Karen Drucker – Pam Grout

Everything leans on everything else

September 13, 2022 20 Comments

“The only true privilege in life is to love.”– -Justin Faerman

I’m totally jazzed about meeting some of you at this Sunday’s Amazingly Awesome Benefit Concert for the Taz Grout 222 Foundation. It’s such an honor to be surrounded by so much support, so much love, so much possibility. Even if you are on the other side of the globe.

Because remember – it’s impossible to step out of the ocean of wholeness. There’s literally nowhere else you can go.

So thank you one and all for so richly blessing me on this wild and crazy ride. From wherever you might hail.

I’ve already gushed here on the blog about my joy at writing a song with THE KAREN DRUCKER! She of Tarzan calling fame.

And I’d be remiss in not mentioning one of the other musicians who will be joining us on Sunday. Greg Tamblyn and I have been friends for eons. When I taught a journalism class at Avila College, he kindly showed up for my student reporters to interview. I wrote about his hilarious song, “The Shootout at the I’m Okay, You’re Okay Coral” in my book, Art & Soul, Reloaded. And it was Greg who first introduced me to Evy McDonald who I’ve written about on the blog and, if memory serves, in one of my books. It’s a story about stepping away from the ego’s limited narrative and returning to the present and the wholeness of who we really are.

Here’s the scoop:

In 1980, Evy was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. By the time doctors finally determined her illness, she was, to use her own words, “a bowl of jello in a wheelchair.” The doctor told her, at best, she had six months to live.

After raging about the unfairness of it all for a day or two, she had this thought: “Since I’m dying anyway, why not use the short time I have left to finally learn to love myself unconditionally?”

For years, she despised her body. She was overweight, for one thing. The polio she’d had as a child left her with two withered limbs and well, she was hard-pressed to find anything she really liked about her physical body.

But she was determined. Three times a day, she’d roll her wheelchair to the mirror and sit naked. She wouldn’t leave until she’d find new positives to add to a list. Her hair was pretty, for starters. She decided that whatever it took, she was going to learn to accept herself. She also resolved to give all negative feelings and thoughts over to the bigger thing.

At some point, she crossed some kind of miraculous threshold. She actually began to feel love and compassion for herself. She began to see her body as a miracle of creation, to see herself as a blessed being who could experience joy.

Strength began to return to her limbs. She eventually began to walk, to feed and to clothe herself. She became the first person to completely recover from ALS and 40 some years later, she’s still ALS-free.

So whatever fabrication you believe is ultimate reality, be open enough to consider it might just have a few glaring holes.

Here’s the song and one more invitation to join us this Sunday in our extraordinarily epic quest to change the consciousness of the world. #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).

Stay close to the love

September 5, 2022 28 Comments

“Everything rises to truth.”—Emma Curtis Hopkins

Oh my gosh, you guys! I’m super excited and grateful and well, I probably oughta warn you right now: this post may get a bit annoying.

For one thing, I’m heading out tomorrow on my first travel assignment in a really long time. I’m going to the Yerkes Observatory (widely recognized at the birthplace of modern astrophysics), visiting Hugh Hefner’s first Playboy Bunny Club (now a 5-Diamond Resort and Spa), ziplining, hitchhiking with one of the country’s last mailboats (it delivers mail to the old Gilded Age mansions on Lake Geneva) and well, generally having a ball with a bunch of crazy travel writers.

Later this month, we’re finally dedicating the Taz Grout Library that the 222 Foundation built in Nepal and, in less than two weeks, the incomparable Karen Drucker is coming to town for the Amazingly Awesome Benefit concert. I recently learned that Karen launched her piano career on the piano of none other than Carole King. I already knew she’d won a Tarzan calling contest with Carol Burnett when she was 14, but how was I to know that she later babysat for Carole King’s kids?

However, the main reason I’m bursting at the seams with joy is because it feels like I’m finally breaking up with the story in my head. And by the story in my head, I’m referring to the cultural fabrication that used to run my life. I no longer identify with much of anything my ego tries to spoon feed me. Notice I’m not saying my ego quit trying to control the narrative. I’m saying I no longer buy its tiny, tidy lies. At least most of the time.

For a long time, the ego’s story seemed normal, the way life was. Of course, I nodded obediently when it suggested that my job was to “find” spirituality, that I needed to seek happiness and joy.

But now I see that all those things I so dutifully attempted to forge connections with already exist within me. My natural state is happiness and joy. I’m discovering this raw, unnamable current of peace is inescapable once you break up with the ego and its desperate fabrication that something is missing, that things aren’t fair.

As I said, I’m a bit giddy with joy. But that’s okay. Because that’s who I authentically am. #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).

The brilliance of not having a clue

August 23, 2022 16 Comments

“Throw your dreams into space like a kite. It could bring back a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.”–Anais Nin

I’m a sucker for a good manifestation story. And two recently plopped into my inbox that I’ve decided to share because they’re both Exhibit A in demonstrating the power of letting go.

While most of us are great at setting intentions, creating vision boards and choosing the manifestation of our dreams, few of us are savvy enough to stop there. Rather, we make an intention and immediately follow up with “our plan” for how this is going to happen.

Rarely, if ever, does it happen that way.

The universe, thankfully, has a gazillion and 222 ways to deliver our blessings, ways that we, with our best laid plans, can’t even begin to conceive.

For example, my new friend Joe (I love that so many of you send me emails) was working at a shipyard when first introduced to the Course in Miracles. His co-worker, a zealous ACIM fan, shared so many miracle stories that Joe decided he needed his own copy. He could, of course, have trotted down to the nearest bookstore or ordered it online. But instead, he simply decided “I HAVE to have one.” Shortly thereafter, he came to work to find 100 or so lockers installed in a long empty hallway. At random, he opened one of the lockers and there, on the top shelf, was a brand spanking new leather-bound copy of the Course in Miracles. It even had gold leaf pages. He didn’t mention whether or not his name was etched into the front cover.

Another E-Squared reader, after happily manifesting blue cars and butterflies, decided to up her game with purple dragons. Sure, she saw a stuffed purple dragon at a toy store and counted that as a win, but recounted that she had asked for dragonS, as in more than one.

Later that week, after a thunderstorm, Mary’s husband invited her outside to enjoy a sunset. It was so stunning that she ran to get her camera. While reviewing the pictures the next day she noticed that clearly outlined against the sweeping bright orange and magenta clouds were two well-formed purple dragons.

The moral of these stories is that our limited brains are not equipped to understand the infinity of the universe. Not only that, but we’re trained from a very early age to cut off large parts of our consciousness. I’ve often compared it to donning a pair of Spanx. We squeeze our immense beautiful selves—our radiant, multidimensional connection to all that is–into a tight, often uncomfortable belief system that thinks it knows best.

What I now know is that “not having a clue” is my best strategy for approaching most everything, leaving a wide open stage for the universe to show off its marvels.

If you’re anywhere near Kansas City on September 18, I’d love to meet you (and so would Karen Drucker and all the other fabulous musicians) at the Amazingly Awesome 222 Foundation Benefit Concert at 4 p.m. at Unity Temple on the Plaza. It’s going to be epic. #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).

Let freedom reign

July 4, 2022 17 Comments

“You have an option in every moment to look around and see survival or look around and see life. You’ll be right either way.”—Kerri Lake

Today is the day we here in America celebrate our freedom. I’m aware that some of us aren’t exactly feeling it, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to remind myself (and anyone who happens to read along) that true freedom lies, 100 percent of the time, in my mind.

No one can take that away. No one else can make me feel unsafe or less than. No one else can make me worry. And I remind myself that clarity never shows up in anger or distress and that my thoughts do not have the power to hold onto me. I’m the only one who can hold onto my thoughts.

So today I celebrate the liberty of letting my thoughts go and resting in peace, freedom and trust.

I also want to give you a head’s up that on September 18 (put this on your calendar now!!!), Karen Drucker, Greg Tamblyn and a bunch of other musicians are throwing a big benefit concert for the Taz Grout 222 Foundation that is actively working to change the consciousness of the planet. It’s Sunday afternoon at the Unity Temple in Kansas City. I’ll be saying a few words (although everyone who participated in the recent Magical Mystery Manifestation Adventure knows that nothing lifts your vibe like Karen’s music) and well, it’s going to be a rollicking good time. As I’ve been known to promise, “All Heaven is Going to Break Loose.”

Have a groovy 4^th everyone. Make it the best one of your life. #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).

I could see peace instead of this

March 13, 2020 43 Comments

“In a time of crisis, we all have the potential to morph up to a new level and do things we never thought possible.”– Stuart Wilde

Hey, team, thought it might be a good time to review ACIM lesson 34. As I write in my book, “Today’s mantra is an all-purpose elixir. I use it at all times, in all situations.”

No matter what happens, no matter how bad things look, I remind myself that, “I could see peace instead of this.”

I’m in no way beholden to see peace. There’s no pressure to give up my perception. But I AM asked to raise peace as a possibility. No matter how remote it may seem, it helps to admit that “I COULD see peace instead of what I’m currently seeing.”

It’s a reminder that perception starts in our minds.

So while you’ve probably been lectured a million times in the past couple weeks on how to properly wash your hands, I’d like to offer the following 20 seconds on how to properly disinfect your mind.

1. Distance yourself from fear.We can stop or slow down the highly contagious disease of fear by reducing contact with our biggest enemy–internal thoughts of OMG! We’re doomed.

We can use this time to go within, to imagine a better world, to send love and peace to each of our brothers and sisters throughout the world. We can use this time to create, to envision a world and a government that, instead of focusing on economic stimulus, focuses on love and humanity and equality for all.

2. Stock up on some perspective. The media loves to talk about the “deadly” new virus, but I’d like to point out that, even at its most virulently projected mortality rate (and we still don’t have precise figures), 97.5 percent of those who get it make a full recovery. Just like we do from many other illnesses. That’s not to say we shouldn’t take precautions. As Jack Kornfield likes to say, “Remember your Buddha nature AND your social security number.”

3. Empower your internal pharmacy. Cell biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton says stress is a contributing factor in 95 percent of all illness and disease. So we can best inoculate ourselves by watering seeds of possibility, not worse case scenarios. A calm nervous system fosters a strong immune system. I recently heard the expression, “Proceed as if there is not a problem” and remember your body is resilient and has self-healing superpowers.

I’ll end with this wonderful video by my friend, Karen Drucker that proves we can send out love vibes even when washing our hands.

https://www.facebook.com/KarenDruckerMusic/videos/139448827373146/

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).

Big, fat juicy thanks all around

November 5, 2019 121 Comments

“If you have the right music very loud on the radio, you get about 50 more miles from your tank.”—Hunter S. Thompson

It’s gratitude month, my friends. And as I do every morning with my possibility posse, I simply must share three amazingly awesome things that recently transpired.

Numero uno. Dr. Christiane Northrup who may just be the most generous person in the world recently made an Instagram video about my new book. My editor asked her to possibly provide an endorsement (after all, she’s a well-known and very famous expert) and wow! Not only did she provide kudos, but she made this fun little video, completely unprompted. She even said this was the first time she’d ever been able to embrace A Course in Miracles and she wanted my book (when it comes out in January) on her nightstand. As I said, WOW!

Second really cool thing is that Karen Drucker, the uber famous touring musician, speaker and retreat leader (and winner of the Tarzan calling competition when she was 13) has offered to throw a benefit concert for the 222 Foundation.

The Unity Temple on the Plaza has agreed to host this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity on May 3 in Kansas City. Karen, who will be playing and singing songs from her 15 albums, will present along with Greg Tamblyn, me, Emmy-nominated Stowe-Good and other like-minded friends. And, just so you know, we’ll be presenting the song Karen and I wrote called, “Something amazingly awesome is going to happen to me today.”

We are hereby affirming that this consciousness-bending show will alter the world forevah!!! The 222 Foundation is all about moving the needle and this benefit concert is guaranteed to rev up the engine. Make plans now to be there.

Third reason I can barely sit here in my chair is that an auction has just begun for the 52 paintings that were created by the German artist, Sigrid Drobner, for the 222 Foundation.

flower2 After Taz passed last October, this artist who I had never met promised to paint a special flower (and make a 3-D butterfly) every week of the year in Taz’s honor.

People sometimes say they’re going to do things, but this amazing artist actually followed through. She sent me one of these gorgeous paintings every single Saturday for 52 weeks. I can’t even begin to express how much her generosity has meant to me, how often it picked me up when I was wondering what in the heck I’m still doing on this planet.

And now she is auctioning them off with ALL PROCEEDS going to the 222 Foundation. Here’s what she says: “If anybody wants to make an offer, they can easily write an email to my address s.drobner@buntezeiten.de.” The auction, she says, will end December 1.

Again, my friends, never forget that support, love, generosity and abundance is the reality of the world. We simply have to let go of old school ideas that tell us otherwise.

I love and appreciate you all SO, SO much. I’d love if, in the comments section below, you share three of your own blessings. Let’s keep watering those seeds.

Back to the Mothership

July 15, 2019 132 Comments

“Say yes to revealing an unseen energy that surrounds us, that we’re actually a part of. Our soul yearns to witness and experience this nonphysical energy, not only for us to fully heal, but also to make the absolute most of our lives.”—Christina Rasmussen

In my ongoing efforts to figure my life out (now that I’m a childless mother), I have concluded that, above all else, I need to write, to create. When I don’t, I tend to get cranky. You’d think I’d have mastered this daily ritual by now. After all, I wrote a whole book about it. Ever since second grade, when I wrote and illustrated “Paddy the Penguin,” I’ve known creativity is the thing that makes me feel most alive.

Even in the depths of my grief, I felt better when I wrote—whether a letter to Taz, a blog post or the book that comes out beginning of next year. So, I’m making a commitment to myself (and to those of you who have kindly put your trust in me) to resume a more consistent blogging schedule. As you can imagine, I have a few things I need to say.

I’ve been on a pretty intense journey the past nine months as I attempt to move beyond the physical realm, to connect to that bigger thing that feeds my creativity, that keeps me in sync with Taz, that offers a deep well of healing and peace. In the interest of transparency, you should probably know that some days I still struggle to hoist myself out of bed.

Luckily, Taz keeps sending signs and, among other things, she and a wonderful medium named Steffany Barton and I are toying with the idea of teaming up to write a book. And the 222 Foundation is steaming full speed ahead. Look for the Call for Proposals for the 2020 grant to be announced soon.

The amazingly awesome Karen Drucker has offered to sing a benefit concert for the 222 Foundation. My new friend Sigrid Drobner keeps painting weekly flowers with 3-D butterflies to auction off for the Foundation.

I have also gotten a lot of sustenance from all of you—book suggestions, postcards from the Camino de Santiago, sweet emails. Please know I value each and every one.

I was bragging to the Hay House marketing team this morning about all the music suggestions you sent. At last count, I’ve received more than 400 happy songs. All I had to do was ask. The team requested that I ask another favor. They want me to inquire about your favorite podcasts. Which podcasts do you like best, listen to most often? Let me know in the comments below.

Thank you again from the bottom of my patched-up heart. I love you and always will.

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.