Hedgehog – Pam Grout

Practice being fictional

August 1, 2022 31 Comments

“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:

#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).

When life changes in a literal heartbeat

September 24, 2021 25 Comments

“There isn’t time — so brief is life — for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving — and but an instant, so to speak, for that.” — Mark Twain

Every now and then, something comes along that I feel duty bound to shout from the rooftops. Today, my web designer, who already rocked my world when she generously offered to rejuvenate my saggy website, sent me the exact thing I longed to hear—although I didn’t know it.

In exactly two weeks from today, it’ll be Taz’s birthday. She would have been 28. I’ve been thinking about her A LOT. Not just because Google, on the fall Equinox, featured this logo. Or because the new barista at my coffee shop wears a 222 necklace. But because well, it’s coming up on the third year since she so unexpectedly died. I’ve been a bit mopey.

So I have to cry out in joy (or at least write a blog post) to proclaim that life, no matter how it may appear, always shows up with the very sign or gift you need.

I’d already had that reminder on Wednesday when I was being interviewed by Maejor, a big-time hip hop producer who is currently on a global mission to heal the planet through music. The Grammy-nominated producer (who happens to be 33) discovered that music, when tuned to 432hz, emanates a healing, harmonious energy. Most music is tuned at 440hz, a standard approved by the American Federation of Musicians in 1917. But Mozart and Verdi, who tried to make 432hz official then (complete with signed documentation from physicist Felix Savart, ) tuned their music to 432hz, a frequency that better matches earth’s frequency.

Anyway, Maejor was reading my book, E-Squared. After being diagnosed with leukemia, he decided he could no longer wait to throw his hat into the activism ring. He always figured he’d “serve humanity” when he was older. For now, he was having great success writing tunes for movies, Pepsi commercials and even the Boston Celtics. His diagnosis prompted a sudden pivot. Now was the time to change the frequency.

His messages of positivity didn’t seem to be selling like his earlier songs so he did the Dude Abides experiment asking for a sign. Within the 48 hour-time period, Justin Bieber (I KNOW!) called unexpectedly and invited him on a tour to Japan, one of many synchronicities that further cemented his life-changing mission.

As I said, things can turn around in a heartbeat. My heartbeat moment occurred this morning when the wonderful Ioana Stoica sent me this:

Love you all to the moon and back. Have the best weekend of your life. #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)

Escape from the trance

September 2, 2020 28 Comments

“To save the planet, we don’t need technological breakthroughs or vast amounts of capital. Essentially, we need a radical change in our thinking and behavior.” – Rob Hopkins

My wonderful interviewer, Carolin, made this backdrop for me the other day.

German mystic Meister Eckhart said, “God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk.”

Because we are distracted by a long litany of misery, we don’t even notice God or the truth about who we really are.

The world we’re seeing now is a byproduct of decades of enculturation, decades of believing that we are limited to these physical meat suits. Most of our fear comes from trying to protect them. Until we turn our back on all that is emerging out of the chaos of our current thoughts and beliefs, we will continue to miss the light.

One of the main lessons from A Course in Miracles is “I am not a body. I am free.” It’s repeated A LOT. It says that if we can just get that one lesson, if we can learn to embrace the part of us that’s bigger than our body, our lives will come alive in a whole new way. Our bodies are nothing but a resource, a tool, a conduit for a higher level of consciousness.

What’s missing for many of us is the wisdom to recognize we are much MORE than our body. Once we get this, we can travel through reality in a whole new way.

Let’s take Taz, for example. As I’ve mentioned before, we had a ritual involving hedgehogs. Whichever one of us said that silly word first on the first day of each month won the prize of a lucky month. We started this game when she was in junior high.

To this day, she sends me a hedgehog on the first of every month. Sometimes, it comes as a photo or a text from her old phone. On May 1 of this year, I was doing a podcast with the wonderful Course teacher, Lisa Natoli. While we were chatting, a hedgehog crawled into her back yard in Maine. She said it had never visited before.

Tasman McKay Grout, even though she’s busy doing her God work out there in the cosmos, still finds time to bless me with this monthly reminder. Yesterday, September 1, she must have been in the mood to show off. Because she sent me not one, but four hedgehogs. Two of them came from readers of this very blog—one whose daughter dreamed of a white hedgehog and another who was sent a pair of socks tricked out with, you guessed it, dozens of hedgehogs. She said, “I knew right away this was meant for you.”

During the first months after Taz’s passing, I failed to notice the hedgehogs. But as Meister Eckart points out, “it was me who was out for a walk.”

Meister Eckhart also said, “If the only prayer we ever say is thank you, that would be enough.”

So thank you, Jodi, and thank you, Rosa, and thank you, Taz, for helping me realize that I am, that you are the energy, light and consciousness that animates the body, not the body itself. Love you forever. #222Forever

A broader perspective is our greatest need

July 26, 2019 50 Comments

“You must unlearn what you have learned.”—Yoda

A FB memory from two years ago popped up this morning of Taz and me in a photo booth in Stockholm, Sweden.

It made me happy to see the two of us clowning around, being goofy.

Taz and I had a lot of silly rituals. We watched every episode of “Gilmore Girls” together and our favorite character was the eccentric Kirk Gleason who, over the course of seven seasons, worked as everything from a bath mat salesman to a termite exterminator to a parachute jumper. We regularly sent each other pictures of Kirk, in all his glory. We called it “The Daily Kirk.”

On the first of every month, whichever of us proclaimed “Hedgehog” first, was guaranteed a lucky month. It started when she was in grade school, but even in college we’d text each other the simple phrase. Since she stayed up late, as college students do, she always prevailed at 12:01 on the dot. When she lived in Europe after college, 12:01 came several hours before I even qualified for our little game.

Someone emailed the other day, inquiring about page 92 in E-Squared. I told the story of baby Taz’s high fever, me being frantic with worry and hearing a voice with startling clarity: “I didn’t give you this great gift just to take it away.”

This reader wanted to know what happened.

I, too, sometimes wonder. But, in my better moments, I echo what Julia Roberts told an interviewer who asked if she regretted never having an adult relationship with her father who died of throat cancer when she was 11 or 12. She replied, “Are you kidding me? He’s with me all the time.”

On the first day of the last three months, Taz has sent me a hedgehog. On May 1, it came in the form of a news clip about British rocker Peter Doherty who was temporarily hospitalized after being stabbed with a…hedgehog spike.

On June 1, the word “hedgehog” came in as a text message…from (don’t ask me how?) Taz’s phone.

July 1, I was at the toy store buying a birthday gift for my friend’s one-year-old grandbaby. I asked the clerk what was the hottest new toy for a one-year-old. Without hesitating, she took me straight to a stacking hedgehog pull toy.

So, as I told the reader who emailed me, “Taz hasn’t been taken away. She’s still very much here, albeit in a different form.

Taz now has the broader perspective I so desire and, like Yoda, she’s teaching me to unlearn everything I know.

So, my fine-feathered friends, I’ll say it once again: Go out now and have the very best weekend of your lives.

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