Ho'oponopono

ho'oponopono ~ money woes ~ homelessness, foreclosure and eviction ~ busting loose from the money game

Yesterday, I read this letter on a website:

"Pat,
I have tried for so long and I think it is safe to say I give up. I have tried to stay as positive as I can and nothing has worked unless I am blind to things happening. In June 2011 I lost my job and I have gone on so many interviews that I cannot understand why, I wake up at 5 every morning and live as though I am going to work actually get on my computer and do work. I have tried to manifest the things I need for my children but I nothing has worked. God knows I need a miracle, tomorrow at 1:30 I go to court to be evicted out of my home because I have not had money to pay the rent since August (I managed June and July). Today I sit here on my computer with a smile on my face because I know if I let go of this smile I will cry unstoppable. I have tried all that I am aware of and nothing has worked."

I was homeless for 18 days in 2010. And I'm not talking about couch-surfing at a friend's and not paying rent--been there, done that too. It was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life.

In some ways, it is sort of surreal as eleven years ago, I was making $88,000 a year and my ex-husband was probably earning something close to equivalent (I don't recall his income, he was consulting at energy companies part-time and day-trading Internet stocks). I never balanced a checkbook back then as there was always enough for whatever I dreamed up. I traveled all over the world. However, I'd not traded places for those times. I lived in a rather narrow, secular world that only consisted of what I knew through my five senses and cognition.

"Most people cannot conceive of any meaning when their life, their world, is being demolished." - Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

*****

Ever since I hear that Obama read ten letters addressed to him each evening at the White House from citizens all over the USA, I've decided to read the individual, personal stories on WeAreThe99Percent site, and do ho'oponopono on them. A little each day. There are many people struggling right now. It's a big topic for one shot, yet it all fits the theme of power/powerless imbalance that already started a few posts ago.

Symbolically, which means unconsciously, the message in homelessness is not inhabiting your Self. It is a disconnect with your own Self. This abandonment of your Self happens long before the exterior home is lost; that's just the last straw. This is usually also the case in a foreclosure as well, losing touching with expressions of your Self. Most people are taking their mind-made little self as their Self... at some point, something internal/external appears to revolt at that confinement. Or maybe it is consciousness that asserts itself, I'm not sure what is the instigator as at the level of language it's all paradox.

It's the self coming home to itself I guess, no matter what.

*****

Why Bodhidharma Went to Motel 6

"Where is your home?” the interviewer asked him.

“Here.”

“No, no,” the interviewer said, thinking it a problem of translation,
“when you are where you actually live?”

Now it was his turn to think,  Perhaps the translation?

-- by Jane Hirschfield, After

*****

The origin of the word dwell means "to dig deep." I already know what happens when I stay on the surface of things. I already know what happnes when I avoid, or try to follow the cues of the culture. None of that digs very deep.

I see in that letter above my own little self scrambling to strategize and scheme up ways to stay afloat--all using what Dr. Len would deem memory. That worked in 2008, maybe I can do that. That worked for X, maybe I can do that. Scrambling.

Inspiration requires a bit of stillness and a bit of surrender to the moment without a reference point. The word surrender can be scary, I mean here surrender to the Infinite, not a capitulation to your self-pity, or a resignation to playing small. I see myself in that letter even though I'm not freaking out (now, I have). I can see how the letter brings up my own self-pity, the feeling of lack of options closing in on me, constriction, and clinging to old societal and 'safe' solutions as salvation. So I clear on that. I thank the letter-writer for reminding me how I can worry and try to solve my problems from an unconscious fear-driven place. I love you. I thank you. Forgive me. I'm sorry. I love you. 

Q: I imagine that the sapling that pushes its way through the soil can't be in total harmony with the present moment either because it has a goal. It wants to become a big tree. Maybe once it has reached maturity it will live in harmony with the present moment.

A: "The sapling doesn't want anything because it is at one with the totality, and the totality acts through it. "Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow," said Jesus, "they toil not, neither do they spin. Yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." We could say that the totality--Life--wants the sapling to become a tree, but the sapling doesn't see itself as separate from life and so wants nothing for itself. It is one with what Life wants. That's why it isn't worried or stressed. And if it has to die permanently, it dies with ease. It is as surrendered in death as it is in life. It senses, no matter how obscurely, its rootedness in Being, the formless and eternal one Life." -- Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to your Life's Purpose

*****

Early this week, I also read the below (so true). And laughed. It's hard. It's fierce grace. Yet as with 'health' I shall learn that 'wealth' doesn't depend on externalities. That will be a real liberation when flow and grace aren't about watching a bank account like a hawk, whether there is 24 cents there or $24 million. Most of the difficulty I experience is fundamentally resistance (i.e. not surrendering to the Infinite).

"In life, purifying experiences often move us into extreme places emotionally, so that we will release control, become vulnerable so as to be open, and allow our heart to rise above our head in surrender. On a 3D level, this can suck and be dramatic, but one eventually learns about grace (always an experience). On a 5D level, this becomes alchemical, and while discomfort likely remains a bit, there is also the “magic” of witnessing synchronicity and the universe/god meeting you just as you break through the veil of fear." - Britt Martin, October 17 2011

*****

I am reading a rather unconventional book called Busting Loose from the Money Game, by Robert Scheinfeld. Typically, I'd never read a book with a title like that. 

Yet these are not typical times. What felt like dire financial straits has me asking more open-ended questions about what I don't know that I don't know. And thus I stumbled into this book. It's very riveting in that it is not like any book on money I've ever read. It's about not allowing money to enthrall you into believing that power is contained in it. It's about know that power is in the Infinite and you are being guided to reclaim power, and once you know that (it's a very application focused book, not just to read, but to do) than money ceases to be a concern at all. I believe it has a lot of parallels to Ho'oponopono as the idea is to not see 'power' as external, to clear up any emotional reactions, and to trust Divine inspiration. Before I grok that, however, all the old beliefs--including work hard, keep your nose to grindstone, stay positive, worry, get more proactive and make things happens--get nearly violently challenged. The fiercer I hold onto old beliefs (memory, or programming as Dr. Len would name them), the harder I make it on myself.

"I explained that in Phase 2 all your core beliefs will be challenged and then dynamited to support you in opening up to The Truth and your natural state of Infinite Abundance." - Robert Scheinfeld, Busting Loose from the Money Game

*****

And finally, I had to love this story, that I also stumbled into two days ago.

"We had very little money and no foreseeable prospects. One evening after we had splurged on dinner and a movie, we walked back to our car to discover a $25 parking ticket. I just turned inside out with despair, but Steve did not seem to care. He had a deep well of patience when it came to discouragements. We drove to the ocean near Crissy Field in San Francisco and walked out onto the beach to see the sunset, where I began talking about money worries. He gave me a long, exasperated look, reached into his pockets and took the few last coins and dollars we had and threw them into the ocean. All of them."

Did you recognize who the characters in this true life story are? It's about Steve Jobs.  In an essay written by his first serious girlfriend Chrisann Brennan about when they were young (I didn't catch exact ages, maybe 18-21?). It's nearly unnatural for me to admit this, but I am clearly being supported in being shown patterns, seeing reactions clearly, and getting a chance to clear them once and for all.

Perhaps then I shall not put power into things, even things like coins and paper bills. 

There is one power and it flows through everything.

*****

I recently finished all the pages to scribble in a bland gray colored journal (yeah, and gray tends to reflect symbolically a confused/doubtful pattern of thought). The last notes in there are about the solar plexus chakra around power and my thoughts (references this list of chakras).

My mom gave me a new journal (and she's not particularly religious, btw, which made it all the more serendipitious). On the front cover are joyful teal and green colored birds flitting and alighting on tree limbs, and it reads:

Look at the birds of the air;

they do not sow or reap

or store away in barns,

and yet your heavenly

Father feeds them.

- Matthew 6:26 NIV

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ho'oponopono ~ mr. obama pained he cannot do more to help ~ how to help other people ~ power / powerless seesaw

I was reading about the El Hierro evacuation* this weekend, when my eye caught the headline, "Making Obama Feel Powerless."

I clicked over since the powerful/powerless pendulum of polarity was showing up powerfully and repeatedly for me in terms of Ho'oponopono clearing work.

And, in all honesty, when I have 24 cents as my total net worth, the whole world seems to collude in telling me I'm worth less and powerless. (Yes, a lie yet a powerful cultural meme. It's part of the shame/pride pendulum of polarity... which beyond that lies just simply growth that's not black-and-white failure/success.)

So as far as Ho'oponopono, I look at my own reactions. I must admit that Mr. Obama is coming across as tepid, unsure and powerless to me. This may reveal some recurring patterns that I also hold about myself. This isn't about fixing Mr. Obama, it's about what is within me that judges him--usually reflecting some conditioning, held memory, programming, shared pattern of perception, shadow stuff, etc. that relates to myself.

I read the story, which ends up being much more moving than the catchy blurb "Making Obama Feel Powerless" would lead me to believe. It's about how the president selects ten letters each day to read from the sackful of mail addressed to him personally. My first thought, truly, was whoa! that's a lot of ho'oponopono clearing to do... ten per day  (typically there'd be various number of issues in each). Although, I suspect Mr. Obama doesn't know about ho'oponopono.

"“Some of these letters you read and you say, ‘Gosh, I really want to help this person, and I may not have the tools to help them right now,’ ” the president said. “And then you start thinking about the fact that for every one person that wrote describing their story, there might be another hundred thousand going through the same thing. So there are times when I’m reading the letters and I feel pained that I can’t do more, faster, to make a difference in their lives.”

For the past year, I had been reading Obama’s mail and traveling across the country to spend time with some of the letter-writers. I had learned firsthand that people tended to write to the president when their circumstances turned dire, sealing a prayer into an envelope as a matter of last resort." -- "The letters that make Obama long for his community-organizing days," Washington Post, October 14, 2011

There might be another hundred thousand going through the same thing. That's often very true as many patterns are shared collectively, and dragged over and over again from the past into the present. 

I thought it was interesting that Obama used the word 'pained.' I admit to that reaction sometimes when confronted with some situations in the world today. A part of me was pained that there wasn't more I could have done to prevent Steve Job's death. It seemed so preventable to me. (More on that in future posts.) 

However, that is a dangerous role to play. That one of savior, helper, etc. That's not how Ho'oponopono operates. Speaking of power and powerlessness seesaw, it's a view that puts the 'other' in the role of being powerless. As well, it sets up a sort of dependency (quite distinct from interdependence). Someone on G+ pointed us to a Machiavellian list of ways to have power over other people. Rule number 11 was: "Learn to Keep People Dependent on You To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted.  The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have.  Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear.  Never teach them enough so that they can do without you." The role of Ho'oponopono isn't to create dependency. Everyone is divine with exactly the same resource, Source.

"Dr Hew Len then learned that his job is to help himself by letting go of how he perceived handicapped children. Dr Hew Len learned that as he changed the way that he perceived handicapped children (quite like how he changed the way he perceived the mentally criminally insane at the Hawaii State Hospital in the late 80’s) they change.

Dr Hew Len points out that is most important to look at our own world first, and if we are willing to do that, our impact on the whole Cosmos will be enormous.

Dr Hew Len went on to stress that most people think they are here to help other people [and he was trained to do so] and bring peace to the world, but we are only here to bring peace to ourselves, because by bringing peace to ourselves, we bring peace to the world (and not the other way round).

Dr Hew Len says that the only thing that works is if we look within ourselves and clear up the “stuff” in us. He points out that as he does this, he notices that people get well and are able to start taking responsibility for themselves.

Dr Hew Len points out that we never experience things correctly, but we always experience our reaction of them. Dr Hew Len knows that when he meets people, he does not experience them the way The Divine created them, so he continuously cleans by saying to The Divine “I am sorry for what ever is going on in me that I do not experience people the way you created them. - What is Ho'oponopono? by Saul Maraney

 I'm not sure if that is clear to you. What it means in my application is I do not clear on Mr. Obama, nor do I clear on his reactions to his letters, nor do I clear on the letter-writers problems. I look within myself and see what does all this bring up for me? Reactions? Mirroring? Anything that I feel is relevant. And that's what I clear on. My own perceptions that are based on memory, rather than the Now.

So I perceive Mr. Obama as powerless. Fair enough. But that's not about him, I often judge myself as powerless. I can feel the imbalance, and I can feel how I give away power and energy too easily. Often in the form of being worried, concerned, pained about others (and trust me, that doesn't do them any good as then I am actually seeing them as incompetent and incapable rather than their true essence which is immaculate and whole as the Divine).

BONUS: I know it can be difficult to believe that the best thing you can offer another person that appears to be going through a difficult time is to clear yourself. Here is another perspective from Abraham-Hicks. (Note her use of "Vortex" here means when you are in a lucid spaciousness of being and operating from Inspiration rather than memory.)

When you expect another to succeed without your help, you see them as their Source sees them. When you believe another needs your help and you sure up their weakness with your strength, you help them not.

When you are in your Vortex and in alignment with your Broader Perspective, and are focused upon other humans, your attention to them is helpful. When you are aligned with the powerful Energy of your Source, anything you focus upon receives the benefit of your gaze.

When you are in your Vortex, and in alignment with your Inner Being, you are then tuned to seeing only success in the other humans you are observing. Whenever you are aware of the problems of others, it always means that you are not in your Vortex and you are not in alignment with the way the Source within you is viewing them.

When you are feeling the discomfort from seeing other people in a lackful or needy situation, and you decide to help them from your place of discomfort, no lasting value ever occurs, for two important reasons: first, you are not in alignment with the Energy of your Source, and so you have no real value to give; and second, your attention to their need only amplifies their need.

Of course, it is a wonderful thing to help others, but you must do it from your position of strength and alignment, which means you must be in alignment with their success as you offer assistance, and not in alignment with their problem.

It is easy to know if your offer is coming from a place of alignment or resistance because you can always tell by the way you are feeling. When your awareness of their situation makes you uncomfortable and you offer help to make them feel better and to make yourself feel better, you are not in the Vortex and you are not helping. When you feel an inspired eagerness to offer something because you want to participate in their happy, successful process, your attention to their success harmonizes with the point of view of your Source, and the infinite resources of the Universe are at your disposal. And that does help." - Getting Into The Vortex Guided Meditations, Abraham-Hicks

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ho'oponopono ~ sing your inspiration ~ acute myeloid leukemia ~ lupus ~ speaking truth (you are power) during salem witch trials

Acute myeloid leukemia continues to come up as a signal, and a symbol in the collective. Also I read this story today in a local paper about a singer who was brutally assaulted by a priest in January 2007. She now is in the midst of treating her leukemial.

From the last post recently on leukemia, the message underlying is: Brutally killing inspiration.

"If someone wishes for good health, one must first ask oneself if he is ready to do away with the reasons for his illness. Only then is it possible to help him."- Hippocrates

In the strange way that everything is One, and thus more than just interconnected, this all is coalescing into a singular larger message that relates to the recent spate of posts on pancreas, Occupy Wall Street, Steve Jobs, and becoming our own authority/expert.

I won't get to tie all the puzzle pieces together in this one post. As a catalyst, consider the feeling (not the meanings) of power/energy/will and the solar plexus chakra. Keep that feeling "in mind" for the next several posts.

In my own life, I tend to "kill inspiration," when I conjecture that the status quo power structure would mock my ideas--or, gulp, worse, and thus I self-police myself.

An intense self-preservation reaction takes me over as a force that I hardly understood until I read two books recently.

I received more insight into that self-censoring impulse (and truthfully it was just two chapters within each book that together were the huge Aha!). The nutshell is that cultural memes that progragate the easiest are the ones that stifle innovation, and serve to keep the status quo in place (see The Beginning of Infinity, by David Deutsch--particularly chapters The Evolution of Culture, and The Evolution of Creativity). It's not me, it's not you. It's the memetic milieu you're born into. This is often done through the use of pyschological pressure of shame and praise and through the labeling of taboo. 

More than anything, it's failure and success, that are shamed and praised (see Little Bets by Peter Sims). Thus, cultural indocrination (inherited generation to generation) instead of viewing failure as being a valid, natural part of the journey towards new inventions (and heck, adventures), paint obstacles as evidence that we are worth less as valued members of society. "They might not think I'm smart, so let me avoid that challenge since it may not pan out and make me out to be the fool."

"A functioning police state needs no police” - William S. Burroughs -- think that one over

Do you self-police your self expression? Do you censor vibrant inspiration since it doesn't fit the message and memes of yesteryear's society? As far as I'm concerned, it's all yesteryear's ideas since same old, same old memes and memories have been recycling in a loop-de-loop for a while. Dynamic civilizations ability to grow, progress, and evolve depend on knowing and allowing that failures aren't personal shortcomings. They're part of the process of progress.

Several research studies, including those by Carole Dweck at Stanford University, show that children praised for process and effort take on new challenges more readily than children praised for intelligence. The latter seek external pats on the back to keep up their self-image, and thus adopt a "fixed mindset" that pretty colludes with static societies. The former adapt to a "growth mindset."

If truth be told, I was a child praised for intelligence. Straight A's, yada yada.

The last few years I've lived a fairly unconventional life--probably classifying me as a 'loser' in the black-and-white failure-or-success culture of USA. I would keep feeling these strong, nearly debilitating sense of shame that was unsettling, and I didn't know why. Now I know why, and that knowledge that it isn't personal--but embedded into the cultural--has broken its hold over me (very, very recently).

Isn't that Dr. Len's point? That these patterns aren't personal to you or I. They're programming (and, memes serve that function). They're collective. That may explain why it feels like a force field when you begin to make some head-way and bump against their boundary... there's generations of cultural energy charging the battery up.

Enough was enough. No cultural censors--no priestly classes or doctor classes or police classes or what not authority figures weild power over me such that they will silence me.

I shall speak and express freely.

Power and energy are forces of life and existence itself, and thus are available to all.

Shortly after reading the article about the singer who is healing from leukemia, in the same coffee shop, I picked out a book from their shelf on New England Legends and Folklore. And lo and behold, I find a story about the Salem witch trials. (Remember static tactics are taboo... shame and praise... "You're a witch!" is a shaming tactic. Or, "You're a heretic!") Back then, shame went a bit further than just mere psychological abuse, it was literally killing inspiration.

In those days, traits of a witch included singing, writing, storytelling, reading, and spending  time alone.

Even though I've been to Salem, Mass., myself, I don't recall this story at all. To summarize.... at that time the Mather family was quite powerful. (There's that word again.) And Cotton Mather was "the foremost clergyman of that dark day." Church and state were much less separate in that time as well, btw.

Reading this chapter I got the impression that everyone was cowed into obeying external authority of the day, especially if they claimed direct access to Divinity (as if you don't?). It's quite possible everyone believed the truths of the day unquestioned. Or, even if they did not, who wants to be the minority outspoken one who is made an example of ("off with her head"? Oh, at this point I should point out I have an unhealthy fear of being burned at the stake. Yeah, it makes no sense but maybe it does.

Except not everyone was intimidated. A clothier named Robert Calef spoke up.

"The sickening reflection that the judges had decreed the death of a score of innocent persons upon a mistake paralyzed men's tongues, unless, like Calef, they spoke in obedience to the command of conscience." - New England Legends and Folklore, by Samuel Adams Drake

Calef bundled together his thoughts in writing to rebuke Reverend Mather's teachings.

"No printer could be found in Boston or in the Colony willing to undertake the publication or expose it for sale. "

Fine, then, all the powers that be in the Colony may have the ability to intimidate the printers, but that didn't deter him. Calef printed his words against phony witch trials in London.

"It was publicly burned in the College-yard at Cambridge by order of the president, whom its exposures reached through his near relative."

The near relative was the father of Cotton Mather, a puritan Minister whom was President at Harvard. Fine then, the power plays escalate. The Mathers print a denounciation of Calef's work in his printing a response, Some Few Remarks upon a Scandalous Book. (That label scandalous is to make sure that the pious adherents to memes understand that it is taboo, just in case):

"To break its force, a vindication was prepared and printed;. . . ."

However, borrowing William Burroughs again, “Writers are very powerful,” Burrough tells us; they can write, and “unwrite,” the "script for the reality film." Calef used his own energy rather than bowing to others' perceived power, and in so doing, balanced the imbalance of power:

". . . but there were no more denunciations made for witchcraft, or courts assembled to hang innocent people. Calef indeed felt the resentment of the Mathers, but he had saved the cause."

John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem in Calef's honor called, Calef in Boston. Here's one verse (the full poem here) that I'd have to say pretty much could be a poem in honor of Ho'oponopono--cleaning away the old to allow the fresh, moment-by-moment inspiration:

"Falsehoods which we spurn to-day
Were the truths of long ago;
Let the dead boughs fall away,
Fresher shall the living grow."

BONUS: A related video that I found really helpful is below. Almine uses Ho'oponopono principles to heal herself, even though it appears that a student is asking her for a healing because he'd completely lost his singing voice.

Particularly note the symbolism of singing voice, the singer in the Las Vegas Sun article, voice, inspiration, expression:

 

 "My own life needed to sing more... even if it meant simplifying a great deal." - Almine

p.s. If you want to do some homework in anticipation of future posts, take a peek at the Third / Solar Plexus Chakra attributes in this chart/list.

p.p.s. I'm also finding that lupus seems to also have a similar message. This post may be useful to delve into that too. The message in lupus is that one is feeling, "A giving up. Better to die than stand up for one's self." Again, it seems very related to power, 3rd chakra, and cultural meme of fitting in to rest of the tribe (by psychological pressure). For instance, a friend comes from a strict Asian family, and they don't like that she "defies" their cultural mores to go to school to be a modern dancer. So, yeah, you guessed it, she is diagnosed with lupus. It's almost as if this massive collective conflict between meme-memory and the flow of future is playing out inside us...  Thankfully, life itself has no opposition.

ART CREDITS:  Jazz Singer, by Erica Laszlo, www.ericalaszlo.com.

ho'oponopono ~ THINK DIFFERENT ~ steve jobs ~ true innovation in health ~ personal health and self-healing

Henry Miller said he didn’t approve of memorials.

Memorials, he said, "defeated the purpose of a man’s life. Only by living your own life to the full can you honour the memory of someone."

Perhaps the only way I could truly honor the memory of Steve Jobs is to step up another octave and live mine to the fullest.

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." --  original Apple "Think Different" advertisement (long version)

These same words narrated by Steve Jobs in this video of a never aired TV commercial:  

I'm surprised how much Steve Jobs' death has shaken me up. It may be a couple of days of processing and writing to get through all I'd like to express, and it may be a little jumbled, and not necessarily in any order.

I'm writing this post today because someone in my Google+ stream wrote yesterday: "I want to thank Steve Jobs for the way he lived with vigor in the face of cancer. My Mom did that, too. My heart goes out to his family and other loved ones. Losing brilliant people to cancer is so very painful. I hope someone who lives by "Think Different" finds a cure!" (For the record, my dad died of stomach cancer when I was a teenager.)

I'm not sure how many people know the history of computer technology (I do since my university degree is in computer engineering). To put it in a nutshell, originally computers were huge mammoth machines that took a huge room to house and due to lack of reasonable user interface (not that learning assembly language is rocket science, trust me, but it's not very facile either) where mainly accessible to scientists and other highly qualified experts in white lab coats. (I jest about the lab coats, sweaters would be better since it was freezing in those rooms.) The machines to the left in the photo above weighed in at 30 tons.

"This was the whole point of the 1984 commercial. That if IBM ruled the world, it would be boring, totalitarian, George Orwellian--just an ugly society of mediocrity and conformity and thought control. And Apple was going to send the proverbial act into the image of big brother. It was religious fervor in the sense that we were fighting a mighty opposite. Which was IBM, the totalitarian mainframe company.

. . . . What we did is we worked very, very hard because we truly thought we were on a mission to improve people's creativity and productivity and prevent totalitarianism, primarily of IBM." - Guy Kawasaki, early Apple Inc. employee, impromptu October 5, 2011 talk on the day Steve died

Apple's original vision was to end that 'only for experts' preciousness. Hey let's make the power in those computing machines available to be harnessed by individuals too. Allow people without reams of science credentials and computer degrees to be expressive and creative on that platform. Thus, adding to the option of computers built and designed for a team of scientists and engineers solely, the world would also have  personal computer for any and all.

“I used to think, ‘He’s a doctor. Who am I to ask a question?’ ” Bill Lee, a Baltimore man who has suffered 10 heart attacks, says in a video on the agency’s Web site urging people to speak up. 

. . .

“The unsettling reality,” they write, “is that much of medicine still exists in a gray zone, where there is no black or white answer about when to treat or how to treat.” -- - Maureen Dowd, Decoding the God Complex, September 27, 2011

The analogy between personal computing and personal health may not be immediately obvious.

It is obvious to me. It's been nearly a decade since I had any health insurance.

It wasn't something I deliberately chose--at first. I couldn't afford insurance (and a lot of other luxuries) as I was unemployed and as soon as the divorce was final, that was the end of the insurance too. It took a couple of years to learn self-healing. Only in retrospect, am I grateful for the impetus of lack to push me to look for a solution didn't require external experts. I'm not entirely sure I'd have enough guts to forego conventional thought without that nudge of "fierce grace."

"Dr. Hartzband and Dr. Groopman [authors of "Your Medical Mind: How to Decide What Is Right for You"] warn against excessive reliance on overreaching so-called experts and nebulous metrics and statistics.

“The answer often lies not with the experts but within you,” they write... " -- Maureen Dowd, Decoding the God Complex, New York Times op-ed, September 27, 2011

Bingo.

The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.

 "If we just scrapped our system and adopted any other wealthy country's system, at a minimum we would have a trillion dollars more a year for pay raises, for investment in new technology, to create new jobs, or whatever." - Former President Bill Clinton, comparing the United States, which spends 17.2 percent of gross domestic product on health care each year, to Germany and France, which spend 10 percent and are considered to have the most effective health care systems in the world. - Yes! magazine, Fall 2011 issue

And they have no respect for the status quo.

A small step, nice. However that is not much of a vision. It's an assumption that ill health is a given (it's possible to clear this kind of indoctrination from birth), and maybe we can just make ill health far more cost effective. What?!  How about zero percent of GDP because everyone is healthy? All those people in pain and/or degrading in full use of their functionality are not simply profit centers... they'd rather be living productive lives with an able body, mind and spirit. (If GDP is so important to you, contributing direct to the GDP through their creative gifts and talents rather than by buying pills, surgery, health insurance policies, etc.)

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.

All healers ought be working themselves completely out of a job/role in terms of healing ailments...  (and I'm in that boat--even though I do this all pro bono, my vision is that this is a very, very temporary position on the way to... )... and I'll let you connect the dots of what's next when everyone's healthy.

“The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." - Voltaire

p.s. And you are nature.

p.p.s. If you're looking for more information on pancreatic cancer and self-healing through Ho'oponopono, etc., also check out this fine post by Misa Hopkins (the pancreas organ is involved with diabetes too, focus on the 'sweetness of life' aspect she speaks to here: http://self-healingsecrets.com/965/diabetes-and-self-healing/

Her philosophy and her practical application (philosophy itself isn't sufficient to heal) is cut from same cloth:

"You are not broken and you do not need to be fixed.  Your body and your emotions are inviting you to become aware of beliefs, feelings, or needs that are keeping you trapped in suffering. They can be changed, opening you to true self-healing and even more importantly, to a greater awareness of your Divine self. This web-site and what is offered to you is an invitation for you to create your healing miracles from the inside out." - Misa Hopkins

BONUS: Educating, hands-on application and spreading the word ideas I had kicking around around self-healing.

Photo credits: IBM System 360 Model 40 in 1970; ENIAC and IBM mainframes photo from IDG News Service; child using Apple iPad via jorymon.com

I alone create joy and sweetness in my life. - Louise Hay

I heard Steve Jobs died today. 

Yesterday, I posted on G+ (unedited, just as it is on Google+):

Time and patience turn the mulberry leaf to silk. - Serbian proverb

Two stories on weaving the threads of inspiration with patience I read today:

Ralph Steinman co-discovered the role of dendretic cells on immunity in 1973. "For at least a decade, his findings were brushed aside, as he struggled to attract funding and failed to get his papers into top-flight journals."

In 2011, three days after his death he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Medicine. (via WSJ, October 4, 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204612504576608370043268348.html)

Steve Jobs paid $10 million for Pixar in 1986. He sold it to Disney for $7.4B twenty years later, and....

"When Jobs opened Apple's first store in Tyson's Corner, Va., the company's foray into retailing was met with skepticism and even scorn."

Five years later, revenue per square foot was $4032 for Apple stores. The second best retailer that year, Tiffany & Co founded in 1837, came in at $2666 per square foot. (via Fortune, September 2011, http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/08/steve-jobs-real-legacy-apple-inc/)

I don't tend to get affected differently over the death of a celebrity or icon any more or less than any other person. To me, the hundreds of thousands of lesser-known people dying I never met on December 24, 2004, affected me so deeply I've never been the same again. And not because of masses (even one person is a treasure). It was because I literally felt something I'd never felt before in my heart. I think it's what a blogging buddy, Wayne, calls transpersonal emotion. In fact, in Buddhist philosophy it cannot even be said that you own any emotion... it's not exactly yours. If there were to be any sense of ownership it'd be All's.

Yet I must admit I am feeling a great deal more grief than I would feel towards another icon I don't personally know. Perhaps sometimes there is some kind of communion with souls that transcends having met them on a physical plane. I do not know. I just know it feels as if I knew Steve.

Ralph Steinman died on September 30th and Steve Jobs on October 5th.

Both men had pancreatic cancer.

I didn't even notice the connection when I wrote the post yesterday on G+.

So did Ho'oponopon fail? Supposedly, I applied Ho'oponopono on Jobs a while back.

That is a question for another post, and it is a very good one. In fact, it'll be the next post.

Two quick things though. First, you cannot heal another person.  In fact, the second you think another person exists as a separate entity, you're insisting on an illusion that isn't there, adding upon the illusion of the dis-ease or other imbalance. This isn't about finding a nicer, better illusion--it's about the end of illusion. That's why the terms cleaning or clearing are often used in Ho'oponopono. Perfection underlies illusion. So clearing reveals its infinite presence.

Ho'oponopono if it "works" works because I acknowledge oneness. "There is no one out there," is one of the other most repeated refrains from Dr. Len. Second, I'm noticing more 'failure' with Ho'oponopono and again I'll go deeper into that next post, but one theory I have is clearing has to go deep. You can't just yank out weeds without grabbing the root in entirety or they simply grow. The longer you've practiced Ho'oponopono the more you will see that the toughest weeds for you are the last you perceive. It was easier when I began (circa 2003) since perhaps I was less invested in keeping those particular weeds (unconscious patterns, conditioning, tendencies, memory, karma, programming--goes by so many names). 

Also, it always comes back to you. You in this case is myself. It's not for Steve Jobs or for Ralph Steinman to get it. It's not that they are sick. I cannot attach to any outcomes or agendas of being a savior/healer, however noble. There's a pattern that we share, a precise frequency pattern that the senses interpret as occuring in the organ of the pancreas because of its resonance. (Again, next post and go deeper on that.) Dissolve the pattern in Mind, and its vibratory effects are gone. (One Mind.... and it's within.)

From the last post on ho'oponopono and pancreas, pancreatic cancer, diabetes and my increasing synchronicities with Steve Jobs:

Louise Hay simple message for pancreas problems is, "Not being able to enjoy the sweetness in life."

Lawrence Michail at the Compassionate Dragon Healing site on Chinese medicine adds that pancreas issue (especially diabetes) may indicate:

"One may be bitter at the world. Things are not the way they should be."

 The truth is this pattern is still there. I've acknowledged its presence and done the Ho'oponopono mantra, and that's obviously not enough. I know this not because of the external deaths, I can feel the dying within.

It may seem trivial to enjoy life, and to perceive the sweetness in life. Doesn't it? I mean look around you. All these people dying and suffering, then I should too. That's the empathetic thing to do. (Or is it?). That may be the extreme end of it, yet there are subtleties that carry the same tone, just muffled down a notch. It is a rather sticky piece of programming that one. I grapple with it. 

I don't often do the affirmations piece of Louise Hay's work, as it doesn't necessarily tie into Ho'oponopono or at least my work. The affirmation listed for issues of the pancreas is:

I love and approve of myself and I alone create joy and sweetness in my life.

Now, as a lived testament that would be very vital, very powerful. A wee step in that direction each day.** (And here I'm speaking out loud to myself.)

Again, my own theory right now is that Ho'oponopono is losing its efficacy if it just comes down to repeating mantras. It reveals illusions (past patterns), and it requires surrendering those illusions. 

** I can make excuses why it's not practical. For instance, I only have $1.38 in the bank, and no credit. How shall I do anything sweet with that, blah blah blah. That is the death dirge, do not listen or be swayed by it. There is another stiller voice to listen for.

ho'oponopono 100% responsibility ~ occupy wall street ~ i am the 100%

I wrote this for a by-request, private (only private as not everyone on Google+ wishes to receive spiritually-oriented posts) Google+ circle (join me there).

At the end of this post, I add in more about 100% responsibility aspect of Ho'oponopono. I'll also write more soon as far as my 'reactions' and how I cleaned them. Okay, here's what I wrote:

Below is an excerpt from a first-hand account from an Occupy Wall Street protester at Brooklyn Bridge today. Accounts vary, but anywhere between 500-700 people were arrested as the police appeared to pen in the marchers by blocking both ends of the bridge. (I'm not sure of the actual story as I was not reporting from the field.)

Exactly one year ago today I was living in NYC.

I'm not sure if I were there today I would take part in the Occupy Wall Street protest.

I can certainly identify with many of the frustrations of the protesters there today. I was broke, I was running out of options: tried and tired all the grant proposal crayon inside the line forms, tried potential investors (long story, 'twas a media venture), tried X and Y and Z's and Kickstarter campaign and plain hustle. Gave up. Try the government. Trudged to the food stamp office, uh-huh so they'd alert my landlord, and that would send them red flags (I was month-to-month, not on a lease) -- so there goes that. I'd never felt so powerless. So I left NYC before rent was due up again. I did not Make It in America. Near penniless with just enough for airfare, I moved in with family.

So yeah, I can certainly identify.... and yet.... I am not 1%. I am not 99%.

I am the 100%, and I don't see that message conveyed much.

Except I just did when I read this. There are instances... for instance, that one woman.. .you'll recognize her when you get to that point in the story below (and this again is an excerpt of a longer piece at http://carlygsdrafts.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/on-the-occupywallstreet-arrests-tonight-on-the-brooklyn-bridge/) conveys the I am the 100% (and no, I don't believe she was flirting, btw):

"We stood there for a while, and when it started to rain, we got under an umbrella with an older, white couple who looked to be in their mid-sixties or so. Then they walked up to a police officer, spoke to him, and he motioned for them to approach the ranking officer in front who was standing with a bullhorn. We then saw this couple walk out of the netted area and leave.

At this point, Rebecca and I walked up to the same ranking officer and politely requested to leave. We were told no and to get back in the crowd. We overheard two officers holding the netting asking each other what they were going to do with all these people. They obviously had no idea what the leadership’s strategy was, if any. We then went under the umbrella of a group of young women who were in their teens and twenties and were talking to a detective (or someone with the NYPD who was wearing an overcoat). He asked us some very leading questions: “Are you all together?”, “So no one told you to disperse?”, “Did you know you would end up here?” We said we had no idea what was happening. Then he told us to talk to the same ranking officer with the bullhorn. This time when we approached, the cops gave him a signal and he motioned for us to all pass through. Just like that.

As we were leaving, I asked one of the women what she had said to the officers before we came over and why they had let us go. She said she had struck up a conversation with an officer and told him he was “beautiful” and a “beautiful person” and that the “love and good vibes” she had sent his way seemed to have an impact on him."

Alas, in the next sentence the writer belittles the magic and power of the 100%, the compassion of unconditional love and remarks in response to the truthfulness of that woman, "Oh, I’m sure."

It's so easy to be jaded. Dig deeper. Be still. Feel the undercurrent.

Be sure of love. It's there's 100%.

*****

What does the 100% mean in terms of Ho'oponopono? Well, Dr. Len keeps repeating 100% responsibility for everything pretty much all the time, so if you follow this blog you've already heard that. Yet most people focus on the "responsibility" part of 100% responsibility. (And recall, responsibility isn't fault--don't guilt-trip on this.) In fact, just in writing this down I also was struck with idea that actually Ho'oponopono restores my ability to respond. Usually, I am operating from unconscious patterning, programming, conditioning, memories whatever you name it---it's  reactionary. I might call it responding, but the truth is it is very automated, even repetitive (if you've ever caught yourself repeating patterns or cycles you know what I mean) and thus reacting rather than responding. 

100% responsibility. Well, eventually the idea goes as that conditioning loosens up, I'll respond 100% of the time rather than blindly follow the commands of the unconscious, I'll be tuned to the vast present moment's Infinite intelligence.

100% is 100%. No wriggle room. Just consider it a little more next time you try Ho'oponopono. Sit with the idea of 100%. To me, it feels whole as in Wholeness. Totality. One. Nothing is left excluded. 99% is denying a part of the Whole.

I also like what Saul Maraney wrote in terms of 100% responsibility and Ho'oponopono:

By "taking 100% responsibility for whatever is going on in our lives, we are in essence saying to The Divine: “I am 100% responsible, the problem is within me, and I would like You to convert whatever that memory, debt [this could catch the attention of protestors?], block, error or problem is to nothing.”

And when The Divinity converts the block or memory to nothing, we return to back to our original state which is Zero or clarity.

Dr Hew Len says that only when we have clarity, can The Divinity provide us with insight, inspiration and whatever is perfect for us." (This last excerpt copyright © Saul Maraney - 2008. All Rights Reserved.)

I am the 100%.