Olympics were a tradition closely associated with the powerful nation-states vying for power. The peace- project, that I had conceived and developed within the concept, paradoxically clashed with the underlying forces. Still, the dream offered hope forCopy the mountain people in my canton. My concept was in fact not in line with the dominant powers controlling the Olympic movement. In the end, Sion lost to Turin, Italy, and our committee’s work for sustainable development lacked the funds necessary to make a big impact in our region. The political power behind the movement supported an Italian candidature with more European backing. Switzerland didn’t have the economic power of Turin, the industrial headquarters of Fiat. In hindsight, it seems Sion did not have the political allies necessary to secure the candidature. That period allowed me to be a local actor, participating in numerous confer- ences and committee meetings related to our Olympic candidature. Though the Sustainable Development CommitteeReview recognized my creativity and adopted my concept and logo, I had to remind them that they had used my ideas to gain a place in the official committee and continue to work for the concept I had drafted. I learned that having good ideas was not enough; I needed to have a recognized position if I was going to be able to bring my social projects forward. Later the theme was used for a new Olympic candidature, Sion 2026, but was not accepted by the people’s vote in June 2018. Visibly, support and enthusiasm for the Winter Olympics has dwindled and the Olympic dream has been laid to rest in our region, forcing us to reinvent our livelihoods in the mountain ski resorts. Not only did I have two families, but two nationalities. The complexity of being a dual national added even more challenges to my complicated identity. I learned to speak and to write French, but working in my second language has always taken a great deal of effort. Even though I am fluent in my second language, French will Librariannever be my mother tongue, a reality the French-speaking Swiss like to remind 158 HOMING IN

me of. Still, the uniqueness of my ideas possibly stems from the broad scope of my diverse background, including my ability to read and access ideas from two major international languages. I had become an international citizen. My discussions with my uncle allowed me to understand that I came from a family of passionate social scientists.

I had two lines of inheritance running through me, mixing with my dual nationality and bilingual lifeworld. What had been unconsciously influencing my opinions and interests finally surfaced within what was becoming the full family picture. I could now trace my value system, mapping the life histories of my biologicalCopy ancestors. There was a sense of completeness. The missing pictures were retrieved and put back in order. My biological as well as adopted family ancestries had both constituted me. Our reunion allowed me to consciously connect to the strong family roots that held up my grafted family tree. That rootedness gave me increased strength. Looking back on the family album that my Grandma Kay made for me with pictures of the family from my mother’s childhood, my birth parents and their children, and then our special family moments during the last months of Grandma Kay’s life, I can pause and take a breath. The album begins with pictures of people I missed knowing, moving forward to capture a period of family life that I didn’t participate in, and then suddenly we appear for my parent’s anniversary. Finally reunited, we were awed by each similarityReview that we were able to find. “Look, Sven has Ryan’s hands.” “Oh yes, and see Katrina has his ears!” Another amazing synchronicity was that my adopted parents had named me Susan Kay. My maternal grandmother’s name was Katherine; however, she was called Grandma Kay. How was it that my adopted parents would be inspired to name me after my maternal grandmother? In different stories about adopted children, I discovered similarities. I will always wonder what part of us allows for the transmission of this kind of information through family lines. Not only did I share a namesake with my maternal grandmother, but I also discovered that my maternal grandfather’s name was Harland, the same as my dear Poppy. The many similarities that were unearthed were very meaningful to all of us. We were constantly digging up artifacts to add to the find’s collection. Whatever heartstrings may bind us, I am proud to have this special tie, or Librariannamesake, with my maternal grandmother. Grandma Kay painted landscapes. I was given one of her beautiful countryside landscapes. At her funeral, the family SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 159

displayed her artwork and my brother Ryan read a poem that I wrote for her funeral, recorded below. Grandma Kay’s illness was a catalyst for our coming together. Her terminal illness possibly triggered the mechanisms that ultimately reunited us. There was an urgency that we meet before she died. Our reunion was timely, reinforcing the belief that divine presence was accompanying us, guiding us back toward each other, before separating us in death.

Letting Go to Become Something So Much More

Life, the rhythmic dance of the magic circle as spirit descends, taking on the clothing of personality and life mission, Copy spiritualizing matter with each breath. So does spirit seek to be freed after a life of service. Death, the shedding of the body, spirit returns home to the central place; the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

Rebirth, the life force transformed; forever seeking to evolve and create, like the river flowing to a greater source, like stardust combining to make new stars and planets . . . Light, Love, and Peace encircleReview and make whole, Each and every journeying soul.

As Grandma Kay was ill when I met her, we were both conscious of the short time we had to get to know each other. Her looming death reinforced the celebratory nature of our reunion process for the whole family. Her children wanted her to experience our homing in with joy. Another special gathering during that summer of reunion was hosted by Jan at her home. One of her father’s sisters and a cousin from her side of the family were present to celebrate our special occasion as well as her husband and his four children. Marnie and Poppy were present as well. My Aunt Marilyn generously opened her Omaha home to us, allowing my birth family to feel welcome and comfortable. Grammy, my adopted mother’s mother, came down from South Sioux City to be with us too. My father and his wife Dody were Librarianalso included in our reunions. It was important that the reunion include all family members, so as to allow each person to be a part of the event. 160 HOMING IN

One of my fondest memories that summer was waking up with my parents and drinking coffee on their white porch that had a wonderful porch swing and wicker furniture. We would discuss whatever came to mind. There was so much to share and to learn about each other. Those mornings gave us a space to become a real family. We spent time at their home and got to know about their environment. We were introduced into their world. On my birth certificate, I was Baby Wiest, my mother’s maiden name. I was now learning about what it was to be a Wylie, the family values and way of life. We were intensively kinning. They were inviting me into the family circle, and I was trying to become one of them. I had to make space to incorporate all the new information, breaking my heart and mind wide open to receive theCopy initiation into their family. Life’s hands were kneading me like bread before being placed in a bowl and covered to rise. Angelo and my children were also part of this kinning process, taken along with me on our whirlwind journey and trying to follow my lead by lovingly supporting my becomingness that would also have an impact on their own life trajectories. My godmother organized a special dinner with my birth parents, my adopted mother, and the key families that had been our best friends over the years. In this way, my godmother offered me the chance to bring my past and present together. We told stories about growing up and all the fun times we had. It was through those stories that my circle of friends, much like aunts and uncles, passed on the heritage they shared with me to my birth parents,Review giving them insight about what my life had been like growing up and possibly assuring them that I had been well cared for. It does take a whole community to raise a child. My godmother’s party brought together my unique community of family friends eager to accompany me in my process of reuniting with my birth family. These celebrations speak of the generosity and kindness of my community circle. They all wanted me well. And they wanted all of my family to be well. The special gatherings provided a larger community space to be forged through rituals of toasts and presentations. We had dinner parties and cocktails and held up our glasses to my new discovery. But the families that had raised me stood their ground, making it clear that as much as I might be the Wylie’s birth child, I would always be theirs too. The celebrations were much like rehearsal dinners allowing the families of the bride and groom to get to meet and know each other. The summer we came Librariantogether was full of ceremonies that we invented to celebrate our reunion. The Wylies, my birth parents, organized an afternoon “It’s a Girl” tea party SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 161

with their family, friends, and colleagues. They too wanted to introduce me to their circle of friends and community in Lincoln, Nebraska. My birth father brought me to his school and I visited my birth mother’s office. They showed us around their different properties and took us to their favorite places in Lincoln. They loved going to the Haymarket for coffee in the evening and to the farmers market on Saturday mornings. We took beautiful family pictures at the Sunken Gardens in Lincoln. I can remember bringing my birth family up to the farm to spend the night. My grandmother came down from South Sioux City to be with us too. I wanted the Wylies to know about all the parts of my life, and the farmhouse that sat on Blackbird Bend Farm was one place that I wanted them to visit. WeCopy walked up to the bluff and took in the openness of the land, the majestic view of the Missouri River, and its strong current carving its way down South to meet the Mississippi. Once again, the sacred land made a sacred space for our retreat to the country, blessing our coming together with the security offered by the grounds I had always loved, that one place that I believed was my own. I thought that if my birth family’s feet could walk the land, they would understand me better, mixing the soles of their feet with the fertile soil that had helped me to grow up strong and proud. I also took them to Candlewood Lake so that they could see the house that I had lived in growing up. They met our good friends and neighbors and realized that they had lots of friends in common, as they had attended the University of Nebraska during the same years. SomehowReview these coincidences seemed to affirm that all was falling in place just as it was meant to be. There hadn’t been a mistake. No, this was all part of the plan. Each new synchronicity underscored the strength of the storyline. It was as if my life was proof that you can never lose those you love. There is divine purpose and divine timing. I found my birth family when I was supposed to. I heard my Grandma Kay’s cry as she faced her illness and anticipated her death. Had the divine hand arranged things this way? Had I come back so that her soul could rest in peace? The perfect timing of my entrance into her life seemed to confirm all of the above. There had been a heartfelt longing to connect. During those first meetings, I also met Father Bob, my maternal grandfather’s brother, who was a priest in western Nebraska. He had worked with Sisters Carol and Theresa in many different parishes, allowing women and these two special Librariansisters to assume important missions within the Catholic Church. Father Bob had been an important elder when the decision to put me up for adoption was made. I 162 HOMING IN

met with him in his home with the sisters. He gave me a crucifix and a rosary with large wooden beads. He gave each child a statue of Mother Mary. Even though I had been brought up Methodist, I had been strongly attracted to the Catholic Church as a student. I had followed individual classes with a priest that had worked extensively with Boys Town, a Catholic orphanage providing services for children from all around the United States. Father O’Farrell offered private lessons at St. Margaret Mary’s, the Catholic church that was close to our house on 52nd street. St. Margaret Mary’s was also the parish next to the University of Nebraska, Omaha, were I attended summer school. Angelo is Catholic, and we have raised our children in the Catholic faith in Switzerland. Sven was baptized in Omaha at St. Cecilia Cathedral by Father Mainelli,Copy the priest present at our wedding. Father Mainelli wanted to renew the community’s cathedral by bringing art exhibits and music concerts to the church. He created a thriving church community and had a vision of the church’s role to lift up the surrounding communities through artistic expressions. The parish is also dedicated to their work with refugee families. Father Mainelli came twice to visit us in Switzerland. He had studied at George- town University and was truly an erudite man. He was an important spiritual mentor, sharing books that we would contemplate together. We discussed the role of Christians in the postmodern world, sharing the belief that Christians have a social responsibility. Our discussions helped me develop my ideas about Christian service. His visits helped to bridge theReview growing gap between my two worlds. I still remember Father Mainelli’s Mass describing how there are many roads leading to God, but Jesus Christ had left us a map so that we wouldn’t get lost on the Way. I enjoy returning to the Saint Cecilia Cathedral. Its double towers can be seen from far away. Wherever I travel, I always visit a church and light a candle. The Catholic Church has built churches around the world enabling us to enter into our heavenly father’s home wherever we may be. It has a universal dimension that I have grown to appreciate. In the year after meeting Father Bob, he too passed away. My family carries on the lineage of his faith. Father Mainelli, then a priest at St. Leo’s parish, officiated at our wedding ceremony alongside our Methodist minister. Our wedding was recognized by the Catholic Church. My life’s work has been fashioned by our shared faith. Our children have all been baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church. LibrarianI was able to meet Grandma Kay, Grandma Beezy, and Father Bob before they died. I was able to know them, and they were able to see that I was well. The SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 163

confirmation that I had been well cared for by another family offered consolation. Not only had I received a good education, but I had a lovely young family. My life had not been stunted by an unfortunate adoption. Fate had offered an abundance that helped me accept the situation, attenuating any regrets. I was thankful to have arrived in time to meet and create memories during the short period of time we had together. It was indeed God’s grace that joined us before an entire generation of relatives was laid to rest. Again, numinous experiences unfolded in a rhythm of divine timing with recognizable patterns that contributed to the emancipatory process of our family members. Meeting with Father Bob was another threshold moment that seemed to release him to death, knowing that our family had been reunited and that ultimately life had been good to me and mine. Copy Many years later, my birth father Michael told me the story about Father Bob’s pilgrimage to Medjugorje, Bosnia. The story has it that Father Bob was carrying an ordinary rosary that, after visiting the site where the Blessed Mother Mary appeared to a group of young children in 1981, turned to gold. It is common that the crucifix on rosaries changes into gold during the pilgrim’s visit. In her apparitions, Mary refers to herself as the Queen of Peace. Her message inspires people to love and care for others. My father has always been skeptical about such stories. He has been very critical of the Catholic Church and the sexual abuse scandals. I believe that Christians need to work together for social justice, rectifying unacceptable abuses of power. Though I am saddened by the many acts thatReview have caused harm to innocent children and adults, I pray that the Catholic Church and all Christians can work together to better our institutions. We need to meet people in their place of suffering. I believe in miracles and was happy to know that Father Bob’s rosary turned to gold. As I have been on my own Christian pilgrimages, I see that I am following in Father Bob’s footprints, along a trail venerating the sacred. Journeys with a spiritual intention allow us to experience being in a holy state. Possibly the miracle of the golden rosary was linked to the miracle of our reunion.

There was yet another kind of sacredness in the circle of friendship that I had known throughout my life. The circle of relations that I wanted to make time for during our summer of reunions included my childhood girlfriends, Cathy and Karin. We Librarianorganized an outing with them, their husbands, and their children at Lake Okoboji in Iowa at Cathy’s cabin. We were in such a busy time of our life looking after our 164 HOMING IN

young children. We wanted them to know each other and have special memories together like we all had. We each had large families, and our outings to parks must have looked as if we were camp counselors. The three of us were content in our roles as mothers. Our long conversations over that summer allowed me to talk through the intense emotions that I was feeling. My friends supported me, listening and validating my impressions. We have always been committed to each other. Cathy’s father once told us that there was an order to follow in life: finish your university degree, get married, and then have children. Luckily, our lives did follow his precise order for the most part. My own unfolding seemed to add on an additional period of growing up. I was coming into my own for a second time, as a birth child and birth daughter. Copy While we were growing up, our mothers had shown us a traditional model as homemakers and volunteers, participating in many important organizations in Omaha. But during our generation things changed. It was no longer possible to raise a large family on one income. As our children grew up, we all had to find ways to contribute to the family income. Our university degrees had been used to get us handsome husbands—now they got us good jobs. Meeting my birth family dovetailed with the beginning of my graduate studies, which ultimately prolonged my becomingness period by adding on a long period dedicated to my academic aspirations, unlike my other childhood girlfriends. At the end of the summer, I said goodbye to two families for the first time. Surrounded by so much love and multipleReview families, it was difficult to return to Switzerland. Meeting my birth family accentuated the relational isolation I felt alone on the mountaintop, surrounded by my husband’s relatives. Traveling took financial resources, time, and energy. Long trips with young children were especially taxing. And so much of me was in Nebraska. A big part of me has fought to remain connected. I will never give up all my American inner landscapes and territory to my Swiss identity, though it is a continuous struggle to exist as a dual national. Though I have now lived more years of my life in the Alps, when I get back together with my girlfriends, I reconnect with the joy of that young American girl from Nebraska who was wild and free. I have forged strong bonds with my multiple families that have stood the test of time. I continue to find new avenues of collaboration, bridging the Alps and Nebraska prairie lands. Teaching at Creighton University, a Jesuit University in Omaha, has Librarianallowed me to bring together my different worlds using new technologies. The SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 165

three Moirai, or Fates, had all along been spinning the threads that were woven into the tapestry guiding my life. Aesthetic tapestry tales are forever weaving the threads of destiny. Tapestries illustrate life histories. If you take up your needle, diligently working on your life patterns, embroidering one stitch at a time, the end result will work out right. The loom of life is actively working through and with us. In the case of my life history, the Fates had threaded a golden tapestry of reunion, that allowed me to trace the stitches, homing in to wholeness. Copy

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Librarian Copy

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Librarian CHAPTER 20

WELCOMING CATHY INTO THE FAMILY CIRCLE Copy

nbeknownst to me, my birth parents had received a letter from my sister Cathy the week that we were reunited, asking if they could meet. Cathy U was born one year after me in November. I received a large envelope full of her letters and one letter from Ruth Ann in October 1996, the fall following my return to Switzerland. This is the letter from Ruth Ann:

Dear Susie, I’m not sure how to tell you this news, so I’m enclosing a letter for you that I sent that gives the background informationReview rather than writing it all out twice. You have another sister, besides you, that we gave up for adoption a year after you were born. She was born November 12, 1964, and only weighed 2 lbs, 12 ozs. I am also sending you her first letter she sent to us. Ironically, she only looked for us for a month—she is resourceful—and had a friend call me the day I was packing up to come up to Omaha the weekend Ryan came home and we all went to your farm in Decatur. I didn’t want to take away all that we were feeling then and I was overwhelmed hearing from her. We have corresponded since August, and Tuesday I told Michelle, Grandma Kay, then Kaitie and we called Ryan. I suppose if anyone could understand Cathy’s feelings right now on finding her birth family, it would be you. On the other hand, I hope I don’t lose my relationship with you because you think negatively of us now. I cannot redo those years, but only move forward and live with it now. You have been such a blessing to us, to have gotten to know you, it was as if you had always been with us and now we miss Librarianyou so much. Adding Cathy and now having this last secret out is actually very healing for me. What scares me is the reaction of others around me, particularly you, Michelle, 168 HOMING IN

Ryan, and Kaitie. Please read my letter—my story I told to Cathy when I had to answer the question— which of my sisters is older, Susie or Michelle? Why does Susie live in Switzerland? etc. I hope you will understand—Cathy is so anxious to correspond with you to know how you are handling two families, etc. Michelle needs to talk to you. She is dealing with this very emotionally. She has several unresolved issues—for one, she is now the middle child. Please write and let me know what you are thinking. Love, Mom (RA) Copy I had been the adopted child that entered the family in which the children had no idea that they had other siblings. Now I was living the experience as a sibling, learning that there was another child that our parents hadn’t dared to speak about. It was overwhelming. On one hand, I was thrilled to meet Cathy through her letters. However, the joyous state of our summer’s reunion came to an end as we all began to understand that our parents’ past had been all but simple. It wasn’t just one child that was given up, but two. If my parents had naively believed that their love child would be okay and that there would be a happy ending somehow as they studied together during their senior year of high school, my motherReview knew the suffering and humiliation that awaited her the second time around. My mother later explained her desperation learning that she was pregnant again. She moved out of her parent’s home, had three jobs to support herself, and was in her second year of college studying to become a teacher with a heavy class load to boot. And though my parents always said they had been best friends since the age of twelve, we were all beginning to wonder where this best friend Michael was through those difficult times. Grandma Kay got a phone call from the hospital and learned that my mother had given birth and that the baby’s life was in danger. As medical interventions had progressed, Cathy survived and later had heart surgery. She was placed in a loving family by a lawyer. As no one knew that my mother was pregnant, the Nebraska Children’s Home hadn’t been contacted. The circumstances of Cathy’s birth revealed another dimension to our family Librarianstory. How could my parents have been so irresponsible? What were they thinking? What had caused all the dysfunction? It was even more difficult for my brother and sisters that had been raised by my birth parents. They had to come to terms with SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 169

a family narrative that exposed parts of the past they were never aware of. The contradictions were painful. If a teenage mother, living in a protected environment, had carried me for eight months hoping that it would all finally work out, Cathy was carried bya young woman who knew that it wouldn’t. Cathy seemed to carry the shadow of our mother’s distress. She began her life with the heart operation, for instance, and her coming back into the family unleashed a backlash of emotion that may have been associated with her arrival that had ended in tragedy and almost death as my mother gave birth to a premature baby. Her finding us gave us all a glance at the scar that her birth had left on our mother and our parents’ relationship. Cathy’s scar on her chest wasn’t just a metaphor; it was literal. Copy And yet how incredibly divine that she would have sensed our coming together and written to our parents the week we were united in July! What great synchronicity had been manifest! What force was at work bringing us all together in such a short span of time? Cathy’s arrival was the greatest gift that my parents could ever have received. The possibility of total reconciliation with the past and their long-lost daughters had arrived in that one incredible summer. Healing was now possible for us all. The urgency of Grandma Kay’s health and her counted months sped the reunion process up for all concerned. Here is an excerpt from Cathy’s letter to Ruth Ann:

I believe that God has a planReview for you and me . . . I had not considered searching for you until a month ago. I was content with Harry and Marlene as my parents and I was afraid of hurting their feelings and I didn’t want them to think I wouldn’t love them as much if I found my birth family. We were on a family vacation with my parents the end of July and I just started asking my mom what it was like in the sixties . . . did she think my birth parents were college students, etc. Her answer shocked me—Your parents were college students. She answered like she knew! I continued to pursue this line of questioning and she shared that she knew that my parents were college students and that they had later married and that she knew my grandfather’s name and that he had been a businessman in Lincoln. When I heard more about you, I was filled with wonder—you became real to me. I had always known that I was adopted, and Mom said that she had tried to tell me about you when I was growing up but that I would just tell her that they were my parents and I didn’t need to know anymore. We had totally Librarianmisunderstood each other. I didn’t want them to feel threatened; I didn’t know she was offering me this information. My parents have given their blessing to search for you. 170 HOMING IN

Mom said that she would look up the adoption papers when she got home and would look up my grandfather’s name. I called her later that week and she had remembered incorrectly, it listed my birth mother not grandfather. It listed Ruth Ann Wiest as my birth mother. I’m sure you thought that information was confidential, and I’m sorry if you feel I have violated your privacy . . . I am very interested in family history and have repeatedly used the Nebraska Historical Society to research my family tree, so, on my next visit to Lincoln I looked in the card catalog that lists individuals that were in the Lincoln Star/Journal and the site of the article. I looked up Wiest and found an obituary for Harland J. Wiest and an article on Lt. James Wiest being a pilot at NATO maneuvers encountering a Russian intelligence plane. I looked up both articles and found one of the survivorsCopy listed as Mrs. Ruth Ann Wylie of Lincoln and I just took a chance that you still lived there and asked for a phone book and found Michael and Ruth Wylie. I was trembling when I closed the phone book—it all happened so fast. I didn’t know whether to cry, jump up and down, or run away! This search had come to completion in less than a month— most people search for years! I spoke to a friend of my sister-in-law who is a counselor and a birth mother and she cautioned me that most people have more steps to take and can process the information at each level, and here God dropped this information in my lap in a matter of two weeks. I really feel that God has a reason to bring us together whether through letters or in person. I do not intend to intrude upon your family nor do I have any expectations about what our relationship will be like. I want to proceed at whatever level will make you feel theReview most comfortable. I have so many questions about you since I began my search. I guess you’re probably expecting this one . . . Why did you give me up for adoption? As a teen I was very resentful because I felt rejected and didn’t understand how you could “give me up,” but as I matured and became a mother myself, I understand what a loving decision you made to place me in a home where I could be well cared for. Do I have brothers and sisters? If so, do they know about me? What are they like? What are your professions? What are your hobbies and interests—I’m especially interested if I inherited my love of music from you or if it came from my adoptive mother or both? Are there any medical conditions I should be aware of? Do I look like anyone in my family? Whatever your decision will be about our future, please know that I will pray for Librarianyour well-being. I will be waiting to hear from you! Love, Cathy SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 171

Ruth Ann responded to Cathy and kindly kept me in the loop by sending me copies of the letters they exchanged. There was suddenly so much “emotional stuff ” to integrate for all concerned. Our family was rapidly transforming. We all took a quantum relational leap as our lives collided at the original meeting point. It was as if a kaleidoscope was reorganizing the familiar colors and shapes of our relational patterns with each magical turn of the lens. Ruth Ann’s letter answered Cathy’s questions and explained the situation as clearly as possible. She references Reba and Josh, two of Cathy’s children who Cathy had mentioned in her original letter to Ruth Ann. Here is an excerpt of Ruth Ann’s letter dated September 12, 1996. Copy Dear Cathy, I received your letter today. Our connection is pulling us together. I stayed up until 1:00 a.m. last night handwriting this letter to you, planning to type it up tonight on the computer. Then I heard from you today. We think of you every day, too. We mention your name or something about you every day between us. Hearing from you and learning about you is very healing and consoling for me. We are very eager to meet you and your children. I’m so glad you are asking me questions that are important to you so I can respond to them. Today is Josh’s birthday. Please give him a hug and kiss from us even though he does not yet know who we are. HeReview soon will. Thank you for the articles on adoption. You are very resourceful. The statistics that you referenced were also very interesting. It all created a great deal of discussion between Michael and me. From our discussions we feel we have a story we are compelled to share with you. We hope it will help you to more easily understand our reluctance to tell your brother and sisters about you as well as fill in some of the gaps you have about us and the time and circumstances under which you were born. It’s a story that I’d ask you to keep to yourself for now until we figure out how to share with others. You, my mother, Michael, and I will be the only ones that know this. How to begin . . . Michael and I have known each other since 7th grade. We grew up just a mile and a half apart. I was born on October 1st (Reba and I nearly share a birth date) at Lincoln General Hospital and he was born the same year at Saint Elizabeth Hospital October 4th. We have always joked that we were destined to love Librarianfrom birth. We were very best friends from 8th grade on. We studied together, talked on the phone for hours, and shared many of the same friends, activities and interests. 172 HOMING IN

Michael was an only child where I eventually had three brothers and one sister as we grew up together into high school . . . Michael and I started dating when we were in high school. We were both very good students with high expectations and goals for our lives and careers. Michael was strongest in math and science. He graduated eight in his class of 280 and I graduated 24th. Michael received a full right Regents Scholarship to UNL as well as a full right Navy ROTC scholarship. He wanted to be a physicist or engineer. I wanted to be a teacher from the time I was in third grade. Michael was a competitive swimmer and lifeguard and played clarinet in the school band. I sang in the school choir and triple trio. My senior year in high school I got pregnant. We were really good kids.Copy We didn’t drink or smoke or run around. We were in love, we had been friends forever, but we knew nothing of birth control back then. We were able to get through our whole senior year, until May, keeping it a secret. Someone figured it out and turned me in. We were both dismissed from school for the last three weeks and not allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies. I was put in my room until June when I was sent to Omaha to a girls’ home to have the baby. Our parents decided we were not to get married; our goal was to go to college in the fall. Your sister Susan was born July 5, 1963. She was adopted by an Omaha family and raised in Omaha. We (Michael and I) were forbidden from seeing each other. We were really inseparable. I worked 25-30 hours at Miller and Paine department store in girl’s clothing, Tea Room, and the credit office. In the summer I worked several jobsReview for my tuition money. Then I got pregnant again. It was inevitable. We were so dumb about it all and no one helped us. Michael and I weren’t supposed to be seeing each other. I moved away from home once I knew I was pregnant, but I couldn’t make ends meet. Back then you needed your parent’s permission if you were to get married unless you were over 21. No one knew I was pregnant, even my mother, until after you were born and the hospital case worker called her. Then only my older brother, Michael, and my mother knew you were born. You were a very difficult labor and I was all alone except for my friend that I met at the girls’ home in Omaha that had had a baby at the same time and then lived with us for several months before she went to UNL. I didn’t know you were born breach. I just knew it was very difficult. I was awake for it all except for the episiotomy. I was in the hospital just the next day and allowed to go home the next. They asked me if I wanted to see you and I said no because it would be too painful. My mother and I Librarianwent to John McArthur’s office weeks later to sign the papers and he kept my mother informed about you. My younger sister and brothers were only in grade school and my SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 173

dad was very ill with malignant hypertension. (He died at 49 when I was only 23 years old.) I went right back to school and work. Finally my mother gave in after receiving advice from our minister and doctor that we should be able to see each other, and yet no one worked with us on birth control. The summer before our senior year at UNL, I got pregnant again. We were 20 years old. My mother gave us permission to get married, she signed for our marriage license, and she and my brother drove us to the Seward Court House and we were married by a justice of the peace on July 14, 1966. Michael’s parents were in California on a vacation; we had to do it while they were gone because they would have stood in our way. They found out we were married when they returned home. They thought we were too young to get married and marrying me, Michael would not get to finishCopy college. We lived in my parent’s basement apartment for fifty dollars a month. Your sister Michelle was born February 26, 1967. (Your due date also was February, but 1965.) I did my student teaching first semester and finished my last credits second semester at night class after Michelle was born. Michael went to class during the day and took care of Michelle at night while I was in class. I graduated from UNL June 1967 and got my first teaching job in Lincoln in the fall. Michael continued to take classes over the next several years and worked at night at the UNL Computing Center. He graduated with 190 hours in June 1972 and started teaching when Michelle was in kindergarten. Ryan was born when Michelle was in third grade, one month before I turned 30, September 3, 1975, and Kaitlin was born February 3, 1980, when Michelle was 13. Ryan was 5 and I was 34. I alwaysReview thought or dreaded that my fate would be that I would not be blessed with other children as a payback for giving away two babies for adoption. But we know a loving, forgiving God, and I was blessed with being able to raise three children and now I am being given a second chance to know and love our first two. This last year, as your statistics would suggest, I received a letter from the Nebraska Children’s Home asking if I was Ruth Ann Wiest who had a baby July 5, 1963, in Omaha. They had a letter from that child wanting to make connection with her birth mother. We received a letter from her that spring. She had been raised in Omaha, graduated from Omaha Burke High School and the University of Colorado in Boulder. She married in 1986 to a Swiss man that she met as a foreign exchange student in Switzerland. She has lived in Switzerland for ten years and has four children. Katrina born May 5, 1987; Sven born July 22, 1990; Nils born October 26, 1992; and Yann Librarianborn October 18, 1995. We began exchanging letters just as we are now. We didn’t think it was fair to tell 174 HOMING IN

Michelle and Kaitie about Susie while Ryan was away so we waited until he came home for this three-week summer break. June 1st, the night he came home from West Point, we did our traditional dinner at TICO’s restaurant when someone comes home. Afterwards we went to Michelle’s apartment to see her new table. I took with me a bag with the letters and a photo album Susie and her husband Angelo made up for us, which was full of pictures from when Susie was born to the present (to fill gaps for us of what we missed). We sat the kids down, handed them the photo album and told them we had “something to tell them that will change their lives forever. You have another sister.” We cried, read the letters, talked and talked until the middle of the night sharing the story of Susie for the first time out loud—to them. The next morning we called her in Switzerland so that the kids could hear her voice. Susie had not beenCopy in the States for three years. She had plane tickets for this summer . . . On June 24th she arrived in Omaha and we got to meet her and her family for the first time. We took all kinds of pictures and she met lots of our friends and relatives. I was finally able to share this story. It was such a relief. Everyone was so accepting. The kids bonded immediately. It was as if we had always been together. We spent a great deal of time with her this summer and she flew back home in August. Only two weeks after we met Susie, I received the phone call from Valerie. I could not believe it. How could this be happening, both of you finding us at the same time? There is a meaning to all of this. But now how do we admit the shame and guilt of another adopted child? I need to tell you about my mother,Review also. She has ovarian cancer. She is 75 years old. She comes from a family of ten and is probably the best loved of them all. Grandma Kay she is called by many. Last spring after I had received the first letter “To My Birth Mother” and then a letter responding to our first response, I shared the two letters with my mother. We were in Omaha and she was receiving chemotherapy that day. My mother is very strong but seldom shows much emotion (very different from me). When she read those letters, she cried and cried and said, “I thought I would die before I got to know about her. Now I can die in peace.” And then she said, “Do you think we will ever hear from your second child?” We talked and cried and read the letters with joy. We had not ever in 33 years discussed or mentioned the births. She said there was never a day that went by that she didn’t think about both of you and wonder if you would ever choose to find us . . . Just as you hoped being honest with us about your life would not cause us to reject Librarianyou, we feel the same. I hope our story helps you understand. Yes, we want to meet you, we want you to know your brother and sisters. With time and thought this will all come SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 175

to pass. I would love to know our grandchildren, Reba and Josh. I hope eventually they will get to know their cousins in Switzerland. How can we proceed? I would love to hear your voice, hold your hand, hug you, fill in all of these years, and so would Michael. Let’s make arrangements to meet when it would work for you. Eventually I want you to meet Grandma Kay and my sister who lives in Omaha (she just got her doctor’s degree in midwifery), and my brother Jim who teaches at Hastings College and his wife Marsha is a lawyer. Be in touch, Love, Ruth Ann Copy These letters bear witness to the kinning process that my sister Cathy and our parents experienced. The complexity of the situation brought forth a wave of emotion that further unsettled the relational waters we were swimming in. The big wave that I encountered when I received copies of their letters knocked me down and took my breath away. Review

Librarian Copy

Review

Librarian CHAPTER 21

EMBODYING AND INTEGRATING CHANGE Copy inding my birth parents corresponded with a new phase in my life. Though my husband was working hard in his construction business and in the ski F school, we needed to have more income to support our large family. As Yann became more independent and stopped breastfeeding around two, I started my master’s degree in mediation. Marnie and Poppy agreed to pay for my studies that I hoped would allow me to enter the job market with a new diploma and skills. My mother-in-law in Switzerland helped to take care of the children when I needed to be away for classes. Still, it was a challenge to make a quantum leap forward with four young children. I began an intellectual journey that brought me closer and closer to my birth parents’ career pursuits and practices.Review I moved away from the traditional role model of my adopted mother and toward an active, professional role model that my birth mother portrayed. There was a growing together of my multiple selves and origins, fostering concrescence. The once-separated parts of Self were merging into a form of greater unity. The individuation process was gathering forces, actively fashioning a more unified, whole Self. But the positive changes that were operating in the matrix of my relations also created unforeseen tensions. I became schooled in the principles of inclusion. My master’s degree allowed me to become closer to my parents who were educators working in the public schools and implementing the inclusion programs for children with special needs and immigrant children. It was as if meeting them opened up a new pathway where I was able to integrate my intellectual pursuits into my new career path. There was a definite turn in the road, with a new maternal model; I became a full-time working Librarianmother. These accumulating changes in my identity and the reconfiguration of our roles 178 HOMING IN

as husband and wife acerbated our couple’s conflicts. Not only had we found my birth family, presenting Angelo with a whole new family, I was also stepping out of my former role as a stay-at-home mother because it was necessary (and also because I was developing new skills). Meanwhile, Angelo was involved in a transition as he was selling his family business and finding financial solutions. My portrait was being redefined with a new outline that was begging tobe colored in. But how could we reshape our lives together, in a mutually beneficial transformation? During an especially difficult period, I felt the need to go home. When I told my adopted mother Jan about my plans to return as well as my financial difficulties, she responded by saying, “Would you bring your princess dress? BecauseCopy we are having an Ak-sar-ben style show.” In the same breath she added, “And don’t they have a Salvation Army in Switzerland?” suggesting that I should ask them for help. At that point, I realized I was on my own. The emotional support I expected from my mother who had raised me didn’t seem to be there in a time when I so needed to be borne up, buttressed by loving parental protectors. I felt my need for protection was being ignored by family that simply looked the other way, even though I was at risk. The concern I had had for the suffering experienced by my mother during the period of my parent’s divorce wasn’t reciprocated. Maybe it was too painful for her and my other family members to watch me suffer as I searched for a way to make it all work. My Oscar de la Renta princess dress ended up in a museum in Omaha, and ultimately, I Reviewworked through my own difficulties as best I could. When I returned to Nebraska, family friends stepped in to support and console me. My birth parents offered support. But my adopted parents distanced themselves from my situation. During that phase, I was raising young children, trying to make a career, and negotiating the power relations within my marriage. The challenges seemed to have clustered on the timeline of my life. There was no sure place for me to place my feet as the earth under me was shaking like in an earthquake. I tried desperately to keep my balance. It felt like when I was cast in the role of damsel in distress, the lead in the school play, acting out the fair maiden tied to the railroad tracks. But who would save me from the villain? My protectors from the past had reconfigured their family ties. I didn’t know anymore who I could count on. One final blow came while I was visiting my friend Missy. My father called to Librarianinform me that he had sold the farm on terms to his buddy who farmed the land. He and Dody could remain in the farmhouse until their deaths, but the land was SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 179

no longer ours. The one place I thought I could always go back to, my security and proud domain—all sold to support my father’s retirement and second wife. Missy and her mother—my godmother, Sharon—tucked me in to bed. Their loving hands replaced the motherland that had enrobed me through the seasons, the place I had depended on for so long for regeneration, allowing me to endure. I longed to return to that safe place, yet it had been sold out from under me. I felt the pain of the Native Americans at having to give up my sacred land, formally their sacred land. My experience of loss, much like theirs, was branded into my inner being. I wanted to wail and dance like the Ghost Dancers, calling out to the spirit of wish fulfillment in the hopes that I might find a way to stay connected to Mother Earth and the land that had been under my feet. Copy The white man had betrayed the Indians with treaties that stole away their sacred land. Their tears and lamentations and even their Ghost Dance couldn’t restore their buffalo hunting grounds. When I learned that my dad had sold our farm, I wept, just as those before me who had lost their land to a greater force that could not be beaten. But my sorrow came from my own father’s betrayal. When our farm was sold, my loss was great. It wasn’t just the land, it was who we were, who we had been, and what we were forced to become. As I felt my roots being cut from underneath me, my balance wavered. There was nothing more to ground my thin body, exhausted from pregnancies and breastfeeding. The pasture grounds that had sustained me with harvests of good and plenty, nourishing my childhoodReview and feeding me with inspiration gathered from the patterns embedded in the tree brush, wild prairie grasses, and cornstalks where the wild birds and deer found cover, were no longer my camouflage to wear. Somehow my father’s betrayal of selling his girls’ inheritance resonated with my primal wound. As a newborn baby, I had been powerless when I was taken from my mother. Losing the farm when I was a young mother ripped me from ownership, just as I had been ripped from kinship at birth, reminding me of my brokenness and vulnerability. Again, I was facing another form of the Giveaway ceremony, a ritual that seemed to follow me through life. In opposition to the generosity present within the Giveaway ceremony, the expression “Indian giver” refers to someone who gives a gift and then takes it back, a phrase that grew from misunderstandings between the natives and the settlers. Unfortunately, it seems to correspond to our family’s misunderstanding as the land LibrarianI had thought bequeathed to me was taken back. Yet, that was the harsh reality of the Nebraska plains, where landscape and 180 HOMING IN

language reveal poignant realities. The cold winds blow fiercely over the prairies. The sun beats down upon the land with an intensity capable of drying the topsoil and cracking the land’s surface like cut-out mud cakes. Even the snow would whirl around like the tornados in spring, causing blizzards capable of blinding any traveler, piling up snowdrifts that only snowplows with large metal blades could take on. I had painted a more clement landscape to hang in my memory hall. If I had been a bit more observant, I might have allowed myself to capture the depth of the scenery—the shadows behind the landscape, the growing storms on the horizon. Indeed, the tell-tale signs of change were taking form in the family’s collection of American impressionist paintings, coming alive with the spirit ofCopy nature. As described in Jim Harrison’s Legends of the Fall, tragedy came beckoning at the door step, and though I could see the outline of a gesturing figure standing outside, I didn’t want to risk opening the door. Nebraskaland cried out to me, “Nebraska!” A wretched pain tightened in me like a clenching fist around my heart. Then even louder, my heartland sounded in my ears the words, “Land of good and plenty!” and finished with a crescendo, “Nebraska, the home of the brave and the free!” The loss of the farm forced me to weigh and measure all that I held dear. Forced to accept the decisions I had not made, I found the words, “So be it.” From heartfelt memory, I took stock of all that I believed made “Nebraska, the good life!” Taking to heart the loss, I tried to find a place of gratefulness for how the landReview had constituted me and strove to move forward.

Librarian CHAPTER 22

BEING OTHER Copy was trying to find my place in so many different aspects of my life. Belonging became a central theme. If I have been able to reconcile my family belongings, Iit has been an ongoing balancing act to find a way to hold my own inmy country of adoption. It is stressful to be different, to be “other.” The social causation hypothesis explains how prejudice and discrimination have adverse effects on health outcomes. Daily encounters characterized by experiences of discrimination contribute to what is known as the minority stress model. Ultimately, I came to realize that my belonging doesn’t have to be limited to my country of adoption. I can belong on a more international level, making connections beyond the Swiss borders with kindred spirits. Through it all I have come to embrace my otherness as well as the otherness of all those IReview encounter. Over the years, I have felt that the dominant Swiss cultural memes have added to the stresses as well as difficulties in my life by restraining the possibilities of expression, holding on to old, traditional forms of relating that I desired to break free from. The configurations of power held me in, imprisoning me in a suit of metal armor. Some of the constraints bearing upon me have shown me what discrimination is all about. It first began when I was put under the domineering power of my mother- in-law in a small ski resort, where she tainted the loving regard my husband had for me to undermine our marriage, voicing unfair criticisms. Her manipulations were detrimental. But that kind of dominance was just the beginning. The dominant power men exercised bore down on me, expressing itself through the inequality in my marriage, exacerbated by my distance from my family and support system. I was completely dependent on my husband for economic survival and was limited in Librarianthe influence I had on important decisions concerning money matters. If I had stayed home, I would have been part of the dominant ruling class. But in Valais, I was an outsider and only belonged through my husband. At times 182 HOMING IN

it seemed as if the value of my education and diplomas—even my worth as an individual—was negated. This negation extended out to the lack of recognition of my American family’s social status as well as American and Nebraskan values and lineage. The mountain people ask, “Who is your father?” in order to place you. If they can’t place your father, you have no place. All I was seemed to be invisible or purposely ignored. I often felt like a devalued currency. In sociology, the minority stress model underscores the extra energy exerted daily by those who are perceived to be different, creating a chronic stress. Vying for power and place, as well as cultural superiority, is part of the daily jostling. Swissness was often defended by affirming their way as the better way, favoring their protected people and practices, even if it wasn’t fair play or fairCopy treatment. I have constantly sought to find progressive practices that bring social progress. I have engaged in co-constructing hopeful possibilities for my community, getting inspiration from diverse cultural origins. I believe diversity and plurality contribute to social and cultural well-being. My intent wasn’t to negate the traditional Swiss ways but to work for the betterment of society. That might have been perceived as a threat. Over the years I was faced with surprising comments that permeated my daily conversations, aimed at pointing out that I was different with remarks like “Oh, you still have your American accent,” or worse, asking me to repeat what I was saying, as if I wasn’t speaking correctly. Sometimes the people in the village didn’t want to see me, leaving me out as they spoke directlyReview to my husband. I became invisible while standing in the circle, placing the Swiss-born above me in their social hierarchy. Job announcements read “French mother-tongue.” I could perfect my French, but I couldn’t change my mother-tongue, nor did I want to. Erasing my roots would be giving up my personal integrity. There was also the lack of job opportunities in spite of my qualifications that wore on me. My children instinctually order for me at restaurants and ask for me for sizes at clothing stores, knowing that the service will be different because they speak without an accent. My self-worth is challenged in an environment where my language and cultural heritage are simply different—other. Many Swiss have made it clear to me, even in informal social settings, that Swiss educational institutions are “better,” be it true or not. My diplomas haven’t been fairly recognized within their national territory that works to protect “their own,” often denying access to outsiders. The system of meritocracy that I believed to exist Librarianwhen I was younger, looking to find my place in the world, has alluded me. Often, Swiss people don’t hesitate to state in my presence that they don’t like Americans. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 183

Where I come from, that would be unthinkable and impolite. From my husband insisting that we eat like Europeans at the table—with our hands on the table instead of one hand on the lap, using our forks and knives differently to cut the food—to everyday encounters, there was an incessant push to legitimize a superior Swiss hierarchy of value. Barriers to belonging have been minimized as “integration” has become an ever more popular buzz word. The Swiss give so much importance to integration, all the while voting not to integrate the European Union. It seems paradoxical. My work in special education spoke on inclusion, a way of sharing who we are and co- constructing a new way of going on together. It is more inviting and acceptable to be part of a socially inclusive process than an integration paradigm Copythat over time becomes a discourse of submission. How could I honor my roots while participating in Swiss society? Fighting not to internalize my perceived foreigner status that couldn’t be overcome by citizenship, through marriage, nor my five children, I chose the path of resistance. I decided not to allow the Swiss regard to dishonor me nor my heritage. I remember thinking as a student reading Black Like Me how great it would be to unmask racial discrimination. Griffin explained, “I prepared to walk into a life that appeared suddenly mysterious and frightening. With my decision to become a Negro I realized that I, a specialist in race issues, really know nothing of the Negro’s real problem.”29 My life as an American in Switzerland gave me the chance to have a similar experience. I didn’t even need to change my skin color. IReview came to understand the pain of discrimination and just how it hurts. Until we are placed in a position where we experience discrimination firsthand, it remains only theoretical. In the United States, discrimination is often understood through the lens of race. But I discovered more subtle, hidden forms of discrimination when I left home. This experiential learning context has ultimately contributed to reinforcing my work giving voice to marginalized people and deconstructing discrimination by using narrative inquiry. Bourdieu’s writings on symbolic violence explain what I first perceived as a young bride and mother who eventually became a more insightful social scientist, capable of theorizing the power relations that I could feel nesting in my bodyscape, erupting on the surface in almost artful forms, trying to get my attention. Bourdieu writes, “The effect of symbolic domination (whether ethnic, gender, cultural or Librarianlinguistic, etc.) is exerted not in the pure logic of knowing consciousness but

29 John Howard Griffin,Black Like Me (50th anniversary ed. New York: Signet, 2010), 2. 184 HOMING IN

through the schemes of perception, appreciation, and action that are constitutive of habits and which, below the level of the decisions of consciousness and the controls of the will, set up a cognitive relationship that is profoundly obscure to itself.”30 With my decision to marry a Swiss, I learned what it was to be “other” or a foreigner, and the alienation that goes with being an outsider looking in. Though Griffin’s experience focuses on skin color, Bourdieu’s work shows how asymmetric power relations become normalized. The regard of the Swiss often made me feel that I was out of my proper place. I didn’t fit in, even though I gave it my all to belong. Having been pushed out of various jobs by directors that favored local women, and local ways (even unethical ways), I was forced to keep searching for new ways of moving forward that has obliged me to keep learning newCopy skills. Throughout the years when I felt the weight of Swissness and Swiss society bearing down and invalidating my gifts, the values I held dear, and even my professional credentials, I dug into my own cultural heritage, enunciating my values and making explicit my creed. I went looking for the teaching stories that were cornerstones imbedded in the cultural edifices of my own state and nation. Feeling forced to integrate in a process of assimilation, I took refuge in the image of the Statue of Liberty. Would I have experienced the same situations in the United States? I will always wonder. But maybe I would have been better equipped to defend my principles. Issues in relation to belonging were accentuated as a dual national, making me even more sensitive to rejection because of my unhealed wound that came from being adopted.Review Finding my rightful place seemed to be like playing the game of musical chairs. I was constantly forced to run after another chair and was often left standing when the music ended. After making such an effort to belong, learning the language, and willingly supporting my husband in his career, it was hard to understand why I was constantly reminded that I was only Swiss through marriage. Once told that my way of speaking, my accent, hurt Swiss ears, I realized that there was no winning. Though I have resigned myself to make the best of it, accepting the choice I made as a young bride, I continue to search for ways to protect myself from humiliation. Honestly, I don’t want to be like “them”—I am happy to be me. But ideas of Swissness are also illusions, as the Swiss are a diverse group of people. There is no one way to be Swiss. My complex identity and search for belonging has made me more sensitive to the crusades of others who were seeking recognition Librarianand validation. Laws protecting different forms of discrimination including sexual

30 Pierre Bourdieu, Masculine Domination (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 37. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 185

orientation are only being adopted in Swiss law in 2019. Discrimination in regard to age remains unprotected. While safeguarding my own integrity, I have sought out international relations that surpass the local, validating the beauty of diversity. While working at a psychiatric hospital, I was asked to do research on LGBT health for our canton. I did a needs assessment to inform the health commission about existential distress and sexual orientation. The resulting report recommended measures that would reduce homophobia in schools and our communities. There was a public attack by the right-wing political parties seeking to cancel the organization of a conference in Valais on LGBT children’s rights. My report’s findings served to defend the decision to organize the conference, which sought to sensitize professionals. Copy During the same period, Hillary Clinton came to Geneva to defend LGBT rights. Her example illustrates how human rights must be defended globally and locally, henceforth the term “glocal.” I was proud to contribute to the LGBT cause with my research report for my own region, joining with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to bring the world’s attention to the last important human rights issue in the international arena. Though it was difficult to find local support for my causes, the US Democratic leaders were defending the cause. My life’s work often resonates with human rights causes. I am proud to defend the underdog and all those living in the margins. My university studies taught me to be sensitive to those living in the margins, as well as to the increasing gap between the rich and poor. I chose this orientation at the very startReview of my academic years by applying to live in the one dormitory devoted to subjects that proved to be my field of study. Arriving as a freshman at Sewall Hall at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the special dorm devoted to the social sciences, I had no idea that I would end up with a doctorate in the social sciences. The professors that I met during that intensive freshman year program laid the groundwork for the next phases of my academic endeavors. Those foundations allowed me to build an edifice firmly rooted in social justice. My strong convictions cultivated during my time in Boulder allowed me to continue to challenge social injustice, never resigning to accept what my heartfelt instinct believed to be unjust. Rage, however, subsided over the years, leaving place for benevolent detachment in a cosmic flow, trusting the unfolding. But anger does play an important role, generating a reaction to all that is unfair and providing energy to resist. LibrarianI can remember sitting in my high school counselor’s office and eyeing his poster of Jung on the wall while we conversed. He explained that some people 186 HOMING IN

were Freudian and others were Jungian. I was attracted to Jung’s poster early on, in the same way that I knew I wanted to be an exchange student in French- speaking Switzerland, and that I would be at home in Sewall Hall. Each choice is a stepping stone. Boulder prepared me to become an international citizen as well as a mountain girl. Having moved beyond those first representations and attachments—my first stepping stones—that have enduringly marked the beginning of the trail, as first choices often do, I cannot doubt my unexpected destiny. Not doubting those first decisions validates the trajectory that my course has taken. Though it hasn’t been an easy journey, I have gone to the depths of what it means to belong, what it means to work to help others belong. Aware of the suffering that accompaniesCopy alienation, I endeavor to build golden relational bridges, linking people together. Just as I had followed Woodrow Wilson’s steps into international relations, I again followed him by choosing my path in mediation. When I went to Paris for my first mediation training, I walked by the Crillon Hotel where he negotiated his Fourteen Points. There is a brass plaque on the hotel explaining that the historic peace negotiations took place there in 1919. Wilson spent months in France working with the European leaders and outlining the political configurations that were defined by his political theory of self-determination. In a biography, I read how he would take time to arrange the chairs in just the right position to facilitate the peace talks. When he returned to the United States, his enemies in Congress made it clear that they would not supportReview the League of Nations. Wilson decided to go to the people, embarking on a train tour to speak to the citizens who awaited him in the small towns along the major railroad lines. He said that if they did not support the League of Nations, the next war would bring an even greater war with not thousands but millions of deaths, and blood would flow on the battlegrounds as it never had flown before. Tragically, he suffered an aneurism while delivering a speech during the tour, greatly weakening his physical health and thus his presidency. Unfortunately, his warning was not heeded. Working as a mediator with political asylum seekers allowed me to meet people from all over the world and discover their most intimate conflict narratives. One of the cultural mediators that worked for me, translating during mediation sessions, shared the kernel of a poem he had written. He had come from Kosovo to Switzerland as a political asylum seeker and had received refugee status. He was Librariansoon going back to Kosovo to visit and explained over coffee, “I need to return to my spring, the spring of my birth, a place where I was born. A place symbolizing a SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 187

time before identity papers. Is this Swiss spring truly mine?” Then he went on to say, “I need to feel the spring of my homeland and the comfort it brings.” I too long to return not only to Nebraska’s spring, but to a time before identity papers and official state documents. I wonder how it felt to be in the world just before Baby Wiest was written on my birth certificate, before my name was Susan Kay on my adoption certificate, and before I got my first blue American passport in the mail and then later, my Swiss red passport from the embassy in Texas weeks after marrying Angelo. That baby Self hadn’t yet taken on the official papers of the international citizen that I would become. That innocent, unmarked identity is a beautiful reminder of “natality,” or the idea that life begins with birth and is intimately linked to freedom in a fleeting world of socially constructedCopy political representations. As a double national I have experienced a dynamicity of potentials as well as the fear of exclusion. My process of biocultural becoming aims to find freedom in self-expression and remembrance, giving birth to new storylines. Instead of wearing the heavy metal armor that knights wore to battle in the middle ages, I prefer to be armored with knowledge and the emotional and social defenses that act as protection against eventual enemies looking to engage in a fight with the “other.” Review

Librarian Copy

Review

Librarian CHAPTER 23

SPINNING THE FAMILY TALE Copy had somehow seen “Why-Lie” hidden in the pronunciation and etymology of my birth family’s surname. When we connected, I experienced an intense Iperiod sharing stories and searching for meaning; my senses were heightened on an incredible synchronistic trail of meaning. I read into our family name the apparent call to bear all. Why lie about the past? It was time to reveal what had happened so many years ago. It was time to get it all out there so that the past could be put behind us. The Wylie family lineage was engaged in clearing its name; hence my story about speaking my narrative truth. Michelle was living in Lincoln and attending the university in 1996, the year of the reunion. She had injured her back performing and had decided to complete her bachelor’s degree in communicationReview after years on the road performing in Broadway musicals. She found herself in the role of the family communicator. After the “It’s a Girl” party that had been organized to present me, Michelle had to adapt the story and explain that Cathy had also reappeared and joined our family circle. It was a huge responsibility for Michelle to take on. In a letter to our father, Michelle wrote, “It is very difficult to wake up one day and find out that what you had always thought to be true is actually very different. I had no idea of our family’s past history and now it is all starting to make sense. It is hard to explain, but I have created this certain image of our family and now I view it differently. Not judging whether it is good or bad, but that it is different. I struggle with the amount of pain all of this is currently causing Mom and the pain that she has had to endure for the last thirty-three years.” Michelle knew that our mother was counting on her ability to tell the family Librariansaga, adapting the storyline to her audience. She courageously took on the role as communicator, assuring that the conversations continued. It was a complex situation that not everyone could understand. There was the short version and the longer 190 HOMING IN

version for those who were intrigued. The pressure that Michelle felt to perform for the family possibly influenced her decision to marry and move to California where she finished her degree in communications at Pepperdine University. The wedding plans refocused the unfolding of the family saga, bringing everyone together for an unforgettable celebration. The stress and strain of us coming back into their lives had been felt. For my mother, the effect was physical as her blood pressure increased and caused some medical concerns. Yet great joy and great sorrow can occur simultaneously, taking a lot out of us emotionally as these powerful emotions run their course. I wept with joy as I read Cathy’s letters to my parents. It was truly beyond belief that we had found each other. I realized that I had been on the University ofCopy Nebraska’s campus during one year with my sister Cathy. Had we crossed paths? Destiny’s hand was making sure that there would be no walking past each other anymore. Now, we would come together in each other’s arms. Meeting my birth parents created difficulties in Cathy’s relationships also. Her adopted parents, unlike mine, didn’t want to meet the Wylies. They didn’t want to close the space between the two families in any way. They were protective of their daughter who was born prematurely. They were not able to make amends. Finding us increased the tensions in Cathy’s marriage. Shortly after meeting us she left her husband and moved to Lincoln with Reba and Josh, their two children. She found a job as a legal secretary and worked at a law office. She now works for the police department in their archives. Review Cathy’s life path had not taken her away from Nebraska. She never had traveled like Michelle through her performing career or Ryan with his military career. Meeting us and discovering our interests and lifestyles opened Cathy’s horizon. Our different upbringings didn’t stop us from sharing our different experiences and travels. When Cathy moved to Lincoln, she was able to spend quality time with Grandma Kay and Grandma Beezy. She loved researching our family history and made a family tree for us all. She discovered that our ancestors’ arrival in North America in the 1700s qualified us to be Daughters of the American Revolution. Most of the family members came from Germany, not far from where I now live. She even made a wonderful scrapbook for Aunt Blanche in memory of her outstanding life and career. LibrarianCathy and I shared a strong faith that we had cultivated over our lifetimes. I often wondered if the fact that we were separated at birth from our mother reinforced the SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 191

bond we both had with our spiritual father. We began using our spiritual antennae at a young age, like a form of survival instinct orienting us in the world. We both looked daily for spiritual signs: God’s divine guidance in our lives. We believed without proof and ultimately were able to respond to God’s calling, following our hearts back to our birth family. We were in sync despite the fact that we hadn’t any knowledge of each other’s existence. Just as the wise men found baby Jesus by following the star, we found our parents by listening to the guidance within. As we found words for our reunion process, we actively participated in a joint family project creating a narrative to hold us together and give meaning to the extraordinary events that we were living. Telling tales is associated with the word “spindle,” suggesting the spinning and weaving of destiny.31 As the storyCopy was spun, so to was destiny woven into a new pattern. The life threads in our woven web of life were transforming our life trajectories. And as time unfolded, I became a spinner, threading the wheel, wetting the thread, and twisting it between my fingers. The thread became our entwined life histories. We were all trying to understand how the resulting fabric of our shared lives would look. It also made us question the circumstances that gave rise to the give-away of two daughters. What causal effect had influenced two placements? The introduction of Cathy to our family circle made me wonder what family patterns could be responsible for my parents giving up two children. I began asking questions about my birth father’s family and his father. My father opened up a chapter in his own life story thatReview he hadn’t been consciously aware of until I began digging. The astonishing truth finally surfaced as we engaged in open family dialogue: my birth father’s known father was not in fact his birth father. When Everett, the father that had raised Michael, went off to World War II, Michael’s mother, Elizabeth, had an affair with an air force officer stationed at Offutt Air Force Base. Her husband was infertile, and she wanted to have a baby, as the story goes. When her husband returned from the war, Michael was already born. He obviously knew that Michael was not his son, but he generously raised Michael. As was often the case in delicate situations like this, they never spoke openly about his origins. Elizabeth had kept in touch with Michael’s father, John Murphy, throughout her life. A box of pictures and letters had been found hidden in her mattress when they were preparing to take her to assisted living. When asked, she finally explained she Librarianand John had kept in contact on the phone.

31 Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Creative Mythology, (Penguin Books, New York, 1968), 121. 192 HOMING IN

John was from Philadelphia and was of Irish and Scottish descent. He worked as an accountant or bookkeeper for the US Steel Company and was said to love fine tweed suits, refined cooking, and dancing. A friend of his described him as being debonair. He never married but had helped his sister raise her children. The eschewed tale, kept secret for years, began to unknot, as if the right thread had been pulled to undo the whole sweater. The more we questioned, the more it became clear that the family patterns were anchored in generations before ours. We deconstructed the past in the hopes of rebuilding a new relational matrix that would be the blueprint for future generations. However, deconstruction is often a painful passage before renewal ensues. Admitting to the happenings that took place in the past required courage on the part of my birth parents. Copy We became sensitive to patterns, having looked so deeply into our ancestor’s lives. Yet, as the years go by, I have come to see that looking for patterns can also condition one to focus on patterns, as if they could entrap us in their web. Cultural memes and family patterns are apparent and just as transgenerational psychology has shown, patterns are often repeated through the generations. But living in a state of hopefulness allows grace to act on fading patterns, offering the gift of transformation. Review

Librarian CHAPTER 24

THE DARK ARCHETYPICAL FORCES Copy uring 1997, the year following our coming together, Michelle got engaged and set her wedding date for May. Her date was not during summer D vacation and many obstacles were laid on my path back to Lincoln for her wedding, an event that I could not forego. Somehow the strong forces pulling me toward my sister brought to life equally powerful phantoms defending against our coming together. Grandma Kay’s health was holding. She really wanted to be at Michelle’s wedding and she wanted to be present for the August birth of the first child of my Uncle Mike, her fifth child. I am sure that those two important events gave her the strength and courage to survive a few months longer. Michelle’s wedding was an opportunity for all of us to be unitedReview once in our lifetime before Grandma Kay’s cancer took her. At that time, I was a member of the school board for our village, and a new town president had just been elected. The town president was traditionally the director of the school. I followed the protocol asking to take my children out of classes for a week in order to attend Michelle’s wedding. I explained in my letter how important it was for my children to be part of this extraordinary family event, especially since dear Grandmother Kay was ill. We wanted to be united at Michelle’s wedding once before her death. I had a letter from my pediatrician and also the village priest supporting my absence for this family celebration. The new president did all he could to avoid responding to my request as a Swiss citizen asking to have permission to take my children out of school for a special family event. The decision fell into the hands of the inspector. Even though LibrarianI had been a member of the school board for several years, there was no direct communication. Without a timely response from the authorities allowing me to buy my tickets, I went forward planning my travels. 194 HOMING IN

Michelle’s wedding was a beautiful moment for all of us to finally come together in our completed family circle. Grandma Kay’s health was declining, but she was able to be at the rehearsal dinner and the wedding, as was Grandma Beezy. Cathy and I both were bridesmaids in Michelle’s wedding and my daughter Katrina was a flower girl. The boys had little tuxedos, and each had a role to play. Michelle invited my family and best friends to the wedding, which made it all that much more special for me. We were all together to witness her beauty and the celebration of their love. Following the ceremony, she sang a beautiful Celine Dion song for her husband Allen. We had our arms around each other, a long line of siblings humming in unison with our parents for the first time. Many of my birth parents’ friends and the entire family were present, allowing the Wylies to introduce theirCopy daughters that had come back to them the preceding summer. The wedding was my chance and my children’s chance to integrate the family circle with my sister Cathy and her children as our family’s configuration changed. We were part of the performance. We were partners in the co-construction of our new family portrait. The events of that incredible year of reunion came full circle at Michelle’s wedding. When we had gotten our picture taken during the previous summer reunion, the photographer had made a remark that it would have been easier to position us if we would have been five instead of four. Unbeknownst to us, Cathy had just made contact with our mother. A strong force was pulling us all together. There was a convergence of kinships finally meeting on the sea of life. But that incredible need to be with my newly foundReview kin was met with an equally strong force that was working to keep us apart.

When I returned to Switzerland, I received a letter from the president of our town, requiring me to meet with him and the inspector concerning my children’s absence. My husband did not accompany me to that meeting. His lack of support and protection at that meeting allowed the president, with the compliance of the inspector, the perfect opportunity to harass me behind closed doors. When I met with the two men, they referred to laws only pertinent to foreigners working in Switzerland, usually Portuguese workers that came to our area to fill jobs in agriculture and tourism. He said I only had the right to take my children out of school during Christmas and Easter. My children and I all had Swiss citizenship Librarianand, due to an extraordinary situation, were asking for permission to take school leave, a possibility written in the law for all Swiss citizens. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 195

As I defended my position, the president began raising his voice, telling me that my birth family and our coming together was not important for my children and that I should have left my children behind with my mother-in-law. When I mentioned the letters from my pediatrician and the priest, he failed to recognize their professional judgment. When I explained that my birth parents were educators and believed in the importance of my children’s presence, he criticized Americans. He even went so far as to declare that I was lying about the severity of my grandmother’s illness, underscoring his discriminatory position that foreigners like me make up lies to get their children out of school. That incident behind closed doors allowed me to get a firsthand experience with mechanisms of discrimination within the Swiss society. The president’sCopy and inspector’s blatant abuse of power and their lack of respect for the law by applying the laws pertaining to foreign, seasonal agricultural workers to my situation demonstrated a form of cruelty I had only read about in history books. As they raised their voices, attacking my personal decisions, demeaning my situation as an adopted child, and belittling my nation, they stepped over lines of civility. There I was, a young breastfeeding mother facing two men ready to use their positions to lash out at me with a form of hatred I was unaccustomed to. Their uncivil behavior was only possible in a racist society where they felt comfortable articulating their aggressive accusations, irrespective of the law. This experience marked me. These men represented archetypical forces that remained in society pertaining to unwed mothers and teenageReview pregnancies. My birth mother’s foes were coming to life in a new era as the decision makers in my Swiss village imposed their judgment. Patriarchal powers were condemning my family without any respect for the uniqueness of the situation. Though their words were like fists beating me down, I looked over the table with a disgust so apparent they must have felt some shame. Or did my defiance egg them on? They also had the chance to show an American woman who was boss. Their interpretation of their political role and power shocked me and made me deeply question my life in Switzerland. If that is how they treated white Americans, how did they treat black refugees and political asylum seekers? I had legal status as a Swiss citizen, something that they were eager to overlook. I resented my husband’s lack of courage to confront them in person. Though I had always been a fighter, this experience took a toll on me, especially after all the emotions that I had been Librariandealing with finding my birth family. So many people had understood the incredible nature of this life event reuniting me with my birth family. Why were these men 196 HOMING IN

using their positions to humiliate me? In my search to defend my dignity, it became all that clearer that their position was legally unsupportable. There were laws in place, but the power structure permitted that kind of abuse. I was a foreign woman and they believed they had the right to speak to me in that manner. Women only got the vote in Switzerland in 1972. Though I had a university diploma and came from two good families, I was a foreign woman and they were going to teach me how things were done, the Swiss way. I felt defiled. In this region where the clannish social structure still dominated, my civil rights couldn’t even be used in my defense, and those men knew that. The law provides days off for funerals, but I had preferred to see Grandma Kay while she was still alive as our time together had been so short. Copy Our family pediatrician and his wife supported me throughout the ordeal. I had been introduced to homeopathy by Dr. Lorenz when Katrina was a toddler. I can remember reading that a class in homeopathic medicine was being offered and I felt an urgency to sign up. After studying the basics in homeopathy with Dr. Lorenz, we were invited to his house to learn to use the Repertory of the Homeopathic Materica Medica by Kent. I met Marie-Noel, his wife and a nurse who worked with him, at our last informal class meeting in their home. They had both lived abroad and spoke English well. We became close friends. I had always been able to count on their support. They recognized the injustice of the situation. The Lorenzes read extensively in many subjects linked to alternative medicine. Their network of professional acquaintancesReview offered a progressive approach to healing in our region. I was able to analyze my situation from a much larger perspective that embraced the mind-body connection. I used acupuncture, osteopathy, and homeopathy to treat my family and myself. The knowledge of these healing arts opened up my comprehension of the dilemma that I was facing. I found natural ways to realign my energies and heal from the blow. The hurtful words that had wounded me like a branding iron, impressing an unwanted insignia of separation from the herd, slowly disappeared from sight. After the experience with the inspector and town president, it became clear to me just how vulnerable I was. I hadn’t given up my birthright by compromising my health with drugs (like my adopted father David), but I had given up my chance to live in the United States where I could benefit from the social justice that had been won for women over the last one hundred years. I had been so confident in myself Librarianand my destiny that I had been willing to follow my husband back to Switzerland after finishing my bachelor’s degree. But with four young children, far from the SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 197

protection of my Nebraska families, it was starting to sink in that I had given up the social privileges that could have been mine. So much of me seemed to be lost in the translation. Having given up the natural support system and recognition that I had obtained over the years from my family, my peers, and my community, I bore a heavy yoke. The possibility to use my studies and my skillset was lost in a country that favored a form of cronyism that stifled the progressive development of the canton and the country. Men playing by their rules, even rewriting the rules for their benefit if need be, assure their dominant position at the cost of women’s integrity. In the end, they too are tarnished by the insidious forms of social injustice that shapeshift their allure. Worn out gameplays with scenarios of domination both hauntCopy and imprison game players. Game over! An old game board with figurines that yellow and mold over time destroys all desire to play. It seemed that my father and grandfathers were more progressive than my husband and his contemporaries. I can remember my father-in-law criticizing my love for reading. It wasn’t utilitarian for women to read. His reaction was in great contrast to my father’s and grandfathers’ appreciation of my intellect. I listened to older women in Valais explain how they would hide their books and quickly pick up their knitting when an authoritarian male walked in the room. Women were not supposed to be interested in intellectual pursuits. I had been brought up to debate at the table. The father of my friend Cathy, Bob Hansen, would tell us that thereReview were people who talked about other people and those who spoke of ideas. We were to concern ourselves with higher ideals. He trained us to speak up at the table and participate in the evening dinner discussion. Yet after an animated debate at a recent dinner party, he conceded that he wouldn’t want to be the man sitting across the dinner table from me every evening. It is a dilemma for highly educated women to find their voice at the dinner table, at the boardroom table, or in politics. As we become learned, accomplished women, we sometimes make our male counterparts uncomfortable. Our fathers were indeed proud of their strong little girls that they taught to shoot, hike, and camp in the wilderness. I had been brought up to share my views beyond the kitchen table. Now Bob’s words were teaching me yet another lesson, hinting at how problematic it may be for a husband to embrace a woman’s sharp intellect and outspoken voice. Cathy and I had grown up. The traits that our fathers sought to instill in us as young Librariangirls may not appear as becoming in a mature woman. As wives and mothers, we often dance to the lead of our husbands while still bringing home a paycheck. 198 HOMING IN

I heard in Bob’s comment the need to tone down my “voice.” I continue to research the appropriate strategy just as other sisters of my generation are doing, balancing the responsibilities of work and family. My mother and Cathy’s mother took a back seat to our fathers at the dinner table. They made the dinner and set the table, letting the men lead the discussions. Achieving the right balance is a definite challenge as women are forced to prove their capabilities in the professional arena without overshadowing the men in their lives. I might have been faced with the same kind of challenge in the United States had I stayed and forged my career among American men. I might have found similar battles educating my children and fighting for their safety. It is possible I would have met up with the same fundamental problems expressedCopy within a different cultural setting. Still, the beautiful view from my chalet didn’t make up for the social backwardness that was becoming more and more apparent to me as my children entered the Swiss school system and society. I didn’t want my sons to follow the macho model in Valais. I wanted them to understand my values and beliefs. I had founded my family with the mentality of a young American woman who had read the book about the little train that said, “I think I can, I think I can.” But the Swiss hadn’t read that children’s book. The cultural heritage of domination contrasted with the growing recognition of empowerment in North America. Women and minorities had been empowered in the United States. But the word empowermentReview couldn’t even be translated into the French language. It had to be put in parentheses. Mediation and public health are both based on a new vision of empowerment. But the chains that had imprisoned women in Switzerland were heavy and hard to break. Women weren’t allowed bank accounts before 1972. They couldn’t buy expensive items like televisions or cars without their husbands’ presence and permission. I was completely dependent upon my husband financially. And because Angelo wasn’t physically present to offer me protection, the president of our village believed he had been given a signal, the right to come down hard on me, disciplining my behavior with a verbal stick. I understood the anger of women who were not given a fair chance or not allowed to take on positions corresponding to their knowledge and skills. But the rage that was building in me fueled my drive to successfully complete my master’s degree and find employment. All those years at home caring Librarianfor my children had inhibited me from establishing myself as a young professional woman with a good salary and benefits. A new divorce law in Switzerland meant SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 199

men no longer need to financially support their ex-wives. Mothers who stayed home to raise their children give up career opportunities that assure financial stability over the course of a lifetime. My trust in my husband and his country had led me to an inferior position for negotiating my self-respect and integrity that was so easily dismissed by a people who often seemed to lack the knowledge of the basic rules of civility—at least, that was my experience. I had already experienced the inappropriate conduct of my mother-in-law and one of her sisters at the beginning of my marriage. Upon my arrival, one of Angelo’s spinster aunts had written a letter defaming my character. I was a twenty-three-old woman expecting my first child, and here was a woman campaigning against me, aiming to turn my husband against me from the very start of our marriage.Copy I had never been spoken to before as they had spoken to me. I had never witnessed such uncalled-for behavior and speech. I hadn’t seen the sign at the border marked “Beware.” After my father-in-law’s death, I had considered returning to the United States. As they were unable to accept his illness and death, I became their scapegoat. But I had stayed, determined to hold my own ground. My youthful optimism sustained me. I stood by my husband, facing the wrath of his mother and aunt. They made me understand that I was an outsider, making new rules of treatment for those who they believed didn’t belong. They wanted someone to aim their fury at, paying for my father-in-law’s painful death, and that someone was me. Poppy had intervened and explainedReview to me and to Angelo that it was time that Angelo made a clear choice to be my husband and to put our relationship first. He said that if he didn’t, we would never be able to have a happy marriage. Angelo’s loyalty needed first to be to his wife and children. He had to make a conscious choice to honor his marriage. The Bible tells us that we leave behind our own mother and father to found a new family. We are asked to literally cleave to each other. I had done just that. I had taken a great risk leaving my upper middle-class family and social circle and the economic opportunities present in the 1980s and ’90s in the United States for professional women. I had given it all up for one man. Yet it might have been this very vulnerability and dependency that strengthened our bond over the years. We knew how much our children needed us to be united for them to be secure. In any event, I gave my life and all I might have been to be his wife. I offered my heart and soul and endured in a foreign land to stand by him, Librarianaffirming that Angelo and I belonged together. Unfortunately, his family and country were constantly challenging his loyalties. 200 HOMING IN

The influence of the clan took its toll over the years. When Grandma Kay died just months after Michelle’s wedding, I received no cards of sympathy from our Swiss family, friends, or community. Those were reserved for their own people. Even at my adopted father’s death, I received only two letters of condolence. I mourned the death of my loved ones in isolation, separated from my support group. As a young mother, I often felt like a sophisticated Swiss Army Knife. I had all these special tools that were waiting to be opened up and used. But my husband and my entourage didn’t know they existed or even how to use them. They were content with the basic functions of a simple pocketknife. I longed for the chance to employ my many gifts, the special gadgets waiting to be opened, discovered, and used. Copy I now understand how, during my own lifetime, many changes have altered what appeared to be stable in my American world just as in my Swiss world. As people live longer, embracing the gift of longevity, the entire life-course will need to be reconfigured to meet the needs of a demographic transformation where there are more aging people and fewer births. Society is faced with designing a new human culture offering increased years for self-realization and contribution. What appeared to be “the way” to hoe your row, communicated to me by people like Bob Hansen, has changed. Traditional ways of doing things are being challenged everywhere. The roles men and women are presented with are also offering new possibilities to coordinate the care for our families. New familyReview configurations and life-courses generate the emerging social designs, adapting to changes in mentality and also demographic changes that challenge traditional ways. The ability to adapt and continue to learn is what I have sought to engrain in the souls of my children. Future generations will be harvesting new fields of knowledge throughout the seasons of life. In fact, there might be a fifth season that may change how we live out the traditional four seasons. Even Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” is being transposed. Again, the current changes call for social activism and protection against ageism, a form of discrimination against older people. Hear the call to lifescape new becomings. Discrimination creeps up in insidious forms, seeping through the foundations. The right to keep on working and participating is yet another right to defend. At times the stress of everyday life overpowers the original dream. Having often Librarianbeen forced to hold onto my dreams with a strong grip, I have found solace in prayer. It is through daily conversations and communion with God and the angels, SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 201

and following the example of the saints, that I have been able to keep my love for my husband alive. It is through dialogue with the divine that I can continually face his people and his Swiss world. In spite of the attacks on our union, from within and from without, we have overcome. The beauty of the landscape out my window is a daily inspiration. It takes an incredible effort to maintain dual citizenship. Beyond the injustice and discriminations that have put a wedge between us, I still love the man I married. Every day demands love and forgiveness. All that has been perceived as trespasses requires continual daily forgiveness. The sweetness of our young love and the beauty of our dreams, founding a large family, inhabiting our chalet in the midst of wildflowers and mountain peaks—all has been sustained throughCopy faith and perseverance. Putting our family and our children’s best interest first has allowed us to find the strength to resolve the many conflicts and challenges that all large families face. At times the complexity is overwhelming. Being true to our family has been our guiding force. All that would break us apart, all that would poison our love for each other, I pray, will not win over our union. It is in our commitment to our family project that we continually renew our couple’s purpose, coming back to the essence of our bond. As man and wife, we have organically grown together through our children. This form of marital concrescence is symbolically represented in the symbol of the Tree of Life. In the stained-glass window in our living room, two colors of brown wrap together to formReview the tree’s roots, trunk, and branches that hold the purple heart. Angelo has to wait for me at the bottom of the ski slopes just as I must wait for him to grasp new ideas of social progress. It is always a gift when we can share moments in time aligned, walking in stride, even if he still needs to be seen walking in front. Our children gracefully embody the richness of being from our two different worlds. We are all faced with the necessity of adapting. But even more than our capacity to adapt, our ability to be hopeful carries us forward. In the soft summer breezes, as the larch tree in front of our chalet sways with the winds at the end of day, I hear the whisperings of a future filled with hope, while the memories of our young children play so vividly in the grasses of the past. In front of our chalet, under the larch tree, I planted edelweiss. I have watched Librarianmy son Nils, who is a mountain climber, make little bouquets of edelweiss. They are the flower representing the romantic side of the mountaineers. At the funeral of 202 HOMING IN

a friend and climber who loved the mountains, Nils threw a bouquet he had tied with twine into the grave. In college at the Kappa house, we would sing the song about edelweiss accompanied by the guitar: “Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow, forever.” Some symbols make a strong impression on our subconscious. I was surprised to see the gesture of my strong son, and I wondered how he had known about that flower and its importance. But more and more I understand how much our children simply know what is in our hearts. There are heartstrings that bind us through time. As a young girl, I loved Mary Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie. The solid notion of homesteading captured my imagination. I transposed that story, making my own version—Susie’s Swiss Chalet in the Alps. The architecturalCopy structures of our lives need constant renovating and our interior designs, refurbishing. Windows can let in the light, exposing darkened corners and hidden cracks in the woodwork, needing repair. But the original foundations provide the basic framework of relational shelter to be honored and protected like an important historical monument. Ultimately, I have overcome the archetypical forces of patriarchal dominance by becoming a strong and powerful matriarch, giving value to women’s ways of caring and knowing. As mother and grandmother, I lead from a place of heartfelt knowledge. Review

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ADIEU Copy oppy died peacefully in his sleep on the third of September in 1998. The timing was especially poignant because my grandparents were married on P August 3rd and renewed their vows every third of the month over the span of their entire marriage. Sven’s godmother and godfather, Karin and Bob Hogan, chose the third of August to be married. Their wedding day just so happened to correspond with Marnie and Poppy’s fiftieth anniversary. I saw Poppy’s passing as a wink from the other side, honoring his love for my grandmother. In my sadness, I felt connected. The day before he died, I went for a run up a mountain near the chalet. I had felt a need to go higher and higher, and I watched the sunset from my high vantage point. Learning Poppy died peacefully and having felt a presence guiding me toReview run higher, I had confirmation of our spiritual oneness, guided to watch the sunset on the last day of his life. That mountain had been a meeting place and playground for me to ski, to hike, and to run. My friends kept coming back here too, to meet up. And now my grandfather’s spirit had met with me on the mountain. I knew he would always be with me in all that I would strive for and accomplish. My dear Poppy knew the suffering and consequence that illness could bring on. Poppy had a hard time understanding how his son David could risk losing what Poppy knew was important—health, prosperity, and family. Poppy had survived difficult years in business and had managed to keep his ship afloat. He appeared to me to be like a captain who had set his course on a guiding star and nothing, not the waves of a storm nor the unseen challenges of the open water, could make him change his course. I hadn’t been there to see him as a younger man, but I knew Librarianthe older, principled man who exemplified dignity and self-integrity. Poppy always proved to be trustworthy. He never once let me down. His principles and values guided him all throughout his life and his ship arrived safely at its destiny. 204 HOMING IN

That same week, a woman from the Assembly of Tibetan People’s Deputies in exile, Nawang Lhamo (Kanang), came to Valais to accompany the Dali Lama. She knew a hotel owner in our village who had gone to her country on mountaineering trips, and she came for a long stay, during which she tried to get funds to support a school in her region for handicapped children. Lhamo brought books signed by the Dali Lama and attended an event where he and the Abbey Pierre from France, who founded Emmaus, jointly freed doves of peace out of a cage. Their participation symbolized their dedication to world peace in a demonstration that joined their faiths. I attended the event in the presence of these two very holy men. I introduced Lhamo to different people connected with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the hopes to find money for her project. My Copycontacts with the press featured an article for her in our local newspaper. Lhamo had been a refugee herself. She explained how she and her family had been on a road fleeing Tibet as winter was coming. The children would not have survived the harsh conditions had the Dali Lama not intervened. He assembled the children and took them in under his care, saving them from the Chinese. These children were refugees, and for the most part they had been separated from their families. The Dali Lama housed them in Dharamsala, providing care and higher education. Lhamo only much later reconnected with her siblings. Her life symbolized the trials that refugees throughout the world endure. Lhamo was present during that moment in my life when I lost my grandfather. Her gentle presence accompanied me Reviewthroughout the days of grieving. She was sure that our souls had met in another life. It seemed an incredible synchronicity that she would come to me and stay in my home during the period that I was studying mediation and developing my future practice with political asylum seekers. Our timely friendship demonstrates one aspect of the incredible spiritual energies that were at play in the unfolding of my life’s events. On the bookshelf next to my bed I have several books signed by the Dali Lama. His life’s example has been a beacon for the world. The Tibetan influence I have felt through my contact with Lhamo has felt like a touch that has graced my life. As I prepared for the trip back to Omaha for Poppy’s funeral, these words came to me: Librarian SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 205

Ode to My Grandfather

To the top of the mountain, I did run, To see the last setting sun, That shined upon your life on earth, Before your spiritual rebirth. The beautiful day that was your last, Was crowned by a sunset that did cast, A brilliant light across the sky, The night before you did die. I was called upon a mountain high, Copy Where the wind did whisper in my ear, To run and speak without fear, For those whose voices are not heard, The voices of those who suffered and endured. You were so good, so kind, so just, It was in you I did trust. You cared and supported me each day In thoughtful prayers that you sent my way, To lift my soul and give me strength, To face my life, In spite of strife, Review And have the courage to run up high, Where eagles fly, To see beyond what others see, And to be the best that I could be. In my heart and close to me, You, my dear grandfather, will forever be. In my work and in my dreams, You are a part of all that streams From my fingers and my thoughts. You are a part of all I am and do, I am who I am much because of you. And in the morning when I did wake, LibrarianThere was, like an icing on the cake. The mountain where I’d run that night, Was capped with beautiful snow so white. 206 HOMING IN

A celebration at heaven’s gate, The third of September was the date. A day you chose to show your mate, How sacred your marriage was to you, Adieu.

One of the people at my grandfather’s funeral and who heard my poem was Mr. Bill Tomson. I found out later that Bill had been a best friend of my dad since their time at Benson High School and had been a groomsman in my parents’ wedding. Bill had also been very close to Poppy and considered him a surrogate parent. They shared a mentoring relationship. I can recall my father talking to BillCopy after the funeral at the reception. There was something going on beyond my comprehension at that time. Less than three years later, Marnie passed away. Poppy had planted lilac bushes behind the farmhouse at Blackbird Bend that grew very tall and separated the yard from the pigpens. Their fragrance would fill the spring air in late May when they bloomed. As I was unable to go to Marnie’s funeral due to work responsibilities and young children, I asked my father, who was living at the farm when she passed, to pick a bouquet of lilacs and place them on her coffin. In this way, my grandfather was a part of his darling’s funeral. At my grandmother’s funeral, my family read “The Fragrance of Love,” the poem I wrote for her: Review

Patiently I did wait for you to come and open the gate. You, my dear beloved, who went before to prepare a new life, And I, your ever-faithful wife. Now embraced by the light and surrounded by the fragrance of the lilacs you planted with care, I lie in peace in a season so fair. This spring air perfumed with the scent of our love, embalming this moment as if anointed from above. You, who came to take me, LibrarianYou, who I knew would not fail me, My beloved transformed and divine. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 207

As my essence melts into one breath full of this fragrant perfume of love and life as rich and colorful as the purple hue of lilacs in spring, Church bells do ring. With the violet touch of these heart-shaped sprigs, I am tenderly enfolded. Now beheld in the transfiguring regard of the beloved, And crowned by this lilac wreath so gently woven with your invisible hands. I rejoice in the presence of angels in flight Whose wings did take me in the night To a garden filled with the fragrance of spring And a lovely bouquet that my beloved did bring Copy To welcome me home.

The weekend of Marnie’s burial, my husband and I took our children to Monaco. I visited the grave of Princess Grace and the rose gardens planted in her memory. I knew Marnie would understand. For a recent Mother’s Day, I had my boys plant a rose garden in our sandbox. They remind me of lovely American women like my dear Marnie and Princess Grace, who emulated what being a lady is all about. Marine passed on her jewelry to me. Every time I have a special family event or an important presentation to make, I wear her jewelry. On my fingers I carry with me the love of my grandmother and her mother, wearing their diamond engagement rings together. Recently,Review I gave Marnie’s engagement ring to my oldest daughter, Katrina, on the day of her civil wedding, sharing the precious stone in a ring of intergenerational love. I have followed her example collecting sets of jewels, each gem’s unique healing virtue and vibration balancing my own personal energy. Marnie was bejeweled and she passed on her beautiful jewelry to me just as Poppy passed on a sense of peace that comes with living the good life.

Librarian Copy

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Librarian CHAPTER 26

TRYING TO FIT IN Copy he Wylies attempted to integrate Cathy and me into their family despite how we had been raised by two different families. We were together entering T another family culture, coming from different backgrounds. We didn’t fit the Wylie mold and yet we shared a bond of sisterhood that allowed us to respect the emotional challenges of reunion that we had both taken on. The integration wasn’t always smooth. One summer a Wylie family reunion was planned at a cabin on the Platte River. Cathy and I were there with our children, as were all the Wylies. The quarrel that erupted on our first family vacation stung Cathy and me with a venom that hurt like poison. It started because my birth father was critical of me, pointing out that I had not forced my young son Nils to finishReview his apple. He followed the criticism with his theory about wealthy, wasteful people, associating me with the American upper class that he deplored. As the tension mounted, Cathy and I each tried to find a way to make it through the night, well aware that we were perceived as intruders at the campsite. During the course of the reunion, our parents pointed out our differences. Their prejudices pertaining to social class and religion as well as their definition of success were thrown at their newfound daughters. We were made to feel as outcasts, which only served to revive our subconscious wounds of being abandoned. Cathy slept in her car that night and I stayed close to my young children in our room, suffering through that long night in silence. I couldn’t run away. I had nowhere to go. I called my childhood friend Cathy and just cried. In my peak moments of distress, she always directed me to look into the faces and hearts of my Librarianchildren to find my strength and orient my next step. Their needs and expectations have indeed fueled my ability to find a way forward. I organized separate activities for my children, going paddle boating and taking 210 HOMING IN

hikes. One evening, before the sunset, I took my children into the forest. There was a full moon that evening. As the sun set, the fireflies came out, illuminating the forest. It was nature’s sign for me to turn my light on. Santana wrote a great song with just those words. I had to go deep inside and turn my inner light on. It was that inner light that allowed me to work through the relational difficulties that arose during that family outing. It became clear to me that the core Wylie family also needed their space. Their original family had lost their sense of who they were, opening up to sisters who hadn’t been part of their shared upbringing. We had come back into their lives unexpectedly and turned their worlds upside down. I didn’t want to force myself on them. Certainly, I didn’t want to get hurt either. It would take time toCopy define our relationships and how they were to be maintained. But it wasn’t just up to me. I decided that I would do what I considered right and fair by maintaining contact. The response I would get would not be up to me. That was my parents’ and siblings’ responsibility. I had extended my hand through a time warp to make peace, but now my parents were responsible for their commitment to our relationship. If we would have all grown up together, we would have gone through the normal conflicts and disagreements that parents and siblings go through. But wewere adults who hadn’t developed the relational trust that allows you to work through conflict and emotional pain. Somehow, we all did work through the strong feelings that erupted that summer. I continued to spend time with them when I visited Nebraska, and it was important to meReview that my children know their cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents in America. On one summer trip, I arrived with my four children at Eppley Airport in Omaha and was picked up by the Wylies. Nebraska trips involved shared my time with my two families. After my parents’ divorce, this was more easily done, as all the family ties were being renegotiated. As our baggage was delayed, I stayed with Michael and Ruth Ann took the children back to Lincoln. It was just before the fourth of July and there were some fireworks displays at Lake Manawa across from the airport. While watching the firework show over the lake, my father explained that he had come to Omaha to be with my mother right before she gave birth to me. They had watched the fireworks together at this same spot. As the fireworks blasted through the night sky, I came into the world, flaring forth with life. I was born hours later on the fifth of July. That synchronicity seemed Librarianto signal that we had come full circle. The lost time that had separated us somehow caught up. We were back to the starting point. Not only did we come to this spot, SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 211

a place we had all been together before my birth, but other relationships began to flower as if there hadn’t been years of separation. Not only did I get to bond with my sisters, I was given the chance to know my brother well, spending time together when he was stationed in Europe.

When Ryan was in summer training in Germany, he was able to take a week off and visit us. We hiked the mountains with my young children and I made “gourmet meals,” as he called them. We discussed international politics on our front balcony and the articles in Time International Magazine that I faithfully read each week. When it was time for him to head to Africa, I took him to the train station in CopyEvian, France. As we drank coffee at a café overlooking Lac Leman, Ryan described the dream woman he hoped he would soon meet and marry. Those special days allowed us to get caught up with knowing each other and sharing our dreams. The hot summer sun set on the lake as his train departure time neared. As my brother boarded his train, I waved goodbye to a moment in life that I knew would never present itself again. My heart ached as I watched him leave for another continent, thankful for the short time we had shared but regretting the years that could never be made up. Much later, he met the woman of his dreams whom he had described in our conversation. She was already in his heart—he had been carrying her with him even before they met. As the Wylie siblings married andReview had children, the focus went from Cathy and me as the new addition toward supporting the new families that were taking shape. Births followed, and my parents now have fifteen grandchildren. Little Ruthie is the latest arrival. Ryan and his wife named her after our mother. My sister Michelle invited my daughter Katrina to California two summers in a row, allowing her to take in the American way of life and improve her English. She also had Nils come to stay. Those special summer vacations strengthened our family bonds. All of my sisters have welcomed my children over the years. My sister Leigh had Sven come to Texas the summer before she had children, and Yann went to stay with Leigh as soon as he was old enough to fly alone. He even attended summer school in Fort Worth to better his English. Allowing my children the opportunity to know their American aunts and uncles took a lot of energy and resources: airplane tickets are expensive and having a guest who doesn’t speak the language well can Librarianbe a difficulty for a host family. For my young children, times with my newly found family seemed only natural. 212 HOMING IN

Their identity was solid. They knew who they were. They knew their own parents. Sven explained that he has memories of being with the Wylies but doesn’t have strong emotions associated with meeting them. He made me understand that it was I who had gone looking for a piece of my identity. When we were first united, we saw the synchronicities and the similarities. These sightings brought us together. That lens allowed us to bond by distinguishing the uniqueness of our common genetic heritage. The letters, gifts, and family reunions all served to solidify our family bond. Over the years after we reconnected and established our union, a natural shift occurred. We began to differentiate. Individual choices were made in spouses, careers, and lifestyles that created new ways of living and seeing the world. We each went forward to positionCopy ourselves in different ways. We each found our place in the Medicine Wheel, or Native American circle of life. Through the process of touching and reaching through our loneliness, our perceptions have been transformed. Our desire to be needed and loved, the primordial force that ultimately brought us together, also taught us to honor our personal Medicines. We grew to recognize the Medicine Shields that we had each taken care to decorate with symbolic design. We became Sundancers seeking harmony and experiencing spiritual renewal. Review

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BALANCING WORK AND FAMILY RELATIONS Copy etween raising my young children, finding my birth family, and embarking on a European master’s degree in mediation, change was pouring into B my life. I was trying to contain an outward appearance of being the same recognizable person while my inner identity was adding new contours and colors. My internal transformation was linked to my aspirations that were being fulfilled through the skills I was adding to my tool box. It was all good and necessary, but it took a lot of energy and determination to be continually becoming someone new. Like a snake shedding its skin, I was transforming into a Wylie, my former identity falling away. But my new skin was sensitive, requiring a kind of healing balm so as not to become too irritated by the conditions. Not only was my personal identity changing, but my professionalReview identity was taking form as I studied and trained to be a mediator, traveling to Paris to study with Dr. Thomas Fiutak from the University of Minnesota. During that week of mediation training, I went to mass at the Notre Dame Cathedral, where I experienced a lifting of my burdens and fatigue that pierced me with a kind of existential pain. The Notre Dame Cathedral has been the home of the Crown of Thorns relic until the tragic fire in April 2019. Investing in my professional future, I was on my way to becoming a full-time working mother. During that period, I had very little recognition and everything to prove. As my grandparents were aging and dying, I was trying to survive, looking for new ways to go on supporting the next generation that Angelo and I were responsible for raising. Though my family had grown exponentially in the United States, my support system in Switzerland remained limited. I had to face the reality of the Swiss school Librariansystems that were educating my children with methods of memorization proven to be completely outdated. I didn’t have the means to pay for private schools that many of the international families could pay for, often with funds from international 214 HOMING IN

corporations that cover educational costs for their employees. I had to make do with the local schools and institutions. So, I worked to bring innovative practices to the institutions in my region, sharing experiences while designing and implementing new approaches to the complexities I was confronted with in both my personal and professional life. I strove to incarnate the pioneer spirit. Sports and other extracurricular activities were all private initiatives not offered in school. Synchronicity brought me to work with the director of the special education department of our canton, which gave me a chance to delve into pedagogy and better understand the systemic dysfunction of the outdated system I was facing. I was terribly frustrated but had to press on and make do with the realities with which I was confronted. I was fighting for my children to have the rightCopy to continue their studies. The early selection system and tracking had them on a path destined for either an apprenticeship or university studies by the sixth grade. As my children were trying to integrate three languages, including German at school, as well as two cultures, they simply needed more time to make sense of it all. Also, the Swiss system didn’t recognize as many forms of intelligence as the American system inspired by Gardner’s Multiple Forms of Intelligence theories and research. They only considered math and languages—French in our region— to be important subjects; other classes weren’t calculated with the same equivalence on report cards. The system seemed to crush my children instead of nourish them scholastically. I believed in my children and their Reviewabilities. It took lots of energy to support them and help them to navigate the local system with success. Knowledge and valued traditions of knowing are part of a cultural matrix. Children with different cultural backgrounds have a richness that requires cultivation in a systematic approach offering more time for concrescence, an organic growing together that brings one to a higher form of completeness or wholeness. By rigidly tracking children too early, society loses the promises they hold. Ultimately, my efforts have won over the prevailing system that poorly evaluated my children’s scholastic abilities. My oldest children have gone on to the university in spite of their primary and middle school teachers’ judgments. The younger children have also been able to decide their scholastic futures with the strong model of their older siblings’ skill set and scholastic excellence. Modeling the importance of continuing education, I too kept acquiring new Librarianskills. The day I finished writing the manuscript for my master’s degree with my research partner from the special education department, I drove home with a SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 215

pencil holding up my hair in a bun, keeping it out of my eyes and allowing me to better concentrate. After arriving home, relieved that we had completed our written work for the thesis, I received a telephone call from the emergency crisis center. They asked me to join a team of professionals intervening in the largest helicopter accident in the history of Switzerland. I would serve as a mediator between the Swiss authorities and the Indian tourists who had witnessed the accident. What amazing synchronicity! Hours following the completion of my written work, life presented me with a practical test. Much later, I would find the social constructionists writing about the enactment of relational responsibility.32 I had no idea how the crisis center had found my number, but as my husband protested in disbelief, my son Nils, only seven years old, supported Copyme by saying, “Just go, Mommy, there are people who need you.” And that is exactly what I did. I got into the car, drove to the rescue center, and met a man who took me to the accident site. I did my best to serve the needs of the Indian people, who were on a company trip sponsored by Kodak. Translating my theoretical training into practice on the soccer field where two helicopters had collided—leaving eight dead and around sixty tourists traumatized— illustrates how events can modify our becomingness in unexpected ways. Until that threshold moment on September 26, 2000, I had been “barefoot and pregnant” for the majority of my marriage. As I put my new shoes on, it was hard for my husband to track me and follow where my new skills were taking me. The shape of my footprint had changed. Review A few months following my intervention at the helicopter crash site, I was hired full-time to work for the canton’s department of social services, and the police integrated me into their hostage negotiation team on an as-needed basis. With social services, I was hired to create a mediation center for political asylum seekers in Valais. I worked for four years (2001-2005) offering mediation. The case studies that I dealt with later became the basis of my doctoral thesis entitled “Conflict Narratives: Mediation Case Studies in an Intercultural Context.”33 While working as a mediator, I met Dr. Randolph Willis, an American psychiatrist who had studied medicine in Switzerland. We were born the same year. He comes from Michigan. He was in charge of the mental health outpatient clinic in the city

32 Sheila McNamee and Kenneth J. Gergen. Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue. Librarian(Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, 1999). 33 Susan Kay Riva-Mossman. “Conflict Narratives: Mediation Case Studies in an Intercultural Con- text,” PhD diss., Tilburg University, 2009. 216 HOMING IN

where I had my mediation center. We began our work in Sion at the same time and were asked by our departments to manage a challenging situation that involved participating in a continuing education program on migration and intercultural relations. This challenge allowed us to develop a unique interdisciplinary approach to complex conflicts, and we ended up writing our theses together. We developed a practice combining mediation and ethno-psychiatry. Amazingly, our work in Sion came to an end at the same time. The universe was confirming that it was time to move on. We would often meet over lunch to swim or run, allowing us to talk about our work. That friendship allowed us to affirm our practices, finding innovative solutions to the cases that we were asked to handle. Not only did I better understand culture-bound syndromes enactedCopy by political asylum seekers, but I gained insight into how conflict narratives were fashioned and performed in my own family. But understanding the forces and patterns that shape us doesn’t always mean that we can successfully avoid how they come through us, constituting our lives and futures.

Shortly after being hired by the Valais social services, which allowed me to have a good income and keep our family financially afloat, I discovered I was pregnant. Such news was not welcomed by Angelo. My birth mother’s difficulties seemed to resurface in the circumstances surrounding my fifth pregnancy. Review Trans-generational psychology describes these phenomena. There are energy fields that create configurations linking the past and birthing the future. They play out in individual lives as well as collectively. Grandma Kay had five children, Ruth Ann had five children, and it was also my destiny to have five children. Though I had tried hard to unearth the patterns of dysfunction present in both families, I realized that consciousness alone could not alter certain patterns. Pregnant with my fifth child and facing my husband’s unsupportive reaction, I found myself in a very trying period. Possibly my intellectual searching and personal quest reinforced my ability to face the situation and find a way to go forward with my husband. I knew about resiliency after working with political asylum seekers facing complex conflicts. I followed their example of courage in the face of difficulty. But my predicament still hit me in the face with full force. Vulnerable, I was Librarianpushed to my knees. I realized that in that humble position all I could do was to kneel and pray that God would watch over me. I would not be bullied. I would not SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 217

compromise my values. The clannish mountain folk could try to break me. They might succeed, but I would not give in. I would do all that I could to carry my child to term, working full-time and supporting my four young children. I would press on. Angelo and I went to counseling to help us work through the relational tensions and conflict that faced us, seeking support during that trying time in our marriage. Jessica’s given name means “God behold.” Though Jessica has been a wonderful gift to our family, her arrival was a difficult test. I had risked losing her when my placenta tore from my uterus while on vacation in Tunisia with my three young boys. The support of the Tunisian Muslim doctor on Djerba Island allowed me to get the medical care that I needed in the midst of the conflicts that ensued following 9/11. Copy Our vacation in Djerba was with a group of prominent Olympic competitors from the French-speaking part of Switzerland. The organizer was a track-and-field star. She had developed a concept allowing tourists to enjoy the Tunisian island in the presence of top athletes. Among the many athletes there was a downhill ski racer, a bike racer, and a soccer player. There was also a team of comedians. The boys trained with the athletes and participated in the organized activities while I was forced to rest. I had run the half marathon of Lausanne just weeks earlier. An actor in the group who worked in Paris would tell me stories in the evening over dinner about the Island of Djerba. He explained that Homer in the Odyssey arrived on Djerba, the Gentle Isle, also known as the Lotus Island, where he sought temporary refuge after being drivenReview by a storm for ten days. Somehow, I too had arrived on the soft sands of the orchard island, fleeing from the conflict that inflamed my heart. I was greeted by the soft, gentle energy associated with Djerba. It was as if I had been taken there to repose, like a wounded soldier, protected and distanced from my Swiss husband and his clan. Angelo moved out for a short period during my pregnancy, which gave me some peaceful space. At Christmas, when it was time to get the tree, my three young boys trudged out to the forest with me to find our own Christmas tree. It was our tradition. We brought the saw, spotted the tallest tree that we could carry, and proceeded to saw it down. I got down in the snow and sawed with Sven, and Nils helped steady the tree trunk. We carried home our tree, and they prepared the tree with an ax so that it would fit into the tree stand. We placed our tree in the middle of our high-ceilinged living room. It was the tallest and the grandest Christmas tree Librarianthat we have ever had. When Angelo stopped by the chalet and saw our Christmas tree, he was in disbelief that we had carried on. 218 HOMING IN

Unfortunately, his mother had given him her full support to go against me. When he had spoken to my mother Jan on the phone, very upset and inconsolable, she had said, “Angelo, that baby will be the apple of your eye.” And she was right. My adopted mother found the right words to convince Angelo that he had the strength to take on the responsibility of a fifth child. In contrast, his mother’s response castrated him and risked endangering his own child’s life. My American family was aghast. How could these so-called Catholics act in such a way? Again, the primitive, clannish response, designating me as the outsider instead of offering me the love and security I needed, won over reason and civility. When Angelo’s father had died, his mother had told him that he would never be able to successfully run his father’s company. His mother’s words brokeCopy him down instead of building him up and seeing the ability he had to overcome and even triumph in his personal and professional endeavors. Angelo’s family patterns were playing into mine. We each had a part of the responsibility. But at some point, you have to decide where you place your loyalty. I told my children that we were a team and that working together we would be able to work through our situation and find a way forward. I bought laundry baskets for each child and organized their laundry, asking them to help me put their clothes away. We watched good movies together on the weekends, and we kept on keeping on. I got my strength by looking into their eyes and seeing their love for me. I assumed my responsibility to them hoping that my husband would find the inner strength and assurance that he Reviewtoo could assume the financial responsibility of such a large family. We were a soul team. In them I found the stamina to stay on my feet and to overcome. I would play the song “I Believe I Can Fly” from Space Jam, the film where Michael Jordan is a little boy playing basketball, dreaming under the night stars about becoming a basketball star. We would pull the couch to the side of the living room and dance. I tried my best to be resilient and encourage the children in all their activities. I needed to believe in the power of fairy dust, like in the story of Peter Pan. I needed something magical to allow us all to fly above the drama that was whirling through our house like the wind that bangs open the windows when there is a bad storm outside. I wanted to open the shutters and fly with my young children to a better place, a place like Neverland, where my childhood dreams were still alive. My cultural Self, Librarianmy American identity, was like the shadow that Peter Pan didn’t want to lose and had Tinkerbell the fairy sew to his feet. When I looked at my shadow on the wall, I SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 219

was scared of losing the shadow of my youth, my language, and my heritage. What would I become without my shadow? I bought music by my favorite artists to strengthen my sense of Self. My new CD collection became a kind of buttress for my soul. I reconnected with the words and melodies of my past that had forged my inner pathways, creating a resonance with my beliefs and reminding me of the events I had associated with the songs I so loved to listen to and sing aloud. The lyrics embedded me in my culture, affirming my existence in the lines of melody that had been singing in my ears as a young child, teenager, and young woman before moving so far away. I came back from that musical space more alive and restored. I wanted so badly to flip through the chapters of the Book of Life Copyto that magical moment when, looking into my husband’s eyes, he could say, “You are the love of my life. You have loved me well.” I most desired the shelter of his love, as well as the protection of his strong body. I prayed daily to make things right. I hoped he would choose me, choose us, and put us before his loyalties to his clan. But I have come to realize that those words are culturally, socially, and linguistically configured or formatted. His “mother tongue” can’t seem to pronounce those words. Through the years, hoping for a more romantic dialogue, I might have misinterpreted his communication signals that use different expressions to affirm love. I would have to go back to the United States to hear those words. Most importantly for our young children, Angelo homed in, assuring our family’s well-being and security. As we homedReview in to each other, the distorted patterns feeding into our conflicts were transcended. We found the strength love brings to support life, assuming together our growing family. During that period, my birth parents sent their favorite children’s books for me to read to my own children. Sharing character-building stories was a wonderful way to bond. As they are both educators, children’s stories have always played a central role in the way they educated their children. Reading the family story around the campfire in Montana was an important Wylie ritual. Ruth Ann sent me The Country Bunny, a story that speaks to my heart. It is about Mother Cottontail and her twenty-one little bunnies. Still, she wants to be chosen to serve wise Grandfather Bunny. At a special contest, she proved she could meet the criteria and that she had successfully taught her large family of bunnies to perform in accordance. Finally, Mother Cottontail is chosen by Grandfather Bunny Librarianto accomplish the most honored task. Grandfather Bunny says to her, “You are not only wise, kind, and swift, but you are also the bravest of bunnies. And I shall make 220 HOMING IN

you my very own Gold Shoe Easter Bunny.”34 He gave her a pair of golden shoes, which allowed her to deliver a very special Easter egg to a sick boy high up in a mountain cottage. Mother Cottontail is able to fulfill her dreams in spite of her large family of little bunnies. She taught them well and knows that she can leave the house and they will assume the daily chores. Though Mother Cottontail develops the inner qualities necessary to be chosen to deliver the Easter egg baskets, Grandfather Bunny most admires her bravery. Indeed, mothers with large families need a rare form of bravery to accomplish the tasks that they are chosen to perform. The day I was called to help at the helicopter accident, I felt chosen. As soon as I had finished my written master’s thesis, I was called to mediate. CopyThe accident had provided me with a unique experience to prove my capabilities in difficult situations. On site, I adapted my approach to the circumstances and needs of the Indian people and the police. The crisis management that I had learned in the line of duty was a skill I found myself using in my own life. The stories of resiliency shared by political asylum seekers during mediation sessions were examples of courage that inspired me. Knowledgeability supported me with practices that aided my walk through challenging life experiences. An alchemical mix of the pioneer spirit instilled in me, professional training I’ve received, and literature I’ve read all lifted me. Believing I could, I put on my golden shoes and jumped, like the Country Bunny, to the very top of the mountain. Review Another book that made an impact on me in that trying time was Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinola Estés. Before going to bed, I made a ritual of reading her stories. Drawing from the archetype of the wild woman, they sustained me by lulling me to sleep in an enchanted world where story is medicine. Her art of storytelling connected me to the foundational archetypes of womanhood, giving me strength and joy as I ventured into the unknown. While playing my favorite Christmas songs, I took to heart the words from “O Holy Night”: “Fall on your knees, O hear the Angels voices, O night divine, O night when Christ was born.” During trying moments, music can help to sublimate our darkest nights. As an answer to my prayers, our good friends arrived in our ski resort for LibrarianChristmas. They mediated with loving-kindness, helping to repair our family bond. 34 Du Bose Heyward and Marjorie Hack, The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes, (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 1967). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 221

Angelo came to a place of inner confidence that he could take care of, provide for, and protect his wife and children—the family circle he had come to realize was the closest to his heart. Over time, the love Angelo and I have for our family project has continued to connect us, forging an enduring bond. It has become clearer over the years that we belong to our children and to their unfolding futures. Affiliations with parents that acted like a ball and chain were gradually removed. The past lost its grip on us, and we were freed from past misguided loyalties and relations. Remarkably, an open flyway appeared. Flapping our new relational wings in unison, we charted a more promising line of flight. As Angelo’s tight clannish circle fell to the ground like defeatedCopy tin soldiers, sacrificed in the battle of life, I stood standing. Behind my prairie skirts, protected from the dust and gun smoke, my five children took refuge from the battle. They were remarkably unscathed, as was I. After all the fighting, it became evident that the future was on my side. The incredible synchronicities that unfolded in my life taught me to trust in divine presence. I began to understand that I could prepare myself with hard work and determination, but God was in charge. I learned to surrender to God’s plan knowing that the events in my life were beyond anything I could have orchestrated. This was true in my personal life as well as my professional life. I have been forced to cultivate patience and learn to wait, knowing that all good things happen in time. God’s plan is revealed to the faithfulReview through time.

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In 1977 after winning the modeling contest, a professional photographer came to our house to get pictures for a press release. He captured this moment with Leigh jumping on the trampoline and Nancy and me in the background. Review

Librarian My birth parents, adopted mother and two sisters from my adopted family were all present for my daughter Katrina’s wedding. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 223

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Our first official family portrait when I returned This photo was taken when we came back to for my European Master’s Degree in Mediation Omaha for Sven’s baptism. This was our last research internship. Mossman family picture before my parent’s Reviewdivorce.

Librarian After our initial meeting at West Point, Ryan came back to Lincoln and we took this first sibling portrait before we knew about our sister Cathy. 224 HOMING IN

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The Mossman family at Leigh’s wedding with my children. Review

Librarian Michelle’s wedding. The first family event where we were all together after connecting with my sister Cathy, just before Grandma Kay’s death. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 225

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We five siblings with our parents at Cathy’s daughter Reba’s wedding. Review

Librarian With my sister Michelle, the first summer we met. An incredibly bonding moment! 226 HOMING IN

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My grandparents, Marion and Harland, and Grandma Kay, all participated in our reunion celebration. Review

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The first day I met my parents at my July 5th birthday dinner in ashingtonW DC SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 227

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The first summer when the four generations met: LibrarianRuth Ann, Susie, Katrina, and Grandma Kay. 228 HOMING IN

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LibrarianThe article that announced my adoption in the Omaha World Herald! CHAPTER 28

THE EULOGY Copy fter Poppy’s death in 1999 and Marnie’s death in 2002, the health of Dave, my adopted father, declined. Poppy and Marnie had been so disappointed A with their only son following the affair and addiction to cocaine that they wanted to disinherit him. I convinced Poppy that would not be a wise decision. I tried to explain that when he and Marnie passed away, my father needed to know that he was unconditionally loved and forgiven. I tried to explain that from the perspective of the soul, disinheriting my adopted father would only cause more suffering. I was convinced that Poppy could only die in peace if he was able to forgive his only son. They ultimately left him a symbolic sum of money so as not to completely disinherit him. My father’s knowledge of the shameReview his father felt toward him was likely a large factor in why, at the reception following Poppy’s funeral, he passed on my grandfather’s golden pocket watch to someone he felt more deserving: Bill Tomson, the mentored son of my grandfather. My dad, recalling the dreams and ambitions that they had shared as young men, had come to the conclusion that the mentored son merited his father’s heirloom watch. It was a moment of reckoning. In that one gesture, my father somehow felt he was bowing to the honorable man that deserved to receive, through a lineage of sacred values, this precious token of recognition. He admitted his defeat to the better man and probably wanted to restore my grandfather’s lost honor and disappointment, the perceived failings of his only son. My grandfather often said that my father had traded his birthright for a can of worms. As my father extended the pocket watch like a peace pipe in a circle of reconciliation, he was not just giving Bill the watch; he was making a gesture that Librarianhe must have hoped my grandfather was able to see from heaven. Again, my father, the only son, engrossed in himself, forgot about us. His responsibility to his three daughters and our rightful inheritance had slipped his 230 HOMING IN

mind. And though I was the oldest, I was adopted. That fact was something that I didn’t realize up till then mattered much. I remember being told how special I was when I first inquired about where I came from and my parents responded, offering their story of my adoption. I had always felt loved as equally as my sisters were loved. My father had given me his gold Cross pen, but that didn’t feel nearly as significant as Poppy’s watch. Apparently, genes mattered more to my father than I had thought, especially as he had grown older. There was only one time in my life that I had felt a twinge in my heart picking up that I was just the adopted child. That event was when my father’s grandmother came to our house to see us. I had faithfully written letters to Great-grandmother Moss, as we called her. But when she came to visit, she gave her antiqueCopy watch to my little sister Nancy. The relationship that I had fostered through the letters was secondary. She had come to see the great-granddaughter of her lineage. Her gesture made me see into her understanding of bloodlines and inheritance. Her recognition went to my sister Nancy, the first-great grandchild in her eyes. In all fairness, she did give me a Bible. Much later, my father offered his own pocket watch to Nancy’s son, Maxwell. Like his grandmother, the heirloom piece was passed on to the child born from his bloodline. I felt bad for my overlooked sons. My father’s gesture resembled that of his grandmother, causing me the same twinge in my heart. The awakening pain overtook me in a most surprising way because I realized the wound had only partially healed. The separation fromReview my original family must have marked my body-mind with a feeling of being left behind and overlooked. I didn’t exist within their family circle, and that empty space felt close to banishment. In that emptiness, there was a seething unconscious pain that reminded me of a past trauma that I had imagined was behind me. Possibly, I had never been aware of the physical marks that primal wound had left. My adoption allowed me to have a special place in the Mossman family circle. But maybe the Mossmans had loved me differently. Being passed over in that way was painful. My father overlooking my own children seemed an even graver consequence. It was a shockwave that seemed to be arriving through space-time like the Big Bang that astro-physicians observe with their telescopes. I wasn’t prepared. What was the rightful inheritance of the adopted child? I learned that it might not be the same as that of natural descendants, but if genes were the criteria for Librarianbelonging, I couldn’t compete. And yet, I was the daughter who had known my father in his best years. I was SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 231

his best buddy when he was more involved in our lives. I had the memories of many special outings we had taken together. He had taught me to love the great outdoors. He pushed me to be courageous and forced me to overcome dangers by initiating me in the wild. Being his daughter allowed me to cultivate idealism under the banner of privilege. But the biological difference over time and generations did seem to matter, especially when it came to passing things on. There is what we have, what we receive, and what we choose to pass on—to whom we will our fortune and precious belongings. We are only stewards. However, our lives and our examples do live on through the generations. Objects like the golden pocket watch become symbolic objects of transition passed down through family lines. Though I hadCopy been given up, the watch was bequeathed. Maybe this fundamental difference in intention resonated in the relational exchange. My father gave the second watch to Mr. Tomson, and in so doing, created a line of inheritance by merit. The treasured prize went to my grandfather’s mentored son. My father’s decision opened up a new and meaningful passageway through the generations that would later unexpectedly allow the golden pocket watch to literally fall into my lap years later. When it did, it was a powerful aesthetic encounter. In Far From The Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, Andrew Solomon looks at parent-child relationships that challenge our recognition of Self in the other, delving into the circumstances of those children whose portrait, for some reason or another, didn’t seem to mirrorReview that of his or her parents. He writes:

We depend on the guarantee in our children’s faces that we will not die. Children whose defining quality annihilates that fantasy of immortality are a particular insult; we must love them for themselves, and not for the best of ourselves in them, and that is a great deal harder to do. Loving our own children is an exercise for the imagination. Yet blood, in modern as in ancient societies, is thicker than water. Little is more gratifying than successful and devoted children, and few situations are worse than filial failure or rejection. Our children are not us; they carry throwback genes and recessive traits and are subject right from the start to environmental stimuli beyond our control. And yet we are our children; the reality of being a parent never leaves those who have braved the Librarianmetamorphosis.35 35 Andrew Solomon. Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity. (1st Scribner hardcover ed. New York: Scribner, 2012), 1. 232 HOMING IN

Possibly the fact that neither I nor my offspring were mirroring back clearly enough my adopted father’s coveted traits contributed to his decisions concerning the transmission of the family heirloom from his pocket to that of his biological grandson’s. From a distant social science perspective, this seems to be only understandable in view of the preceding analysis. However, the child in me has taken time to come to peace with the fact that in spite of the fairytale childhood that I was given, in the end I fell too far from the tree. Grief from letting go of those I loved through death and my old identity, as well as my illusions of what it meant to be a stay-at-home mother, piled up in front of me like a stack of clothes needing to be folded and put away. Dave suffered from several chronic and life-threatening illnesses, and when I felt the timeCopy was right, I brought all the children back to be with him. We had a special summer together with my sisters Nancy and Leigh and their families. I was able to be there for my father when he woke up from his skin cancer operation. My son Sven came with me to the hospital. We did our best to show him that we loved him. But Switzerland was too far away to be able to help with the daily challenges that illness brings on. We couldn’t just stop by and comfort him with a kiss. During that family visit, we went to a photographer to have a family picture taken. We had one picture taken with our mother and father sitting side by side. Then, we took a second picture where Dody sat next to my father. When I received the two pictures, I asked my mother if I could frame them together. She agreed, saying, “Okay, if my picture’s on top.Review After all, I’m the first wife.” We were lucky that Jan and Dody could get along. It made it much easier on the children. When I flew with Sven to my father’s funeral the next summer, Yann was staying with my sister in Texas for the summer and he drove up with their family. Before the funeral, I had felt my father’s presence asking me to speak at the funeral. I received the inspiration necessary to prepare my speech. When I arrived home, the woman who was organizing the funeral, a close family friend, called to ask me to speak at my father’s funeral. It seemed that she had picked up on the energy of the encounter that I had with my father’s soul. As my adopted sisters partied the night before the funeral, I sat on the front porch of my adopted mother’s home, outlining what I was going to say as the sun set. Jan an Bob’s property sat up on a hill surrounded by cornfields. In the evening as the sun sets, the fields are touched by a golden hue before the sun’s huge ball of Librarianfire plunges out of sight. Nebraska skies offer an open horizon much different from that of the Alpine region where I live. There is so much wide-open space on the SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 233

prairie. As I thought about what I was going to say, deer crossed the road up to the house. I was filled with a peaceful presence. The landscape contained my sorrow and the familiar scenery comforted me during that time of mourning. The next day as I found myself speaking to those who had gathered to give their dues to my dear father, I could identify my families in the crowd from the pulpit. It was surreal. On the right side my adopted mother was sitting with her husband. In the front row was my adopted father’s widow, Dody. My sons Sven and Yann were sitting next to her. My sisters were sitting behind Dody with their husbands and children. And on the left side, right in front of me, I could see my birth father, my birth mother, and my sister Cathy. As I spoke of my deceased adopted father, my birth father was smilingCopy proudly at me, encouraging me to speak with dignity. It was an incredible demonstration of the improbable. As I spoke, my two sons looked up at me, taking in the experience and observing how their American family handled death. My sisters looked tired from going to the bars the night before, their way to deal with their grief. I was the oldest, and the responsibility came to me to speak for our father and to tell my version of his life’s story. I almost felt guilty that their one father had died, and I still had another father present at the funeral, like a spare tire in the trunk. As I found my voice, I explained that we would all have a different story to tell about Dave, and my eulogy was just my own narrative, my way of honoring our father. David was a golden boy, growing up after World War II in an age of prosperity. The hue of his era was the same colorReview of gold that could be seen on the cornfields when the sun goes down. He had an eye for beauty, a taste for risk, and an unnerving confidence that he could make it through anything. He had taught me to be strong and confident. He had loved me and held me in his arms. He had let me live far away without making me feel guilty about my choice. And he encouraged me to achieve the goals that I had set for myself. He defied conventional society. In his death he confirmed his faith, possibly the only birthright worth living for. The last days of his life he had been at the hospital where he had had a vision. He saw two crosses. He knew it was time. He asked Dody to take him home, and he died a few days later at the farmhouse in his chair overlooking the fields and the Missouri River. David recognized the sign. His heavenly father symbolically appeared to him and called him home to rest after years of illness and fighting to stay alive. LibrarianWe all will face death. When we experience divine presence, there is a feeling of peace that allows us to accept our destiny. David’s example, his story, is yet another 234 HOMING IN

confirmation that spirit does indeed triumph. Possibly the most beautiful part of David’s story is that we were all there for him. We had accepted his choices and reconciled. After the Scottish bagpipes played “Amazing Grace,” his military division fired shots in his honor. By chance, it was the same division that my brother Ryan was in at the time. After the funeral, we all met at Dody’s brother’s home for lunch. Dody prepared gifts for the boys. She gave Sven the watch that my dad wore. My father’s bracelet was reserved for Nils. Yann received a piggy bank in the form of a metal box and Katrina a crystal paper holder. She ensured that remembrances of my father were passed on to the children. I have come to understand that even if Nancy’s son got the goldenCopy heirloom watch, I should not forget that I received the golden Cross pen. A pen should be used to write, to tell tall tales and fairytales, and now and then to write down one’s own recollections. My story symbolically flows from this golden pen, the one given to me from my father David. At the airport bookstore as I was traveling back to Switzerland, a lone book stood out on the bookshelf: Carole Shield’s Stone Diaries. It seemed to confirm my growing attraction to multi-layered narratives. It seemed that Dody had always been in my life. She was my father’s friend and then secretary at the family real estate business, answering the office phone, collecting rents, and paying the company’s bills. She even came on vacations with us. Dody’s good taste in clothes was wellReview known and she would pass on nice outfits to me. She helped me find summer jobs either working for her friend at a chic clothing store or in her own restaurant, Miss Kitty’s Bar, that she ran when I was in college. Though the farm was sold, Dody is allowed to live in the farmhouse until her death. She has decorated and refurbished it with her flare for interior design. When we go to see her on Blackbird Bend Farm, the children enjoy riding the four-wheeler up and down the dirt road. She has become the keeper of that special place. Following David’s passing, Jan and Michael exchanged e-mails. Here is the message that Michael wrote: Librarian SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 235

Jan, Thank you for thinking of sharing this uplifting message with me. It struck me as interesting that your e-mail arrived the day before I heard about Dave’s death. Ruth Ann and I discussed all the synchronicities of yours and Dave’s lives with our lives because of our connection with Susie. I think we have shared those we discovered before. Here are a couple of new ones we learned from Dave’s obituary. Both he and I were in ROTC at UN-L, separated by 9 years. He branched Infantry and posted at the 101st. So did our son, Ryan. Dave and I were only children. Susie and Dave climbed Medicine Bow Peak and Ruth Ann and I and our children have climbed it several times, once perhaps the very same summer they did! We have all beenCopy blessed to have Susie in our lives! Thank you for raising Susie to be such a lovely, thoughtful person. It was nice to see you today, Michael Wylie

The processes of interaction between my biological context and my environ- mental context were playing out in an intricate, developing relational system. My adopted parents had always loved me, and my biological parents loved and embraced me too as part of their family. We were all developing through our interactions and becoming more aware of the many blessings of our reunion and the amazing grace we had experienced together. We hadReview gone through a metamorphosis. And my inheritance is this amazing story.

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Librarian CHAPTER 29

WEAVING A NEW PATTERN Copy e are a part of a web of life, and as the spider spins the web, we must be careful not to get caught in our own inner trappings. In my search to W decipher the meaning of life, a comment from my father Dave during a phone conversation may sum it up best. Jessica was playing on my lap. My father heard her giggle and he said, “There is no more to life than that—a giggle, Suzie. It doesn’t get any better than that.” His words seemed to affirm that life’s about being in that place of joy and laughter, in that place of eternal play. My dad often warned me not to take myself too seriously. I had taken on so many challenges. Yet, the high road, the difficult climb up, might not be the only way. Maybe there’s a path that allows one to breathe easy and take in the beauty of the scenery while picking the flowers.Review Maybe the life force that surrounds us is soft ether that carries us forward like a summer breeze if we let it. Maybe the dancing light of moonbeams on the water is inviting us to come dance at the ball. I can remember kneeling on the bed and looking out the window as a young child saying the words, “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.” The power of our dreams and deepest wishes somehow connects us with the possibility to make our dreams come true. The clarity of our intentions quickens our becomingness. As my father became a star in the sky, I asked for guidance. I needed to find a way to accomplish my professional dreams of becomingness as well as the strength to carry forward my young family, supporting my children as they became young adults. Ultimately, I found the people that were able to support my process. The month following Dave’s funeral, Sven had a ruptured appendix. After the Librarianfirst operation, he returned home only to be rushed back to the emergency room. When his fever rose and his face turned white, I immediately knew that something 238 HOMING IN

was wrong. My worries were confirmed. He ultimately endured four operations before the infection healed and his scar was able to close. During that period, it became apparent that my support system was in the nutshell of my immediate family circle. My children performed as a team, allowing Angelo and me to care for Sven, looking after each other during my absences at the hospital. They came through for me and for our family. Sven missed weeks of school but was ultimately able to pass his year successfully. His English teacher, who happened to be American, convinced him that he should go to the United States for a year abroad. Our dear friends Sandy and Jeff were happy to welcome him to West Virginia, where Sven successfully completed his high school diploma at Langley High School, in the area that hosts the CIA headquarters.Copy During that high school year abroad, Sven participated in a mock court with members of the United States Supreme Court that came to his school. That first experience with the courts of law marked the beginning of his scholarly path. His passion for the law and research at the University of Neuchatel’s law department was ignited by those powerful lawmakers. I believed that scholastic accomplishments would take us forward. Just as my children were working hard to pass their exams, I was writing my thesis, though the Swiss system was making it increasingly unlikely that I would be able to defend successfully. As the political right gained power in Switzerland, the social services were restructured. Political leaders no longer wanted to offer the resources necessary to maintain mediation for political asylumReview seekers. This unfortunate political turn cost me my full-time position at the department of social services. I found myself working at the teacher’s college where I had been placed to work during a six-month period. It was at that moment in time that a colleague introduced me to Mary and Ken Gergen’s book on social psychology and social constructionist theories translated into French. By that time, I knew to trust the signs. I also knew that my father would want me to finish what I had begun, even though defending my doctoral thesis had become more and more problematic. Not only did I find my intellectual family through the Gergens and the Taos Institute, but I also found John Winslade and the narrative model of mediation. Talking with John on the phone solidified our relationship and allowed me to integrate narrative mediation into my thesis. The Taos Institute brought together social constructionists from around the world, offering a doctoral program with the University of Tilburg in Librarianthe Netherlands. As the Swiss institutional system tightened around me like the laces of a tightly SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 239

held corset, imposing a form that didn’t offer the freedom necessary to breathe, I found a hand-tailored suit that allowed me to escape from the confines of an outdated style. I attended classes around Switzerland, the Netherlands, and even the United States. I worked diligently to complete my doctoral thesis in the hopes that I would then be able to find new employment. My dear mentor Joy invited me to a family constellation session to help me with my search for a new career. At that session Joy introduced me to Dr. Cathie Ramus, a professor at the University of Santa Barbara who split her time between California and Switzerland. Cathie became a dear friend and faithfully saw me to the end of my thesis defense. She even had an apartment in our ski resort and came up to ski every weekend. Our friendship grew as we conversed on the ski lifts. Again, the perfectCopy friend and mentor had been ushered into my life at just the right time. I ultimately traveled to Tilburg in the Netherlands to defend my thesis and bring my conflict narratives to the academic world. The social constructionists allowed me to undo the laces and breathe more freely again. With them I confectioned a robe of many colors. It was on their tail skirts that I attained my scholarly dream. While I was preparing my defense in Tilburg, Angelo left on a Christian pilgrimage from Loudres and followed the route of St Jaques-de-Compostelle. Christian pilgrims often do weeks of walking alone, meeting other pilgrims along the way that leads to the Atlantic Ocean. A shell traditionally symbolizes the route. When he returned, he climbed Mt. Blanc in Chamonix with our son Nils and a mountain guide. Mt. Blanc is the highestReview mountain summit in Europe. As I corrected my written work, preparing for the last phase of my academic journey, my husband was ascending his own peak with our son. Angelo came along to coach me for the defense of my thesis in the Netherlands. Katrina, our oldest, took care of Jessica and managed the home front so that we could be together in Tilburg and Angelo could witness me receiving my doctorate. Our good Dutch friends were also present in the audience and standing up behind me, as the tradition goes. The social constructionists that I met through the Taos Institute and Professor John Rijsman provided me with a form of intellectual mentoring that has allowed me to better understand my life and my work. After completing my doctorate, I began working with Raymond Massé, a well- known and highly respected medical anthropologist from Quebec, Canada. I Librarianhad met him a few years earlier at a conference on medical anthropology, and his articles, books, and supervision greatly influenced my approach to health 240 HOMING IN

prevention while working with political asylum seekers and later my research in public health. Synchronicity had it that I was able to work under his supervision while doing mental health needs assessment, working at Valais’ psychiatric hospital. The mentors that come to us influence how we blossom and bloom in the fields of our professional landscapes. Mentors also allow us to receive an intellectual heritage, in turn contributing to our discipline’s legacy. When I was working as a researcher in mental health at the psychiatric hospital, Sven’s godmother, Karin, had to have an important operation. I received an e-mail from friends organizing her care and sharing information about her progress. On that e-mail was my high school boyfriend Bob’s e-mail. When we were dating, we would dream about what we wanted to become someday. He was Copysure that he wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be a psychologist, but he believed I should study psychiatry so that I could prescribe medicine. I decided to do an internship at the children’s psychiatric hospital in our city while we were dating. When I would go in the evenings to help out with the activities, I noticed that the children had to stand in line to receive their medication. When I asked why some of the children had symptoms like shaking, I was told that shaking was a side effect from the medication. People who only had high school diplomas and large key chains supervised the children. I watched on as the children were locked into their rooms when it was bedtime. When I asked how often they saw the psychiatrist, the answer was maybe once every week or two. That experience discouraged me from wanting to study psychiatry. Review When I saw his name on the e-mail list, I remembered that he had realized his dream to be a medical doctor, becoming a professor of neurosurgery. I sent him a copy of my thesis so that he would know that I too had finally achieved my goal as a doctor in the social sciences, using medical anthropology and social psychology in mediation and mental health research. It seemed that we had both known at eighteen what we wanted to do. We had acknowledged each other and had truly been able to share about our aspirations. We had “seen” each other as young students and encouraged each other’s dreams. Hidden layers of meanings are often before us; however, we can’t make out their forms. Bob’s passion for medicine and art brought him to share an article from a neurosurgery journal explaining how Michelangelo painted the anatomy of the brainstem into the panel depicting the creation of Adam. What hidden message Librarianwas the artist communicating by placing this neuroanatomy within the “voice SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 241

box” or throat of God in his painting “Separation From Darkness”?36 Art, religion, science, and faith are superimposed in layers of meaning that only the trained eye can perceive in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo was not only an artistic genius—he also had a profound understanding of human anatomy. His fresco is an iconographic rendering of the image of God. Clustered on the timeline of my life were my father’s death, my son’s ruptured appendix, and my efforts to complete my PhD. There was so much at stake. I so badly wanted to offer my children education and experiences similar to what I had been able to have. The stars I had prayed to in the heavens, where my father now dwelled, shone down, lighting the way. The path forward, though it had seemed hidden, was above me on a celestial map, just like the brain Copywas hidden in Michelangelo’s painting. The Godhead was consciously present, reminding me of who I had dreamed of becoming, while sending me the needed resources to fuel our family’s becomingness.

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Librarian 36 Ian Suk and Rafael J. Tamargo, “Concealed Neuroanatomy in Michelangelo’s Separation of Light From Darkness in the Sistine Chapel,” Neurosurgery. (May 2011): 851-861. Copy

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Librarian CHAPTER 30

FINDING THE PATH FORWARD: BEYOND BARRIERS OF BELONGING Copy

realized that the only noble way forward was to use my higher education to work for social justice by implementing progressive social practices. I had the Iresponsibility as an educated woman to use my knowledge and skills to defend my values and demonstrate my principles. If the discrimination I had experienced was possible, there were other foreigners that were experiencing worse forms of discrimination. My American nationality and privileged education drove me to resist and over- come. My participation on the school board was one of my first formal encounters with the Swiss society and governance. I represented my husband’s party on the school board, as it was assumed in aReview clannish society that I was of the same party even though no one asked. Even at church, I was told that I wasn’t chosen to read the Bible at an important inauguration ceremony because of my American accent. Instead, my husband read in front of the honored guests assembled and sitting in the pews. Shouldn’t I understand? Only people from the village, with the regional accent, should read in front of the privileged guests present on the special inauguration day of our mountain chapel! It was hard to hold my ground and represent the children attending the one- room school in our ski resort. I had gotten involved with the school board because the teachers were physically punishing the children. I felt responsible for all the children in our little village. I couldn’t accept that such abusive forms of punishment were allowed. I was appalled by the attitudes of many of the parents and teachers who considered it normal. There were also many security issues that weren’t Librarianaddressed. Safe crossings and first aid kits had to be fought for. So, I learned how to fight for the children. Where I had come from, there was a consensus concerning 244 HOMING IN

these issues and laws that had already been put in place. In Valais, that consensus didn’t exist. And those in charge didn’t appreciate a foreign woman with an accent advocating for the children’s integrity and security. Social inequality elicits abusive conduct. I decided that becoming an economic equal was my only defense in a culture that valued economic prosperity above all other values. During World War II, the Swiss had sold their souls to Hitler and agreed to launder the Third Reich’s money through the Swiss banking system. Switzerland’s definition of neutrality was more or less an agreement toserve the interests of the Third Reich to preserve the Swiss population. That decision permitted the war to go on much longer. As Dante wrote in the Divine Comedy, neutrality is one of the worstCopy sins. One of President Kennedy’s favorite quotes refers to Dante’s Inferno: “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.”37 As the farm boys from the heartland parachuted in to liberate Europe, the Swiss were upholding a deal with their German neighbors. It was only later that the Bergier commission, written by a prominent Swiss historian, exposed the ethical consequences of that deal to the Swiss people, who listened with mostly deaf ears to the report’s conclusions, which painfully challenged the collective image of Switzerland’s involvement in World War II. Still, the judgments of the past do influence the present. I realized as a young mother living in Switzerland that my democratic values were forged differently from those of the Swiss. It became imperativeReview to me to pass on my values to my children. I did not want them to calculate their worth in monetary numbers—in reference to the money laundering the Swiss performed during WWII—but also in moral courage. The Swiss may be practical, but practicality will never be enough in my eyes. A good education includes the transmission of noble values through literature and cultural experiences that forge moral character. The richness of growing up in a multi-lingual family was hard to preserve over the years. When the children were younger, I spoke English to them, but after they were in school, they preferred French, and the dinner table conversations took place in their father’s language. Just being an American citizen gives me the possibility to know greatness by participating in the democratic process and contributing to societal projects through

Librarian37- John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, “John F. Kennedy’s Favorite Quotations: Danté’s Inferno.” https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Fast-Facts/Dante.aspx (Accessed April 26, 2019). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 245

scientific endeavors. It is a privilege to be American. I continue to ask, “How can engaged dialogues allow us to achieve collective greatness?” Citizens attain greatness by belonging and actively participating in communal responsibilities. Voting, being part of civil society, and serving as volunteers all contribute to collective greatness. As a double national, I can vote and participate in two countries. Smaller countries often govern in more flexible ways, allowing the implementation of innovative solutions to smaller and more homogenous populations. But what is behind the figures when the happiest countries and states have the highest suicide rates? Noble social challenges bring meaning to life in ways that are not yet understood. Does social strife and the shared experience of unhappiness protect people in less happy regions from suicide? Does it pull them togetherCopy and give them something to strive for? Possibly the capacity to continue to make sense of life, even when faced with difficulties, is more important than happiness itself. The meaning-making process allows us to endure. Indeed, my birthright as both a Mossman and a Wylie allowed me to participate in the twenty-first century’s movements in the United States. Decisions made by American citizens can create disasters when war is declared or when the country pollutes more than its neighbors. However, there is an unequaled strength when combined efforts forge the future in hopeful social designs. My birthright links me to a responsible American citizenship that I have never wanted to let go of, and certainly not for just one man, even if he is my husband. I am passing on my American heritage to my children, andReview in doing so, have offered them an important cultural connection. But dual citizenship tears at belonging, ripping loyalties to shreds. It is a vessel that can be a rough ride, making you seasick. The story of Guillaume Tell has become an important Swiss myth of assembling the nation while defining the people’s understanding of liberty. He is portrayed shooting an arrow through an apple and off the head of his son at an order from a tyrant. His excellent marksmanship allows him to shoot the apple off his son’s head without actually harming his son. Indeed, as we face injustice, the challenge as parents is how not to let the situation injure our children, making them the victims of our adult predicaments. Double nationals face growing complexities in a rapidly evolving world. Nationalist movements are changing laws, as seen in the Brexit negotiations that create great instability for all those from Great Britain who thought they were European and could therefore raise their children abroad. LibrarianPassports, working permits, voting rights, and income tax are all elements that contribute to the complexity international families face. 246 HOMING IN

Over the years I have listened to the discussions of “Swissness” that have intensified following the Swiss vote to not become a part of the European Union. The Swiss political neutrality has been ever since negotiated in ongoing diplomatic talks that allow the country to be in a liminal form of belonging in the center of the European continent. Believing that liberty must be for all and not just for those who have hereditary rights, my own identity is confronted, yet again, with the challenge of belonging. I am Swiss by marriage, but still for many Swiss, I lack an important composition: Swiss blood. Yet I long for my rightful place in Swiss society. I believe that I should be able to hold a position of responsibility in my canton in congruence with my abilities even though I don’t share the leadership’s bloodlines. In thisCopy sense, I am an adopted national child seeking rightful recognition. I believe I deserve equal access to jobs and social position in correspondence with my academic achievements even though I am a woman. Yet I have been confronted with barriers that seem to be becoming harder and harder to penetrate. The pressure put on foreigners to integrate has intensified over the years to a point where the value of foreign residents is measured by their capacity to integrate—a reduction of sorts for all those who aspire to express their own unique gifts in relation to their heritage and talents. Spouses can be sent home if their marriages end in divorce before they are able to attain Swiss citizenship. The richness of social inclusion as a higher form of getting along together has been exchanged for policies of integrationReview and assimilation. Interestingly enough, the importance of integration has been accentuated during a period when Swiss citizens have voted consistently to refuse to integrate into the European Union, negotiating their belonging with treaties defending their right to stand alone in the middle of Europe. Adoption as well as dual citizenship have shown me that there are indeed many barriers to belonging. Another dimension of the conundrum of being a double national is the unfair American tax system affecting Americans living abroad. This aspect of tax laws as well as the importance of reform are unfortunately unknown to the majority of Americans. This Kafkaesque bureaucratic situation has pushed many Americans, desperately torn by the unfairness of the situation and their national identity, to give up their citizenship. Many friends have spoken to me of their distraught tears as they felt forced to return their blue passports to the American embassy, unable Librarianto pay the burden of double taxation and fees for tax returns. The current tax laws don’t take into consideration the difficulties middle class SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 247

Americans face as they try to comply with nonsensical laws and changing currency rates as the depreciation of the American dollar further complicates the predicament of citizens living abroad. The situation for Americans in Switzerland intensified under the Obama administration when the American government requiring all Americans with foreign bank accounts—many of which were Swiss—to report their accounts. The wealthy Americans that seek tax havens as well as the banks and offshore accounts that have hidden their money have made it almost impossible for normal, law-abiding citizens to hold a bank account and find mortgages when living abroad in Switzerland. The dilemma arises and intensifies for our family stemming from the fact that I raised my children in Switzerland. Their father is Swiss. We have livedCopy here since we were married. My work experiences have been in Switzerland. I feel torn between the powers that are ripping my double nationality in two. The love I have for my husband and children gives me the strength to find a path of integrity, preserving a sense of unity despite the many challenges of multiple national loyalties and obligations. Our love and our commitment to our family obliges us to find a way forward that respects our family’s Swiss heritage without becoming a prisoner of the local culture. In the same way, we are meeting the challenge forced upon us from on the other side of the Atlantic. We are actively trying to find solutions to the Kafkian American bureaucracy and the unimaginable conflicts that have arisen. My vision of “Swissness,” in contrast to the Swiss people’s idea came from the artists, philosophers, and researchersReview that I had read and studied over the years. Karl Bodmer’s painting offered an exterior landscape of meaning by showing the scenery of the Great American West to the greater public. Europeans and Americans were inspired by the beauty of the land and the cultural details portrayed in his sketches showing the Native American ceremonies, costumes, and way of living. Piaget, the famous psychologist, developed theories on the cognitive development of children at the University of Neuchatel. The well-known lifework of Jung shifted the world’s attention to the inner landscapes of meaning during the last century, shaping our understanding of the collective unconsciousness and establishing psychoanalytical practices throughout the Western world. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, an American-Swiss psychiatrist, was dedicated to bring- ing death and dying to the forefront. Her many books and clinical experiences transformed how we care for the dying, accompanying our loved ones as they face Librarianimportant phases leading to a kind of acceptance that allows them to pass over to the next life. Recently, Bertrand Piccard, a psychiatrist, flew around the world 248 HOMING IN

raising consciousness about clean, renewable energy aboard hot air balloons and his Solar Impulse. His routes erase traditional borders, offering a planetary vision of connectedness. The missions of the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the Red Cross, all of which have headquarters in Geneva, have always inspired me, calling us all to be world citizens. The international organizations implanted on Swiss soil attract people from around the world dedicated to bettering our world. This is my Switzerland. In Heidi and The Children of the Alps, Johanna Spyri portrayed a mountain lifestyle valuing healing and education. Her descriptions of the Alpine flowers, the young goat herders, and village life opened up my mind’s eye to a rare naturalCopy beauty. Her close relationship to her grandfather was yet another aspect of the story that I could relate to on a more personal level. I could relate to these representations of Swissness, incorporating this heritage and these values into lines of inheritance I desired to pass on. The positive representations that I first related to were later challenged by hidden aspects that I hadn’t been aware of when I moved to Switzerland as Angelo’s wife. Yet that was to be expected. I was in love and would have followed him anywhere. I am happy to have raised my children in the Alps, at one with this pristine environment where they have forged strong human-earth relations. The power of the Swiss myths worked on my psyche from childhood into young adulthood, calling me to the Alpine pastures. ButReview coming into my own meant questioning the postcard stereotypes that vacationers settle for during their travels. Stepping over the threshold of my chalet door, a passage opened into village life. I fitted myself with new attire, adorning myself with both sword and shield, adventuring forward on the hero’s journey that Joseph Campbell refers to as the monomyth. However, individual pathways rise out of social contexts. My footing wasn’t as sure in this new social and cultural landscape. The terrain was different, forcing me to learn how to walk in a new stepwise way.

A good friend, Doris, originally from the Swiss German region, lived near Geneva but was part of the Isérables Ski Club. Doris had gone to England on a swimming scholarship and spoke English well. She was a few years older than my mother Jan Librarianand had four children of my generation that were all avid skiers. Her youngest daughter competed and became an extreme skiing champion. Doris took me under SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 249

her wing, modeling how to organize family life. She had also been president of the American Women’s Club in Geneva, which gave her understanding about where I was coming from and how I could find a pathway of inclusion in relation to my new social and cultural surroundings. During her career as a Swissair hostess and after her retirement, she was actively involved in her community. Doris taught me to cook, shared her lifestyle with me, invited me to her home, and even accompanied me back to Omaha to visit. She helped me build a bridge between my two worlds. When she would come to Valais, she would run the ski club cabin’s summer restaurant to support the club. She even taught me to make tomato cheese fondue that is poured over potatoes. Though she was from the Geneva region, she was able to share in the mountainCopy people’s life, actively participating in the community while enjoying skiing and mountain sports. Her model helped me find a way to incorporate my own background into the Alpine landscape. Driven by a longing to be useful in the society where I live, co-constructing the good life within my community, I followed Doris’s example, raising my family and finding a way to contribute within the local context. Belonging is more than just feeling at home in a place. It is also about having the possibility to contribute in a meaningful way. There is a strong need for appreciation within a community. Though my family upbringing and university studies have provided a large network of relationships, I continue to yearn to participate in a larger social learning organization where I can share my knowledge in a recognizedReview position. New technologies have allowed me to be part of various supra national communities of practice while living in an Alpine region. Still, our chalet remains a kind of American enclave. The metamyths are the big stories that are behind the little stories. Rooted in our cultural myths, we adventure out into the unknown, supported by our guides who appear in a multitude of different forms. The guardian of the threshold appears when we least expect it, challenging us in the depths of the abyss. But the transformational process eventually leads to atonement and the return home, wherever that may be. Life trajectories are fashioned through our response-ability. Hence, the importance of our capacity to act, participating through social advocacy and democratie à venir (democracy to come), in the words of Jacques Derrida. Ultimately, life forces us to home in to wherever we find ourselves, growing where Librarianwe are planted, and bonding to places that give rise to ever-richer narratives. Copy

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Librarian PART 3 Copy

BELONGING: DESIGNING MY MEDICINE SHIELD

Joseph Campbell ends The Masks of the God by writing, “But in the end, as in the case of Parzival, the guide within will be his own noble heart alone, and the guide without, the image of beauty, the radiance of divinity, that wakes in his heart amor: the deepest inmost seed of his nature, consubstantial will the process of the All, ‘thus come.’ And in this life-creative adventure, the criterion will be, as in everyoneReview of the tales here reviewed, the courage to let go of the past, with its truth, its goals, its dogmas of ‘meaning,’ and its gifts: to die to the world and to come to birth from within.”38

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38 Joseph Campell, The Masks of God: Creative Mythology, 677. Emphasis added. Copy

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Librarian CHAPTER 31

THE MEANING-MAKING PROCESS Copy ach and every human life is a unique story. We are all faced with archetypical challenges that resonate with fairytales, Bible stories, and the Greek E classics. The meaning-making process emerges from the images and stor- ies that we are culturally embedded in. Our lives require a cultural backdrop to be understood. Though we all go through different experiences, we remain connected to the collective consciousness that is a matrix of meaning configuring our relationships. Our path emerges from this matrix and confirms itself as we can see the synchronicities that empower us, bringing us closer to the sacred and our personal way of understanding narrative truth and Self evolving toward wholeness. This Way forward is what Jung called “individuation.” The narrative process is a creativeReview process. As we tell our stories, we transform experience, adding on layers of representations and meaning, enrobing the many happenings in our daily life with elucidations that take on aesthetic form. As we practice prayer, meditation, and sacred forms of art, we elevate our energetic vibrations and transform our lives. As we elevate our being-ness through daily spiritual practices incorporating the sacred, we see life differently. The inspiration that is often the gift resulting from our practices allows us to see our lives through a new, more positive lens of gratitude. This new lens is part of the process allowing for our personal transfiguration. Jung’s The Red Book39 that was kept secret for decades and finally published by his family after his death in 2009 shows the Swiss psychiatrist’s personal pathway toward healing and individuation recorded in his stories handwritten in a beautiful Librariancalligraphy accompanied by his original artwork. He was guided by figures that 39 Sonu Shamdasani, and Carl G. Jung. The Red Book =: Liber Novus. (1st ed. Philemon Series. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2009). 254 HOMING IN

came to him in his dreams, revealing the truths that became the basis of his unique psychotherapeutic approach, decrypting the psyche. Philemon was a central figure representing higher knowledge guiding Jung’s relentless investigations into the soul’s life-creative and regenerative powers. Stephan Hoeller has written about Jung’s experiential approach, referring to a “Gnostic Jung”40 whose insights emerged from symbols of transformation. Alchemy is a symbolic representation of the individuation process that is a central Jungian concept. Alchemy also refers to transformational processes. My journey speaks of relational maps, following guidance, blazing trails, and building bridges. This cartography process, pinpointing the landmarks of my life, allowed me to find the Way, a form of “narrative truth” resultingCopy from the autoethnographic process that transforms perception. Joseph Campbell spoke of the Hero’s Journey in reference to Parzival and the legends of the Holy Grail. When the path under foot is infused with empowering mythical representation, our lives are transformed by visions of potentiality. We begin to walk like heroes. Facing brokenness elicited a strong desire for linkedness. As I looked deeply into my story and Cathy’s story, I wanted to find a pathway that would allow us both to walk through relational disappointments and illusions and emerge more connected than before. Even more importantly, I became aware of the impact our life choices have on individual and collective destiny. Still, I believed that divine presence had provided signs in the form of synchronicity for our reunion, and that this same force, possibly the Holy Spirit,Review would not abandon us in the midst of this shared transformational process. So, I kept searching for the interlaced path where God’s will and my will were one, hoping with all my heart that I could transform transgenerational patterns. Trusting in divine guidance, I forged a daily relationship with what I understand to be living wisdom. Carrying the responsibility of my destiny and that of my five children, I constructed a vessel of journeymanship, in the hopes that it would carry us all to a new world where reconciliation, acceptance, and forgiveness would restore balance after riding such fierce waves. While incarnating hopefulness, I prayed daily that I would be lifted and transformed, and that all would ultimately be well. As the process widened and deepened like a river flowing toward its source, my Librarianautoethnographic writing has become more and more a spiritual journey. My map 40 Stephan A. Hoeller, The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead. (Quest Books, Wheaton, Illinois, 2009). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 255

has expanded like a balloon, becoming a round globe. The relational terrain of my friendships and family ties has been a wonderful playground of adventure. The motivation to live and to love has incessantly fueled my personal quest. At times, I have felt called by a barely audible voice, yet a voice that was able to direct my feet along the path. I love to run, and the mountain path I traverse is like an old friend that I look forward to meeting. My feet know the terrain and I enjoy the turns in the path that offer new views of the mountains and smells from the changing flowers and trees that border the narrow trail cut out on the mountainside, an ancient irrigation system bringing water to the alpine pastures in our region. Running gives balance. It is a form of meditation. As I run on the narrow path that clingsCopy to the steep mountainside, I integrate the thoughts racing through my head, getting inspiration for writing and clarity about the issues facing me. One night as I went to find that dear friend, my foot trail, that one sure place that I could put my foot down on, I was called to go even higher. I didn’t know that I would be watching the sunset on the last day of my dear Poppy’s life. In early September, the days were already shortening, but I decided to go to the top of the mountain and find the path that goes higher. As I ran along the small path, cutting through the mossy rocks and heather, I watched the sun set behind the distant mountain range. I kept running, called to go higher, straight up to the Col de Mine. At the base of that mountain, Angelo had cut the moss rock for our fireplace. He worked hard with his uncle preparingReview the pile of stones for the helicopter to take to our chalet during its construction. I kept hearing inside my being a voice explaining that I was to speak out for those who could not speak. I was to work for social justice. My life’s work was to work for the immigrants and for the children with special needs, those who can’t defend their own rights. My mission was to give voice to those who cannot speak for themselves, the marginalized and vulnerable. It was an intense moment. I was running with my family, my ancestors, and all those who had ever loved me. Literally held up by my grandfather’s material support, I could feel his reassuring presence. He had payed for my mediation studies and called me weekly to hear my voice and simply enjoy our conversations when he was alive. When I left Omaha to go to the University of Colorado, he faithfully wrote me each week. I wanted to make him proud. He had given me so much. I felt obliged to return his loving- Librariankindness with good works. As I ran full of inspiration, night fell, and I got back to my car before it was too dark, just as the stars began to shine. 256 HOMING IN

The next morning, I looked up toward the mountain where I had run the night before. On that one peak where I had run, it looked as if someone had sprinkled the mountaintop with powdered sugar. I felt immediately that it was a sign. I knew that something had happened. Then I got the phone call that Poppy had died. Over time, the message I heard on the mountain did come to be true. My life’s work has been about giving voice to marginalized people. My research in public health has shown the importance of the social and cultural determinants of health. Humans are biocultural creations, or “biosocial becomings.”41 Indeed, discrimination influences our health and the minority stress model helps to explain how those mechanisms condition health outcomes for minority groups. After learning to perceive these fundamental principles, I sought not onlyCopy to mirror descriptions of social injustice with academic analysis and depictions, but also to give form to new and better lifeworlds, using innovative forms of social artistry. This account of adoption, reunion, and belonging furthers my inquiries by raising questions central to the nature and nurture debate stemming from this personal story. Homing in altered the biocultural expression of Cathy and me. Our combined resolve to find our birth parents transformed our relational matrix, provoking a form of biocultural emergence through a synergistic convergence. Resolve is a powerful determination in our hearts and minds. Two adopted sisters’ coordinated homing in demonstrates how finding resolve opens future potentialities with a renewing resource that is a steering mechanism. Tapping into purposefulness opens the way forward, setting a life course.Review Kenneth Gergen refers to narrative as a discursive resource. Autoethnographic method has allowed an “interknitting of identities.”42 When we built my mountain chalet over twenty years ago, I designed a stained- glass window inspired by the medicine shields of the Native Americans that I found in the book, The Seven Arrows.43 In the center of the medicine shield I drew a purple heart with a poem etched in a circular manner. The stained-glass window was round and divided in four parts by a wooden cross. The purple heart is held up in the sky by a large tree with deep roots embedded in the earth and water. Its branches reach up to the moon and sun. A rainbow unites all the elements in the open sky. When I discovered Jung’s drawings in The Red Book, I was astounded to see

41 Margaret Lock and Gísli Pálsson, Can Science Resolve the Nature-Nurture Debate? Librarian42 Kenneth Gergen, Realities and Relationships, Soundings in Social Construction, (Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1994), 207. 43 Hyemeyohsts Storm. Seven Arrows, (New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, 1988). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 257

that my stained-glass window resembled Jung’s drawings. My stained-glass window symbolically connected me to Jung’s lifework. This synchronicity was a confirmation of my beliefs and my natural orientation in psychology as a young woman. The Jungian approach allows a place for the sacred. His psychotherapeutic school of thought integrates spiritual knowledge, or gnosis, into the tapestry of his lifework. The Tree of Life in the stained-glass window that I had made so many years ago is a powerful archetype representing that symbol. There is also a hidden meaning in the design, one that wasn’t intended. The Purple Heart is a badge given for being wounded in combat. Some hidden meanings can only be revealed when our eyes gaze long enough to be able to see. As our inner vision is strengthened, new connections can be made that may Copynot have been apparent before. The primal wound that I must have experienced when separated from my mother at birth takes on a dimension of female courage on another kind of battlefield. In the battle of the sexes, where women and men battle for the control of women’s reproductive power, there has been little recognition for the bravery of women enduring punishments received for their sexual relations. My young mother was ostracized, and I was torn from her body, denied any loving embrace. Mother and daughter were both wounded during the birthing experience—a combat for the dignity of life. Our spiritual evolution is a process of divine unfolding leading to the discovery of Self. As I sought out my birth family, I was seeking my greater or integral Self, and in so doing I hoped that my Reviewloved ones would also embark on a systemic healing voyage, affecting the entire family and generations to come. Our relational connections were strengthened through the dialogical processes we had initiated, allowing us each to benefit from our kin-ship’s new course. When we know ourselves, we are protected by the strength and power of that knowing. The medicine shields of the Native American Indians were symbolic shields, showing artful designs evoking connections that constituted a powerful magical shield; fashioned from representations of one’s sense of identity and belonging. My medicine shield has become more powerful as my story has unfold- ed. I know who I am after a period of uncertainty that rattled me, leaving me to feel as if I had lost my protection. And my search has been a catalyst for further searching and the desire to know more about the true nature of my family origins. My process of Self-discovery has reinforced my medicine shield, making it more Librarianresistant to attack. In parallel, the writing process has sharpened my arrowhead and capacity for Self-defense. I am indeed more protected by this new layer of 258 HOMING IN

comprehension and understanding that has been incorporated into my shield of Self-knowledge, or gnothi seauton. Dachler Keltner in his book Born to Be Good speaks of jen.44 Confucius taught that a person of jen works to bring the good things of others to completion and does not bring the bad things of others to completion. Keltner’s science of a meaningful life is a social science approach to developing the will to do “good” in our personal lives, our families, our organizations, and ultimately our world. Cultivating loving- kindness transforms our relationships and challenges us to do much more than simply concentrate on improving ourselves. We are called to act in a way that ultimately brings out the best in others. I always hoped that my search would bring greater goodness to my entire family circle. Copy The following chapters delve into themes relating to transformational processes as I interpret experiences from my life using an interdisciplinary referential framework from the social sciences to identify meaning-making methods and present evidence to my own theory that each of us are inhabited by a primal urge and capacity to home in. Though these experiences are taken from my own life, the earnest reader may also be able to draw parallel inferences from their own experiences. Review

Librarian 44 Dacher Keltner, Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life. (1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2009). CHAPTER 32

MIND-BODY Copy hen we experience brokenness, we often try to develop explanatory models to better understand why we are experiencing pain and W suffering. Working through our illness and conflict narratives reinforces the meaning-making process that reveals the way toward healing and wholeness. We embody our life experiences. Understanding how the mind and body are linked allows us to design healing strategies, moving from brokenness to linkedness. Aspiring to greater forms of wholeness, we co-create intricate narratives, relating to references transmitted to us by our chosen teachers. Our intellectual ancestry provides a library of possible explanations shaping our lifecourse. Each referential matrix offers a different configuration, engendering the emergence of multiple relational potentialities. Review Candace Pert is known for her contribution of explaining her research in the neurosciences to the greater public. She explains how the molecules of emotion communicate throughout our mind-body. “Your body is your subconscious mind.”45 Dr. Pert’s books gave scientific explanations for what I had intuitively known. The mind-body stores information that can contribute to our dis-eases. However the mind-body connection also holds the key to the transformational processes that enkindle individual and societal well-being. I am convinced that the pain and suffering embedded in our cellular memory can indeed be transformed. Epigenetic science confirms the importance of our perceptions and environment and how they influence our DNA’s expression. Mindfulness techniques, as taught by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn,46 have also become

Librarian45 Candace B. Pert, Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel. New York, (NY: Scribner, 1997). 46 Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life, (New York, N.Y.: Hyperion, 2005). 260 HOMING IN

accepted in mainstream medicine, highlighting the importance of the practice of mediation. Our brain’s neuroplasticity can be observed with brain imagery, revealing the power of meditation to reconfigure the brain’s networks. Dr. Barbara Fredrickson’s research on positive psychology shows that our thoughts and representations indeed affect our well-being in quantifiable ways. All of these sciences contribute to our understanding the transforming powers we have within us. We were born with the capacity to heal and to transform the negative patterns that we may have inherited and the dis-ease we have encountered. Our mind-bodies are constantly coordinating with our social bodies. Relationships and friendships give form to communities that allow us to experience a feeling of oneness. In their book Connected: The Surprising Story of Our Social NetworksCopy and How They Change Our Lives,47 Christakis and Fowler document the powerful influence our relational connections have on our well-being. They believe that “to know who we are is to understand how we are connected.” They are convinced that humans are imbedded in a form of superorganism. They see these connections as natural, having the transcending power to link us in a combined force for good. In Barbara Fredrickson’s book Positivity, she speaks of the importance of our communities and how they can allow us to maintain a form of resiliency when facing life’s challenges. She describes how upward spirals of positive emotions are often the result of our social relations. She explains, “As an upward spiral clears your path, your mind and your heart become more fully open to connect with caring others. And each connection supplies its ownReview positivity that refuels and opens you even further. The secret of resilience, then, is going beyond tapping your own well of heartfelt positivity and being open to drink from what springs from others.”48 Her scientific research in positive psychology gives us insight into how our relational connections directly influence our perception of well-being. My connections have allowed me to be resilient, gracing me with solid friendships that I knew I could depend on while giving me a sense of security. It is within the shelter of these relations that I have been able to expand my own being-ness. I have been blessed to know many outstanding people. They have graced my life and rooted with me like aspen trees, known for their unique shared root system. When the golden leaves of my friends shake in the crisp air, so do mine, rustling

47 Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and LibrarianHow They Shape Our Lives, (1. ed. New York, NY: Little, Brown, 2009). 48 Barbara Fredrickson, Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive, (Ox- ford: Oneworld, 2011),117. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 261

and rattling with the comforting sound of sisterhood and brotherhood. Knowing we have a shared underground root system keeps us strong. Elizabeth Lesser in her book Broken Open coined the term “we-ness”49, her way of representing belonging or relationality. My sensitive nature has allowed me to feel the wonderful and joyful happenings as well as the disappointments and sadness experienced within the web of my connections. This interconnectivity is a blessing filled with the richness of existence. Living far away in Europe provided a safe space between my Nebraska families and me. However, Cathy’s proximity and possible relational expectations that coming together had spurred made it difficult to define relational boundaries and how to go on together. My geographical position gave me space toCopy find how to reconfigure all my relations, healing my relational bonds that had been stretched by such extreme transformation. My reunion story trigged my search to learn how we can tap into our innate ability to rejuvenate and heal. My story has allowed me to see the unfolding of the patterns that I received from my birth family and my adopted family. It is a unique case study that has allowed me to gain insight into the age-old debate of nurture and nature. And just as the Christian tradition has taught throughout the ages that forgiveness is one of the most important acts, allowing us to heal and to move forward, Dr. Fred Luskin’s research demonstrates the power of forgiveness to heal our hearts.50 In one of my more recent dreams,Review Marnie appeared to me. With flowing long gray hair, she hovered over me and whispered, “Not to worry.” Just as the gift of the Holy Spirit is confidence and trust, she assured me in my dream that all is well. Our dreams allow us to tap into other dimensions of consciousness that can support our meaning-making process. Jung used dreams in his practice, writing extensively about dreams’ interplay within therapeutic settings and how dreams can contribute to life-transforming insights. Dreams were incorporated as a cornerstone of his psychoanalytic practice. When I was a little girl, Marnie told me that after her mother died, she could feel her presence at all times. She explained to me that there was life after death and that we would all be united eternally in Heaven. I remember sitting next to Marnie at an Easter Sunday service, listening to our minister explain about Dr.

Librarian49 Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow, (New York, Villard, 2005). 50 Fred Luskin, Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness (First HarperCollins pa- perback edition. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2003). 262 HOMING IN

Moody’s book Life After Death, describing near death experiences.51 Our progressive Methodist Church taught us that our God was a loving God. The sermon that Easter Sunday combined new scientific research with Biblical teachings. Ever since that Easter Sunday, I have been convinced that my loved ones will greet me when I pass through the tunnel of light. A powerful dream that I had when I was around thirteen years old showed an incredibly dark cloud hovering menacingly over our lake. As the scene took form, I could see that it was the end of the world. It became clear that on our earthly plane there was great suffering—a form of hell on earth. To leave the earth plane, I was with my family in what seemed to be a waiting room, waiting to be called and taken away to a place of peace and happiness. My grandmother was patientlyCopy crocheting as she often did. A strong feeling came over me. I knew I couldn’t wait, even if it meant getting separated from my family. I was being called. I had to go immediately to be united with God’s divine presence, aware that it might mean risking separation from my grandmother and other family members. As Marnie waited patiently with her crochet hook and wool balls, I decided to go up through a kind of portal. Still dreaming, I ascended to the place we were all waiting to go to. There I saw three bright stars against a midnight blue background, like blue star sapphires. A part of me recognized the Trinity. I could literally feel the presence of the divine. I was basking in the presence of the Godhead, a kind of deep blue lumination. I can remember thinking in that moment ofReview at-one-ment—by which I mean being one with God in a state of reconciliation—that I would surely die if I were facing God. Then I suddenly woke up. From a Jungian perspective, our dreams are an archetypical form of spiritual awakening, and I believe my dream may have been a form of spiritual initiation. The powerful feelings I experienced have stayed with me throughout my life. In any event, I was touched by a profound spiritual sensation and a vision of the Trinity, which was my first glimpse at the face of God. I had met my maker. That dream experience provided me with an experiential understanding of spiritual connection and divine presence. It might be understood as a mystical experience. I recently found an old leather book at the Emmaus secondhand store entitled The Soul of a Christian. Frank Granger wrote it in 1903. The book refers to the Librarianexperience of numerous saints including that of Saint Theresa of Avila. Granger 51 Raymond A.a Moody, Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon-Survival of Bodily Death (1st Harper SanFrancisco ed. San Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco, 2001). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 263

analyzes her writings as well the writings of English poet Blake and other poets. The author affirms that psychology cannot explain mystical experience. The saints and poets that wrote about their visions preceded many of the Western scientists who later developed theories of quantum physics and zero-point energy. Granger explained that some states of being are beyond the comprehension of psychology. I would have to agree. St. Hildegard von Bingen lived from 1098-1179. She was a multi-faceted visionary, mystic, healer, poet, artist, playwright, and Benedictine abbess of the Rhineland. Her major visionary work, Scivias, or “Know the Ways (of God)”, got the attention of Pope Eugenius III, who allowed her to continue her work and writing. In the introduction of Mystical Visions, Matthew Fox, a scholarCopy of Hildegard von Bingen’s works, explains, “Thus Hildegard herself acknowledges how mystical experience and the recycling of personal and collective pain can and must be accomplished in various forms of art.”52 Aesthetic approaches give expression to states of consciousness that might not otherwise be able to be communicated. In Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love, written in the 1300s, she links experience, memory, and meaning in a search to know what the Lord meant to communicate through his revelations. She received an answer fifteen years later: “Do you want to know what your Lord meant? Know well that love was what he meant. Who showed you this? Love. What did he show? Love. Why did he show it to you? For love. Hold fast to this and you will know and understand more of the same; but you will never understandReview or from it anything else for all eternity.”53 Julian of Norwich is the first English writer identified as a woman. Both she and Saint Hildegard expressed the power of writing, sharing their revelations with words that became teachings. Indeed, the intensity of some experiences surpasses our ability to explain in words what we perceive through symbols and archetypes. Even music has the power to connect us to deep, inner dimensions of our being-ness, cognitively activating other centers in our brain that mere words do not solicit. In The Tibetan Book of the

52 Hildegard. Hildegard von Bingen’s Mystical Visions, trans. from Scivias by Bruce Hozeski, (Santa Fe, LibrarianN.M: Bear & Company, 1995), xxi. 53 Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love trans. A. C. Spearing, and A. C. Spearing.(Penguin Clas- sics. London; New York: Penguin Books, 1998), 179. 264 HOMING IN

Dead by W. Y. Evans-Wentz,54 Jung wrote a psychological commentary allowing the reader to make links between the Buddhist text of instructions for dying and the human psyche. The Tibetain Book of the Dead is not just an instruction for dying, but a rich text about our living situation. Jung explains,

Psychic heredity does exist—that is to say, there is inheritance of psychic characteristics such as predisposition to disease, traits of character, special gifts, and so forth. It does no violence to the psychic nature of these complex facts if natural science reduces them to what appear to be physical aspects (nuclear structures in cells, and so on) [ . . . ] Among these inherited psychic factors there is a special class which is not confined either to family or race. These are the universal dispositions of the mind, andCopy they are to be understood as analogous to Plato’s form (eidola), in accordance with which the mind organizes its contents. One could also describe these forms as categories analogous to the logical categories which are always and everywhere present as the basic postulates of reason. Only, in the case of our “forms,” we are not dealing with categories of reason but with categories of the imagination. As the products of imagination are always in essence visual, their forms must, from the outset, have the character of images and moreover of typical images, which is why, following St. Augustine, I call them “archetypes.” Comparative religion and mythology are rich mines of archetypes, and so is the psychology of dreams and psychoses.55

Forms of psychic heredity can beReview perceived in patterns that we are able to recognize and connect. The mystical is woven into my story like strands of gold in a beautifully colored scarf. The fabric is made of earthly silk, but the golden fibers that sparkle suggest the existence of yet another spiritual dimension. Ariadne’s thread in Greek mythology was used so as not to get caught in the labyrinth and be able to find one’s way back home. Each life is indeed a journey. My contact with the Nebraska Children’s Home enabled me to follow the Ariadne’s thread back through the labyrinth of circumstances that separated me from my birth parents and family. Still, my searching didn’t end with finding my birth family. After the episode of reuniting with my birth family, I continued along the trail in search of my intellectual

54 The Tibetan Book of the Dead or The After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, according to Lama Kazi LibrarianDawa-Samdup’s English Rendering, Trans. by W.Y. Evans-Wentz, (Oxford University Press, Third Edition, London, 1957). 55 Ibid. xliv. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 265

family. Synchronicities led me to the social constructionists, specifically the Gergens and the Taos Institute. Kenneth Gergen’s work moves us to reflections beyond Self toward relational being.56 “Autoethnography points to the Self as embedded in cultural meanings. Doing autoethnography affects the social construction of the author’s self.”57 In this social constructionist project, writing has enkindled transformation, giving voice to the Giveaway Girl re-storying her life. Sacred relational space, much like that created by the Native American ghost dancers in their renewal ceremony, is what I have endeavored to co-create in my own web of relations. Jung’s use of mandalas, in the process of individuation, incorporates the use of sacred art and form. Dance as performed in the round circle of the pow-wow developed by the Native Americans is yet another sacredCopy practice. The image of grass dancers, tapping their feet on the ground while circling to the beat of drums, helps me to conceive of a dynamic understanding of sacred, social space in my mind’s eye. Perception can be transformed by our position in the Medicine Wheel according to the Sundance tradition. North, south, east, and west are four great directions or powers that provide us with our perceptions. As we grow and seek, we become more full or complete and able to see with balanced vision. We are thus forever connected in the circle of life, inventing new transformational practices and dances designed to bring our world forward. Old patterns and configurations are henceforth transformed to serve the present. Sacred practices lift us, bringing us to a higher state of consciousness. Imagine the colors and forms contained in aReview kaleidoscope filled with life-magic. When our intentions concentrate in the cone-shaped seeing device, aiming out into the space of our becomingness, new possibilities take form. When we meet the energy field of love coming toward us, we evolve. The hidden significance is in the placing of the letters, spelling the key word first forwards and then backwards. Each scientific discipline and all religious traditions have their own language and referential framework. My scientific approach is interdisciplinary. I have also studied different sacred traditions looking for the connections and unifying principles. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest from France and a well-known mystic, spoke of the importance of intention in The Divine Mileu. His work describes

56 Kenneth J. Gergen, Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community, (Oxford ; New York: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2009). Librarian57 Laura Ellingson and Carolyn Ellis, “Autoethnography as Constructionist Project,” Handbook of Con- structionist Research, edited by James Holstein and Jaber Gubrium, (The Gilford Press, New York, 2008) 456. 266 HOMING IN

how the force of love brings us to completion. He speaks of the rhythm of the soul’s breath “breathing in and out in the movement of our lungs.”58 Father Mainelli, the priest present at our wedding, gave me my copy that sits on my bookshelf. The book is part of the spiritual inheritance I received from Father Mainelli. Joy Manné introduced me to breathwork in Switzerland when I was a young woman looking for guidance on my own path toward spiritual evolution. She writes about how shamanism influences modern therapeutic practices in her bookConscious Breathing: How Shamanic Breathwork Can Transform Your Life.59 Throughout my life I have been blessed with special teachers or mentors that have each contributed to my growth process. In my professional practice, the narrative model in mediationCopy and other transformational dialogical and conversational processes have inspired me. Action research is an applied form of research used in anthropology and other fields of social science. Appreciative Inquiry60 is a dialogical process and questioning method that seeks to bring out the best in people or an organization by asking questions that elicit future-forming responses. These qualitative research methods have allowed me to gather voices and inform the decision makers that read my public health reports. Generating new meaning and polyphony by honoring multiple voices has allowed me to move beyond, recommending ways to improve social and healthcare practices and policies. As a social scientist I engage with others, transforming relationships through healing conversations. Hopefully, my research practice has served to guide the future of public healthReview in my region by helping marginalized groups be better understood and empowered through increased knowledgeability. Professor Sheila McNamee, a Taos Institute founder, has introduced dialogical methods that generate relational transformation and social change. When I first met Sheila, she listened to my story and accompanied my process, allowing me to enroll in the Taos PhD program. People of superior quality, like Sheila, are often generous, authentic, and accessible. Modeling a respectful form of interaction, new leaders are showing the world how we can participate in more meaningful ways in civil society, organizations, learning institutions, corporations, and government.

58 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, English translation, (Harper and Row, London, 1960), 99. 59 Joy Manné, Conscious Breathing: How Shamanic Breathwork Can Transform Your Life, (Berkeley, Calif: LibrarianNorth Atlantic Books, 2004). 60 David L. Cooperrider, Diana Whitney, and Jacqueline M. Stavros, Appreciative Inquiry Handbook: For Leaders of Change, (2. ed. Brunswick, Ohio: Crown Custom, 2008). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 267

When visiting Florence, Italy, I stumbled upon the “Family Matters” modern art exhibit at the CCC Strozzi. In an extraordinary commentary, I read sociological and anthropological analysis of the post-modern family that truly spoke to me:

There can be no stable civil society without the active support and encouragement of the democratic state. Nor can democratic politics renew itself without the constant support and control of civil-society’s association. Nor, finally, can either of them prosper if they do not have their ideas firmly rooted in families that aspire to be in, Mill’s magnificent words, “real schools in the virtues of freedom.”61

The exhibit showed fascinating portraits of post-modern families.Copy In one artist’s attempt to represent his family portrait, he showed the virtual dimension of Skype with the images of his family across the globe, interfaced with his apartment and close ones in real-life proximity. I imagine my family portrait using the panorama option on my smart phone, enfolding me in a circular embrace. I see all my relations surrounding me with silhouettes of ancestors filling in the background space. Our cats, dogs, and horses nuzzle in closely, while flowers bloom from our hearts, creating floral heartstrings. An arching moonbow frames the top of the picture. In this family portrait, physical, virtual, and spiritual space are superimposed. Feathered angel wings peep out from behind. A soundtrack of loving words plays to melodic tunes from our Group Heart Mind, adding a musical dimension Reviewto the portrait. Rays of moonbeams shine on the water under our tribal feet, revealing the configurations of intellectual ancestry, swimming together like schools of fish in schools of thought. Three star sapphire lights glimmer in the night sky, radiating blessings from the Trinity. We all live simultaneously in two dimensions. We interact with those physically close to us and at the same time we are virtually connected through modern technology with other social networks. We can FaceTime and be with family and friends anywhere, anytime. When we make associations of belonging, we include many forms of groups: cultural, professional, personal, and of course those associated with our family. In her discussion about families, Chiara Saraceno writes:

Because the different ways of making a family are long-term processes and one of the Librariancharacterizing features of cultures and societies, they are often experienced as obvious, 61 Paul Ginsberg, Quotation, Family Matters: Portraits and Experiences of Family Today, Family Matters, CCC Strozzina Museum, Florence, Italy. 268 HOMING IN

natural, and therefore any deviation by definition seems unnatural and risky. However, the present era questions precisely the “obviousness” of the ways to make and understand family. Cultural changes generate new claims about recognition that in the past would have been unthinkable. An easier and more common contact with different cultures has destabilized what we have in the past taken for granted, and accordingly induces us to reflect more critically on the subject. Technological developments have unhinged the relationships and sequential pathways we previously believed to be unchangeable, and they have brought to the surface the social character of what we once believed to be simply natural.62

Families are being constituted in new and evolving ways. Our individualCopy and collective stories can serve to teach and inform us as we reflect on the changing character and evolving nature of our belonging. Studying how the kinning process is being performed today provides new insights. My narrative is a form of autoethnography. I am the researcher using myself as a case study. I am the adopted child illustrating the social construction of my identity. I am the authoethnographer writing because “the stories we tell enable us to live and to live better; stories allow us to lead more reflective, more meaningful, and more just lives.”63 Each school of thought that I have studied has added to my ability to perceive in a more balanced, nuanced way. Wise mentors guiding my journey have graciously shared their gifts and wisdom. In this great Universe Wheel, I am on a vision quest to discover my ReviewSelf, learn to perceive others with increased compassion, and peacefully relate with the world around me. Hopefully, once the odyssey is completed, I can let myself go, lifting above perceptions of Self on wings of grace. Spiritual journey and autoethnographic writing have dovetailed, along with a form of feathered living wisdom that inspired the writing process. This book brings together the members of my family portrait, cutting and pasting pictures and representations in a grand collage of life. I hope in turn that it will allow the reader to look inside and then outwards, distinguishing new relational links and meaningful landscapes, even possibly aiding the reader to frame a unique family portrait including relational dimensions that may have been hiding in the shadows or in the margins, waiting to be exposed and seen. Our words are tools that allow us to find solutions to our problems as Vygotsky,

Librarian62 Chiara Saraceno, Quotation, Making the Connections: Family, Plural Families Family Matters, CCC Strozzina Museum, Florence, Italy. 63 Tony E.Adams, Stacy Linn Holman Jones, and Carolyn Ellis. Autoethnography, 1. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 269

the Russian psychologist, suggested in Mind in Society.64 Vygotsky’s theories are foundational for social constructionists that analyze therapy as social construction. Words and people are tools that we configure in our personal sphere while searching for solutions. The problem-solving process consists of finding resources that enable us to go forward. Sheila McNamee and Kenneth Gergen question our options when faced with crisis. They look at therapeutic avenues for reconstructing identity and the discursive practices that dissipate problems. Sheila’s mentorship and feminine guidance has provided very helpful insight, addressing difficult situations from a social constructionist perspective. Her ability to authentically communicate with her students conveys a rare form of radical presence. Copy The first question we must address concerns our folk wisdom of crisis experience. In general, there are two options we might use to characterize these disruptive episodes in our lives. First, we have available for our use a conception of a person’s crisis as something that happens to the person. This external orientation portrays an impotent individual at the mercy of situation constraints and dicta. How can one take charge of one’s life given the limitations which surround one? If circumstances have brought the crisis to the person, how can that person muster the energy and force to change those circumstances?65

Yet another way to understand the creative power is through the contemplative tradition. Ruth Burrows, a CarmeliteReview sister, writes that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Word of God. The transformative process occurs for Christians with real faith in Jesus, in what can be understood as mediatorship.66 Daily prayer creates a dialogical space with the divine where the search for Self is surpassed by an even higher yearning. Mediatorship is a vessel transporting us on our search for holiness, the part of ourselves that dwells with the Divine Beloved. In mystical prayer, when we turn our lights on, living wisdom is revealed. Within the space of spiritual relating, transformation is enkindled in communion with saints and angels. With the support of family, friends, my faith, as well as the teachings offered through my intellectual family, I mustered the force to try to change the

64 Lev S.Vygostky and Michael Cole, Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1981). Librarian65 Sheila McNamee and Kenneth J. Gergen, ed. Therapy as Social Construction, Inquiries in Social Construc- tion,. (London; Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1992) 186. 66 Ruth Burrows, To Believe In Jesus, (Mahwah, NJ: Hidden Spring, 2010). 270 HOMING IN

circumstances of my life and the identity crisis that I was facing by developing new practices. The archetypes that constituted the configurations of my unconscious were taking on a more conscious form as I designed my powerful medicine shield, fashioning artful expressions. This active mediatorship, bringing the unconscious into the consciousness, allowed me to better know myself, and in so doing to heal myself and my relations. Symbolic representations of the Self are artistically painted or beaded onto our medicine shields, showing and informing others who we are. Homing in to the different practices that I have learned was an intuitive endeavor. As I became a mediator and teacher, my evolving identity found its expression on my shield. The process of mediatorship happened as the archetypical representationsCopy took form, incarnating knowledgeability through my practices while beautifying my transformed Medicine Shield for all to see and recognize. The ornate designs and figures that I carefully beaded on to the shield served as part of my process of becoming. However, the symbols and artforms also served to show others the face of my transformed Self in a continuous visual presentation as well as a conversational dialogue. My embodied relational practices weave together the different narrative threads in this story mandala. Healers, mediators, and teachers have different medicines or healing gifts and practices that, when developed and then used, can transform the people in their families and communities—the circle of their relations. In this renewed state of consciousness and Reviewrelatedness, the mind-body connections are honored, making us all more wholehearted.

Librarian CHAPTER 33

GOD’S MANY FACES OR “SHOWINGS” Copy ll my life I have been searching for the face of God, longing for a divine encounter. I had an opportunity to go to Turin, Italy, with Jessica, my fifth A child, to see the Holy Shroud of Turin. We found ourselves in a long line of Christian pilgrims from around the world who had come to see one of the most important Christian relics—Christ’s face imprinted on a linen cloth. There is a lot of controversy about the Holy Shroud. Whatever the truth may be, I see it as a wonderful metaphor. I try to see Christ’s face in every human face. Searching for the face of God can be associated with the quest to discover our origins and wholeness. Julian of Norwich referred to God’s many faces as “showings.” She understood the triplicate nature of God as Maker, Lover, and Keeper.67 Rumi describes this “looking forReview the face” in one of his poems. My search for my birth parents is a human search that began as a young mother of four children. My search for the beloved has been a spiritual journey that began when I was a young girl. Reading Rumi’s poems has allowed me to connect with a mystical path of love emanating from a different spiritual tradition. My inner experience vibrates with his words as they lift me up to a level of being-ness that inspires, guides, and sustains me. As an adopted child looking for my birth parents and as a Christian pilgrim going to see the Holy Shroud, I have felt a particular resonance with this Rumi poem:

From the beginning of my life I have been looking for your face, but today I have seen it. Today I have seen the chosen, the beauty, the unfathomable grace of the face I Librarianwas looking for. 67 Patricia Datchuck Sanchez, A God of Many Faces, https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/spiritual-reflections/ god-many-faces (Accessed April 27, 2019). 272 HOMING IN

Today I have found you, and those who laughed and scorned me yesterday are sorry that they were not looking as I did. I am bewildered by the magnificence of your beauty, and wish to see you with a hundred eyes. My heart has burned with passion and searched forever for this wondrous beauty that I now behold. I am ashamed to call this love human and afraid of God to call it divine. Your fragrant breath, like the morning breeze, has come to the stillness of the garden. You have breathed new life into me. I have become your sunshine, and also your shadow, my soul is screaming in ecstasy. Every fiber of my being is in love with you. Your effulgence has lit a fire in my heart, and you have made radiant for me the earth and sky. My arrow of love has arrived at the target. I am in the house of mercyCopy and my heart is in a place of prayer.

When Roberta Flack sings “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face,” she sings the story of the first time bearing witness to a joy so great that it fills the earth and lasts to the end of time. Seeing the face of my parents, brother, and sisters for the first time brought forth an everlasting joy. That joy resonates with my continuing quest to see more clearly the face of God in all his/her splendor. After my pilgrimage to the see the Holy Shroud, I attended a conference on medical anthropology in Bologna, Italy. The University of Bologna is the oldest European university and I was honored to be able to visit such an important academic institution as well as historicReview place. Indeed, serendipity brought me to this unexpected discovery. While in Bologna, I stumbled upon a sculpture of the body of Jesus Christ at the Basilica of Saint Stephano. The sculpture was made from an artist’s new technique using the photographic image of the Holy Shroud of Turin as the blueprint. It seemed to complete my phase of searching for the face of God in art form. We are not just called to search but to be in the present, knowing we are always amid divine presence, smiling joyfully back at us. The Holy Shroud suggests an imprint of Jesus’s face on the linen cloth. But in Bologna, the artist replicated the imprint on the Holy Shroud, transposing the image into a statue depicting the body of Christ. It is an artistic rendering of the image on the cloth materialized into a statue. The process leads the beholder to experience a direct contact with a life- size replica of Jesus Christ. When we see the face of God, we are emboldened with Librarianthe courage to face up to life’s challenges without losing face. Facing the many changes in the relational matrix, I wondered how having SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 273

found my birth family would alter long-term relationships. What would I inherit? How would my birth family and adopted family consider me in their testaments? Would they feel the same loyalty that my grandparents had felt for me? Even my adopted mother’s remarriage had meant sharing time and resources with a larger extended family. Relationships seemed to be alterable, as everything that was familiar appeared to be falling away. In light of the unstable material world that I was facing, I turned my attention inward, focused on searching for the divine. In this way, my attention was turned away from the losses and financial instability I was facing. I concentrated on my PhD, hoping that by investing in my work a magical door would open to yet another opportunity. But the situation was even more complicated, as it involvedCopy facing the shame that my father had incurred on us, all the while extending love and forgiveness. At that time, some of his decisions were experienced by his closest kin as his fall from grace, but that too was only temporary. When Jan’s stepdaughter was chosen as Queen of the Aksarben Ball, Jan was happy to accept the honor of being Queen Mother. As she took on this new role, consecrating her energy and resources for the family’s recognition through Bob’s fourth child, she distanced herself from her own girls. The honor bestowed upon our recomposed family went to Kristine. Was it our honor to share? Kristine diligently accepted the crown, devoting herself to the social events that went along with the role she had been asked to play, complying with the many expectations her honor incurred. As our mother enjoyedReview her year as Mother of the Queen, the rest of her kids were all trying to act in a mannerly way to please her and her husband Bob. We did our very best to grow together into a recomposed family, yet another form of concrescence. At times, it felt that more family relations might somehow dilute the strong ties that had characterized our original family. Did more relations mean less commitment? And what would be left to pass on to my children? I felt that growing up we were a privileged family; however, the family resources were considerably diminished after the divorce, as is the case in most families. My life seemed to have accelerated and the new cadence made me move faster and faster. I had my two families to keep in touch with and my own children were growing up and requiring my full attention. On top of it all, I was the oldest child in both families, forced to blaze a trail that my siblings couldn’t always understand, Librarianas they were younger and hadn’t yet faced the challenges that I was meeting, always a few steps ahead of the pack. 274 HOMING IN

I had worked hard to repeat and even to perfect the family recipes at Thanksgiving and Christmas only to hear of my Mossman sisters’ first Christmas on their own without my adopted mother, who was celebrating with her husband’s family. They had ordered Chinese takeout without any embarrassment, whereas I had learned to make the stuffing from scratch and homemade pumpkin pie from the pumpkin. I even found cranberries in a country where they were rare, just to make the cranberry sauce to go with the turkey. Even turkeys at Thanksgiving were a challenge to find in a country that didn’t celebrate the pilgrims and the Native Americans. I had to special order a turkey to be able to carry on my American family traditions. The Mossman sisters seemed to be liberated from the traditionsCopy that I was dedicated to. I was alone in the kitchen during the holidays, creating a tradition of gratitude or making Christmas spirit, remembering my mother and grandmothers each doing their special part of the meal. However, as I slaved away in the kitchen, I was performing in a landscape of meaning following the example of the brave pioneer women who had preceded me. Until my children were old enough to be able to work by my side, I alone had to keep the traditions in my home. I was holding the fort down on foreign territory. The traditions that I worked so hard to keep and transmit were possibly more important to me because I had moved so far from home. I worked hard to be both a Mossman and a Wylie. There weren’t just the cultural transmissions that I was aware of, as wealth and propertyReview transfer are also constructs of identity. We receive financial legacies through descendance and inheritance. My parents’ second marriages broke from what might have been a more traditional family inheritance, making our financial legacy an ambiguous lineage. Descen-dance is a dance of belonging through time. Origins connect us in many different ways, playing with our connections as we are pulled and stretched through time and various attractions, participating in lineage-making. My birth parents are upholding their dream to complete the cabin on their land. They are determining a way for my sister Cathy and me to be part of the land trust in Montana. This is a strong symbolic message. Including us in the family legacy by passing on their wealth to their entire family somehow confirms our belonging in material terms. They want to pass on the land that they love, a place that allowed them to share stories and walk the mountains far from the complexity Librarianof modern life. But legacy is not only determined through material lines of material inheritance. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 275

For my adopted family, living by way of the Aksarben tradition, the question “Who will wear the crown?” came up, and it was my mother’s stepdaughter, Bob’s daughter Kristine, who was asked to receive the honors. Great importance is given to the Aksarben tradition in my mother’s circle of relations. Being part of the Aksarben ball was high up on her value scale. However, my birth family defines honor in different terms as engaged educators. My families endorsed and held up different values in their lives, striving toward fulfillment in different ways. Honoring both value scales has been a challenging balancing act. Still, family matters don’t only include prestige and honor. Sometimes families are faced with dishonor as well as disgrace. These heart-wrenching moments implicating our emotional reactions as well as our well-thought-outCopy responses possibly define us more than the honors that get us into the newspapers. How we deal with adversity can also be judged using a value scale, just as social progress can be recognized collectively. In 2018, the Akasarben Coronation Ball’s Citizens of the Year were named, doing away with the traditional king and queen in the royal court, a strong sign of social progress for many onlookers. For the Mossman girls, the unforgettable coronation was a defining moment that put family loyalties at odds. The weekend that Kristine Falk, my youngest stepsister, was crowned queen of the Aksarben Ball, my sisters Nancy and Leigh went to Omaha to be part of the festivities. They tried to get in touch with my father but couldn’t find him anywhere. It turned out that he was in prison for cocaine possession. On the weekendReview of the coronation, an important honor for my mother, my father hit rock bottom. Dave later joked that he shared a jail cell with a big black man that was being held for murder. In the end, the justice system obliged him to get therapy for his drug problem. He went on to participate in local rehabilitation groups in the Decatur area, supporting others that also had problems with addiction. In a strange way, the distance between Nebraska and Switzerland seemed to protect me from the disgrace of my adopted father’s predicament. The miles that prevented me from coming to the Aksarben Ball that year may have in fact spared me from the conflict of loyalties that my recomposed family went through at that time. For my sisters, it was devastating. They had to face our father’s legal predicament at the same moment that my mother’s new family was receiving public recognition. And they had to endure the harsh words of my stepfather criticizing Librariantheir father. Unintentionally, a line appeared to have been drawn in the sand. My mother’s new loyalties established through her second marriage overshadowed her 276 HOMING IN

loyalty to her own daughters, the Mossman girls, that she meekly defended during the week of the Ball, focusing her attention on the important social event she had been planning for months, probably not knowing how to give support to my sisters. Who could blame her? Remarkably, we all managed to face the adversity, preserving our loving relations and finding ways to go on together. I too had to adapt and find my place in my recomposed family, but from a position that gave me more room to maneuver. My mother’s social activities allowed her to save face, offering her a possibility to make a comeback, continuing the trajectory that she had originally chosen. But the relational ties got stretched in unexpected ways following her second marriage as she invested herself in her new role, sharing time, resources, and special attention within an ever-expanding family.Copy Whether searching for the face of the divine, losing face, or saving face, we must all face up to the challenges life presents. Regretfully, there are some events we wish we could efface. Through it all, we should never forget that God brings us to our completion. As the Bible reads in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God who said, ‘Let there be light in the darkness,’ has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.” Facing life’s complexities and not running away requires commitment to those we love and cherish. When we have a shared relational commitment, we can continue to engage with each other, finding ways to go on together that are mutually beneficial. I continually reach out to lovingly embrace all the folks in my multiple families, praying for them byReview name each day. The metamorphosis that I experienced made me face existential questions that most people might not ask. My need to understand who I was through the different phases of my identity transformation beckoned me to hold on to a vision of my Self that was connected to a transcendental facial recognition. There had to be a face that would always be recognized by my God who knew me in my completeness. The synchronicities too were “showings,” confirming God’s love.

Librarian CHAPTER 34

THE GOLDEN POCKET WATCH Copy s the saying goes when referring to past experiences, “That’s water under the bridge.” But is it really? Sometimes, very suddenly, feelings we thought A we worked through can come up, reminding us of the past. Threshold moments and our experience of the sublime are conduits for transformed relating. The aesthetic experience of the sublime offers a moment of elation. Having encountered the sublime, we are escorted to the threshold of liminal reality where transformational power is revealed in unexpected ways. The summer after Dave’s death, I unexpectedly received a package at the post office. My father loved to tell stories about his accomplished buddies, and I recognized the name on the return address as one of those friends. When I opened the package, a golden pocket watchReview and a sheet of paper fell into my lap. I began reading the letter that Mr. William C. Tomson had written to me on July 10, 2008.

Dear Susan, You and I met at your grandfather’s funeral. I’m an old friend of your father and both of your grandparents. Dave and I were pals during high school and college, and the Mossman home was my second home. Marion and Harland were surrogate parents certainly for me as well as other of your dad’s friends. Their door was always open for us. Through the years I kept in touch with both of your grandparents because they meant so much to me, but beyond that they were simply just good company. Your father was good enough to send me Harland’s gold pocket watch because he knew how much his father meant to me. I’ve kept it in the box it came in because it has always been my intention to send it to you because I was so moved by your eulogy for Librarianyour grandfather. You spoke for all of us, Susan. I remember that what you said meant a great deal to your father and Marion. I cherish the fact that I’ve had Harland’s family watch, but it really rightfully belongs to you. I know you will cherish it too. 278 HOMING IN

I was in your father and mother’s wedding. Jan has always been such a remarkable woman. We all saw that talent shaping in college. When I was last in Omaha, I went to Bob Falk’s company because my cousin Dick Kelley is still one of my stock brokers. It was great to see Bob and we had such a nice talk about his family. I feel that your mother is in such a good place. Bob has always been a good man. Thank you again for speaking for all of us about your grandfather. So many of us loved him. I send my warm very best wishes, Bill Tomson Copy Every time I read his letter, powerful tears well up and my heart feels wrenched. It brought recognition that had never been given words. Mr. Tomson and I were joined in the deep appreciation we had for my grandparents. He generously took the time to write to me and to send me the golden pocket watch. His gift was so much more than a watch. It was a transitional object of reparation. His loving kindness reached my heart and has allowed me to understand that nothing can ever truly be lost. Mr. Tomson restored my place within the circle of relations simply by saying in his letter that the watch had always rightfully belonged to me. He was able to see beyond the genes and the bloodline. My grandfather’s mentored son “saw” me. When the watch fell into my lap, it became clear that what is rightfully ours ultimately aligns with a form of cosmicReview social justice that finds us through time through metaphorical offerings that we are able to discern. Though I had opened the physical package of the watch, I also had to open the emotional package of what receiving the watch meant to me. It contained a facet of myself that I avoided, just as I had put off looking for my birth parents. Still, the package’s contents needed to be acknowledged and dealt with courageously. Deep inside of me I have always asked the question, “Who will watch over me?” The question came up time and time again—as a baby at the hospital just taken from her mother, when I was handed over to my foster parents and then my adopted parents, when my father explained that he might be leaving us when I was eight years old, and when my husband faltered when I was pregnant with Jessica. Each time, I felt the fear of being left alone, unprotected. The unexpected gift assured that I am “watched” over. As I pressed on the gold Librarianbutton, the casing of the round watch opened, disclosing an aesthetic encounter with “flesh memory,” as with Harry Potter’s Snitch in that magical series. The energy within the encasement burned through my disappointments, allowing them SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 279

to rise into the sky like circling smoke rings, traveling through a time warp with this message of encouragement to keep going, trudging on. My awareness of the intergenerational patterns didn’t seem to shield me from my life experiences. But the spiritual revelation that I attached to the pocket watch, arriving after my grandfather’s death, brought with it a calming peacefulness. I understood that I had been “watched over.” That perception opened a window or wormhole, a tunnel that transported me to a dimension where all my losses, separations, and fears of abandonment were symbolically transmuted. Just as the lilacs planted by her beloved had adorned Marnie’s casket even after Poppy had passed away, the pocket watch had miraculously found me, its rightful owner, through a passageway—an inheritance line of merit, transcending timeCopy and space. There was a metaphorical transcription engraved in the watch, alluding to the pathway of transcendence, a dimension beyond time. The gift was an enigma that my third eye could decipher. It permitted a line of spiritual and human capital to be passed on. And whatever injustice that I had perceived not having received the two other family watches that were bestowed upon my sister Nancy and her son, Mr. Tomson’s gift brought reparation. The golden pocket watch also signifies the importance of God’s divine timing in our lives. We can try to push forward, but when we are not in sync with God’s timing, we find ourselves pushed against a painful, piercing sword. There are some advances or quantum leaps that we cannot program. After patient contemplation, searching for the direction to follow,Review suddenly the door opens and the path clears. Divine timing is in sync with the moments of rhythm that grace the unfolding of each and every life, instants when both time and space are aligned. My story tries to highlight this eventuality by telling the events that actually took place throughout my lifetime, underscoring the importance of synchronicity. As I matured, I became more able to discern divine timing. I remained in my humble human position, waiting for God’s grace to show me the way forward. Empowerment is not only about the individual Self that triumphs. It is about connecting with the divine and working with spiritual dimensions in a co-construction or joint venture to express our highest nature on earth. Daily connecting with intent to the promise of our greatest potentialities, we ignite a reverberating force that acts in the matrix of our relations. As we strive for beauty, truth, and goodness, there are periods of loneliness, and then suddenly the veil is lifted, displaying the Librarianmasterpiece. The honor, recognition, and belonging we are seeking comes to us in surprising ways. Those brief revelatory moments are often experienced and 280 HOMING IN

attained through dedicated work. Greatness is often born from hardship as we take on the Great Work that Thomas Berry writes about: our lifework. The package came to me while I worked to complete my doctorate, an important life task. Completing my doctorate gave me recognition that would allow me to do my lifework. The package and letter were a kind of symbolic crowning avowal, offering another form of deeply needed encouragement and acknowledgment. The pocket watch seemed to recall my beloved and trustworthy Poppy from death. It had a kind of flesh memory that brought me back in touch with my grandfather, as well as my father. It also brought back the felt presence of loved ones that gave me courage when I most needed it. Dimensions of these loved ones are captured in the timepiece in the hideout of my secretary where I keep the heirloom.Copy The watch was a kind of magic talisman bringing me courage and strength to endure, as well as the power to carry my life history forward into a promising future. My thirst for recognition was partly satiated with the contents of this most surprising postal transmission. But ultimately, we are asked to recognize our own worthiness. One way is to “know thyself,” or gnothi seauton, that takes us to a form of knowledge based on living wisdom. But on a personal level, the package’s content made me feel that Poppy and David where both watching, their presence palpable. The different descendancies that I carried within made up a complex identity where multiple lines of inheritance cohabited. They all mattered and were seeking a means to be passed on, vying for a place in my heart-mind. Each strand, be it nature or nurture, friendship, mentorship,Review or academic affiliation, was coming through. There was a great merging where all lines of descendancy sought to be honored in the face of the timepiece. The differing value scales of my multiple families were begging to be weighed. The package contained a needed validation from a higher force that timed the heirloom’s arrival to coincide with a threshold moment. Rising like the phoenix from the ashes of the past, with newly found emancipatory agency in part cultivated through life-long learning, a form of dedicated journeymanship, I relished a capping moment. As the encoded message fell into my lap, I wondered, “How can we solve the enigmas, the problems that arise from the substance of our lives?” Deciphering the messages and converting their content into applicable solutions became my focus. My transitional object, the golden pocket watch, served to remind me of the Librarianimportance of transmission. I realized that my children and their children would also need courage and “flesh memory” to take up the sword of justice and their SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 281

calling. The watch travels through time, handed down from one generation to another. And with it comes the affirmation that loving ancestors are watching over.

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Librarian CHAPTER 35

JOURNEYMANSHIP: ENCOUNTERS IN PURSUIT OF HIGHER KNOWLEDGE Copy

uber, a well-known rabbi and educator, had a vision of education stemming from the Hebrew tradition. Within his referential framework, pursuing B higher knowledge was understood as literally lifting one up in a vertical rising. In French, the word for student is élève, which comes from the verb élèver, or to lift up, illustrating this upward movement. The French word contains the deeper meaning that Buber’s Hebrew tradition affirms. Buber situated God within human encounters, within the relationship. As we enter into lifelong learning or journeymanship, we are lifted up. And as we are lifted, so too can we work to elevate others, sharing our knowledgeability. By engaging in relational encounters, we learn toReview discern God, deepening our understanding of the divine. In some respects, Buber’s theories and teaching story, much like The Seven Arrows, are a sacred space where it is possible to move through the different encounters that transform perspectives present within the circle or Medicine Wheel of Life. We need a nourishing and secure environment to be able to question life. Sometimes it takes a special relationship of trust to be able to express our Self. Good teachers know to create a safe space where their students can dare to learn. It is in the encounter with the other that our divine nature can be revealed. It is in the “I and Thou” relationship described by Buber that the most meaningful relationships develop and live on. Buber writes, “The essential deed of art determines the process whereby the form becomes a work. That which confronts me is fulfilled through the encounter Librarianthrough which it enters into the world of things in order to remain incessantly effective, incessantly It—but also infinitely able to become again a You, enchanting 284 HOMING IN

and inspiring. It becomes ‘incarnate’: out of the spaceless and timeless presence it rises to the shore of continued existence.”68 Some relationships allow us to hold up the highest vision of our Self. Not allowing us to forget or waver in times of difficulty, those friendships call us back to the potential of our original dream. Possibly, when we are relating as I and Thou, we allow the divine to flow through the encounter where revelation is experienced. Within this trusting space, the art of living becomes an oeuvre, or great work. In the earlier stages of our lives, our family loves, nurtures, and educates us. The patterns of past generations are present, as trans-generational psychology and other approaches have documented. By passing forward our stories we can bring more aspects of our subconscious to light, integrating psyche toCopy transform our fate and our children’s destinies. Rendering consciousness through the body, our diverse lineages are passed on to our children in the form of sacred ancestry. Hopefully, the rich and complex texture of our lives will be felt in ways that will not deform their becomingness, ultimately allowing them to assume their own process of individuation. The Lord of the Rings stories and movies demonstrates this individuation process when Frodo realizes that he must leave his faithful companions behind, as he is the only one that can carry the ring and drop it into the molten fire. He alone can assume the task and fulfill his destiny. Tolkien’s masterpiece depicts Frodo bravely picking up his cross by carrying the ring to the fire alone. His brave heart is willing to sacrifice his own life to saveReview Middle Earth. This work of recollecting and remembering the stories and people in my life has been some of my most important work—my life mission. As I carry my cross, my story, I realize more and more that the divine and the sacred are intricately woven into our genes. They inform our life’s quest. However, even questing must be surpassed. Ultimately, a state of peaceful, trusting knowing, allowing us to be accepting and present in the moment, settles in. Intently searching across the horizon for the trail more simply becomes walking one’s talk. As the Way stretches forward, it becomes a contemplative pathway, an inner journey. The urgency of finding and integrating what has been lost becomes a daily encounter with serendipitous happenings. As a researcher (re-searcher), uniting the voices of the professionals, I orient and inform public health policy. The chosen methods reinforce a form of participatory Librariangovernance. My life mission has indeed been slowly revealed. I am a “searcher,” a 68 Martin Buber and Walter Arnold Kaufmann. I and Thou: Martin Buber: a New Translation with a Pro- logue “I and You” and Notes. (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1970) 66. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 285

kind of seeker and cultural creative, making new worlds with social artistry. Using Appreciative Inquiry, I seek solutions to problems that society is facing. By providing a dialogical space, I gather voices, lifting them up in multi-voice, and letting them fly high like kites taken by the wind of inspiration. When voices come together, they speak the wisdom of the universe. The sparks from our soul can ignite us with a spiritual blast, clearing a path like in the Old Testament story about Moses parting the Red Sea. Transfiguration means transforming the figure, the form, and the vision. We are all called today on a collective vision quest. Each one of us has our own storybook. We keep it beside us at bedtime as we fall gently asleep. During our dream states, we integrate the pages that have just been read and the images that we looked at beforeCopy closing our eyes. Somehow our night’s rest allows us to absorb the storyline and transform the passages that might have caused a ripple in our soul kite. These moments happen when we sleepwalk between the reflecting and absorbing barrier, where angels walk. When nighttime comes, there is the chance to enter into deep sleep where new worlds are reconfigured. During the night we repair on both a cellular and relational level, making new connections that restore us and re-link us with new possibilities. The promise of a new dawn is there with the rising sun as we awaken, sensing the eternal hope that is ours to embrace. Gratefulness helps time to heal wounds and scar tissue. My sister Cathy posted a touchingReview Facebook message on Father’s Day: After seeing my heart surgery scar and my chest tube adhesion, my physical therapist started asking about my life story. I told her I was born three months premature and had heart surgery around my third birthday. She laughed and asked why on earth my parents would adopt me knowing that I weighed only 2 lbs. 6 oz. when I was born. Telling the story of my life reaffirms it even more strongly each time how God blessed me by placing me with Mom and Dad. I called Mom and Dad that night to tell them again how very grateful I am that they adopted me and that I am forever thankful for all that they have taught me by example, for all the ways they sacrificed for me, and for the unconditional love they gave me. Mom and Dad paid for my heart surgery without insurance because I had not been adopted long enough even though I lived with them from the time I was two months old. I learned today that the pediatrician told Mom and Dad that due to my premature birth, I would probably not live to age sixteen. I survived Librarianall of that and heart surgery and more. I am who I am today because of who they are. 286 HOMING IN

There is a hospital in Florence, Italy, called Ospedale degli Innocenti, or Hospital of the Innocent. In the seventeenth century, there was a window built where people came and laid their babies on a soft cushion through the bars, entrusting the child to the care of the church. I have visited the hospital courtyard, attending Mass at the adjacent Baroque church, the Basilica of the Most Holy Annunciation. During my visit, I prayed a special prayer for all orphaned children and their caretakers. The term “innocent” continues to intrigue me. The innocents are those babes who come into the world, like my dear sister Cathy, and find loving hands to care for them in spite of their fragility. “The Innocents” is a terminology emerging from the Bible. The Gospel of Matthew tells the story of the Massacre of the Innocent when Herod Copyordered the killing of all Jewish infants in the vicinity of Bethlehem to avoid the loss of his throne to the newborn king of the Jews. Today, we often use the word “victim.” However, “innocence” and “the innocents” portray another dimension and quality: those who have done no wrong. To be innocent is also not to be guilty, or without guilt. In The Essence of Prayer, Carmelite sister Ruth Burrows speaks of tenderness in relation to Saint Thérèse de Lisieux and her love for the babe Jesus: “Tenderness is a reverent, almost worshipful response to what is weak, small, vulnerable, dependent. It longs to cherish and protect the fragile preciousness and beauty of being. What human person is not flawed and fragile? True love discerns this and responds with tenderness.”69 Saint Thérèse de Lisieux’sReview works are kept alive in the Society of the Little Flower that incarnates the messages she shared in her autobiography, The Story of a Soul. She writes of doing the ordinary with extraordinary love. Cathy and I were innocent babes. We were entrusted to loving families, and we will be forever grateful. God most certainly protected us from harm in ways we will never understand. However, the primal wound that Cathy and I both experienced when we were separated at birth continues to fester. It may simply be a part of ourselves that we need to learn to live with, a kind of scar like the mark on Harry Potter’s forehead. We are branded. Cathy and I continue to talk and share. Our healing conversations have allowed us to move forward. Cathy, in a response to reading this chapter prior to publication, explains her pain in this way:

The chapter using the word innocent versus victim (that the world uses) touched a Librarianplace deep in my soul. It helped me see myself from a different perspective.

69 Ruth Burrows, The Essence of Prayer, (Mahwah, N.J.: HiddenSpring, 2006), 109. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 287

When you ask how I am, I am going to use this e-mail as my counseling exercise of writing in my journal and just spill out my feelings and my questions . . . After reading your memoirs, I cannot catch my breath. When I first started doing research about reuniting with birth families, I read a lot of books. Many of them were so incredibly painful. The one concept that has stayed with me is the idea that you and I, on a molecular level, felt the unease of our mother during our development. Even more than that . . . we knew, just like baby kittens who cannot see their mama but can sense her, that we were nowhere near our mama. We knew that the woman who carried us for nine months, whose voice we came to recognize, was no longer there. The books I read talked about a primal level where we know that first feeling of loss. That feeling that we are alone, not with our mama. I agree with you that God adoptedCopy us during our time alone, but there is still a place buried very, very deep inside of me that is primal, that aches. More than aches. That takes my breath away. I don’t know how you can write your memoir without revisiting that horrible place each time. I am drawn to your memoir because I love hearing your story and your insights, but each time, I collapse into this place that I cannot stay. On any other day, I can play the part that I am all right. I would receive a Grammy for my acting abilities. Most people, who are only acquaintances, think I am a happy, bouncy, perky, loving, giving person. They don’t know the raging infection that is deep inside. I talked to my counselor about the “infection.” I want to have “surgery” to get it out! I want the infection to be healed. I don’t want the pain of being rejected at birth and then again later after the WyliesReview had met me to be a part of me anymore. I want the counselor to carve that section out of me. Then, I want to take “antibiotics” and get stitched up so I can heal. My counselor told me that is not how it works. As I type this, I weep. My chest is heavy. The pain that I pretend isn’t there, tries to surface again. It affects every aspect of my life but I pretend it isn’t there. I tell myself I am strong, I am loved by a God who gave His only Son to die for me, I am loved by my adoptive parents who adore me. Yet, I feel like there is something missing.

When we come close to another, we breathe in their essence like the odor of a rose in a secret garden. Just as a rose has thorns that prick, we can feel the pain of their patterns when we cross paths. The rose signature represents life’s beauty Librarianas well as its pain. In An Illustrated Guide to Floral Essences by Carol Rudd, she tells the legend of wild rose that is associated with love, reminding us of the transitory 288 HOMING IN

nature of our life on earth. In love, we must face the pain of separation from the beloved and accept that it is forever thus. Rudd expresses wild rose’s signature in these words: “Celebrate life as a mixture of pleasure and suffering.”70 When I first met my sister Cathy, I recognized her suffering. I could see that she had been carrying our family’s cross. Her story was heavier than even mine. She told me much later how she felt liberated when I saw her suffering and recognized her courage to bear the pain for us all. I had seen this pattern in the refugee families that I worked with as a mediator. There was a designated member of the family that often fell ill in an attempt to save the family from being deported. Cathy had bravely carried the pain of our family’s hidden loss; two of us had gone missing. Her chronic illnesses Copybore witness to what had not been healed. We share the same primal wound. I just wish a bottle of peroxide could clean out the sore spot with a fizzy sound, drying up the infection festering below the surface. Maybe it is the road to higher knowledge that eventually allows the individual, earthly suffering to be transformed; maybe it is grace. In our lostness and despair, ethical ways of life may not suffice to make us whole. Psychology and the social sciences are tools for greater understanding, though there are aspects of our lives that will never be fully comprehended. We live by the grace of God. In my daily meditation I ask, “If I was to have a better experience of my life, how would that look and feel?” After attending Mass at the site that first took in abandoned children, I shared my understanding of the innocentsReview with Cathy in the hopes that she could overcome her victimhood. Finding and incarnating our innate state of innocence requires rituals of cleansing and purification, as well as accepting suffering as part of the human condition. But ultimately, higher education has allowed me to help others while helping myself. Hopefully, knowledgeability gained and applied in solution-oriented practices can help us to most tenderly carry the cross, lifting it up together.

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70 Carol Rudd, Essences florales. (Cologne: Könemann, 1999) 102. CHAPTER 36

DEVELOPING MORAL IMAGINATION Copy oral imagination allows one to find an ethical solution by envisioning new and creative alternatives when facing ethical challenges. I have M used moral imagination to find creative solutions to the personal and professional challenges I have faced, reflexively searching for ethical conflict resolution methods. All my life I wanted to be worthy, to belong. But belonging in one group has different rules than belonging in another. Multiplicities of belonging involve understanding the different value scales within each social world. This requires the ability to coordinate complexity. I have had to be a kind of relational pioneer to find my way forward in virgin fields where others have not yet trodden. Developing moral imagination helped me to findReview my way. When my thesis was validated by the academic community, I became Dr. Susan Kay Riva-Mossman, a social scientist. More importantly, by giving birth, I became the mother of five children. Having searched and found the Wylies, I was reunited. But when Mr. Tomson sent me the golden pocket watch and wrote that it was “rightfully” mine, I experienced yet another form of validation. He saw my character through my poetic expression of Poppy’s eulogy and designated me as the next steward of the golden pocket watch. In my imagination, his gift seemed to imply a moral obligation to live up to owning the watch as the rightful owner. In each of these moments there was a judgement, an evaluation of worthiness, as well as the responsibility that goes with having children and higher degrees and being bequeathed with a timepiece. This theme of valuing holds an important place, possibly guiding what we responsibly decide to pass on. LibrarianMr. Tomson was the guardian of the watch during an intermittent period. Paradoxically, when it fell out of the package and into my lap, it allowed me to let go. I suddenly grasped that through all the trials and tribulations, I had been taken 290 HOMING IN

care of, ultimately overcoming all I had feared and having found reconciliation with all my relations. However, relationships require constant maintenance. Having lost those that I was born to, I knew separation and its consequences. In relationships I fear being disregarded. Is there a place where the consequences of sin or wrongdoing do not entail eternal separation?

Here is an invitation to my descendants in the words of Rumi: Out beyond ideas of right doing and wrong doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Copy Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” Doesn’t make any sense.

It is natural to categorize and judge. They are defenses. In families, just as in society in general, we label and try to analyze each other. Often these categories and labels serve to separate us from one another. We come from different races, ancestral roots, social classes, political parties, social organizations, and professional backgrounds. You either belong or are considered an outsider. That is human nature. In Valais I often hear a socially constructed narrative of superiority being told, judging the non-Swiss to be lesser. TheirReview school systems, wines, cheeses, and way of life are recounted as being the very best. There are many forms of social constructs building defense systems, aiming to assure cultural superiority and the privileges that go with a higher position or rank. Far from the shelter of my people, I have learned about what it is to be an outsider. Living away from my home state, I haven’t been able to take advantage of the circle of relations that I was adopted into. I have often felt viewed as a foreigner whose true worth was not appreciated. Parts of me got lost in translation. Somehow my accent gives me away. As the foreigner, with a different way of speaking and being, I have constantly been aware of how people relate to my differentness. It has been especially challenging to be from another place when looking for how I could contribute and have employment that corresponds to my skills and education. Swiss society’s relational models impose their relational lexicon using a framework for evaluation that is difficult to discern Librarianfor outsiders. The Alpine hierarchy has often placed those born and raised in the region ahead, using criteria difficult to decipher. This illegible code, difficult for SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 291

others to interpret, often remains incomprehensible to me. But when applied and carried through by whichever authorities have the power in their hands, it feels like a spear piercing my heart. It seems unfair. Even over dinner conversations, I find myself explaining who I am to my conversation partner, who sees me as an exotic other. I keep homing in to higher levels of understanding and moral imaginations of social justice and integral ecology. By looking beyond limited value scales, other worlds come into focus. New possibilities arise from our ability to imagine a better world while working for the good life. I often have felt like an outlander, coming through the stones to live in another place in time, in my husband’s world. Up in the mountains, in our lifeworld, we are fighting together to preserve theCopy highlander, mountain traditions. Living in an Alpine economy where the viability of skiing and mountain sports are being challenged, we hope to pass on the Alpine ways to all those who belong to our ski tribe. We are called to envision creative, ethical alternatives and long-term solutions. People coming from the cities are distanced from the rural lifestyles. The perceptions configuring economic and political policies seem to be separating citizens, creating a growing divide between urban and rural communities. The judgment of our behavior depends on our cultural vantage point. We each have representations that allow us to map out the social relationships that define our place in the world while defining the other. The social constructionists speak of the growing dialogue of deficiency.Review We often speak of ourselves in negative terms as psychological theories have permeated our daily language. Labeling may comfort us because we are able to put people in a specific category. However, our categorizing limits the potential inherent in our unique human expression and reduces opportunities for sharing and discovering new perspectives. Just as parts of me have been lost or deformed through cultural misunderstandings or lost in translation, it has also been a challenge for all of my parents to see reflections mirrored in me that came from the other side. I may have character traits that are uncomfortable for my adopted family or birth family to accept. Even my children at times feel embarrassed of my differences, refusing to speak to me in English as they didn’t want to stand out. Each culture has criteria that establishes hierarchies of value. In the monies of cultural exchange, one can find oneself devalued. Evaluation and ranking all bear judgement on placement. LibrarianMy life has forced me to adapt to different family, national, and professional cultures. Even the two languages that I speak shape and form my thought processes 292 HOMING IN

in different ways. The many matrixes that I live within offer multiple grids of self- construction. These blueprints condition becomingness. There may be a field of being-ness that exists beyond our dimension of duality. It is in that field that I would like to meet my descendants. In a place without judgment, in a place that doesn’t define our separateness, in the grasses of that field I hope to repose. Accept this invitation to belong here in the community of the forever loving. There is no one dominant truth, nor one overriding storyline. These inter- pretations are only my authorship that interacts with the readership to co-construct new perceptions, narrative pathways, and flyways. The difficulty of finding meaning in our post-modern world is accepting the multiple story lines. Even more importantly, who gets to tell the story? Copy My own children have mirrored back to me a rare nobility of spirit. And as I write, it becomes more and more about them. The power of the ancestors to mold character and genetic makeup gives way to the unfolding of the next generation as they shoot their arrows into the sky of possibility where the future prevails. I remember the dinner in Tilburg before my thesis defense. I was overcome with emotion and could barely eat. The professors next to me kindly asked what I was feeling. I explained with great emotion that I so terribly wanted my families to be proud of me. As much as I wanted my ancestors to observe from their heavenly clouds, I wanted to be able to show my living parents and children my newly earned diploma, to make them proud. I so desperately wanted their validation, modeling a life of learning. I sought to developReview my intellect and writing skills, hoping this would please them all. Possibly the adopted child never truly feels understood or validated when growing up among family members that can’t seem to place them like the others they seem to more easily recognize: “Oh, she’s just like . . .” With each academic endeavor, I sought to relate more deeply with the world, conveying all I so longed to share. Through journeymanship I endure, a little less alone, enriched through encounters with those whom I read and get to know. My motivation to become a writer may partly stem from William Faulkner’s speech of acceptance upon being awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature. On December 10, 1950, he ended his speech by saying,

I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, Librariana spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 293

heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which has been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.71

I found a copy of this speech among papers and poems that my mother and grandmother had saved from my high school days, allowing me not to forget. Indeed, the great poets and authors throughout time have been the keepers of our moral imagination. It is our responsibility to cultivate higher learning and empower today’s youth with the capacity to imagine humanity’s future. Meet me in the field, in the meadow, where the honeybees follow Copyenergy fields to find nectar and pollinate the flowers. When the queen bee returns to the honeycomb, she does a kind of dance called a waggle that informs the other bees where they need to go. The waggle communicates a kind of map of the field. I see myself as the queen bee in our family, going out into the field, looking for the nectar, and pollinating the many projects that flower from my touch. When I am in that state of bee-ing-ness, all is good, and life is as sweet as the nectar taken from the meadows. The yields are great in the field of bee-ing-ness. When I can dance the waggle and cross-pollinate across fields, sharing ideas and making new worlds, I feel alive. My beehive is populated with young bees, looking for direction, seeking the nectar to build the perfectly patterned honeycomb that form our group endeavor. Prayers too pollinate the blossoms before usReview like a queen bee making fruitful the trees in orchards of potentiality and becomingness. In the winter, our family goes out into the snowfields, and it is their father who leads the way. Our ski tribe lives on the sparkling fields of snow crystals that shine, reverberating the sun’s energy back to us. The positive energy held within each snowflake that falls contributes to the miles and miles of snowfields on our mountain peaks, attracting tourists from around the world. The Alps harbor a magical field of energy held within snowflakes and snow crystals. We ski on a sparkling energetic treasure that transforms our energy field, revitalizing us throughout the winter months.

Meet me in the snowfields where I ski down the fault line, erasing all notions of Librarianright and wrong. 71 William Faulkner, “Banquet Speech,” Nobel Prize. December 10, 1950. https://www.nobelprize.org/no- bel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html. 294 HOMING IN

Meet me in the soft powder of a cold winter day and feel the kisses of angels descending on your cheeks, as the snowflakes fall and the clouds contain us in a winter wonderland. I will be there, beyond where you can see through the fog, hovering over the mountain peak, watching over my loved ones, a mére-veilleuse (wonderful mother or watchful mother).

Indeed, the poet’s voice allows us to endure by employing artful forms of language and metaphor. The poet invites us to explore other possibilities that bubble up from the unconscious. As we dance, waggling into the future, new patterns of movement bring us to a new place. Copy In the above poem, a transition marks the change in the storyline. No longer looking back into the past, trying to discern the transgenerational patterns, new potentialities present themselves. The winter landscape ushers in a new form of transcendence, sparkling like snow crystals after a fresh snowfall. Here, I become the watchful mother and the grandmother to be. In this winter wonderland, the past gives way to the future, tipping towards generations yet to be born. Kenneth Gergen addresses this as a narrative “turn of events.” He refers to this as an “alteration in the narrative slope.”72 Come meet me in the snowfields of forgiveness, beyond right doing and wrong doing. Join me in the innocence of our natality where unexpected freedoms arise, and we experience a shift, liberated fromReview undesirable constraints imprisoning the human condition. Ski down the fall line, the path of least resistance down the slope, writing meaning with figures in the snow. With moral imagination not only do we endure and prevail, we are lifted. What lifts you?

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72 Kenneth J. Gergen, Realities and Relationships, Soundings in Social Construction, 198. CHAPTER 37

EARTHRISE: EXPANDING OUR CIRCLE OF CARING Copy

s a young student at the University of Boulder in Colorado, I attended conferences organized by the university that were intended to foster a A change in paradigm. One of the speakers that made a presentation was the astronaut from Apollo 9, Rusty Schweickart. He showed a picture of the Earth taken from the spaceship. He explained that it was an incredible moment to realize that all he loved and cared about could be covered up with just his thumb, as the Earth was so small from his vantage point in space. In that instant, his whole understanding of life itself was transformed. That vision was a catalyst for a major paradigm shift that changed his life. As an activist, he devoted much of his Reviewtime and energy to the development of a new planetary vision. He understood the importance of our fragile ecosystem and planetary interconnectedness. Humanity made a major consciousness leap after viewing the images of Earth so gracefully framed by the darkness of empty space. The Earthrise photo, showing Earth coming up, was taken during the Apollo 8 mission. It raised consciousness about environmental issues and inspired Earth Day. Margaret Mead wrote,

“Earth Day is the first holy day that transcends all national borders, yet preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time belts, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord, is devoted to the preservation of the harmony in nature and yet draws upon triumphs of technology, the measurement of time, and instantaneous Librariancommunication through space.”73 73 Margaret Mead. qted in Bill McKibben. “How The Iconic 1968 Earthrise Photo Changed Our Rela- tionship To The Planet” Common Dreams. December 11, 2018. https://www.commondreams.org/ views/2018/12/06/how-iconic-1968-earthrise-photo-changed-our-relationship-planet. 296 HOMING IN

Schweikart’s life mission was not just to be an astronaut but to share his vision, helping others expand their circle of caring for our planet earth. I was lucky to have been present at his conference and speak with him personally following his presentation. Teachers like Rusty Schweikart transformed my planetary vision. He explained that as he began asking himself “Who am I,” he was contemplating the face of the earth and his relation to the planet. His realization brought him to a higher level of understanding. We Are All the Keepers of Earth is the title of a storied manual with Native American teachings.74 Though I wasn’t along on the yearly Wylie family trips to Montana, I was told the stories and shown the pictures about the summers on the land. My birth parents have built a cabin on their land there, a place where we can allCopy meet. The land that they visit each summer has been a sacred place for their family vacations. It allowed them to bond around the campfire, sharing stories and each other’s company. As they hiked the land, they learned to connect with the great outdoors and to appreciate a simple life, cut off from modern technologies. Ruth Ann has dedicated her life to her vocation as an educator and principal. Her outstanding work ethic is an example to her family and community. She created an outdoor classroom at her school with the help of the families and greater community. Both Michael and Ruth Ann have been active Democrats all of their lives, working for the party’s political agenda and educating their family about the importance of ecology. Often integral ecology requires integrating women’s perspectives into decisional processesReview by electing women. Michael actively supports female candidates for office, volunteering to do grassroots campaigning in Lincoln. Michael also supported his wife when she worked as a principal and leader within the Lincoln Public Schools. Ruth Ann received four Green Ribbon awards for ecological schools from the head of the national education department in Washington, DC. Both of my parents have modeled engaged teaching ethics throughout their careers. My birth parents showed me how to make fruit smoothies for my morning breakfast, a healthy way to start the day. Our daily habits make us who we are. There is an important link between our personal energy choices and our planetary future. The core issues are about personal power and energy and their interface with how we use our collective power. The key is in the word “power.” Will we Librarian 74 Michael J. Caduto, Joseph Bruchac, Ka-Hon-Hes, and Carol Wood. Keepers of the Earth: Native Amer- ican Stories and Environmental Activities for Children, (Golden, Colo: Fulcrum, 1988). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 297

develop new forms of energy that empower all world citizens, or will we remain dominated by central governing forces that control the world’s energy? I come from the region of the Ogallala Aquifer, the immense underground freshwater basin that has brought fertility to the Heartland. I live in the Alps, where the glaciers feed the rivers. The aquifer and the glaciers are both sources that must be conserved. Humanity must take care of both of these water sources that provide fertility and sustainability. Future generations depend on our socially conscious agency to preserve the very sources that have engendered the good life that we know today. Various companies seek to build pipelines through the aquifer, risking the pollution of the water. Pipeline protesters have gone to the NebraskaCopy State Capitol, fighting for a future of clean water and clean energy. Their combat is exemplarily. The resistance has taken on a holographic metaphor and our collective response will define the world’s future. Will we stand strong, defending our natural water reserves? Will we reduce our use of fossil fuels and intake of animal proteins to improve humanity’s relationship with the earth and each individual’s health? Or will we continue to overconsume petroleum and grow food products with chemicals that pollute and cause disease? The question remains, how can we restore balance to our ecosystem? Our personal agency and well-chosen actions do make a difference. The Native Americans have modeled what it means to stand strong together, honoring their covenant with Mother Earth while inviting others to stand with them. At the American AnthropologyReview Annual Meeting in Minneapolis in 2016, participants were greeted by a Lakota tribal leader and professor. He welcomed us to the region and spoke of the rising resistance. Our eco-footprints need to make a lighter print in the ground we walk. Just as we are influenced by a matrix of emotional patterns that mold our energy field, we live in an environment that we interact with daily, consuming many forms of energy. Our existence on the planet is indeed a gift. We are stewards of a unique life form. As we heal our relations, new possibilities may arise, allowing us to lighten our burden on multiple levels. Enlightened relationships may enable us to find ways to lighten our step when we touch the ground, transforming our footprints. Multiple energy fields shape our lives. Bringing consciousness into our relationships, respecting our interconnectedness, and treating our earth with loving-kindness will bring about a new covenant. LibrarianWe live in an era that is defining how the Golden Rule can be applied to our relationship with our natural environment. More and more world citizens are aware 298 HOMING IN

of our systemic imbalance. The ecological philosophy that is emerging from the current global negotiations will hopefully enable humankind to realign. The Paris Agreement on climate change has taken years to negotiate. Katrina went to Paris with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s NGO, R20 Regions of Climate Action, to build a platform for the Paris agreement. Each generation contributes. We are the Keepers of Life and our joint actions and lifework are a gift to “the seeds of the people—our children.”75 Epigenetic theory creates an important scientific paradigm shift concerning our understanding of inheritance, just as the first pictures of our Earth floating in space ushered in a global vision. Our genes have a memory about where they come from. This is understood as genomic imprinting, a kind of trans-generationalCopy genetic memory influenced by our perceptions and environment. Exposure to stress and toxins have been shown to negatively influence gene expression in future generations. Equally important is the growing understanding that healthy lifestyle choices can also positively influence our genetic expression. This knowledge underscores the importance of individual and collective responsibility. What happens to us affects our descendants. We are the guardians or Keepers of our Genome. Our choices will determine the seeds that will be nurtured, carrying forth the future life forms on earth. This guardianship is essential for the quality of life on earth. In our family, we are caretakers of the tourists that come to ski on our mountain. The Alpine wellness that we embody is shared with all those who come to play in the snow. We take care to teach them toReview ski, and we provide rescue teamwork when there are injuries and accidents. Not only do we care for the people that come to our mountain, but we are the caretakers of our natural area. We live in a community responsible for the hiking paths, the grazing pastures, and the maintenance of the buildings and chalets that house the many guests that come to benefit from our Alpine landscape and its many activities. More and more people come to enjoy the opportunity to reconnect with nature, caring for themselves and their family relations as they take in the beautiful scenery. The traditional plant remedies as well as the fresh mountain air are all part of a growing appreciation of Alpine Wellness tourism. The many spas and thermal baths attest to the plentiful offerings in our area. I am proud that my family members are engaged Alpine caretakers. As communities and continents look for new methods to assure sustainable Librariandevelopment, the archetypical symbol of the shepherd has reemerged, providing

75 Ibid, xii. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 299

an alternative pathway for coexistence. Shepherding back our biodiversity may be a way forward. In The Art of Shepherding: Tapping the Wisdom of French Herders, Michel Meuret76 describes transhumance know-how. Transhumance ways of living are practiced in the Alps where shepherds and cowherders move with their flocks and herds up and down the mountainside, grazing on pastures as they follow the seasons. New research is showing how ancient herding practices favor biodiversity. A skilled herder is an “ecological doctor,” fostering the health of communities by maintaining the health of the ecosystem. The shepherd is also one of the major archetypical representations of Jesus Christ. Hidden within this metaphor is a way to care for the planet: a blueprint for maintaining biodiversity. Shepherd-ship guides and lifescapes our individual destinies as well as Gaia’s, bringing forthCopy ecological balance and the good life.

Review

Librarian 76 Michel Meuret and Fred Provenza. The Art & Science of Shepherding: Tapping the Wisdom of French Herd- ers (ACRES U.S.A. Austin, Texas, 2014). Copy

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Librarian CHAPTER 38

THE WEIGHING OF THE HEART Copy n the heart-mind we connect to our emotions. Though we may embody forms of discrimination, love needs, even requires, incarnation. Still, the heartfelt love I that we feel is often met with different experiences of suffering. Prayer, moral imagination, pilgrimage, different forms of communion—all are transformational practices and ways of being in the world that lead to peace and the lightening of burdens from the heart. Family matters, like matters of the heart, are multi-layered, fashioned by aesthetic holographic fractal patterns. When in a state of hope, divine love can act upon us. Walking through fields of pain, loss, sorrow, and regret can eventually lead to a place of reconciliation, which in turn lightens the emotional load on our hearts. This weighing of the heart is symbolized by the Egyptian scarab Reviewbeetle, used as a talisman in ancient Egyptian times to lift burdens from the heart. Over my lifetime, I have learned about ancient healing traditions and religions, hoping to better understand how spirit and body interact and connect. My heart was full of powerful emotions after finding my birth family. The intensity of the experience took a toll on my heart. The incredible joy that I experienced was also met with tensions that emerged within the matrix of my relations, connecting me to an undercurrent of forgotten trauma. Not only was I was processing our reunion and striving to be a mediator, but I was dealing with fundamental changes. My adopted parents had divorced and remarried. My grandparents were passing away. My sister Cathy was divorcing too. And I was facing the reality of my choice to marry and move abroad. Finding my place in the professional world was that much more challenging for me; I eventually had five young children to take care of while Librariancontinuing my education and working full-time. It all seemed overwhelming. My heart was fatigued by the joy, the tensions, and the uncertainty. As an exchange student and then as a newlywed, I had walked through a magical 302 HOMING IN

portal, transporting me from my familiar social world in Nebraska to a completely new world in Valais. It was like the passage in the wardrobe I had read about in the Narnia books. In the midst of my identity expansion, I walked into another version of Narnia by entering a museum in Turin. There, I discovered an Egyptian tradition that addressed the question of a heavy heart: the Egyptian scarab. The mystical beetle is an amulet promising yet another form of passage. It was believed that the beetle brought forth divine manifestation associated with the morning sun at daybreak. This new discovery reinforced my belief in the potential each new day brings, as well as the ability to walk through suffering into the promise of a new day. Jung also referred to the scarab beetle at the window in his writings, a sign that came to symbolize synchronicity, affirming that the universeCopy participates in the human quest for meaning. These synchronicities, he believed, often occurred in moments of crisis in people’s lives, containing messages enkindling personal growth and development. I found the scarab beetle in the midst of an identity crisis, and not only did it serve to lighten my heart, it marked the finding with the seal of synchronicity. Our trip to the Turin museum was inspired by Nils, who as a young boy became interested in Egyptian history. The museum has one of the largest collections of Egyptian artifacts in the world and is just a few hours from our home. We decided to visit the museum the weekend after Marnie’s death when we drove down to Monaco. Only later was I able to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyph that had sealed my grandmother’s last message to meReview in encripted form as she metaphorically sealed her tomb. It was while watching the movie about Princess Grace, Grace of Monaco starring Nicole Kidman, that I learned Princess Grace had turned down an important film role to star in Hitchcock’s film Marnie. By doing so, she turned the page on her life as an actress and accepted her most important role as Prince Rainier’s wife. From this scene, I understood how Marnie’s death was a page marker at a place in my life that symbolically marked a turning point. My decision to not attend Marnie’s funeral took me to the Rock of Monaco and a higher point of understanding in my life-course. When I did not return for my grandmother’s funeral, opting to secure an important job contract and create the mediation service, I too turned the page on my past and assumed my responsibilities on my new continent. Marnie is a rare name. Yet, it was Marnie, my Marnie, that marked this transitional page in my life Librarianstory: the page and place of no return, the placeholder. I was no longer who I was in America with the dreams, freedoms, and ambitions that once were my birthright. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 303

I had given that up to become the wife of a European man. My children—born on the Old Continent—and their future were my form of investiture marked with an invisible insignia representing the passage from young woman to wife and mother as well as marking their birth certificates with a European passport and unfolding of their destinies. I became their regal mother and resigned myself to be Angelo’s wife. In doing so, I accepted the most important role of my life, modeling Grace. I was forced to weigh my heart, a concept from ancient Egypt that I find fascinating and relevant. Our first visit to the Egyptian museum in Turin allowed us to more deeply appreciate Egyptian culture. It brought to life what we had read in the books we had acquired on the subject. The Eye of Horus, a famous hieroglyphCopy marked with a teardrop falling from the inner eye, seemed to be watching over that trip to Turin and Monaco, protecting my family under the loving regard of my Marnie. I later returned to the museum with Jessica when we made our pilgrimage to see the Holy Shroud. Then, in 2017 Sven and I visited, appreciating the completely renovated exhibits. The Egyptian hieroglyphs exhibit the pharaohs’ tombs with markings that have carved their names in consciousness through time. During these visits, the sacred beetles called scarabs exhibited in the museum caught my attention. I learned that the Egyptians had a ceremony known as “the weighing of the heart.” The heart was the only organ that remained in the mummified body because it had to be weighed against the feather of truth. The heart must be as light as the featherReview for the deceased to successfully complete the passage to the afterlife. A scarab was placed on top of the mummy at the place of the heart inscribed with a spell from the Book of the Dead. The sacred words “Do not stand as a witness against me” were inscribed on the inner side of the beetle. In Egyptology, this ritual is of great importance. Many of the Egyptian ceremonies pertain to the preparation of the mummy so that the soul of the deceased may pass peacefully to the other side. The pyramids house the mummies with all their worldly belongings and attest to the importance that the Egyptian pharaohs accorded to their belief in the afterlife. There are also many depictions of canoe-shaped rafts that carry the deceased’s body down the Nile on its last voyage. I purchased a copy of a sacred beetle at the museum store to remind me how important it is to work to keep my heart as light as a feather—lighthearted. When Librarianmy heart is heavy and I feel the pain of past disappointments, I must remind myself not to let the seeds of negativity and pessimism become like a weed, an overgrowth 304 HOMING IN

that might take over my secret garden. Another way of understanding disappointment and disillusion can be heard in the words of song. I have been taken to an amusement park’s House of Mirrors more than once. It is a place of mirrors that deform or shape the viewer’s perceptions of reality. Love too can blind us, altering our perceptions. Joni Mitchell sings about love’s illusions in her famous song “Both Sides Now.” The intentions behind what appears to be love, when revealed, can expose forms of manipulation and deceit. Indeed, love that we believe to be held in the seat of the heart is understood and expressed in many different manners. Many different angles are possible when looking at love, just as there are many different chambers in the heart. Looking for other definitions of love beyond the popular and romanticCopy adds another dimension of understanding to the ways of the heart. The Sacred Heart is depicted in art forms and statues, especially in the cathedrals and basilicas in Europe. The words of Pope John Paul II during his Apostolic Pilgrimage to India in 1986 offer hope when our hearts feel heavy. He honored Gandhi by saying, “Mahatma Gandhi taught that if all men and women, whatever the differences between them, cling to the truth, a new world order—a civilization of love—can be achieved. And today we hear him still pleading with the world: ‘Conquer hate by love, untruth by truth, violence by suffering.’”77 As we seek wholeness in joining paths emanating from different religious traditions, understandings of truth are transposed. Medical anthropology seeks to Reviewbetter understand the social and cultural determinants that configure health outcomes. Understanding how these social and cultural determinants of health are configuring our health outcomes reinforces our global ability to co-create hopeful, healthy outcomes. Our positions in the social hierarchy as well as our feelings of injustice or its opposite, fairness, directly influence our health and well-being. Whether our suffering is associated with personal or professional feelings of injustice, our hearts must be purified on a daily basis. Again, our well-being is connected to our feelings of belonging and our sense of fairness. Sometimes cleansing tears allow us to evacuate the suffering and find inner peace and solace. When we are unjustly treated, the Lord’s recognition comforts us. I silently repeat the 23rd Psalm in my morning prayers. The King James Version goes like this:

LibrarianThe Lord is my Shepard I shall not want.

77 John Paul II. “Pope John Paul II Apostolic Pilgrimage to India 1986.” The Holy See. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 305

He maketh me lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the path of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For though art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, Thou anointest my head with oil, My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, Copy And I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

The verse “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies” assures us that our Lord rights injustice. He prepares a table just for us, restoring our place at life’s table in the presence of our enemies. Still, we must wait patiently for God’s hand to arrange the planned moment of grace, allowing us to regain our rightful place. The poisoned arrows of the past that weigh each heart must be transmuted so that we don’t remain “wounded warriors” forever. In the Via Matris, it is written, “The Church asks us to ponder the sorrows of Mary so that, among other objectives, we learn how to accept the sufferingsReview that daily befall us. Mary helps us to sustain those sufferings that are meant to form part of our rising to new life. Those who consecrate themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary enter into a sacred tradition that teaches how to embrace suffering without becoming sad. There is a form of joy beyond the suffering.”78 Amazingly, Mary has appeared to innocent children around the world before outbreaks of war. Our Lady of Kibeho in Rwanda is one example. Her message through the ages is to pray, to love, and to repent from sin. In Northern Italy, the Basilica of Oropa is situated in the Alps. There in the oldest and most important sanctuary in the Alps dedicated to the Virgin Mary, pilgrims can visit the Black Madonna, an ancient statue made of Swiss pinewood. The Black Madonna suggests a mysterious face to be contemplated in relation to the Marion cult. She has greeted pilgrims through the ages, showing them the Way Librarianin both their earthy and spiritual pilgrimages. The mysteries elicit multi-stranded 78 “The Via Matris,” Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows, http://www.ols.org/prayer-life/congregation-devotions/ devotion-to-our-lady-of-sorrows/via-matris/ (Accessed July 1018). 306 HOMING IN

forms of witnessing. Aesthetic representations serve to transmit spiritual messages through time by touching the heart of the beholder. Another Mary has played an important role in the Christian narrative. In 2016 Pope Francis declared Mary Magdalene the Apostle of Apostles, raising the status of her feast day on July 22nd,79 as well as clarifying that she was not a prostitute. This new story has great transformational potential. Her role as witness, announcing the resurrection to the other disciples, is revelatory. Mary Magdalene’s transformed narrative gives value to the importance of witnessing. In my daily prayers, I put on the armor—“amour” is love in French—of Christ. Christ’s armor is the most powerful protective shield that can be worn. I don’t want my battles to tarnish my personal armor, repelling my own children, familyCopy circle, and friends. I don’t want a rusty form of bitterness to limit my present. Therefore, I polish my “amour” with daily prayer and meditation in an attempt to lift up my vibrational energy field, connecting with the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Next to my bed is a ceramic Spanish wall hanging depicting Jesus with his hand over his heart. It has a small basin for Holy Water. Jesus Christ is often portrayed with his hand on his heart, le sacré coeur, showing us the Way to love through our hearts while showing gratitude for the complexity of life, in reference to the Ignatian Principles as written by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order. While recovering from a battle wound, he received inspiration from Holy Mother Mary, and falling in love with God, he lived each present moment with passion. Grace is experienced as deeply felt knowledgeReview that shapes our perceptions. Grateful hearts are gateways opening us to experiential knowledgeability.80 There are many different languages of the heart, different cultural repre- sentations, and different understandings of the body. Many ancient traditions had ways of understanding the energy flowing through the body. These different understandings influence how people interpret their well-being as well as how they will navigate paths toward care and healing. Recent authors, in light of new research, have tried to explain how energy flows through the body. Each one of our endocrine glands is connected to a chakra, or energy center in the ancient healing traditions. These energy centers secrete hormones, or “molecules of emotion” as Candace Pert calls them, into our blood,

79 “Mary Magdalene, Apostle of the Apostles, 10.06.2016,” La Santa Sede. https://press.vatican.va/con- Librariantent/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2016/06/10/160610c.html (Accessed July 2018). 80 Wilkie Au, et Noreen Cannon Au. The Grateful Heart: Living the Christian Message, (New York: Paulist Press, 2011). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 307

informing our entire body-mind. The ancient healing traditions connect the energetic centers in our bodies to meridians, as seen in acupuncture. Today, chakras are part of the language most commonly known and spoken about through the New Age movement. Caroline Myss popularized this understanding through her book Anatomy of the Spirit. Different paradigms and representations of the body-mind can coexist depending on which culture and tradition we identify with. With the advance in the neurosciences, it has been discovered that our heart is a center where “molecules of emotion” are concentrated much like in the brain. The HeartMath Institute81 is doing research that documents the heart center’s capacity to connect to our body- mind and bring us to higher levels of coherency for greater well-being.Copy Our life- blood flows with regenerative forces, circulating through vessels of transmission. There is a constant dialogue between Mother Earth and Father Sky, taking place in us and through us, as we are the children of the earth. Our mind-bodies must be finely tuned to function in this in-between position. Daily meditation and prayer allow for us to connect to our inner selves, making space for the divine to enter. Meditation is free. It is like solar energy, accessible for all to benefit. Meditation empowers us, as we learn to find peace and wholeness within our hearts, experiencing a form of homeostasis. Many traditions recognize the healing benefits of meditation, including modern medicine, as seen in the mindfulness movement. Shamanic breathwork is another pathway to wholeness, linking consciousness with heart-centered breathing. Joy, oneReview of my early mentors, describes the shamanic patterns she has witnessed while doing breathwork:

Breathwork experiences did not “just happen.” Their pattern was that of a shamanic initiation: birth, death, resurrection. There was ongoing birthing into more and more awareness, aliveness, and willingness to be in the present. There was ongoing dying as problems became healed, ego attachments to conditioning fell away, pain that had become a habit was renounced, and self-righteousness and blaming gave way to ever more anchored self-responsibility. There was ongoing resurrection as, moving through our activations and healing, we became reborn into being the person we really are.82

Making space for breath or spirit in our lives allows us to connect with divine

Librarian81 “HeartMath Institute Research Library.” HeartMath Institute. https://www.heartmath.org/research/re- search-library/ (Accessed April 2019). 82 Joy Manné. Conscious Breathing: How Shamanic Breathwork Can Transform Your Life, 251. 308 HOMING IN

energy that fills our sails and guides our vessel throughout the life-course as we become more and more sensitive to our inner moral and spiritual compass. This compass helps us to navigate by linking and relating us to our heartfelt intuitions with increased consciousness. Pope Francis was quoted saying in his Inaugural Ceremony, “Authentic power is service.” His words seem to acknowledge our yearning for a fair and just world governance. Noble leadership comes from the heart-mind. It is the pathway traversing the Sacred Heart of Jesus, uniting individuals, homes, and nations as we strive to make this a better world. Pope John Paul II was the first to connect the “alliance of Mary’s Immaculate Heart and the Sacred Heart of Jesus” in his Angelus speech in September 1985. The world is redeemed when we entrust orCopy consecrate ourselves to God, performing God’s divine purpose in daily activities. Treasured beauty is in the ordinary. Homing in, we go through the Sacred Heart to a place of grace. Though I began the search for my birth mother in the hopes of reconciliation and healing, the unfolding events were only possible through God’s grace. Corinthians 15:10 reads, “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed on me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” I followed my heart-mind back home to a place where I belonged. My prayers allowed grace to inform my life’s journey. My feet were listening to Gaia, picking up the traces of my past and tuning intoReview the new vibrational energy patterns that were creating a morphogenetic field,83 allowing for my personal transformation while homing in. Through the chambers of the heart flows the lifeblood, irrigating our veins while informing our cells. Our cells all belong to our body, linked through our heart. Our heart organ pumps blood throughout our body, connecting our entire system with rhythmic heart beats that resonate throughout the entire system. Our heart literally beats for interconnectedness. Also, from a Christian perspective, we belong to the body of Christ. “But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lack it, so there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it” Librarian(1 Corinthians 12:12-26). 83 Rupert Sheldrake, The Science Delusion: Freeing The Spirit of Enquiry, (Hodder & Stoughton, London 2012). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 309

The passions of the heart are found and experienced in the chambers of the heart. In this place we long for peace, belonging, and oneness. The heart holds these different heartfelt desires in place. The sacred heart connects these different aspects within the field of the heart. When we are connected to our heart center, we live and relate, moving in a heartfelt way. The nature or various facets of our interconnectedness not only link our individual processes with our family and community, but also determine the quality of our relatedness. This relational quality permeates the bonds that bind us together. As mentioned before, the epigenetic influence is carried through several generations. We are tied in relationships by heartstrings. We are intertwined like the Celtic Cross, whose knots interlace spiral patterns through time. Copy Another artistic metaphor for our inter-linkedness is the work of the artists of the Vatican school who made the ornate mosaic paintings in the Basilica of Saint Peter. It took over 130 years to complete them. Our own trans-generational life mosaics will also require the labor of many generations, faithfully working to complete the oeuvre, or life’s work. I enjoy visiting the basilicas in the cities of Italy. They are filled with artwork telling the Christian narrative. Christendom is the foundation upon which many of my values have been built. The European Christians migrated to North America, populating the New World and spreading the Christian religion. We may even make the connection between Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations and the unfolding of Christian values in an attempt to createReview cooperative alliances among nations, living peacefully within the political body. Wilson’s father was a Protestant pastor, and his upbringing surely influenced his worldview and dedication to peace building. However, his vision included reaching out to other faiths and traditions. His doctrine of self-determination was built upon the belief that all people should have the right to express their deepest convictions and be governed by their own consent. His political vision stemmed from his desire to bring nations together in peaceful and constructive relationships where citizens could benefit from joint collaborations initiated on a global level. He sought to unite the world in a vision of peaceful governance, bringing spiritual and moral vision in to play so to better guide international affairs. Recently, I had an insight after contemplating scripture read at Mass at the Basilica in Sion, Switzerland. As the boys’ choir sang, it occurred to me that my Librariansearch for my place in my family and the difficulties that have ensued was only normal. It isn’t just the experience of adopted children or immigrants. In John 310 HOMING IN

17:14-16, we read, “We are in the world, but not of the world.” Our true place is in the Kingdom of Heaven. I often feel like a misfit here on earth. God protects us, sheltering us from evil in the world. When I realize that my dwelling place is a spiritual kingdom, and that I must not search for my place here in the material world, then I feel a little more at home, sheltered by God’s love. Many people face issues of belonging. Each life story is confronted with the issues of finding a useful social position and place in the circle of life. Barbara Brown Taylor, an Anglican pastor, has written several books about modern faith. In An Altar in the World,84 she develops how it doesn’t matter what we do, but how we do it. Our good intention in all we do, even if it is not work that we consider to be changing the world, in fact transforms all our relations.Copy It is a never-ending challenge to safeguard our integrity and sovereign space. We must be modern-day crusaders, unwilling to give in to trespasses upon our soul territory. Cultivating Peace, by James O’Dea, is dedicated to instructing the greater world community in how to become ambassadors of peace. He describes the transformational process that must take place within us so that peace may be perceived in the outer manifestation of our world. He talks about the healing power of heart-centered listening where people can share the truth of their experience and feel accepted for who they are.85 He writes about the revelatory power of hu- man experience and story. Both communities and nations need peacekeeping skills. Former US president Jimmy Carter bravely traveled to NorthReview Korea during a period of extreme tensions in 1994 to negotiate peace during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Carter’s example shows how the common spark that resides in all human beings can be rekindled, making a way towards peaceful resolutions.86 Listening and using the power that comes from ethical and principled persuasion allows mediators to construct frameworks for peacebuilding. The expressions of the heart can be seen in acts of peacemaking. Saint Hildegard von Bingen referred to a form of “greenness” that was the life of God transmitted into plants, animals, and precious gems. Symbolically, that “greenness” or “viriditas”—the term she used to explain a yeast-like component—

84 Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, (New York: HarperOne, 2010). 85 James O’Dea, Cultivating Peace: Becoming a 21st Century Peace Ambassador, (San Rafael, CA: Shift Books, Librarian2012). 86 Paul J. Zwier, Principled Negotiation and Mediation in the International Arena: Talking with Evil. (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 311

is what she referred to as the principle of life. She used the word “enkindle”87 to explain how generative life forces are transmitted. Viriditas is understood to be a greening force or healing force of nature. Her remedies were used to stimulate vitality inherent in the life force and bring about healing, just as her sacred music is an expression of musical harmony rising from the inner ear and carrying the listener to another celestial dimension. Hildegardens filled the monasteries with herbal remedies used for teas and cooking as well as concocting herbal medicines. Though Saint Hildegard lived a monastic lifestyle, her ways can be transposed to enrich lives and promote well-being today in Hildegard Homes, where Traditional European Medicine can be practiced. When we cultivate peace, we are enkindling the transformational Copyenergy within, thenceforth allowing us to generate systemic transformation in the outer world. Creating lifts the soul, engaging our energies in aesthetic acts of reparation. Artful forms of language serve to reinforce the transformational process, igniting the power of latent subconscious imageries. These visions of reparation are intertwined with the natural world’s offerings and can be embedded in our daily practices. As we make spelt bread, pick flowers for herbal teas, or give a massage to a friend with a chosen aroma therapy oil, we are co-creating with the divine. The daily insights or showings gained in the midst of divine presence allow us to see beauty in our ourselves and others, which in turn engenders more beauty with the pollinating power of bee-coming. Praying is another act in lifting andReview enkindling transformation. Prayer is a sacred healing conversation where living wisdom can act upon us, transforming our life trajectories. I dialogue with the divine on a daily basis. My relational being includes the spiritual relatedness that I cultivate in meditation. Living in divine presence is a form of continual surrendering. Each present moment offers newness much like the promise of the rising sun. My spiritual conversations with God help me to orient my intentions and actions as I discern the next good thing to do in ordinary daily events. More and more, I can feel when I am being pulled into a pattern of conversation that distresses me. Possibly this realization allows me to change my vibrational level and reorient my response to experience a more peaceful encounter. I still get pulled in to ways of being that don’t bring out the best of me or those I am relating with. However, opening dialogical space through prayer has sustained and nourished Librarianme like manna over my lifetime.

87 Hildegard. Hildegard von Bingen’s Mystical Visions. 312 HOMING IN

Desiring to heal my relations, I have tried to listen to my sister’s story of suffering. Her pain is a shared pain that echoes through the chambers of my heart. In the context of our reunion story, I came to know the pain that my sister Cathy had experienced. She came into the world already carrying a burden in her heart, a heart that wasn’t given enough time to develop properly. Not only was I facing my own weighing of the heart, I was learning about her suffering, hoping we could both find a way to work through our heartfelt emotions. Sharing my story with my sister Cathy opened a healing dialogue where we could speak of the pain and lostness we both experienced. Cathy has been better at facing the pain in her heart and finding words to express what might be going on. She sent excerpts of an article she found about adopted children who foundCopy their birth mothers. She explained how reading about other adoption situations allows her to understand the suffering of the mother that must give up her child. It is often more difficult for the mothers to unwrap the pain because of its intensity and the risk that, like a tsunami wave, the pain would devastate the island of their very life. We can only hope that our heartfelt understanding and forgiveness can ease the cross that our own mother bears. Together, through transformational conversations, hopefully we will ultimately come to a peaceful place of reconciliation. Cathy wrote:

This article helps me see the primal wound in you, me, and Mom. We all have a place that is so incredibly painful thatReview visiting it will leave us in the fetal position on our kitchen floor, sobbing in pain. Mom cannot go to that place. She has had to bury it maybe even deeper than we had to bury our pain. She had shame and guilt on top of her pain. She has felt the need to overachieve to survive this trauma. It really is a trauma. One article talked about our loss as a post-traumatic stress disorder. I needed to hear the words above . . . that it is not about me. That I am a beautiful woman who is worthy of my mom’s love but that she is unable to go to the place to be able to give it to me because she is broken. Mom has done the best she can to deal with this situation. If she had to really open the wound, the flood gates would never close and she would be even more broken. When I read about the pain Mom must feel, I feel more forgiving. It makes me sad that our lives cause her so much pain. I am proud that I am in counseling and that I am fighting to heal from this injury. LibrarianI want to come out on the other side feeling strong and worthy. I am surprised that I can read and then write about this . . . usually it takes me to a SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 313

black hole. Maybe by writing and talking about it again, I can find a place of strength and healing. Family conversations can offer healing spaces where narratives of despair can be transformed. Hopeful, healing narratives are enkindled through loving-kindness, validating each family member’s experience. Rising from the ashes of lostness and brokenness, visions of worthiness come into sight. In these new landscapes of meaning, peace can be found in spring fields of flowering Narcissi. In the morning glory of daybreak and promise of spring, we awake to see heartfelt pathways bud and bloom. The rituals associated with the weighing of the heart can serve to avoid heartbreak by reinforcing the meaning-making process, which in turn leads to personal growth. Copy Still death brings another form of heavy-heartedness that needs time to heal. Possibly wedding rings of love link us through eternity. Though my grandfather died before my grandmother, the lilacs he planted decorated her casket and accompanied her at her funeral. Walt Whitman wrote one of the most famous American poems about death. His poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” uses the metaphor of the lilacs to speak of death as the “ever-returning Spring.”88 The heart-shaped leaves of the lilac bush represent love. The poem is inspired by Abraham Lincoln’s death, and just as Whitman writes of “a sprig of Lilac in the coffin,” Marnie’s coffin was covered with purple lilacs. The loving bond that united my dear grandparents was so powerful that divine synchronicity brought together Marnie’s passing with the farm’sReview lilac bushes being in full bloom. Our loving relationships are constantly shaping our hearts and connecting us to heartfelt chambers that give rise to practices embodying loving-kindness as well as peacemaking, that allow us to better appreciate how we belong and relate to each other. We are called to attend to our inner life, clearing our own hearts so that we can engage in the outer world in more loving, integral ways. In my mind’s eye I behold a vison of Jesus with his hand on his heart, saying, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). After the resurrection Jesus appeared to his disciples with these words: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:37). The Easter message is one of peace leading to reconciliation. We are called to practice what Jesus has shown and taught. Shalom Librarianis a Hebrew word that expresses reconciliation with all things in God through Christ

88 Walt Whitman, Poems, Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, (New York , Boni and Liveright, 1921). 314 HOMING IN

in the New Testament interpretation.89 “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Phil. 4:5b-7,9.) As we do as Jesus asked and practiced, living a life like his, our hearts will be lightened. Peace be with you!

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Librarian 89 Greg Strand, “Sunday: Resurrection-‘Peace be with You (John 20:19)’” Evangelical Free Church of America. https://www.efca.org/blog/sunday-resurrection (Accessed April 2019). CHAPTER 39

STEWARDSHIP Copy s stewards, we assure that all we are responsible for during our lifetime will be well cared for and passed on in good form and condition to the A next generation. Stewardship is a vessel of intergenerational transmission, caring for the lands and properties that we have been given to cultivate and develop our livelihood from. We tend to our animals, our fields, and our homes. Women have their own special way of expressing stewardship, passing on their knowledge of care and cultivating relational wellness in their families and communities. We not only pass on legacies of love to our offspring; we cultivate quality earth-human relationships while embodying motherhood. As child bearers, we are stewards of the human genome, bringing new life into the world. In the fecundity of the earth womb, creative forces are enkindled.Review Wherever we live, we must care more. In the Alps, we enact Alpine caretaking by caring for the people, the tourists, the animals, and the buildings as well as the landscape, our common home. The meaning of the word “stewardship” contains my first understanding of ecology. We are each faced with the choice to hold up or to bring down, to live or to do the opposite: to participate in evil doings. Motherhood has traditionally been a symbol for upholding life. Isis, the Egyptian goddess, symbolizes motherhood. Upholding the feminine principle in defense of life has taken different forms throughout history. The cup, the chalice, the turtle, and the Celtic motherhood knot are all symbols of motherhood.90 But the values inherent in stewardship and motherhood are currently challenged by lifestyles and political movements that are Librariannot fostering planetary sustainability and therefore life itself. Cultures and political 90 “Symbols of Motherhood,” Ancient Symbols. https://www.ancient-symbols.com/motherhood-symbols. html (Accessed April 2019). 316 HOMING IN

regimes that do not respect women bring down or abase social life. The future depends on women’s ability to negotiate equitable lifeworlds. Countries where women’s rights are respected and women have equal access to education and jobs are the countries that hold the greatest hope for the future. Women are indeed rising up. This can be illustrated in the protests denouncing inequalities and harassment that women continue to experience, like in the #MeToo movement. The power inherent in women’s movements to affirm respect for all women takes form in new expressions of feminism through time. The dedication of the suffragists that obtained the right for women to vote is resurfacing in new ways, demanding equality and bringing abuses into the light. In the documentary filmHalf the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity from Women WorldwideCopy, Desmond Tutu says, “The hand that rocks the cradle holds the world.” The film’s title is inspired by the words of Mao Zedong: “Women hold up half the sky.”91 In the year 2000, as I finished my mediation studies and was president of the mediation association in Valais, I participated in the International Women’s March, a gathering started by Canadian women that gathers hundreds of women from around Europe. A young Ukrainian woman approached me, asking me to help her carry her banner that read, “We are rising.” When deciphering the enigma of my name, Susie Riva becomes “Isis rises.” Isis, the Egyptian Goddess can be understood as a role model for women. She was believed to have the powers of healing, protection, and magic. Isis was considered to be the archetypical mother andReview was a patron goddess for childbirth and motherhood. Hidden in the spelling of my name is the principle of feminine energy awakening and on the rise. I proudly carry the banner of a rising feminine energy, valuing a culture of care and nurturing as well as peaceful ways of resolving conflict. The energetic imprint of our names carves into the ether of becomingness. With women from around the world, I marched for the good life. I marched holding up a banner through Geneva with women from all over Europe, leaving the imprint of our feminine footprints. Modern stewardship should impress the concern for an eco-footprint that doesn’t outweigh our spaceship earth’s capacity to sustain humankind. It is a new metaphor for humanity. And it resonates with the Egyptian belief that one should work to have a heart as light as a feather. Forgiveness is possibly the most potent healing potion for a heavy heart. How can we lighten our footprints and heart Librarianprints, treading lightly on the land?

91 Half the Sky Movement, http://www.halftheskymovement.org (Accessed April 27, 2019). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 317

In 2001, I was preparing to give a seminar on my work in mediation based on my internship with the special education department and the inclusion of immigrant and special needs children. When I found Change: Systems of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution, written by Paul Watzlawick and other authors linked to the Palo Alto school, I delved into their theories on change work, looking for both personal and societal solutions to conflict. I read with the greatest interest about the syndrome of utopia, describing each person’s never-ending search for perfection. I had begun to question my missionary attitude, or how I wanted to convert others to new forms of mediation and conflict resolution. I started looking more reflexively at my ambition to bring mediation to the institutions in Valais. Reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde also inspired me. I understood Copyhow a regard of disgust could literally bring out the beastly nature in the other. A glance of humiliation had the power to bring forth retaliation of the worst kind, just like Dr. Jekyll’s disgusted look at the monstrous face of Mr. Hyde. I realized when the attainment of one’s own definition of justice—accompanied with the sure conviction that there is indeed one true path—became jeopardized, it was possible to cross the line, believing that any means justified the end. In these reading choices, I was searching for the mechanisms inherent in conflict creation. I made an appointment with my former research partner—we had co-written our master’s thesis in 1999–2000—to discuss these new ideas and about how I was going to use our research and orient the presentation. We finalized an appointment some weeks in advance. My exact arrivalReview in Lausanne, where he picked me up at the train station, corresponded with the first attack on the World Trade Center on the 11th of September, 2001. We hadn’t heard yet, and I got into his car to travel to a small lake where we rented a rowboat, even as my safe world came to an end, tumbling down with the Twin Towers. Each of us can recollect what we were doing, where we were, and who we were with when we heard the news. While I explained my new theories to my friend, I was peacefully removed from the turmoil that the attacks had unleashed, protected from the terrifying news being broadcast on the radio and television. For a moment in time, I was in my little rowboat, speculating on the change theories presented by Watzlawick and his colleagues. The shock and suffering, the never-ending wars that followed, and the fear that accompanied international citizens as well as Americans following 9/11 were kept at bay during my boat ride on calm waters. LibrarianIn that moment of time, both double-bind and synchronicity were impressed in my heart-mind. My friend kept rowing, prolonging the illusion of peace and 318 HOMING IN

tranquility, all the while discussing my emerging conflict theories. In the calm pond, a facade of peacefulness met with a yet unconscious violence that brought down the edifices of stability and previously untouchable power. Each era faces both times of war and peace. Each life is confronted with some form of conflict. We all make hard choices. Hopefully, through it all we can find inner peace and acceptance, a kind of lifeboat, a saving grace. Transforming the relational matrix entails moving from blaming to individual and social responsibility. Rage and defiance in the face of social injustice are only able to take us so far. They stop short, leaving a gap that can only be filled through an appropriate form of sublimation. As I stepped out of the rowboat and onto the shore, I faced my crumbling world. During our discussion and analysis, the pond’s temperature had been heating like a boiling kettleCopy of soup. The magic spell and potion that can end wars and lighten our eco-footprint remains to be discovered. The terrorists that brought down the Twin Towers and began the movement known as ISIS have brought suffering, war, female bondage, and devastation into the world. This is the opposite of all the goddess Isis metaphorically represents, creating a paradoxical signification. As we become conscious of the effects of war and pollution, as well as stress and toxins, and how they influence our epigenetic make-up, we understand the growing importance of stewardship. We are stewards of the earth and the genes we inherit. Our destiny and Gaia’s destiny are intertwined and interrelated. Trauma as well as environmental pollution have been proven to influence epigenetic transgenerational pathways. Earth-human relations are intricatelyReview interwoven. One example of the earth-human connection is seen in new research that links many of our diseases to the lack of bacteria in our environment. Without these microbial “old friends,” there are increased incidences of inflammatory diseases in the developed world responsible for the rise in both allergies and depression. Perinatal stress is an important factor causing immunoregulatory imbalances. Without the help of these bacterial forms, we experience a rise in chronic inflammation that has made us generally more vulnerable.92 Our bacteria influence stress resilience. Similarly, there are important connections between how we care for our bodies and how we grow our food. In her book Farmacology, Daphne Miller, MD, explains how our resiliency is related to our ability to rejuvenate depleted soil. These examples illustrate the relational nature of our being; the quality of our relationship with the Librarianearth and the soil is the very foundation of our body’s well-being. “These three vital 92 G. A. Rook, W. Lowry & C. L. Raison, “Microbial ‘Old Friends,’ Immunoregulation and Stress Resil- ience.” Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, 2013(1), 46–64. http://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eot004. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 319

signs—diversity, synergy, and redundancy—are rarely discussed within medicine where research and treatments are based on predictability, linearity, and isolation. And yet these three qualities are as much a sign of vitality within our bodies as they are within a farm.”93 As a young student learning French during the summer after my sister Leigh had Rye’s Syndrome, I would contemplate the mountain landscape from the café window where I was waitressing. It seemed to me that the generations before me had brought society forward to a form of material accomplishment that had reached a peak. It appeared that it was up to my generation to begin a transition that would not only place our descendants in good jobs, assuring material wealth, but would assure the quality of the air they would breathe and the water theyCopy would drink. I perceived these basic commodities to be in danger. I sensed the darkness of an ominous, foreboding form of decadence permeating my own cultural landscape. Blackbird Bend Farm was a place that defined me growing up. The farmland brought me close to the natural world. As a young student, I discovered the Alps’ natural beauty while contemplating the village lifestyle, gardens, orchards, and mountain pastures. Later, when Jan and Bob married, I relinked with the Nebraska countryside while visiting my mother and stepfather. Our farms and way of cultivating crops and producing food define our wellness. The way we care for the land has a direct influence upon our own well-being. Our very resiliency is linked to the land’s resiliency. The mountain village lifestyle appearedReview authentic and closer to nature, chiseled into the mountainside by ancestral traditions that I felt responsible for maintaining as a steward of Angelo’s heritage on behalf of our children. However, the natural landscape, with the mountain peaks limiting the view, has a tendency to make people more closed-minded. In contrast, my American upbringing offered openness, much like the open skies of the Great Plains. Our chalet provides a unique space where our cultural heritages coexist. We are keepers of our traditions, lifestyle, and cultural backgrounds. The lifestyle we choose to adopt acts upon the expression of our DNA. By developing daily habits that engender wellness, we fashion our future health outcomes. Living in the mountains grounds and strengthens me, enforcing a certain form of discipline. Though I enjoy a form of intellectual freedom cultivated by my liberal arts training Librarianand reinforced by my graduate studies, most of the people living in this remote 93 Daphne Miller, Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us about Health and Healing, (First edition. New York, NY: William Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, 2013), 228. 320 HOMING IN

setting haven’t had the same educational opportunities. My views often contrast with those living closest to me. Still, those who are close to the beauty of nature often radiate an integral way of knowing. Luckily, today’s new technologies allow me to easily access information and communicate with the world outside the limits of my immediate surroundings. I can connect with international, virtual learning organizations, contributing to the co-creation of knowledgeability from my home. In this way, I am less alone on my mountaintop. We are all living in our physical environmental context as well as a virtual space with the advancement of our technologies. Though I can now choose to connect with like minds and kindred spirits, I still must navigate my physical surroundings in an adapted form of relatedness with respect for thoseCopy I live with. Somedays the inviting, pristine beauty of my mountainscape contrasts with the sharpness of the mountain peaks appearing like shards of glass, pointing up to the sky and reflecting the passing of time with their diminished glacier surfaces. Their pointedness looks as if they could pierce the heart of a falling god. An important aspect of genetic stewardship is caregiving. Women in particular care for loved ones throughout the different life phases. We learn from example how to love and offer a hand at birth as in death. We hand down our nurturing knowledge from generation to generation. Our ability to protect and care for family members is among the most important social skills we can learn, serving to sustain our loved ones, families, communities, and natural environment. We walk with each other, providing support and takingReview care until we home in at the moment of death, returning home to God. My adopted mother Jan has continually been an example of caregiving. She and her husband Bob had a large country home, Ole Hickory Farm, that accommodated our big family. Without a place to come back to, it would have been difficult to maintain my relationships with my family and friends in the United States. I enjoyed being in my mother’s home. It is comforting to be surrounded by her things. She says that she has gone around and labeled all of her precious objects so that when she dies, there won’t be any confusion about the objects that we are intended to inherit. But as I grow older, the importance of those things is fading. The comfort of her home is behind me, though the memories of those wide-open spaces re- main. I am a part of her other family through marriage, gaining stepsisters and a Librarianstepbrother. Bob’s oldest daughter’s family has come to our chalet to ski the Alps. Over the years I have tried to make special cousin time during our whirlwind visits, SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 321

and thankfully, Ole Hickory Farm, with its panoramic windows overlooking hills of pastureland, was a place where we have all been welcome. My mother cared for her husband Bob as he became frail. He began to ask my mother each day upon waking, “Is this the day that I am going to die?” She would try to answer in a comforting way. Bob’s children all came to see their father as he became weaker by the day. My sister Nancy came up from Kansas City to support my mother too. A nurse came to the house to help care for Bob during his last days. Bob’s desire to go to the other side increased with every passing day. Nancy noted one day that it was my father David’s birthday and Marnie’s birthday. We had always found that to be an interesting synchronicity in our family. Nancy said to Bob, “You know, today is David’s and Marnie’s birthday. I am sureCopy that they are having a big party up in heaven. If you leave today, they will be there to welcome you to their celebration.” Bob did indeed join them on their birthday at heaven’s gate. The synchronicity of Bob’s passing on Marnie’s and David’s birthday seemed to mark an important date with a message from the eye of eternity saying, “There is no separation.” All of our love relations take the form of one big circle of love, round like a wedding ring, a symbol of eternity with no beginning and no end. February 21, 2014, marks Bob Falk’s gravestone. That numinous experience was enfolded into the loving inscriptions metaphorically imprinted in the wedding rings my mother wore throughout her lifetime—rings of loving belonging. My mom not only provided a homesteadReview for her husbands and family, but also came to help me with my newborn babies, ushering them into life. She showed me how to care for them while caring for me. She provided the model of maternal bonding that I have shared with my own children. Her loving hands have cared for me and assured my well-being over my lifetime. Hopefully, my loving hands will be able to care for her as she grows older. As I have said before, our family business is especially implicated with the care of the tourists and residents who want to learn to ski and enjoy winter sports. We offer a unique opportunity to belong to a ski tribe, a learning community valuing skiing, snowboarding, telemarking, and paragliding. Angelo has shared his passion for the Alps with our family by teaching the children to be good skiers and instructors. His ski school has provided a way of life connected to the mountains, snow sports, and an international world of people Librarianthat all come to ski the Swiss Alps. We have tried to pass on our appreciation for the mountain sports, and the children are all trilingual. They have a cultural competency 322 HOMING IN

allowing them to relate to people from all over the world. Their language skills facilitate their ability to communicate. However, behind their ability to speak is a cultural openness—they have truly become world citizens. Through the ski school we care for those who come to our region, sharing our way of life and unique knowledgeability. Interestingly, Angelo incarnates both of my fathers’ professions. My adopted father was a real estate developer, a professional activity that my husband has come to practice over the years, moving from construction to organizing building projects. Though he is not a school teacher like my birth father, he is a ski instructor and director of a ski school. He spends the winter season working at the ski school and coordinating our ski resort’s sports activities for the many touristsCopy on vacation in our village. The teaching mission is like a gold vein running through the rock of our family heritage. Most of my sisters are teachers. It is a transversal trait that seems to run in all of my families. Another form of caretaking as stewardship is expressed in the historical role played by the chanoines at the Great Saint Bernard Hospice located on the top of the Great Saint Bernard Pass. We travel over the Great Saint Bernard Pass to get from Switzerland to Italy. The Great Saint Bernard dogs are known for rescuing stranded travelers and are even used as therapy dogs today. There is a pilgrimage from Canterbury to Rome known as the Via Francigena that traverses the pass. The chanoines at the hospice have a long history of welcoming those journeying through the Alps is a symbol for ourReview entire region. Their tradition of caring and rescuing travelers is embedded in our local culture. They are the guardians of many Christian pilgrims making their way. They have exemplified both stewardship and a culture of care through the ages, adapting to the Alpine landscape, offering refuge, as well as carrying forward a monastic tradition skiing and skinning in prayer. The Simplon Pass also has a hospice where travelers and mountaineers can stay. The Simplon Pass brings us over the mountains to the region where my husband’s family comes from. Both passes have served to connect routes and offer hospitality to travelers, bridging cultures in an extraordinary Alpine landscape. Visiting ancestral grounds are a way to pass on family traditions. Our children are stewards of Angelo’s genome, cultural context, and family memory. My husband’s family roots are from Ticino, the Italian speaking part of Switzerland by Lake Majore. As a family we visited the region of his ancestors to elicit more Librariancultural identification within our family circle. After having gone to Turin, Italy, for my studies I realized how close the Italian Riviera was to our home and convinced SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 323

my husband to take a few days to go on vacation. We loaded our car with our four young children and drove over the Great Saint Bernard Pass and down to Alassio, a rare pearl in the Italian Riviera. Angelo found a hotel right on the beach, which is run by an Italian family that has twin sons our age who take care of the beach area in front of the hotel. We have gone back every year since, taking in the dolce vitae. Angelo has learned Italian over the years, and we enjoy seeing the same northern Italian families come back to their beach and socialize in the water. Learning Italian is a form of remembrance for him. I enjoy promenading along the shore. It is a physical and psychological cure, a cleansing in the sea. The waves seem to bring up strong emotions and inspirations all at once. There is a special wall in the town with ceramic tiles depicting famous people that have come to theCopy area. Ernest Hemingway’s picture captures my attention each year as we stroll through the central park area. I understand Hemingway’s attraction to the region. We met solid Italian families the first year we arrived, and Angelo united with a cultural heritage rooted in his father’s lineage. The best Italian boats are called Riva boats—our family name. It is a common name in the region. Our trips to Italy reconnected Angelo to his paternal background originally from the Ticino region in Switzerland. Angelo especially enjoys visiting the historical sites and churches in Italy that demonstrate the fine Italian craftsmanship as he too is a master craftsman. Katrina has been the receptacle of our joint inheritances, taking in her complex heritage, and alchemically blending the richness that she was bequeathed. She has carefully crafted a blending of her lineagesReview to be able to use her knowledgeability within her organization. She works in Bern and speaks German at her workplace, drawing upon French and English to configure health care policy and interprofessional practice with the generalist doctors in Switzerland. Interestingly, Angelo came from a family of three boys and I came from a family of three girls, which made for a nice symmetry in our wedding pictures. Katrina was the first girl born in the Riva family in three generations. When she received her master’s degree in political science, she was the first person from Angelo’s family to receive a university degree. She has set a new precedence in many ways. Her work in public health could be seen as following in my footsteps. When we were first married, it was difficult to carry out the American and Mossman traditions I was accustomed to and wanted to pass to our children. Our first home was a two-bedroom condominium next to the ski lift that was owned by LibrarianAngelo’s family. We had large balconies on each side, but I felt closed in. Thankfully, my first Christmas season, my adopted mother Jan flew over to be with me and we 324 HOMING IN

organized a Christmas tea party, inviting all the women of the village to my tiny apartment. I hoped that receiving the women and sharing cookies and tea would foster strong community relationships. My mother had often held Christmas tea parties, and each daughter had a taffeta apron to be worn at the tea. I learned to make her cut-out cookies and Marnie’s pecan tassies. As my mother’s apprentice, I learned to become a welcoming hostess. I was taught to value hospitality. As we grew out of our condominium, I would hike down to a piece of family land with Katrina on my back, imagining my future chalet. One afternoon I brought a quartz crystal to the land and planted it under the roots of an enormous larch tree that borders the property. That ritual allowed me to plant the vision of my future chalet on that sacred ground, the land that would eventually welcomeCopy my own young family. Several years later my dream became reality. Our chalet was built on Angelo’s grandfather’s land. They often brought the cows to graze on the land where we live. It was part of the transhumance way of living, moving up and down the mountainside grazing the pastures and staying in the small mountain dwellings that dot the landscape. The peasants followed the green pastures up the mountainside in the spring and then back down to the village in the fall. They set up rope barriers and herded the cows, staying in their mayens, or small wooden barns with space to sleep and a utilitarian kitchen to heat the room and cook simple meals. Our beautiful chalet has all the amenities, unlike the old mayens. But I was able to recuperate a hand-carved rustic cupboard with a Reviewwooden table and four wooden chairs that had originally been in our resort’s firstHôtel de la Poste. They were salvaged from a fire. Our chalet is all I ever dreamed of—it is even more beautiful than the original plans drawn up in my childhood. When our children were young, I loved to entertain, inviting the young families in our village to our yearly Christmas party that I modeled from the family Christmas party that my parents would put on with their close friends in Omaha. I made chili and Christmas cakes. Our guests would each bring a dish and a gift for their children that they snuck into a sack in the entry. After the party got started, Santa Claus would come and pass out the gifts to the children. Each child received something special, but most of all we created a tradition that brought us together over those years when we all had young children and were raising our families. We have filled our home with children and the number at our dinner table Librariankeeps growing now that our adult children have partners. Our chalet has been a SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 325

protective shell for me. It is a territory where I can “be me,” mixing French and English as if making a marbled cake, creating my own family culture from scratch. I have become the keeper of the traditional costume of Angelo’s grandmother. Catherine was the midwife for the village of Isérables and had twelve children of her own. When she was called to assist a birth, she would take her youngest in the cradle balanced on the top of her head. The traditional black costume has an apron and is typical of the unique village style and fabric. I wore the costume in the eighties when the Tour de Romandie bike race arrived in our ski resort. I gave the flowers to the winners with the traditional three kisses on the cheek. At that event, I was able to meet Greg Lemon, who was the American champion at that time, and his team. I also wore the costumeCopy to my godson Frederic’s baptismal parties in Oslo. The Norwegian women proudly wear their costumes to traditional family events. Catherine’s costume reminds me of the traditional lifestyle and the close ties that the mountain people had to their garden plots and ways of caring for the land. The knowledge of the medicinal plants was also passed down through the ages, providing remedies for Catherine to use while caring for the women in the village. These examples are an inspiration, showing how traditional ways can offer solutions to today’s dilemmas. By underscoring the importance of family farms, health, and healing, stewardship takes on an enriched meaning, defining the natural conduit of our shared well- being. The Alpine pastures are filledReview with medicinal flowers that can be used for herbal remedies. This natural pharmacy surrounds our chalet. The quality of our nourishment is directly tied to our agricultural methods; as we nurture the land, so will it nurture us. The ability of our human-earth connections to nourish our hearts as well as our physical bodies goes hand in hand. As stewards of the land, traditions, and caring ways, we perpetuate the good life. As our ski tribe integrates people from around the world, from multiple cultural backgrounds, the way we act as stewards in transformed. The new highlanders living in our resort rejuvenate our region that is a marked by historical passage ways. Alpine residents who choose to live in our region bring with them a renewed energy force, changing the face of the mountain. As Alpine caretakers, we collectively generate new forms of social innovation and sustainable living. Stewardship invites us to shepherd and safeguard what we deem valuable as we honor where we come Librarianfrom in our unique bioregions. We live in a moment in time when we must redefine earth-human relationships, dreaming the future of earth. Copy

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FROM KINSHIP TO EARTHSHIP Copy iving in our Swiss chalet strongly connects the members of my family to each other as well as to the natural environment that surrounds us. Our chalet L holds us in together, allowing us to live out our kinship in a warm sheltered environment. We turn to each other, rely on each other, ski with each other, and share meals at our dining room table together. Donald Winnicott, a famous British psychologist, developed theories describing the importance of a facilitating environment. His concept of a “holding environment” describes how our kinship relations and home environment can foster a sense of security by encircling us and holding us together. Though his work focused on the mother-infant bond, he saw this core relationship as influencing the reliable holding of an ever-widening circle of family, school, and social relationships.Review94 In a similar way, Mother Earth holds us in, holding us together in Earthship. Our home was one of the very first chalets to be built as soon as a road opened access to the land. For many years we were without neighbors. It has now built up with people from all over Europe. We live in the middle of the alpine pastures, but at the same time we live in the middle of an international community taking form in our ski resort. The peasant way of life with the fighting cows that still battle in the pastures next to our chalet has meshed with an international community attracted to the area because of the excellent ski slopes. There is a high level of cultural diversity on our cul-de-sac. Each year we decorate our balconies with geranium and petunia plantings and hanging baskets. The geraniums have traditionally been thought to protect homes from evil forces. LibrarianI have done my best to nurture my children, breastfeeding, making good food, 94 “Donald Winnicott.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald Winnicott (Retrieved January 29, 2019). 328 HOMING IN

and providing a home life rich in family traditions. My love for learning has been a model, even providing a small library in our home filled with children’s and adult books alike. Reading, writing, and participating in the local development of our canton as a social scientist has shown them how women can contribute to making positive changes in the world. My vision has been glocal—both global and local. The challenge is to incorporate the global vision and integrate it into local sustainable development projects, allowing the ground under our feet to join with a planetary vision conscious of humanity’s current level of interconnectedness. In our own region, I believe we should promote socially sustainable Alpine wellness and continually invest time and energy in creative endeavors aiming to lead us forward. Imagining new ways of going on together, I try to model a form of reliableCopy holding together, all the while remaining connected to global concerns and endeavors. In wintertime, our whole family is on the mountain skiing, snowboarding, racing, and paragliding. My husband is an almost larger-than-life figure working on top of the mountain, organizing classes, and directing tourists. When there is an accident or avalanche, he gets the ski patrol or helicopter to the injured party. He has an imposing stature, chiseled from the rock where he was born and raised. From his wooden ski school cabin that overlooks the Four Valley Ski Area, he defends his territory while welcoming and watching over the international skiers that come to our resort. Our friends ski the same mountain and we all get together for drinks and meals on the weekends. I see our family as a Reviewski tribe. We live in a sacred circle united with those who come to ski and take in the mountain scenery. It is a way of life. I have always believed that if we taught our children to love their natural environment, they would defend it. I have spent most of my adult life sharing my love of the outdoors by hiking and skiing with them. Angelo acquired an orchard plot from his mother’s family. He decided to learn how to care for the fruit trees that produce apricots, cherries, and plums. It is a lovely spot under the village of Isérables. He brings the children to pick the fruit and fill up the baskets. Then I make jam and freeze the cut up fruit for pies during the winter months. I prepare a special family meal every evening with a table set with candles and flowers. I serve dinner that I have prepared from scratch with my Joy of Cooking cookbook that I received as a wedding gift and other recipes that I have picked up Librarianalong the way. I arrived in Switzerland with only my wedding gifts. My wedding trousseau was SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 329

an important part of my identity. I also brought Grandma Savidge’s wooden chest, and it sits at the end of our bed, filled with letters and correspondence from my family over the years. My specially chosen dinner plates and wine glasses received as wedding gifts remind me of all the dear family and friends that so generously supported us at our wedding ceremony in Omaha. Just as our guests stood behind us in the church, I am surrounded by their gifts when I am in the kitchen and dining room. I feel connected to my Omaha community even though I live far away. I even have my great-grandmother’s and grandmother’s silver spoon collection hanging on my kitchen wall. It was common to attend the state fairs and even world fairs, bringing home a remembrance in the form of a silver spoon engraved with an emblem. Copy In my bedroom, I have a secretary desk that holds precious pieces that I re- ceived from my family. There are Hummel figurines from my mother Jan. I have Marnie’s perfume bottle collection, miniature china dolls from Grammy, a doll from Grandma Moss in a Belle Époque costume and hat, engagement rings from Grandma Savidge, and A Christmas Carol edited in 1903 that belonged to my great- grandfather Carl Wilson. Carl’s rocking chair sits in our living room, an allusion to the important place he has occupied in my life. These object-mediators connect me with the people from my past. They are reminders that act as a symbolic bridge. They have crossed the Atlantic and are an intricate part of my meaning-making process. I hold all these beautiful object-mediators close to my heart. On the bookshelf across from theReview secretary is a special leather-bound Bible in French that Poppy gave to us for our wedding. Before each Christmas meal, we read from the Bible, honoring the importance of the holy scripture. And each year when we take out the Christmas decorations, I open a special box of golden ornaments from Marnie and Poppy that we received for our first Christmas together, dated 1986. On the inside of the box it reads, “To Dearest Susie and Angelo, We like you and we love you.” My grandparents wisely chose their gifts. They have inspired many of our family rituals. And they are joined with us at each Christmas celebration as we continue to invent and perform our own family rituals. When I open the box to put their ornaments on the tree, I am thankful that they were so wise. They knew their gift would follow me through time as I hung their ornaments on each year’s Christmas tree. LibrarianMy antique copy of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol sends me into a state of deep reflection each Christmas Eve. I reflect upon what Christmas Past, Christmas 330 HOMING IN

Present, and Christmas Future mean in my own life. When I was thirteen, I attempted to read the entire book between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, waiting for a miracle to greet me when I awoke from my dreams. More than any other Christmas story, Dickens opened my sensitivity to human suffering and my desire to take action. The tale vividly depicts how our life choices influence our destiny. It reminds me to ring true, like the Christmas bells in the morning, giving us yet another chance to make amends and spread loving-kindness. It is the decision to save Tiny Tim that transforms Scrooge’s life trajectory. Dickens illustrates how that one choice changes the past and the future. The gift is indeed the present. The greatest Christmas gift is the Christ child that we receive, making space for the holy gift of life in our own family circle. The nativity scene tellsCopy the story with a symbolic image that transcends the written word. When we cannot receive the Christ child in our family circle, we break with the most important Christian narrative. And that break leaves a painful scar. When my birth family could not receive me, an opportunity was created for another family to welcome me into their family circle. That openness might have given rise to my mother’s ability to conceive two daughters after my arrival. I came into the world as the gift that my birth parents were not ready to receive. This significance has come to be true in other areas of my life. My ideas and teachings are sometimes out of sync with my place in time. My life course has taken me as far as I could see. The rest of the foot trail will be upon an unchartered terrain, surrendering to divine presence, andReview hoping for alignment. My dear friend Cathie, who enjoys traveling around Europe on Christian pilgrimages, often counsels me to “just do the next best thing.” She looks for the good mother when she is on her pilgrimages. She feels a sense of divine presence during her visits to the different sacred sites. I too have felt the same protecting energy, gently nudging me along as I visit the sacred places in my region. The rock of the mountain above one of my favorite running paths has a form that looks like Blessed Mother Mary looking down upon the children of the earth. It is comforting to know that there is a kind and loving mother looking after us. Looking for the good mother transforms our relationship with Mother Earth and Mother Mary as we search for a sustaining relationship with our planet and mother archetypes. As we each partake in forms of relational processes that connect us, like Mother Earth and Mother Mary, we are defining our caring practices. LibrarianMothering is both a caring art form and practice. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 331

In his book Relational Being,95 Kenneth Gergen asks, “What do we hope to achieve from our practices?” He proposes that “the primary aim of education is to enhance the potentials for participating in relational processes—from the local to the global.” As a mother, I home in to my chalet, a place where I can ground my caretaking. My family’s kinship is configured within the sheltering walls of our mountain chalet. It is a local place of coming together. This kinship is anchored in our way of life, loving, and caring. On a global level, we experience a form of Earthship, as a human family coming together, held within the loving embrace of Mother Earth. How we live in relation to our natural environment, now that we have a better understanding of Anthropocene, is the defining question of our time. We are transforming the face of the earth. To live in Earthship will requireCopy all humans to question their earth-human relations, developing new lifestyle practices that will not harm our natural environment and ecological systems. These self-organizing systems can be examples for us to work to adapt our technologies, energy use, and consumption to be efficient and non-detrimental to earth and human survival. New forms of bioremediation may help us cleanse the toxins that have accumulated. We transmit our values and knowledge through many kinds of relations. Some lines of inheritance are biological, some are through adopted families, and others are through chosen fellowships, either an organizational or more academic kind of affiliation. We belong to a web of life that is defining our matrix, reconfiguring the forms as we engage in relationships. A glocal way of living is drivenReview by our readiness to give. A sharing society enhancing a community of lifelong learners aims to give value to a healthy way of living where we can all thrive. The synchronicities that I have sought to illustrate were important signs that allowed me not just to connect with my birth family but to connect with a resonance that has brought me to a higher level of coherence during each transitional phase when my life circumstances presented a critical threshold. There was the building up and then the breaking through. We can choose to enter into more collaborative relationships fostering new ways of going on together. We can participate in social networks using new technologies that bring us together, allowing us to communicate in new, facilitated ways. The new technologies offer us a chance to redesign the future as we face planetary challenges. I come from Nebraska, the heartland, and I have raised my family as children Librarianof the Alps in the heart of Europe. I am constantly trying to be true to both worlds.

95 Gergen, Kenneth J. Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community, 243. 332 HOMING IN

Within my own heartland the landscapes of love hold dear the prairie and the Alpine meadows, in tandem. I trod on sacred ground wherever I may walk, be it here or there. What I hold dear connects in my heart-mind, a portal where I experience oneness. Laszlo and Dennis have written about connectedness in what they refer to as the Akashic Age.96 They explain that “our crises become our catalysts, and our disruptions become our driving forces.” Akasha is the fifth cosmic element that the ancient Indian rishis defined after fire, water, air, and earth. This fundamental dimension of the world may explain our connectivity.

The term nonlocality comes to us from the quantum sciences, whichCopy are central to offering the world a new paradigm of inclusive, intrinsic, and immediate oneness. It is a paradigm that helps to explain how we are all connected through fields of energy, which forms a basis for the continued physical proximity and connectivity that develops in the world. This emerging new paradigm is the key in understanding what we are calling the Akashic Age.97

As we become more aware of our connectedness, we search to relate in more fulfilling ways. But as our lifespan is limited, it is important to better understand how we pass on our lines of inheritance to future generations. The mechanisms of transgenerational inheritance that influence future development must be studied from an interdisciplinary perspectiveReview so that we can trigger the emergence of planetary system interactions that will be able to sustain life on earth. Dr. Dan Seigel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA’s School of Medicine, explains, “To put it simply, human connections shape neural connections, and each contributes to mind. Relationships and neural linkages together shape the mind. It is more than the sum of the parts; this is the essence of emergence.”98 Understanding the essence of emergence allows us to comprehend not only the importance of our interpersonal relationships, but how we relate to our natural environment. Positively enhancing and shaping our earth-human relations is the important challenge that lies before us. We are earthborn, attached to our Mother

96 Ervin Lazlo and Dennis Kingsley Dennis. Dawn of the Akashic Age: New Consciousness, Quantum Reso- nance, and the Future of the World, (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2013). Librarian97 Ibid, 3. 98 Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. (2nd ed. New York: Guilford Press, 2012) 3. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 333

Earth, Gaia. By consciously enhancing our relatedness, in full recognition of our linkedness, we give rise to an emerging relational way of living in Earthship.

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FUTURE FORMING Copy s storying is future forming, telling my story is a form of life-scaping. While I am acting on my life course, I am also influencing our collective becoming A because of the nature of our connectedness. Each life is like a garden. We plant seeds, cultivating a form of individual and collective capacity building that is also a form of social capital. Families leave relational legacies, not just material wealth, to their descendants. The golden pocket watch has yet another symbolic meaning—an incredible gift of increased longevity that we have inherited from our ancestors, adding on more years to the good life. Our challenge is to craft a collective capacity that can foster new forms of relational welfare throughout the life-course, making use of this gift of added years. Working from a place of author-ship,Review constructing a platform of scholar-ship, health care policy becomes a central concern. Public health research affirms that our well-being is dependent upon our environment. Ecological principles and healthy living have a major impact on life expectancy, as do social justice and equality. A growing body of knowledge is confirming how inequality influences healthcare outcomes, demonstrating how social and economic policy configures wellness. “Greater equality is at the heart of creating a better society because it is fundamental to the quality of social relations in society at large.”99 Wilkinson and Pickett’s research shows how the most egalitarian Western democracies have the best health outcomes. The growing gap between the rich and poor in the United States is having a negative impact on health outcomes. They show how more equal societies improve well-being. LibrarianPope Francis’s trip to the United States brought attention to a “Culture of 99 Richard G.Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone’s Well-Being, (London: Allen Lane, 2018), 261. 336 HOMING IN

Care” as espoused in his encyclical letter Laudato Si’, “On Care For Our Common Home”100 during his address to Congress in September 2015. He writes, “I believe that Saint Francis is the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically.” His encyclical brings together integral ecology and social justice, underscoring how inequality is breaking us apart and causing great suffering. Integral ecology is an integrated approach to environmental and social justice. Expanding relationships of shared value honoring our planet earth while working for social justice offers an alternative to increasing inequality. We are all called to be keepers of the earth, learning collectively how to transform the patterns of our ecological footprints, modeling nature’s divine forms as in theCopy Fibonacci sequence, Phi, and sacred geometry. These forms all refer to the Golden Rule. Nature appears to have favored the beautiful, balanced forms through time. “Love thy neighbor as thy self ” and “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” implies caring for our neighbor and sharing with our neighbor. The Golden Rule suggests that relational equality is a balanced, sacred form of relating. My understanding of a culture of care stems from several references and examples of contemporary women and leaders. Nel Noddings has contributed to the development of the “ethics of care” with a relational approach to caregiving and care-receiving networks. She and Carol Gilligan have brought forth a “voice for care” in the social sciences. Another important female scholar, Elise Boulding, contributed to peace and conflict studies,Review affirming that families are the foundation for peace. Both Noddings and Boulding modeled motherhood and scholarship. I referred to them in my doctoral thesis. As mothers of large families, they gave value to the experience of motherhood—a way of being in the world. Their focus on care and peace offer an alternative way of scholarly expression. Arthur Kleinman’s book Illness Narratives101 influenced my work in mediation. His narrative approach provided a model that could be applied to conflict narratives. More recently, he addresses human suffering in A Passion for Society102, calling for social care in action. It is time to act. Pope Francis’s Culture of Care involves integral ecology and social justice. He

100 Francis. Laudato si’. (1st edition. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Pub, 2015). 101 Arthur Kleinman, The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition, (New York: LibrarianBasic Books, 1989). 102 Iain Wilkinson and Arthur Kleinman, A Passion for Society: How We Think About Human Suffering, (California series in public anthropology 35. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2016). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 337

invites us all to enter into a renewed relationship with our natural environment, communities, and families. He calls us to ask, “How can we care more?” During my year abroad in Switzerland in 1984, I had this idea that each human being could access, through meditation, fundamental knowledge about our origins and the nature of life. I decided to meditate on the origins of the universe, believing that I could experience revelation. As I lay outside in front of Angelo’s chalet on a beautiful summer day, I let myself be guided through my own personal discovery process. The first insight I had was that God loved diversity, as seen in the creation of so many different ecosystems, cultures, and human forms. In my dream state, multi- layered levels of being appeared to me with simple concepts. EachCopy layer had a different organizational foundation; however, they were all connected. Soon after my revelatory experience, I met a man who worked at the CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research). He had a chalet in Mayens-de- Riddes and often came by for coffee at my (future) mother-in-law’s café. He invited me to come to Geneva and visit the CERN. During my visit, the explanations that I encountered corresponded to the revelation I had received. That visit was an important part of my search for supersymmetry, or SUSY, the existence of a unifying theory of physics. I was always looking for explanations, convinced that there was a higher organizational order. Much later, I visited the EPFL, which is the university in Lausanne known for its research in science and technology.Review In their bookstore, I found John Gibbons’s book In Search of SUSY: Supersymmetry and the Theory of Everything.103 It explained in layman’s terms how physics was searching for proof of a unifying theory using the CERN’s particle accelerator, the LEP. I have not been alone in my search for SUSY. The next phase of experiments at the CERN will orient scientists, allowing them to use data to confirm emerging theories. The testing allowed them to confirm the existence of the Higgs boson particle, sometimes referred to as the God Particle, in 2013. But it did not allow scientists to confirm either the multiverse theory or supersymmetry. My experience seems to weigh more toward SUSY. The search of SUSY is yet another expression of the archetypical search for our origins. Searching for SUSY also means looking for a unifying theory. Possibly the strings in String Theory that vibrate throughout space resemble heartstrings that connect the different dimensions in a unifying Librariantheory of everything.

103 John Gribbin. In Search of SUSY Supersymmetry and the Theory of Everything, (Penguin Books, 1998). 338 HOMING IN

Another searcher, Thomas Berry, a professor of the history of religion, calls us to tap into a collective dream of the earth so that we can transform the relationship between earth and humans. His work to develop a shared human cosmology uniting scientific and religious narratives also seeks to bring us together through story. In The Dream of the Earth,104 he explains how we need a new story so that we can transform our way of being. As we are storied beings, a new dream and a new story may ultimately transform our human and planetary trajectory as we enter into a new storyline. He also refers to the genetic coding that holds the key to the unfolding of life patterns that are viable lifeways. Our autopoetic, or self-organizing, becomingness is informed by the stardust that brought forth life on earth throughout a series of phases each calculatedCopy with the precision of divine timing. We all come from stardust that seeded life’s evolution on earth. As I searched for my origins, archetypes oriented my searching process like road signs directing the way toward home. As I was actively homing in, each phase was divinely timed as if the path had already been traced ahead of time. This divine timing that exists on an individual level is certainly acting on a planetary one. Looking for unifying theories and cosmologies that explain our interconnect- edness stems from my searching to better understand the genetic connection of adoptees and birth parents that LaVonne Harper Stiffler explored in her book Synchronicity and Reunion: The Genetic Connection of Adoptees and Birth Parents. “All of the anecdotes are evidence of a connection.Review Some may be pure chance; all are coincidence. More than that, they have meaning for the storytellers, and therefore are raised to the level of synchronicity.”105 Over the years, when wondering with awe how my sister Cathy’s and my reunion converged, I have come to realize how our genetic coding contributed. Deep in our hearts a mechanism was triggered, allowing us to find our birth parents by way of the patterns we shared and the conscious intention we activated in our matrix of relationships. The synchronicities were patterns that we picked up on and recognized, leading us to reunion. Homing in intensified the appearance of synchronicities while also revealing a pathway forward. The ability to recognize patterns has only more recently been identified and studied, allowing us to better understand “the intentional harnessing of

Librarian104 Thomas Berry. The Dream of the Earth, (Counterpoint, Berkely, California 2015). 105 LaVonne Harper Stiffler. Synchronicity and Reunion: the Genetic Connection of Adoptees and Birth Par- ents,168. Emphasis added. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 339

pattern recognition to drive higher levels of human learning and performance (i.e., relational reasoning).”106 As we learn to recognize the patterns, we connect through a higher perception of interrelatedness. We start with the core of basic family ties that provide care, then move outwardly to understanding the social and economic configurations that influence our well-being. As we integrate the principles of integral ecology and supersymmetry, both exemplifying important forms of relatedness, we come to perceive the patterns that permeate the universe. Earthship is sailing through the ethers, carrying us in a vessel of relationships. Our intentions set the course. We need new words to enable our journey. By Earthship I mean a new way of relating to the creation where our conscious awareness embraces Mother EarthCopy as a life- giving planet that we all belong to and care for. Epigenetics confirms the complexity of genetic inheritance, suggesting that we are riding a possibility wave that is influenced by our intentions and choices as well as our environmental context. The intangible affects the tangible when activated by a conscious will to heal and make whole. In my family memoir, our strong desire to heal the circumstances of our births brought forth our reunion story. It truly makes you wonder how our corresponding searches nourished each other in a culminating moment of grace. Thomas Berry affirms in his book The Great Work that “we are not lacking in the dynamic forces needed to create the future. We live immersed in a sea of energy beyond all comprehension. But thisReview energy, in an ultimate sense, is ours not by dominion, but by invocation.”107 Berry points to the importance of genetic coding that gives a form of basic guidance, showing up through archetypical symbols. It is the synergistic coming together of the divine element in all life forms that guides the earth community’s unified creative unfolding. He asserts that we are self-creating cultural beings. As we gain more understanding of epigenetics, we begin to comprehend just how life processes unfold and our responsibility to choose viable lifeways that embody a mutually enhancing relationship between earth and humans. Biosocial becomings refer to what Locke and Pálsson convey as “the idea of an ensemble of comingled biological and social signatures. This metaphor better captures the relationship of

106 Patricia Alexander, “Relational Thinking and Relational Reasoning : Harnessing the Power of Pat- Librarianterning,” Npj Science of Learning (2016) 1. https://www.nature.com/articles/npjscilearn20164 (Accessed March 2018). 107 Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future, (New York: Bell Tower, 2000), 175. 340 HOMING IN

the social and the biological, by associating environments beyond the body with molecular pathways steadily being exposed by epigeneticists.”108 Locke and Pálsson see bodies as receptacles entangled in the past, present, and future. For them, recent science supports a needed rephrasing, giving more importance to nature than was previously given. The nurture and nature debates “inform us how we are situated in the universe physically and morally.”109 Dawson Church explains how gene expression is triggered by perceptions and environment. He writes about epigenetic medicine illustrating how energy affects a set of probabilities, changing outcomes. “Our beliefs—true or false, positive or negative, creative or destructive—do not simply exist in our minds; they interact with the infinite probabilities of a quantum universe, and they affect theCopy cells of our bodies, contributing to the expression of various genetic potentials.”110 In his book The Genie in Your Genes, he brings together a body of scientific evidence supporting the notion that we have the power to shape our lives. We have been born at this threshold moment, a critical point on the earth’s timeline, that allows us to understand our common origins through our many scientific discoveries. This conscious reflexive capacity, which distinguishes us from other life forms, now beckons us. As we comprehend that we are in the sixth phase of extinction—the Anthropocene Period in which humankind is the dominant force on the earth and that our manmade systems are even changing the climate—we must home in on the messages being transmitted by our inner radars. Epigenetic theories imply that how we choose toReview think about the future, how we perceive all that has yet to come, will influence our biosocial becomings. The question is how to use our genetic pathways for positive and creative purposes, serving humanity as well as all life on planet earth. How can we home into this benevolent guiding force that can steer us to a hopeful future? From a humanity perspective, epigenetic research invites us to better consider how inequality, trauma, and human activities “implicate political and social variables in embodied nurture/nature entanglements that reflect persistent health disparities, particularly evident in situations of environmental deprivation. It is well known that environments of poverty, discrimination, and violence result in poor health and early death, but epigenetics exposes the involved molecular pathways,

108 Margaret Lock and Gísli Pálsson. Can Science Resolve the Nature-Nurture Debate? 154. Librarian109 Ibid, p. 158. 110 Dawson Church, The Genie in Your Genes: Epigenetic Medicine and the New Biology of Intention, (Santa Rosa, Calif: Elite Books, 2007), 168. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 341

confirming the indivisibility of nurture/nature. Such findings support demands for improved equity and justice that would also result in significant economic gains.”111 From an environmental perspective, epigenetics research invites us to hear the call of the natural world. The trees are calling us to transform as they shake with the autumn winds, modeling photosynthesis. The dolphins and whales are calling to us from the depths of the seas, using arced flipping to catch our attention and help us notice the depletion of fish and the growing mass of plastics floating in the oceans. The suffering is not only in the seas. Elephants mourn their losses in animal rituals close to our own. These happenings are documented at the same time that Gaia’s depleted topsoil, which threatens planetary fecundity, cries out from the growing cracks in the earth with a raspy voice, parched from being overworked,Copy “Tillers of the soil, take notice!” Hear the birdsong’s plea for reverence as they fly through the air on wings close to angels. “The present century, if we survive it, may well be characterized by the damage that human-made environments cause to their own kind—the Anthropocene is a story of the rapacious nurture of powerful people playing havoc with nature. Nature in all its forms is exhibiting all the signs of stress, trauma, toxicity, and abuse that we usually associate with human bodies; it is desperately signaling what is ‘unnatural.’”112 We are actively future forming. How we perceive and define our relationship to creation ultimately influences our epigenetic expressions and the face of the earth. All life forms are connected. We liveReview in ever-expanding perceptions of relatedness. The social construction of our relational being includes relations of human kinship and planetary Earthship.

Librarian 111 Margaret Locke and Gísli Pálsson. Can science resolve the nature-nurture debate? 150. 112 Ibid, 152. Copy

Review

Librarian CHAPTER 42

LIMINAL SPACE Copy iminal space is considered to hold the potential for transformation. Being in between holds the mystery of “crossing over” the threshold where we L are no longer what we were and have not yet become all we hope to be. It can also be understood as a chrysalis space, a liminal cocooning that holds us while we re-configure and re-birth. The word “inbetweening” refers to the process of generating intermediate frames between two images in animation. Inbetweens are the drawings that create the illusion of motion. There is a kind of transformational movement in liminal space. Though I had been broken open by the shadow of death that hung above Leigh’s fragile body, that transitional space during the drive across the countryside fashioned a lens that connected insightReview to my bleeding heart. Though it appeared that I was in no-man’s-land, I was actually in between, in a transitional, liminal space. Perceiving and understanding the different dimensions that were playing out in the relational field took years for me to discover. Even now, I only understand in part. There are mysterious constellations and universal laws that shape our lives. While working in the psychiatric hospital as a researcher in 2011, I found a book written about Bert Hellinger’s teaching of the family constellations that he developed as a therapeutic approach. He speaks of universal rules governing family relationships. My mentor Joy Manné offered family constellation group therapy sessions in Lausanne. I participated in her group sessions and also read her book Family Constellations: A Practical Guide to Understanding Family Conflict113 to better Librarianunderstand how she had adapted Hellinger’s work to her own therapeutic process. 113 Joy Manné, Family Constellations: A Practical Guide to Uncovering the Origins of Family Conflict, (Berkeley, Calif: North Atlantic Books, 2009). 344 HOMING IN

Bert Hellinger’s work explains that adoption challenges family order. A transgression, or breaking from the order, occurs when a family receives a child from another family. Often these adopted families end up losing a biological child or the couple ends up divorcing. It is as if adoption intrudes on the order. When I read that passage, I was astounded. Close family friends, the Larkins, had adopted a baby girl my age and had lost their biological son, Jay, in a tragic river rafting accident. This seemed like a harsh penance for the transgression that Hellinger related to adoption. Hellinger’s writings address the question of belonging as an adopted child. Though an adopted child is taken in and cared for by his adopted parents, he suggests that adopted children might carry forward a mission fromCopy their birth parents. “The intelligence of the systemic symmetry of love operating unseen in our relationships watches over love. It is easier to follow than to understand. We recognize it, if it is important to us, in the subtle movements of our inwardness and in the careful observation of our relationships.”114 Hellinger’s insights invite us to align with a form of intelligence that is operating within our relational matrixes in the hopes of co-creating new forms of symmetry that express even more beautiful and aesthetic configurations and patterns. Discovering relational fields where systemic family relations can be transformed requires a certain kind of faith that allows the participant to engage with the mystery. As we come to recognize our “life sentences,” we can also learn to reflexively re- formulate our life sentences so that theyReview empower and make whole. In this way we “come to terms” with our storyline. We move together “in the divine milieu,” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s115 ex- pression for a space where we are invited to commune and be part of the Body of Christ. As we become more and more aware of our divine nature, we are able to see in new ways and are guided to spiral to the Omega Point, the place of divine unification. Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest whose oeuvre gave importance to scientific discoveries as part of the creation. Teilhard de Chardin gives importance to our intention in what he refers to as the noosphere, a sphere of thought encircling the earth. Both Bert Hellinger and Teilhard de Chardin were priests, though Hellinger later left the priesthood for his family constellation work. Jay Larkin, my father’s godson, died when he was eight. Jay’s funeral was my

Librarian114 Bert Hellinger, Gunthard Weber, and Hunter Beaumont, Love’s Hidden Symmetry: What Makes Love Work in Relationships, (Phoenix, Ariz: Zeig, Tucker, 1998), 29. 115 Theilhard De Chardin, The Divine Milieu. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 345

first experience with the death of a child. We drove out to Colorado for the funeral. Although his parents stayed together, true to Hellinger’s claim of universal laws acting out in systemic family ties, my adopted parents did end up divorcing. There are many mysteries governing our human interactions. That passage about adoption as a form of transgression from Hellinger’s work struck something in me and reminded me of how strongly I felt that I needed to be by Leigh’s side during her illness. I had left everything in Boulder and risked not passing my exams to be with Leigh and my family. When I was all alone driving across western Nebraska, I had Leigh’s picture on my dashboard. I spoke to her and implored her to fight for her life and to stay with us. At times, I could barely see from the tears burning my eyes. But I wanted her so desperatelyCopy to hold on to her life. When Jay had been overturned and trapped under his raft in the river rafting accident, I was told how his parents had grabbed onto large rocks in the river where they helplessly watched their son’s lifeless body be taken away by the forces of the white rapids. In much the same way, I felt forces pulling Leigh away while I held some kind of imaginary rope that wouldn’t let her be taken by the river of life’s incredible momentum. I couldn’t let her be taken by waters that would flow into the ocean of death. At times that rope became more of a thin thread connecting us, and I didn’t want it to break. Did my prayers and my presence help to change the course of our common destiny? Did the reconciliationReview with my birth family that happened much later influence Leigh’s miraculous healing? Was it a constellation of energies? And was God’s grace linked to a mysterious law governing adoption and reciprocity? As a freshman driving along Interstate 80, had my prayers miraculously changed the course of events, healing Leigh and reuniting me much later? In the highest dimension, in God’s eye, there is neither time nor space. I had that profound insight one night while studying Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus, or Tailor Retailored, an existential work from the 1800s that was part of my final English literature exam. My vision took me to that place known as eternity, where there is no separation. It is a dimension beyond space and time. There, we are one with the Godhead. I remember trying to write down that revelation. At that time I had no words to describe what I had intuitively understood, nor do I now. In that state of consciousness, I had been awakened to dimensions that couldn’t quite be translated. LibrarianAs the hymn goes, “We are one in the spirit, we are one in the Lord.” That at-one-ment is possibly beyond our daily grasp, but there may be moments that 346 HOMING IN

the divine unveils his/her face so we can have a glimpse at a higher truth or way of knowing. Transformation in one moment of time can possibly affect both the past and the future. In my desperate drive across the barren western Nebraska grasslands, I traversed through a moment out of time and space, where miracles rippled out from the center. Leigh’s life was saved, and I was guided much later to my birth mother’s door. On a more human level, I sought my maker’s face, stretching out a hand toward forgiveness, surrendering to God’s will. Were these two miracles connected? In hindsight, they seem to dovetail. Had reunion righted a form of universal law of transgression in relation to my adoption? The question itself underscores mystery. The space we make in our heart to receive and care for the other transformsCopy our mind-body and our family circle’s configuration as we expand our circle of caring. Adopted children often arrive at that crossing between the infertility of their adopted family and the responsibility that their birth family cannot assume. It is a place that is in between. In anthropology, the term “liminality” might best describe that place between families that the adopted child occupies: born and waiting to be adopted. The adopted child stands in the threshold before he or she passes by the adoption ritual into a new family. During this liminal period, the family’s social hierarchy is dissolved, and the continuity of biological kinship becomes uncertain. The future outcome of a child in this position is unclear, as is their lineage continuity. The social outcomes that may have been taken for granted and attributed by the child’s birth parent’s status are also unsure, andReview the child’s future is momentarily thrown into doubt. I was in foster care for four months until it was certain that I didn’t have any physical defects. I learned only recently in a healing conversation with my adopted mother that she and my father were very clear during the interviewing process that they only wanted a “perfect child.” A part of me seemed to somehow know that. I become more distraught when I am not “perfect.” When I am injured, I worry about the consequences of not being physically strong and the rejection that can ensue. As a foster baby, I lived in a liminal space emerging as the “perfect baby” ready to be adopted. This aspect is possibly at the root of my psychic scar. The adopted child is less of a subject than a child that is born into a family. The adopted child becomes objectified through the adoption process. In some cases, there is even an exchange of money in order to receive a child. LibrarianIn the filmThe Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Brad Pitt plays Benjamin Button, who arrives in a family in an old man’s body and grows younger over the years. His SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 347

strange ugliness motivates his father to place him on the doorstep of a kindhearted black woman shortly after his birth. She takes him in, just as he is. I have had to learn to fit into my different families—or sometimes accept being a misfit. I fear rejection of my imperfections, my broken parts, and any dis-ease I may have. I long for unconditional acceptance. I know that children need a strong family to protect them. I suppose my very first poem, written after moving from our house on Farnam Street to our new house on Candlewood Lake, expressed a form of liminality that has registered in my sub-conscious mind. The words “No more shall I live this morning, no more shall I die” and “Remembering the love that once surrounded me and the new kind that shall come” describe a form of liminal space—a place between my mother’s womb and my foster and then adoptedCopy family. I had spoken of an experience of death in my poem and also wrote, “I think she died,” when speaking of my birth mother when I was twelve years old. Somehow, I equated death with our separation. Nancy Verrier speaks of the “primal wound” to describe the pain of adopted children who are separated at birth from their birth mother. My identity is yet another form of liminality, existing between two family identities. I have multiple kinship ties that bind me. It is a unique situation that I try to balance daily. I am the fruit of two family trees. Also, I have been grafted onto my adopted mother’s recomposed family tree. I must continually adapt to my changing family environments. When I married, I also became a Riva. I have done my best to integrate into the Swiss society.Review When people comment that I still have an American accent, I now reply that I don’t want to get rid of it. I don’t want to erase where I have come from. Why would I hide my origins, masking my accent and way of speaking? On the contrary, my accent doesn’t “betray me,” but grounds me. Even more, why does my accent bother anyone? I live between two continents, nations, languages, and cultures. I am like a zebra, painted with stripes both black and white. When we are born, we enter into the circle of life, much like the ceremony in the film Lion King when the lion cub is lifted up for all the animal kingdom to see and acknowledge. We each need to have an acknowledged place in the kingdom to be well. Social and cultural determinants of health influence our well-being. The Whitehall Study, a foundational research providing evidence of the social determinants of health, shows how our place in the hierarchy influences our health Librarianoutcomes. Having experienced these spaces of liminality associated with my birth, adoption, 348 HOMING IN

and finding my birth parents, I have found pleasure affirming myself in my work. I feel in flow when I cook and when I write. I am grounded in my domestic chores and creative endeavors. A woman’s work is about new beginnings. Every day we start over, just like the story of Penelope in the Greek Odyssey. She would weave a shroud while waiting for her husband Odysseus to return home, only to undo her work each evening so as to avoid the suitors she was promised to once she finished the shroud. Each morning I begin again making the beds, doing the laundry, cooking the meals, and cleaning up the dishes. My masterpiece is just that—each day’s a homemade creation in itself. Caring for my family—raising my children well and teaching them how to love—is probably the most important work thatCopy I can ever do. Bonding with my children has been the greatest joy of my life. I am a proud mother and assume with pleasure my role as keeper of the house—or housekeeper. John Shotter speaks about time as “a holistic getting later of everything together.” 116 Within liminal space is wiggle room to time-shape. The golden pocket watch represents transformed, shared belonging: transmitting time-shape. Completion unfolds through time. There is an opening space in the telling of our life stories. In this open space of storytelling, new backgrounds can be configured with wordings that transform relations, shapeshifting the future. The kaleidoscope rearranges the forms and colors, creating new designs. Being in between allows for new unfolding landscapes to arise. Review Kinship and liminal space are key anthropological concepts. While kinship contains our belongings, liminal space can be used as a portal of transformation. Our metaphors, as Charles Taylor suggests, can create an entre nous, that which is shared between us, providing new ways of being in the world and opening space where new relational worlds can be engendered as we discover what it means to be family. In Thomas Berry’s The Dream of the Earth, he has a chapter entitled “The New Story.”

It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story. Our Librariantraditional story of the universe sustained us for a long period of time. It shaped our

116 John Shotter. Social Accountability and Selfhood, (Taos Institute Publications/Worldshare Books, 2015). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 349

emotional attitudes, provided us with life purposes and energized action. It consecrated suffering and integrated knowledge. We awoke in the morning and knew where we were. We could answer the questions of our children.117

Searching for our rightful place, liminal space offers the possibility to shapeshift, writing new stories as part of a guiding process informing our children as we map the way to a future filled with hope. The liminal space that I have experienced between identities, geographical spaces, and historical times is an in-between space where I have come to know my Self. I am both an outlander and a highlander in Scottish terms. I daily navigate a territory defined by a multiplicity of belonging. Trying to analyze andCopy describe what living on the mountain and working in a virtual space entails demands a method or clarifying process, pushing away the fog that holds close to the mountaintops. I continue to live in a kind of liminal space between the Old World and the New World. I live in Europe but was forged by my American upbringing. The dreams of my youth have had to confront the deceptions faced in adulthood, confronted on another continent. My highest imaginings conceived in the American Heartland met with inhospitable forces in the Alps, causing a compounded form of existential adult suffering. Often my ideas were too progressive to be understood and applied. Again, I have often experienced being out of sync as a precursor or forerunner whose ideas are before their time. Not only have I been out of sync, but my generation has been forced to take stock, recognizingReview that the story our parents lived by needs to be rewritten. The new story is in the writing, and we are waiting for it to be in print. Over the years I have enjoyed taking my children back to Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum to show them the unique Karl Bodmer Collection of the American Plains Native Americans and scenery along the Mississippi and Missouri Basin, as well as other pieces assembled in the ever-growing museum collection. In the past, I have enjoyed working at the regional museums in Valais as a guide, translator, and cultural mediator. My grandparents taught me the importance of “object mediators”—those special pieces or artifacts that transmit cultural values through generations. Private and public collections tell cultural narratives as we collectively discern the contours of beauty and define landscapes of meaning. Poppy collected Gilder’s paintings depicting Nebraska scenes. Bodmer, originally from Zurich but a Librarianparticipant in Prince Maximilian’s expedition, also captured the American West in

117 Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth, 123. 350 HOMING IN

his drawings. Both artists contributed to art and science in tandem. The illustrations Bodmer presented after his expedition had a lasting influence upon the landscapes of meaning painted in the minds of the Europeans on the Old Continent. The vision that was transmitted portrayed an artistic depiction of the western Great Plains, colored by the adventurers that documented their trail. The expedition called forth a new wave of migration as others followed across the Atlantic in search of what would become the New World. I come from those Euro-Americans that sought ownership of new lands, free- dom from domination imposed by lords and royal privilege, and freedom of religious expression. They carried with them a powerful vision of progress that not only annihilated the Native American peoples with their diseases but Copytransformed the traditional lifeways on the continent, wiping out the scenes of beauty depicted in Bodmer’s sketches. This Manifest Destiny, the nineteenth century belief that the settlers were destined to expand westward across North America, has come to a standstill as we stand looking at the destruction of native life-ways, consciously taking heed. In Susan Sontag’s essay “The Anthropologist as Hero,” she underscores Claude Lévi-Strauss’s post-Marxist vision of freedom where humankind would be free from the obligation to progress and enslave other human beings in order to make progress possible.118 Influential explorers lead us to new worlds by telling us new stories and providing images that allow us too to become pathfinders. We are collectively experiencing the ending of a “Western” story of progress.Review We need pioneers to take us to new landscapes of meaning. This pioneer spirit can bring us forward, spearheading and giving birth to future life ways. As we home in, we become pathfinders. Hegel speaks of history as a self-mediating process where Spirit empties out in time. Hegel’s concept of Spirit is a form of general consciousness, a single mind common to all humankind, or Geist. This Spirit emptying through time essentially works through history. Recollection is an important component in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Time and Self unfold in history, where the goal is absolute knowing. “The goal, Absolute Knowing, or Spirit that knows itself as Spirit, has for its path the recollection of the Spirits as they are in themselves and as they accomplish the organization of their realm.”119 He writes of an inwardizing process that leads to knowing. Becomingness arises

Librarian118 Susan Sontag and David Rieff. Essays of the 1960s & 70s, (New York: The Library of America, 2013), 82. 119 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, trans. Arnold V. Miller, and J. N. Findlay, Phenomenology of Spirit, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 493. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 351

from dialectical movement. The unfolding of yet unimaginable forms of planetary becomingness break with past notions of manifest destiny and progress. We yearn for a wholeness that surpasses our current understandings. Therefore, we set out on our own thought adventures. As Spirit empties into time, informing the historical pathway, our collective paths are traced. Recollection can also be understood as attention to the presence of God, as in the practice of religious contemplation. St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote the Spiritual Exercises in the 1500s, placing importance on the exercise of recollection. In his autobiography, he refers to himself as “The Pilgrim” walking thousands of miles in search of his place in the world.120 His example speaks to pilgrims today. Practicing recollection is an exercise that transforms our perceptions,Copy and in so doing, reveals the beauty of God’s divine presence in our lives, a presence passing through us as it flows through time. Questing requires searching, which in turn taps into various forms of perception. Memory can be transformed through recollection, offering a lens capable of discerning or homing in to beauty in all its life forms. Spiritual exercises and transformative practices can help move us from desolation to consolation. Though I have traveled the world, I am a Nebraskan. My home state is filled with a formidable pioneer spirit that has been poured into me. My heartland is filled with a beauty that my youth’s eye learned to discern, especially on the land. Jim Harrison wrote a Nebraska saga of adoption and reunion in his books Dalva and The Road Home. His eloquent descriptionsReview of the natural world and birdsong offer a poignant critique of Manifest Destiny, wonderfully portraying “the place I loved but had to leave.” He fills the pages with characters rooted in landscapes where self-pity is the worst of human sentiments. Was Harrison looking through the roof window of my life when searching for his plot and setting? How did storymind connect us? Possibly symbolic space opens up narrative windows, allusions to corresponding story fractals forming through time and space, using words that line up. My own experience makes me wonder if the recollecting process is a catalyst, organizing realms as Hegel suggests. Even more, recollecting becomes a spiritual exercise as in St. Ignatius of Loyola’s teachings. The pilgrim too walks in liminal

Librarianspace, journeying. Today we not only walk the earth, but also in virtual realities that 120 John Darwin. “In the Footsteps of St. Ignatius,” Creighton Magazine, 2018, https://www.creighton. edu/creightonmagazine/2018smrunewsdialogueinthefootsteps/ (Accessed November 16, 2018). 352 HOMING IN

connect us through new technologies. Taking this all into account, the process of scientific informing can be seen as part of a dialectical bringing forth of future worlds that can only come into being through our quest for Self and knowing. Time is the keeper of the unfolding process through history. Our life histories or biographies contain the dialectic of our inwardizing. In this way, autoethnography becomes a transformational process, creating a liminal space of generativity where words flow onto the page much like spirit empties out in time. The people that we may touch are not necessarily geographically close, but they may be in a virtual heart space. Not only the dimension of space, but also notions of time guide our steps. Henrik Ibsen, known as Norway’s Shakespeare, wrote a play in the 1800s entitledCopy Ghosts, suggesting that humankind walks with the specters of the past. He questioned the illusions of liberty we may hold, as well as the possibility of full self-realization that is dangled before us. Shooting forth from the social environments that shape and form us like trees erupting through an earthen floor, the past we carry with us quite literally affects the forthcoming configuration of our embodiment. Ghosts, or ancestral lines as explained in transgenerational psychology, may indeed contribute to how the past delineates our future storylines, wherever we may physically reside. We walk on ancestral grounds. Transgenerational transmission can be understood through illustrations in literature, art, and even science. But the natural environment fashions us in profound ways going beyond symbolic representations. Our environmental contexts are fieldsReview of liminal space that we interact with. We develop systemic interactions that give rise to the emergence of new ways of being. Our environmental context influences our development. Landscapes fashioning our becomingness are often tied to symbolic places. The Great Plains and the Missouri River are page markers in my book of sacred geography, intimately connecting me to the land where I was earthborn. The land and river fashioned me, sculpting my earthly embodiment. The cracking river’s ice still rings in my ears, a rare sound that all have not heard. Maybe even the ghost dancers are walking by my side, circling me as they bring me into the ritual. Memory, places, and sound permeate form, like a potter’s hand molding a vase. Intention also imprints form, like etching on an Egyptian scarab. Some elements cling to us, while others erupt through, grasping at life and sometimes holding on with a strong grip. Memory cascades down first as waterfall, and then as river cutting through Librarianbedrock, imprinting earthly form, bodily form, and art form. As energetic vibrations resonate from source, they can create beautiful configurations like in the case of water crystals. In another form of memory, Masaru Emoto’s work demonstrates how SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 353

words, music, and prayer effect the crystallization process in photographed water crystals.121 He believes the original idea of the creator is the “pursuit of beauty.” His photographs illustrate how vibrations of “evil” distort, showing how life renders more beautiful the forms resonating with the benevolent imprint to “live.” Bach Flower Remedies are a form of vibrational medicine using the energetic signature of flower essences to transform and heal emotional states. Healing crystals use formative life properties to act on the bio-electrical field of the body as well. Codes of light are transmitted through these living mediums with the potential of gently melting away disease.122 In this liminal body space, consciousness, an animating life force, participates in the creation of possibilities. Before they are crystalized, forms representing either health or illness play in our enerCopygy field. As rivers run downhill, filled with heaven’s waters, they cut through soil, making channels. Consciousness pours down like the blessing of rain, channeling insights that can reveal perfect patterns as well as clinging remnants distorting potentialities and becomingness. Holistic medicine embraces the knowledge that these natural laws govern the interrelationship between body, mind, and spirit. Healing is one aspect of the self-realization process that strives toward life’s highest possible potentiality. Our life-o-grams are like water crystals configuring perfected forms of beauty. In this way they are transformagrams—liminal space in a form of transitional space that offers more flexibility, allowing transformational processes to unfold.123 This space has a kind of plasticity that permits new form to emerge. Self-effacement too resonates, Reviewsounding out divine forces that echo back, whispering secrets of beauty, sharing recipes on how to discretely make oneself with a dash of humility. Divine inspiration comes with responses received by way of winged envelopes containing transfiguration. Homing pigeons carry messages, homing in to our hearts like Valentine’s Day cards. Spiritual change happens, allowing for metamorphosis or a change of heart to manifest in our body-mind. Though cultivating self-knowledge is a noble undertaking, there comes a time when Self must be left behind. Unexpectedly, like a western Nebraska blizzard in the Sandhills, white-out whirls in, lifting up all it touches with wind wings of holiness, at times as soft as winter snowflakes but nevertheless holding the potential of obliterating traits that no longer serve the greater good. Here, in this liminal

121 Masaru Emoto, Messages from Water and the Universe, (1st ed. Carlsbad, Calif: Hay House, 2010). Librarian122 Richard Gerber, Vibrational Medicine the #1 Handbook of Subtle-Energy Therapies, (Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company, 2001). 123 D Hinton and L. J. Kirmayer, “The Flexibility Hypothesis of Healing,” Cult Med Psychiatry (2017), 41:3-34. 354 HOMING IN

space of snow and wind wiping, is the breath of God. Here, we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit—living wisdom. The white out of the blizzard becomes a liminal space where the force of the wind effaces form. Transformational practices allow us to shapeshift. Through the portal of liminal space we can remember and recreate ourselves, fashioning our futures in the way that Spirit pours into time. Transformative social processes act on history’s unfolding. Dreams and constellations act on us, transforming our perceptions, environmental contexts, and our lived experiences. In between and entre nous is the sacred space where we transition into future selves. Copy

Review

Librarian CHAPTER 43

MAKING MANDALAS OF WHOLENESS ON THE MEDICINE WHEEL OF LIFE Copy

have had the privilege to interview many social and healthcare professionals over the past several years, and their words have created a crowning vision. IEach one has described the practice that they have developed in response to a form of human suffering. I collected these conversations for my research in public health. One morning, a vision came to me. I saw that each professional practice was a part of a beautiful wreath that was braided together with flowers blooming in each of life’s seasons. Just as the Alpine meadows are filled with colorful bouquets with each passing week during the summer months, our life trajectory passes through mandatory phases. Review The earth’s cycle is programmed. In my region, after the snowfields melt, the Alpine meadows fill with intense blue gentian flowers that call forth the blooming of the deep pink rhododendrons in June. Sometimes fairy circles of purple violets can be sighted next to a green moss rock. When fall comes along, the larch trees blaze forth with golden hues that finish by coloring the forests in a deep rusty orange. The signs of winter approaching call the marmots back to their hibernation holes that dot the pastures where the Hérens cattle graze. In this season, the queen cows combat for the lead position of the troop, attracting a growing number of onlookers. Winter approaches the summits first, sprinkling snowflakes. The peaks sparkle with snow crystals and glacier mirrors, enticing mountaineers to climb to the top of the world. Each season offers a new picnic ground for people of all nationalities. And just like nature’s wisdom, the hands of human beings, endeavoring Librarianto respond to human suffering, weave a wreath of human service. We eternally create new healing rituals and practices to respond to the needs of our families 356 HOMING IN

and communities corresponding to the phases inherent in life’s unfolding and the needs that arise. At Easter, we are shown the crown of thorns that is placed on Christ’s head. There is the image of the thorns cutting through his scalp and blood flowing over his forehead. Our collective work is the transformation of that crown of thorns into the halo of golden light depicted in Christian art, transforming life’s hardships into the transfiguration of life graced by divine love. Each phase of life brings a new form of physical and psychological challenge. Our human condition elicits the response of our fellow human beings, who naturally want to reach out and respond with a healing gesture. Our survival has depended on cooperation and compassion. We are biologically wired to bond andCopy care for each other. Love and evolve share the same letters. Our collective evolution and our capacity to love and care for one another are indeed intricately intertwined. My life phases are evident in the stained-glass window I made as a representation of my medicine shield, an idea that came from The Seven Arrows book. The round stained-glass window in our living room depicts a tree holding up a purple heart with the rainbow arching through the upper half of the heart. When I was designing it, I only saw in part what I can see now, and yet its symbols remain true. The figures that I drew into the circle were inspired from a kind of collective con- scious. My intention was to create a symbolic medicine shield that represented both of my worlds. The poem etched in theReview center was written in French about our life in the mayens. The rainbow that arcs through the window can be understood to represent my children, each soul coming from one of the colors of the rainbow. I now also see the arching rainbow as my “thunder bow.” From the ark of my heart, my children shoot out through the bow like arrows, targeting dreams of self- realization. They are homing in to their own self-fulfillment. Katrina is a young political scientist working in public health. Her husband Bastien does research in the field of biotechnology. Sven is an aspiring man of the law; Nils, an expert ski instructor, mountaineer, and mason. He coaches the demonstration team. Nils also has a natural ear for music. Yann is a ski instructor and participates on the demonstration team with his brothers. His career path in business led him to work in accounting in an international company. Both Nils and Yann paraglide, sailing through the open skies after jumping off the mountaintop. LibrarianThey often fly over our chalet or land close by so that I can appreciate their flight. Jessica is the apple of my husband’s eye, a talented skier also working at the ski SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 357

school. She plays soccer on the most competitive girls team in our region, present in all she undertakes. She is studying in the bi-lingual business school, following her siblings’ example. We are a ski tribe and a soul team. We spend lots of time together practicing our favorite sports and supporting each other in the life missions that we are each defining and putting forth into the world. My children are truly like the arrows in Kahil Gibran’s poem. Their lives, like the poet’s arrows, have a trajectory that will take our family’s heritage forward, generating new meaning archways through time. They will be the generation that redefines progress. They will put forward and articulate a new pact with the environment. They will negotiate the Earth Charter124 and our common future at a time when the fault lines Copyof contention risk polarizing the world. Most importantly they are peace-builders, laying the foundation for a new glocal way of living by engendering flourishing communities. My most important endeavor has been preparing them for their journey. They are my hope for the future. In the spring of 2019, the Swiss Ski School hosted the Valais Ski School Championships in La Tzoumaz. Nils coached the demonstration team, preparing them for the yearly competition. In a remarkable performance, the three young Riva men made figures, crossing at close proximity at great speed. Their movements entail taking a calculated risk. The precision of their teamwork was truly amazing. The weekend following the competitions, Angelo organized the fiftieth an- niversary of the La Tzoumaz Swiss ReviewSki School. It was a gathering uniting our ski tribe. Though our canton never hosted the Winter Olympic Games, our ski school celebrated the mountain way of life with style, affirming our ski tribe as well as our way of belonging on the slopes in the heart of the Alps. Instead of regretting what could have been if we had hosted the games, our family put on a performance. In the words of Queen, “The show must go on.” In their red-and-white ski school jackets they competed, ate and drank at the ski bar they made from snow, and danced into the early morning. In the Medicine Wheel Way of Life, together we honored the ski tribe and its chiefs—snow dancers carving patterns onto the white slopes. As circumstances took away what I thought was my inheritance, seeds of life took hold assuring my future. When I visit Blackbird Bend Farm, I am sad that the Mossmans are no longer the owners. I also regret that Mossman Co. sold all of the Librarianapartments and commercial centers that were acquired over three generations. As

124 Earth Charter Initiative, http://earthcharter.org (Accessed April 28, 2019). 358 HOMING IN

a child, I proudly watched my father build up a solid business. His constructions brought great meaning to the landscape of my youth. As a young adult, I watched him dismantle the edifice of his dreams, looking on like a child who watches as strong waves break down his sand castles. Creative and destructive forces inherent in life are at work, molding and shaping our waking dream. My dad would always remind me after our long conversations, “Healer, heal thyself.” My search for my birth parents has been just that—an attempt to better know myself and in so doing, heal myself. The ski school is a cooperative, a family business that offers our children and our ski tribe the possibility to master skiing and to teach. Angelo has successfully transmitted his knowledgeability to the next generation. His legacyCopy will live on. My narrative has allowed me to construct a new medicine shield, an embellished coat of arms that protects and shields me. It is forged in the metal of self-knowledge. My quest has allowed me to integrate many dimensions of my Self that, if left unconscious, might have been given an unforeseen power to influence my life’s fate, possibly configuring future generations’ relationships with an unconscious formatting. By gaining self-knowledge, I have been transported. Authorship brought me to a clearer perception of relational being. I am a multi-being with multiple belongings. I can draw from the different voices and surf the waves of different voice dialogues in a kind of multi-voice or polyphony.Review Still, one of the greatest challenges remains: how to quiet the voices, embracing the present moment in a welcomed form of inner, weightless silence. The dialogical space that I have created with all that is sacred has become one of the richest aspects of my existence. Over the course of my life, I have often prayed for courage and grace. I pray that the brave hearts of my children will forge a future of sustainable development for their families and Gaia. I share my story with the intention to contribute to the many messages of hope in the world. Hope can strengthen humanity’s capacity to shine, revealing the path forward like a flashlight in the dark of night. In this way, I hope that this story may foster healing conversations as an applicable method in a “conversation of the world.” Paul Farmer, working as a medical doctor with the poor in many regions of the world, uses hope as a foundation. He calls for a dialogue between medicine and Librarianliberation theology for an “economy of dignity,” encouraging us all to incarnate hope in the face of desolation. He reminds us of the gratuitousness of God’s grace, SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 359

something that we do not merit. “Gratitude is the space of that radical self-giving and that presence of beauty that in our lives without which even the struggle for justice would be crippled.”125 Conversations begin in the family. Family therapist and social constructionist Harlene Anderson has written about “healing conversations,” and her work is an international model for collaborative family therapy.126 Families need to talk and invent new ways to keep the conversations going. A form of relational mind emerges from family conversations, allowing the participants to discover new, more meaningful ways of relating. Synchronous utterances are the study of Professor Jaakko Seikkula. In the relational mind project in Finland, researchers are showing how participants’Copy multi- actor dialogue synchronize their reactions, attuning their talk. There is a melodious polyphony that emerges from conversations when voices are heard and honored in forms of open dialogue.127 Family group counseling is yet another practice creating dialogical space for families to find solutions using culturally responsive methodologies. This practice has its roots in Maori tradition and has been adopted as part of a restorative justice program in courts in New Zealand.128 The Maori koru symbol, an unfurling silver fern representing new life, growth, strength, and peace, informs this practice. My autoethnographic writing illustrates how relational mind can be generated through family memoire. Manumitting, or writing to set myself free, acts on the matrix of my relations. In this sense,Review writing is an emancipatory process. By sharing my life history, I invite my family and close friends to enter into a reflexive dialogue about our shared values, hopes, and dreams. Together, we connect and transform our shared life-course trajectories. Though we are not sitting in the same room, the connectedness acts on us from a distance. Consciousness ignites a way forward as we become pathfinders, seeking the good life together as well as our highest potential, here and now, in Earthship. The reverberations of our intentions to make

125 Michael P. Griffin and Jennie Weiss Block, eds. In the Company of the Poor: Conversations between Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez, (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2013), 86. 126 Harlene Anderson, Conversation, Language, and Possibilities: a Postmodern Approach to Therapy, (1st ed. New York, N.Y: Basic Books, 1997). 127 John Shotter, Conversational Realities Revisited: Life, Language, Body and World, (A Taos Institute Pub- lication, 2008), 169. Librarian128 Nessa Lynch, “Respecting Legal Rights in the New Zealand Youth Justice Family Group Confer- ence,” Current Issues in Criminal Justice, Vol 19 number 1, July 2007. http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/jour- nals/CICrimJust/2007/17.pdf (Accessed April 2019). 360 HOMING IN

whole are indeed future forming. It seems that writing to transform my relations has had a rippling effect on our family’s matrix of relationships. We become whole through the quality of our relatedness. As we repair our relations, we experience the aesthetic beauty of our interconnectedness. Loving makes whole. The voices of ancient, inspiring writers like St. Hildegard von Bingen implore us to “know the ways.” Her writing hints at the universal laws that each era tries to apprehend, suggesting that there is a celestial blueprint of sorts. As humanity evolves, we may use different terms to describe our inner and outer landscapes. We come to understand our world and ourselves through the vocabulary and language of our historical period. Through scholarship, the meaning-making process spans across time, offering us new ways of being and expression while honoringCopy historical representations, folding them into the present. Our human family’s destiny is interconnected. My narrative offers a glimpse at spiritual dimensions that shatter the constructs of the nature and nurture debate. The synchronicities that have brought me back to my rightful place in my birth family and my adopted family have strengthened my faith and brought healing. My heart is indeed lighter after telling my tale. I take responsibility for my story. It is part of my legacy that I have chosen to pass on. It is meant to describe “transmission,” or shared mission, through family lines of inheritance. My intention has been to show proof of interconnectivity through my own life experience. And finally, I hope that the work that I have done to make peace with my past will serve to liberate my future and myReview families’ collective future, contributing to the bringing forth of a better world. This is a form of liberation theology, believing that the Word can set us free. Our words can be employed to configure new, more sustainable and desirable lifeworlds. The “life sentences” associated with adoption in family constellation work play out in life scenarios within the family as well as within organizations. Belonging in organizations is an important aspect of belonging in adult life. When working with people in the margins, belonging often comes to the forefront. Even after the recognition that I received from the University of Tilburg, I have had difficulties overcoming the life sentences playing out in my field of work. Confronted with ethical questions in mediation and research, I have made hard decisions that have ultimately forced me to move on professionally. I believe that sound research methods guarantee ethical outcomes. The work we do must be respectful of the Librarianpeople we are investigating and questioning. Good research requires the practice of ethical relating by taking responsibility for what we hear during our interviews. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 361

As a woman bringing forth generative and transformational practices, I have often been confronted with various forms of resistance. It seems that my way threatens the powers in place by opening up dialogical space and letting marginalized voices speak their truth or have their say. My recommendations often challenge dominant power systems and local practices. Sometimes my voice was suppressed in an attempt to maintain what I saw as control of information and communication, drifting from democratic, participative governance and my own sense of credibility as a mediator and researcher. Traditional power hierarchies defend their power positions in forms of governance that often leave little room for participative and collaborative approaches. Voices in the margins often challenge the powers in place. In the work field, it has been an ongoing challenge to cultivateCopy my garden of knowledge based on dialogical practices. As I weave through the labyrinth, looking for the way forward, I am forced to have faith that I will find an ethical way to be in the world, a place where those I work with will respect my methods and my value as a person and social scientist. But I am conscious that these questions of belonging to an organization and working with marginalized people and groups are part of the adopted child’s constellation. Though I enjoy watching flowering fields of potential bloom into better ways of living and relating, I have also come to recognize the signs of a pervading storm. When the air temperatures suddenly change, you can be sure that a storm is brewing. Defining moments are like thunder clouds in the sky. The rumblings of the gods overtake the horizon, clashingReview with archetypical forces that converge, playing out the contents of the thought forms of our individual and collective psyches. The trick is to avoid being hit by the lightning. When the inner content of the psyche has not been diffused, it becomes more powerful and prone to explosion as it expands throughout the social space that is offered. When our leaders haven’t dealt with their inner stuff, the whirlwind of their suffering combined with their desperate need for power is capable of pulling us in and destroying all that is dear in thunderous explosions. Whatever resists the storm can be used for rebuilding. It is not how bad you are hit that counts, but how good you are at getting back up on your feet. Growing up on the prairie, you learn to read the signs, and you know to take cover. Every farmstead had a trap door that the family ran for when the dark clouds gathered and the tornados flew through the sky. Otherwise, you risked being taken to meet Librarianthe Wizard of Oz, just like Dorothy. In that case, there are always the magical ruby slippers that could bring you home. 362 HOMING IN

Scapegoat theory is well known in social psychology. The term scapegoat evokes the mechanism inherent in society where after designating a guilty member of the group, a ritual of crucifixion is performed in order to release the social tensions, allowing the atmosphere to temporarily calm. The scapegoat voluntarily offers his or her life, and in this way resembles Christ, the Lamb of God. The offering or sacrificial ritual restores peace to the community. It is an offering of Self on the sacrificial alter, a kind of heroic performance that brings one closer to God.In Mass, the congregation repeats the words, “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” In Hindu, the giver, the goal, and the act of sacrifice are the one Brahman. Sacrificial rituals are designed to bring us closer to the divine in numerous religious traditions, just like in the Giveaway ceremony. Copy When our religious leaders fail to make sense of our complex world, the media has turned to psychiatry to explain what has gone wrong, looking to find a cure. Looking for individual causes that can be treated with psychotherapy and medication doesn’t address the bigger picture. The worldwide increase in mental illnesses is linked to policies of inequality. The unequal distribution of wealth is the root cause of much of our suffering as proven in The Inner Level by Wilkinson and Pickett. Unequal power relations often permeate relationships between caregivers and vulnerable people taken care of by state institutions, adding to the suffering mental health patients experience. In psychiatry, patients are often labeled, their suffering diagnosed by those that analyze from Reviewan all-knowing, hierarchical position, serving the “therapeutic state”—governments that prefer to pass out medications instead of configuring just policy. Migration creates yet another kind of suffering. In many situations, political asylum seekers and refugees lose their legal rights to forms of national protectionism. They become non-citizens entering into a black hole where human rights can be diminished. Walls and legal barriers bar them from entrance. As a mediator, I have tried to collapse the pyramid, allowing for more egalitarian encounters. Medical prescriptions can easily suppress symptoms and repress the marginalized. Psychiatric institutions often house a complex web of social and political relations with a tendency to enclose, dominate, and sometimes even abuse. What an unfortunate way to use power—the opposite of empowerment. The modern nation-state is all too happy to instrumentalize psychiatry, treating the victims of social inequality with medication instead of investing in social justice and Librariana recognized place within the greater social system and web of life. Totalitarian systems create relational inequalities leading to serious violations SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 363

of human dignity. Psychiatry has been historically connected to repressive actions, even though great attempts have been made to transform mental health systems. Those that enter asylums as caregivers or patients can be affected by the insidious energy that often permeates the grounds. Still, many professionals come with good intentions, devoting their lives and offering their care. Psychiatric and psychological explanations mesmerize the public and are yet another entrapment in the hall of mirrors. The term “therapeutic state” has been used to describe how growing inequalities are being treated by medications that have no proven, positive outcomes. States are turning to medication to soothe the epidemic of mental illness instead of investing in educational and relational solutions, caregiving, and social justice. Radical presence is an alternativeCopy that opens us up to a multiplicity of life forms. “By adopting a radical presence, we can move beyond the therapeutic state and harness the vast resources available when multiple communities coordinate together to create ways of ‘going on together.’”129 Resilient communities adopting forms of participatory governance may be an alternative to the therapeutic state. When the quill of the porcupine stings, the quill of the pen may be the best antidote. Writing has transformative potential, lifting up social suffering and placing it on the altar of art form. In clown school, there is a practice of transforming what you can’t change using comedy and laughter. Performance elevates perception while giving us distance. In Italian literature, Dante’s Divine Comedy describes the art of walking through hell. In spite Reviewof the description of hell he describes, his story has a happy ending, a vision of a Triune God aligned with God’s love. When we understand research as accompaniment, building on Paulo Freire’s liberation pedagogy and Latin America’s liberation theology, we behold the promise of emancipatory processes that lead to pathways of liberation. “Changing language is part of the process of changing the world.”130 The radical methodology in liberation theology moves from denunciation to annunciation with a “wildness” that questions power while offering hope. Through my practice, not only have I found my voice, I have even sung at a conference in a new kind of performance that combines dialogue with musical interludes, presenting The Red Book by Jung. At a cognitive level, neural pathways

129 Sheila McNamee, Radical Presence: Alternatives to the Therapeutic State, European Journal of Psy- Librarianchotherapy & Counseling, (17: 4, 373-383, DOI: 10.1080/12642537.2015.1094504). 130 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope, Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed, (Bloomsbury Academic, New York, 1994) 58. 364 HOMING IN

bring the message to a deeper layer of Self when it is accompanied with music. When we find our singing voice (voix), we reconnect and simultaneously find our way (voie). (In French, the two words sound the same.) Singing Peter Gabriel’s “Book of Love” in a duet accompanied by guitar, I gave voice to a freedom of expression that is not only a basic right, but also a deep-seated human need. From his grave, my dad Dave is acting upon me as a quintessential specter, walking beside me and whispering into my ear, “What are you doing with the sword you pulled from the stone?” I was hard on my dad, judging him. I questioned the justness of his authority and blamed him for leaving. But it is important to be reflexive about one’s own motivations and look at one’s own shortcomings: “First remove the beam from your own eye” (Matthew 7:5). Copy As I grope with taking responsibility for my repeating patterns, I try to find playful spaces of recreation, encounters of transformation. To quote Jung, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”131 I am forever questioning authority. It started at the kitchen table when I refused to give in to unfairness, not accepting behavior from my father I considered to be inappropriate. I refused to cry like my mother and sister. I held my own as I held back my tears, burning inside with indignation. When my father pounded his fist on the table saying, “I am the king,” I alluded to examples of just governance, explaining how a good leader, if he treated his subjects with kindness and respect, wouldn’t need to pound his fist on the table. I have always refused to obey unjust rules and rulers, instead following Reviewmy inner convictions of what is right and wrong. I stood up to my father as a little girl and seem to keep running into new king- doms and unjust powers to defy. Completely engaged, I give my all to develop new, more egalitarian lifeworlds. How could I be blamed for bucking up against authority when I had been allowed to freely ride the Great Plains on horseback? I can hear Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash singing in the background with a country twang about being young, strong, and running against the wind. In the film The Matrix, there is a scene where Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne, offers Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, two pills, saying, “You can choose the red pill or the blue pill.” Each pill has the possibility of shaping a different experience within the Matrix. We must carefully choose the “pills” we take, as Librarianthey have the power to configure our perceptions of reality. Though our planet 131 Carl Jung, qtd. in “Quotable Quotes,” Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/44379-until- you-make-the-unconscious-conscious-it-will-direct-your (Accessed January 30, 2019). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 365

Earth is bountiful and abundant, we have created a program of scarcity. We need to reprogram the Matrix. It may be that our mind-bodies’ well-being is influenced by our ability to enter into a hopeful, collective future. Bright futures inspire and uplift, fashioning physical states. How we story the future also influences our bodily wellness. Imagining hopeful futures and working to accomplish visions of wellness reinforces health in the present. Social injustice has consumed me since I was a young girl. I would enter into debates that would drain me of all my energy, paradoxically igniting my rage against inequality. However, my studies invited me to learn of different theories and practices that have effectively allowed me to temper my desire to bring justice to the world at the cost of being bitter. As a mediator, peacemaker,Copy healer, and seeker, I have often used Appreciative Inquiry. I value the privilege of being the person asking the questions to elicit reflexivity, generating individual and social transformation together. Still, it is important to remember the responsibility that goes with asking the question, What should be the response to narratives of social injustice? How can we create dialogical space to address violence? My sensitivity to human suffering, stemming from my own vulnerability, can no longer advance when powered by lividity. Too much rage, just like too much coffee, can make you jittery. However, the fire spirit can be useful when employed for empowering creative endeavors. Even so, gentleness offers another enticing alternative, lightly touching and guiding performance in a dance of swans. Review

Moving through the stories and dancing with words and phrases is a form of dynamic re-creation. My story mandala has been told in three parts, allowing me to create and design a sacred space for my audience and myself. I wear different masks, or faces, that correspond to the different acts of my life play. Masks were worn in Greek drama, rituals creating liminal space. The mask transformed and enabled the actor to appear and reappear in several different roles. The mask’s function was to enhance the resonance of the head, allowing the metamorphosis of the actor into the character. The Greek dramas were influenced by shamanistic traditions and can be understood as a kind of transformative performance. In each encounter, we are changed as we adapt our presentation of Self in the relational Librariandance. In my own performance as the adopted child, I wore different masks playing 366 HOMING IN

the part of Susan Kay Mossman Riva. There was the child, the young woman, the bride, the mother, and the social scientist. One especially important face was the mask that I put on when I found my birth family, discovering my role as a Wylie. There is also the mask that I am making, that isn’t quite complete but that I am faceting. I keep trying it on to see if it fits properly, adding new details and sewing on new ribbons. It is a mask in the making. It’s designed with heartstrings that attach it to my face. Feathers and jewels of many colors adorn it. When I wear it, I feel like a butterfly in flight. This mask is more flexible than the previous ones, as I can put it on if I choose, but most importantly, I can take it off at will. In 1 Corinthians 13:11-13, it is written, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man,Copy I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face-to-face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. Then abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” This key Biblical passage takes us beyond the metaphor of the human mask. In God’s eyes, we are seen with all our masks on at once and more—we are seen in our wholeness. We are known in our completeness. When we look at our image in the mirror, we see only part of what God sees. By sharpening our spiritual vision, we can look into the mirror and see as God sees. Our lens, colored by faith, hope, and love, reveals a reflection that is closer to the divine reflection. When we are children, we see only partly what God has intended for us to become. We are human seeds, cared for by angels guidingReview us on our path to completion. We are all questing for wholeness and our rightful place of belonging. In the 1960s musical production of Oliver Twist, the young orphan sings “Where is Love” from his caged dwelling space: “Every night I kneel and pray. Let tomorrow be the day when I see the face of someone who I can mean something to. Where is love?” Charles Dickens captured the desperation of orphaned children of his era in his famous novel. The musical’s touching song portrays the burning desire to be seen in completeness as well as our yearning need to be loved. When parts of Self are imprisoned in the cages of confinement, we feel fragmented. We all search for wholeness and relational connection. I learned the song “Where is Love?” for my voice lesson in high school. The song recently came to me in my daily meditation. When life is enchanted, it is full of song. Chanter in French means to sing. From the deep recesses of my subconscious I Librarianhave surfaced, finding not only my Self, but also my voice. Relational harmony and balance allow us to sing the song of bliss, a vibration with a specific tonal quality. In SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 367

Oliver Twist, the orphaned child is looking for someone he could mean something to. He was searching for recognition. There is an amazingly powerful force when we recognize the other in their wholeness. I see you!

Grass Dancers

My grandfather told me a story About the Sundance Way of Life, He said, “Build your Thunder Bow.” Meet me at the pow-wow, On our sacred land, Copy Where our tribal cousins gather, Under dark sky and moonlight. Meet me at dusk, When my shadow comes back, To dance with me, There we will find the magic of perceiving, In the Medicine Wheel, Where each position changes the vision. Bring your shadow with you, That part of your Self, You can only see when the lightingReview is right. Meet me in the circle of light, The reflection of moon on earth, You’ll find me there calling to father sky. As the drums pound in your heart, Calling you home through the sacred dance, Feel your heart rising. Meet me in the moon circle, Where our ancestors walked the sacred land, Feel their presence gathering. Meet me in the sacred circle of the tribe, Connecting us between Earth and Sky, Dancing to the heartbeat of drums. LibrarianMedicine man, put on your mask, Shake off my pain with your snake rattle, Heal me! Heal my spirit with your sacred words, 368 HOMING IN

Tribal dance and costumes, Moccasins pounding on the ground, As spirit encircles the pow-wow, Our offerings have called the Great White Spirit, And like the Ghost Dance before, We ask to save our people and renew Earth. How can we change our ways? Honoring our promise to the land, The red man remembers the sacred pact, Flooding, drought, and storms have come, Warning signs of our plight, Copy Mother Earth is speaking. We are keepers of the Earth, We are keepers of Life, We are keepers of the Human Seed. Dance with me, tribal cousin, Bring your shadow and your brave heart, Drum, heart, and foot are one here. In the sacred circle we gather at the pow-wow, Offering our shadow and loneliness, To this sacred dance of life. Through time and space the windReview blows, As clouds open to the sky, Showing the direction forward. Show me the four Great Powers of the Medicine Wheel, So I may perceive with the gift of whole vision, The Breath of Wisdom and Total Understanding. By Touching and Feeling we overcome our loneliness, Let me experience this living power in me and grow, Becoming a whole being through the path of peace and love. Let me feel the harmony with every other thing, Teach me to Giveaway to the other, In the Medicine Wheel of the Sundance Teaching. Reveal me in the mirror of my personal shield, LibrarianThrough my vision quest I find my own medicine shield, I am the Seeker. CHAPTER 44

ENGAGING IN HEALING CONVERSATIONS

Every family has its stories: tragedies, comedies, tall tales, legends. GoodCopy or bad, they matter to us because they explain us somehow. They help us find our places in the history of the world—these are my people and this is how they lived—and in many cases they help us understand why we are the way we are.132

y talking about events and sharing our stories, we can invite others to en- gage in healing conversations. However, as a mediator, I was often confront- Bed with family conflicts that couldn’t be resolved because certain family members didn’t want to participate. Engaging in generative dialogue opens new ways to go on together. Journaling and autoethnography offer additional ways to engage and transform. AutoethnographyReview and duoethnography133 are methods that allow one to gain self-knowledge and self-awareness. They are ways to converse with sophia, or living wisdom. When we open ourselves to conversations that have the potential of bringing greater insight into our lives, we enter into profound transformational spheres. The act of writing, as well as the engagement in the process, configures new storylines and flyways, tracing paths to future ways of being in the world, partaking in the ongoing conversation. After having written the skeleton of my story in the fall of 2012, I fell on the ski slopes and broke my pelvis, or sacrum, in three places. The mountain broke me and simultaneously allowed me a chance to recover. When the doctors arrived with the results of the MRI, they began explaining the image by saying, “This is your sacrum. It looks just like a butterfly.” I had just written about my adopted mother’s

Librarian132 Barbara Brown Taylor. The Preaching Life, (Canterbury Press, 2013), 175. 133 Richard D. Sawyer and Joe Norris. Duoethnography. Understanding Qualitative Research, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 370 HOMING IN

car accident and how she had broken her sacrum. I had note that the sacrum looked like a butterfly and could be associated with the transformative forces in our physical body. The doctors went on to show me that my bones were weakened by osteoporosis, detected with the MRI. For several weeks after the accident, I took the little white sugar pills of Sym- phytum, a homeopathic remedy that is made from comfrey, known colloquially as knit-bone. Plants often have a signature or nickname that suggests how they might aid us in our healing process. Knit-bone is known to mend broken bones. Inter-knitting the different reflections concerning the deeper meaning associated with my accident, I began yet another phase of introspection. Knit-bone was possibly acting on many levels. I was not just mending my bones, but also myCopy core self. I had spent months writing my autoethnography. During the process, I had been actively knitting together the strands of my identity. I was creating a transformed understanding of me by listening to stories that pulled on my heartstring, refusing to let go, insisting to be put down on paper as “all writing that goes where our intensities take us.”134 The accident brought me more in touch with my broken self. There was a part of me that deeply needed Symphytum to knit my bones back together. Not only did I injure myself while skiing, but I also had to wait for over twenty- four hours for the doctors to finally see and believe that I was injured. My brokenness wasn’t apparent in their medical investigations and auscultations, creating another layer of injury that was just as painful Reviewas the fractures. I was forced to beg for a bed at the hospital emergency room as they tried to pull me off the examination table, saying that nothing was wrong, and I should just get in the car and go home. Did the doctors in the emergency room perceive me as “other” because of my accent, somehow influencing my care? I wondered why no one could see my pain.My vulnerability as an outsider hit home to the core, adding yet another layer to my suffering. Ironically, while I waited in the emergency room, cameras from the local news filmed me and other patients for a special news report, asking patients to tell their accident story. Later, I watched television coverage that put together the interviews. I was astounded to hear the head of the emergency room explain his perception of efficacy on camera: “We make rapid diagnoses to move the patients from the emergency room as quickly as possible.” And that is what they had indeed Librarian 134 Lydia Turner, ed. International Perspectives on Autoethnographic Research and Practice, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018), 277. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 371

done, with little concern for patient needs and with an incorrect diagnosis. The television report ended with my former boss, the new director of the entire hospital system, commenting on emergency room care. As I had done over 150 patient satisfaction interviews for the same director at the psychiatric hospital, the situation was even that much more paradoxical. In narrative therapy, part of the healing process is learning to perform in new, more enriching ways. Transforming the storyline is one way to repair and go forward. “Owning our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”135 Copy Again, life was demonstrating to me how social, cultural, and family patterns were coming through me. I had some way re-created the same injury as my adopted mother, which revealed my osteoporosis, genetically inherited from my birth mother. As an adopted child, I had somehow taken on both of my mothers’ patterns in my own accident and subsequent injury. My “life-break” forced me to rest for months in my mountain chalet. I was snowed in and unable to leave the house. I had to wait for spring to finally melt the snow and allow me to gain strength walking on the road in front of our chalet. Not only was I was embodying the nature and nurture debate, my accident was interconnected to organizational patterns with the hospital where I had recently left my position as researcher. I felt like a broken butterfly with crippledReview wings. During my recovery, I delved into the letters that I had exchanged and pieces that I had written as a child that were in my great-grandmother Savidge’s wooden trunk at the end of my bed. Those letters and creative writing pieces add more voices to my narrative. More voices were added during the phase in which I sent my manuscript to my loved ones, waiting for their comments and feedback. I sought to create a space for healing conversations throughout the spring of 2013, and finally added the conversations of Becky Crofoot, the Nebraska Children Home’s caseworker that reunited me with my birth family, in 2015. During the many phases of the process, I received guidance in my morning meditation. One morning I suddenly felt as if I had very long legs and large hands. I then had a vision of the statue of Abraham Lincoln. I was curious to understand Librarian 135 Brené C. Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are (Center City, Minn: Hazelden, 2010), 6. 372 HOMING IN

what my divine guidance was trying to communicate to me. I found a picture of the Lincoln Memorial on Google that revealed an inscription written behind the statue of Abraham Lincoln. It read,

He who controls the present Controls the past He who controls the past Controls the future

Our perceptions have the power to transform the expression of history as well as our DNA. Our genes in-form (they literally allow us to take form in our humanCopy body) us in ways that we are only beginning to understand. I also believe that we receive in-formation from the divine matrix that is the womb of life and all life’s multiple forms. I spent months healing and receiving care from my loving generalist doctor, Barbara, and other doctors, osteopaths, and physical therapists who assisted me in my recovery. Though I don’t completely understand how different approaches to healing and recovery are successfully enacted, I know in my heart-mind that all is well. There are numerous templates that offer explanations in regard to healing mechanisms. Our cultural perceptions and understanding of the body configure our care-seeking strategies. I understood more deeply the meaning of my fall when the word “serendipity” came to me in a dream. All night longReview I kept hanging on to the word, scared I might forget. The Jungian psychotherapy tradition puts great importance on the interpretation of our dreams. I had asked specifically for divine guidance the night before receiving this dream-message. The next morning, I delved into the multi-faceted definition of serendipity. I learned it is not enough to simply discover our origins, gain knowledge of our ancestors, and search for our parent’s identity. We must find our place among our contemporaries. The literary significance of the tales associated with serendipity known as the “Three Princes of Serendip” alludes to the conclusion that ultimately our life quest brings us to our inner knowledge of our higher Self, as in the Jungian psychoanalytical tradition through the process of individuation. As we discover the deeper meaning revealed in our subconscious or “inner” world, we also find our place in the “outer” world among our contemporaries. Just as we breathe in and Librarianthen breathe out, our human process takes us inward and then outward. There is a sacred balance between self-discovery and relational being. I understand the SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 373

philosophy of serendipity as living in the daily grace of the “happy accidents” that come our way, knowing that all is well. The tales reinforce the importance of our observations. Serendipity is a philosophy of life where daily happenstance is welcomed. Sylvie Catellin writes about scientific discovery in relation to serendipity, referring to moments of “pregnant hints” and their role in the creative process.136 When science discovers itself in serendipitous ways, it becomes an art. Our life quest takes us to places and landscapes we didn’t know existed. Ser- endipity is not just defined as a “happy accident.” It is also a scientific methodology. Christopher Columbus, while looking for India, discovered America after sailing from Genova on a serendipitous journey. Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, in their book The Discovery of Grounded Theory, propose a social scienceCopy methodology in which they refer to serendipity giving importance to the unexpected findings in the field. Their method allows us to see these discoveries as important revelations in our research process that often reorient the direction of scientific research. All happenings are meaningless unless we can make sense of them, connecting and ordering information in patterns that reveal forms of discovery. On a more personal level, I am a happy accident. My birth was unplanned, yet I am grateful for my life. If synchronicity has often guided me, affirming that I was on the right path, my recent understanding of serendipity is adding a new philosophical meaning to my life. I understand serendipity as a life philosophy teaching me to accept the joy that life brings my way. It is also the capacity to see the “showings” of the divine face in dailyReview happenstance. Serendipity and synchronicity increasingly happen as we gain insight and recognize the signs. When I was in eighth grade, I had the lead in the school play. It was a melodrama. I got to sing, “Five foot two, eyes of blue, oh what those five feet can do, has anybody seen my gal.” I remember stepping out of myself and observing the audience. All time seemed to stop. In that pause, I took in the multiple dimensions of that one moment. The fact that I performed in a melodrama seems pertinent to me as an adult. I have sometimes felt like my life was indeed the performance of a Nebraska melodrama. At different times, I have needed to be rescued like the heroine in the play. I got tied, allegorically, to railroad tracks and needed someone brave to save me. The melodramatic nature of my storyline has repeatedly put me in the role of the damsel in distress. The script is written to ask, “Who would save me from the villain?” LibrarianLife sentences associated with the adoption experience play out in unconscious

136 Sylvie Catellin, Sérendiptié, Du Cont au Concept (2014), 127. 374 HOMING IN

scenarios. Transformative processes facilitate the untying of the ropes that bind us to undesired rail-ways. There have been different villains at different points of my life, some more literal than others. After trying to force my car off the road, a strange Italian man followed me on the interstate. I saw him several more times over the next few years while driving to work in Valais. On another occasion, someone unscrewed the bolts on my Jeep’s tires, leaving me to question my safety in our mountain community. As a much younger woman, my long blond hair and big smile attracted men that I didn’t know were looking. I was followed by men in cars while running and once as I left a photography session. As a Kappa Kappa Gamma in Boulder, we had a stalker try to break in to our sorority house several times, which promptedCopy me to sleep with a knife in case he came through my window. Those men all had the potential to hurt me. Luckily, I was always able to break away free from harm, avoiding direct confrontation. The patterns of my melodramatic conception and birth seem to keep repeating throughout different acts of my life-play. I can see the patterns but haven’t necessarily been able to change the storyline. The artistic details that have set the scene seem to underscore the theatrical dimension, interweaving metaphorical details into the backdrop of the stage. Our life is a kind of performance. The serendipitous, happy accidents, as well as the more unfortunate accidents, pattern existence with repeated design. We gain our place through hereditary right or accident of birth. Serendipity is a touchstone underfoot.Review With a new lens of perception, I can see more and more that the nature of my encounters appear to be transitioning from melodramatic meetings to serendipitous happenings. Synchronicity is experienced when life brings us to threshold moments, where golden, shimmering revelation affirms the existence of the mystical realm. Such moments may come when we are forced to the ground, praying on our knees. Or we may be beckoned to look up, cricking our necks to see the dove in a basilica dome. There are the signs that are crowning moments but there are also the processes that work to transform how we perceive our place in the world and how we relate. Being able to see how I belong has not only been important in relation to my adopted and birth families. Angelo and I kinned through healing conversations but also in shared activities like parenting. Our shared activities and commitment to our families have brought us forward. By dancing together in the circle of life, Librarianwe have come to see just how much we belong to each other. The Medicine Wheel has turned like a kaleidoscope configuring new perceptions. We have actively SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 375

participated in this performance; the dance of transformation. Conversational or dialogical space allows the story wheel to turn into new storylines. In Reading Our Lives: The Poetics of Growing Old, the authors describe the process of storying life and the development of identity.137 They explain how we live in a narrative environment where our family is our principal culture of embeddedness. They comment on how the richness in our memory-talk influences our generativity script. Indeed, some of us have a need to transform bad into good in a redemptive life story. They also refer to Erickson’s concept of epigenesis. Epigenesis is an organic unfolding process that germinates from an original seed, blossoming into a full-grown natural form. We spring up! The cherry trees in my garden begin spring with a bud, just as theCopy snow melts ’round their roots. Some years bring cold temperatures that freeze the blossoms, but most years the apple, cherry, and apricot blossoms bud and bloom, first appearing in the lower altitudes. I wait with impatience for my own trees to unfold. The buds finally come into bloom, making petals. Fluttering in the wind, the petals fall to the ground, revealing the growing fruits to come forth in late summer. It is a sacred moment when the breeze carries them away. Each phase suggests the next, with a fragrance lingering in the garden. At the center is the pit, the core, that has the giving power to generate more orchard trees when it lands on fertile ground. The poetics of writing life start with the bud, adding paper like petals to capture and enrobe the story, revealing in the final phase of gestation, the soul-nourishing fruit of the mythical storyline. ArtistryReview like the origami process that uses Japanese washi paper comes to mind, recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage. Each form is so delicately folded and shaped by careful, nimble fingers. Writing to transform relations is a finger and future forming endeavor. Writing is also a spiritual journey: “However we define it, spirituality is a narrative endeavor. Key to seeing it in narrative terms is its link with meaning.”138 I am seed. I am story. I am growing, wondering, creating, and writing the story of my life in the hopes that it generates as many questions as answers. I strive to transcend my own story and its myths, only to let it go. To quote Randall and McKim,

We suggest that a hallmark of wisdom is irony—in particular, narrative irony: the

Librarian137 Randall, William Lowell, and Audrey Elizabeth MacKim. Reading Our Lives: The Poetics of Growing Old. (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008). 138 Ibid, 250. 376 HOMING IN

capacity to appreciate the multiple levels to our stories, the multiple characters within them, the multiple selves that tell them, and the multiple interpretations of the events that make them up. Irony is thus the capacity to laugh at our lives in a detached yet affectionate manner; to revel in the play that is possible in respect to our own lived-text; and to see through the myths by which, for better or worse, we have envisioned who we are.139

Inscribing is an active and creative process of form-making where autobiograph- ical consciousness becomes texistence.140 Here, life story is nested in story logic and story-time, written in a continuous thread of revelation and spiritual journey. This way offers a narrative environment where the poetics of aging allow Copyone to grow older, integrating insights that contain transformational potential even when our great myths have seemingly been told. Shapeshifting, our mythical figures add to aging potentiality even when the pages have been turned on certain life chapters, appearing closed. Wassily Kandinsky141 is an artist known for his search for spirituality in art. He worked in Germany during the first part of the 1900s. His creative process sought to express the artist’s inner needs, constructing the art form with colors and shapes that sought to communicate a universal language based on color perception and sensation. He was also interested in the relationship between art form and music. Through The Blue Rider Almanac he questioned what constituted good art from different places and times. He laid theReview foundations for modern art, particularly inspiring the American artist Jackson Pollock. The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs, in the town of East Hampton on Long Island, New York, has become a National Historic Landmark. I visited the house and studio in the summer of 2019. In the barn where Pollock painted, the floor has become an unintentional artwork, tracing the movement of his paint brushes as he poured house paints onto canvases. This unique “art remains” or artifact is a modern metaphor for the creative process as art in its own right. In Lee Krasner’s room, where she first painted, is a collection of shells, gifts from the sea. Pollock and Krasner participated in the New Deal for artists under President Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt took up the cause of New Deal Art that had an

139 Ibid, 291. Librarian140 William W. Randall and A. Elizabeth McKim, “Toward a Poetics of Aging: The Link Between Liter- ature and Life.” Narrative Inquiry, 14(2): 235-260. 2004. 141 Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, (New York: Dover Publications, 1977). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 377

important influence on American culture. This democratic art brought hope and inspiration during the Great Depression.142 Today, the Green New Deal Art is ushering in a creative culture shift expressing a collective vision using storytelling and images. Each era works to inspire the next with a spark of color and a mural that’s last panel waits to be completed by a talented hand. I wonder if Kandinsky’s paintings “Pink Red” and “Accent in Pink” incorporated the color of alpenglow, using a hint of pink to represent a spiritual property. Pollock and Krasner were certainly influenced by the never-ending beaches and misty hues on Long Island. Their work was surely tinged by the beauty of the place where sunset and sunglow are part of the daily color schemes. At the end of the day in the Alps when the spring weather brings clearCopy blue skies and the mountains’ peaks are still capped with white snow, there is a phenomenon known as alpenglow. For a few minutes as the last sunrays dance upon the mountaintops, there is a magnificent pinkish hue. It is a fleeting moment that is hard to capture, and it holds an inner knowing that the day is coming to an end and it is time to prepare for the evening and nightfall. Alpenglow marks a passage in the trajectory of the sun’s journey, kindling our hearts with tenderness for a day well lived. It is a moment in time comparable to the phase when a campfire is burning down, leaving us with the hope that the starry night will woo us to a peaceful sleep. Star tracing, we single-mindedly focus on the twinkling stars, homing in on the light source. Recollecting my stories has broughtReview me to a place of heartfelt alpenglow. I can sit in the campfire circle and watch the flames dance, listening to the crackling of the burning wood, aware that it will soon be burned through to the ground. I am the fire and the camper in the camp circle. I am the particle and the wave. I am E = Mc2. Is that not what the soul does, first setting our hearts on fire and then performing until the body’s energy can burn no more, while the over soul observes? We are like the Burning Man festival in the desert, seeking awe-inspiring and joyful ways to lift the human spirit, sparking collaboration and social innovation, creating new ways to be and know-how, as both Self and community united in Anima mundi. Sharing my story has generated a spiraling dialogical space, fostering healing conversations that have transformed my own looking glass, allowing me to see and be

Librarian142 Sharon Ann Musher. Democratic Art: The New Deal’s Influence on American Culture, (Chicago: Univer- sity of Chicago Press, 2015). 378 HOMING IN

seen in new, more fulfilling ways while giving purpose to future-oriented trajectories. This biographical capital can be understood as autobiographical learning potential. In this narrative environment, co-authoring happens in conversational moments of telling and listening. Here self-awareness gives rise to sacred texts through the meaning-making process. Building on metaphorical potential, wisdom is gleaned while storyline becomes more and more coherent, renewing faith in the life-o-gram that comes more clearly into focus. Story-making is rooted in the human thought process. We are storied beings. My work, like Kandinsky’s and Pollock’s, fulfills an inner need, flaring forth on the page, glowing with the hues of my inner Self, yet all the while tracing the social construction of my identity: the adopted child. But when I finally liftCopy the artwork to show, placing it carefully in front of an audience, the outline of the child’s form will be gone. That configuration will have faded into the background, receding and offering a foundational space where the poetics of growing older become aesthetic expression. Even more, the floor where I worked will reveal yet another storyline, where the words and thought forms that didn’t make it to the page fluttered down, arranging sentences and making meanings that I had not intended. On this floor, pages containing the potentiality of my unlived life history appear as collages, form- making chapters with imaginations destined for novels to come. This “art remain” is the floor of my life’s workshop, underfoot, yet to be discovered. The ground acts like Mari Sandoz’s Storycatcher, a book Reviewwritten by the Nebraska author born to Swiss immigrants, attracting the discarded and the unintended into a sealed tomb of art- form potentiality, waiting for an eternal, forever spring to burst through. Kandinsky’s forms and colors introduced what would be known as modern art, even suggesting the spiritual in art. Pollock’s floor in the barn alludes to the postmodern era where action painting can be traced. Still the question that The Blue Rider Almanac posed remains pertinent. What constitutes a more aesthetic narrative or work of art? And what makes a beautiful love story? How can we engage in writing so to beatify our story mandalas? You and I are both active participants and active observers; our life quest requires us to search, but our philosophy of life often determines how we see major life events. The meaning we give our narrative is transformed through our questing process. As we learn and love, we generate new possibilities. In my life performance, LibrarianI have played the adopted child, searching for her origins. My narrative resonates with the archetypical search for our origins that we all embark upon at one time or SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 379

another. My story mandala is a metaphor for the part of Self that is searching for the way back home, homing in to the stardust that propagated us. I am grateful to be able to relate it to you by way of this conversation/performance. The audience, my readers and interlocutors, can hear the untamed voice, speaking in violation of the silence normally respected by the obedient adopted child. That voice risks telling my story, questions Swissness during dinner party discussions, and calls out injustice knowing how high the price may be. “In their performances, autoethnographers incite transformations, cause trouble, act in unruly ways. They self-consciously become part of the performance itself, the instrument of change.”143 The international approach to autoethnography is becoming more recognized as a scientific method in the social sciences, giving voice to stories that createCopy space for marginalized voices.144 The socially constructed identity of two adopted sisters reunited with their birth parents is a complex story of becomingness. There is the unfolding of entangled life trajectories as well as the linguistic co-construction that happens through writing and conversing. Harlene Anderson wrote about Self as a concept in Conversations, Language, and Possibilities:

The I does not exist outside language discourse; it is created and maintained in language and in discourse. In other words, it is in and through language that a person constructs a personal account of the self: who we believe ourselves to be is a linguistic construction. The I is not a preexistingReview subject or substance in the epistemological or metaphysical sense; it is a speaking subject (Gadamer, 1975) . . . Postmodernism proposes that the self is not an entity nor a single being. There is no sole core I, no fixed tangible thing inside someone that can be arrived at by peeling away layers. Even though it can be argued that the self is made up of many components, for instance, many narratives, many experiences, many relationships, these do not add up to or constitute a single self or a core self. Rather self (and other) is a created concept, a created narrative, linguistically constructed and existing in dialogue and in relationship.145

Anderson goes on to refer to “the self as storyteller.” She explains narrative development and construction of life story, saying that it is less important to have

Librarian143 Norman K. Denzin, Interpretive Autoethnography , 50. 144 Lydia Turner, éd. International Perspectives on Autoethnographic Research and Practice. 145 Harlene Anderson, Conversation, Language, and Possibilities: a Postmodern Approach to Therapy, 219-220. 380 HOMING IN

“archaeological trueness” within the storyline than “narrative truth,” referring to the constructed narrative that evolves through the psychoanalytical process. Telling our stories through the movies, books, and other art forms allows us to express ourselves with a certain freedom that not all cultures permit. After all, Christian theology believes that logos is the principle that governs and develops the universe—in the beginning there was the Word. Symbols are another way of linking with the creative force. Just as Jesus Christ has a monogram, a religious symbol usually shown as the superimposed Greek letters chi (X) and rho (P), known as a Christogram or Monogramma Christi, representing his name, we all have a life-o- gram representing our unique form of being. A life-o-gram is a symbolic signature. Imagine the beautiful life-o-grams carved into the walls of invisible Copytemples and written in the Book of Life. They shapeshift, capable of expression as either song or poem. They can move and dance as well as hold the position of an iconic painting. Like waves and particles, their forms depend on the observer. They are like snowflakes, unique in each and every form that falls to earth. The metaphoric enactment in healing transformagrams,146 which shift and shape self-representations, ultimately reconfigure life-o-grams by incorporating new self-images of health, recovery, and wholeness. As we journey, we enter into new places and spaces that enhance intermediate states of liminality, opening the door to multiple possibilities. Our way of being in the world and being with others shifts as we use imagistic modes that reinforce the multi-stranded transformative process. Reconfiguring narratives and lifeReview sentences into aesthetic story mandalas brings out the beauty while generating new ways of relating and fostering multiplicities of belonging. By tapping into creative forces, we beautify our story mandalas, gracing the form. The English language offers rich expressions that capture meaning with precision, incorporating foreign words that arise over time in continuous meaning generation. Rich cultural heritages provide increased potential for the meaning- making process. Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist who developed logotherapy in the Nazi prison camps, wrote Man’s Search for Meaning, explaining how our ability to make sense of what happens to us keeps us alive even when facing unimaginable hardships. Aliveness depends on our capacity to make sense of the world. Belonging, purpose, storytelling, and transcendence are essential pillars that Librarianallow us to craft a life of meaning, making sense of our lives and the world. As we

146 D. Hinton, and L. J. Kirmayer, “The Flexibility Hypothesis of Healing.” Cult Med Psychiatry. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 381

assemble our stories into coherent narratives, we find our path and our tribe.147 Radical amazement infuses our meaning-making process, allowing us to experience intergenerativity, giving rise to transcendence through a form of enlightened descendance that invites us to interpret the unfolding choreography. Life is dance. Even tulips dance. Observe how a week after being freshly cut they begin moving, taking on new forms, opening their flower heads as if dancing in the vase. Then, they lose their petals, letting them fall when the performance is over. There is no “still life” as the painting genre suggests. Even cut flowers in a vase move through phases. We are rooted in our symbols and archetypes. We find solace in our stories because we are storied beings. The meaning-making process is whatCopy upholds us, guiding and strengthening the pathfinder. Happiness alone does not sustain the human heart. Heartfelt conviction of a higher purpose that inspires us to do the next good thing ignites the soul, inviting us to aspire to the good life. The intention to do good, aligned with divine will, is what ultimately sheds light on the path forward. Through the primordial flaring forth, the Way is revealed, transfiguring the face of Creation, and all creatures great and small. This Way calls for radical self-giving. Actively trusting and hoping enkindles the transformative process. My story is a form of dialogical Self that has been constructed through my storytelling process. It is my narrative truth that has gone through a transformative process. Writing my book and engaging in the healing conversations that were elicited throughout the process has given meReview self-agency. Writing has been a performance and reflexive dialogical space has been generated through my words engendering my transformagram. I have been able to access new resources through the narrative process, opening up new space and potential along the way. My sister Cathy, too, has found validation in my storyline, referring to my recognition of the burden she has carried for our family in her scarred body. Amazingly, as we grow older together, our story is offering new possibilities for healing to take place. Sharing the stories and writing process allows us all to enter into a new relationship with our narratives that have come together in this story mandala. Storying life engenders more memory-talk that in turn generates increased relational possibilities. Cathy and I have become dancing grandmothers.148 We have been touched by grace.

Librarian147 Emily Esfahani Smith, The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters. 148 Clarissa Pinkola Estés, La Danse des Grand-méres, Sur la Jeunesse de L’àge Mûr et la Maturité de la Jeu- nesse, (Bernard Grasset, Paris, 2007). Copy

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Librarian CHAPTER 45

THE FILE Copy Listen to the reed and the tale it tells, how it sings of separation: Ever since they cut me from the reed bed, My wail has caused men and women to weep. I want a heart torn open with longing to share the pain of this love. Whoever has parted from his source Longs to return to that state of union.149

umi’s poems suggest that lifeReview is a mystery to be lived. This Rumi poem is interpreted in the following text that accompanies the poem: “We are all R reeds and our lives are the ‘poems in action’ that tell the tale of separation. All our love affairs, our pursuits, our dreams, and longings can be tracked back to the One Story, the One Desire: The union, once again, with the sacred.”150 As the process of writing this book continued to roll forward like an expanding snowball rolling down a steep slope, I decided to contact the Nebraska Children’s Home. I wanted to bring them into my story—into the snowball. I also wanted their blessing and support as I prepared to share my story with the world. When I spoke with the Nebraska Children’s Home caseworker who welcomed my inquiry, hoping to find the whereabouts of Becky Crofoot, the caseworker that reunited me with my birth family, our conversation led to the book reference Synchronicity and Reunion: Librarian 149 Manuela Dunn Mascetti, Rumi/Mathnawi Rumi the Path of Love (Element Books Limited, 1999). 150 Ibid, 83. 384 HOMING IN

The Genetic Connection of Adoptees and Birth Parents by LaVonne Harper Stiffler.151 Though I had read a journal article by Stiffler on the topic, I had not been aware of her book. I immediately ordered the book and delved into its content as soon as it arrived. In my first conversation with the caseworker, she explained that she might have access to my file and would be able to see who had worked on my reunion case. When she got back to me, confirming that it had indeed been Becky Crofoot who had handled my case and that she had Becky’s contact information, she also referred to the Co-Ed Magazine with my picture showing the Covergirl contest contestants from 1977. It had never occurred to me until then that I had a file. That file connected me to my birth family and allowed Copy the caseworkers to continue to support me during my entire life-course. The file contained information that shaped the re-configuring of my identity. I wondered about the information that they kept following my adoption. I was intrigued that they would have had a reference about the magazine. My mother had cut out an article in the World Herald explaining how I had been chosen for the Midwest region and that I was flying to New York City with the other contestants from around the United States and Canada. Was it too part of the file? What else had they added? Was my picture as a princess there? Was my wedding announcement cut out and added? This new dimension of my identity was fascinating. All along I had been a child of the Nebraska Children’s Home. They had been watching over me, following my evolution, ready to lend a hand whenever needed to supportReview my process of becomingness. Now that I was becoming an author, they were also willing to be a partner in my story-telling process. After receiving my first message, Becky Crofoot wrote to me, “I don’t remember the details of your search, etc., but certainly remember you and how much I enjoyed working with you. I also remember a wonderful conversation with your father, although I am fuzzy on the purpose of him calling me. However, he could not tell me enough about what a special and wonderful person and daughter you were. He even choked up a little in trying to tell me how much you meant to him. It was a marvelous tribute from a father!” After receiving that message, I sat down to integrate the powerful emotional response her words provoked. I was filled with love for my father mixed with grief and gratefulness that this conversation was not lost. It was as if his message had Librarianbeen contained in a bottle that had finally traversed the Atlantic, coming all this

151 LaVonne Harper Stiffler.Synchronicity and Reunion: the Genetic Connection of Adoptees and Birth Parents. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 385

way to land on the beach at my feet. It had been stored away, floating on the waves of time, waiting patiently to end my story. Letting the tears run down my cheeks, I contemplated how life was bringing me yet another incredible gift. I wrote back to Becky, “The story you wrote about my father’s call was very touching. You added an important conversation that I was unaware of. You brought his love back to me through time.” Becky’s professional experience dovetailed with an interesting synchronicity linking us beyond the subject of adoption. She had lived and worked in a Swiss mountain village in Arolla as a young woman. She understood the culture that I was dealing with from firsthand experience in my canton of adoption. Our relationship was marked by a synchronistic symbol, something like an enigma expressingCopy the sacredness that joined us. In discussions about my life in Switzerland, she shared the insight that not only did I have to find balance between my two families as an adopted child, but I was continually searching for a safe space between my two nationalities—a place where I could be comfortably me. She pointed out that my balancing act had an added level of difficulty, something like a circus equilibrist adding yet another challenge to her performance by walking across the tightrope. She understood my difficulties and laughed with me as I told her of my adventures finding my place on the mountainside and my analysis of Swiss culture in Valais. She proved to be the perfect match as a caseworker, divinely chosen to assist me in the task of bringing togetherReview my many worlds. She could understand the cultural perspectives inherent in my double heritage as an American-Swiss citizen. She was my geographer, studying the continents of my life that had once drifted apart. She found the maps and helped me to distinguish the outlines of the original territories, aiding me to see where they once formed a single landmass. She advised me in the process of discovering how they could be fitted together. Her engaged professionalism and loving embrace facilitated my reunion process. Her intervention helped me to reposition my worlds, transforming my broken attachments into a perception of continental drift, part of my global worldling process, allowing me to see the connections and travel the face of the earth more serenely. Becky agreed to explain her work with the Nebraska Children’s Home relating to my case, and her words are as follows:

LibrarianLike all similar adoption agencies, the Nebraska Children’s Home Society has maintained records throughout the history of the agency about placements of children 386 HOMING IN

for adoption as well as foster care. These files are actually the records of the birth parents but include the adoptive parents and the child involved. Because of privacy issues with all parties, these records are not to be shared with anyone. Susie was unaware that there was much of a record about her history until she approached the agency in 1995. Adults who were adopted during the “closed” era are generally excited to discover that some of their history is available to them, and Susie was no exception. Often, these adults have pushed their thoughts and feelings about adoption aside. With the revealing of non-identifying background information, a new perspective opens up. The results help to begin a journey of self-discovery and introspection. For those who choose to search for birth family, an adventure into the unknown begins. Copy Nebraska is considered a “closed” state because original birth certificates are not available to the adopted person. However, Nebraska law provides a way for adult adopted persons to obtain further information by mandating the placing agency to help these persons. Agencies in Nebraska are required to aid in this process which may include locating members of birth families and possible reunions. The law also provides for the original birth certificate to be accessed by permission from the birth parent(s) or proof of death. Susie’s journey involved some surprises and a balancing act between her adoptive family and her birth family as well as with her everyday life. Adoption is forever for the person involved and places a person in a unique situation unlike that of other people. Susie never wavered in her searchReview for answers in spite of the emotional impact. Her story is interesting not only for its revelations but also because of her honest recognition and deeply felt reactions. Having the privilege of being the caseworker assigned to help Susie was a real pleasure. Her intelligent reactions to all developments and her willingness to journey into the unknown were extraordinary. During the process, a call came in from her adoptive father who wanted me to know that he fully supported and understood her need to search for her birth family. He continued to talk about her as a “very special person” and wanted me to know what a wonderful daughter she was. He simply could not say enough good things about her. Receiving an unsolicited call like that was unusual and it added to my opinion of Susie. We had a pleasant conversation and there was no doubt that this man loved his daughter. As her story unfolded it became apparent that many people loved Susie, although not Librarianall shared her father’s enthusiasm. Others with different roles in her life had cautious reactions somewhat typical of family and friends placed in that situation. Through SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 387

it all Susie remained calm and relied on her beliefs and her strength of character. Her story is one that is typical in many ways and not in others. However, many other adopted persons from this “closed” era can certainly identify with her position of being caught between two worlds. And, of course, the journey continues today as it does for all adopted persons.

My father’s message won out over death and over time, coming to me through a memory and a voice that was not his own. If I had ever doubted, this last conversation with Becky removed the final vestiges. The conclusion of my Book of Love would be my adopted father’s affirmations of love for me, removing any questioning I had about my place in his heart. Copy Life is filled with conversation. As we converse, we give form to our lives. When I began talking to Becky over the phone so many years ago, asking her to help me find my birth mother, I began a healing conversation that has been an ongoing journey. She has loyally accompanied me through each of my phases of becomingness, surpassing professional duty and epitomizing professional dedication in her field. She has also written about the search and reunion process, sharing her knowledge and experience as a caseworker for the Nebraska Children’s Home.152 Father Thomas Brosnan, a reunited adopted person, wrote about his insights in relation to the spirituality of adoption in a newsletter for adoptive families:

The adopted person’s experienceReview of separation symbolizes, as perhaps no other human being can, the dread of not belonging, feeling oneself an “exile from one’s past” and experiencing the simultaneous desire for belonging. This ambivalence is the necessary starting point in the process of healing. It is, in religious terms, the work of salvation, leading the adopted person in search of a “phonic resonance” of sorts, a pilgrimage through time rather than space, an uncovering of beginnings. Like the complementary aspects of body and soul, nurture cannot be separated from nature without causing fragmentation, pain, and crises in identity. Whether acknowledged or not, adopted people have four parents, and like all the great saints and mystics of the past, we eventually come to realize we belong in more than one place.153

152 Nancy Kacirek Feldman and Rebecca Crofoot. Family Medical History: Unknown/Adopted : How a Rou- tine Inquiry Led to Unexpected Answers for an Adopted Woman (Becknan Publishing, Omaha, Nebraska, Librarian2014). 153 Father Thomas Bronson, The Spirituality of Adoption, https://www.pactadopt.org/app/servlet/docu- mentapp.DisplayDocument?DocID=382 (Accessed August 2018). 388 HOMING IN

Adoption is an intriguing subject matter that conjures up intense feeling associated with our filiations. The energy that connects, transferring information and behavior through time, seems to travel through a space-time portal that is experienced as a juncture of reunion, where heartstrings tie together in a beautiful bow ribbon.154 The connections that were expressed throughout my life course ribbon as contingent happenings are truly thought provoking. Divine timing seems to bring the information through just when it is needed, accentuating the message that we must trust in God’s plan. Stiffler attempts to explain connection in the following passage: Copy Through the strands of sociohistory and sociobiology in the personal reunion stories, a theme emerges that power, freedom, and energy come from casting away secrecy and becoming immersed more fully in truth than ever before. This burst of truth, of discovery, seems to take the reunited family through a black hole of “not knowing” to the other side, and beyond that to a perspective with a lighted overview of the entire Möbius tapestry. From here, the mother, child, and other family members recognize the various points of intersection, similarity, information, and synchronicity that occurred during their physical separation . . . This paradigm is a visual and tactile representationReview of the words of poet T. S. Eliot: We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning. (1963, Little Gidding, V)155

My life has been stitched together with an invisible thread, making a seamless, soft blanket of an enfolding universe that wraps me in renewal and continuous

Librarian154 Stiffler, LaVonne Harper.Synchronicity and Reunion: the Genetic Connection of Adoptees and Birth Parents, 14. 155 Stiffler, LaVonne Harper. Synchronicity and Reunion: the Genetic Connection of Adoptees and Birth Par- ents, 15. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 389

rebirthing. The original tears in the relational fabric of my beginnings has been darned, woven into a silken banner waving proudly as the wind stretches its reach, shining forth with the glittering threads revealed by the sun’s transpiercing rays. I can now plant this banner, my flag, in the space of this new world that is mine, staking my claim to this heartfelt place that I have found, calling it my own. It is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega; it is the place I was searching for, a space where I am whole. Stiffler underscores the importance of holomovment in the reunion process,

What does this infer about the anomalous perception of information and the movement of separated family members toward each other? In their Copyown search for wholeness, self, or the lost object, the movement toward each other, like the arrows on a Möbius band, seems primary to their individuation. The secondary entities that unfold and become enfolded again, appearing and disappearing at various times, include dreams, hunches, mental states, ideas, fantasies, words, names, and objects. In the culmination of the search process, a mother and child may find that the central ingredient to their individuation was not only in realizing the whole again, but seeing themselves as authentic, valuable parts.156

Searching for SUSY, or my true authentic self and origins, has been a process that is more important than the book itself. “Stories are distinction, but when they are so mired in story and the woundsReview of our past, each day creates a template based on the need to heal them, and the focus keeps us shackled to the very stories we want to change. We all have history. History does not preclude us from accessing freedom now. Choose joy-story.”157 The interpretive process is a kind of journaling or storying that can contribute to healing. When we express gratitude for the blessings and the grace, we spiral upward to a place of increased humility and well-being. Our hearts are cleansed and healed when we enter into a process that expresses gratitude.158 Synchronicity has implications for adoption-separated families. “The adoption- separated genetic family system may have such a need for information (either

156 Ibid., 74. 157 Melissa Joy Jonsson. Little Book of Big Potentials: 24 Fields of Flow, Fulfillment, Abundance, and Joy in LibrarianEveryday Life, (Seattle, Wash.: Heart-Field, 2013), 101. 158 Alex Wood and Chopra, The Role of Gratitude in Spiritual Well-being in Asymptomatic Heart Fail- ure Patients. Spirituality in Clinical Practice 2, 5-17, 2015. 390 HOMING IN

consciously or unconsciously) that the transcendent Creator, or the laws of the universe, or the human mind makes a supernatural or anomalistic psychological attempt to fill it.”159 From this quadrant in space-time, I see that my life has come full circle, in congruence with the medicine wheel way. Like the aforementioned poem, I see the radiant beauty shining out from the depths of my own life-mystery. The world will indeed be saved by this mysterious beauty. It is awe-inspiring to bear witness to the master plan that has unfolded and set free the messages of love enfolded in the ripples of time. Must there not be a patternweaver? Copy

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Librarian 159 LaVonne Harper Stiffler,Synchronicity and Reunion: the Genetic Connection of Adoptees and Birth Parents, 167. CHAPTER 46

PILGRIMAGE AS PROCESS: CULTIVATING RADICAL AMAZEMENT Copy

n odyssey is a long wandering that has the potential of becoming a spiritual journey. Wanderers who become pilgrims can move from a position of A disbelief to faith. Approaching our pilgrimages with wonder allows us to glimpse an enchanted world filled with serendipitous encounters. We can move from wandering to the intention inherent in pilgrimage, looking for the signs. Wayfarers embark on foot paths that may be influenced by homing in mechanisms. Adopted children that search for their birth parents use a still little-understood homing in mechanism. “Tracking the lifetime travel patterns of separated family members would add dimension to a study of homing mechanisms as possibly related to DNA, memory, or the earth’s electromagneticReview fields. The influence of prenatal memory is ideally studied in persons who have lived apart from their biological families. Imaginative research could evolve from these concepts.”160 Future research may look into homing in mechanisms that have been observed in adoption-separated families. These findings could inform us about this innate ability that has been reported in numerous case studies. More research may offer explanations about our genograms that may reveal forms of age-linked family-time synchronicities as well as timing of search activity synchronicities. Humans are constantly searching for knowledge. The knowledge encased in the walls of our universities hold intellectual keys. However, knowledge has many forms. The UNESCO heritage sites are places that bring together the multiform representations of our human history as well as understanding of the human Librariancondition.

160 Ibid,170. 392 HOMING IN

“The tree of knowledge grows upon the soil of mystery.” 161 Professor and rabbi Abraham Heschel reveals his vision of radical amazement, presenting the ineffable as a way toward faith. It is through the mysterious that we encounter enchanted lifeworlds and all they hold dear. The research on adoption-separated families elicits a form of awe and radical amazement that might possibly reveal new insights into the human condition. The mystery of these case studies beckons researchers to investigate further. Searching has become a transformational process for me. While wandering the world in personal and professional pursuits, places spoke to me, teaching me their knowledge in mysterious ways and offering me insights into our shared human heritage. These were encounters with the ineffable: “A glimpse of God? Kinship with the spirit of being? An eternal flash of will?”162 Copy As my personal as well as academic writing process unfolded, I was intellectually nourished while participating in scientific conferences where I presented my research, encountering new people, places, and cultural histories while sharing what I know. Between 2013 and 2019, I traveled to various sacred sites, universities, and conferences. Each experiential journey added to a developing pilgrimage route, like beads on a long strand that were becoming a necklace of knowledge and experience. For my fiftieth birthday, dear friends and family had offered a trip to Angelo and me to visit Rome. We had never visited Rome and the basilicas there. It was a kind of starting point for a pilgrimage that I unconsciously began with my husband. Like the newly revived pilgrimage routeReview that traverses from Canterbury to Rome via the Great Saint Bernard Pass that connects northern and southern Europe, I was doing my own version of a new pilgrimage route. Without following a straight path, I attended conferences, presented papers, and attended worship services— celebrating life with ritual and song as well as offering my academic contributions. In Tarragona, Spain, I presented an article about my own transformative process in a medical anthropology conference entitled “Autoethnography and Self- Transformation.” Another American professor that taught in a university on the East Coast and in Catalonia presented her work in relation to her experience with cancer. She wrote an article that gained acclaim in the field of medical anthropology entitled “Metaphor as Illness: Postmodern Dilemmas in the Representation of Body,

Librarian161 Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion, (1. paperback ed., [Nachdr.]. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), 7. 162 Ibid, 7. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 393

Mind and Disorder.”163 The keynote speech was given by a Catalonian, one of the country’s foremost autoethnographers who wrote Perdre La Peau (Losing Skin) about her experience as a burn patient. She explained in a private conversation that her book had helped other burn patients negotiate their integrity with their doctors and caregivers by opening their eyes to patients’ experiences. The conference paper presentations became a publication from the University of Rovira I Virgili in 2019 entitled, “Autoetnografias, Cuerpos Y Emociones (I) Perspectivas metodologicas en la ivestigacion en salud”. It became clear that the autoethnographic process had contributed to self-realization for those anthropologists who, like myself, took the risk of writing their lives. Tarragona is a UNESCO heritage site with Roman ruins and a famousCopy Roman circus that is connected to the medieval fortress and current old city center. The Roman ruins met with the medieval city, providing citizens and tourists with terraces and restaurants to meet in a European Golden Age, where open borders and accessible transportation fostered unprecedented travel. And so the circa goes, round and round through time from chariots powered by horses to trains and airplanes. The site’s symbolic representations spoke to me as I took in the soft Mediterranean sunshine. I visited the city with a Dutch professor who had done his research in Ghana. Sjaak had presented a paper at the conference inspired by his fieldwork. His informants shared their understanding of the beauty of old age and the art of growing old.164 This ethnographic work with GhanaiansReview underscored the importance of reciprocity, explaining that if you were good to your children and you listened to other younger people tell their stories, you would grow old surrounded by others, as opposed to lonely isolation. Sjaak and I went to visit the city’s cathedral, and upon arriving discovered that it was the Virgin Mary’s festival. She was quite a unique Virgin, breast-feeding baby Jesus. The wooden statue was decorated with lilies and other flowers for the yearly processional. It seemed as if we had been especially invited to her celebration. After attending Mass, I walked through the cathedral’s neighboring streets and stumbled upon a boutique with handmade pieces from regional artists. My eye caught a pendant sculpted from ebony and framed in inlayed turquoise and lapis.

163 Susan M. Di Giacomo, 1992, “Metaphor as Illness: Postmodern Dilemmas in the Representation of LibrarianBody, Mind, and Disorder,” Medical Anthropology , (Vol. 14, 1992), 109-137. 164 Patrick Atuobi, Patrick, Anthony Obeng Boamah, and Sjaak van der Geest, Life, Love and Death: Conversations with Six Elders in Kwahu-Tafo, Ghana, (Amsterdam: Spinhuis Publishers, 2005). 394 HOMING IN

I asked the shop owner if I could have a better look at it. She carefully removed it from the showcase so that I could see the hand-sculpted black eagle head. As I tried on the pendant, she went on to explain that a young artist had made it and left it on consignment. She told the story of how he had returned to Mexico searching for his bloodline. He had embarked upon a shamanic path, making jewelry with sacred intentions. “He found his people,” she told me. She continued to tell me that his name was Michael Red Eagle. As I eyed the work of art, I told her how I had come to Tarragona to present my autoethnographic work about finding my birth family, my people. I explained that I had brought my story to the academic community by participating in the conference. The crowning moment seemed to be finding this specialCopy piece of handcrafted jewelry made by a shamanic artist who had also found his bloodline and his people. As I explained the purpose of my own trip to Tarragona, the woman got goose bumps, exclaiming, “This ebony eagle has found its rightful owner.” I walked away amazed, holding a sacred piece that had found me, engraved with a powerful shamanic intention. Somehow, we are led to find each other. Two weeks later I flew from Geneva to New York on my way to yet another an- thropology convention. I had been accepted to speak at the American Anthro- pological Association’s Annual Meeting, presenting my research on a panel discussing hyper-diversity in healthcare. When I woke early in the morning to take the plane, I learned of the terrorist attacks in Paris the night of November 13, 2015. The authorities were concerned that otherReview cities might be at risk. My trip to New York had been planned months in advance. I had planned to stay with my good friend Alison from junior high school who lived in New York. She had worked for Life Magazine for many years. She had even initiated a project to cover our reunion story, but in the end her editor wasn’t interested in publishing it. As Alison had previously traveled extensively for her job, she had been able to come and visit me when coming to Europe, which allowed us to stay connected, honoring our friendship. As New York is between Nebraska and Switzerland, I enjoy visiting my dear friend when I return home. The Big Apple allows me to acclimate to American culture before heading to the Far West. Visiting Alison allows me to catch my breath when traveling through the different time zones that configure reality. The Paris attacks touched me as once again, we were made aware of the risks Librarianand dangers of international travel. However, I explained to my son Sven while waiting to board for New York, “I am not scared for myself, but for how we will SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 395

continue to safeguard those we love while upholding our commitment to civil and human rights.” I made it to New York without issue, and Missy, my god-sister, joined Alison and me from Omaha on this particular trip to enjoy An American in Paris on Broadway. Walking down Fifth Avenue after the show, we entered St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was full of believers praying after the Paris attacks. I too placed a candle at the foot of Our Mother of Guadalupe’s effigy, praying for peace. My pilgrimage to New York took me to a different kind of cathedral. Ground Zero is a hole in the earth, all that was left when the Twin Towers were transformed into rubble. An excavator, Frank Silecchia, had spotted a steal crossbeam weighing around two tons rising from the wreckage, a sign. As he pointed out theCopy crossbeam to Father Brian Jordan, a Franciscan priest, he too recognized the cross as a powerful sign. He was later quoted saying, “Behold the glory of the cross at ground zero. This is our symbol of hope, our symbol of faith, our symbol of healing.”165 They carried the cross out of the ruins to a place where the rescue workers gathered before going into the devastation. Father Brian came daily to celebrate Mass next to the cross at Ground Zero. Out of the ruins, a steel cross miraculously emerged, offering a powerful symbol for the rescue workers and the world. In contrast to the many European cathedrals that were built up from the ground and ornately decorated, this sanctuary was constructed after the Twin Towers fell down from the sky. The massive cement walls harboring the artifacts at the 9/11 Memorial Museum bear witness toReview a human tragedy, echoing the voices of the victims recorded on answering machines—a platform of stories left behind. The site has now become a sanctuary of renewal. The fountains reflect the absence of the Twin Towers in the sky, soothing visitors with the sounds of flowing water. The day I visited, people had gathered by the Memorial Plaza Fountains in solidarity for the Paris attacks. As I visited Trinity Church, just across the street from the memorial, I discovered it was the oldest church in New York and that George Washington visited after his inaugural ceremony. I looked out over the graveyard where the Archbishop of Canterbury placed a liberty bell in 2013. This ecumenical worship site was the home base for the rescue workers that came to find rest and replenishment before returning to Ground Zero.

Librarian165 Rick Hampson, “Ground Zero Cross a Powerful Symbol for 9/11 Museum,” USA Today (May 13, 2014), https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/13/911-ground-zero-museum-cross-world- trade-center/8907003/ (Accessed April 2019). 396 HOMING IN

When I flew on to Denver to attend and present at the American Anthropological Association Conference, I was flying back to the state where I had done my university studies. The University of Colorado in Boulder and Denver are both at the base of the Rocky Mountains. The open prairies look like a carpet of windswept grass rolled out to the foot of the snowcapped mountain peaks. As l looked out of the hotel window, the Denver downtown clock tower was lit up with the colors of the French flag. I had spent the night at Fred Larkin’s photography studio in that iconic building as a student with my good friend Wendy, Larkin’s daughter. Now it was brightly shining forth the colors of the French flag, a beacon at the foot of the Colorado Rockies, calling us to ring true, each of us a liberty bell resonating with democratic values. Ringing across the Atlantic Ocean, from Canterbury’sCopy original bell in New York and across the great plains to Denver, people were finding symbolic ways to be heard, holding on to democratic values and human rights in the face of terrorism. Wendy and I met again in Denver after thirty years. Our parents’ friendship had brought us together as babies. We had both been adopted the same year, though not from the same agencies. After our adoptions, our parents had biological children, another important similarity uniting us. She had come to our wedding in 1986. Our yearly Christmas cards kept us in touch as we watched each other’s families grow and mature. I could see Wendy in her children and wondered if she could see me in my own. When we were younger, we couldn’t see each other in our parents’ faces. Review Wendy came to get me at the hotel and took me back to meet her family. We talked in the car about how I had found my birth family. When I walked through the front door, I met her husband and grown children. The first thing Wendy said was, “Susan found her birth family! Do you want me to find my birth parents? Is that important to you?” As she questioned her own children, my story became a central conversation piece. As she took me through her house, I saw the family portraits that hung on the walls taken by her father over the years for her Christmas card. Larkin’s photography studio had mastered family portraits, positioning Wendy’s family in beautiful natural scenery with the appropriate props and clothing. I looked forward to getting her card, wondering how their family would be portrayed each new year. After meeting her children, we took a long walk around the lake with her dog, Librarianthen returned to her home and sat and had a glass of wine. As it was getting close to dinnertime, we drove to her parents’ home on One Cove Lane, one address in SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 397

my book that has never changed. We sat around the fire after dinner laughing and catching up as if I had been by the house just last month for dinner. They had marked me, and I felt like I had come home as part of the herd. I had been hosted in their homes in Vail and Aspen, initiated as part of a Colorado ski tribe that allowed me to connect, properly fitted to the Alpine lifestyle. Their family’s welcoming arms had been a kind of “mountain pass” between the United States and Switzerland. My skin was betokened with their imprint in the form of an invisible branding, resonating with the Black Angus paintings and Americana, American style they espoused. As we sat in their living room surrounded by the hand-painted childhood por-traits of the Larkin children, I shared my story. Despite the Copysimilarities of graduating from CU, becoming parents, and having children, Wendy and I made different choices in relation to finding our birth parents. Wendy hadn’t felt the need to search; still, she respected my decision and supported my choice, as did her parents. But my reunion story might have brought forth the urge to question, enkindling the homing in mechanism. The conferences in Denver also brought me back to my academic roots. My formative years at CU built up a strong social science foundation uniquely chiseled by the professors I met and learned from in the Sewall Hall social sciences program. My academic affiliations carried great importance; they are my scholarship. During my search process, I affirmed that I am indeed a woman of many families and multiple kinships with multiplicitiesReview of belonging. After my panel presentation, I met Drs. Mary-Jo and Byron Good.166 They were honored at a panel session dedicated to their work at Harvard University, where they have spawned dozens of medical anthropologists. I realized during the session how their research had rippled out from the walls of Harvard University, influencing my own work in a very important way. I found myself reunited with yet another intellectual family in Denver. The panel session felt like kind of a family reunion honoring two medical anthropologists who had been mentors to many fellows in a highly regarded fellowship. I have come to understand the importance of lines of inheritance; indeed, we bequeath not only our properties and material wealth, we give our ideas and knowledge to younger fellows as part of their cultural heritage to some Librarianday pass on. 166 Byron Good, Medicine, Rationality, and Experience: an Anthropological Perspective, (The Lewis Henry Morgan lectures 1990. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 398 HOMING IN

On the last leg of my academic-trip-turned-pilgrimage, I returned to Omaha for Thanksgiving. There I met Becky Crofoot for the first time and celebrated our mother-daughter Christmas with our Heartstring Group and Thanksgiving with both my families. It takes quite a bit of organizing to get everyone together and to make sure I spend time with all my dear ones in Nebraska. At lunch with my two mothers and my father at M’s Pub in the Old Market, Ruth Ann retold the story about sharing my existence with the principal of her school after having first received my letters. To her surprise, her young principal, another Sue, was a Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sister of mine who had met me the year I had attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. When my birth mother risked reaching out to a friend and colleague, it just so happened that she Copyknew me. It was a synchronicity that especially touched my birth mother. Her secret was shared within a circle of serendipitous encounters and sisterhood. Ruth Ann had been careful about sharing her story, not wanting to put a grenade on the conversation table that had the potential of shattering reputations. Weeks after that family dinner at M’s Pub, a gas explosion blasted out our symbolic meeting place in the Old Market. For years, I had been dining in that familiar restaurant. Suddenly that place was gone, triggering yet another explosive story! When we are amazed by happenings, we begin to question. Our questioning is often answered with responses that have the potential of bringing us in touch with the ineffable. Encountering the ineffableReview is a meeting place with God.

In the Bible, Ecclesiastes is a known as a Wisdom Book filled with teachings about the way a well-lived earthly life should be lived. It gathers wisdom that has informed generations. It is a book that transmits a father’s “wiseness” to his son. The Jewish wisdom tradition is an important part of the Old Testament. However, there is a kind of wonder that can lead us beyond intellectual ways of knowing. Consider Rabbi Heschel’s description of radical amazement:

The roots of ultimate insights are found [. . .] not on the level of discursive thinking, but on the level of wonder and radical amazement, in the depth of awe, in our sensitivity to the mystery, in our awareness of the ineffable. It is the level on which the great things happen to the soul, where the unique insights of art, religion, and philosophy come into Librarianbeing.167

167 Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism, (London; 1983: Souvenir Press Ltd, 2009), 117. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 399

Heschel writes about the grammar of experience, underscoring sublime knowledge and understanding. He maps God’s encounter with man using the story of Abraham to affirm that “God’s love and kindness indicate a road. It is a road not limited to a particular area in space nor to exceptional miraculous happenings. It is everywhere, at all times.”168 The events that mark our lives are formative actors that initiate us, sealing our becomingness with a sign stamped D for divine. Events cannot always be explained, yet they capture our attention, implying that there are happenings beyond our human understanding. During pilgrimages, there is a heightened sense underscoring the signification of the numerous encounters on the road. President Abraham Lincoln quoted Ecclesiastes 1:4 in his speechCopy during the darkest hours of the American Civil War on December 1, 1862: “One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever . . . Our strife pertains to ourselves—to the passing generations of men—and it can without convulsion be hushed forever with the passing of one generation.”169 In his day, war could not destroy the earth. He knew how war could destroy lives and families, ripping even a country apart. However, he certainly never imagined weapons designed for mutually assured destruction. Lincoln worked to make peace, bringing an end to the Civil War. He worked to mend the country. He gave his life to end slavery. I had the opportunity to visit the Lincoln Memorial the week following President Trump’s election. It was a necessaryReview side stop during an academic trip to George Mason University. At the foot of that symbolic political statue, aligned with the Washington Monuments, Lincoln’s words carved on the wall call us to “bind up the nation’s wounds.” The racial lines of contention that divided the United States during Lincoln’s time are not the same rifts surfacing today. Throughout the world, lines of contention are forming as a result of increased inequalities and polarization between the rich and poor, creating a potential for open conflict, capable of spreading like wildfire. As we continue the search for knowledge and wisdom in our quest to change the present that we might affect the past and future, we should be well advised to “fear God,” as Ecclesiastes repeatedly states, for it is only with this form of reverence, enjoying God’s gifts, that we can live well “under the sun,” another expression taken

Librarian168 Abraham Joshua Heschel. The Prophets , (New York: Perennial, 2001), 269. 169 Shelby Foote and Rafael Palacios, The Civil War, a Narrative, (New York: Random House, 2011), 807-808. 400 HOMING IN

from this profound book of wisdom. It is truly “under the sun” that our Mother Earth embodies our storied lives. We live through photosynthesis as Mother Nature transforms light energy through trees and plants. In her roundness she contains us, nurturing us and holding us close to her bosom while listening to our most treasured tales. Each tree makes a different sound when the wind goes rustling through its leaves. This natural polyphony is the music of forests, a celebration of diversity and leaf form. In the realm of abiding forever, we are called to bequeath our knowledge in various forms of legacy, passing on the good life to future generations just as Abraham did. Collectively and individually, we incorporate the discourses we live by, giving them space to shape our lives and the face of the earth. The words we chooseCopy to live by have the potential of becoming life sentences, by either imprisoning or inspiring. My academic conferences became a form of pilgrimage, where I could share my knowledge through scientific papers. Writing and presenting has become a way of assuring the legacy of my qualitative research. The pilgrimage from Rome to Canterbury, which goes through Valais, invited me to encounter God in yet another unique way.

Just as my research continued to evolve working within the Senior Living Lab at the University of Applied Sciences in Western Switzerland, so too did my academic pathway take a new direction. When myReview abstract of “Resources of Hope: The Place of Hope in Researching Learning Lives” was accepted for a conference at Christ Church University in Canterbury Lodge next to the Canterbury Cathedral, I could sense divine guidance. The chance to discover this sacred site seemed to hint at yet another synchronicity or serendipitous encounter. What unfolded underscored how our human heritage is contained in our places of worship, universities, and museums, as well as the natural environments where they take root. The UNESCO heritage sites are landmarks recognized to have cultural and physical significance. We are indeed heirs to these extraordinary sites. Just as the Word has a creative force capable of configuring social worlds, so too the natural world influences becomingness within unique bioregions. Venturing to yet another sacred site on my conference trail, I arrived at Canterbury Cathedral Lodge to present my research and documentary film narrating hopeful Librarianstories on aging. My hotel room’s window seat gave me a full view of the cathedral. After the conference sessions, I was able to attend Evensong, listening to the boys’ SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 401

choir sing the Psalms. To my wonder, they sang the 23rd Psalm, as if they knowingly were honoring my daily meditation. Canterbury’s four-hundred-year tradition celebrated Christ with young voices that filled the cathedral, which had a special chapel for the Christian martyrs. John Paul Lederach is a well-known international mediator who has founded his mediation practice on Christian principles. I received his book The Journey Towards Reconciliation from a fellow mediator in the Netherlands following my doctoral defense. Lederach uses the vignette of Psalm 23 to explain how if we follow the Shepherd through the valley of encounters, we will be blessed. “We walk without fear of contamination to a place of encounter where we sit at the table and eat with the enemy. From this journey along the path of justice, we comeCopy to mercy and goodness and a restored soul.”170 After participating in Evensong within the sacred walls of the Canterbury Cathedral, I now walk with even more assurance that divine presence is a guiding and protecting force even in the face of the enemy. In that sacred setting at the Lodge, I met a new-to-me intellectual family: the ESREA network for life history and biography. Laura Formenti and Linden West are conveners of the network that write about transcendence in “metalogues.” They explain that we not only relate with people, but we seek out intimate conversations with intellectual works that elicit ongoing questioning and posturing. In this reflexive space with our authored friends, we connect with philosophical understandings. They draw on Gregory Bateson’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind when discussing their joint work. Within Reviewthese more academic encounters, we discover the “democratically divine” through the lens of Buber’s I and Thou relationship, transposed in configurations of societal relating and good governance. While conversing with the great thinkers and authors in studentship, we momentarily embody their discourses in the present. Honoring life history and biography is a way to uphold democracy by recognizing the individual voices of the people who make up our social worlds. The right to education is a fundamental aspect of democracy, offering citizens the hope of self-realization and a useful place within society. The richness and complexity of our life histories give rise to the quality of our social and political worlds as we relate within a political body. Lifelong learning is indeed a transformative endeavor.171 Leaving Canterbury, I arrived in London in the late afternoon on England’s

Librarian170 John Paul Lederach, The Journey Toward Reconciliation, (Scottdale, Pa: Herald Press, 1999), 173. 171 Laura Formenti and Linden West, Transforming Perspectives in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education, A Dialogue, (Palgrave Macmillan Publisher, Cham Switzerland, 2018). 402 HOMING IN

Mother’s Day. I walked alone past Buckingham Palace and through the Queen’s Gardens where the daffodils where in full bloom. Following the parks up to Trafalgar Square, I eyed a church and headed toward its welcoming doors. I stumbled into a St. Martin-in-the-Fields service that was just beginning. It was the fourth Sunday of Lent, and the program I was handed as I walked in to take my seat was entitled “Lighten Our Darkness: A Contemporary Choral Evening Prayer with Sermon, Climate Change: Crisis Management or Full-Scale Repentance?” I listened to the choir and prayed with the congregation that the Paris Climate Conference agreement, open for signature for one year on April 22, 2016, would be signed by all nations. My heartfelt song rose with theirs in a celebration of the Creation. The sermon referred to the mystical poet Thomas Traherne,Copy his words sung in James Whitbourn’s anthem “Among the Angels”:

Your enjoyment of the world is never right, Till every morning you awake in Heaven; See yourself in your Father’s Palace; And look upon the skies, the earth, and the air as Celestial Joys; Having such a reverent esteem of all, As if you were among the Angels.

Behind the choir, a modern stained-glass window rose in a matrix of shapes, holding an egg like form in its center.Review After dinner, I later returned to participate in the Sacred Space meeting at the church in which we again listened to music and sang prayers together close to the altar where each participant had placed a candle. In that moment of communion, we sang in unison, “Within our darkest night, you kindle the fire that never dies away. Wait for the Lord, whose day is near. With you, oh Lord, is life with all its fullness, and within your light we shall see true light.” I was aware of the strong spiritual presence of the worshipers around me reinforced by the pastor’s leadership dedicated to pastoral work with the homeless. I met Brian, a Quaker, and Mary, an Irish Catholic, attending the service. Sitting next to them, I was taken by the intensity of the communion we were experiencing. Tears streamed down my cheeks, a kind of cleansing and recognition of grace. After the singing was over, Brian and Mary invited me to have tea with them just next to the church. LibrarianBrian explained over chamomile tea that the unique window positioned behind the choir was called the East Window and was an interpretation of Jacob’s Ladder, SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 403

a vision had by the Biblical prophet Jacob and recorded in the book of Genesis. The egg-like shape in the center was the stone that Jacob used as a pillow and set up as a pillar. Genesis 20:18 concludes the vision with “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Brian preferred the mystical interpretation, in which Jacob’s Ladder was a metaphor for the chakras and the opening of the third eye. I can remember singing a song in church choir that went, “We are climbing Jacob’s Ladder, every step goes higher, higher, children of the Lord.” The Jewish Kabalistic tradition considers a messiah to be a fully realized being that has a form of spiritual vision that occurs when the third eye is opened and perception is transformed. Not only was Brian a knowledgeable philosopher, explaining the window’s hidden meaning, but also a Quaker healer.Copy He told me how the opening of the third eye permitted spiritual healing to be given, and he demonstrated his beliefs by laying his hands on me. As Mary walked me back to my hotel room late that evening, we passed under the watchful eye of Big Ben, the clock tower lit up for all to see. Grace is experienced when we trust, elevating us to a vibrational resonance where Mother Earth can be seen and experienced within a sphere of celestial joy. The mystics like Traherne and William Blake used poetry to describe the worlds that they perceived with heartfelt vision. Their poetical interpretations, much like the Canterbury boys’ choir, carry poetic voices through time, allowing us to endure. Their harmonic scores are containers of our human heritage and sacred practices, celebrating the Creation and honoringReview the beautiful face of our earth.

In Grandpa Carl’s library, I can remember picking up Pilgrim’s Progress from the Harvard Classics Series lined up on the bookshelf. I would hold it in my young hands with a sense that something powerful was written on the inside. It was a storyline hard for me to grasp at that time. In John Bunyan’s well-known allegory written in England in the 1600s, Christian is guided through the Valley of the Shadow of Death by using the shepherd’s perspective glass that allows him to see the truth of the situations and people around him. Just like Christian, when we embark upon heaven’s quest, our perspective is transformed. Each pilgrim’s progress is a journey of self-transformation. Pilgrimages transform our perceptions. We see transfigured images through the looking glass, gaining insights and wisdom. The looking glass Librarianrepresents how gnosis, or wisdom, transforms how we see life. My father David inherited Grandpa Carl’s books and had a special library built to 404 HOMING IN

place them in our home on Candlewood Lake. The memory of that library reminds me how we are constantly reaching out for a book on a shelf. Our books open to encounters, walking us through landscapes of meaning. They offer us garden pathways to our highest potentialities. The Greek tradition uses the word arete, the act of achieving one’s full potential, to describe how we endeavor to reach our human completeness. For women, there is a specific form of arete that involves being guardians of the good life, teaching traditions and culture. Our rich human heritage calls us to learn about our shared story so that we can bequeath it to future generations. Meaning gathers in places of communion, bringing together multiform expressions, echoing through time in heartfelt ways. We share a cosmology story that we are just learning toCopy tell. Pilgrimages can take us to sacred places, allowing us to meet with other travelers on the trail of becomingness. Hopefully, after each journey, there is a good story to share, passing on what we have understood of the good life as we strive together to express our highest human potent-ialities. Fairy tales are stories inferring the presence of magic, and therefore they often begin with “Once upon a time,” referring to an epoch when our world was still enchanted. The German term “wonder stories” adds yet another dimension to the origins of our folklore, alluding to awe and epiphany that are often both present in our narrations. Life is indeed enchanted and filled with awe. These strong, potent emotions elicit the questing process. Review

On yet another academic journey I went to the University of La Laguna in Spain, also a UNESCO heritage site. On the island of Tenerife, we visited Teidé, the volcano at the center of the island. Looking up at Teidé, I realized how writing and researching are future forming172 just like volcanos birthing new earth formations with their eruptions. As our group descended from the volcano and entered the city, we were swept up in a religious procession that filled the city’s center celebrating a Christian feast. We flowed into the procession like human lava, making a pathway to the ocean. Natural sites, social and cultural expressions, as well as academia mold and fashion our collective performances. Natural and cultural heritage sites are our earthly treasures, and we are the Keepers of our Human Heritage. LibrarianThe symbols within the forms of nature, inscribed on the walls of the cathedrals, 172 Kenneth J. Gergen, “From Mirroring to World-making: Research as Future Forming,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior (Vol 45, Issue 3 September 2015). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 405

and written down in books of wisdom allude to the ineffable. We are treasure hunters seeking the promise of peace on earth; it is our heartfelt hope and expectation. We dream into being a better world while working in partnership with God. The good life unfolds through time and through various forms of lineage. Great philosophers like Abraham Heschel bring the ancient prophets’ teachings to us through their academic endeavors as well as their example. Visiting several of the UNESCO heritage sites—places of natural beauty, worship, and learning—has been part of my unique pilgrimage process. As I distance myself from my personal story, I am freed to embrace our even greater human heritage, walking the earth soul to sole, trusting that home is wherever I am. Copy

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THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF BECOMING Copy e are constantly choosing individual and collective paths of becoming- ness. We make hard decisions everyday involving value judgements. W Our individual life trajectories unfold in relation to larger narratives. To truly live, we must affirm the good life in our practices, always trying to do the next good thing. It is also necessary to reflexively evaluate how we are contributing to the greater good. As we grow to understand our family relational web and seek to establish patterns of well-being and wholeness through transformative practices including mediation and autoethnography, the effects will ripple out in our com- munities and nations and world. The insidious power of evil to resurface in new forms is constantly challenging our democratic values. The fascism ofReview yesterday is taking form in a new expression of authoritative democracy with strong ties to populist movements. The use of fear to instrumentalize voters can be observed throughout the Western world. Each nation has its own expression of “saying it like it is.” However, as we allow public debates to become violent, disrespectful shouting matches, we elicit forms of outrage that, once unleashed, may be difficult to control. Modeling respectful debate should be a political duty. Still, the media proliferation feeds on the political show that entertains the people. We are enticed into playing dangerous language games with the potential of creating new worlds of inhumanity. We must make responsible choices in reference to the words we use and the conversations we take up. Imagining new forms of democracy are essential in preserving enlightened citizenship. New social media tools are ushering in challenges that our democratic institutions are grappling with. LibrarianAs pathfinders, we must work for transhistorical institutional renewal, holding on to a vision of democracy for the people, where liberty and equality thrive in the political body. 408 HOMING IN

Walking out of the MOMA the day before election day in 2016 with my girlfriends from Omaha, we observed the hovering helicopters over Trump Towers. It was as if we had gone through a magical door in the museum that took us into the cartoon world of Gotham City, where we could hear the reverberating sounds of rotor blades spinning and cutting through the night sky, a foreboding of things to come. The next day lines of New York City voters were waiting to cast their vote as we walked the High Line. The wave of populism that won over the United States also rippled across Europe. In Turin, where the ESREA conference met again in 2018, Italian voters affirmed a populist government questioning European alliances, with strong support from the far right, just as Brexit was being negotiated. Europe’s union is being rippedCopy at the seams, exposing lines of contention that somehow haven’t been properly addressed by the political elite. After a period of working for unity, power shifts are actively fraying democratic banners, pulling on the tattered strings exposed by raw edges. The focus on voting to uphold democratic principles in an era of social media has its risks. Cultivating practices of thoughtfulness, we are called to redefine democracy with renewed forms of citizen participation, as in sortition. Sortition is yet another pillar of democracy that uses diverse groups of citizens to formulate thoughtful solutions to social challenges. The ancient Greek example of democracy did not rely on voting alone. In search of practices that foster community consensus building, we can turn to participative practices like the World Café and Appreciative Inquiry. Civil society has traditionally Reviewbeen a partner in upholding democracy. How can it be strengthened? Our changing times require us to rethink how we hold on to our democratic principles of liberty and equality, carrying them forward through transhistorical democracy that must be reinvented in the face of social media, digital technologies, and overuse of referendums that can too easily get signatures with today’s technological tools.173 The future of democracy depends on our ability to respond to societal changes. How can we address new technologies and artificial intelligence without letting ourselves lose our democratic rights through new forms of manipulation? Though I have attempted to tell our family story from the inside, social, legal, and political dimensions each play a part in configuring family relations. To respond to these many facets of family relational well-being, I transitioned in my first years Librarianworking as a mediator from using an ethno-psychiatry approach to the narrative 173 David Van Reybrouck and Liz Waters, Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, (London: The Bodley Head, 2016). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 409

model. I discovered the Devereux Center in Paris dedicated to the practice of ethno-psychiatry while working from 2001 to 2005 with political asylum seekers in the mediation service I created in Valais. “How do we know to perform going crazy in our own culture?” George Devereux referred to Culture-Bound Syndromes, analyzing case studies through the lens of ethno-psychiatry. Stemming from Devereux’s work, I think we should collectively be asking, “If somehow we know how to perform illness, does that mean we also know how to culturally perform wellness?” Working with political asylum seekers, I tried to deconstruct performances that were leading to life trajectories of self- destruction. Their lives had been fashioned by warfare and economic hardship rooted in social and political injustices that were no fault of their own.Copy Still, their life trajectories and the traumas they suffered often brought out performances of desperation. As they told me their stories, I listened deeply, sometimes with the help of an interpreter, as my mind’s eye tried to grasp the hidden meaning of their enactments. That experience opened my eyes to a rare form of human suffering, expressed through the life histories of the marginalized voices that came to my center. Those life stories brought me to the narrative model of mediation that approaches conflict resolution by wondering, “How can we generate new flyways that take us to promising futures?” There are both the politics and poetics inherent in the narrative mediation process. Sara Cobb’s work in narrativeReview conflict resolution underscores this by bringing attention to both the political and aesthetic dimensions that configure our storylines. She writes, “Thus bearing witness is the process of pushing narratives toward that edge where meaning is born, where new ways of knowing Self and Other are called forth, it is in the context and the process of performing subjectivity that a new relationship Self/Other can be brought into being.”174 Cobb explains narrative mediation as an invitation to affirm and strengthen the stories people tell so that we can be “free to be human beings, being human.”175 This poetic process is in itself a protection against the totalitarian state because it brings more depth and complexity to the description of the human condition. Cobb affirms, “So the better formed story is one that does contribute to ‘heal’ social illnesses.”176

174 Sara B. Cobb, “Speaking of Violence: The Politics and Poetics of Narrative Dynamics in Conflict LibrarianResolution.” Explorations in Narrative Psychology (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 183. 175 Ibid, p. 289. 176 Ibid, p. 226. 410 HOMING IN

Writing to transform Self entails engaging in a reflexive process that ultimately includes Others in our matrix of relations. The narrative process allows new lines of flight to emerge in connection with emerging relational mind. Our performances are entangled. The suffering that can permeate our conflictual relationships often reaches a tipping point, inviting pathological tendencies to come play. Autoethnographic writing is yet another expression of narrative conflict resolution, where both the politics and poetics of life history are given voice. As I couldn’t fit everyone in the room, I created a book space, convening the actors in my life to participate in a family constellation, a form of group conferencing that the Maori people in New Zealand use as a method of restorative justice. Writing and pilgrimage are both ways to transform suffering Copywith active engagement. While visiting the Great Saint Bernard Hospice with my daughter Jessica, we were forced into the hospice building while waiting out a hailstorm. As we drank our tea in the hospice’s dining area, I started up a conversation with a pilgrim walking the trail. He explained how he was writing in a journal while walking the path from the Netherlands down to Rome. He showed me his journal and, taking the needed time to speak through his heavy stuttering, he expressed how he was glad to be able to speak in English after so many days alone. He shared how he had recently lost his son to cancer and had embarked on his pilgrimage in the hopes of transforming his sorrow. The hail storm had brought us together. As he found the words to express his despair, grieving for his son, the storm receded and the pounding noise on the roof dissipated.Review The hail finally melted off the road and we were able to drive back down the mountain pass home. There is a kind of reciprocity in life when we are called to witness, knowing we too will be accompanied. Adverse situations arise in every life. Our ability to overcome depends not only on our individual capacity to adapt and rise above, but also the social, legal, and healthcare networks that can work to reduce the suffering confronted when facing challenging life situations. A Culture of Care values health equity, human rights, and the distribution of power. Social conditions that offer people greater agency contribute to reducing health inequalities. Empowering socially marginalized and disadvantaged groups is fundamental: “The life course approach is not limited to individuals within a single generation but should intertwine biological and social transmission of risk across generations.”177

Librarian177 World Health Organization, A Conceptual Framework for Action on the Social Determinants of Health: Debates, Policy & Practice, Case Studies (2010, 18), http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/44489/1/9789241500852_ eng.pdf. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 411

Family policy concerning adoption and divorce can have an effect on life-course outcomes with the potential of acting on much larger social phenomena. The Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) study178 underscores how childhood stress influences adult diseases. Trauma and adversity associated with adoption, separation, and divorce influence genetic expression with the possibility of transmitting physical and mental illnesses to future generations. The way we socially perform divorce and adoption have lasting effects on individuals and society, altering life trajectories. The good life is not just a private matter. It is a communal and public undertaking, fostered by means of fair, just, and enlightened social welfare and family policy. Family policy and public health are intertwined. There is a social myth of autonomy that hides our vulnerable humanCopy nature. Caring takes on a legal dimension when nations define family policy. InThe Autonomy Myth, Martha Fineman argues that caretaking is society preserving. She writes,

The myths about autonomy, independence, and self-sufficiency both for individuals and for families have only been able to flourish and perpetuate themselves because dependency has been hidden within the family. When certain families reveal the fallacy of the assumption that they can adequately manage their members’ needs, we do not reexamine the premises, but demonize those families as failures. Therefore, those in need of economic assistance are viewed as deviating from the stated norm of independence and self-sufficiency. It is time to rethink “subsidy,” as well as “autonomy” and “dependency.”179 Review

The truth of the matter is, we need each other; we are entangled. How can we care more? How can we become better caretakers of our families, communities, and Gaia? Reunion and reconciliation have influenced my life-course, allowing our family to envision a hopeful future together, a place where we all belong. There is a paradigm shift in psychology that is moving toward the practice and ethics of accompaniment. Psychosocial accompaniment requires standing alongside others who desire listening, witnessing, and advocacy. By walking with others, a liberating space of inquiry and research emerges. Mary Watkins writes

178 J. Vincent et al. “Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults.” American Journal of Preventative Medicine, (Volume 14. Issue 4. 245- Librarian258, May 1998). 179 Martha Fineman, The Autonomy of Myth: A Theory of Dependency, (The New Press, New York, 2004), 53. 412 HOMING IN

about psychosocial accompaniment, citing an Australian aboriginal elder and artist Lila Watson who cautions, “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. If you come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”180 When we understand how we are bound together in a form of linkedness, we approach the threshold of a psychology and theology of liberation. This “withness” is a transformational process where in-tandem pathfinders open the Way, generating social transformation for all. It was through the intercultural conflict narratives presented in my thesis, when I was actively mediating and witnessing, that I too was transformed. At the Inspiring Learning Life conference near Oslo in 2016, Haakon, crown prince of Norway, spoke about appreciative learning approaches that hisCopy foundation Global Dignity supports. The foundation’s mission is “to unite everyone with the belief that we all deserve to live a life of dignity.” Global Dignity comes to the aid of children with learning difficulties as well as youth facing issues with delinquency. This relational approach elicits favorable outcomes for distressed youth in Norway. Crown Prince Haakon’s example shows how royalty can effectively participate in transforming governance, using soft power in support of the people. During the conference, he embodied an admirable form of royal responsibility. The examples of public figures are actively forming our opinions, modeling ways of being in the world. May they not forget that with privilege comes responsibility. Good governance calls for leaders able to walk with the people. With-ness and accompaniment can Reviewalso be understood as friendship. The treasure of friendship is yet another form of wealth. Following the Inspired Learning Life conference, my ski team friend Cathrine threw a big party in Oslo, inviting dear friends from Boulder thirty years after our graduation. “Party as process” has since bubbled up into my vocabulary as a way of speaking about the healing experience of belonging to a group and the spontaneous sharing that can happen once strong bonds have been created at the “party.” My Norwegian college friends had been another kind of family in Boulder. Though our studies were important, so was knitting sweaters, kneading bread, and kinning—the work that has kept us close. Stitch after stitch, we patterned our young adult lives with dreams woven into the color of our sweaters. We were all so far away from home in Boulder. We created our own world in a web of relations that still holds us together. LibrarianI share Boulder, the Four Valley Ski Area linking Verbier and La Tzoumaz, 180 Mary Watkins, “Psychosocial Accompaniment,” Journal of Social and Political Psychology, (2015, Vol.3(1) 324-341). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 413

and Norway with Cathrine. It is a world of relations and landscapes that keeps informing our relatedness. After all these years Cathrine and I have kept the conversation going. The party allowed me to see how our lives had unfolded from that moment in time when we were studying, partying, and dreaming of our lives to be. Thirty years had gone by so quickly, leaving us with the fruit of our efforts. We had married, had children, made careers for ourselves, and aged. Taking stock of the passage of time over a candlelight dinner accompanied with good French wine, our partying was still part of the joyful process that had generated the treasure of life-long companionship. We were still celebrating life in style. Cathrine and Marianne both live in Oslo. My roommate from Boulder, Heidi, teaches and lives in Austria. We all still ski, hike, and enjoy the good lifeCopy that we had cultivated in Boulder together. We knitted an international pattern into the hand- knit sweaters we made for our own children. While some of our dreams are gone with the wind, others are still seeding like purple lupines in mountain meadows. In our long talks over the years, we have worked through the trials and tribulations of our lives, pushing forward and doing our best to leave behind disappointments so as to be free to embrace the now. The years of striving are giving way to making the best of what we have while remembering to celebrate life. As our children reach adulthood, we share the blessings of their becomingness, as well as the tragedies that cloak us in darkness, like Heidi’s daughter’s death in an avalanche in Montana. Meeting my godson Frederic in Copenhagen, where he studied business, was yet another threshold moment that Reviewallowed me to revisit that stage of life when his parents and I first met on the Boulder campus. He and my own children are now carrying forward our generation’s aspirations through dreams of their own that are continuously future forming. However, not just dreams are transmitted. Our lesions are also passed on, wounds you can stick a finger into, touching on injuries that appear too deep to heal. Dipping into the pain as one might dip into a glass jar of Nutella, novels delve into themes of transmission, capturing how the ache in this “flesh memory” lingers in the form of ancestral transmission. Elena Ferrante describes in her Neapolitan Novels how characters carry their parents’ physical traits, like a mother’s limp, that are only revealed after childbirth. Her descriptions tell of parents’ bodily forms that come out in their children who, in the first book, appear so innocent and untouched by life’s deformities. LibrarianFerrante’s characters, Elena and Lila, are young schoolgirls in the series’ first book, My Brilliant Friend. They lose their dolls and with the money that they have to 414 HOMING IN

replace them, buy a copy of Little Women. Their prized copy has worn and tattered pages, but as they read together, they escape into a fantasy world where they concoct a plan to write a novel and thereby make enough money to get out of poverty and help their families. Their plan is an attempt to break from their plebeian lineage in the hopes that brilliance and fame would carry a force capable of shattering the mold of commoners that would otherwise have the power to shape who they would grow to become. Though the characters in Ferrante’s novels search for ways to separate them- selves from their parents, their identities as well as their physical bodies are literally constituted from their mothers and fathers. Physical form is configured by multiple forces, including biology, history, and culture. Ferrante addresses Copyconstitutive processes through literature while medical anthropology espouses the teachings that underscore the social and cultural determinants of health. Both help us to better understand how we are constituted. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of shame when my own children show their em- barrassment of me, my way of talking, my reactions, or my going on too long in conversations. As we struggle for autonomy and self-differentiation, we are often faced with the physical traits that we inherit—the hip dysplasia, the scoliosis, the tendency for skin cancer. Determined to not take on our parents’ more negative traits, we are often surprised, in midlife, to see them sneaking through us in the mirror. We are living bodies, a reality that can repulse, especially when confronted with the changes childbirth and agingReview bring on. Self-awareness often comes in those moments when observing the softening of our muscles into hanging tissue, our fragility brought on from weakened bones, and the painted wrinkles on our faces that come out more vividly under certain lighting. Sjaak signed his book Life, Love & Death to me, “For Susan, graceful aging.” It is through our bodies that we link together to protect each other and bring forth life. Our bodies can be used as shields for those we love and choose to protect, engendering new life. We experience joy through our physical temples. But the human condition is a spirit trap if not driven by creative and spiritual pursuits capable of alchemically transforming the contemplative sphere into fulfilling lifeways. Sting sings of “soul cages” in an album composed of songs written soon after his father’s passing. How might our bodies, constituted by multiple lines of transmission, be experienced as sacred vessels instead of soul cages? LibrarianIn addition to the physical body inheritance we receive from our families, there are physical objects inherited as well. The golden pocket watch signifies the gift that SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 415

I received from my adopted family and the link between generations. Its significance is more than the gift that was bequeathed—it encompasses the debt that I have to those who came before me and my loyalty to them. The golden pocket watch links me not only to the “flesh memory” of my ancestors, but also to my descendants, symbolizing the responsibility that I have to future generations. How will they feel about their own stewardship while holding the golden heirloom and “taking watch”? The transmission of the golden pocket watch binds generations through the gifting process, while at the same time offering recognition to its beholder. It is a Time-Keeper. We receive life and numerous other gifts from our parents; however, we may regret what they were not able to give to us. As adults, we are calledCopy to fill the emptiness resulting from what we may have expected from our parents and what they were not able to offer us. Becoming whole involves weaving the strands of our origins into a strong rope that can bind generations, establishing filiations and parentage: kinship. Family memoir is transformed when we take responsibility for our relations and multiple belongings. We can open to a dialogue with life and the living with mutual recognition, co-constructing narrative identity that can endure changes, using time as a tool or instrument to gently unfold our life. Our many encounters can become enriching moments where we truly meet the other, like tumbleweed blowing through an open landscape, picking up and incorporating the attached remnants of our encounters with the force of the wind. Relational mind rises from the ashes of our conflictsReview and conversations as we attune to more favorable ways of relating and even possibly reconciling. We only truly grow up when we can forgive our parents. From the moment we are able to be grateful for all we have received, recognizing all that has been given to us, we experience a kind of lightness. Finding that place of gratefulness allows us to live with renewed confidence in life, capable of supporting our own children’s becomingness. There is a conversion moment in our process when we can truly let go of the past so as to be present: fully embracing the gift of life and daring to weigh our hearts, in the hopes that the scales will balance. People, places, shared culture, thought forms, and political movements literally take form in and through us, through time. They constitute us. The dialogues we engage in, either literary or human in nature, fashion how we come into being. They Librarianspring through us as we wander. In Unfinished: The Anthropology of Becoming,181 the 181 João Guilherme Biehl and Peter Andrew Locke, éd. Unfinished: the Anthropology of Becoming, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017). 416 HOMING IN

authors explore the plasticity and unfinishedness of human subjects and lifeworlds. They consider what shapes contemporary modes of existence and future horizons that arise from the uncertain. My parents Ruth Ann and Michael were unfinished. Freed from their work schedules, they chose to discover new horizons, allowing the lives of their children to orient their pathway forward. Following my birth parents’ retirement, they traveled to Europe to experience being worldlings themselves. The historical sites they enjoy visiting as well as the different cultures and languages they are discovering are transforming their couple’s lifeworld. As the epicenter of our family shifted, with two children and multiple grandchildren living in Europe, it was time to travel. Copy As their visits became more frequent, my sister Kaitie, the youngest daughter, made her way over with her young children. While walking with butterflies on an enchanted mountain trail that crosses over a waterfall framed by pink rhododendrons in June and blueberries in August, Kaitie explained how Kenneth Gergen’s book Relational Being was a central reference guiding her social constructionist’s preschool where she had recently become the director. Her school even invited Gergen for a conference in 2019. It seems that we move in schools of thought, much like the little fish in the sea. Our family portraits are yet unfinished; they are but outlines begging to be filled in with vibrant strokesReview of color.

Librarian CHAPTER 48

KNOCKING ON MERCY’S DOOR Copy oors open when we knock. Asking for mercy, we are let in to the inner chamber, beholden. When we are allowed to reach the inner circle of D wholeness, we discover belongingness and acceptance. This experience of recognition then becomes a gift that we desire to bequeath to others. We go forward, passing on the mercy that has been bestowed upon us, giving forward. In this space of active engagement, we encounter life with heartfelt compassion, recognizing the power of mediatorship to bring us together. While visiting Tarragona with Sjaak, the Dutch medical anthropologist, I shared my story about being a young child desiring to know Christ and saddened by the realization that I would never be able to meet Jesus. I was seven and had just learned to read, and I realized thatReview by reading the Bible, I could intimately know Jesus Christ. I remember opening the pages of my Bible, convinced that Jesus had left it for me so that I could know him. I read the Old Testament and the New Testament at a young age in an attempt to learn the ways of Jesus and my Father in Heaven. I was searching and wondering what it meant to belong to the Body of Christ. Sjaak listened to my story and made a connection with my autoethnographic process that he had learned about through my paper presentation while participating at the medical anthropology conference at Rovira I Virgili University. He pointed out how I was writing my own book for my descendants to know me through a story legacy, just as the Bible has been left for all Christians, wanting to know the stories passed down from the prophets and disciples. Words carve names and ideas in consciousness. My intention has been to map my many encounters to help my Librarianchildren and others find their Way. Though others may not follow the path I have taken up, hopefully my questing will inspire others to search. My teaching stories as 418 HOMING IN

well as my referential framework are forms of narrative legacy. I have used different forms of sign posts to guide the pathfinder. The completion of the Book of Susan, my testament, dovetailed with Katrina’s engagement and wedding. My sister Cathy’s daughter Rebecca also wed months later. Their weddings ushered in a new family era. Dates fell in line: in 2016, Michael and Ruth Ann celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary, Angelo and I celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary, and Katrina and Bastien wed. The dates seemed to be placed like lattice points connecting through generations on an ordered timeline in Euclidean space. Ruth Ann explained to Katrina during the wedding celebrations that in our family we are swans, mating for life. The wedding year and arrival of my families in Switzerland that cameCopy to celebrate Katrina and Bastien’s wedding corresponded with the Jubilee Year of Mercy, in which Pope Francis called his flock to pass through the Holy Door of Mercy where the past, present, and future merge. It is a door in time, a passage leading to grace, conversion, and reconciliation. From sin to grace, a bridge of hope of being loved opens the way for the pilgrim to experience the Father’s mercy. Mercy brought us together in the synchronicity of reunion. The synchronicity of the anniversary dates seemed to indicate that our family was walking through the Holy Door of Mercy, a passage that offered heartfelt grace. As we walked together through the physical construction of the Holy Door of Mercy at the Basilica in Sion, we noticed a print of Rembrandt’s “The Prodigal Son” at the side of the door. Ruth Ann told me ofReview a book that reflected upon the symbolism in the painting. She later sent me the book, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming, that has added to my understanding of our passage through the Holy Door of Mercy that marked our homecoming.

Rembrandt’s portrayal of the father of the prodigal son makes me understand that I no longer need to use my sonship to keep my distance. Having lived my sonship to its fullest, the time has come to step over all barriers and claim the truth that becoming the old man in front of me is all I really desire for myself. I cannot remain a child forever. I cannot keep pointing to my father as an excuse for my life. I have to dare to stretch out my own hands in blessing and to receive with ultimate compassion my children, regardless of how they feel or think about me. Since becoming the compassionate Father is the ultimate goal of the spiritual life, as it is expressed in the parable as well as in LibrarianRembrandt’s painting, I now need to explore its full significance.182

182 Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, A Story of Homecoming, (Doubleday, N.Y., New York, 1992), 124. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 419

Through this passage, I understood how the Holy Door of Mercy can truly open the way to compassion. Jesus Christ’s mediatorship is a vessel of grace and mercy, taking us to God the Father and our own ability to enact “divine parenting.” Through mediatorship, we recreate relational potentialities. Becoming the compassionate parent requires healing the wounded child. Surety-ship is the guarantee of unconditional love and forgiveness, sustaining us with a nurturing relational manna. Becoming a parent, in the image of the loving father in the painting requires healing the child within, which permits a form of reposturing. In this new positioning we find ourselves in a new place or configuration—that of the compassionate father/mother in Rembrant’s portrayal. Copy Walkthrough

In moments of epiphany, I see synchronicity In your face, I see God Be merciful, together embracing shared suffering Be with me, let’s imagine together; flourishing landscapes of love Walking through the door of mercy

This story illustrates how adopted children, separated at birth from their biolog- ical parents, become sensitive to their inner homing device that, when activated, begins searching for their origins. ThisReview is an epigenetic potential that we all share; however, the circumstances of adopted children may enhance the homing in potential, a sense that compensates after separation as we develop mechanisms to find our way back home. Synchronicities are the landmarks that orient the searching process. The strong will and intent to reconnect informs the relational matrix, configuring the pathways through time and space. Living between earthworks and skylines, our own oeuvre takes form. In Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s filmHome about Homo sapiens’ life on planet Earth, he begins by saying, “Listen to this extraordinary story which is yours and decide what you want to do with it.” He shows how life on earth is a miracle but that we have disrupted the balance so essential to life. We brushed shoulders at the Opale Foundation in Lens, a mountain village in Valais, where he presented his lifework of films and photographs to the public, responding authentically to questions from Librarianthe audience. His pictures illustrate the beauty of our earthly home, this amazing planet that we live on. He shows pictures of the earth taken from the sky, revealing patterns on the face of the Earth that one can only perceive from above. 420 HOMING IN

The hero’s journey can be traced and shown through different artistic mediums using the vision of social creatives, illustrating with ethnographic descriptions as well as important photos that unveil earthly landmarking. By changing perspectives and looking down on earth from above, we can see the unveiled patterns on the face of the earth that appear as artforms. Through this more artistic gaze we can see the markings on our planet that are beautiful as well as those that strike us as scarring. Changing perspectives by looking at the earth from the sky or space is a process leading to transfiguration. Seeing with new eyes helps to identify patterns and forms that no longer serve us, calling us to beautify the face of the earth. Just like burned pasturelands, the fertility of the soil under our feet and in our fields increasesCopy when fire burns away. Our aesthetic portraits and landscapes can be lifescaped to offer a life-course of grace with inspiring metaphoric words and pictures. Becoming conscious of how we are changing the face of the earth allows us to take heed not only of what needs to be changed, but what is changing. For instance, from satellites in space it is possible to detect the changing patterns in the Gulf Stream. Just like in the writing process, when we look at the text from another angle or perspective, we see what is changing as well as what doesn’t belong. We can then choose what to delete and what to rearrange. Seeing from a distance allows us to redirect the flow of words and streams of thought. Understanding belonging requires taking a closer look at all that doesn’t belong, finely sculpting belongingness. This final editing phase in our life historiesReview contributes to beautifying the oeuvre as we move through the landscape of possibilities, tuning in to the highest potential or possible outcome. Transformation happens through the heartfelt intuitions that direct our individual as well as collective choices, aligning us with the higher relational mind or Godhead. As humans collectively give birth to an increased consciousness of our intergalactic belonging, our planetary collective consciousness is reoriented. There is an emancipatory process guiding human becomingness as we home in to interstellar reunions. The emancipatory process that ultimately led our family to reunion, as we attuned to those within our family circle, used mechanisms that are presently ignored or hardly understood. These mechanisms oriented us, allowing us to home in. This story mandala is a homing in compass, an encoded transformagram. A second part of the emancipatory process happened in the autoethnographic Librarianprocess that sought to capture the happenings. Through the sculpting hand of the writer and editor, words and phrases were rearranged and those that didn’t serve SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 421

were radically trimmed away. In the creative writing process, while reinforcing the story arc, the final oeuvre is revealed. This is all part of the aesthetic process of becoming. Without entering in to the autoethnographic writing process, the many signs and synchronicities would not have been unveiled and captured on page. In the final phase life sentences were rearranged to produce a better storyline, a happier ending. The Sundance Way of life is an ancient sacred ceremony. It connects birth as well as death; both are moments opening us to the experience of the transcendent cosmic dance. My sister Cathy wrote, “As you prepare to welcome a new life into your family, I’m afraid that we will be losing my dad.” The circle of life is not just about birthing—and in our case reunion—it is also about letting go. TheCopy family ties continued to unite us in life cycles beyond our comprehension. Just shortly later Cathy buried her mother, saying goodbye to her parents that had cared for her and offered her the operation that saved her life. As I picked the crocus springing up in the meadows around the chalet, their purple and white trumpets seemed to be announcing the imminent arrival of my first grandchild. This first grandchild’s arrival was so different from mineand Cathy’s arrival. Life is continually about homing in as earthborn pathfinders. The following description pinpoints threshold moments of my becoming. These encounters provided me with relationships that constituted me, fashioning me and gifting forward all that had been bequeathed. As a baby coming into the world,Review I needed parents. The Nebraska Children’s Home helped me find the Mossmans, aiding me in my search for a loving home. When I decided to be an exchange student, Youth For Understanding matched me with my host family in Switzerland, allowing me to meet my future husband. Studying international affairs in Boulder at the foot of the Flatirons prepared me for my international lifestyle and connected me with my lifelong friends that helped to bridge the cultural gap between the United States and Europe. When Angelo and I decided to found our family, we were blessed with our five children. They came to us like soul waves descending from heaven, answering the call that had emanated from the most inner chamber of our “one heart” that St. Augustine refers to. After giving birth to three children, I felt the strong desire to find my birth mother. Again, the Nebraska Children’s Home gave a hand with the help of Becky Crofoot, who aided me in finding my birth family, ultimately orchestrating our reunion after Librarianhaving my fourth child, Yann. As I evolved as a young woman and mother, I decided to find a profession that 422 HOMING IN

corresponded with my bachelor’s training and life calling. I enrolled in a European master’s degree in mediation, interning with the special education department in Valais. Synchronicity then brought me together with Dr. Randolph Willis. We co- created an interdisciplinary approach, blending ethno-psychiatry and intercultural mediation while working with political asylum seekers. When I decided to do a PhD, I found my intellectual family through the group of social constructionists at the Taos Institute, developing my own model of narrative mediation in the field as inspired by John Winslade’s work. While studying, I discovered Raymond Massé’s book Culture et Santé Publique in the field of medical anthropology, and serendipity had it that we would work together at the psychiatric hospital doing needs assessment in mental health. My dear friend CathieCopy Ramus, a business professor at the University of Santa Barbara, accompanied my doctoral process, listening and aiding me to construct my theoretical framework while skiing and enjoying our children in the mountains. Each phase of questing allowed me to call out to the universe, asking to be able to contribute with all my knowledgeability. Each time I searched for the next creative endeavor, a new project presented itself. I found my position with the Senior Living Lab at the foot of a stone structure, sculpted by a dear friend and artist, at the hospital directors’ offices entitled, “Stumbling Block-Healing Stone.” That “touchstone” was yet another marker on the path forward toward self-realization. Each encounter provided a new opportunity to collaborate and create shared value and knowledge, applying the “integralReview approach” of mapping human knowledge and experience in a holistic manner. My work engendering Alpine wellness and resilient Alpine communities183 has been strengthened by Mary Evelyn Tucker’s and John Grimm’s work at the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University. Mary Evelyn wrote the Earth Charter as well as the Journey of the Universe.184 When Justin Farrell, a sociologist originally from Omaha, introduced us, and I enrolled in their course, “Journey of the Universe: The Unfolding of Life.” On the way to my niece Reba’s wedding in May 2017 at the Lied Center in Nebraska City, I met both Mary Evelyn and John at the entrance of a Chinese exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Again, synchronicity brought us to a

183 Susan Riva-Mossman, “Aging in Resilient Communities-An Alpine Case Study: The Senior Living LibrarianLab Experience,” J Aging Sci, (6:3, 2018). 184 Brian Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker, Journey of the Universe. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 423

“threshold moment” at the entrance to the exhibit. That moment of grace seemed to further affirm how it is possible to “hone in” or “home in” to encounters that allow us to reach our shared life potentialities. If it is possible on an individual level, then it must also be possible on the planetary level. It is time to collectively find our way into the future with respect to our earthly home and the unfolding of life on earth. Earth’s journey is connected to the journey of the universe, and we too are part of the amazing adventure. “Could it be that our deeper destiny is to bring forth a new coherence within the planet as a whole, as the human community learns to align itself with the underlying dynamics of Earth’s life?”185 This cosmological approach incorporates scientific understanding of the creative, life-giving processes on Earth, providingCopy a story that we can collaboratively interact with. The unfolding phases of life have brought us to this threshold moment. We are becoming a planetary presence that is beginning to understand time as a measure of creative emergence, revealing a new “timepiece.” The cosmological approach is further explained, “By dwelling in a world of wonder, humans were led to realize that they were children of the stars—something intuited in early myths and uncovered by modern science. They came to understand that everything in the universe then forms a huge interconnected family that we can call ‘all my relations.’”186 This transformed understanding of belonging allows us to enhance the flourishing of the Earth community, using our individual creativity and gifts. Science offers explanations enhancing our conscious self-awareness. These narratives are “the ongoing storyReview of the universe, a story that we tell, but a story that is also telling us.”187 We are earthborn, rooted into the land. April 22 is Earth Day. It is linked to Arbor Day, which began with tree planting and conservation in Nebraska City, inspired by Julius Sterling Morton. The Lied Center park and lodge exemplify how humans can transform their environments in positive ways, contributing through tree husbandry to increase the beauty of the land. The site is also an outdoor nature learning center. Reba and Hadley’s wedding brought us to this unique site, allowing me to integrate the vision and teaching purpose espoused by the Lied Center’s Nature Explore program. Ruth Ann’s retirement celebration coincided with the wedding. She and Michael had worked together to realize an outdoor classroom on her own school Librarian185 Ibid, 66. 186 Ibid, 114. 187 Ibid, 114. 424 HOMING IN

grounds. As principal, she invited her teachers to the Lied Center to learn about the curriculum. Together with her team, they configured a project that changed the landscaping of the school grounds, offering families and students new learning spaces in the outdoors. Michael volunteered after his retirement, working to build and maintain the structures. She invited us to visit her school and observe how they had transposed the Nature Explore program to fit the environment surrounding Lincoln’s Prescott Elementary School. Going back to Nebraska for the wedding allowed me to rediscover my home state and its uniqueness. Nebraska continues to beckon me home, offering ever new opportunities for collaboration. Copy Life takes us full circle in unexpected ways. After connecting with Professor Alexander Roedlach in February 2018, I was invited to teach an online course with the Department of Cultural and Social Studies in the medical anthropology program at the University of Creighton in Omaha, my hometown. Alex, a priest, missionary, and medical anthropologist, grew up in Austria just across the Swiss border. Our shared interest in integrative medicine and healing, health policy, and mental health in relation to refugees brought us together, allowing us to create a bridge of experiential learning connecting Nebraska and the Alps. Through that encounter, the opportunity to teach the social and cultural determinants of health and cultural epidemiology presented itself. Participating in a Creighton University course in 2019, we made a pilgrimage to the MariazellReview Basilica in Austria, visiting therapeutic centers where Traditional European Medicine is practiced. Our pilgrimage inspired me to create and teach a course on complementary and alternative medicine. Applying Ignatian pedagogy is at the heart of Creighton University’s mission. The Ignatian paradigm emphasizes being contemplatives in action.188 The process of reflecting with gratitude on experiences that open one’s mind and heart enkindles a deeper understanding of how one can act effectively when facing complex life situations. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola teach a way to home in on living knowledge, inciting each person to reach for magis or “more” and “being men and women for others.” Each life has an inherent potential that can be cultivated through journeymanship, reflecting, sharing, and dialoguing in the pursuit of social justice. The Ignatian principles lead to a life well lived.

Librarian188 Jose Eos Trinidad, “Interdisciplinarity and Ignatian Pedagogy,” Perspectives in the Arts and Humanities Asia, [S.l.], v. 7, n. 2, Oct. 2017. https://journals.ateneo.edu/ojs/index.php/apah/article/view/2750 (Ac- cessed April 29, 2019), 1-17. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 425

Ignatian pedagogy also underscores the ideal of cura personalis, or “care for the whole person,” and particular attention is placed on the entire person, not just head but heart, not just soul, but body. Collaborative partnerships and organizations working for the good life are relational and social spaces where we can actively contribute. Also, through civil society’s engagement, promising conceptual frameworks can be carried out through democracy in action, engendering transformative social change and environmental renewal. Integrating Afghan students into my online class, I actively collaborated with the Jesuit Worldwide Learning Program, offering higher education in the margins. My teaching stories can now be used to share what I know through a virtual learning organization, where we come together online. Elie Wiesel’s example of professorshipCopy used stories to teach his students in his classroom at the University of Boston. In Witness, a devoted student of his describes the powerful teaching methods of storytelling and how Wiesel bore witness to the holocaust in his Noble Prize–winning book, Night. 189 Wiesel sought to bear witness to victims in an attempt to let them know that they were not alone. We move together through the Medicine Wheel of Life. In the space of my oeuvre, I have come full circle in the Sundance Way of Life, designing new mandalas of wholeness and new ways of sharing what I know, bearing witness to my story of reunion with radical amazement. It seems that the years of separation are truly behind us now. We can appreciate our life together while watching how our family lines of inheritance unfold through Reviewthe next generation and in the world.

Following Reba and Hadley’s wedding, my sister Cathy wrote to thank me for making the effort to come with Katrina and Bastien. The separation at our birth no longer kept us from celebrating life together. I could accompany my sister and her daughter at the wedding, which is truly miraculous. During this period of life while Reba is pursuing her PhD as a nurse practitioner and founding her family, we enjoy conversations about healthcare research and practice, reinforcing intergenerativity. Our family relations were repaired through our ability to “home in” or find our way back home to each other. This homing in potential may lay dormant in many people, but when awakened, it has the ability to orient the dream of the future Librarianby offering a wave of possibilities that are called into being through creative and 189 Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom, (Boston ; New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018). 426 HOMING IN

positive intention. When we home in to our hearts, we become pathfinders, capable of finding our way to reunion, as in our case. But this innate human capacity can be activated for other forms of connecting, like hopefully homing in to working partnerships so that we can accomplish what Thomas Berry refers to as the Great Work ahead, endeavoring to bring forth a bright planetary future. Let our knock open mercy’s door. Copy

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Librarian CHAPTER 49

BEHOLDING THE SACRED VESSEL Copy n the fall of 2017, I had a dream. I was told to look for the meaning of the Holy Grail within the word. I saw “rail.” The Holy Chalice, also known as the I Holy Grail, is referred to as a vessel. Jesus drank from the chalice at the Last Supper, sharing it with his disciples—a Bible story that has transformed the world. The Holy Grail was revealed to me as the rail or rail-Way forward and a vessel or container for our quests. Our illnesses as well as our conflicts present an intrinsic potential for our becomingness. We are invited to understand them as metaphors. Illness narratives as well as conflict narratives open space as we speak and write of our sufferings. These story containers hold transformational potentialities. The viriditas or greenness of our narratives is broughtReview to fruition through the reflexive process. Newfound meaning resides in the hollow of our wounds, where a road map is hidden, indicating as well as informing the Holy Grail-Way. This experiential process of learning leads to insights or inner knowing, a form of wisdom or sophia. Self-discovery entails shining light into our conflict and illness narratives. As life happenings hollow us out, grace fills up the space. The hallowed chalice becomes a vessel, a vehicle giving the strength to rise stronger, resetting the course.190 Gnosis or knowledge of spiritual matters is gained and shared throughout the process. Mystical knowledgeability is generated as we set foot, walking as pilgrims beholding the wonder with radical amazement. Gracefully stepping, we are called to walk through life in a stepwisely manner. This insight corresponded with a trip to Berlin in the fall of 2017 with my Librarianyoungest daughter Jessica. I had unknowingly broken my fibula bone running on 190 Brown, Brené. Rising Strong How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. (Random House Inc, 2017). 428 HOMING IN

a mountain trail the week before, and the excruciating pain stayed with me as I visited the historical sites of Berlin. As I hobbled around, visiting the UNESCO museums at Museum Island and the many churches as well as the parliament building that had been destroyed during World War II and rebuilt, I could feel the pain of brokenness. My own brokenness was mirrored by the city’s history. “Ich bin ein Berliner” is a famous line from President Kennedy’s speech in 1963, the year of my birth, when he visited Berlin. “I am a Berliner” is a call to break down the walls that separate us. The people of Berlin rebuilt their city out of the rubble and the horror of the war. When the Berlin Wall fell, all of Germany celebrated the reunion—a defining moment in European history. But even after reunion, in the space of brokenness, suffering and pain lingers in the forms, much likeCopy the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, land marking destruction. My visit also reminded me of my birth father Michael’s grandmother Clara Alper, who had gone back to Berlin by boat just before the Second World War broke out. I was following in her footsteps back to the German capital. Her husband Henry had come to the United States from Hamburg; he worked on ships as a young man and took up writing as a pastime. Much later, Henry’s hand-written love poems where found among Grandma Beezy’s things, showing a handwriting and style that matches my own. My sister Michelle had lived and worked as a performer in Berlin. Now it was my turn to hobble through, finding my way to the Berlin Opera, Friedrichstadt Palast, and the top of the Berliner Dom.Review The transparent Reichstag dome on top of the German parliament building symbolizes how people are above the government, bearing witness to the German people’s reunification. Just like the structures that were bombed and destroyed, literal and metaphorical conflict rattles relational structures, affecting adopted children, children whose parents divorce, as well as all the children in refugee camps and those migrating in the hopes of finding asylum. All meet with different forms of adversity that weaken family frameworks. When our foundations have been hit hard, we become the vulnerable. Overcoming these different forms of brokenness requires both accepting and living with the pain. In Berlin, I hobbled, aware of my own brokenness but heartened by the German people’s resiliency. It was particularly uplifting in the Pergamon Museum, where the Babylon Gate is housed. We stumbled upon an exhibit at the Museum of Islamic Art, “Mystic LibrarianTravelers: Sufis, Ascetics, and Holy Men.” The artwork depicted the ultimate quest: SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 429

merging with the divine. Hung before our eyes were oriental scenes often associated with Rumi’s poetry. We were brought to yet another aesthetic encounter. My experience of brokenness has influenced how I define mediation. This may explain why I have been drawn to the definition of mediation as linkedness. It is a metaphor or concept of mediation that is positioned in contrast to brokenness or de-linkedness, elucidating how mediation re-links. Linkedness is a way to mend what has happened. Mediation is “in between,” holding together what has been broken or torn apart. Linkedness facilitates mending, like Symphytum or knit-bone, the homeopathic remedy for broken bones. When we are touched to the “marrow,” we are affected to the core—in our bones and marrow. This phrase points to where the Copybasic building blocks, our stem cells, are found. In the space of our brokenness, in our bones and marrow, we go deep into our core, touching a placeholder where our capacity to reconstruct and reset can be found. Stem cells can transform into any cell in our body. They are our lifeblood, circulating through our body in blood vessels. It is the vessel of mediatorship that heals our brokenness, transporting us to wholeness. I must have experienced what it means to “home in” already at the time of my birth. Had my little baby heart called out to my Father in heaven to find me a home? First, I was placed with foster parents, and then I was given to my adopted parents. My spiritual calling was a guiding force inspiring both my earthly search and spiritual quest with a kind of alchemy that has transformed my many relations. Searching or questing is part of our Reviewepigenetic makeup, allowing us to future form. Those adopted children who choose to look for their birth parents are faced with the need to access the inner homing device in the attempt to find their birth parents. How we perceive our searching process influences life expression and ultimately who we become along the Way. As we are interconnected, our becomingness ripples out in a form of connectivity that in-forms the relational matrix surrounding us. Our intentions undulate throughout the divine milieu and in our lifeblood, waking up the life-giving forces.

Pilgrimages have become an important part of my ongoing transformational process, sustaining and strengthening the quality of my relatedness. Shared pilgrimages reinforce bonds. Recently, on a trip to Annecy in France, Angelo and I visited the Librariantombs of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal in the Basilica of the Visitation 430 HOMING IN

overlooking the lake. Relationships are central in the Salesian context where living a relational spirituality in the midst of community, family, and friends gives value to the way one is with others. In Letters of Spiritual Direction, St. Jane de Chantal’s art of letting Jesus live is explained:

Her prayer was the iconic gesture of her total person as it inclined toward its God. There the depths of love, the heights of expectations, the hard facts of loss and grief could be gathered up and offered at the place within herself—that fine point of the soul—where explanation, construct, description and human knowledge fail and something of the immense and mysterious undivided will of God is grasped.Copy191 We are but works of art before the divine sculptor, waiting to see what form the final artwork will take. Each day invites us into a relationship with the divine where we can be sculpted by a loving, tender hand, offering us encounters that reveal the ineffable. Angelo and I have found coupling activities where we can continue to grow together, cultivating aesthetic discoveries. We have incorporated pilgrimages to cultural sites as a way to stay connected. As pilgrims we can appreciate the wealth of the culture in our region. Angelo especially appreciates the constructions that bear witness to the knowledge of the artisans, craftsmen, and builders. Together we discovered these two saints’ crypts that built a relationship that offered shelter to those in the region of Annecy. My hope is that we can continue to construct a loving relational Way in the years to come.Review In the varied forms of relational coupling, loved ones find shelter aboard relationships. Odysseys of discovery also happen in otherworldly dimensions. Sometimes the transformational process begins unconsciously, triggered by hardship. In Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, Dr. Eben Alexander wrote about his experience during a severe illness that brought him in contact with his deceased birth sister that he had never met before. She came as his guide in visions that he experienced while in a coma. Only later when he found his birth family did he see her picture and recognize her face, realizing his spiritual guide had been his deceased sister all along. He writes,

I was headed into the unknown, but by that point I had complete faith and trust that LibrarianI would be taken care of, as my companion on the butterfly wing and infinitely loving 191 John Farina, Editor-in-chief. Francis de Sales, Jane de Chantal, Letters of Spiritual Direction, (The Paulist Press, 1988), 86. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 431

Deity had promised—that wherever I went, Heaven would come with me. It would come in the form of the creator, of Om, and it would come in the form of the angel—my angel—the Girl on the Butterfly Wing. I was on the way back, but I was not alone— and I knew I’d never feel alone again.192

When I willfully began the search, I ignited a strong intention that resonated throughout the matrix of my relations, flaring forward. A pathway was forged with a trail marked by synchronicity and serendipitous happenings. Finding my birth family reinforced my ability to quest. The bliss of reunion has enkindled a heartfelt desire to unite with kindred spirits and co-create, appreciating kinship, doing future-forming research, and performing social innovation. Social artistryCopy allows us to transcend our collective story in unison. I have been writing to transform my relations, embarking upon a unique form of journeymanship as a modern journeywoman and using writing as a form of mediation while sharing what I know. This autoethnographic quest has allowed for self-transformation in an ongoing process to know myself and discover the ways of God as I am transported by the vessel of relationship. Throughout the search, while cultivating traditional as well as living wisdom, a partnership with the divine has been offered, manifesting the miracle of reunion. Through the passing on of the golden pocket watch, future generations will discover this timepiece, a mystical encounter. Even still I ask, “Can Earthship possibly bring forth a place where I am not the foreigner, a place where youReview and I belong?” The odyssey never ends for worldlings and wanderers who love to voyage! In the film Contact, Jodie Foster takes a mystical flight where she encounters a form of consciousness in what appears to be outer space. Her contact takes on the appearance of her beloved father, embodying a form of benevolence in a familiar landscape. He explains, “In all our searching, the only thing we found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.” Like a novel without a final chapter or a parade without an end, a storied life too moves forward through never-ending horizons of becomingness that will not be caught on page. Resembling the Tree of Life that grows into the future, lines of inheritance extend toward higher forms of expression. In the twelfth century, southern Italy’s Otranto Cathedral had a mosaic floor laid representing the Tree Librarianof Life that is also a Tree of Wisdom. Covering the cathedral’s entire floor with 192 Alexander Eben, Into the Afterlife: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey Into the Afterlife, (Simon and Schuster New York, 2012), 104. 432 HOMING IN

an allegorical history of human life, the tree grows upward toward the altar with biblical stories and symbols branching through the aisles of the church. When I visited with Jessica, I experienced the Tree of Life underfoot continually growing, carrying us with it. In Chartres Cathedral a stained-glass window portrays the Tree of Jesse in an artistic depiction of the ancestors of Christ. Symbolically, the family tree is a schematic representation of genealogy. The Tree of Jesse is metaphorically described in the Book of Isaiah, representing the descent of the Messiah. My family tree continues to sprout with the birth of grandchildren. When a spring trumpet sounded the coming of this first tide of arrivals just as the crocus appeared in the meadows, I felt a sense of completion. The purple and whiteCopy flowers seemed to announce the birth with an ethereal note in a partition that delicately rings forth, Nevin was born to Katrina and Bastien on April 29, 2018. His birth assures that the family tale is yet unfinished and the folk opera’s final act is yet to come. Much like a sign on a road map, his birth was marked by a full moon. In his waking dreams, with fluttering eyes that suggest deep dream states that capture the regard of an old soul, he is actively interweaving the past, present, and future. New life is crafting an interlaced oneiric pathway, giving rise to traces of all there is to come— the bridge to our shared future. The week before Nevin’s baptism that brought together his Swiss family as well as Ruth Ann and Michael, we traveled to Genova. As part of the comings and goings that mark historical events with livedReview synchronicity, Jessica, Angelo, and I visited the emerald glass vessel known as the Holy Grail, a treasure kept in the St. Lorenzo Cathedral. The sacro catino was taken by Napoleon and broken during the voyage to France.193 What was taken was ultimately given back: restored. The emerald Holy Grail reflects a greenish hue through the treasure case, its missing piece seemingly repaired. We are storied beings. Subsequently, the power myth has to transform life history is ever present. Refashioned and retold, the Holy Grail is a vessel, a sacred quest, and a legend with the power to enchant and transform. Storying gives form to existence. Our stories are an intricate part of our cultural inheritance. By recognizing the significance of synchronicities, additional layers of meaning and signification are invited to permeate reality, revealing a sacredness hiding behind the thinning veil. LibrarianThe date of Nevin’s baptism, October 28, fell on the traditional Christ the King 193 Juliette Wood, Eternal Chalice: the Enduring Legend of the Holy Grail, (London ; New York, NY : New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 433

Feast, aligning our family’s celebration with Christ’s kingship just when the larch trees turned gold. The Christ the King Feast’s significance is associated with the ending of the liturgical year, a crowning moment and yet another “showing.” Coleman Barks entitled one of his books of Rumi’s poetry The Book of Love.194 This story is truly my own Book of Love, and I place it on the altar of life as an offering to the Beloved. My life is the love poem I could not write but live. Hopefully, my readership has gained an increased ability to recognize patterns, as well as the capacity to experience relational mind through the lens of reunion. In this storymind, we meet in a quintessential field where the potentiality of lifeworlds is reconfigured. Through acknowledgement, the kaleidoscope of our universal ground floor transforms colors, shapes, and meanings into Copyhopeful tomorrows. Metaphors of transformation can be seen in alchemical symbols. We wear and adorn ourselves with circles in the form of wedding rings, medicine shields, flower wreaths, and golden crowns. Aesthetic mandala forms weave together archetypical metaphors, teaching stories, relationships, and pathways to spiritual transformation in the Sundance Way of Life. The journey is a vision quest on the medicine wheel in the “sun-wise direction.” As I hold the Book of Changes, the I-Ching falls opens to “On the earth is water: the image of Holding Together,” an offering for this ending. Here, hexagram, genograme, life-o-gram, and narrative transformagram are intricately laced together. As we behold, we actively transform the image. When seen from space our emerald planet, Earthship takes on the form Reviewof chalice, vessel, and sacred container, holding us together.

Godspeed.

Librarian 194 Jalal al-Din Rami, and Coleman Barks, Rumi: the Book of Love: Poems of Ecstacy and Longing, (New York: HarperCollins, 2005). Copy

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annah Arendt’s work underscores the importance of what she refers to as natality by affirming that life begins with birth and our birth is our H foundation for freedom. She made that idea her central category of political thought, founding agency on natality. Indeed, it is by embracingCopy the complexity of our life histories and aesthetic narratives that we become beautiful, emancipated works of art. After coming to terms with the loss of Blackbird Bend Farm, I can accept that there are new spots of beauty where we can all come together with the next generation. The places my parents enjoyed on vacation led us each to acquire homes in beautiful places. Now I live in the Alps, which remind me of the Rocky Mountains, and Nancy has a lake house on Osage Beach in the Ozarks, another of our family vacation spots. We have moved on from the landscapes of our childhood. Places evoke memories and remembrance. We continue to enjoy the natural environments that our parents appreciated, tapping into the energy of our youth. During two memorable summers whenReview Nancy and I vacationed together at her lake house, we sat on the deck and watched the full moon rise over the water, talking about our childhood and rehashing the past. We celebrated my mother Jan’s seventy-fifth birthday at the lake. She came down to the lake to be with her girls, leaving her husband Bob behind. My father was with us in spirit, present entre nous. It was as if he was floating on the sacred Ozark waters in a holographic shrine, coming home to be with us so that we could find peace and become whole. Wholeness for me has been finding peace and reconciliation in all my families, by laying to rest the issues that at times felt unresolved. Working through it all has required me to learn to coordinate complexity. By embracing the deep aesthetic content in these storylines, I have been able to enrich my experience of relatedness in all my families. There has been a rippling effect. The promises that new generations bring can be seen on the horizon. Through the phenomena of convergence, all my families are united and can celebrate life Librariantogether in the present, even though the circumstance of my birth began with separation. Reunion has been an amazing grace. All my siblings’ children can now 436 HOMING IN

draw upon their known heritage to better lifescape the future. This promised land is our shared destiny on/in Earthship: God’s oeuvre through time, inviting us to participate in the glory making with radical amazement. It is in this space of co-creation, or entre nous, that we are invited to co-construct fulfilling lifeworlds together. We are earthborn in Earthship. Looking back, I can see my life was less about possessing the farmland and more about the freedom to walk the land. There is a shift from owning to being. The central metaphor and transitional object that I have used isn’t just about receiving the pocket watch, but the capacity to see the many other gifts I received with gratefulness. Writing aided me to move through a process from blaming to acceptance in a liberating act of witnessing: writing for emancipation. FromCopy a place of radical amazement, this story mandala has taken form. Hear my voice telling stories by the campfire under heaven’s stars. Be enchanted and awed. Framing my life as an adopted child, and not an abandoned child as the French language does, changes the storyline too. Seeing how my multiple families are all sources of nurturance is affirming. Having given birth to my children, I can now accompany them in their lives’ fruition, enjoying a sense of accomplishment with my husband. Again, my life hasn’t been so much about being muzzled by clannish authoritarian and chauvinistic powers as it has been about finding a way to share knowledge and findings with the international scientific community. Possibly my life has been less about the disappointment of leaving positions behind and much more about discovering new avenues of developmentReview and inquiry—new partnerships. Recognition can come from within through thankfulness, revealing and honoring our own uniqueness and bearing witness to moments of epiphany within our own poetic narratives. Even synchronicity’s importance fades when we can see that God is everywhere and the path is each step. Most importantly, life is about loving the ones we have been given to love, those who replace the others who have gone. What I have not recounted may be even more powerful than what I have penned, and I recognize the limitations inherent in writing life. This narrative, in trying to make sense of things, is allowing me to orient my way of being in the world. Social poetics allow us to reorient, questioning the language patterns that configure our relations. After finding my birth family and discovering our genogram, I have drawn on remembered experiences that have become a concrescence of life-o- grams, organically growing together in this story mandala, while seeking higher Librarianlevels of congruence in a shared transformagram . SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 437

If we are “to find our way about” inside our own linguistically shaped forms of life, we need to grasp the “landscape” of their internal relations, or their “grammatical geographies,” so to speak. But to achieve such a synoptic sense of its immense complexities, as well as curing ourselves of the many temptations to see it in general terms, as much more simple than it in fact is, we also have to explore its grammatical geography close up, in detail, and without end.195

Social poetics offers a way to explore without end the complexities that face us. Exploring the circumstances of my birth, my natality, is a way to exercise freedom. Emancipatory processes take us on pilgrimages where the hero’s journey is a transformational process, presenting endless landscapes of meaningCopy for us to decipher. Here, synchronicity guides and informs the pathfinder.

The End Review

Librarian 195 John Shotter. Accessed in March 2018. http://www.johnshotter.com/2014/12/17/the-methods-of-a- social-poetics-2/ Copy

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Librarian ABOUT THE AUTHOR

usan Mossman Riva graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder in 1986 S with a degree in International Relations. She later completed the European Master in Mediation in Copy Valais, Switzerland and created a mediation service for political asylum seekers for the Valais Canton. In 2009, she received her doctorate in the Social Sciences at the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands. Her thesis was entitled “Conflict Narratives: Mediation Case Studies in an Intercultural Context.” Her postdoctoral work has been in public health research focusing on mental health, immigrant health, and hopeful, healthy aging within the Senior Living Lab. She teaches social psychology at the Valais College of Alternative Medicine, mediation at the University of Geneva’s Valais Campus, and medical anthropology at Creighton ReviewUniversity in the Department of Cultural and Social Studies. For more information on Susan Mossman Riva, visit her website at http://www.susanmossmanrivawrites.com

Key concepts

A culture of care (Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home) Abbey Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Foundation, The Akaisha Areté Autoethnography Autoethnography and self-transformation Collaborative and Dialogical Practices LibrarianConcerning the spiritual in art (Kandinsky) Connected universe theories 440 HOMING IN

Connectivity-health model Convergence Family Constellations (Bert Hellinger) Films: Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Contact, The Matrix Generative grammar Healing effects of forgiveness Healing conversations and family therapy Homeopathic remedies (Hahnemann) I Ching Illness Narratives (Arthur Kleinman) Jungian psychology: synchronicity, archetypes, mandalas, dreamCopy analysis King James Version of the Bible Legends of the Holy Grail Liberation theology and hope (Paul Farmer) Lifescaping Linkedness Living wisdom or sophia Mediatorship (Ruth Burrows) Morphogenic fields Narrative conflict resolution Narrative Model in Mediation Otherness Review Polyphony and Dialogism (Mikhail Bakhtin) Radical Presence (Sheila McNamee) Rebirthing Relational being (Kenneth Gergen) Relational mind Relational lexus theory Research as accompaniment Rumi, Sufi mystic Serendipity Shepherding Social Constructionism Social transformation and social change processes LibrarianSupersymmetry or SUSY SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 441

The Dream of the Earth and The Great Work: our way forward (Thomas Berry) The Forum of Religion and Ecology: The Earth Charter The Four Arrows and the Sundance Way of Life The Pollack Museum in New York The Power of Myth (Campbell) Transformagrams UNESCO World Heritage sites Viriditas or greeness (St. Hildegard Von Bingen) Vibrational Medicine Winnicot-transitional objects and holding environments Copy

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Librarian Like a tumbleweed carried by the wind, these books and references stuck to me: BIBLIOGRAPHY Copy Atuobi, Patrick, Anthony Obeng Boamah, and Sjaak van der Geest. Life, Love and Death: Conversations with Six Elders in Kwahu-Tafo, Ghana. Amsterdam: Spinhuis Publishers, 2005. Adams, Tony E., Stacy Linn Holman Jones, and Carolyn Ellis. Autoethnography. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Alexander, Eben. Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey Into the Afterlife. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012. Anderson, Harlene. Conversation, Language, and Possibilities: A Postmodern Approach to Therapy. 1st ed. New York, NY: BasicBooks,Review 1997. Alexander, Patricia. “Relational Thinking and Relational Reasoning: Harnessing the Power of Patterning,” in Npj Science of Learning (2016) 1, 16004; doi: https:// www.nature.com/articles/npjscilearn20164 (Accessed March 2018). Association for Research and Enlightenment. “Akashik Records—The Book of Life.” Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. https://www.edgarcayce.org/the-readings/akashic- records/ (Accessed April 26, 2019). Au, Wilkie, and Noreen Cannon. The Grateful Heart: Living the Christian Message. New York: Paulist Press, 2011. Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Berry, Thomas. The Dream of the Earth. Berkley, CA: Counterpoint, 2015. LibrarianBerry, Thomas. The Great Work: Our Way Into the Future. New York, NY: Bell Tower, 2000. 444 HOMING IN

Biehl, João Guilherme, and Peter Andrew Locke, Eds. Unfinished: The Anthropology of Becoming. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017. Bourdieu, Pierre. Masculine Domination. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. Bowie, Fiona, and European Association of Social Anthropologists. Cross-Cultural Approaches to Adoption. New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. Bronson, Father Thomas. The Spirituality of Adoption. https://www.pactadopt.org/ app/servlet/documentapp.DisplayDocument?DocID=382 (Accessed August 2018). Copy Brown, Brené. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2010. Brown, Brené. Rising Strong How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way we Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. New York, NY: Random House, 2017. Buber, Martin, and Walter Arnold Kaufmann. I and Thou: Martin Buber: A New Translation With a Prologue, “I and You” and Notes. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1970. Burger, Ariel. Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom. Boston, MA: Mifflin Harcourt, 2018. Burrows, Ruth. The Essence of Prayer. Mahwah,Review NJ: Hidden Spring, 2006. Burrows, Ruth. To Believe in Jesus. Mahwah, NJ: Hidden Spring, 2010. Byron, Kaitie and Carol Williams. Who Would You Be Without Your Story?: Dialogues with Byron Katie. 1st ed. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2008. Caduto, Michael J., and Joseph Bruchac. Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants Through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Pub., 1995. Caduto, Michael J., Joseph Bruchac, Ka-Hon-Hes, and Carol Wood. Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Pub., 1988. Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Creative Mythology. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1968. LibrarianCatellin, Sylvie. Sérendipité: Du Conte au Concept. Science Ouverte. Paris: Seuil, 2014. Cather, Willa. O, Pioneers! New York, NY: New American Library, 1989. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 445

Christakis, Nicholas A., and James H. Fowler. Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. 1 ed. New York, NY: Little Brown, 2009. Church, Dawson. The Genie in Your Genes: Epigenetic Medicine and the New Biology of Intention. Santa Rosa, Calif: Elite Books, 2007. Clandinin, D. Jean. “Engaging in Narrative Inquiry,” in Developing Qualitative Inquiry, volume 9. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, Inc, 2013. Cobb, Sara B. “Speaking of Violence: The Politics and Poetics of Narrative Dynamics in Conflict Resolution,” in Explorations in Narrative Psychology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Copy Cooperrider, David L., Diana Whitney, and Jacqueline M. Stavros. Appreciative Inquiry Handbook: For Leaders of Change. Second edition. Brunswick, Ohio: Crown Custom, 2008. Darwin, John. “In the Footsteps of St. Ignatius.” Creighton Magazine, 2018. https:// www.creighton.edu/creightonmagazine/2018smrunewsdialogueinthefootsteps/ (Accessed November 16, 2018). De Chardin, Teilhard. The Divine Milieu. New York, NY: Harper Torchbooks, 1960. Denzin, Norman K. Interpretive Autoethnography. Second edition. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2014. Review Di Giacomo, Susan M. “Metaphor as Illness: Postmodern Dilemmas in the Representation of Body, Mind, and Disorder,” in Medical Anthropology. Vol. 14, pp.109-137, 1992. “Donald Winnicott.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald Winnicott (Retrieved January 29, 2019). Earth Charter Initiative, http://earthcharter.org (Accessed April 28, 2019). Ellingson, Laura L. and Carolyn Ellis. “Autoethnography as Constructionist Project,” in Handbook of Constructionist Research, edited by James Holstein and Jaber Gubrium, New York, NY: The Gilford Press, 2008. Emoto, Masaru. Messages from Water and the Universe. 1st ed. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2010. LibrarianEstés, Clarissa Pinlola. La Danse des Grand-méres, Sur La Jeunesse de L’àge Mûr et la Maturité de la Jeunesse. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 2007. 446 HOMING IN

Farina, John. Francis de Sales, Jane de Chantal, Letters of Spiritual Direction. Omaha, NE: The Paulist Press, 1988. Faulkner, William. “Banquet Speech.” Speech, Stockholm, Sweden, December 10, 1950. Nobel Prize. https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/ laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html (Accessed April 2019). Feldman, Nancy Kacirek, and Rebecca Crofoot. Family Medical History: Unknown/ Adopted: How a Routine Inquiry Led to Unexpected Answers For an Adopted Woman. Omaha, NE: Becknan Publishing, 2014. Fineman, Martha. The Autonomy Myth: A Theory of Dependency. New York, NY: The New Press, 2004. Copy Francis. Laudato Si’. 1st edition. Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Pub, 2015. Frankl, Viktor E. Man’s Search For Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1984. Foote, Shelby, and Rafael Palacios. The Civil War, A Narrative. New York, NY: Random House, 2011. Formenti, Laura, and Linden West. Transforming Perspectives in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education: A Dialogue. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Fredrickson, Barbara. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive. Oxford: Oneworld, 2011.Review Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of Hope, Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. Robert R. Barr, New York: Bloomsbury, 1994. Gerber, Richard. Vibrational Medicine: The #1 Handbook of Subtle-Energy Therapies. Rochester, VT: Bear & Company, 2001. Gergen, Kenneth J. “From Mirroring to World-Making: Research as Future Forming,” in Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 45(3), 2015. Gergen, Kenneth J. Realities and Relationships, Soundings in Social Construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. Gergen, Kenneth J. Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Ginsberg, Paul. Quotation, Family Matters: Portraits and Experiences of Family LibrarianToday, Family Matters, CCC Strozzina Museum, Florence, Italy. Glaser, Barney G. The Grounded Theory Perspective: Its Origin and Growth. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press, 2016. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 447

Good, Byron. “Medicine, Rationality, and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective,” in The Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures 1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Gribbin, John. In Search of SUSY Supersymmetry and The Theory of Everything. London,UK: Penguin Books, 1998. Griffin, John Howard.Black Like Me. New York, NY: Signet, 2010. Griffin, Michael P., and Jennie Weiss Block, eds. In the Company of the Poor: Conversations Between Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013. Copy Half the Sky Movement, http://www.halftheskymovement.org (Accessed April 27, 2019). Hampson, Rick. “Ground Zero Cross a Powerful Symbol for 9/11 Museum.” USA Today. May 13, 2014. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/13/911- ground-zero-museum-cross-world-trade-center/8907003/ (Accessed April 2019). “HeartMath Institute Research Library.” HeartMath Institute. https://www.heartmath. org/research/research-library/ (Accessed April 2019). Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Arnold V. Miller, and J. N. Findlay. Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977. Hellinger, Bert, Gunthard Weber, andReview Hunter Beaumont. Love’s Hidden Symmetry: What Makes Love Work in Relationships. Phoenix, AZ: Zeig, Tucker, 1998. Henderson, Caspar. A New Map of Wonders, A Journey in Search of Modern Marvels. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2017. Hennessy, Kate. Dorothy Day: The World Will be Saved by Beauty: An Intimate Portrait of My Grandmother. New York, NY: Scribner, 2017. Heschel, Abraham Joshua. God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism. London: Souvenir Press Ltd, 2009. Heschel, Abraham Joshua. Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Prophets. New York, NY: Perennial, 2001. Heyward, Du Bose, and Marjorie Hack. The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes. LibrarianBoston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 1967. Hildegard. Hildegard von Bingen’s Mystical Visions: Translated from Scivias by Bruce 448 HOMING IN

Hozeski. Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Company, 1995. Hinton, D., and L. J. Kirmayer. The Flexibility Hypothesis of Healing. Cult Med Psychiatry (2017) 41:3-34. Hoeller, Stephan A. The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2009. Howell, Signe. “Kinning: the Creating of Life Trajectories in Transnational Adoptive Families,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Volume 9, Issue 3, (September 2003), 465-484. Jalal al-Din Rumi and Coleman Barks. Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems ofCopy Ecstacy and Longing. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Jalal al-Din Rumi and Coleman Barks. The Essential Rumi. San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1995. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, “John F. Kennedy’s Favorite Quotations: Danté’s Inferno,” https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research- Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Fast-Facts/Dante.aspx (Accessed April 26, 2019). Jonsson, Melissa Joy. Little Book of Big Potentials: 24 Fields of Flow, Fulfillment, Abundance, and Joy in Everyday Life. Seattle, WA: Heart-Field, 2013. Julian of Norwich, trans. Elizabeth Spearing and A. C. Spearing. Revelations of Divine Love (Short Text and Long Text). NewReview York, NY: Penguin Books, 1998. Jung, Carl. qtd. in “Quotable Quotes,” Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/ quotes/44379-until-you-make-the-unconscious-conscious-it-will-direct-your (Accessed January 30, 2019). Jung, Carl and Sonu Shamdasani. The Red Book: Liber Novus. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co, 2009. Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Hyperion, 2005. Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1977. Keltner, Dacher. Born to Be Good: the Science of a Meaningful Life. 1st ed. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co, 2009. LibrarianKleinman, Arthur. The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1989. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 449

Laszlo, Ervin, and Kingsley Dennis. Dawn of the Akashic Age: New Consciousness, Quantum Resonance, and the Future of the World. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2013. Lederach, John Paul. The Journey Toward Reconciliation. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1999. Lesser, Elizabeth. Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow. New York, NY: Villard, 2005. Lindbergh, Anne Morrow, Gift from the Sea. New York, NY: Pantheon, 1997. Locke, Margaret, and Gísli Pálsson. Can Science Resolve the Nature-NurtureCopy Debate? Cambridge: Polity, 2016. Luskin, Fred. Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2003. Lynch, Nessa, “Respecting Legal Rights in the New Zealand Youth Justice Family Group Conference,” in Current Issues in Criminal Justice, Vol 19 number 1, July 2007. http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/CICrimJust/2007/17.pdf (Accessed April 2019). Manné, Joy. Conscious Breathing: How Shamanic Breathwork Can Transform Your Life. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2004. Manné, Joy. Family Constellations: A PracticalReview Guide to Uncovering the Origins of Family Conflict. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2009. “Mary Magdalene, Apostle of the Apostles, 10.06.2016,” La Santa Sede. https://press. vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2016/06/10/160610c.html (Accessed July 2018). Mascetti, Manuela Dunn, and Rumi/Mathnawi. Rumi the Path of Love. I, I-8, 33, Element Books Limited, 1999. McNamee, Sheila. “Radical Presence: Alternatives to the Therapeutic State,” in European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counseling, 17: 4, 373-383, DOI: 10.1080/12642537.2015.1094504. McNamee, Sheila, and Kenneth J. Gergen. Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999. LibrarianMcNamee, Sheila, and Kenneth J. Gergen. “Therapy as Social Construction,” in Inquiries in Social Construction. London: Sage Publications, 1992. 450 HOMING IN

Mead, Margaret. qted in Bill McKibben. “How The Iconic 1968 Earthrise Photo Changed Our Relationship To The Planet.” Common Dreams. December 11, 2018: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/12/06/how-iconic-1968-earthrise- photo-changed-our-relationship-planet. Meuret, Michel, and Frederick D. Provenza. The Art & Science of Shepherding: Tapping the Wisdom of French Herders. trans. Bruce Inksetter and Melanie Guedenet. Austin, TX: ACRES, 2014. Miller, Daphne. Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach us About Health and Healing. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2013. Mingers, John, “The Cognitive Theories of Maturana and Varela,” in SystemCopy Practice, 4, 1991: 319. Moody, Raymond A. Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon-Survival of Bodily Death. San Francisco, CA: Harper, 2001. Musher, Sharon Ann. Democratic Art: The New Deal’s Influence on American Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Myss, Caroline M. Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing. New York, NY: Penguin Random House, 1996. Nouwen, Henri Josef Machiel. The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1995. Review O’Dea, James. Cultivating Peace: Becoming a 21st Century Peace Ambassador. San Rafael, CA: Shift Books, 2012. Odent, Michel. Birth and Breastfeeding: Rediscovering the Needs of Women in Pregnancy and Childbirth. Forest Row, UK: Clairview, 2007. Patterson, David A. Literature and Spirit: Essays on Bakhtin and His Contemporaries. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2014. Paul, John II. “Pope John Paul II Apostolic Pilgrimage to India 1986.” The Holy See. https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/travels/1986/travels/documents/ trav_india.html (Accessed February 2018). Pert, Candace B. Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel. New York, NY: Scribner, 1997. LibrarianPipher, Mary Bray. Writing to Change the World. New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2006. SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 451

Randall, William, and A. Elizabeth McKim. Reading Our Lives: the Poetics of Growing Old. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Randall, William, and A. Elizabeth McKim. “Toward a Poetics of Aging: The Link Between Literature and Life,” in Narrative Inquiry, 14(2): 235-260. 2004. Riva-Mossman, Susan Kay. “Aging in Resilient Communities: An Alpine Case Study: The Senior Living Lab Experience,” in J Aging Sci, 6:3, 2018. Riva-Mossman, Susan Kay. “Conflict Narratives: Mediation Case Studies in an Intercultural Context.” Tilburg University, 2009. https://www.taosinstitute.net/ Websites/taos/files/Content/5693761/Susi_Riva_-_Conflict_Narratives.pdf.Copy Robinson, Andrew. “In Theory Bakhtin: Dialogism, Polyphony, and Heteroglossia,” Cease Fire Magazine. https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-bakhtin-1/ (Accessed March 2018). Rook, Graham A. W., Christopher A. Lowry, and Charles. L. Raison. “Microbial ‘Old Friends,” Immunoregulation and Stress Resilience,” in Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, 2013(1), 46–64. http://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eot004. Rudd, Carol. Essences Florales. Cologne: Könemann, 1999. Sanchez, Patricia Datchuck. A God of Many Faces, June 2012. https://www.ncronline. org/blogs/spiritual-reflections/god-many-faces (Accessed April 27, 2019). Saraceno, Chiara. Quotation, “MakingReview the Connections: Family, Plural Families,” in Family Matters. CCC Strozzina Museum, Florence, Italy. Sawyer, Richard D., and Joe Norris. Duoethnography. Understanding Qualitative Research. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Shetter, William Z. My Conversation with Sophia: Reflections on Wisdoms Contemplative Path. Place of publication not identified: iUniverse Com, 2014. Shotter, John. Conversational Realities Revisited: Life, Language, Body and World, Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications, 2008. Shotter, John. Social Accountability and Selfhood. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute Publications, 2015. Shotter, John. The Methods of Social Poetics, 2014. http://www.johnshotter. com/2014/12/17/the-methods-of-a-social-poetics-2/ (Accessed March 2018). LibrarianSiegel, Daniel J. The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. 2nd ed. New York: Guilford Press, 2012. 452 HOMING IN

Smith, Emily Esfahani. The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters. First Edition. New York, NY: Crown, 2017. Solomon, Andrew. Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity. New York, NY: Scribner, 2012. Sontag, Susan, and David Rieff. Essays of the 1960s & 70s. New York, NY: The Library of America, 2013. Stiffler, LaVonne Harper.Synchronicity and Reunion: the Genetic Connection of Adoptees and Birth Parents. Hobe Sound, FL: FEA Pub, 1992. Storm, Hyemeyohsts. Seven Arrows. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1988.Copy Strand, Greg. “Sunday: Resurrection-‘Peace be with You (John 20:19).’” Evangelical Free Church of America. https://www.efca.org/blog/sunday-resurrection (Accessed April 2019). Suk, Ian, and Rafael J. Tamargo. “Concealed Neuroanatomy in Michelangelo’s Separation of Light from Darkness in the Sistine Chapel,” in Neurosurgery, May 2010. Swimme, Brian, and Mary Evelyn Tucker. Journey of the Universe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011. “Symbols of Motherhood,” Ancient Symbols. https://www.ancient-symbols.com/ motherhood-symbols.html (AccessedReview April 2019). Taylor, Barbara Brown. An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2010. Taylor, Barbara Brown. The Preaching Life. London, UK: Canterbury Press, 2013. The Tibetan Book of the Dead or The After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, According to Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English Rendering, Translated by W.Y. Evans-Wentz, 3rd ed. London, UK: Oxford University Press, 1957. Trinidad, Jose Eos. “Interdisciplinarity and Ignatian Pedagogy.” Perspectives in the Arts and Humanities Asia. [S.l.], v. 7, n. 2, Oct. 2017. https://journals.ateneo.edu/ ojs/index.php/apah/article/view/2750 (Accessed April 29, 2019). Turner, Lydia. International Perspectives on Autoethnographic Research and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. LibrarianVan Reybrouck, David, and Liz Waters. Against Elections: The Case for Democracy. London: The Bodley Head, 2016. “The Via Matris,” Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows. http://www.ols.org/prayer-life/ SUSAN MOSSMAN RIVA 453

congregation-devotions/devotion-to-our-lady-of-sorrows/via-matris/ (Accessed July 1018). Vincent, J. et al. “Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults,” in American Journal of Preventative Medicine, 14(4). 245-258, May 1998. Vygotskij, Lev S., and Michael Cole. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1981. Watkins, Mary. “Psychosocial Accompaniment,” in Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3(1) 324-341. 2015. Copy White, Michael. Maps of Narrative Practice. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co, 2007. White, Michael, and David Epston. Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. New York, NY: Norton, 1990. Whitehead, Alfred North, David Ray Griffin, and Donald W. Sherburne. “Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology,” in Corrected ed. Gifford Lectures 192728. New York, NY: Free Press, 1978. Whitehouse, Peter J., and Daniel George. The Myth of Alzheimer’s: What You Aren’t Being Told About Today’s Most Dreaded Diagnosis. 1st ed. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2008. Whitman, Walt. Poems, Walt WhitmanReview, Leaves of Grass. New York , Boni and Liveright, 1921. Wilkinson, Richard G., and Kate Pickett. The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone’s Well-Being. London: Allen Lane, 2018. Wilkinson, Ian, and Arthur Kleinman, A Passion for Society: How We Think About Human Suffering, California Series in Public Anthropology 35. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2016. Winslade, John, and Gerald Monk. Narrative Mediation: a New Approach to Conflict Resolution. 1st ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2000. Winslade, John, and Gerald Monk. Practicing Narrative Mediation: Loosening the Grip of Conflict. 1st ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2008. LibrarianWilhelm, Richard, translation, I Ching or Book of Changes, Arkana published by the Penguin Group, London, England, 1989. 454 HOMING IN

Wilkinson, Iain, and Arthur Kleinman. “A Passion for Society: How We Think about Human Suffering,” in California Series in Public Anthropology 35. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016. Wood, Alex, and Chopra Deepak. “The Role of Gratitude in Spiritual Well-being in Asymptomatic Heart Failure Patients,” in Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 2, 5-17, 2015. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4507265/ (Accessed April 2019). Wood, Juliette. Eternal Chalice: the Enduring Legend of the Holy Grail. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. World Health Organization. A Conceptual Framework for Action on the SocialCopy Determinants of Health: Debates, Policy & Practice, Case Studies. 2010. Retrieved from http://apps. who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/44489/1/9789241500852_eng.pdf Zwier, Paul J. Principled Negotiation and Mediation in the International Arena: Talking With Evil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

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