“And you too have come into the world to go easy, to be filled with light and to shine.”—Mary Oliver
Do I look like a badass or what? I blame it on my selfie skills!
My daughter, Taz, is such a genius. Even though she no longer has a body, she’s able to send the most miraculous signs and messages my way. And that’s saying something since her mom, me, the recipient of her messages is still more or less trapped in the primitive belief in space and time. But even so, she’s able to get one of her many emissaries to deliver a hedgehog every first of the month.
This month, I’m in Mexico so she whispered the following to my light-filled friend Dawn: “Hey, you know that sweater you were wondering about? The one you couldn’t figure out where it came from? And what in the heck is that weird animal on the front?
“Well, the reason that ended up in your drawer is because when you “just happen” to run into Pam and her friends eating crème brulee at Alex’s, you are going to remember it and say to Pam, “I have something for you. Stop by my place when you’re finished here.”
Dawn told me that as soon as saw me, the guidance was very clear. But then Dawn herself is very clear. I’m sure that’s why Taz asked her to deliver this beautiful, beautiful gift.
I love knowing there are realms way beyond anything I can see, that there are angels and otherworldly beings acting on my behalf. I love recognizing that this world, the one that seems so solid and immutable, is just a figment of my imagination.
This is not something I tell just everyone. It tends to trigger people, especially those with an extreme allegiance to problems and crises, all of which are fictional sequences created by a loud, insistent, distracted mind. When I suggest an oh-so-easy, six-word solution to a disturbance (Simply remove it from your thinking), people tend to look at me as if I just asked them to show me their underwear.
As for me, I’m thrilled that the more I surrender my beliefs and conditioning, the more I recognize that this world is illusion, the the more I feel Taz’s brilliant presence and the radiant joy and unspeakable peace that is my true nature.
FYI. If you’re anywhere near Kansas City, put this on your calendar:
“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 callssuccess?
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
“I want this now to be the now where we save our place, your place, our earth.”—Louise Erdrich
Do you feel it? The powerful shift in consciousness? Not only have we just entered the Year of the Water Tiger which encourages each of us to take big risks, but it’s the 2nd month of the 2022 year. Hi, Taz!
Big things are abrewin’! For myself, I’m hyper aware of just how little interest I have in the “old story.” The story of scarcity and consumption and fear has zero appeal. Zip.
I’m being drawn even more to stories of love, of openness, of miracles. And they’re everywhere. I’m hearing stories about indigenous people who can retreat into a cave for a few days and come out without cataracts or say, a broken foot. They simply leave the quantum superposition where that was a “reality” and step into a new reality. In fact, any story that doesn’t have an “anything is possible” narrative at its core goes poof in my brain.
What’s this you say? War? Disease? It’s just not of interest anymore. It like a bad movie that is begging to be clicked off.
Especially when so much beauty and love is happening right now, in this and in every moment. Just looking deep into the eyes of another human should convince you of the enormous potential, the infinite light that exists within each one of us. All we gotta do is dive below the crust of the psyche. That ego story isn’t real, guys.
The line “holiness is your superpower” from yesterday’s Course lesson really stuck out to me. Every single “problem” that our culture tells us to fear can be healed right now. We don’t need a politician or a product or anything else that society tells us we need. There’s no limitation. There’s nothing we’re not connected to.
I must admit that, as I’m writing this, I feel a little crazy. Or rather, I’m admitting to all the world that I’ve officially departed the bounds of normality. I’m no longer tethered to any semblance of what I’ve been “trained to believe.”
But why would I choose to live in a culture where these truths are considered the provenance of a crazy person.
This whole rant sorta kicked off February 1. As you know, Taz always sends a hedgehog on the first of each month—in really weird, supernatural ways.
I was scheduled to be in surgery all day and was curious, “how will Taz deliver this month’s hedgehog? For one thing, I’ll be under anesthesia.” But lo and behold, I get home from the surgery center and waiting on my front porch is a stuffed hedgehog and a box of chocolates. Keep in mind that this was sent from someone I’ve never met who had NO IDEA I was having surgery. The chocolates were an especially thoughtful touch, don’t you think?
I believe Taz has emissaries all over the world. As we all do. This connection is so strong right now and I feel so many beautiful souls from what we call “the other side” stepping up to free us from the old story that anyone with a nose can plainly see is breaking down.
Anyway, beloveds, it’s almost 2/22 and, in the meantime, I’m out there employing my superpower to heal every water system, every soil system, every belief system that no longer applies. Consider yourself invited to join in. #222 Forever!
“To be empowered—to be free, to be unlimited, to be creative, to be genius, to be divine—that is who you really are.”—Joe Dispenza
So I’m back from Mexico after a month of mountain hikes, glorious mighty companions (that’s what we Course students call each other) and lots of fresh air, fresh food and fresh ideas.
In my absence, my garden beds have been starring in their own reality show, “Plants gone wild.” Nothing makes me happier than seeing what nature does when left to its own devices.
As I’ve been weeding and taming and wrestling the plants back into their borders, I got to thinking how reality, too, can get out of control. Especially when we leave the country of who we really are. When we supersede the love we were born from and still essentially ARE with cultural narratives, media hysteria and emotional attachments.
As I repeat, ad infinitum, the reality we see is nothing but a mental projection resulting from a conglomeration of our beliefs, thoughts and history.
What we see and experience is a real time neurological interface with particles and waves that we have condensed down to matter with old programming. Even though, in the quantum world, we are completely new and different than we were one millionth of a second before.
So my focus right now is returning to proto-Pam, the true Self before the beliefs and programming and what my friend, Jay, calls societal implants were installed.
Every morning, I go out and lay in my backyard, flat on the ground, connecting with who I really am before Newtonian paradigms and 65 years of history took over.
It’s actually quite beautiful. I find nothing but love and light. Hope you’ll go outside today, feel the truth and join me in returning the world back to its original creation. #222 Forever.
“The ego is the party pooper that prevents us from dancing into the middle of the ballroom floor.”—Francis Lucille
Buenas dias, mis amigos! Spending a month in Mexico’s Sierra Madres is the perfect antidote to hot Kansas summers.
Long mountain hikes, $1 green juices and, of course, the Namaste community makes for an easy dive into today’s Course in Miracles lesson: The peace of God is shining in me now. It’s also making me toy with the idea of resuming my travel writing.
As I’ve shared before, I had no idea (always the preferable plan) how I was going to realize my intention of traveling the world, but Source knew just how to work it out.
Ever since that editor at Ladies Home Journal called to ask if I did travel writing (and I very wisely answered “of course” even though I wasn’t totally sure what that meant), I’ve been writing about foreign cultures, countries and ideas. And, in the process, traveling the world.
Which brings me to the word “try” and why I avoid it by any means necessary. As Thomas Keating said, “to try to accomplish things by force of will is to reinforce the false self.”
The false self, of course, is the part of us that believes life is hard and that we have to seek to find what makes us happy.
Although I’ve repeatedly said “the biggest secret in the world is that we all really love each other,” another biggie in the lies-we-believe department is that happiness is out there somewhere. When in reality, happiness, joy and, yes, peace is our natural state.
And every time we try to attain that, we forget that we already have it.
Take my beautiful new website, for example. It was pretty clear my old site needed an update, but rather than work to find and interview designers, the perfect designer came to me. Out of the blue.
Out of the blue, by the way, is a synonym for the Dude, at least in my vocabulary. Thank you SO MUCH, Ioana Stoica, a Romanian designer who read one of my books and emailed me to volunteer.
So today, no matter what big plans you have, I hope you’ll take today’s Course in Miracles lesson to heart. And here to make it easy, is Jimmy Twyman’s song, “The peace of God is shining in me now.” #222 Forever
“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us, as well.”–Voltaire
Happy Thursday, my brilliant beauties.
A series called False Positive (I haven’t watched it, don’t even know what it’s about) recently debuted on Hulu.
But the title got me thinking how often we invest in the opposite: false negatives.
All things we judge as “negative” are false. For that matter, all things we judge period — be it negative or positive — are false. Or rather non-existent. They’re nothing but false simulations that our crafty brains devise to keep us from experiencing the astonishing now.
What can I say? The brain likes order and consequently fill in empty spaces with its own interpretations, all of which reflect beliefs from the past, beliefs that no longer exist.
I was going through some of Taz’s art journals (the girl was prolific and profound) and found this wonderful piece of art. I was startled by how relevant it is for the book I’m currently writing.
Yes, I’m finally writing a new book.
I love that I continue to surf in the incredible waves Taz left for me in this particular time-space incarnation.
The girl’s thoughts (in the bubble) are all false negatives. If only I was smarter, more interesting, etc. These are the ego’s thoughts that keep us so garbled up in distress that we miss the truth, the light, the love. But the more pronounced words “if only…I was free” are what’s real, what’s true, what’s our inheritance.
I’ve also been thinking about how we so often ask the wrong questions. We inquire about data. How much did your newborn weigh, how long was he, as one example. We could be asking “Tell me what it was like for your miraculous body to grow this new being, nurture it and then release it into this world?” Instead of focusing on data (how long? How big? How____?– substitute any piece of irrelevant data), we could be asking, “What profundities have you discovered? What mischief have you perpetuated? What is your biggest grandest vision for our planet?”
So, my friends, on this clear, beautiful Thursday, I leave you with those exact queries and I hope you’ll take a moment to answer in the comments section below.
“Remind yourself that you are not the mind and that its problems are not yours.”—Sri Nisargadatta Mahara
You gotta love the Dude’s persistence. Even with our chatty minds constantly looking for problems and judging everything they see, The Dude still manages to make contact.
I’ve spent a couple weeks purposefully aware of The Dude as I’m out in a forest, far from most distractions. It never ceases to amaze how creative The Dude is in making Itself known. Like that picture on this post. I don’t know if you can see, but out in the middle of nowhere, in a place where few people go, I found a bounty of wild pink roses and two other colors of wildflowers, all in one place. It felt like a gift just for me.
I also want to share, since I’m eager to get back to listening to nature, a couple stories from the old inbox where the Dude (I’m so grateful He never gives up) was able to make contact. Enjoy!
A week ago, I did one of your E-Cubed experiments while I was visiting my dad in his tiny town. I had so much fun, distributing notes with $5 attched. I felt more happy and relaxed about money than I had done in a long time. The result was simply outstanding. I was expecting an inheritance from my aunt and didn’t know how much it would be. This morning $114,000 landed in my bank account. Wow!! Wow! Wow! I wasn’t expecting that but I’m so happy and excited to receive it. Now I really know the Universe has my back.
2. “A couple of weeks before your girl left this planet my son also left very unexpectedly, only in his early 20’s I was in shock at first, then hysterical and then unable to even think.
“I found myself sitting at the kitchen table late one night when I said out loud, Jake please just let me know you are ok, that you’re still here. In that instant all the lights in my house went out. I was even stupid enough to go out and check the fuse box which was just fine. He kindly left the power points working so I could turn on a lamp and boil the kettle. I almost phoned an electrician but I couldn’t bear anyone in my home at the time. I waited three whole days before I finally sat back at the table and said, ok ok Jake I know it’s you. And the lights came back on. All the hairs on my arms stood up. It’s also the day I stopped crying. I was still so sad because I missed him so much but it gave me a peace I had never had before. For the first time I truly knew we never die.
“I felt guilty telling most people because they wanted to see a hysterical grieving parent but although I was still sad I was at peace. Not long after I saw you had a daughter who had also passed and it was very comforting to read your thoughts especially at times when I’d forget the truth.”
3. The last story comes from yesterday’s possibility posse. Yes, I was able to Zoom in from the forest. One of the members was riding their bike on the Lawrence trail (that “just happens” to be 22.2 miles long) when they noticed their patootie was sore. At that moment, they looked down and saw a padded, comfort bicycle seat, discarded and ready to use.
I’m telling you folks. Despite what your asshat mind tries to tell you, the universe is bountiful and waiting for you, like E.T., to phone home. #222 Forever
“Why are we not always and forever, in every moment, overwhelmed by the miracle of the world?—Jeff Vandermeer
On my metaphorical vision board, I have four intentions, all of which came straight from the pages of A Course in Miracles.
I’ve shared them before, but since my squirrely mind can always use a refresher, I’ll list them again:
*Peace of mind
*Surety of purpose
*Clear, unmistakable guidance
*Unceasing joy
As you can imagine, that last intention took a rather startling hit when my gorgeous, brilliant, perfect daughter died suddenly of a cerebral aneurysm. Sometimes, I still can’t believe it.
But what I’ve come to realize (and there ARE certain advantages to having a spiritual correspondent on what’s mistakenly called “the other side”) is that the only thing that ever causes suffering is a belief in separation and limits. When I recognize that the very essence of Taz, me and everyone that’s currently starring in a body is an invisible consciousness that never ceases to be, it’s a lot easier to follow along with the Course lessons which today happens to be: God’s will for me is perfect happiness.
I know. It’s probably the most confrontational of all the Course’s promises.
But over and over again, I get confirmation that eternal connection, love and joy are bottom line truth including tonight’s super moon that happens to be pink and happens to be exactly 222 thousand miles from earth. It peaks tonight at 10:33 my time and you better believe, I’ll be out communing with it, dancing to it and celebrating the fact that happiness, peace, purpose and guidance are not achieved by effort or thought or will. They just are. All of us already have all these attributes.
Our minds like to dispute this fact, to continually try to “make things better.” But when we rest in full moons, eternal truth and perfect happiness, we come to realize that nothing needs to be done, nothing is out of place. All is well, awaiting our recognition. #222 Forever
There’s a line in the movie The Ten Commandments where Moses asks to be forgiven for his weak use of “God’s great power.”
I can relate. I have the means (as do you and all humans) to heal, to spread love, to literally command matter and what do I so often do? I stare at what appears to be.
What appears to be is a big fat illusion, showing the content of my egoic mind, covering up the Truth that joy is my ultimate nature and that everything is working out perfectly.
Right now, without taking another class or reading another book or doing anything but removing the blinders, I can rest unshaken by the world’s appearance.
There is no suffering this power cannot heal, no illusion that will not return to truth once I let go and chill. Today’s Course lesson says this is a day of infinite peace.
Furthermore, (and I love this part) every time I stop and repeat my Course lesson (I rest in the timelessness of truth), a thousand of my brothers (and sisters) all across the globe will also come to realize there’s no reason for anxiety or pain or fear of the future.
So today, I sink into stillness and remember the only two things I ever need to know: The universe has my back and everything is going to be okay. #222 Forever
“If you’re going to keep your sanity, the only choice is spirit.”—Americ Azevedo
First, let me offer a huge shoutout to all of you. Not only did you pray for me (thank you so much), but you also generously and tactfully reminded me of my own advice. Someone suggested I re-read “That time I failed to take the red pill” from Lesson 110 in my book, The Course in Miracles Experiment. Others sent quotes from my other books.
Like Taz, who would sometimes call me out with, “Mom, do you really want to put that out there in the universe?” you helped me “turn the other cheek” which simply means choosing to move in a different direction.
I, of all people, should know that I literally surrender my life force to whatever I put my attention upon. So big hefty thanks all around!
Perhaps my best realization is remembering, like the Course says, that what I see ”out there” is not the deepest reality. My wonky interpretation of life is hardly some great ultimate truth. Something far greater and vast than my squirrely mind gives form and meaning to my existence. And the best part is it continues to work behind the scenes even when I choose not to be aware of it.
Right next to the track of my egoic mind that relentlessly goes over the same tired terrain is this other track, this incredible beauty/light/love track that moves below the level of thought.
Taz reminded me this morning of a book I read many years ago by Natalie Sudman. While working as an archaeologist in Iraq, Natalie was blown up by a roadside bomb. She had a near-death experience that completely upturned her life. The part Taz reminded me of was Natalie’s comedy sketch with her spirit guides. I say comedy sketch because, as they (the spirit guides and Natalie) worked together to repair her severe injuries and plot her next mission here on earth, they began one-upping each other with wild scenarios of possibilities. “What if you came back as paraplegic?” and then they’d all laugh uproariously or “What if you had no money for this next stage of your life?” again gleefully guffawing at all these crazy life experiences that are all available in the deck of cards.
I know this sounds rather cheeky, but Taz knew it was just what I needed to hear. She also reminded me of the movie, Stripes. Remember Francis, the surly, intense recruit who stood up during boot camp to announce that while his name was Francis Sawyer, everybody should call him Psycho? Furthermore, he warned, if anyone dare call me Francis, “I’ll kill ya.”
At that point, Army Sergeant Hulka jumps in with this now-famous line: “Lighten up, Francis!”
So thanks again to everyone who helped pick me up, dust me off and steer me back to the place within myself that is not subject to harm, change or even death.
I’ll probably forget again, but thank ya, Jesus, I have lots of tools and lots of beautiful tender friends who, like me, are just trying to find their way back home. #222 Forever
