This morning I detoured to make a quick trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Knowing that all I needed was a lingeree bag (needed, yes, needed!), I didn’t take a cart. I headed straight toward the lingeree bag section (I knew just where it would be, having bought one for a friend a couple weeks ago) stopping only to grab a duo pack of longneck lighters—which I need—I mean need!—because I light a lot of longneck votive candles, and the price was right.
Have you been to B,B,B lately? I have been there a few times in the last year and noticed that the employees have been instructed to greet the heck out of people. Every employee is also a greeter, and they do well—more than once I have looked up because I thought someone I actually knew was saying hi to me. Today they took it a step further. Three employees—this store seems fabulously overstaffed—asked me if they could get me a cart, or a basket. Clearly, hanging on to my lighter and lingeree bag gave me no hands free to buy a big-ticket bulky item, like a down comforter. I was torn between being offended and flattered by how much these folks wanted to help me buy more stuff. It was like being in another world, a world where these people don’t realize that we don’t need all this crap!
Sometimes I get mixed messages--buy!-don’t buy!--but I am leaning toward not buying. I am leaning toward getting more gratification from the few things I do buy, and not looking at all the things I don’t have (B,B,B is full of them! Chock full! It is the most stocked store I’ve been to in a long time!). On one hand, I have heard that, supposedly, buying things keeps our economy going, but I believe that is WAY short-sighted. Both the lingeree bag and the lighters were packaged in both cardboard and plastic. Those lighters are destined to make some pretty crappy landfill. And buying more stuff may stimulate the economy temporarily but from a more expanded perspective, it is UNsustainable; all this trash has to go somewhere. But I digress.
I look around at the world in its present state and see the nightmarish state of the US economy not as an economic crisis but as a personal call to create abundance INTERNALLY. To feed my spirit, not my desire for stuff. I ask: What is this situation telling me? Whenever some minor crisis happens in my own life, I ask the question why…from an expanded perspective, why is this happening? From a metaphoric perspective, what does it mean? I always receive an answer, and it's never the one western medicine or newspaper editorials offer. For this major crisis we are sharing as a nation…this awakening to the fact that our economy is a house of cards, that our capitalist indoctrination to buy more stuff has become unsustainable…I also ask the question why. Why?
Because it is time! It is time for us as a planet, us as humanity-- not We the People of the U.S., though including US--to wake up! Wake up, internally, wake up out of the daily grind of working on a “job” that is not entirely fulfilling but which allows an ample number of flat-screen tv’s and cars and cell phones—the necessities of life that we all "need." Wake up out of a treadmill-like sleepwalk. The economy is telling me to rebalance, or it will rebalance FOR me...and it won't be pleasant.
Really? What if? What if we woke up out of the sleepwalk, woke to a higher calling within. If you had a higher calling, what would it be? If money were no object, and the lack thereof wouldn’t keep you from enjoying a high standard of living, what would that calling be? What would feed your spirit and contribute to the highest good of all concerned, even if, in this "real" world, it might be impractical? Dream ON! Dream a conscious dream! Help rebuild, resuscitate the planet, in a conscious way.
I didn’t really need the lighter…yet. The duo-pack are backup. I have a lighter in my bedroom and two lighters in the kitchen, and in truth with a bit of planning I could make do with one. I could, with some level of creativity, or safety pins, fix the broken zipper on my old lingeree bag, or have one of my clever friends rescue it from uselessness. But I like buying stuff! So it’s not an easy choice for, to buy less, to fix more, to walk up and down my stairs so I can use the same lighter, the one I left upstairs. It’s not an easy choice, but it’s a conscious one. And it may not infuse the economy with glee, but in the longer run, the stakes are getting high, for us, for the Earth. To buy or not to buy? that is the question.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Michael Jackson
A few years ago, my daughter and I were out to dinner, when she was distracted by the television behind the bar. “Mom, what’s…that?” she asked, and I turned around to see a news clip of Michael Jackson, whom she had never previously laid eyes on, being ushered through a crowd. She was about ten.
“Well,” I answered, “he’s a man...he's a famous pop star. He has some…issues…he’s had quite a bit of surgery…"
“But Mom, he doesn’t even look human !”
It didn’t seem fair or right that her first opinion was that he was, well, more than eccentric (although to be fair to her, in recent days I read two newspaper accounts that described him as looking like an alien). So I took her home and found that famous timeline made up of MJ’s changing visage, which I assume is being televised at this very moment.
After I showed her the transformation of MJ’s face online, we watched some music videos from Thriller, but she was still shaken up by her initial glimpse, and she never was able to absorb who he had been. (What she did do, though, was to ask me if I had a glove I no longer wanted.)
My own thoughts that evening centered on the King of Pop, too, having not seen Thriller videos in ages--they ignited memories--and I concluded, sadly, that he embodied all of our dysfunctions, writ large. All of our…baby boomer…dysfunctions. There WE were! His mtv-generation, a generation of relatively privileged, hip, savvy 40-somethings who had seen it all and who, with some help from the media, were focused on appearance and aging and comparisons and buying stuff…and potential cosmetic surgery. We have all the tools to help us look like we want to look. (Quite the topic among women: would you or wouldn’t you? I have been asked numerous times: will I color my hair when it begins to make me look…old? I have never been asked if I will get “work” done on my face because there is an assumption that a yoga teacher would never go there…but the hair! “I’d sooner shave it off,” has been the answer, knowing that there is a tantric breath…yes!…so I hear!…that has renewed at least one practitioner’s hair color. So I will see if my professed purity extends to my hair, once it, um, alters. Meanwhile, I do the breath.)
But Michael! All of our dysfunctions, insecurities, writ large! Our unwillingness to be seen! Our belief that we are not good enough! Our belief that we NEED MORE STUFF. Our compulsion to spend more money than we have. He is a caricature of how far we could go, both the highs and the lows. (How on earth can a person be $800 million in debt--or whatever it is? A part of me imagines that I could do that! If my handlers let me!) I know there is that part of me, as a baby boomer with credit cards, that would unwilling to give up my good stuff, to take a lifestyle cut…but fortunately I live from another part of myself, the part that knows that all of the stuff, and all the desire for the stuff, is truly an illusion. A part that trusts that I AM is enough. I am willing to live on nuts and berries, if need be, thank GOD! My yogic side knows that we are all One, and that everyone out there is a Divine Mirror. So look at Michael.
The evening of Lily's first MJ sighting, I thought, “What he needs is a good breathing session, daily yoga, a circle of friends who truly see him and honor him, friends who tell him that he is enough. A healing circle! An awakening!" I've never seen this NOT help someone get back in touch, in deep and profound ways. Most likely—I don’t know—but most likely his friends did tell him he was great, but he doubted their intentions, doubted they truly saw him. Most likely his level of trust was low, because what was its foundation? Most likely his level of belief that he could ever be great again was low. Most likely he thought that his best years were behind him. Most likely he thought that no one ever really saw him—that they saw an icon. And then…most likely, the wounds of his childhood remained active. And I don't underestimate their depth.
So much of that is true about all of us, until we find some roots in a spiritual path, until we experience and know Spirit, active in our lives. With all that he had, how can this man never have found that kind of healing? How can he never have known who he truly was?
So can we look at him--as a mirror--and learn? Can we see how being outwardly fabulous, how being famous, how sculpting our faces, how having babies to love, how having the best house money can buy, how taking fabulous trips to exotic places, how spending loads and loads of money…will never fill us up?
I am noticing people talk about the untimely nature and tragedy of his death--and I am never happy when someone dies--but in his case, I am relieved. His death is sad, but his life was sad. A big exhale, albeit the final exhale, for Michael Jackson. Finally, Michael is united with the vastness and eternal nature of Spirit, All That Is, which is what I imagine he had been seeking all these years anyway, and which, I believe, is what most of us seek when we embark on a yogic path. Union with the Divine,that is, LOVE...is all we need.
“Well,” I answered, “he’s a man...he's a famous pop star. He has some…issues…he’s had quite a bit of surgery…"
“But Mom, he doesn’t even look human !”
It didn’t seem fair or right that her first opinion was that he was, well, more than eccentric (although to be fair to her, in recent days I read two newspaper accounts that described him as looking like an alien). So I took her home and found that famous timeline made up of MJ’s changing visage, which I assume is being televised at this very moment.
After I showed her the transformation of MJ’s face online, we watched some music videos from Thriller, but she was still shaken up by her initial glimpse, and she never was able to absorb who he had been. (What she did do, though, was to ask me if I had a glove I no longer wanted.)
My own thoughts that evening centered on the King of Pop, too, having not seen Thriller videos in ages--they ignited memories--and I concluded, sadly, that he embodied all of our dysfunctions, writ large. All of our…baby boomer…dysfunctions. There WE were! His mtv-generation, a generation of relatively privileged, hip, savvy 40-somethings who had seen it all and who, with some help from the media, were focused on appearance and aging and comparisons and buying stuff…and potential cosmetic surgery. We have all the tools to help us look like we want to look. (Quite the topic among women: would you or wouldn’t you? I have been asked numerous times: will I color my hair when it begins to make me look…old? I have never been asked if I will get “work” done on my face because there is an assumption that a yoga teacher would never go there…but the hair! “I’d sooner shave it off,” has been the answer, knowing that there is a tantric breath…yes!…so I hear!…that has renewed at least one practitioner’s hair color. So I will see if my professed purity extends to my hair, once it, um, alters. Meanwhile, I do the breath.)
But Michael! All of our dysfunctions, insecurities, writ large! Our unwillingness to be seen! Our belief that we are not good enough! Our belief that we NEED MORE STUFF. Our compulsion to spend more money than we have. He is a caricature of how far we could go, both the highs and the lows. (How on earth can a person be $800 million in debt--or whatever it is? A part of me imagines that I could do that! If my handlers let me!) I know there is that part of me, as a baby boomer with credit cards, that would unwilling to give up my good stuff, to take a lifestyle cut…but fortunately I live from another part of myself, the part that knows that all of the stuff, and all the desire for the stuff, is truly an illusion. A part that trusts that I AM is enough. I am willing to live on nuts and berries, if need be, thank GOD! My yogic side knows that we are all One, and that everyone out there is a Divine Mirror. So look at Michael.
The evening of Lily's first MJ sighting, I thought, “What he needs is a good breathing session, daily yoga, a circle of friends who truly see him and honor him, friends who tell him that he is enough. A healing circle! An awakening!" I've never seen this NOT help someone get back in touch, in deep and profound ways. Most likely—I don’t know—but most likely his friends did tell him he was great, but he doubted their intentions, doubted they truly saw him. Most likely his level of trust was low, because what was its foundation? Most likely his level of belief that he could ever be great again was low. Most likely he thought that his best years were behind him. Most likely he thought that no one ever really saw him—that they saw an icon. And then…most likely, the wounds of his childhood remained active. And I don't underestimate their depth.
So much of that is true about all of us, until we find some roots in a spiritual path, until we experience and know Spirit, active in our lives. With all that he had, how can this man never have found that kind of healing? How can he never have known who he truly was?
So can we look at him--as a mirror--and learn? Can we see how being outwardly fabulous, how being famous, how sculpting our faces, how having babies to love, how having the best house money can buy, how taking fabulous trips to exotic places, how spending loads and loads of money…will never fill us up?
I am noticing people talk about the untimely nature and tragedy of his death--and I am never happy when someone dies--but in his case, I am relieved. His death is sad, but his life was sad. A big exhale, albeit the final exhale, for Michael Jackson. Finally, Michael is united with the vastness and eternal nature of Spirit, All That Is, which is what I imagine he had been seeking all these years anyway, and which, I believe, is what most of us seek when we embark on a yogic path. Union with the Divine,that is, LOVE...is all we need.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Swine Thoughts
The other day I received an email, from the very alternative Transcendental Meditation people, with "Swine Flu" in the subject line…and thought, Even the TM people! It’s a marketing opportunity! And, for my money, they do have the best answer I’ve heard: bolster your immune system the ayurvedic way. Go for it! But that’s not what this blog is about. Fear! is what this blog is about. Fear and the transformation thereof.
I was sitting in church today (yeah! freaked me out too! but my friends’ daughter’s first communion was an irresistible draw) pondering how much of a germ incubator the church was—didn’t the vice president say not to congregate in enclosed spaces?--when I recalled having asked my mom (as a child, in church—get the connection?) why our town’s doctor never got sick; there he was, every Sunday, sitting in the same place. And my mom whispered (because we were in church), “He washes his hands a lot. See how white they are?” thus beginning my lifelong habit of—thank god not compulsive, but certainly vigilant—hand-washing.
Anyway. He did wash his hands between patients--my best friend asked him. But I don’t think my mom completely nailed it. In retrospect, I bet it was also the doctor’s sense of personal immunity, his sense of responsibility for, and imagined immunological superiority to, the sick public. What I’m saying is, I believe it was his state of mind.
During times when I haven't gotten enough sleep, and haven't eaten much, or at all, because I thought I was falling in...love...or working on an amazing project...I didn't come down with a cold. I was in radiant GOOD health, despite the no-eating, no-sleeping. But during the times in my life when I didn't get enough sleep or eat well because I was overworking (granted, not often), or experiencing frustrating travel delays, I came down with a cold. At some point I read statistics that support my experience: people who are falling in love have enhanced immunity. You can break all the other rules, because: you’re falling in love! If you are inclined to research, look it up! With my yogic perspective I now know that I can create my own inner state; there doesn't have to be an external object of my affection.
So in this time of fear—an epidemic! Google it!—what if…yes, another "what if"…but WHAT IF we decided, as individuals and as a collective One Love, to super-enhance our immune systems by Living in Love, living fearlessly? By expanding into a greater sense of ourselves as the Divine Creators that we all are. Let’s enhance our immune systems, definitely. Do an intestinal cleanse. Take a probiotic. Let’s enhance our physical immune systems, but let’s also enhance our BELIEF that we are immune, that we don’t need to succumb to fear, that we are FREE people, empowered people, not potential victims.
So. Communion: people are lining up, and I can't help but think, “These folks sure don’t seem to be afraid of swine flu!” as hundreds of people sip wine out of the same cup, the chalice being wiped "clean" by a cloth that is surely becoming germier by the minute. And I imagined that for God’s people, taking communion outweighed any fear of epidemics. It was a Saturday morning celebration OF communion, so you could hardly sit this one out—I mean, I did, but not due to germs. However I feel about Communion, I’ve gotta love that their FAITH in a Divine Presence outweighed fear of an epidemic, and I do like to imagine that it’s that kind of inner faith that is what we are meant to summon during this time of panic, that the point of Swine Flu is to urge us to WAKE UP! Wake up to the idea that we are not potential victims. Wake up to the Divine Presence.
I was sitting in church today (yeah! freaked me out too! but my friends’ daughter’s first communion was an irresistible draw) pondering how much of a germ incubator the church was—didn’t the vice president say not to congregate in enclosed spaces?--when I recalled having asked my mom (as a child, in church—get the connection?) why our town’s doctor never got sick; there he was, every Sunday, sitting in the same place. And my mom whispered (because we were in church), “He washes his hands a lot. See how white they are?” thus beginning my lifelong habit of—thank god not compulsive, but certainly vigilant—hand-washing.
Anyway. He did wash his hands between patients--my best friend asked him. But I don’t think my mom completely nailed it. In retrospect, I bet it was also the doctor’s sense of personal immunity, his sense of responsibility for, and imagined immunological superiority to, the sick public. What I’m saying is, I believe it was his state of mind.
During times when I haven't gotten enough sleep, and haven't eaten much, or at all, because I thought I was falling in...love...or working on an amazing project...I didn't come down with a cold. I was in radiant GOOD health, despite the no-eating, no-sleeping. But during the times in my life when I didn't get enough sleep or eat well because I was overworking (granted, not often), or experiencing frustrating travel delays, I came down with a cold. At some point I read statistics that support my experience: people who are falling in love have enhanced immunity. You can break all the other rules, because: you’re falling in love! If you are inclined to research, look it up! With my yogic perspective I now know that I can create my own inner state; there doesn't have to be an external object of my affection.
So in this time of fear—an epidemic! Google it!—what if…yes, another "what if"…but WHAT IF we decided, as individuals and as a collective One Love, to super-enhance our immune systems by Living in Love, living fearlessly? By expanding into a greater sense of ourselves as the Divine Creators that we all are. Let’s enhance our immune systems, definitely. Do an intestinal cleanse. Take a probiotic. Let’s enhance our physical immune systems, but let’s also enhance our BELIEF that we are immune, that we don’t need to succumb to fear, that we are FREE people, empowered people, not potential victims.
So. Communion: people are lining up, and I can't help but think, “These folks sure don’t seem to be afraid of swine flu!” as hundreds of people sip wine out of the same cup, the chalice being wiped "clean" by a cloth that is surely becoming germier by the minute. And I imagined that for God’s people, taking communion outweighed any fear of epidemics. It was a Saturday morning celebration OF communion, so you could hardly sit this one out—I mean, I did, but not due to germs. However I feel about Communion, I’ve gotta love that their FAITH in a Divine Presence outweighed fear of an epidemic, and I do like to imagine that it’s that kind of inner faith that is what we are meant to summon during this time of panic, that the point of Swine Flu is to urge us to WAKE UP! Wake up to the idea that we are not potential victims. Wake up to the Divine Presence.
Can we?
Some people get sick, and some don’t. I have reason to believe that people who Live in Love, people who are not afraid of INVISIBLE threats, people who have a heightened sense of responsibility to humankind, will thrive. A clean and healthy digestive tract is more effective than a controversial, hurriedly mass-produced vaccine. And clean and healthy thoughts are more effective for immunity than toxic, mass-disseminated, fear-based ones.
Some people get sick, and some don’t. I have reason to believe that people who Live in Love, people who are not afraid of INVISIBLE threats, people who have a heightened sense of responsibility to humankind, will thrive. A clean and healthy digestive tract is more effective than a controversial, hurriedly mass-produced vaccine. And clean and healthy thoughts are more effective for immunity than toxic, mass-disseminated, fear-based ones.
Friday, March 27, 2009
I Knew It !
This just in:
“Did Twin's 'Sixth Sense' Save Sister's Life?
(March 26) -- Do twins share a psychic bond? There's no scientific proof, but Gemma Houghton, 15, said such a tie enabled her to save her sister's life.
In an interview with London's Daily Mirror Gemma said she prevented her twin, Leanne, from drowning in a bathtub after getting a "feeling" something was wrong with her sister….”
First I ask, why, right away, in the second sentence, do they disclaim, “There’s no scientific proof…”? Never mind, that’s a rhetorical question. (To fill you in, the rest of the story describes how connected the sisters are, and at the end there is a doctor quoted saying that probably they just know each other extremely well and can anticipate each other’s actions. WhatEV, as my daughter used to say, until I started saying it.)
The headline popped onto AOL and it caught my attention, because it seemed like positive, inspiring news. For a change. So I followed the link. For a change. They are not usually enticing enough.
Of course the twins are psychically connected, and why would we need scientific proof to document that? Why are we as a culture putting science over our intuitions? And has that brought us to a better place, as a planet? Might this not be a good time to wonder this?
I have psychic moments all day and night. The challenge is in heeding them. The big headline above should be that HEEDING her intuition saved her sister’s life. For as many psychic flashes as I get…there’s still a percentage that get reasoned away. Even though I know better.
“Statistically, she can’t possibly have shingles,” said my daughter’s father, when I told him she had shingles. “But I know she has shingles,” I said. “Hear me out,” he said, and told me the statistics, which to him proved she couldn’t possibly have shingles. Which I knew she had. Because I just "knew." He and I often personify the classic chasm between reason and intuition, which needn’t be so chasm-ic. But it is.
Anyway…I have psychic moments all the time. So do all my friends. Don't we all? Isn’t that normal? Heeding them is the challenge. And why is science prized above intuition? Science changes its mind all the time, as new information is revealed. Plenty of us on this planet have evolved enough to help turn it into a place in which inner Knowing is valued, even prized. How? Maybe just supporting each other’s intuitions and encouraging each other to follow our inner Voice. Maybe by going within before asking the "experts."
How much do we really need the external authorities we were taught to heed? The RULES from on high. But the Universal rules...we already embody them, don’t we? The institutions are not changing as fast as we are, so they insist that our evolution is bad, or undermining. So far, my evolution has only led me to a brighter, happier place on all levels.
If people want to follow institutionally sanctioned higher rules, I don’t have a problem with that, if it makes them compassionate and connected and happy…and as long as those rules don’t say I’m wrong for not embracing those rules.
Why does science need to validate our intuition, but not the existence of God, which so far cannot be validated by science? What if intuition as a reality were as accepted as the concept of God? Maybe even accepted as an...extension...of God, of the Universal Life Force? Without needing scientific "proof." What IF?
“Did Twin's 'Sixth Sense' Save Sister's Life?
(March 26) -- Do twins share a psychic bond? There's no scientific proof, but Gemma Houghton, 15, said such a tie enabled her to save her sister's life.
In an interview with London's Daily Mirror Gemma said she prevented her twin, Leanne, from drowning in a bathtub after getting a "feeling" something was wrong with her sister….”
First I ask, why, right away, in the second sentence, do they disclaim, “There’s no scientific proof…”? Never mind, that’s a rhetorical question. (To fill you in, the rest of the story describes how connected the sisters are, and at the end there is a doctor quoted saying that probably they just know each other extremely well and can anticipate each other’s actions. WhatEV, as my daughter used to say, until I started saying it.)
The headline popped onto AOL and it caught my attention, because it seemed like positive, inspiring news. For a change. So I followed the link. For a change. They are not usually enticing enough.
Of course the twins are psychically connected, and why would we need scientific proof to document that? Why are we as a culture putting science over our intuitions? And has that brought us to a better place, as a planet? Might this not be a good time to wonder this?
I have psychic moments all day and night. The challenge is in heeding them. The big headline above should be that HEEDING her intuition saved her sister’s life. For as many psychic flashes as I get…there’s still a percentage that get reasoned away. Even though I know better.
“Statistically, she can’t possibly have shingles,” said my daughter’s father, when I told him she had shingles. “But I know she has shingles,” I said. “Hear me out,” he said, and told me the statistics, which to him proved she couldn’t possibly have shingles. Which I knew she had. Because I just "knew." He and I often personify the classic chasm between reason and intuition, which needn’t be so chasm-ic. But it is.
Anyway…I have psychic moments all the time. So do all my friends. Don't we all? Isn’t that normal? Heeding them is the challenge. And why is science prized above intuition? Science changes its mind all the time, as new information is revealed. Plenty of us on this planet have evolved enough to help turn it into a place in which inner Knowing is valued, even prized. How? Maybe just supporting each other’s intuitions and encouraging each other to follow our inner Voice. Maybe by going within before asking the "experts."
How much do we really need the external authorities we were taught to heed? The RULES from on high. But the Universal rules...we already embody them, don’t we? The institutions are not changing as fast as we are, so they insist that our evolution is bad, or undermining. So far, my evolution has only led me to a brighter, happier place on all levels.
If people want to follow institutionally sanctioned higher rules, I don’t have a problem with that, if it makes them compassionate and connected and happy…and as long as those rules don’t say I’m wrong for not embracing those rules.
Why does science need to validate our intuition, but not the existence of God, which so far cannot be validated by science? What if intuition as a reality were as accepted as the concept of God? Maybe even accepted as an...extension...of God, of the Universal Life Force? Without needing scientific "proof." What IF?
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Heaven on Earth
Blogging gets the word out as soon as possible. No need for a middleman. No editors. No publisher. No agent. None of that stuff that shuts us down, that makes us say, "I can't." The time between expression and publication can be seconds. It is practically like being psychic: experiencing the same thoughts as each other, almost at the exact same time. How synchronistic. It's cool to know I could send this out and reach a million people all at the same time.
Yes, I humor myself. Surely there are only a couple hundred thousand people reading this. But that's not the point--instant connection is the point. And jobs. We have just put...how many people out of jobs? by inventing blogging. How many people don't have jobs because the communications industry is slowing down...because it's becoming obsolete... And don't think I'm not majorly bummed out. I am! I love paper! I love ink! I love fonts! Some books are stunningly beautiful to me. But hey, maybe they'll keep creating the amazingly lovely ones, and they'll become art, having nothing to do with "getting published." No more mass published crappy paper tree wasting ink wasting millions of copies of books, but just a select, collector's type of object d'art. Hey, who knows? I don't.
But what I do know is, we have millions of people worrying about lack and scarcity. Yes, in our portfolios, and yes, on our Mother Earth as well. And what I know about that is, it drags us down. I have been learning about energy for years and years, and one thing I have learned is that your thoughts can either lift you up, or weigh you down, and it's your choice.
I can have $11,000 in my checking account and feel rich, or I can have the same sum in my checking account and feel broke. And life goes so much better when I feel gratitude, even and especially for the little things.
So instead of freaking out that there are dwindling jobs (because of course every adult needs to work 40 hours a week (unless you're really driven and work 50 or 60)), how about if we were joyful about the dwindling jobs, because it means In The Future, Hard Work Is Obsolete. Isn't that why our forefathers worked so hard? Didn't they tell us that? They said, "We are working hard so you won't have to." They essentially wanted to give us a better life, and they did.
But what if we could take a quantum leap, and not have to work so hard--on an outrageous scale? I mean...my daughter gets out of college and there is no job waiting for her...because we simply don't need to work that effen hard anymore! She will have time to enjoy her retirement right away! Doesn't that make so much more sense, in terms of living in the moment? Doesn't it make so much sense in terms of our health? Do you think stress diseases are epidemic by accident? No, it's a conscious creation, a belief that created the horrific: "work one's fingers to the bone." Oy!
I'm not concerned with HOW my outrageous proposition could possibly work. I'm just proposing a suspension of disbelief.
I highly recommend that we raise our sights, and imagine a life in which our kids only need to work about oh, ten hours a week. Tops. And they can spend the rest of their time in life-enriching ways, doing something they believe in, for free, because they believe in it. Like...healing the planet. I can totally see it happening, and I think my daughter would fit in really well in that world. What I see in her as a lack of ambition may just mean she's been pre-programmed for an easier existence, a fun existence, an existence in which all that matters is her heart's desire, and creating planetary One-ness.
What seems like ages ago, Katybeth's Cole found Lily's hat under something at school. It had been lost for weeks, and it was my favorite hat of hers; Jay had gotten it for her so on top of it being cute, it was evocative. I sent Lily to school with $5 for Cole, because, to me, the hat was priceless and I would have put up a $5 reward in the first place if I'd have thought of it; in fact I bet it's a great way to actually get kids' lost clothing back! Anyway Katybeth and I had a conversation in which she said, it's something he'd do for a friend, he absolutely doesn't need money for it, don't even go there; and I countered with, I want him to have the experience that living one's life, simply being a good friend, effortlessly brings rewards. (I also pay my daughter--every time she makes me laugh so hard I cry. It's maybe 4 times a year, but she is always poised to make her comedic move, so we have a fairly entertaining domestic life, very sit-com. (More fun for both of us than the usual "allowance.") Hello, if anyone out there wants it, sit-com idea: the yoga-teacher mom whose daughter imitates her in a smart-assy way, but the mom, because she's a yoga teacher for god's sake, does not react. I'd like my daughter to play the daughter and I'd like...hm...one of the former brady bunch girls to play me.)
Anyway, in sum, all I'm saying is, what if life could be way better than we ever realized? What if we don't really need half of the stuff we've learned--or owned? What if we could free up that time and space for relaxing, enriching activities, in bodies that brimmed with life? What if in paring down our long workweek and our major expenses we could also turn the health of the planet, and its people, around? Isn't it worth fantasizing about? What would you do with all that extra time and energy? What might your kids do, if they don't have to worry about mortgages, health care, unemployment rates, when they grow up? It would not hurt to imagine that, because everything that's ever happened was first a thought. Right? Cars. Airplanes. Computers. And other things that may now be turning obsolete. Is there anything wrong with a huge shift in which people will work less? It might hurt for awhile, for some people, like an unwanted diet, but it will help tremendously for all of us to see a positive end in sight, rather than more of the same.
The world IS changing--why resist? The future could exceed our imaginations.
Yes, I humor myself. Surely there are only a couple hundred thousand people reading this. But that's not the point--instant connection is the point. And jobs. We have just put...how many people out of jobs? by inventing blogging. How many people don't have jobs because the communications industry is slowing down...because it's becoming obsolete... And don't think I'm not majorly bummed out. I am! I love paper! I love ink! I love fonts! Some books are stunningly beautiful to me. But hey, maybe they'll keep creating the amazingly lovely ones, and they'll become art, having nothing to do with "getting published." No more mass published crappy paper tree wasting ink wasting millions of copies of books, but just a select, collector's type of object d'art. Hey, who knows? I don't.
But what I do know is, we have millions of people worrying about lack and scarcity. Yes, in our portfolios, and yes, on our Mother Earth as well. And what I know about that is, it drags us down. I have been learning about energy for years and years, and one thing I have learned is that your thoughts can either lift you up, or weigh you down, and it's your choice.
I can have $11,000 in my checking account and feel rich, or I can have the same sum in my checking account and feel broke. And life goes so much better when I feel gratitude, even and especially for the little things.
So instead of freaking out that there are dwindling jobs (because of course every adult needs to work 40 hours a week (unless you're really driven and work 50 or 60)), how about if we were joyful about the dwindling jobs, because it means In The Future, Hard Work Is Obsolete. Isn't that why our forefathers worked so hard? Didn't they tell us that? They said, "We are working hard so you won't have to." They essentially wanted to give us a better life, and they did.
But what if we could take a quantum leap, and not have to work so hard--on an outrageous scale? I mean...my daughter gets out of college and there is no job waiting for her...because we simply don't need to work that effen hard anymore! She will have time to enjoy her retirement right away! Doesn't that make so much more sense, in terms of living in the moment? Doesn't it make so much sense in terms of our health? Do you think stress diseases are epidemic by accident? No, it's a conscious creation, a belief that created the horrific: "work one's fingers to the bone." Oy!
I'm not concerned with HOW my outrageous proposition could possibly work. I'm just proposing a suspension of disbelief.
I highly recommend that we raise our sights, and imagine a life in which our kids only need to work about oh, ten hours a week. Tops. And they can spend the rest of their time in life-enriching ways, doing something they believe in, for free, because they believe in it. Like...healing the planet. I can totally see it happening, and I think my daughter would fit in really well in that world. What I see in her as a lack of ambition may just mean she's been pre-programmed for an easier existence, a fun existence, an existence in which all that matters is her heart's desire, and creating planetary One-ness.
What seems like ages ago, Katybeth's Cole found Lily's hat under something at school. It had been lost for weeks, and it was my favorite hat of hers; Jay had gotten it for her so on top of it being cute, it was evocative. I sent Lily to school with $5 for Cole, because, to me, the hat was priceless and I would have put up a $5 reward in the first place if I'd have thought of it; in fact I bet it's a great way to actually get kids' lost clothing back! Anyway Katybeth and I had a conversation in which she said, it's something he'd do for a friend, he absolutely doesn't need money for it, don't even go there; and I countered with, I want him to have the experience that living one's life, simply being a good friend, effortlessly brings rewards. (I also pay my daughter--every time she makes me laugh so hard I cry. It's maybe 4 times a year, but she is always poised to make her comedic move, so we have a fairly entertaining domestic life, very sit-com. (More fun for both of us than the usual "allowance.") Hello, if anyone out there wants it, sit-com idea: the yoga-teacher mom whose daughter imitates her in a smart-assy way, but the mom, because she's a yoga teacher for god's sake, does not react. I'd like my daughter to play the daughter and I'd like...hm...one of the former brady bunch girls to play me.)
Anyway, in sum, all I'm saying is, what if life could be way better than we ever realized? What if we don't really need half of the stuff we've learned--or owned? What if we could free up that time and space for relaxing, enriching activities, in bodies that brimmed with life? What if in paring down our long workweek and our major expenses we could also turn the health of the planet, and its people, around? Isn't it worth fantasizing about? What would you do with all that extra time and energy? What might your kids do, if they don't have to worry about mortgages, health care, unemployment rates, when they grow up? It would not hurt to imagine that, because everything that's ever happened was first a thought. Right? Cars. Airplanes. Computers. And other things that may now be turning obsolete. Is there anything wrong with a huge shift in which people will work less? It might hurt for awhile, for some people, like an unwanted diet, but it will help tremendously for all of us to see a positive end in sight, rather than more of the same.
The world IS changing--why resist? The future could exceed our imaginations.
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