In this latest interview with Weirding Word® on Writers, Norma Lehmeier Hartie, talks about her award-winning book, Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify & Energize Your Home, Your Life & Your Planet. An expert in creating green and balanced spaces, Norma teaches readers how to purge "The Ugly" and replace it with positive energy and healthy items. Her interview is broken into two parts, with Part 1 focused primarily on creating harmonious environments, her approach to writing, and self-publishing.
WW: Tell me how you decided to write Harmonious Environment.
NLH: Well, I’ve always wanted to write. When I thought of these different topics and putting this thing together, it was a natural process to write this book.
WW: So, you’ve been writing a long time?
NLH: Actually I have been. In graduate school I was taking fiction classes. That was always what I thought I would do, but it turned out I was no good at. So, I still love to write, but I stick to non-fiction.
WW: Tell me about Harmonious Environment.
NLH: Okay, well, it’s basically a number of steps in the process of creating a harmonious environment. And what I do, I basically start with what you want to get rid of. What I call "The Ugly". And in that case, that’s products -- and any household products or even personal care or food products -- that are toxic or unhealthy for you or the environment and replacing those with nontoxic goods.
Cleaning your house well, getting rid of clutter and organizaing the rest. And working on an energetic level, clearing the air of any negative energies with either dousing or smudging. At that point, you’re sort of neutralizing the environment. And you start to bring back all the good and the beautiful. And, you apply feng shui techniques and color theory, as well as good design, to basically create a sanctuary.
WW: What is dousing and what is smudging?
NLH: Native Americans have used smudging for years. You use either sage or another aromatic herb. And it’s called smudging because it’s smoky and will fill the house with that odor and is said to clear the house of negative energy. Dousing, on the other hand, goes back to ancient times. It was originally used to find water. Now you use a pendulum and, by asking a certain set of questions, it will actually lead you to negative energies and allow you to clear them.
It’s actually very powerful and no one knows for sure how it really works., but I’ll just give a little illustration because I think that makes it much more clear, which is dogs and cows and other animals gravitate toward positive energy. We know that cows will go and stand in a pasture where there is postitive energies. A couple of years ago when I started with dousing, I cleared a client's condo. And I cleared particularly around the bed and everything else. She told me afterwards that in her old apartment, the dog always used to sleep in a particular spot on the bed, but that when she moved, the dog refused to be in that spot. However, after I cleared, the dog began to sleep in her old spot. So, I thought that was a very powerful affirmation because, certainly, the dog had no idea what I was doing.
WW: It sounds like, for people who are very skeptical about positive and negative energy and those kind of things, one of the most practical things that they can read in the book is "Freeing Yourself from the Tyranny of Clutter and Dirt Forever". What are some of the keys that people need to take away and understand about getting out "The Ugly" – particularly about all this clutter that’s building up around us.
NLH: For a lot of us, clutter just happens. And particularly for Americans. We buy a lot, and things just start to build up. Some people are just overwhelmed by it. And, we read something like this or have some other type of realization. I say do 15 minutes a day. Start with whatever bothers you the most. You can start with one junk drawer in your kitchen. Start small. Don’t feel overwhelmed. Just take one step at a time. Because what happens is you’ll be rewarded. By doing it you’ll feel better and tend to do more. But if you look at the entire project you’ll say, "Ohmigod!", and just become paralyzed.
And, another thing that is not in my book is that there are some people who just like a lot of stuff. Like on a coffee table there will be five items. What I recommend doing is taking half of it and putting it away. And then six months later, reverse it. What happens is that when we have a lot of stuff out, you tend not to see anything. And I have clients who refuse to do anything else, but that just talks to them.
WW: What is your process for writing? This is not a small book and that had to be a very large manuscript. How long did it take you?
NLH: You know, I researched for about a year. Maybe a year and a half because, at one point, I moved and did nothing but work on my new house. But the technique that I used is to work on each chapter as a separate folder in my computer. I know a lot of people have trouple starting to write. I don’t remember how I started, but I do remember thinking to myself, Deal with what you feel like doing. Sometimes, I was working on two different chapters. If you have to go through a manuscript of 300 pages, it’s crazy until the end. So, they were always separate.
WW: And how did you get published?
NLH: Well, I ended up starting my own publishing company and I published it myself. And really have gotten very much involved in understanding the entire business. I’m laughing because I’m at a crossroads at this point. I have actually stopped taking on clients because I’m working so much -- not only on publishing, but I’m doing more and more workshops and I’m actually beginning to teach about the publishing process. I just published a long article in this month’s Independent Book Publishers Association newsletter. So, it’s sort of like I’m at a crossroads. Do I continue with the work I’ve been doing or do I maybe write a book about publishing? I’m not sure.
WW: Some people might say food and energy goes hand-in-hand with the harmonious environment that you’re writing about.
NLH: There’s actually a chapter on food and recipes in the book. Because your body is the closest thing to yourself, food and personal care products are definitely, I agree, very important. That chapter isn’t that long, but I explain that you’re best off eating organics and locally grown, if possible, food. And then I throw in some favorite recipes.
WW: Coconut milk with lime and vegetables, vegetarian pasta primavera, cold noodles with sesame sauce, different kind of lasagna… Now, what about people with food allergies, who are allergic to say wheat gluten or nuts or soy. What kind of advice do you have for them around energy and food?
NLH: You know, no one’s ever asked me that question. If you have food allergies, obviously you avoid those particular foods. But I don’t know if I can answer that. I don’t know how the energy would be different.
WW: Sometimes I wonder if it’s an energy issue or if it’s just biological.
NLH: That’s a very interesting concept actually. I mean, it really is because I do know a lot of people -- not so much with allergies but who, unfortunately, are subjected to high levels of toxic products -- whether it’s cleaning stuff or sick building syndrome in an office, who become very chemically sensitive. So, obstensively, the same can happen. If they don’t start from childhood -- if they start later on and they’re not eating pure food -- it might happen. But, I really don’t know.
WW: But it might be a good book topic in the future.
NLH: Sure, but I don’t want to speculate. I do know a lot of people with chemical sensitivities who really have to have the purest cleansers and so on and so forth.
Please watch for Part 2 of Norma's interview in a few days. In the meantime, you might like to visit her website to learn more about creating a harmonious environment.
Gaea Honeycutt
blog@weirdingword.com
Weirding Word®, a division of G.L. Honeycutt Consulting, LLC, is a virtual publication department that provides editing, freelance writing, and publication and web design services.
Copyright 2008 Gaea L. Honeycutt. All rights reserved.
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