Ultramarine: Adventures in Infinite Abundance

receiving money, grace, love (thanks for insights by jim tolles)

Last night, in the tail end of a dream, I took in an old car into an auto mechanic to tide me over for a short term whilst waiting for my new car on order. (All this is also intriguing as I don't own any car in waking life.) I assumed that the charges would be in the hundreds of dollars range. When the auto mechanic showed me the bill it was an amount larger than $5000 (I recalled the number even as I woke up, but not now, something like $5297.13.) I knew that I didn't have that amount. I didn't know where it would come from. I was panicking internally. Already, my mind was scheming how I was going to perhaps borrow it. Already my mind was scheming if I could convince the mechanic into an installment plan of payment. Then I woke up (and not a happy camper).

I know from dream symbology that cars represent our path in life, or our life direction--and, you can say our  autonomy in navigating life.  (I've not come up with an interpretation on what it means that I don't own one right now in waking life.)  I think it was intended as a good sign that there was a new car (path) on order.  

My memory from the dream is fading--but I believe it was a month tops before the new car was ready; and the old car repairs were a temporary measure to see me through that time period. The rest of the dream,  I've not interpreted quite yet. I have a sense that the car mechanic is sort of like a guide or mentor for the vehicle (this body) navigating a path in life. Perhaps it saying, in my particular case right now (not so much that it's been a mistake in past) I'm spending too much energy (i.e. money) on spiritual/life mentors to guide me? That currently what feels truer and freer is trust my own Self and secondarily to be with peers in a sangha (using that term loosely). Again, I'm still open to what the dream means, and what it wants to tell me in its own time.

Plus I do know that having an unexpected car repair and not seeming to have the means to pay for it echoes a very vivid scenario from the book, Busting Loose from the Money Game, by Robert Scheinfeld. 

Today, I was reading through a new (to me) blog series on spiritual awakening by Jim Tolles, in particular the one entitled: "Mindful Money Use and Reciprocity" where he spoke about money (actually reciprocity applies to anything not Formless) being an energetic flow that appears to flow in, flow out in cycles of giving and receiving.

This was a particularly resonant section for me: 

"Receiving for the Sake of Receiving

To continue to let go of the need to value things, we also have to let go of the idea that we need to do something in order to receive. This is where having a friend or two in your close circle of friends or in a spiritual community can be great to practice with. Throughout a month, you simply would give something to someone. It could be money, a gift, a compliment, or anything really. For the sake of this blog post, I think gifting money could be really illuminating [in another section he said because money has the most potential for baggage, pushing our buttons and/or conditioning around it]. You may find all kinds of issues coming up when someone gives you money. You will probably be confronted with a whole lot of social stereotypes and programming. Here are a few that come to mind as I write:

• You're not worthy
• You didn't earn it
• You feel like a charity case
• You feel like it undermines your independence

It may get even more self-deprecating than that. It's extraordinary how much we as human beings are unable to receive. Now, this is different than taking. Taking is coming from a space of feeling that the world owes you something and that you deserve to get things. If this is the issue you're working on, then starting out with a practice of giving is important before moving on to receiving. Wherever you are in your path, however, both elements are critical because they make up the fullness of reciprocity and the flow of life."

The most amazing thing about this section is I read it nearly back-to-back with another of Jim Tolles' blog post where he was speaking about how to work with a spiritual teacher, and what to expect. The part that sparked said that many students find it difficult to abide in the non-differentiated, unconditional Love that pours forth from an awakened teacher (Jim: "Love can be the MOST threatening thing a spiritual teacher ever offers to someone. "). This is bigger than any individual manifestion of Awakeness or Wholeness--when I'm honest with my self, the Love that simply pours forth from Existence itself can feel overwhelming whenver I have any barriers up--in those instances, I shut down, defend, turn away, reject love. It is another aspect of not being able/willing to receive. So whether it is money or love or grace or whatever gifts Life bestows, there seems to be an interrelated resistance to receiving there that I am definitely seeing in my make-up, or conditioning, or belief system, let's say. 

I'm not sure how this all ties into the dream--but I'm writing this as a process of self-discovery and improvisation in real-time (Now) and hopefully it may speak to others as well. I am simply noting this all happened within a few hours of each other, and trust that there's some clues here.

Another beautiful snippet (all relates) from another blog post "When There's Nothing Left but Love" by Jim Tolles. It's coincidence that I'm watching over my shoulder a web designer work on a client website at the coffee shop at this moment. It's not my best skill or talent, but one that appears to be in market demand that I could employ to 'make' money although there is no motivation to do so any longer. Still there's this internal egoic voice that says I should suck it up and force myself to do it to make money, but there's no energy backing that command up, so nothing happens with it other than a sense of inner scolding. So it's been relaxing to contemplate this section:

"THE ARISING OF A SPIRITUAL JOB

The word "job" is a silly term because that's not really how this space thinks. As everything dissolves away, there is nothing left but love. So you will simply want to do whatever actively manifests love and joy into your life. That's it. It's not that hard. So many people go through such inner struggle to find their "true purpose," but in this space, the awakened self does not care about that. If there is a clear purpose for this lifetime, then you will follow it. If not, you will simply follow the path that brings you the most joy. There will still be difficulty, but consider that if you love offering massage, then you will do that work. There will be good days and bad, but because you love sharing yourself in this way, it is not the same as doing a job just to make money or because you're good at it. The "how" is everything. How you share your skills and talents creates the energetic foundation of the service you offer. If you truly hate working in non-profits but think you have to serve the world in that way, you are actually doing the opposite. You are sowing the seeds of suffering. An enlightened accountant is just as needed as enlightened non-profit executive directors, but you will only get to the work you truly want when you've dissolved into love. At that point, it all is so effortless, and you realize that the struggle and suffering you've put yourself through in the past only created more of the same. In this way, many of us often fall into the work we love, and that kind of effortlessness tends to lead to a lot of joy even as the jobs we do may stay the same or change a hundred times over in our life."

Art Credits: Ophelia, painting by Odilon Redon.

Books that are Truly a true gift - The Way of Liberation + Busting Loose from the Money Game

Since this blog is about money and prosperity, the idea that there is give and take occurring as distinct events is part and parcel of a concept of two-ness that doesn't actually exist except as a construct. When I say this, I am speaking from direct realization that there is only one thing going on continguously and singularly ever. However, that said, I had no idea that realizing the inherent wholeness of Infinite Existence could be so simple while living it out in the so-called 'relative' world regardless what utterances my conditioned mind spewed forth would prove to be so difficult.

No distinctions between give and take, so these gifts are gifts to your one and only Self. Ponder that deeply.

Anyhow, enough babbling: I wanted to alert you to two FREEING (and free) resources that I highly recommend, and that have served me the truest this 2012 year.

First, anything by Adyashanti. Specifically pointing out the new book as he's gifting it away. Anyone already on his mailing list in the USA will receive the hardcover edition, and the ebook is also free to all. It's called The Way of Liberation. Pretty much it's what it says it's about: completeness and complete liberation, not stepping into a bigger, roomier box of beliefs.  Zap all boxes.

I love its Introduction (almost an Initiation):

"To read this book as a spectator would be to miss the point. Being a spectator is easy and safe; being an active participant in your own awakening to Truth is neither easy nor safe. The way forward is unpredictable, the commitment absolute, the results not guaranteed. Did you really think that it could be any other way?"

Second, Busting Loose from the Money Game, by Robert Scheinfeld. It's not technically free but I'm sharing a bootleg version someone else uploaded online. If you can afford the book--buy it out of sheer appreciation. This one's focused on reclaiming energy (or power) we've externalized due to past conditioning/programming.

It took a lot of throwing myself into the quest, "What is the source of wealth?" to find this gem which goes against the grain of everything I'd been taught. Although it appears to be about money (as it's a tangible form of energy), it applies to anywhere we externalize cause and effect and make up adversaries and authorities who appear to have a power we claim we don't--call them bosses, government, "the rich," surly servers, the bills, the bank, exes, "society," kids, in-laws, or whomever makes demands that seem to compromise or bind our freedom and power--this book applied will help make the saying "Infinite is infinite" finally practical in the physical world, although the going isn't easy since it defies everything I'd ever been trained to believe. One of the most brilliant lines is (paraphrased and totally by memory), "Understanding [including analysis] is the booby prize; rather, live by what you're inspired to live moment-by-moment." 

Both these books require experential application and daily practice to grok them as reading intellectually isn't going to have any genuine impact. 

Enjoy. 

BONUS: My gift to you this season is my pop-up inspirational blog, SPIRITUAL WINTER. Enjoy that as well.

Credits: Frankincense, by Jamie Vicente; Klimt, by aditya7; Myrrh, source unknown (well, unknown as a figure of speech anyhow).

aquamarines and the integrity of true wealth

 If you are reading this, I invite you to join me in a more interactive, multi-way correspondance and gathering at http://www.facebook.com/MotherWealth. Officially, it launches tomorrow on June 5, 2012, but Now is as good a time as any.

It increasingly feels to me that I'd like to be in a more richer style of communication and communion than is afforded by the typical blog format, and so I've entered into this collaboration with Naomi Rose, the author of MotherWealth: The Feminine Path to Money.

She thanked me this morning for confirming for her this slower, more organic pace of life and that she was learning from me. And I also wrote back:

It's within the mutuality that the learning is happening. I mean by that it is nurturing for me as well to be able to more openly be the essence of MotherWealth and not feel isolated/alienated.... and perhaps that is where the real magic of this new correspondence might yield--the embodiment of what we both intrinsically 'know', but now to 'be' it moment to moment.

For instance, on Saturday [my birthday] I initially felt a bit deprived since I am so low on cash and was feeling a lot of resistance to my situation. Yet, I recalled your simple exercise "here I am" and began doing that exercise. Eventually, I was able to leave the house and just explore the surroundings more and more with an attitude of appreciation of the moment. I didn't need to own a beautiful garden in order to enjoy and appreciate one, for example. I just went on the rest of day appreciating and admiring things and people in my awareness without any need to possess it or claim it, and it did feel very enriching.

This morning on my way out the door (I like to go to a local cafe, and they also have a free drink offered to customers on their birthday week), I found a simple, sophisticated aquamarine ring on a busy sidewalk. It is not money, per se, as even money is simply a store for what wealth represents and has no value of itself. But to me, the ring it signified in a symbolic sense the wealth and pricelessness that abounds.

I just looked up the symbolism for gemstone "aquamarine" in one of my spiritual mentor's website, and she says according to the Toltec symbolism it represents:  "Complete integrity of self-empowering attitude." 

 I find it tempting and quite easy to abandon my integrity with Truth and Beauty to conform to the world's fear and anxieties, but somehow lately I have been able to let other's fears and projections to slide off like "water off a duck's back" more and more without making a big fuss or debate (just another form of resistance).  

This morning just before I found the ring on a busy street in Palo Alto, (I am currently in Silicon Valley and all the chasing for money that that implies) and this morning's exam (joking) was deflecting a friend's brotherly advice to compromise on my integrity in order to be able to 'survive' here. Survival is just not that intriguing to the Infinite, I suppose.  I somehow managed to be really myself in our encounter (not so easy for me, as I often have a habitual response to appease or please), and it was only a half hour later that I encountered the magical ring. 

so what do you do? -- i'm a mystic

Someone wrote me an email about my post, "When's the Last Time You Tried to Pay the Rent with Love?"

They wanted to know how the experiment turned out since it was now 2012, and that post was penned on June 28, 2005.

I wasn't sure how to respond as so much has happened in that timeframe. In a nutshell, metaphorically, I feel as if I am a fruit tree planted from seed--and it's not quite matured (very close, I think).

So, writing here over a few posts, I may be able to summarize the roller-coaster that has been the last seven years. Firstly, I say upfront at this moment I'm not paying the rent as of this writing March 10, 2012 (living with family). I did manage to pay lots of rent up through about March 2010 when all hell broke loose as they say.

Skimming When's the Last Time You Tried to Pay the Rent with Love?", what struck me as most resonant to who I am today was this part:

They say Matthieu Ricard, the son of a French intellectual, "gave up a promising career as a scientist to study Tibetan Buddhism." Uh, what exactly is this promise behind a promising career, anyway?

June 28, 2005 was before many things I could not have imagined appeared. I will tell one story today, and a little background for context.

I understated the impact of making an inner vow and commitment to seek to know what is Deathless immediately after I survived the Indian Ocean tsunami while I was in Thailand and was in the aftermath of so much death and angst, yet also tenderness, generosity and compassion.  Everything else--boyfriend, paid work, etc.--seemed to be wiped from my slate as I'd lost interest in those. At that time, I stopped trying to hustle for Silicon Valley (where I lived at the time) consulting clients and managed to scrape by on my savings pouring forth all my energy and effort to finding out what is absolutely true for myself directly and experientially. 

I sort of managed to convince myself I could go back to the career after I found out for myself what is always true and always been true, or in Philip K. Dick's words, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." I would have had no way to conceive that I would be a full-time mystic.

In June 28, 2005 I was close to giving up on the concept of spiritual Enlightenment existing beyond a concept of dead dudes like Ramana Maharsi and the Buddha and such. I demanded a living example. And so not too so afterward, I was led to my spiritual mentor, Adyashanti--and that occured in August 2005, a few days before Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

From here, I will jump time and take you to a scenario in New Orleans March 2010--just about two years ago today. It was March 3, 2012 (the date is etched in my memory), and I was living in a truck. How things descended to that point is a whole other story--only mostly involving fear, worry, and resistance (i.e. lack of surrender and allowance) which is more dangerous than people might imagine. I'd only been living in the truck for two day so far when I walked down to the anarchist collective which had a library, and sometimes they had free food or could tell you where you could find food. I'm not sure now why I went--probably food and advice as I really wasn't needing books (if I was so inclined, I had a library card). While there I saw a 'free' pile and glanced and saw a book titled, "Miracle in the Mirror," by Mark Buntain. I picked it up because of the word, miracle, which isn't often used in our culture, and if I recall I'd used that word that day.

Reading that book probably helped save my life, as I'd really hit a low-point.

The point in the end isn't whether you pay the rent or not (this is hard to fathom).

Now that I'm beginning to learn to discard social conditioning, learned theories (not first-hand), and other indoctrination I can see that KNOWING that all is One and Infinite is one thing (April 2006), but living and being the embodiment of that is quite another. And, I am sensing that Infinite really does mean Infinite and, as such, is inclusive of resources (of which money is a medium for). This is a meandering way of saying that to know that all is One and Infinite in a transcendent sort of way is not enough. It's also in the here and now, day by day, minute by minute it's who I allow to manage my life--my mind and its memory or the Infinite.

When the person I call Evelyn surrenders to that Infinite, then all is provided. Otherwise, I've found it unpredictable. It's been that surrender (that's a frightening word for some, could call it acceptance, alignment, cooperation, allowance too) to the Infinite that I've fought hard against in the last four years, to my own detriment.

I haven't read Miracle in the Mirror since. I just picked it up, and flipped a few pages so you can see why it might have stirred a lonely, scared woman back towards onely, sacred woman.  The true story tells of the young college student Nita Edwards descent into a debilitating illness. She was brought up Christian, but disavowed it as she grew up. (I'm not Christian myself, as I kind of don't identify with any religion... or hopefully, identify with anything other than Truth itself.) However, the path taken isn't of consequence.

"She lay sulking in the bed, a bag of bones, praying, "Why me, God?" and angrily holding back the tears, when the husband of another relative walked in with Colton Wickramaratne. For a long time, he had wanted Colton, his pastor, to pray for Nita.

Nita made every effort to be pleasant, as always, as they were introduced, but she was not disposed toward socializing at the moment. She was still mad at God. She answered the preacher's questions, smiled sweetly, and closed her eyes as he prayed. As he left she said, "Thank you for coming," but she really meant, "Thank you for going."

[another section the pastor Colton revisits her and reveals a vision he had. . . . ]

"She was dying of myelitis, a creeping paralysis that was destroying her limbs and vital organs, and, apart from that, she had always been cynical about visions and dreams and voices. The story Colton told her really bore no relevance to her.

"God is going to heal you," Colton insisted. "You're going to have an impact on all of Asia."

"You can't be sure of that," Nita replied coolly. "I come from a family of medical people. I know full well that my disease will eventually reach my heart and lungs, and I will die. But you're good to try and encourage me."

"I would never give you false hopes," Colton answered. "But I saw your face in the vision. You are going to live."

Nita shrugged. The preacher could believe whatever he liked. She couldn't stop him.

[Days later . . . . ]

"Oh, Colton," Nita sobbed, "why don't you just stop praying for me?"

"No," he replied, adamant. "I'm not going to let go until God tells you what He intends to do with your life."

A subtle change occurred to Nita that day. Her prayer life experienced a fundamental change.

"I'm not asking for healing any more," she told the Lord each day. "I'm not asking to be taken home to heaven. Just tell me what you created me for, and do anything you like with me."

She doggedly repeated the prayer, day after day, night after night.

"If your plan is to let me die, that's fine," she often added, her fear of death completely gone.

"If your plan is to let me lie here like a vegetable for thirty years, that's O.K. I don't like it, but I'll live for you right in this bed. Just tell me what you want me to do, why you created me, what purpose you intended when you formed me in the womb. What is your plan for me?"

. . . When she felt herself doubting that God would ever answer her, she repeated the last verse of Isaiah 40 as a counter-argument:

"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

And for Nita, that promise--mounting up, running, and walking--made it worth the wait, even if it would only be a figure of speech.

It was a strange change, after so many months of demanding a miracle of healing. Colton and Suzanne, her mother, and hundreds of Christians all over the world, were demanding her healing, and in the swirling midst of all this, she was asking only for a word --not action.

And daily, Nita's spiritual pipeline was being cleared. The earthly longings she had felt for so long were being swept away. The obsessions of her teen years, the self-indulgent prayers, the earmarks of immaturity began to be dissolved within her by a divine touch. Every day, she could sense in her spirit that her spiritual pipeline was coming close to a total cleansing--a little closer to the day when it could freely transport God's answer to her heart.

. . . The advance of death indeed appeared to continue in Nita's body."

When Nita stopped asking and praying for her recovery on its own, and truly wished to know and live out her purpose and to allow Life to live through her...

that was the turning point.

Of course, Nita got her answer.

And miraculously, as she wasn't asking for a cure, she was also healed 100% of her paralysis caused by myelitis disease as well as visible scars from surgery vanished.

I had seen medical miracles myself or perhaps this would not have resonated deeply. However, somehow in my mind I had never really connected the medical and the financial mirarcle as interrelated. It was really the piece about clearing herself that spoke to me.

To ask for paying the rent is a small prayer indeed when the Infinite is calling. I'm still learning by doing it moment by moment, but those details take care of themselves when I am in surrender.

value is not self-evident in the marketplace -- yet -- and the value of the frequency-holders (via ecktart tolle)

I decided to write here, rather than go fuming publicly on Google+. (Yes, this is public too, but you must have stumbled here for a reason.) In response to a post about the number of people on food stamps in the USA, someone in the COMMENTS (not the author) writes:

"The 45 million would do better in a socialist country since it is self evident that they are consuming more value than they are creating. But they live in a capitalistic country where, in order to prosper, you must create more value than you consume."

I blew a fuse. (And not like this commenter is the only to feel this way. It was just the last straw for me.)

Here's the original post so you can see for yourself. The original author clearly even share  personal detail. His dad is out of work. Yet, he and his siblings are turning down offers every week. It's not all ideology, until we get into the comments.

Anyway, this is my personal experiment around money, abundance, and writing myself into a solution and you're eavesdropping, so I get to vent now.

There are so many myths about how "money" the mysterious force works that are perpetuated by programming, indoctrination, memes, conditioning, what-have-you... doesn't even matter how these thoughts get embedded and passed down verbatim. 

Existence=value. Life=value. That simple.

I believe if anyone exists, they have value--period. They wouldn't be part of living Existence if they weren't providing some function, some unique part and parcel of the Whole.  That I or you don't value a part of the whole is another story.

Is it possible for someone to be undervalued, underappreciated, or even virtually unseen? Sure. There are huge swaths of people, and I don't have time to go into all of them. There are two types that I'm particularly interested in and see time and time again be undervalued in this current age (I think this will change soon enough). And they are:

1) The frequency holders.

2) The rabble rousers.

Sometimes I have aspects of #1 within me. I can hold space through Presence (and I make no claim to that Presence... way beyond limits of a 'me'). Though, it depends. It's not really my particular expression. I know folks that do a remarkable 'job' (it's not necessarily chosen task, it just is) of being a frequency-holder. I have a friend that has a hard time keeping jobs--and they are usuallylow-paying, menial even though he is clearly a deep soul for anyone with a clue, or "eyes to see, ears to hear." They have a very soothing, healing presence to them.  It is so soothing that it is difficult to fit into the rhythm of a regular work environment.

They would be perfect in a monastery, but hey it's 2011.

Any perceptive fool can discern what value they provide. People are friendlier, calmer, clearer in their presence--it's like night and day if you are an observer like I am. But nope, they are not Type-A go-getter achievement-oriented chasers and thus so very easy to dismiss as... worth less. They are often invisible to their managers. This isn't that they don't provide value. They can be indispensable in certain situations and environments, but it takes bosses with subtler hiring skills than the average résumé checker. But, no, instead of a living wage and dignity, sometimes instead they have to stuff newspapers into their sleeves and trouser legs to survive the winter on the streets homeless.

Eckhart Tolle has an excellent description of frequency holder in the book, The New Earth:

“Others, after the natural expansion that comes with growing up has run its course, lead an outwardly unremarkable, seemingly more passive and relatively uneventful existence. They are more inward looking by nature, and for them the outward movement into form is minimal. They would rather return home than go out.

“Some of them find it hard to fit into this world. Some are lucky enough to find a protective niche where they can lead a relatively sheltered life, a job that provides them with a regular income or a small business of their own.

“In past ages, they would probably have been called contemplatives. There is no place for them, it seems, in our contemporary civilization. On the arising new earth, however, their role is just as vital as that of the creators, the doers, the reformers. Their function is to anchor the frequency of the new consciousness on the planet. I call them frequency-holders. They are here to generate consciousness through the activities of daily life, through their interactions as well as through ‘just being.’

“In this way, they endow the seemingly insignificant with profound meaning. Their task is to bring spacious stillness into this world by being absolutely present in whatever they do. There is consciousness and therefore quality in what they do, even the simplest task. Their purpose is to do everything in a sacred manner. As each human being is an integral part of the collective human consciousness, they affect the world much more deeply than is visible on the surface of their lives.”

I'll talk about rabble rousers in the next post. I'm too worked up right now as you can tell... although reading this beautiful piece by Tolle has been remarkably calming (relative).

One time I saw Amma in a video (translated) say that the wars are not being fought in the open, they are on the subtle realms. The frequency-holders know of this. They are the peace-makers. You may or may not sense their presence. They won't be on the cover of any magazines or winning awards. If you think they are valueless, it is only a projection of how you value your own inner life, and nothing more. It is not a statement of fact as to their value.

Bonus post I found on someone obviously pleased to be acknowledged for "being." Yay for them, as they aren't getting enough acknowledgment for their contribution to all sentient beings.

NEXT POST MORE ON:  I suppose a better term might be kindlers. (Rabble rouser sounds too violent and confrontational.) In a nutshell, is the status quo going to lend money to or hire someone hell-bent on the next frontier and possibly destroying the old through a better solution (not through violence, but through progress... hey remember those cute Olivetti typewriters.... byebye computers and Wordperfect)? Do you think the CEO of Olivetti was going to give you a check as an entrepreneur of Novell (who wrote Wordperfect). Think again. If they are attached to the status quo as their source of supply, they don't. Some, very few, are willing to 'cannibalize' the present cash cow to usher in the future.

It's not a value equation. That's the lie. It's a statis self-preservation equation.

Definition of KINDLE

transitive verb

1

: to start (a fire) burning : light

2

a : to stir up : arouse <kindle interest> b : to bring into being : start

3

: to cause to glow : illuminate

intransitive verb

1

: to catch fire

2

a : to flare up b : to become animated

3

: to become illuminated

— kin·dler \ˈkin(d)-lər, ˈkin-d^əl-ər\ noun

Work at its smartest means doing that work that no one else could do. - Kevin Kelly

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth." - Henry David Thoreau

I read this essay by Kevin Kelly a few weeks ago up on Google+, and still find it reverberating today.

It is very tempting to work backwards, and reverse-engineer what I should be doing based on monetary needs.

For instance, say I need to make $50,000 to live in this particular city and not starve. So let's divide $40,000 by 1,000 (my standard consulting hours per year rule-of-thumb when I used to consult) to arrive at $40/hour fee. Then, brainstorm a bit... what can I do, advise, or sell that will bring in $40 per hour? And there's livelihood and abundance all solved at once. Sure I can think that way and have, but I do not wish to any longer.

There comes a point when it's time.... for the spiritual rubber meets the road. (The reason I chose the Thoreau quote is precisely that my own motivations are for truth, in particularly ultimate truth.) The stakes get higher and higher when one is 'knowing' Infinite (or Infinity--I use both terms) yet balking at being that. Sometimes knowing truth is so much its own reward (can be rather peaceful and chill), it doesn't really matter that I'm not functioning according to conventional survival in the world of form.

That's when the stakes rise as homelessness might just get your attention, because it's not enough to know and not embody what you know (that'd be another topic, but it's related to holding onto old conditioning).  And for others, it might not, as plenty of sages that have lived in forests or caves. But I'm no hermit, and wouldn't have lasted long at Walden, either.

It's worth reading the essay to make sense of what I'm writing. The keystone sentence below is the sentence, Work at its smartest means doing that work that no one else could do:

". . . . it began to dawn on me that there is yet another stage beyond doing things well and with love. . . Work at its smartest means doing that work that no one else could do." - Kevin Kelly

This rings so true that it can send chills up my spine, and tingles the top of my head.

I just spent a good portion of Monday writing up a post on some pretty edgy ideas around education empowering people to be healthy and learn self-healing rather than rely on external healthcare systems. This is work I can do well and with love.

However... however, it is  not work that no one else could do. I am suited to do because of the confluence of my skills and experience. But I am not UNIQUELY suited to do it because of the confluence of my skills and experience. How do I know that? Because there is a long list of people and healing modalities that I list in that post. Dr. Len can teach ho'oponopono pretty kick ass. Almine can teach Belvaspata quite well. Get the picture? Perhaps the only thing I add that is a unique twist is to coalesce them together into a Mind-based training boot camp + wiki or another format of hands-on workshop. But really, there do exist folks I can probably find that could do that far better than I can (as it may additionally require good project management and organizational skills that aren't my forte). Maybe my unique add there was to put the idea out there. The sharing, town-crier type of visionary role; and let someone else run with it.

I can go through in my mind dozens of things I can do well and with love.

These often fall into the coaching, teaching, counseling type of categories. Invariably I find people that can do it better than I, or at least as well as I.  Let's say it's spiritual teaching, I'd direct you to my own teachers and mentors in a heartbeat. Let's say it's social media coaching, sure in 2004, I might had had an edge--not anymore.

There are other ideas that I've tossed in my head as possibilities for income, one by one they all come down to things others can do just as well. It's not my gift.

As Kevin Kelly says, "When others are doing something like you are, let that activity go because that means you don’t have to do it!" In spiritual circles, that'd be deemed as faith. In secular terms, only a scarcity and limitation mindset would insist on holding onto an activity (here the ego gets involved since by that time you have a good reputation and maybe attached to that successful identity and the income that has built up with that reputation). But life evolves, and it may not be the way that the Infinite uniquely expresses through you now. There's no need to compete in an Infinite cosmos that is constantly replenishing and creating (and the only reason that it appears so stagnant collectively has to do with holding onto past patterns, rather than surrendering moment by moment to its freshness).

If someone else can do it, I'm moving on.....

Kevin Kelly goes on and I love this paragraph: "This is scary because you are giving up things you do well, and you might think that after surrendering all the good stuff, there won’t be anything excellent left for you. Trust me, there is more to you than that."

Trust me, there is more to you than that. Yep, infinite is infinite.

Life supports those who evolve life by shining through their most brilliant expression.  By raising the bar, they inspire others into greater expression too. - Almine

I have found what is uniquely mine, it's just that I don't 100% trust it yet to yield any income. It's not a known quantity where making a living from it is a tried and true business model like opening a dry cleaners or selling insurance. But so be it.

Here's the essay. Enjoy:

WHAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO

When you start your first job, all your attention is focused on not screwing up. Your chief goal as a newbie is to simply do a good job. Working smart means doing what is required.

As you gain confidence in your ability to complete a job, your task is to learn new things, to take on additional chores. At this stage, working smart meant doing more than is required.

The next level is exploration. The greater number of additional tasks you try, the faster you begin to see what you are better at. Working smart means trying as many roles as you can in order to discover what you are smart at.

As you educate yourself about your own talent and ambitions, you graduate from doing a task right to doing the right task. It takes some experience to realize that a lot of work is better left undone. It might be busy work that is performed out of habit, or it may work heading in the wrong direction. Working smart means making sure you are spending your time on jobs that are effective or that need to be done at all.

But the smart journey doesn’t end there. If you really pay attention to the feedback of those around you, and constantly strive to improve, you may eventually be able to discover your own best talents. At this stage you can begin to do only jobs (that really need to be done) that you are good at doing. And what a joy that is! For many years I thought this was the pinnacle of working wisdom. What could be more heavenly than to spend your energies only on those tasks you were both good at AND loved?

But recently it began to dawn on me that there is yet another stage beyond doing things well and with love.

It began with my experience as an editor of magazines. A large part of the editor’s job is getting other people to complete stories based on ideas the editor (me) had. So I got used to handing over good ideas. But while I could assign most good ideas, every once in a while I’d get a great idea that I simply could not sell. So I’d let it die. But a few of those left to die would resurrect themselves so I would try again to give it away. Some got picked up but a few would simply get no assignment and retreat. A number of these ideas might go through this cycle a dozen times, until at the end I would face it: Here was an idea so good that I could not kill it, yet no one else wanted it.

It took me several times to realize that this was a signal. It said, “This is the one you have to do.” These stories woud become the best ones I ever wrote.

That’s because they were the stories no one else could write. What I had been inadvertently doing was weeding out good ideas that I could do (but others could do as well) from those few great ideas that only I could do. I had discovered that it was not enough to be able to do something well, and want to do it, and to get paid for doing it. Work at its smartest means doing that work that no one else could do.

That’s a pretty high bar. Becoming aware of what one can do well that others cannot is an immense challenge. In most cases, it takes our whole lives to discover this. This awareness arrives only through deliberate practice and with the help of others, but the payoff is equally immense. When you are doing something well that others want, and you are the only one who can do it, you will be uncommonly rewarded.

This is true of the famously successful, but also of small-scale success as well. You can do bookkeeping, pizza delivery, pet grooming, goat dairy farming, chemistry research, and high school teaching with unique excellence. And yes, there is plenty of room in the world for everyone’s job to be a little different. The hardest part of this discovery is steering yourself away from imitating those who have already succeeded, in order to discover what your own excellence.

I think my experience may offer one useful tip in this process. When others are doing something like you are, let that activity go because that means you don’t have to do it! If they are stealing your ideas, ripping off your moves, knocking off your style, and they are doing it well, thank them. You’ve just learned that that assignment is something you don’t need to do because someone else can do it. This is scary because you are giving up things you do well, and you might think that after surrendering all the good stuff, there won’t be anything excellent left for you. Trust me, there is more to you than that.

But it will take all you life to find it. All, as in all your days. And all, as in all your ceasless effort. Your greatest job is shedding what you don’t have to do.

*

This is the essay I wrote for the book End Malaria

ART CREDITS: Being tongue-in-cheek, this is a Hermit Cave (rather nice one) by Souther Salazar.

Time and again you’ll see that when you really do your best, the universe will back you up. - Steve Pavlina

Today personal development blogger Steve Pavlina wrote:

"Are you doing your BEST? Not just working hard… Not just putting in the time… Not just showing up…

Are you doing your personal best to grow and improve today? Are you besting what you did last week? Are you working on the best project you can be working on to make a meaningful social contribution?

If you aren’t doing your best, how can you shamelessly expect the best in return? If you output mediocrity, expect to receive that. That’s only fair, isn’t it?

If you truly do your best, then you have good cause to expect the best in return. Time and again you’ll see that when you really do your best, the universe will back you up. Social support will come to you. Resources will arrive. Obstacles will be overcome. Encouraging signs will appear. Life will flow with grace and ease." {Note: Emphasis mine.}

I would have to truthfully answer that I am not doing my very best. I can vouch for myself that I am doing my best on the inner level. Very best, perhaps not. There's a guardedness that holds in reserve my best for some perceived "safer" time in the indeterminate future. (Yes, I know the folly of that statement.)

If Steve's theory has any legs, then if you are not giving your best, you're withholding. And I can only withhold from Self.  So that's why it feels like poverty--that sense of being withheld from.

"The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but actually it's the most natural way to approach any situation. When you hold some part of yourself in reserve you deny it exposure to life; you repress its energy and keep it from understanding what it needs to know." - Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets

Why am I not doing my best? I don't think it's pearls before swine (i.e. would not be recognized because wouldn't be received) as much as fear of reprisal. I already wrote about "The Water Engine" worries (and its glaring similarities to burning at the stake) that the status quo would kill any works (along with the inventors) that would usurp their monopoly on power.

"Original thought does not ask whether the world can understand it, for its origin is the heart of God and to enter there, linear and superficial thought must be left at the gate." - Almine

Speaking of water engines, I have a lot of Pisces in my natal chart (it's not my sun sign, nor do I really give that much credence to astrology as I don't give credence to the outer world as a 'cause' in general). But I like my friend D.K. Brainard's words so I check in on them from time to time. This spoke to me last week (Pisces horoscope for week of 9/12 – 9/18/2011):

"What might surprise you most about the unfolding energy of today’s Full Moon in your sign is just how much you long to tap into the full power of your inner creative genius. You’ve spent many years in the wilderness, too strange or too out there for all but a few hardy followers to keep up with your creative path. (I keep seeing this image of you in the not too distant past as John the Baptist, wild-haired, locust-haloed, and honey-bearded, raving about the coming of the Lord.) If you notice, though, people really want to work with you now. They get it. And these are solid, dependable, worker-bee types who can take your more visionary elements and chunk them down so the masses can handle them. So, let yourself go for it. Make that your intention for the week : No more will I hide my light under a bushel."

(Ignoring the fact--or legend--that John the Baptist was beheaded by the powers that be in his day.....) Excuses are evaporating quickly for not putting my best work out there, eh?

p.s. I don't necessarily agree with Pavlina's post except the snippet above has resonance for me. I'm more from the play and Tao school of thought (plus cooperate as the Infinite for the how's). Just fodder for thought.

p.p.s. There is a danger for me in stress on term 'work' being defined as being useful/needed which puts the emphasis away from an effortless play ethic. (This may be like a see-saw but whenever the balance tips in favor of trying to "be useful," I sway toward the mediocre, diluted, and codependent. Play brings out spontaneous genius more, and also inspires others to draw out their own divine spark in a way that being "useful" just never really lands. I suppose this blog is being useful rather than playful, but it's mostly for my use and benefit. If it's deemed useful to others, then so be it.

ART CREDITS: Fra Angelico's famous Renaissance painting, The Naming of St. John the Baptist.

appreciation for authors Robert Scheinfeld, Michael Roach, and Charles Eisenstein

I found it fascinating that a few people around the same time were converging on the theme of appreciation and money at the same time for me. (Some were books, so it's not real-time for them, just for me.)

One author, Robert Scheinfeld, asked, if money just went poof overnight all over the world that would not stop people from being the creators and producers they are. Things would still get made, services would still be expressed. So what would happen when someone traded or gave you something in this no-money world? You'd express appreciation. You'd thank them. This is a huge topic, and too big for this post, but when I read that it felt true. In summer of 2007 I conducted a local currency experiment in the Mission district of San Francisco and I tended to use our 'art money' (I had a visual artist helping me out) for tips and thank you's mostly (although Cafe Gratitude did provide an awesome meal because they grokked the whole experiment). In his new book, Sacred Economics, Charles Eisenstein also says that originally money was a token given as a thanks for a gift.

In The Diamond Cutter, Geshe Michael Roach also makes a similar point. But how he expresses it is more along the lines of Eckhart Tolle's statement: "Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world." This is more profound than just a cursory reading will do. Thus, Roach suggests giving when you feel you aren't being given will completely alter your 'imprint' (I believe Dr. Len calls it 'program'... all basically karmic conditioning in a nutshell). Love when you feel they aren't loving you. Appreciate when you feel underappreciated.

Sort of a catch-22 if you don't have any money or credit. Give more money? How? But it's not a trick. You can give appreciation if you really have zero cash and zero credit. Appreciation for all creation. The air, the globemallow and its delicate orange blossoms, the hard ground beneath your feet, the sun, the stars, the ripe fig, the rustling wind, the leopard print pillow, and the rude barista, the jarring television sounds, the confused Facebook page, the peeling paint, all of it. I didn't get that at first, and only now is it sinking in, that protesting the unfairness is not appreciation. Duh.

My new experiment is to express appreciation for all of it--the good, the bad, the ugly--and figure it is all nudging me to remember that this is happening for me by me through me. Expressing appreciation is one of the most natural and empowering forms of expression--in whatever ways it shows up.

So right now I'd like to publicly express my appreciation to Charles Eisenstein and Robert Scheinfeld as I have read their works (online, library) but have yet to have opportunity to thank them properly. (I have purchased Roach's work from a few years ago, and currently trying to find a way to pay him to come speak in public in New Orleans, and maybe Las Vegas.)

Poverty/scarcity/limitation says, " there's a limited supply of money available and when I spend, I have less mentality."

"Expressing appreciation is one of the most natural and empowering forms of expression there is, for reasons you now understand. It's a great gift to create an opportunity to express--or receive--appreciation. Appreciation is an acknowledgment of the value of a creation. Money is just the symbol of that expression. This is a very subtle but important point to really get." - Robert Scheinfeld, Busting Loose from the Money Game

p.s. Only in writing this did I realize that of course it would be Cafe Gratitude -- gratitude, it's in their DNA, that grokked a currency experiment around gift economy, etc. and graciously fed us in 'exchange' for art.