I was born
in
the Finger Lakes Region of upstate New York. I attended the
University of Colorado in Boulder during the tumultuous 60s, spent
my junior year at the University of Vienna in Austria, and attended
graduate school in Social Work at the University of Utah. There I
worked with Nazi death camp survivors and Navajo Indian students.
With my master's degree in hand, I returned to upstate New York,
accepting a position in a new Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic
in what is now the State University Hospital. I also had a private
practice in psychotherapy. In 1977, I moved west to New Mexico,
first to Santa Fe and then to Las Cruces. In Santa Fe, after a
summer as a tour guide, I worked for the State Mental Health Bureau.
While there I became the first NM State Director of the newly
created Sexual Crimes Prosecution and Treatment program. In 1979 I
moved to southern NM, and taught Social Work at New Mexico State
University in Las Cruces. Later I ran the Continuing Education
program, and worked in student services in the College of Health and
Social Services (social work, nursing and public health). In
addition to my university work, I wrote a weekly newspaper column. I
compiled my favorite columns into a book, Thinking Out Loud. I also
wrote another book entitled Windows to My Soul, which is a
collection of my truths as I experienced them over the years. In
2000, I took up folk painting in the style of Grandma Moses. I had
always loved the concept of story telling on canvas. I retired to
western North Carolina in 2006, and enjoy living where folk art is a
tradition. When I am not writing or painting, I love to hike and
garden. I am a student of Quantum Physics, a field of research
initiated in the early 20th century. It is gaining a foothold in the
scientific and public arenas, and there are many authors writing
about the topic for adults. But no one seems to be writing for
children. I undertook that challenge in creating The Wisdom Tree and
the Red Swing to help children change their focus and perspective on
their problems, and turn negatives into positives. Finding my own
thinking time is a challenge, and when I fail to do so, I get out of
balance, out of sorts, and make mistakes. Taking time to think is as
important as breathing, eating and sleeping.
http://www.carolmacallister.com
PageOneLit.com: Where
did you grow up and was reading and writing a part of your life? Who
were your earliest influences and why?
Carol L. MacAllister: I
grew up in a small rural town, Marcellus, NY which is at the edge of the
Finger Lakes region. My parents were big readers so my three siblings
and I were as well. TV only came into the home in the 50’s you know, so
naturally kids read more in those days. No one ever talked about
writing books but we all valued those who did write them for us to
enjoy.
PageOneLit.com:
Why do you write?
Carol L. MacAllister:
My writing
started when I was a teenager. I wrote in a journal as a way of talking
through my feelings which were so very intense and everyone in my family
seemed too busy to sit and listen. I still journal every day! I made
myself use proper punctuation and spelling, which turned out to be good
practice for those school assignments. And even at age 66 now, I write
for the same reason: to sort out my feelings and test them against my
realities so I know what is real and what is being colored by old wounds
and deeply buried hurts. Everyone has “buttons” that get pushed and the
job of the adult is to know when that has happened and to not over
react. If I write it all out first, then I am more likely to reaction
reasonably.
PageOneLit.com:
Discuss your background as a psychiatric professional working with
traumatic events in children's lives and how that helped write THE
WISDOM TREE AND THE RED SWING: THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX?
Carol L. MacAllister:
As a
professional therapist, I learned the value of taking time out to think
carefully about problems and the value of “circling” a problem to see it
from many different angles. When I was trained, traditional psychiatric
training recognized something called “secondary gain,” which was
interpreted as negative—what was the patient getting out of his or her
problem as if it were a conscious manipulation. In my book and
philosophy, I see this “secondary-negative-gain” as in fact, the primary
gain and something very positive. That is, every problem is in your
life of a good reason and finding that “hidden blessing or good,” is how
you turn negative energy into positive and it is that positive energy,
those positive energy waves that affect your reality and the people in
your world. You can’t change others, you can only change yourself, your
perspective, and that is the really hard part. But when you look for
the hidden positive in your negative reality and find it, then you can
feel your energy around the problem change and positive solutions
present themselves and sometimes no action is even needed. Things
change! That is the magic and power of quantum physics.
PageOneLit.com: What
is the Wisdom Tree? Where did the idea for this book come from?
Carol L. MacAllister:
I am a folk
artist in the Grandma Moses style. I tell stories on canvas. I saw an
advertisement of a realistic painting of a tree on a hill. That was
all. It was nice and it was very expensive, so I thought….maybe I can
paint my own version of that idea. So I did. I have attached it. I put
it on my fireplace mantle for a few days to study it and it seemed dull
to me. So then I painted in the curved path and wondered, “Who climbs
that hill and why? Is it to get perspective on their life, to think
about something, to have a bit of quiet time? Still, it seemed to be
missing something, so one day I just decided to hang a swing on it, a
red swing. Now that made it a much more interesting picture. Swings
are such fun and it would even be more fun and a little scary to swing
on one hung from a tree on top of a steep hill. Wow! Then I wondered,
where is that hill with the tree, with the swing, and who hung it and
keeps it painted and who uses it. Voila! The book was born. After
that, the stories seemed to write themselves. I gallery-sit three days
a week, so I took my laptop with me and on the slow days I would just
let my fingers have their way and the stories just poured out of me. At
first they were to be little stand-alone stories but then I decided I
wanted to develop my characters and have them interact and grow up
together: enemies becoming friends, adults learning from the kids and
everyone learning how to think their realities through.
PageOneLit .com:
The Wisdom Tree and the Red Swing may be geared toward kids between
the ages of 9 and 12, but its lessons are universal. Please
explain.
Carol L. MacAllister:
I
wrote for 9-12 yr.olds because they are emotionally and cognitively
developed enough to get empathy and see symbolic connections. They are
open-minded and eager to learn where as adults are often close-minded
and think they already know it all. The ideas of compassion and respect
for the complexities that go into making a human being are of course
universal. Very little about a person is simple and clear. As a
therapist you know that for sure. There is always a story behind a
person’s behavior, no matter how bad it is. Understanding that is
important and can change your perspective, which is all any of us have.
You cannot change another, haven’t you noticed. The only power you have
is to change yourself. It is important to remember that understanding
(analyzing) and being understanding (forgiving) are two different things
and understanding what goes into a person’s behavior is not the same as
excusing it. Each of us is responsible for ourselves.
PageOneLit.com: On
your website ( http://www.wisdomtreepress.com )
you say, " In the intensity of anger, hurt or fear, it is nearly
impossible to rationally make ourselves think positively. But there
are ideas and questions we can ask that will, step by step—like
turning a sock inside out—turn those negative feelings and thoughts
into positive ones and offer
actual solutions that will change our realities." explain.
Carol L. MacAllister:
The
Wisdom Tree asks these questions. What did the abuse of Sybil’s friend
Ana literally force Ana to do? And her mother to do? And how did it
indirectly help Sybil when her father died? What does your problem
literally force you to do? And then you ask, what could the problem
possibly be doing for you? How can it be helping you? Carlos, when
shunned by Jimmy Smith was so angry he decided the price for belonging
to a gang of boys was too high and that being true to himself was worth
being alone. The four chubby girls, when asked by the Wisdom Tree when
they started to gain weight, learned that there were good reasons for
their weight gain and once they saw this, they could find other ways to
meet those needs. When they took time to look carefully at when, where
and how their weigh gain started, they could see what it was doing for
them and then could make conscious choices to do things differently.
PageOneLit.com: What
do you hope readers will say after reading THE WISDOM TREE AND THE
RED SWING: THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX?
Carol L. MacAllister:
I hope they
will say “Wow, I need to take more time to think about things!”
PageOneLit.com: What
do you hope to achieve with THE WISDOM TREE AND THE RED SWING:
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX?
Carol L. MacAllister:
I hope my book
will redirect kids and the adults in their lives back toward thinking,
introspection and reflection. I hope it will remind them that learning
to think carefully and thoroughly about a problem is one of the most
important tools for coping with life that a person can have. That is
what a therapist does with her clients; why not learn to do it on a
daily basis.
PageOneLit.com: What
was the last book you read?
Carol L. MacAllister:
The Intention
Experiment by
Lynne McTaggart. I’s a great summary about the implications of quantum
physics research for our daily lives.
PageOneLit.com:
What's next?
Carol L. MacAllister:
The children
of Oak Hill need to grow up and face the problems of adolescence with
the help of the Wisdom Tree.
PageOneLit.com: Do
you have any hobbies? What are they? How do they enhance your
writing?
Carol L. MacAllister:
I am a folk
artist and did the book cover. I will have a one-man show in September
of 2010 in Hendersonville, NC, so have to get busy painting 26 canvases
for that. I also have a big flower and vegetable garden and am a very
active member of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Brevard. I sing
in the choir, serve on the Board and other various committees and even
give a sermon now and then. One of these days I will have to retire from
retirement!
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