All Shall Be Well

Introduction To Julian Of Norwich

Julian of Norwich is recognized as one of England's most important mystics. 

Let's jump back in time to meet this remarkable woman.

 
But all shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing
shall be well !
— Julian of Norwich
 

A baby girl was born ln England in 1342. Because little was recorded for average folks during that time in history, we don't even know her given birth name.

Julian's name is taken from the Church of St. Julian in Norwich where she lived as an anchoress for most of her life.

Life In The 14th Century

Julian lived in England in the 14th century during the turbulent Middle Ages, a time fraught with plague, famine and war. 

  • In 1337, England and France started the Hundred Year's War for supremacy over Europe.

  • In 1347, the Black Death swept across all of Europe, including England, and wiped out nearly 40% to 50% of the entire population.

  • In 1399, Richard II became the new King of England.

 
 

A Book In English Written By A Woman

Many people write books today. They plop themselves down in front of a computer and start typing away. Books pop out with hardcovers and as paperbacks or, now-a-days, in a digital format. There is a plethora of books written in English. 

But, how would you go about writing a book in the 14th century? 

Julian of Norwich managed to do just that.

Her text is believed to be the earliest surviving book in the English language written by a woman. Known as Revelations of Divine Love, it's a combination of The Short Text and The Long Text and consists of 86 chapters and about 63,500 words.

During this time in English history, laywomen were usually not educated. They didn't read, much less write anything, and they certainly didn't write in the spoken language of the day. Written documents of the Church were predominatly in Latin.

Equally astonishing, it's possible that in the beginning, Julian taught herself to read and write in both Latin and English.

Life As An Anchoress

An anchorite, or anchoress (female), is "one who retires from the world."

A person withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic life. They would have a permanent enclosure in a cell attached to church. 

This goes beyond the tiny-house phenomena of today. These cells (called an anchorhold) were often no more than 12 to 15 ft square and once the anchorite entered the minuscule space, the only way they could leave would be upon their death. They were attended by a maid who would bring them food and dispose of their bodily waste by means of a chamber pot.

The anchoritic life became widespread during the early and high Middle Ages and a large number of them were in England.

In the post Locked up forever in the wall of a church, we read:

 
By Julian’s day, the retirement of an anchoress into her cell had become a formal rite in the church. An anchorhold was attached to a church, it had no doors and the inhabitant was formally enclosed by the bishop.

The rite actually involved receiving the sacraments of the dying and reading of the Office of the Dead over her as she was bricked up in her cell.

Some anchoresses were enclosed with open graves in their cells, so that they might meditate upon their mortality. When they died, the windows to their cells were simply closed and sealed.
 

Anchorites would spend their days in prayer, viewing the altar, hearing Mass and receiving the Eucharist through a small, shuttered window in their cell. They would also provide spiritual advice and counsel to visitors through the window.

Julian of Norwich became an anchoress around the age of 30, after the loss of her family and following a severe illness wherein she experienced spiritual visions.

Her writings created a lasting impression on Christian spirituality. Her mystic expression continues to touch people's lives, even 600 years later.

God Is Love And Love Is God

The prominent theme in Julian's writings was her experience that God is Love.

That she could write of a loving God was no small feat in this rough time of history. As a young child, Julian witnessed the death of numerous villagers and members of her natal family. Later, she would lose her own two children and her husband to the plague.

Even the Church tended to view God as a stern and implacable task master. God was easily displeased and only accessed through the intermediary person of a priest. God was viewed as being aloof as he sat on high peering down on us. 

To say God is Love, given her personal circumstances as well as the prevailing thought of her time is noteworthy. For Julian, God expressed in spirit as both our mother and father and she spoke of experiencing a deep and profound love, personally, without the need of an intermediary. She wrote of God's love in terms of joy and compassion.

 
Would you know our Lord’s meaning in all this?
Learn it well.
Love was the meaning.
Who showed it you? Love.
What did God show you? Love.
Why did God show it to you? For love.
Hold fast to this and you shall learn and know more about love,
but you shall never learn anything except love from God.
So I was taught that love was our Lord’s meaning.
And I saw full surely that before ever God made us,
God loved us.

For part of the time she resided in her cell, Julian had a cat as a companion and is often depicted in drawings with her feline friend.

In the Anglican and Lutheran churches, Julian's Feast Day is celebrated on May 8.

The Roman Catholic Church honors her on May 13.

And all of us can celebrate her life any day.

 

Bake Your Election Day Cake

Election Day Is Nigh

National and midterm elections in the United States take place every two years.

Some people are glued to their television sets to follow minute-by-minute results.

Others, to avoid the stress of it all, keep their tv sets off and check the results once the drama is all over.

Take A Stroll Into The Past

If we were whisked back to colonial times, we'd find ourselves busy preparing our Election Cakes. In early America, Election Day was an important celebration, second only to Thanksgiving.

Our Puritan ancestors did not acknowledge the religious holidays of Christmas or Easter, believing they were too connected to Papist idolatry. Furthermore, to say that religious, "holy days" existed implied that other days of the year were not holy which was not acceptable to them.

Election Day, therefore, provided a rare chance to celebrate in high fashion. Parades filled the streets. People came to town from outlying areas and everyone fêted the day with religious ceremonies, dancing balls and fine food.

Election Cake Old World Recipe

I found an official Election Cake recipe from 1796. With these quantities, you’d have a lot of cake.

Election Cake:
30 quarts of flour
10 pounds butter
14 pounds sugar
12 pounds raisins
3 dozen eggs
one pint wine
one quart brandy
4 ounces cinnamon
4 ounces fine colander seed
3 ounces ground alspice
Prunes and currants

Wet flour with milk to the consistence of bread over night, adding one quart yeast;
the next morning work the butter and sugar together for half an hour, which will render the cake much lighter and whiter; when it has rise, light work in every other ingredient except the prunes, which work in when going into the oven.
— Simmons, American Cookery, 1796

Cakes of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries were typically produced through soaking or sour leavening, not unlike sourdough breads. This traditional method of soaking flour in sour milk or leavening dough with sourdough starter optimized nourishment received from these foods. In a time without mass-market refrigerators, it also made use of sour milk that would otherwise have gone to waste.

Election Cakes were filled with healthy, wholesome fats such as butter and fresh eggs. The added alcohol helped with preservation of the cake. The dried fruits made it similar to our infamous fruit cakes of Christmas.

Get Out And Vote

Election Day Cakes were also a way to entice people (in the beginning, men with property) to come out and vote. They could vote and receive a slice of delectable cake. Later on, it was even a bit of a bribe to vote straight down a ticket.

Cake sustained not only the voters, but the people counting all the votes late into the night.

Vintage Election Cake For Today

We can bring the past into our present by baking our own version of an Election Cake.

What better way to celebrate or soothe your disappointment than with cake? 

If you'd like to try a modern-day version of Election Cake, here is a recipe. It has a yeast mixture that harkens back to our historical Election Cakes.

Election Cake Revival

Voting is a remarkable aspect of our heritage in the United States. With the passing of the decades, people have tended to become blasé about this privilege. Others hold the stance that you can't complain about elected officials if you didn't vote. 

How fun to honor our history of voting with a present-day revival of Election Day Cakes. We could be creative and celebrate with any cake of our choice.

Here's a bundt cake from Martha Stewart that makes a great Election Day Cake. No yeast mixture is needed. This Kentucky Bourbon Brown Butter Cake would hit the spot, whatever the voting outcome.

Baking Cake With TRT®

Students of The Radiance Technique® (TRT®) can use TRT® hands-on when they are baking, with the ingredients before mixing and with themselves prior to starting a recipe. 

It's also fun for students of The Second Degree of TRT® to direct energy to our history as we learn more about the past – where we've been and how that connects to where we are going. It's your own discovery process.

Celebrate your right, and privilege, to vote.

Cake brings all of us together on this wonderful day of our democratic process. Go forth and bake your cake.

See you on Election Day.

 

Time Travel – Get Ready, Get Set, Go

Time Travel And Romance

Meandering about on Twitter, I stumbled across a review of romance time travel novels. Time travel and romance?

Romance time travel writers have an interesting conundrum.

Can someone remain in the past? Is it possible for someone to stay in the future and cope with all the changes?

How do you address the languages? Health practices? Foods?

Not For The Faint Of Heart

Time travel makes for an intriguing read of fiction. I'd love to time travel, romance or not. I'd be content to be a will-of-the-wisp, a ghost-like figure that floated around to witness events. But even more, I'd like to jump back into the thick of things.

World history weaves a colorful time tapestry. European history dances across these intricately woven threads. Patterns emerge of emotions and thoughts, architecture, valor and despair. 

I want to know more, up close and personal.

We read about castles that no longer exist, then we're shown drawings of how we imagine they appeared. But, I want to see and feel them, not imagine them.

I want to experience the bustle of people in the castle courtyards and look up and see guards on the ramparts.

Details Of The Past

I want to...

  • hear the roar of laughter of people in taverns, and the clanking of blacksmiths at the forge,

  • smell the loam of the fields at early dawn, and feel the earthen footpaths beneath my feet,

  • savor freshly-made apple cider, and nibble warm hot-cross buns straight out of brick ovens,

  • feel dancing breezes as they ruffle my hair, and swoon to the fragrant scent of ripening fields,

  • wander in the thick underbrush of wild forests, and listen to howling wolves who thrived long before they were beaten back by modern sprawl.

 

At least, that's what I tell myself.

When we launch into the fourth dimension of time travel and head too far into the past, I crash-land into my suspension of disbelief.

Time Travel Is Fraught With Danger

If we dropped into the medieval period, we would be hard pressed to understand anything the locals said. Europe was a vast, untamed wilderness dotted with small villages, each with their own dialect.

How would we explain where we are from? The definition of a foreigner was anyone not from their own town. Even someone from a nearby village was viewed with great suspicion.

How strange do you think we would sound to them?

So strange, I dare say, that we could easily end up stoned to death as a witch. That could put a damper on the fun.

Vaccines, Sanitation And Medications

When you travel back in time, do your vaccinations from today still protect you? That would be handy in the face of smallpox or polio. My heart aches every time I consider that Louis XV suffered a vile death, all for want of a smallpox vaccine.

Let's say your vaccines protect you – if should you choose to stay in the past, the days of your life would be shortened, realistically, by about 30 years. The average life span in 1900 was age 45.

Our modern lifespans are epxanded due to vaccinations, antibiotics and sanitation.

What if you get hurt and the wound becomes infected? Today, it is easily treated with antibiotics. Back then, it could rapidly transform into a raging systemic infection; time to write your obituary.

The heart attacks and strokes that zipped us off the planet in a hurry are now held at bay with blood pressure medications, stents, and heart valve replacements.

Important note: don't have a baby while time traveling. Women and infants commonly died in childbirth. This was accepted as one of the facts of life, par for the course.

During the time of Louis IX (1200s), an infant was rushed to baptism immediately after birth, even without the mother who was still recovering. Infant mortality rate was so high, they wanted to ensure the child had a place in heaven.

Our Films Depict The Past, They Lie

We have a wealth of movies depicting many time periods. Movie stars, with their flawless skin and perfect sets of teeth, all take turns enacting historical figures. Our movie-camera techniques are advanced enough that even a glaring pimple is artfully erased from a starlet's face.

In the past, we looked nothing like our cinema stars of today.

In the French court, both men and women wore heavy, white, lead makeup with garish red spots for rouge. For sex-appeal today, they are seldom portrayed in the true makeup of the time. (See the movie cover above depicting the French King, Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour without period make-up.)

People didn't bathe often or wash their faces. Many layers of caked makeup accumulated. The lead and mercury in makeup foundations took its toll on everyone's health as it slowly poisoned them.

Health Issues And Smelling The Past

Another thing about our movies – we can't smell the past.

Could our modern day sensibilities handle the chamber pots filled with excrement tossed into the streets each morning?

Could we stomach the bodily odors from people who bathed only twice a year?

Imagine trying to set a broken bone without the benefit of an ultrasound for alignment. Surgical pins placed in bones did not exist and shattered bones may not be set at all, leaving you lame and crippled.

The teeth you were born with were the teeth you got. Crooked? Just be thankful you have them. Without good dental hygiene, teeth rotted, fell out and were never replaced.

Of course, we don't want to watch movies with dirty, toothless actors who are disfigured and crippled. So our main characters act out their roles blemish-free with clean, coiffed hair and gleaming, capped teeth.

The Radiance Technique® And Time Travel

Students of The Radiance Technique® (TRT®) are able to connect with history as well as individuals from the past.  Those who have studied The Second Degree of The Radiance Technique® are able to direct universal energy across time and space through a specific technique they are taught in their course. The events of history do not change, but supportive energy is made available.

For students of The First Degree of The Radiance Technique®, apply TRT® hands-on while studying historical events. With TRT® hands-on, you support healing and balancing of your feelings and attitudes regarding historical events. You become more aware of the people and their situations.

I know I don't want to be in any century – past, present or future – without TRT®.

Reality Versus Magic

Oh, reality, you knave. How you destroy my suspension of disbelief.

This messy state of human life, that we call reality, threatens to derail my fanciful flight across time. We talk of the possibility of time travel which, in and of itself, is magical and can surely overcome any complications.

The romance time travel authors are a brave lot. Or foolhardy, some might say.

How many of these details do they skip over? How many do they address? Despite all the challenges, I hope they keep writing as we all benefit from a little magic in our lives.

It's probably obvious that I work in the medical field. Yet, with all my misgivings, I'm ready to time travel.

Time Travel With A Few Conditions

Okay, let's go!

Back in time!

Um, as long as I can return when I want.

And, I want to be assured that I'll be able to speak and understand the native languages.

And, I'd like to take a few medications with me.

And, well, maybe I could pack a reference book or two to help me out with historical details.

Time Travel Portal

Do you have a preference for which time portal you'd like to use?

A police box whirling through the cosmos? An empty arch waiting on a deserted planet?

When and where would you like to go?