ACIM – Page 3 – Pam Grout

Holiness is your superpower

February 8, 2022 63 Comments

“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 2^nd 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!

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)

Overturning stubborn belief systems since 1956

January 19, 2022 48 Comments

“Love is the natural condition of all experience before thought divides it into a multiplicity of objects, selves and others.”—Rupert Spira

Something really weird is happening in my life. I’m not traveling much or working on a specific project. In fact, when friends ask, “So what have you been up to?” I have no good, pithy answer.

I once prided myself on my ability to provide scintillating, conversation-starting responses. I was usually on my way to Namibia or Helsinki or I was getting ready to interview say, Blake Shelton or Eminem’s mom. My life was rife with engaging happenings.

Now, not so much.

But here’s what’s weird. Or rather incompatible with what society has taught me. I feel blissfully happy, at peace, engaged with each moment. That’s not to say the asshat doesn’t rap its knuckles on the window pane every now and again, but mostly I just laugh and recognize it as a worthless distraction.

Its murmurings are nothing but temporary whiffs of energy unless I decide to invite them in for chamomile tea and crumpets. Which I don’t seem to do so much anymore.

I’m finding it more absorbing to sit by the fire, to walk around my neighborhood, to live in the presence of each precious moment.

Writing these words actually floors me, makes me wonder, “Who is this person? And where did she hide the body?”

I can’t really explain it and I’m not suggesting it will last (because, after all, that’s in the future which isn’t right now,) but I have to believe that whatever is mine to do next, whatever it is that Source, Spirit, God has up its sleeve for me will be much easier to ascertain than it was when I was distracted non-stop with past and future.

Happy Wednesday, my beloveds!

Reporting in from small town Kansas,

Grout, Pam, as they called me in a recent book promotion #222 Forever!

Living in a wonderland

January 13, 2022 21 Comments

“The only treasure we really have is this moment right now.”—Pico Iyer

Can you believe it? Look at that sky.

It’s a refrain I seem to repeat to my partner nearly every morning. Before we light the incense and meditate, we often step outside just to see what’s going on, to see what new wonder awaits us in our little mini-forest here in Kansas.

Some people, of course, think the way to learn what’s going on is to turn on the TV or check FB. But I’ve discovered that everything those “news sources” broadcast is old news, something that happened maybe yesterday or 20 minutes ago.

My news program shows a brand new, just-this-moment, never-before-seen sky. The birds, even in the winter, are rhapsodizing about some great happening here in the neighborhood. It’s truly magical and I feel so blessed that this “newscast” is there for me every single morning to witness. Just now, looking out the window, I’m mesmerized by a comedian squirrel who is masterfully executing a two-paw pull-up to reach the chair where my partner left birdseed–not, I might add, with him in mind.

My life right now isn’t exactly how I might have planned it. It doesn’t quite match the picture on a vision board. But boy oh boy, are there still a lot of marvels in which to revel.

I can’t know what may come in the door tomorrow, what forest fire or new variant or who knows what might happen, but I can sure rejoice in what’s here right now, in my little wonderland in northeast Kansas.

I love you all! #222 Forever!!

Peace, music and other merriment I may have missed

January 6, 2022 24 Comments

“The unknown is where the most exciting part of life happens.”—adrienne maree brown

Joyous 2o22, my friends!

One of the bajillion things I loved about spending last summer in Mexico was the singing. Guys crowded together in trucks, sang joyously together as they headed off to work. I was reminded of this yesterday because a Mexican construction crew that’s building a house near my home was, not whistling while they work, but singing to the catchy Spanish lyrics coming from what must have been a boom box.

Hearing this made me incredibly happy–humanity out there celebrating life—even though it was cold, even though they were slinging and pounding boards.

Today’s Course in Miracles (yep, I started it yet again) reminds me that all my certainties about life cause me to miss the most miraculous of realities. For example, it’s common knowledge that “you don’t sing while you work. You put your nose down and you get ‘er done.” But what if that belief stunts what’s possible.

My intention for this year is to surrender every single thing I believe, to toss out all facts and convictions that constrain and tame the bigger reality. I want to be open, to leave space, to wake up excited to see what might happen today without my conclusions about what it’s going to bring.

I heard an interview with acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton. When he was 27, driving from Seattle to graduate school in Madison, Wisconsin, he pulled over in a field to get some rest. While he lay there in the dark, a thunderstorm rolled over, echoing throughout the valley. He heard the crickets, the booms and he suddenly realized that he had the wrong impression of what it means to listen.

Like all of us, he’d been trained to pay attention to teachers and other authority figures, to gather information, to listen to what other humans told him was important. In other words, completely ignore the orchestra of life that literally surrounds us all. That night in a field changed everything. He dropped out of school, became a bike messenger and focused on one goal—to become a better listener. To actually take in what he calls our “solar-powered juke box.” His passion is recording sounds from around the world, everything from Sitka spruce logs (which sound like a violin) to thunder in the Kalahari Desert to dawn breaking around the world, including near me in Caney Creek, Kansas.

Which begs me to wonder, what else do I miss?

Yes, folks, life is singing to us, blessing us, even guiding us. All we gotta do is give up our assumptions and our narrow band of seeing and listening and believing. Here’s to being completely open to the tangled wild in 2o22. #222 Forever!

Put down the duckie

December 30, 2021 17 Comments

“Until you know yourself to be essentially whole, and not the wounded and broken one who needs to be fixed, the true solution to your personal suffering will remain out of reach.”–Gail Brenner

So I was watching a documentary about Sesame Street. In one of the songs, Ernie was futilely attempting to learn to play the saxophone. All he could produce was a sorry-sounding squeak. Hoots, the Owl, finally diagnoses Ernie’s problem and launches into a clever song that I’ve decided to use as my New Year’s resolution: Put down the duckie.

Ernie is unable to play his heart out, to fully join the exuberant band because he refuses to let go of the rubber duckie he has been clutching to his heart.

The “rubber duckie” most of us non-Muppets refuse to surrender are the highly-conditioned thoughts and patterns that make up the ground of our awareness.

On the top of the list is the suffocating belief that we need to be fixed, that we’re not quite as good at “playing the saxophone” as the next guy. We also believe we must jump through a series of hoops to get there—wherever there is.

But the need to grasp onto that duckie is nothing but the ego’s opinion. And in 2022, the only voice I’m listening to is the one reverberating in my heart, the one that doesn’t come and go.

So bye-bye duckie!

I also want to announce that the Taz Grout 222 Foundation has finally chosen a candidate for the 2/22/22 award that happens to fall on a Tuesday (2’s day). As usual, there were SO MANY inspiring ideas. Reading through them all made me pump my fist in the air and hoot, “Shazam!”

People are out there doing amazing things. The Global Art Project for Peace, for example, pairs artists from around the world. Each creates a work of art (a song, a dance, a painting) that expresses their vision of global peace and goodwill and then every two years in late April the messages are exchanged, with peace circulating across the globe. Artists from more than 97 countries have participated.

Another beautiful candidate helmed by 25-year-old Romanian artist Florentina even has a “spokes-zebra” whose motto is “My stripes may be different, but my heart beats the same.” I also really liked their “We are all Stardust” t-shirts.

Like always, the winner will be announced on February 22.

In the meantime, East West Bookshop has asked me to do a Pop-up Possibility Posse. It’s on Zoom and, as the notice says, there’s no agenda, no set format…just a fun, high-vibe gathering where you can ask me anything.

My portion of the proceeds will, of course, go to the Taz Grout 222 Foundation.

I’d love to see you there.

So Joyful New Year, my loving, brilliant, inspiring friends. Let’s make this the year we put down the duckie for good. #222 Forever

Infinite abundance and why it has nothing to do with money

December 21, 2021 42 Comments

“Our inner worlds are the greatest lever for systems change.”—Mina Lee

I like to pay attention to shifts in consciousness, even when they’re small, especially when they’re overlooked.

Actor Michael Sheen (Good Omens, the Queen, the Prodigal Son) recently declared himself a “not-for-profit.” In an act of spontaneous generosity, he decided to donate all future earnings to social causes. He even sold two of his houses to fund the Homeless World Cup in Cardiff.

The reason I love this SO MUCH is because of the liberation Sheen now enjoys. He’s no longer beholden to the story of fear, the story of separation. He knows that by giving everything away, he’s actually giving everything to himself.

That’s true financial freedom. Traveling light, being free in mind. Knowing full well there’s more where that came from.

Money is nothing but a bunch of green paper and plastic cards and random numbers in a virtual cloud somewhere. Real security lies in feeling complete latitude to love, to give, to surrender to those natural urges to run up to everyone and say, “Hello! I’ve missed you. I adore you.”

Another great consciousness shifter (at least for me) is an interview I heard with Mina Lee. She talked about being taught to listen to tulips. Can you imagine the planet coming alive with the songs and stories of all living beings, seen and unseen? Talk about abundance.

These little points of light are erupting all over the place. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but that’s only because we give our attention to such a tiny sliver of reality. There are a lot of forces that want to keep it that way, that want to continue to distract us with the idea that something is wrong, that something needs to be fixed. But what if that’s not true? What if the only problem is the idea that there’s a problem?

So my Christmas wish for all of us is that we open ourselves to the bigger reality that is SO obvious once we let go. I love you. I believe in the light. And I proclaim once again, 222 Forever!

Why I’m the luckiest person on the planet, Episode 87

December 7, 2021 37 Comments

“Come alive with your life. This is the time. We are the people.”–Jean Houston

Long time readers may remember that I wrote a blog series with the above title. In these effusive, unrestrained episodes I detailed why I feel so incredibly blessed. Three years ago, I stopped using that particular title. It didn’t seem quite right. I still consider myself lucky (I got to be the mom of the brilliant, generous, epic Tasman McKay Grout, after all) but the MOST lucky?

I decided to resurrect the title and here’s why.

When you deem yourself lucky, when you commit to noticing beauty above all else, you tune into an unseen vibrational field of love. It’s a different state than the one produced by the mind, the “thinking cap” I nicknamed the asshat in The Course in Miracles Experiment.

This vibrational field that the Hindus and Buddhists call “ananda” permeates everything, but we tend not to notice because, well, the asshat.

The asshat believes its sworn duty is to keep us informed at all times that “something is wrong, something needs to change.”

The consciousness of Ananda (AKA: our inherent joy and light) is given to us by grace and we all (100 percent of us) get it. Most of us don’t see and experience it because we’re hijacked by fear and that pesky little asshat that rarely shuts up. But by living in gratitude—no matter what—you increase the odds of grace getting through.

This was recently demonstrated by my beautiful friend, Cindy Ross. I’ve written about her before. She’s the one I met in South Africa, the one who built her home from scratch, the one who hiked the Appalachian, the Pacific Crest and the Continental Divide Trail, the last with two toddlers in tow. I love her so much and I’ve been meaning to blog about a book she recently wrote and a nonprofit she started to help veterans find acceptance and healing by hiking and generally being soothed and comforted by nature.

On the day before Thanksgiving, Cindy’s husband of 38 years fell off the roof of that log cabin home they built with their bare hands. This robust, handsome, generous man broke three vertebrae, his neck and is currently paralyzed. I say currently because Cindy and Todd refuse to be spoonfed a doctor’s diagnosis and know that anything is possible. But at the moment, everything Todd loved (hiking, making chainsaw art, canoeing) seems rather uncertain. The hiking trip to the Azores Cindy recently invited me on is well, indefinitely postponed.

I wanted to help in some way, but when I reached out, Cindy, once again, ended up inspiring me. She’s not letting the asshat get the best of her. She’s not throwing a pity party. In fact, here’s her mantra:

“This is what I get to do. I am blessed with this privilege. I am called to service.”

I mean, wow! Joyful and appreciative no matter what!

For those so inspired, who might want to get in on this magnificent couple’s energy, here’s their gofundme page.

Equally inspired am I by the wonderful imaginings so many of you posted on last week’s post. Thank you SO MUCH for playing along, for putting your focus on what could be possible if we quit listening to the only source of our suffering: our thoughts and beliefs. Without the asshat singing its woeful tune (oh, it’ll keep singing, but we don’t have to listen), we can do incredible things. Thank you, friends, for being here, for believing in this bigger possibility and for remembering, as my friend Jay advises, “to throw our hands in the air and whoop and holler at this stunning roller coaster ride we’re all on.”

I love you. I’m inspired by you. And I trust you’ll continue imagining new things every day. This is it folks! Our time to come alive. #222 Forever

You’ve got to be kidding me….

November 15, 2021 31 Comments

“We are free to take note of the giant miracle we’re living in as often as we want. The more we do so, the closer we weave the fabric of an enchantment that is our most precious inheritance.”—Rosie Bell

When Greek geographer Eratosthenes scientifically proved that the earth is round, not flat, as it appears, I’m sure some of his friends thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

When Italian astronomer Galileo started publishing papers refuting the idea that the sun was not revolving around the earth, as it appears, the Catholic Church not only said, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” but they charged him with heresy and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

So when I suggest that everyone’s true nature is love and that we are always, at all times receiving love’s gifts, you might scoff and think “you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Or at least you’d notice that that’s not exactly how it appears.

But I have discovered that if I truly want peace of mind and happiness that doesn’t blip on and then off again, I must surrender all that appears to be. I must deconstruct my every belief.

Just like the earth has always been round and the sun has always been the center of our orbit, there’s a deeper and vaster reality than what appears to be. There’s something a whole lot bigger going on than the shallow narration we’ve been given.

Cuba Gooding’s famous line from Jerry Maguire was, “Show me the money.” My line –or at least my daily intention–is “Show me the love.” Return my mind to the full awareness of the eternal, changeless love that is my truth, my home, my destiny.

Have a marvy week, my friends. #222 Forever

Imagining a new world

November 9, 2021 8 Comments

“Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained.”–Terry Pratchett

In response to a comment on my last blog post, I stated that I have a crush on all of humanity. And I meant it. We humans are utterly fascinating creatures, star dust all, random collections of molecules.

My latest crush is Adrienne Maree Brown, a black, queer activist from Detroit. I heard her interviewed by Tami Simon and was fascinated by her wisdom, her clarity and the following ideas:

We live in a world and a culture that was imagined by someone else. It’s not permanent—even though we often think it is. Many of the stories and beliefs we still act upon today were created long ago and way too many revolve around want, accumulation and fear. They’re not working anymore. The cool thing is we can change them.

How? Fractal responsibility. A fractal, of course, is a pattern that repeats itself on many levels—in the universe and in a tiny cell. So to change the world, we can begin by altering our own personal fractal.

As Brown says, “Fractal responsibility is saying, How do I operate in a way that is responsible to my vision, in a way that’s not just pointing fingers and asking other people to change, but recognizing the kind of change I can make in the world is directly related to the change I’m willing to make within myself.”

For example, democracy. Rather than rail at what seems like threats to our country’s promise of equality, I can look at my own home where (gulp!) I don’t consistently practice democracy. My arrogant position too often is “Well, I bought the house, I pay the bills. I should make the decisions.” That’s not fair or democratic to Jim, my long-time partner. And that’s something I CAN change.

She also talked about pleasure activism, what she calls “a politics of healing and happiness that explodes the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work.”

In other words, let’s make the revolution irresistible. Let’s make it impossible to want anything else. My mission has always been to create a path (to equality, freedom, creativity, joy, etc) that’s so compelling that people can’t imagine walking any other.

If you’re interested, here’s the interview that compelled me to bring home three of adrienne maree brown’s books:

Embracing Pleasure, Fractal Responsibility, and the Power of Our Imagination – Sounds True

#222 Forever

Big trees, full heart, ginormous love

November 5, 2021 88 Comments

“The function of art is to imagine what’s possible.”—bell hooks

So I’ve got a challenge for you.

Albright Grove, old growth trail in the Great Smoky National Park.

But before that, I want to issue a fat sloppy thanks to all of you that have sent notes, kind words and emails wondering where I’ve been. My last post was six weeks or so ago. That’s a long time for someone who lives to rant and rave about the inherent beauty and grace in the world.

Several things have consumed my attention. For one, I’ve been traveling, hiking in an old growth forest, visiting inspiring civil rights museums. Yesterday, I wrote my first travel story in years. I realized how much I miss it. Writing AND traveling.

Which brings me back to my challenge. Those of us who know about the mighty power of consciousness are desperately needed right now. So I summon all of us to use the strength of our attention to focus on the often unseen river of love that flows through everything—ourselves, the natural world, even those with whom we might disagree.

Over the past couple years, there has been a huge fixation on the narrow physical part of ourselves—worrying about our bodies, working hard to keep them safe. Because we’ve focused so obsessively about the tiny part of us that is physical, the distortion machine known as our ego has convinced us that trouble is afoot. It has tricked us into focusing on our differences instead of all we have in common.

So here’s the challenge. Let go of all your beliefs and conflicts and surface desires. Look only towards goodness, towards wonder, towards wisdom and truth. And ask yourself, “How can I use my talent, my job, my situation to say, “I love you!” That’s all any of us really wants to do.

Love, as we know, is all that’s here once you remove the fear.

As Jenny Odell wrote in her wonderful book, How to Do Nothing, “Civilization has taken a detour into a cul-de-sac. The way out is to go back to the primal source of consciousness” which we all know is love, nothing but love.

Have the best weekend of your life, my friends. And again, thanks for all your beautiful sentiments. I love and appreciate you more than you’ll ever know. #222 Forever!