222 Foundation – Pam Grout

Here’s to a more spacious view

February 10, 2023 11 Comments

“Little by little, you will turn into the whole sweet, amorous universe. Love will surely burst you wide open into an unfettered, booming new galaxy.”—Rumi

Mention the word manifesting and most people think of material items posted on their vision board. To manifest, as popularly advertised, is to bring new cars or jewels or lovers into one’s life.

But manifest, in its true definition, means to create a field that makes something perceivable to the senses. Thoughts and beliefs have energetic patterns that create specific fields from the vast, unknowable, infinite potentialities that erupted along with the Big Bang.

The possibilities are way more than a tiny human brain (the reducing valve, as Aldous Huxley described it) can begin to understand.

Our brains take one microscopic facet of life (say, the human meatball named Pam), place it in the center ring and hitch everything to that 42-foot (the standard length of a center ring in a typical 3-ring circus) field.

Deep grooves of habit diminish the vastness, the spaciousness of what’s truly possible. My dear friend Bob and I were talking about the sheer ridiculousness of believing we understand anything.

Even science can only study the 4 percent of the universe that’s visible. The other 96 percent, the invisible energy we only surmise is there because of its gravitational influence on the four percent we do see, remains unknowable.

So the best we can do is build models or fields that manifest one particular limited reality. Every religion, every culture, every personality is nothing but a manifested field. And, thankfully, none of them are solid or permanent or really anything except a pattern that we manifest with our ongoing attention.

I guess where I’m going with this long, esoteric blathering is that while I’m here, interacting on this fragile zone of earth and sky, I intend to unhitch my attention from the limited center ring and focus instead on life’s incredible vastness, on its never-ending gifts. I mean what are the odds that this collection of subatomic particles that pretend to be Pam even occurred on this rocky planet? What an extraordinary gift!

So call this your weekly reminder that what is manifested now (what we see on the news, in the world) is nothing but a temporary field, one iteration of possibility. By simply removing focus from “what appears to be” and putting it on “what else might be?,” we can create a field that more closely resembles life’s Truth: love, nothing but love.

Before I let you go, I also want to mention that I met yesterday with the incredible Cherie Anderson who created this Sunday’s fundraiser for the Taz Grout 222 Foundation. She gave me a brief preview (including my small part) and let me just say, that it’s going to be the bomb. A love bomb! There’s going to be tapping and a love exercise from Mr. Rogers (yes, that Mr. Rogers) and well, I’m just happy she invited me along for the ride. If I understand correctly, Cherie chooses a different good cause every month and then hosts a mini, on-line workshop where all proceeds go to said good cause.

If you happen to have time this Sunday, check us out here. I’ll be there. I’m sure Taz will be there with her ginormous light and spirit. And, of course, the 222 love energy will be there.

Have a ridiculously remarkable weekend, my friends, and if happens to include this Sunday’s “Will You Be Your Valentine” event, I’ll see you there. #222 Forever!

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

222 Forever: A revolution in consciousness

February 22, 2022 34 Comments

“What we need now is more people who specialize in the impossible.”–Theodore Roethke

Happy 222, my brilliant, beautiful friends! As you know, today is the always-auspicious day where we celebrate Taz by picking a project with the vision and the chutzpah to radically shift how we see the world.

I’m overjoyed to announce this year’s recipient. It’s an organization that stands for every single principle of the Taz Grout 222 Foundation. It radically overturns all cultural beliefs about money, about how systems work and especially about what motivates people. Spoiler alert. It’s not what economists have been telling us.

ServiceSpace, an all-volunteer organization with more than a half million volunteers from around the world, is so subversive that my editor at People magazine could never wrap her head around it when I pitched it to her. “But how does it work?” she kept asking.

It works on the daring spiritual principle that Taz stood for, that I’ve made my career writing about. Namely, that the world is wildly abundant and that people, above all else, want to give. You know that economic maxim about people being selfish and wanting only to maximize self-interest? It’s complete and total B.S.

ServiceSpace has been defying the big fat lie of scarcity for 23 years. It all started in April 1999 when Nipun Mehta, a Stanford-trained engineer, decided to give up his cushy dot.com job to follow his heart’s urging. The standard narrative of success felt so hollow, he said. Why not go for the longshot?

A fan of Gandhi, who urged us to “be the change we wish to see,” Nipun started “giving” as an experiment. He started with money (he gave to charity), moved to giving of his time (volunteering at a hospice) and then decided he’d go full-time, giving of himself unconditionally. No job. No strings attached.

If nothing else, he has proven that acts of revolutionary generosity are generative.

ServiceSpace today is a network of more than 600,000 volunteers who purposely chose projects you can’t monetize—like kindness, compassion, love. They’ve been an incubator for free restaurants, a free news service (good news, that is), a network of free inspirational speakers, a free rickshaw service and they’ve given away hundreds of millions of dollars in free tech services.

ServiceSpace operates on three principles:

1) Everything is strictly volunteer. Money is NEVER charged.

2) No one ever ASKS for money. Many charities do good work, but they end up spending much of their energy and resources in fundraising. That creates a field of neediness, the exact opposite of ServiceSpace’s unwavering belief in abundance and the goodness of mankind.

3) They focus on small actions. Let’s take care of whatever we can touch, give to whatever is in front of us.

But mostly, they upturn deep-seated assumptions:

What if we decide to trust people?

What if we completely drop the quid pro quo?

What if we defy what the business world calls success?

What if we create a whole different kind of ecosystem?

What if generosity actually generates more generosity?

I’ve written extensively in my books and here on the blog about the gift economy, but I’ve come to appreciate Nipun’s wording better. He calls it a gift ecology because ecology creates a deep web with branches spreading everywhere.

I’ve been volunteering with Service Space for several years now. Among other things, I’ve helped transcribe the inspiring, beautiful, makes-me-soar Awakin Calls that bring together tens of thousands of folks around the globe every Saturday. I’ve taken part in numerous ServiceSpace pods and feel so blessed to be a small part of the deep shift in consciousness this gritty, ragtag team is giving to the world.

In closing, I’d like to rerun a piece I wrote many years ago that features Taz and, to my way of thinking, fits right in with the ServiceSpace values.

But mostly, I want to thank all of you for believing in me, in my magical Taz and the profound 222 consciousness that IS bringing light to the world.

Let’s do this thing:

The world is a magical place. What we’ve been offered so far is anything but.

Let’s start with our current economic system. It’s made up. It’s a random agreement we’ve all agreed to participate in. But it’s not real.

It was designed by the reptilian part of our brain, the part that’s scared, the part that hollers, Danger! Watch out! Protect yourself!

It’s based on artificial lack and rampant, unsatisfying consumerism. It can never give us what we really want. One of its key tenets, in fact, is to encourage us to seek things we already have. To keep the economy growing—the holy grail, according to the current paradigm—we’ve been forced to monetize all the gifts we were given coming in . . . things like health, water, entertainment, food.

Even self-help books promote the very peace and well-being you already have—or did, before we laid our economic story on top of it.

Until our financial paradigms got all up in Mother Nature’s face, we were gifted with everything we could ever need.

When you build anything, particularly an economic system, on faulty information, it should come as no surprise when it fails to satisfy.

Here are a few of the bald-face premises on which dogma of the Western world is built:

That we face an indifferent universe. Everything we do, everything we believe, is predicated on the idea that we live in an indifferent and sometimes even antagonistic universe. To be successful, we think we must bend it to our will. Exert control, use discipline. To believe the universe might know what it’s doing, to think it might actually love us and have a plan for our lives, is antithetical to every lesson economists teach.

Is it really just a chance coincidence of random molecules that we are conscious and breathing and listening to Israel Kamakawiwo‘ole play “Over the Rainbow” on a ukulele?

2. That there’s scarcity and lack. The current economic system touts insufficiency and promotes the preposterous notion that important things are missing in your life.

Once it supplied all your basic needs (food and shelter, both of which were originally provided for free by Mother Nature), it was forced to come up with fake stuff to sell you—things like deodorant, plastic banana slicers, dancing Santa decorations, and other things that don’t serve human happiness. In many ways, the economy Adam Smith helped create is little more than a government-sponsored pyramid scheme.

The assumption of scarcity is one of the central axioms of economics. It’s regarded as objective truth. However, like most “objective truths,” it’s nothing but a projection. Like the people watching shadows in Plato’s cave, when we break free from our chains, we can see very clearly that the world is wildly abundant.

And I’m not talking just metaphysically. Vast quantities of food, energy, and other resources go to waste every day. Yes, half the world is starving, but the other half throws away more than enough to feed them. There is more than enough to go around.

Even more abundant than the material world is the spiritual world: the creations of the human mind—songs, stories, films, ideas . . . all the stuff we call intellectual property.

Once we take off the blinders, throw overboard the story we’ve been sold, we can see how truly abundant the world really is.

3. That we’re separate. The current financial system is based on the idea each of us is an isolated fragment, disconnected from each other and from nature. It operates under the false assumption that what happens to someone over in Africa has no bearing on you or me. It’s based on the idea that we can pollute this river over there or extract that ore down there without affecting ourselves.

Any Economics 101 professor will tell you that maximizing self-interest is normal, that competition is in your DNA.

But when we give up our cultural story that it’s a dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself world, we can’t help but notice that human cooperation is actually the norm. People love to help each other. Ask for directions if you don’t believe me. People will fall all over themselves to help.

I would argue that giving to your fellow man is a human need.

Tim Cahill, founding editor of Outside magazine, told me this story when we were in Namibia a few years ago:

While walking to the Swakopmund Convention Center for a presentation he was giving to the Adventure Travel Trade Association, he asked a local, balancing a basket on her head, for the quickest route.

Noticing this stranger was on foot, she asked him, “What time do you need to be there?”

When he told her, she immediately pivoted and said, “C’mon. Let’s go back for my car. Otherwise, you’ll never make it.”

This is who we really are, lovers of life just waiting for the chance to help.

My daughter, a card-carrying member of Oxfam, helps host what the international confederation calls a Hunger Banquet at her college every year.

Upon arrival, each guest draws a random ticket assignment to a particular “seat” at the world’s economic table. Fifty-six percent (representing those who live in dire poverty) sit on the floor and get maybe a handful of rice and dirty water. The 42 percent who represent the middle class might get a sandwich and a card table. The remaining 2 percent get white tablecloths, china, and a feast fit for a king.

The purpose of the banquet is to open our eyes to the fact that economic disparity and location, income, and available resources depend a lot on randomness and dumb luck.

But what ends up happening (and this is where our notions of the world get seriously threatened) at these Hunger Banquets that Oxfam has staged in dozens of countries is that the 2 percent, when faced head-on with the 56 percent sitting on the floor, end up sharing their gnocchi, asparagus, and artichokes in pesto cream sauce.

Given the chance, people consistently do the right thing. This is what’s true. This is what our inner impulses instruct us to do.

Once we let go of our ridiculous notions of “the way the world works,” we get ample proof that there’s absolutely no need to protect ourselves from each other, from nature’s cruelty, or from our own inner impulses.

4. That our purpose in life is to value things that just don’t matter. The economic system, as it currently reigns, encourages us to go against our highest nature. It encourages us to seek money above all else. It creates a hierarchy that certain people are better than others. It tells us that having more stuff makes us happier. It teaches us to hoard resources, to value a big car more than, say, an old-growth forest. Anyone who has ever spent time in an old-growth forest can tell you there’s a lot more satisfaction to be found under a 2,000-year-old redwood than in the Lincoln MKX Matthew McConaughey drives around in TV commercials.

Our overblown consumer culture is a massive exercise in missing the point.

What the current financial paradigm offers us is not natural. It’s not what we really want. The best things in life, as the old saying goes, are not things. Derek Sivers—the brilliant entrepreneur who started CD Baby and sold it for $22 million, 95 percent of which he gave to charity—said he’d love to buy trained parrots to fly around every mall in America squawking,

“It won’t make you happy. It won’t make you happy. It’s not what you really want.”

What we do really want is to give of our gifts and talents, to be of service. We want to love. We want to be generous. We need to do these things. It’s what makes us happy, what brings us alive.

Real security lies in becoming more of who we really are, in traveling light, being free in mind. Money, which is nothing but a bunch of green paper and plastic cards and numbers in a virtual cloud somewhere, is temporary, ephemeral, malleable. It’s a symbol and works best when it’s circulated. It gets stagnant sitting in one man’s hedge fund.

As Nipun likes to say, “Love is truly a currency that never runs out. #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) that has just been turned into an app. Badass ACIM (badass-acim.com)

Fill the world with gladness

May 3, 2021 23 Comments

“Writing down one thing you are grateful for each day is the cheapest possible therapy ever.”–Kevin Kelly

With all the world’s seeming issues, it can be hard to decide what to take on first. Should I contribute to the food bank? Should I march for peace?

It seems to me that the above headline, about filling the world with gladness is about as good a place to start as any.

Can you imagine if every person on the planet was filled with wonder, with gratitude? If every person spent their time noticing the extravaganza of trees and birdsong and stars that are available free of charge at every moment of every day?

I even wondered at yesterday’s possibility posse, when discussing strategies for getting kids to do chores, “what if parents modeled loving gladness when doing THEIR chores?” It’s only a learned cultural program that some things are fun to do and others aren’t. It’s us who give cues on how to react to things, how to “do life.”

Today’s Course lesson promises that every time we channel Elvis and say, “Thank you. Thank you very much,” it multiplies. It’s given back to us, it says, a thousand times and then a hundred thousand times more. Talk about compound interest.

Nature photographer Camille Seaman, who gained notoriety in 2003 for her photographs of the Arctic Ocean, said while watching the news after 9/11, “Where are the stories about how beautiful this life is?”

Her grandfather, a native Shinnecock, made her and her cousins sit outside every day for at least an hour. He’d ask, “What did you learn?” He’d point at clouds and say, “See that cloud up there? It’s made of your perspiration. And some day it will water this garden.” His great wisdom started her on the road of recognizing how connected we all are—not only to each other, but to clouds and water and the whole circle of life.

But the story that really got to me was when she was learning to surf. A friend took her out into the ocean, gave her a couple instructions and then abandoned her. Or that’s what she thought. She swam back to shore, livid that he would leave her in danger like that. And he told her something she never forgot. “It is only you who can learn to manage your fear.”

So she went back out on that surfboard and every time a fear would rear it’s ugly head, she asked this all-important question. “But is it happening now?”

She’d think, I could be gobbled up by a shark. And then ask herself, “But is it happening now?” And then a thought like, “I could get pulled under by a tidal wave” or “This heavy board could knock me unconscious.” And again she’d ask, “But is it happening now?”

It’s such a profound question and the perfect way to discover that, right now, in this moment gladness is here, waiting for me to notice, waiting for me to use its profound power to fill the world. #222 Forever

And FYI, here’s my latest podcast interview

Happy 2/22: Traveling through reality in a whole new way

February 22, 2021 35 Comments

“The giver never goes without.”—Kat Dawes, the Now Ninja

I am so excited. It’s 2/22, the day when Taz and I officially announce this year’s recipients of the Taz Grout 222 Foundation awards.

As usual, I had many, many stellar applications. Seriously, there were so many fabulous ideas for rising above, for coming alive, for changing consciousness which, in the end, is the only way to become bigger than the problems.

When we put our attention on the light, become a conduit for higher level communication, real change starts to happen.

I’ll be telling you more about these projects down the road, but for today — because I’m heading out to perform 222 good deeds with Taz’s godmother— here’s just a quick thumbnail:

Peacemaker Enterprise. You know that line in the American pledge of allegiance about being one nation under God, about being indivisible, about embracing truth and justice for all? Well, Hitaji Aziz has devoted her life to that beautiful aspiration. Like all of us, she has seen the injustice inflicted on people of color – but she keeps getting back up, keeps holding on to a higher truth. Not only has she been a vocal proponent in the Black Lives Matter movement, but she offers free meditation classes, reiki and green living to the prison population. When she was 13, she came to the realization that she could actually do something about institutional belief systems that have pressed boots against the necks of black people for centuries. As she says, we can’t fix what we don’t face. The 222 Foundation is very honored to help Hitaji in her continuing quest for racial equality.
Dancing Classrooms. Some of you might have seen my article about the Conway, Arkansas principal who dances each morning with his students. As he said, when learning seems like a party, kids are pumped and excited about coming to school. Dancing Classrooms offers free 10-week, 20-session dance classes for fifth and eighth graders that center around making connections, celebrating cultures and breaking down barriers. During the pandemic, they’ve taught BREAK Dancing to re-energize students studying on Zoom. I’ve seen many of their videos and wow!
Taz’s Hot Dirt. They had me at the name. Taz’s Hot Dirt is a regenerative agriculture project in Toronto, Canada. Land is being reforested and several acres are devoted to growing organic fruits and veggies that are then distributed to seniors who are nourished with fresh produce AND regular visits. The project was conceived by the incomparable Dawn Joy Wightman who is a master gardener, actress, creator of plays and fairy novels.

Again, stay tuned. I will have more to report about all these projects soon, but for now, have a beautiful February 22 (2/22).

#222 Forever

Bumping into other dimensions

February 15, 2021 19 Comments

“Forgiveness is man’s deepest need and highest achievement.”—Horace Bushnell

Good morning, sports fans. I trust you’re staying toasty, cozy and celebrating the fact that much-needed moisture is falling free of charge from the sky. Talk about a miracle!

Today’s Course in Miracles lesson, for those following along, brings up the F word. Forgiveness. As I often say, this life-changing concept is widely misunderstood.

It doesn’t mean overlooking something “bad” that happens. It’s admitting I don’t know enough to really judge what’s good or bad. And knowing that when I forgive (which means knowing nobody has the power to hurt me) I undo what fear has produced. Like magic, it causes illusions to disappear.

And when illusions start disappearing (I thought about calling this post—Pop Goes the Illusion!), you start bumping into other dimensions. Like things suddenly appear out of nowhere.

In E-Squared I compare consciousness to a skyscraper. I may be living on the second floor, but the miracle (the love, the peace, the truth) is waiting for me on Floor 17. Once I define something (or refuse to “forgive it”), I no longer question it. It becomes my reality. In quantum speak, it collapses the wave, leaving no room for mystery, wonder and new discoveries. Despite popular opinion, the phenomenon we observe with our five senses comes AFTER the decision to see, experience and feel it.

I was reminded of this yesterday during my weekly possibility posse. Jay mentioned a missing phone charger that suddenly showed up in the middle of a couch they’d searched countless times. Cindy’s favorite earring returned to the jewelry box she’d scoured for weeks. It reminded me of the hiker with a runny nose. She desperately needed a tissue, but she was miles away from civilization in an old growth rainforest. She looked down and there, underneath a tree, was an unopened box of Kleenex. The more we forgive, the more other dimensions can get through.

I love these kinds of stories because they demonstrate that whatever we need is always available. That’s a radical departure from what we’re taught. The one and only thing that keeps miracles at bay are my judgments (again, lack of forgiveness) and game day analysis. Miracles are common as pie when we open to life’s multi-dimensional nature.

Thanks, my friends, for taking this journey of possibility with me. I hereby announce that all of us are open and ready for dimensions of every kind, that we’re moving on up to higher floors where miracles are more real than the material world of phenomenon.

In exactly, one week, I’ll be announcing Taz’s 222 Foundation awards. Stay tuned. Stay warm. And stay open. #222 Forever

My 2021 travel plans

December 31, 2020 46 Comments

“Look for the little hints of magic glittering at the corners of your life.”–Martha Beck

As a grounded travel writer, I’ve had to use my imagination this year. Instead of exploring new countries, I’ve traipsed through my little town’s 54 parks. Instead of elephants on the savannahs of Africa, I’ve oohed, I’ve aahed over giant local tortoises. I’ve hugged a lot of trees—which, believe it or not, often hug me back.

But mostly, I’m practicing living in magical realms. In different dimensions that have always been here, but I’m frequently too busy to notice.

It takes some dislodging of old patterns, of recognizing that looks can be deceiving. Readers of my books know I have a thing for quantum physics. Studying the science behind what I think of as “reality” helps me escape the trap of form. As I said in E-Squared, the material world “aint what it’s cracked up to be.”

Rather than detracting from life, learning about my illusions actually enhances it. I’ve said it before, but I have to keep reminding myself that nothing is solid. Physicists exposed that fallacy more than 100 years ago. Things we see are 99.999999999 percent empty space.

Those “things” we think we see out there, according to David Bohm, are “a phenomenon of connecting light rays which go back and forth, freezing them into a pattern.” Our brains literally make up a story based on our frozen patterns. Everything is actually energy.

Even my body is not solid or stable. At a cellular level, it’s in constant flux. My stomach lining is replaced every five days. Skin is reformed every two weeks. I have a completely new set of lungs than I did six months ago. The very oldest cells in my body are at most 10 years old—which, come to think of it, could explain my behavior at times.

At an atomic level, this turnover occurs at breakneck velocities. And my eyes trick me. As one rather startling example, this big rock known as Planet Earth is whizzing through the galaxy at 67,000 miles per hour.

Which gets me to the headline of this post. Rather than depending on what my eyes show me—an illusory world at best—I’m leaning in to the kingdom of magic, the world of infinite potentiality where anything and everything is possible. Once I let go of my brain’s many fabrications, I begin to notice all kinds of miraculous things. Perfect solutions show up. New adventures (which can be had anywhere, at any time) unfurl before me. I even get messages from Taz who according to conventional old school thinking is nowhere to be had.

Starting tomorrow, like I always do, I’ll begin Lesson #1 from A Course in Miracles. The first 50 lessons are there to help me unravel illusions, to transcend the fear that insists my number one goal should be protecting the body. I’m reading a wonderful book by a Buddhist teacher who suggests repeating this four-word mantra: “This is a dream.”

I’ve been repeating it a lot and even saying it “out loud.” It’s amazing how much lighter everything feels when I approach life this way, when I recognize that all my problems are just fascinating dramas that I literally concocted out of empty space and frozen light patterns.

Perhaps the children’s song, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” says it best. “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream.”

That merry river is where I’ll be in 2021. I hope to see you there. #222 Forever

I want to give money away: Now taking pitches for the 2021 award of the Taz Grout 222 Foundation

October 23, 2020 16 Comments

“If you have love in your heart, then your very life will bring about a transformation of society.”—Krishnamurti

It’s that time of year, my friends, when I take pitches for the 222 Foundation I started to honor my magical daughter, Tasman McKay Grout, who died in 2018 from a cerebral aneurysm.

As I’ve written before, Taz landed here on planet earth with indiscriminate and generous love. She was beautiful, brilliant, had wild light running through every cell.

To honor her vision, the 222 Foundation is committed to changing the dream of the modern world from consumption and acquisition to the more meaningful pursuit of creativity and self-expression. We believe happiness comes from human solidarity, simple living, respect for nature and the empowerment of all people.

Here are the guidelines for the yearly award:

Each year on February 22 (2/22), Taz Grout’s 222 Foundation will award a $10,222 grant to an innovative project or person with a big idea to change consciousness and therefore the world.

We look for projects that support the following ideas:

1. All people long to be generous and create beautiful things.

2. The story of scarcity, lack and the need to fight for resources was made up and is no longer valid. We aim to prove that, once liberated from outdated paradigms, the world is generative and endlessly abundant.

3. We believe all humans are interconnected and that even tiny actions have great significance.

The more creative the project, the more likely it is to be chosen. In the past, we’ve funded a coffee shop in India run by survivors of acid attacks, a forest of 2222 trees (hey, every tree helps), a school in Nepal and a random acts of money project in the Pacific Northwest. The 222 Foundation also gave away grants of $222 to the favorite charity of the first 22 folks willing to post a Stay-at-Home dance during the beginning of the pandemic. I particularly loved that project because it involved all my favorite things: dancing, creativity, making a difference and spreading joy.

In the 5-week Laddership Pod I just finished with ServiceSpace, I met dozens of folks from all over the world who are doing beautiful things. I learned about an NGO that builds schools out of discarded plastic water bottles and another that figured out how to purify water using plastic bottles and the sun. These projects appeal to me because they incorporate the Course in Miracles maxim about “the holiest places on earth being where an ancient hatred becomes a present love.” And while my dislike of plastic water bottles isn’t exactly ancient (although I get closer to that description every day), it certainly represents a letting go of judgment, a transformation of, at least, my consciousness.

Above all, the 222 Foundation is committed to generating new possibilities.

Next year’s grant will be awarded in less than four months on February 22 (2/22).

If you or anyone you know has an idea to help bring about a change in consciousness, please consider applying for the 2021 grant. It’s easy to apply. Just send a description of your big idea to taz.grout.222.foundation@gmail.com.

I hope you, my friends here on the blog, will help spread the word.

Also for your listening pleasure, I’m posting my new favorite song by the indie band Cloud Cult whose music is informed by Kaidin Minowa, whose two short years on the planet has transformed countless lives.

And as always, go out there and have the VERY BEST weekend of your life. #222 Forever

Why it’s time to widen the aperture

October 7, 2020 70 Comments

“Arrive curious, without the armor of certainty. Live the life that chooses you, new with every breath, every blink of your astonished eyes.”—Rebecca del Rio

Tomorrow is Tasman’s birthday. She would have been 27.

I strongly believe she came to me 27 years ago as an act of great love. I was a 37-year-old singleton who desperately needed a monster lesson in loving with my whole heart.

I was a, let’s just say, wishy-washy creator who needed a reason to fully commit to being responsible and going for my dreams.

At the time I discovered I was pregnant, I was making it (sorta) as a freelance writer. I had my moments of glory, getting a few good-paying assignments with Travel+Leisure, Modern Bride (ironic since I had always been single) and the Washington Post. I was dabbling in travel writing and more or less following my whims. Nothing wrong with whims, but it was clearly time for me to do something more substantial.

I’d struggled with commitment to one man so Taz, entering my life as a tiny human totally dependent on me, became the soul mate I so acutely desired.

Thanks to her, I buckled down on my spiritual practice. I turned my career, my parenting, my entire life over to The Dude. I’ve written before about how painfully clear it was that I needed to see things differently, to let go of all the limitations I’d placed upon myself, to well, widen my aperture.

If I was truly going to make it as a writer, the dream I’d long pursued, and if I was going to properly care for this beautiful soul who could have chosen a two-parent household, a bigger bank account, a caregiver with a more stable career, it was pretty obvious I needed to shape up.

I am forever grateful that she and her infinite love chose me anyway. She believed in me in a way I didn’t. She gave me a flesh and blood reason to become the person I always wanted to be. In short, she inspired me to completely rewire and rewrite my life.

Many in my circle, after hearing the surprising news that this gypsy was going to be a parent, encouraged me to seek a more stable profession, something with regular hours and benefits.

But to truly be a good example to my new soulmate, I felt I needed to go for the whole enchilada—to carve my own path, to follow my urgings to honor the gifts I was given. Yes, I would have to write consistently, become disciplined, but writing consistently is what I LOVE to do. Plus freelance writing gave me space and time to be there for Taz.

The most significant change required was for me to surrender old paradigms and ways of seeing the world. I had to rely completely and humbly, not on my own smarts or talent, but on the bigger force that continuously whispers to me, the force that wants to guide, bless and interact with all of us.

Every day, I repeated this affirmation:

Into my will, let there pour strength.

Into my feeling, let there flow warmth,

Into my thinking, let there shine light

That I may nurture this child, Tasman McKay Grout,

With enlightened purpose,

Caring with heart’s love

and bringing wisdom to all things.

In a week, it will be two years since Taz joined the cosmic love team or what we often call the “other side.” I’m still getting my equilibrium after this shattering loss. But this I can say with complete certainty:

My gorgeous, brilliant daughter who was always the wisest person in any room still lives within my every thought, my every breath, my every heartbeat.

So thank you, Taz, for choosing me, for overlooking my shortcomings and for inspiring me to be a better person. I feel it in my bones that this lifetime was one of many we’ve experienced together.

I will love you forever. I’m excited about the upcoming 222 Foundation award and for the day we meet up again, unencumbered by the illusion of these fallible bodies. Happy magical birthday, my love. #222 Forever.

Rely on the mystical

May 22, 2020 29 Comments

“Our minds and bodies have been laboring for decades to serve the demands, fears and neuroses of the illusory, finite self.”—Rupert Spira

00001ab — A golden egg with $222 of two-dollar bills, another gift from Kimmy Rhoads and the Random Acts of Money project funded by the 222 Foundation.

Happy Friday, my friends! Just wanted to share a couple quick things. The above quote by Rupert Spira, a brilliant ceramics artist from Great Britain, pretty much sums up the human condition.

Rather than celebrating the truth of our eternal Divine Nature, we focus—and, yes, serve–the non-stop fears and neuroses of our physical self.

That’s why, whenever I remember, I turn to life’s magic and mystery. When I don’t free myself from the trappings of three-dimensional time and space, when I don’t allow myself to hang out in other dimensions and talk to loved ones on the other side (yes, that’s you, Taz), my days can feel overwhelming.

So today (and I hope you’ll join me), I’m going to take a breath, take a bath, take a nap and rely on God.

00001aa I also want to share the most recent story that popped into my inbox:

“I have been working through Pam’s book (E-squared) and I got to the first experiment. On May 8th, I did what Pam suggested. I asked God to reveal Himself to me in a way that could not be explained as a coincidence… something that I knew could only come from him.

“The next day I decided to write it in my journal and set the timeline for 48 hours starting then… just to buy God some extra time. 😉

“Forty-eight hours went by… nothing happened. I figured it was because maybe I had been quarantined during this lockdown… No big deal. I’ll give God a week. After a week goes by… still nothing noticeable. I wrote in my journal that night, “God, it’s been a little over a week. I haven’t really noticed anything. But I want you to know that I love you and I want you in my life always.”

“Here’s where the story gets incredible and it still gives me goose bumps. The very next day I check my mail (my mailbox is far away and I only check it every 7 to 10 days or so). Inside the mailbox was a card from a lady I had only met once for about 15 minutes. In the card she wrote, ‘This is a gift God has asked me to share with you. He recently gave me more than I need so I am passing some along to you and your children.’

“Inside the card was a check for $400!!! The memo line simply said, “A gift from God.” I was blown away by the generosity from someone that I hardly even know… But when I looked at the date on the check I immediately broke down sobbing in tears of joy. The date was May 8th, 2020. The EXACT same day I had prayed that prayer! Not only that… but the check would have been delivered to my mailbox before that 48 hours would be up!

“I’m still in tears even as I write this. Just had to share with some people I know will appreciate it and inspire others to not be afraid to ask God for a blessing that can only come from Him and not be a coincidence! And when you do… don’t forget to check your mailbox.”

Thanks, Brandon, for sharing yet more proof that relying on God and the mystical is the only way to fly.

I trust you’ll enjoy this song that I’ve been listening to nearly every day. Have the best weekend of your lives, my sweet, dear friends.

Sit. Feast on your life.

April 24, 2020 19 Comments

“If we seek beauty, it will spill into our lives.”—Mary Pipher

So the title of this post “Sit. Feast on your life” came, not from a self-help book, but from my daughter Taz’s bedroom wall.

Being an artist myself, I allowed her to decorate her room however she chose. She drew a three-foot, eerily-accurate octopus on one wall, for example, and hung crystals, Korean ornaments and even a dinner fork from her ceiling. Last January, I visited Meow Wolf in Santa Fe and, call me a deluded mom, but their now-famous art installations have nothing on Taz’s bedroom.

On one wall, she penciled inspiring quotations—things like “Live what you love” and “You can see the whole world from here.” Any one of them would make a great blog post. Thank you, Taz, as always for being my inspiration.

I chose “feast on your life” because that’s what I believe we’re here to do. Not to complain about how life should be. Not to fight with reality.

But to look with love and wonder at the life we do have. To say thank you that we got the chance to be here on planet earth, to experience all there is to experience. As Rumi said, “This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. Welcome and entertain them all. Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.”

I notice that when I meet my guests at the door laughing and grateful for whatever comes, I become a happier person, a better friend, a wiser decision maker. That’s enough of a goal for now.

Have the best weekend of your life, my treasured friends! 222 Forever!