Buckminster Fuller – Pam Grout

Human brain: master of deception

January 4, 2024 33 Comments

“Draw a boundary and then erase it. Because it is a fragment of your imagination.”—Buckminster Fuller

This was one of three hedgehogs Taz and her many emissaries sent my way on January 1. Bodes well for an extraordinarily epic year!!!

For those who might be wondering, I began Lesson 1 of A Course in Miracles on January 1, as I do every year.

And it’s not because I’m a slow learner (although, admittedly, that could figure in), but because I love the daily reminders of the world’s “indiscriminate generosity.”

I love hearing again and again that my fleeting, anxious thoughts mean nothing. (That happens to be today’s lesson).

I love being reminded that my piddly fears were created by a blob of goo in my head that evolved, not to produce genius or peace, but to regulate my body.

The brain’s grand productions (thoughts, feelings, senses) are patterns that come with the job of keeping the body in check. They don’t begin to show the boundless, astonishing energy field in which we live. The Gospel of Thomas says it like this: “infinite love is spread out upon the earth and men don’t see it.” To which I will add, thanks to the reducing valve known as the brain.

The Course offers a seismic shift in the way we perceive the world. By changing our perceptions, we literally begin to live in a different world. As the Course says, “In this world, the unconditional care of God (the Dude, in my lingo) becomes our experiential reality and the worldly assaults fade into insignificance. We are carefree and know we are taken care of. Anxiety is replaced with celebration.”

One of the things I’m celebrating is the amazing, brilliant people I get to meet, one of whom called me a “messenger” yesterday. This is after I balked at her insinuation that I was a teacher. Again, I don’t see myself as a teacher, but rather a person who likes to share her toys.

Her story, a perfect example of the guidance we can expect once we give up our patterned thoughts, is so cool I thought I’d share it here. About a year ago, she started getting a nudge to leave her job and move abroad. She wisely said, “Okay, show me!” No sooner did she consent to listen than she was further guided to move to France.

France? I think I might have gone back to my regulated thought patterns at that point, the ones that insist “that sounds like a lot of trouble.”

But she surrendered and kept tuning in to her guidance. The moment she committed, she started meeting people from….France, started noticing doors opening up. Everything proceeded with ease and grace. That doesn’t mean the brain didn’t try to chime in. But she knows better than to attend to its pointless preoccupations.

So in about a week, she is moving to the south of France where she will be conducting the event we’re doing from her NEW HOME.

I love how easy life can be when we let go of the patterned perception fed to us by our brains. The Course helps us loosen the chains and transform all limited beliefs.

Here’s to a 2024 free of all misguided beliefs and ideas.

#222 Forever!

Pam Grout is the author of 20 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest book, The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World)

Surrendering to it all

July 20, 2023 28 Comments

“When you really look at something ordinary, it becomes extraordinary.” –The Zen of Seeing

Yesterday, on a walking tour of Cadiz, we saw the ruins of a Roman theater built in 1^st century BC. Seating some ten thousand spectators, it is considered to be the largest Roman theater ever built.

The thing that most floored me is that it wasn’t “discovered” until 1980. So for centuries, people have been walking over it, walking around it, walking by it never suspecting it was there. To be fair, a 13^th century fortress was built on top of it. But still. The largest ever built!!!

It made me think of all the ginormous beautiful things we so often walk by, the miracles we so blithely fail to notice. How we build fortresses from our many grievances that obscure the radiant presence that is right here, available at all times, no matter what’s going on, no matter where we are.

That’s why the Course in Miracles talks incessantly about forgiveness. That it’s really the only way to finally see “the giant Roman Theater.”

Every grievance, every brother we refuse to forgive, every time we think life should be different than it is creates a fortress against the life that pours through us. Every certainty, every “but it really shouldn’t be happening” blocks the truth—that life is just so precious, that people are incredibly kind and that miracles are happening all around us.

My greatest desire is to let it all go, to surrender to this extraordinary moment. Right now. Right here.

#222 Forever!

Rise Up: Why I’ve chosen to abandon the swamp

July 19, 2019 45 Comments

“You can ask just as easily for love, for happiness and for peace.”—A Course in Miracles

Buckminster Fuller, long a hero of mine, once said that if you spend your energy and time fighting against established institutions, you end up demoralized, exhausted and discouraged.

I’ve been thinking about Bucky today after reading some of the comments from my post, “Don’t forget to show love.”

I mentioned that, instead of following political news, I was following a pint-size superhero who passes out chicken sandwiches at a homeless shelter. It provoked a conversation—is that putting my head in the sand?

In 1976, Bucky made the observation that all the institutions of humankind are rooted in a “you or me” paradigm, a scarcity paradigm. It works like this: If you make it, it’s at my expense. Likewise, if I make it, you won’t have enough. This belief system has long-dominated our planet.

It’s a belief system focused on maximizing wealth, predicated on the material world being the end-all, be-all.

Bucky said all those institutions needed to collapse. He predicted that, within 50 years (according to my calculations that’s 2026), the current structures (political, religious, educational, etc) would come crashing down.

Maybe not the best news to start your weekend, but certainly a potent explanation for what’s happening if you DO like to tune into the “news.” As I mentioned in one comment, the “news” would better be described as the “olds.” Because it demonstrates what’s no longer working.

Here’s how I choose to deal:

First, I recognize that we’re on the cusp of an evolutionary leap. Before, we could pretend that this system of good guys and bad guys was working. We could fight to get “our team” back in power. It is so apparent that this me against you IS. NOT. WORKING. That’s good to know.

Secondly, I can’t help but notice that, at the same time these institutions are failing, there’s this other story rising. There are young people (like my five-year-old superhero) giving love. Like mushrooms living underground, countless heroes, lovers and changemakers are posed, waiting for their moment to rise, to bloom.

Lastly, I remember that all those “actors” on the repertory stage of this current “theater drama” are simply playing a role. It’s not who they really are. I love knowing that. I see my job as being a witness to the truth of love, behind the scenes.

Because despite how it looks, the invisible world holds all the power. That’s what our discovery of the electron established, what quantum mechanics proves. That’s the promise of the Course in Miracles. What we see here is basically a neural pathway malfunction. It may look like things are beyond hope, but there is actually a bigger, more beautiful story going on.

As I used to like to say on Fridays, go out, my much-loved friends, and have the best weekend of your life.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.

The material world: it’s a temp job

April 24, 2018 17 Comments

“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.”—Niels Bohr
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Are you thinking about righting that over-turned apple cart I talked about yesterday?

Not so fast.

ACIM Lesson 114 continues to emphasize that what I think I see with my eyes is nothing but a made-up illusion.

What IS REAL is the fact that I am spirit.

The ONLY surety is that I am a multi-dimensional energy field upon which no body can impose limitations. Which means anything material I see out there is temporary, at best.

This is REALLY GOOD NEWS. Knowing this fact is invaluable when wanting to upgrade your life. Any issue or problem that seems to be starring in your life story can be easily changed. This is a statement worth repeating often.

The only reason that thing you’re not crazy about seems so stubborn (say lack of money or struggling relationships) is that you keep animating it into your life with your attention.

My possibility posse last week launched a commission to over-ride some of the belief systems that hold this crazy world in place. And first thing on the agenda is declaring all apparent problems to be temporary, ephemeral.

Acknowledging that any situation that doesn’t make us feel connected and in love and wanting to break out in dance(say the political situation or societal divisions) is far from written in stone.

Again, it only seems that it is because we keep staring at it, pointing at it, pronouncing it true. Woe is us!

It will only stay “true” as long as we continue to invest our energy into it.

As Buckminster Fuller so aptly said, we can’t change the existing reality by fighting. We can only change it by building a new model that makes the existing one obsolete.

And it all starts by knowing…..it’s not real. It’s temporary. It’s on the stage of my worldview because I put it there with my belief that it’s permanently etched on stone tablets.

So bloody reassuring to know that it’s not.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her new book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.

Why I no longer march in the streets

September 8, 2017 62 Comments

“Turn your light on for those with no vision.”–Pharrell Williams

I used to ADORE a good protest! I marched against war, against guns, against racism.

Nothing’s more exhilarating than carrying a sign and chanting in resistance with fellow comrades.

But it finally dawned on me that being AGAINST something only adds energy to a reality I no longer want. It gives things I don’t like more credit than they deserve. And it negates my power to create something better.

Now, I prefer to be FOR things. I prefer to create better things. Things that make the old things obsolete.

Remember dial telephones? Black and white TV’s? Card catalogs in libraries? Nobody carried placards to protest those things. Rather, someone came up with a better vision.

Fighting against something only makes it more real. Forgiving (AKA: no longer resisting) makes room for new things to burst forth. It makes room for a new vision.

There’s still no shortage of things I’d like to change. It’s just that now I go about it by using my true power to imagine new things.

I use two very significant words. What if?

In the comments section below, share your “What if?” for the world.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just-released, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.

What marvelous thing might I create today?

March 22, 2017 18 Comments

“What is the most important thing we can think about in this most extraordinary moment?”–Buckminster Fuller

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again. The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the questions you ask. The universe will always match you question for question.

Sadly, most of the questions we ask are repeats of the questions we asked yesterday. We keep wondering the “same ole, same ole” that forever locks us into a tiny box of perception that greatly limits our reality. We place amazingly low expectations on what might be possible.

Every time you ponder the question “How do I get rid of this?” or “How can I overcome that?” you add energy to sustaining the unwanted state. As you devote more and more attention to its existence, you further validate its reality. You continue to view the state you’re attempting to overcome as a linear, predictable “problem.”

Not a lot of options in that teensy box.

Here’s what I’ve learned from quantum physics. Despite how it looks, we humans and everything else we lay gaze upon are, at our core, nothing but patterns of light and energy. We are entangled with all other beings on the planet, forever linked with the indivisible “Field of Potentiality” or to use Luke Skywalker’s vernacular, “The Force.”

By continuing to ask the same boring questions and residing in the same uncomfortable little shoebox, we block the flow and full expression of the F.P’s power.

The force, to borrow from Luke one more time, “can’t be with us.”

So my intention is to ask bigger questions, to think bigger thoughts?

“What if?” is always a good start.

“What if our politicians could see eye-to-eye, to join forces for true and lasting change?”

“What if every child on the planet had a hot meal before they went to bed tonight?”

“What if every family had a roof over their head?”

“What can I do today that makes me dance with joy?

“How can I grow into the loving, wise, inspiring person I am meant to be?”

“What marvelous thing might I create today?”

Anything is possible, but we have to imagine it first. The more big questions we ask, the more we dare to say, “What would it look like if….?,” the bigger our lives will become. Putting your attention on something calls it into existence. We can literally reshape and redesign our lives by asking bigger questions.

Pam Grout is the author of 18 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the recently released, Thank and Grow Rich: a 30-day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy.

“Light is going to win.”—Michael Beckwith

October 1, 2013 8 Comments

“Don’t fight forces; use them.”― Buckminster Fuller

With all the apparent dysfunction in the news, I thought this would be a good time to point out some of the good that’s “trending,” to use a word that might have been invented by Twitter, right now.

1. We have a pope who is open and loving and actually acting like Jesus.

2. The leaders of the U.S. and Iran talked for the first time in 34 years.

3. Recent polls show 65 percent of Americans favor gay marriage. Just a few years ago, ago, 65 percent were opposed. What changed? Our consciousness is moving towards love and acceptance.

4. And there are people all over the world doing really nice things for each other like my friend, Rhonda, who left candy for her recycle collectors.

Politicians may not be able to get it together quite yet, but the rest of us, in our refusal to believe in anything but love and connection, can lead the way.

Pam Grout is the author of 16 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality.

What marvelous thing might I create today?

June 26, 2013 2 Comments

“What is the most important thing we can think about in this most extraordinary moment?”–Buckminster Fuller

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again. The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the questions you ask. The universe will always match you question for question.

Not a lot of options in that teensy box.

By continuing to ask the same boring questions and residing in the same uncomfortable little shoebox, we block the flow and full expression of the F.P’s power.

The force, to borrow from Luke one more time, “can’t be with us.”

So my intention is to ask bigger questions, to think bigger thoughts?

“What if?” is always a good start.

“What if our politicians could see eye-to-eye, to join forces for true and lasting change?”

“What marvelous thing might I create today?”

Pam Grout is the author of 16 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality.

Why it’s time to subvert the dominant paradigm.

May 8, 2013 1 Comment

“You can never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”—my hero, Buckminster Fuller

Psst! Over here! I want to let you in on a little secret. Despite what the $500 billion advertising machine incessantly insists, the world is wildly abundant.

There is no shortage of anything.

You have more than 50 trillion cells in your body alone. Your eyes have 100 million receptors for enjoying a rising moon, the big dipper, four-leaf clovers. Every tree has thousands of individual leaves and as for the number of trees on this planet? I couldn’t hazard a guess. Or simply try counting the blades of grass in one square foot of your front yard. Mother Nature (AKA the natural world before humans imposed fear on her) provides for every single need.

Did you have to make the sun come up this morning? Say thank you!!

Do you have to order your heart to pump blood through your body, 36 million beats per year? Do you have to schedule your lungs to draw in fresh, clear oxygen?

It we focus on the planet’s unending largesse, rather than on marketer’s drumbeat of limitation, on the bounteous gifts that spread out before us on every side rather than on TV commercials that suggest erectile dysfunction, depression and sleeping problems, we can rewrite the dominant paradigm.

Everything is working in our favor. Only our illusory beliefs in limits can keep it away.

That why I say today and every day, “Hallelujah!” And please pass the abundance!!

Pam Grout is the author of 16 books including the recently released, E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality.

“Today, let us swim wildly, joyously in gratitude.” – Rumi

April 29, 2013 7 Comments

“Traditional human power structures and their reign of darkness are about to be rendered obsolete.” –Buckminster Fuller

Happy Monday, y’all!! It’s spring and the birds are serenading, the flowers are popping up everywhere and I can actually open my windows for the first time in weeks.

And while this doesn’t usually occur to me, some people think of spring cleaning this time of year. You know, that ritual where you throw out all those clothes that haven’t been in style since Chandler Bing married Monica.

Well, the spring cleaning I’m devoted to is tossing out all the useless ideas I picked up when I was a kid, all those “You cant’s. It’s hard. Why bother?”

Before the age of 5, pretty much everything we hear and experience is sucked up like a vacuum cleaner. And, sadly, that’s the programming that still runs so much of our lives.

Despite our affirmations, our intentions to grow and thrive, we’ve got this five-year-old consciousness running the show. Before you’re five or six, your brain operates in mostly theta wave mode which is perfect for picking up language, family nuances and other stuff you need to know. Unfortunately, it also picks up messages that don’t exactly serve you.

For example, the minute you got sick, ran a fever above 99-degrees, your well-meaning parents trotted you off to the doctor. The message you got from that is “you need something outside yourself to heal.”

Had they instead insisted in the Truth—that your body knows good and well how to heal itself—you’d have that programming running your life.

Anytime, we’re not in the present moment (with me, most of the time), the subconscious programming, that darned five-year-old, the default mode runs the show.

So, yeah, I should probably lose the red turtleneck, the Ugg boots and several other items that would make better Halloween costumes, but the cleaning I am most interested in is getting rid of all those no-longer-useful ideas that I unwittingly drag around like a ball and chain.

In this moment, in this glorious now moment, I am joyful, abundant and as perfect as those flowers boisterously showing off in my front yard.

Pam Grout is the author of E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality.