Put your red shoes on when the storm comes...

 Here comes an old article that I posted on my other blog first, on Linda Art CPH, then I moved it to the Linda Life Coach CPH.

How to handle storms? This is the last post in this blog. I hope you enjoy it. 

In this post we first go through the Lost Generation, then compare it to Dorothy’s ruby shoes, and finally we arrive at women who face challenges and look for feminine power, a power that is already inside them.

Their private life is their public life, they don’t go home to eat, they are in permanent circulation from cafe to cafe.
– Donald W. Faulkner about the Lost Generation in Paris

Who belonged to the Lost Generation?

The Lost Generation was a group of US writers and artists who came to Europe to live and work in Paris during World War I. They stayed until the Great Depression. Gertrude Stein, who was Ernest Hemingway’s mentor, coined the phrase ”Lost Generation” and gave the group its name. The group included the following American writers: F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Henry Miller, Thomas Wolfe, John Steinbeck, and E. E. Cummings. Members of the group often had strong connections with one another, and would meet to criticize one another’s work.

All of you young people who served in the war…you are all a lost generation.
– Gertrude Stein

Why did they move to Europe? 

The good old American values disappeared. Faith and religion were broken. The Lost Generation found America intolerant, materialistic, and uninspiring. Most of these writers served in the American army in Europe during WWI. Hemingway, for example, served on the Italian front. America was full of cynical people, who lost their future. A bohemian travelling intellectual life was more attractive.  Paris at that time was cheap and full of creative energy.

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast.
– Ernest Hemingway

Montmartre
Source: https://www.istockphoto.com/

Who influenced them in Paris?

In Europe at the time it is the Golden Age Twenties. Paris is the cultural capital of the world. New movements in art such as Dada, Art Deco, and Art nouveau are on the rise. So are graphical artist such as Picasso, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dali, to name a few.  The literary scene is also flourishing with poets and writers such as André Breton, Louis Aragon, Paul Eluard, Robert Desnos, and Jean Cocteau. Fashion designers like Coco Chanel, Jeanne Lanvin, and Jean Patou  are inspiring innovation with their designs.

Source: https://forums.ernieball.com/

What is the connection between Dorothy and the Lost Generation?

Dorothy is in trouble when a powerful tornado takes her to a magical land, the Land of Oz. After WWI, Paris is the ”Land of Oz” for the Lost Generation. It gave these artists a fresh start. Dorothy killed the Wicked Witch of the East. Hemingway and his friends couldn’t kill the past, but they could paint it in a different way. They could preset an idealized past, that has little connection to the reality they remembered.  Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, gives the red shoes to Dorothy. These ruby slippers help Dorothy on the journey to the Wizard of Oz and ultimately back home. Gertrude Stein is Hemingway’s mentor, his Good Witch of the North.

Dorothy and the Lost Generation go through a process of self development. They discover the power, the gifts, inside them.

You’ve always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.
– Glinda, the  Good Witch of the North

A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.
– Gertrude Stein

Now, about you!

If you are lost, like Dorothy, or if you feel something is wrong with your life, look inside you. You will find the answer there. Just like Dorothy, you have to go through a process to reveal your inner gifts.

Below you will find a list of positive words. Two words for almost every letter of the alphabet. Reading through this list can help you to go through the same process that the Lost Generation artists experienced in Paris, in a very condensed and incomplete way.

amazing, admirable, beautiful, balanced, cheerful, charming, delighted, delicate, elegant, excellent, fabulous, funny, gorgeous, generous, happy, harmonious, interesting, intuitive, joyful, jolly, kind, keen, lovely, loyal, mercy, mindfulness, noble, nice, optimistic, open-minded, pretty, powerful, relaxed, romantic, smiling, smart, thankful, tranquil, unique, upright, vivid, velvety-eyes, wonderful, wise, youthful

Are you ready to put your red shoes on?

Jonathan Wilkins & Katusha Demidova Foxtrot Showdance

Source: YouTube