Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

>     The economic news has almost everybody talking about recession. Last month alone 80,000 people lost their jobs. Oil prices keep climbing with no end in sight. And the U.S. dollar continues to lose it’s value. What’s a person to do?
    I was pondering this very question today when two stories came to mind.
    One is about Alan Greenspan. As a youth, he was a musician who sought to make his livelihood playing in a band. Trouble was, the band had another member who was so good at the saxophone that Greenspan instinctively knew he’d never make it. Preempting the inevitable, he dropped out, went back to college, got his degree, and went on to advise four United States Presidents over a 20 year period as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
    The other story is about Lisa Scottaline. Lisa was a practicing criminal defense lawyer for a large law firm in Philadelphia, married, literally having just delivered her first child when her husband walked into the hospital room and told her he was leaving her for another woman. Lisa quit the firm to stay home with the baby, used up her savings, was $30,000 in credit card debt when she began writing fiction for lack of what to do at home. Today, Lisa is one of the best known and most successful authors of legal fiction in the U.S.
    So why did these stories come to mind contemplating what appears to be weak economic news?
    The answer is that whether it’s the economy, or not enough talent for a desired goal, or an uncaring husband…every life change is an opportunity and a gift if only you use it to be the best you can be. Sure, we all have set ideas about how things are going to work out. Sometimes, they do. Most often, they don’t. Most often, Life unfolds with unforeseen twists and turns that ask of us that we be flexible and creative but most importantly, trusting. The real issue, after all, is “Can you trust that within every occurrence, no matter how unfathomable on it’s surface, there exists within it the potential for the highest good for all concerned?”
    Yes. I said potential. 
    Nowhere is there a guarantee that the outcome will, in fact, be the highest good. That’s up to you and me. We get to decide how we’ll handle what comes our way. It’s called Free Will. Free will is nothing more than freedom of choice. Do you choose to wallow in the muck of what appears to be adversity or do you rise up and seize the moment to propel you and those around you to higher ground?
    Alan Greenspan could have spent his life playing second fiddle (no pun intended) to that other very talented young man in the band…who, as it turned out, was Stan Getz (for those of you old enough to remember a musical giant). Lisa Scottaline could have left her daughter with daycare and kept practicing law, remaining bitter towards men. And every one of the 80,000 people laid off last month has the same choice. They can wallow or rise up.
    I never write in a vacuum…or espouse anything I do not truly feel. I am in the middle of a divorce and, therefore, in need of increased income. But not for one moment do I ever think that it’s all bad luck and what, pray tell, will become of me.
    Deep down at the core of my Being is a knowing that I am in the middle of a miraculous opportunity that holds the potential for gaining wisdom and achievement beyond my imagination.
    I have neither the time nor the inclination to wallow.
    I’m too busy heading for higher ground.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

>      At one time or another, most people have something they would like to say to someone who is famous…if only they had the opportunity. I had such an experience this morning. If I could speak with Hilary Clinton I’d tell her that when you “misspeak” you say things like “proceed” when you mean to say “precede”… you don’t say you ducked enemy sniper fire when you didn’t. That’s not a misspeak. It’s a lie. So is saying “I didn’t have sexual relations with that woman” and “it depends on what is is.” These are also lies. They are not misspeaks.
    Perhaps in the case of Hilary and Bill it’s like the old joke that goes something like this: An elderly husband and wife are sitting in a restaurant. When the meal arrives, the husband turns to the wife and says, “Which one of us doesn’t like the broccoli?” When couples have been together for a long period of time they often take on the characteristics, and habits, of the other. Sort of like those people you occasionally see who eerily look like their dog.
    It’s not necessarily a bad thing to mirror, or echo, someone with whom you have a history. However, I think the goal should be to reflect the best of who they are and what they are capable of rather than the worst. That’s a basic tenet of Life 101.
    And yet, there is a deeper and more troubling aspect to the Clinton’s propensity to bend (and sometimes mutilate) the truth in order to suit their end. It’s the fact that so many of us do it every day… which is why we have allowed the Clinton’s (and others) to get passes on accountability. Deep down inside, not only do we know they are lying, we know that we are lying as well. To judge them would mean to turn the bright light of truth around upon ourselves. Not a pretty prospect.
    I am, admittedly, a little irrational on this issue. I have a passion for honesty, born out of a childhood where family members routinely played with the truth and I spent more than a few good years trying to do the same. Fortunately, as a result, I learned rather early on that whatever the outcome, lying is never worth paying the price of diminished self-esteem…the natural outgrowth of willfully failing to tell the truth.
    The truth is also easier. Maybe not in the short run, for it can surely sting. But if it does, there must be an open wound somewhere and I’d rather cauterize it with the truth than cover it up with a lie…allowing it to fester into something much more deadly and significantly harder to heal. In that long run, there are no connivances or elaborate scenarios to remember with the truth. It simply “is.”
    Which brings us back to Bill and Hilary. He parsed what “is” meant and she is trying to parse what “misspeak” means. For my part, Noah Webster set it right a long time ago and nothing has changed since. “Is” is the present tense of the verb “to be.”  In a nutshell, therefore, either you are or you aren’t. “Misspeak” is pronouncing or speaking incorrectly. It’s about form, not substance. When the substance is knowingly in error, its a flat-out lie.
    If Hilary doesn’t know and can’t recall that she calmly walked off that plane in Kosovo rather than ” run with her head down to avoid sniper fire”…well, she’s not competent to be (verb intransitive) President of the United States.
    As for the rest of us, let’s just be honest with ourselves…and, oh yes, each other.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book “Too Many Secrets.”
    
    

>     In July 2007 I wrote a piece about J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter Series, concluding that I thought her personal story was perhaps even more important than Harry’s. Now, eight months later, with the recent disclosure that she contemplated suicide prior to writing the series, I’m convinced I was right.
   While truth may not always be stranger than fiction…it’s almost always more inspiring.
   What Rowling’s disclosure does is bring to light, and out of the shadows, the emotional struggle so many people go through when Life seems to “pile on” a seemingly never-ending set of adverse circumstances.  Further, and perhaps more importantly, is the awareness that without an outlet for creativity, blocked energy can fester and create a toxic internal environment.  Rowling didn’t really want to die, but she had a bundle of external adversity coupled with a bundle of blocked creativity. The combination is deadly…a recipe for dis-ease. 
    It’s important to be aware that while we usually think of dis-ease as being of the body, it can most certainly be of the mind as well.  Rowling was so “dis-at-ease” that thoughts of death were perceived by her to be a viable option in ending her dis-comfort.  Of course, hers was a mis-perception.
    Matter, energy, is neither created nor destroyed only redistributed.  Thank you, Albert.  I won’t go too far out on a limb here and get into what would have happened to Rowling’s dis-ease and her as-yet-unexpressed-creativity had she actually followed through with thoughts of suicide. Suffice it to say that once she opened the channel to her creative energy and allowed it to freely flow, not only did she move beyond thoughts of suicide but also created for herself unimaginable wealth that alleviated all of that external adversity she had been experiencing as well.
    A miracle healing, one might say, on many levels!
    What I take away from the real life story of J.K Rowling is this:

    1.  If you give in and give up, success may have been but a day away.
    2.  Creativity is the elixir of Life. Without it you can die of starvation.
    3.  External conditions are the manifestation of internal conditions.
    4.  Satisfaction originates within and moves outward, not the other way around.

     I have read that Rowling carried the character of Harry around in her head for years before she began writing the first book. It was her divorce, desperate financial circumstances and need to care for her daughter that finally came together to bring enough pressure to bear upon her that she needed a release of some sort. Turned out to be the release of Harry. Not the release of death.
    Which goes to prove one more important point.
    Life is always about choice. It’s not what happens to you, after all.
    It really is about how you handle it.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

>    No, it’s not a misspelled word. I meant “Bear” not “bear.” You see, it’s about the news that JP Morgan is acquiring Bear Stearns, the Wall Street Investment firm that seems to be in financial difficulty.  Now this “breaking news” is supposed to feed the fear that the economy is in trouble and we should all worry about our financial security. And that’s certainly one scenario. But allow me to pose another.
    It’s a good time for my caterpillar-butterfly analogy. Every time a butterfly is born, a caterpillar must die.  This fact isn’t inherently good or bad, it’s just a fact.  Well, some might say it’s only bad if you’re the caterpillar…but even in reply to that I would say, not necessarily. Whether it’s you, me or the caterpillar, we are all born with a purpose and our work here doesn’t last forever.  Hopefully, it’s the fulfillment of that purpose that is somehow tied to the completion of our time on earth. If you believe, as I do, that everything that occurs has purpose and is, ultimately, for the highest good of all concerned then whether it’s death or a Wall Street acquisition, things change for the better. While “better” is not necessarily always immediately visible or knowable…a little faith goes a long way in dispelling the fear of change.
     Bear Stearns is a symptom not a fatal diagnosis of the economy and all of Life as we know it.  It’s a symptom that another of the systems and institutional ways of doing “business as usual” isn’t serving us anymore.  So, good.  Let’s get on with it and find out what will serve us better.  We have a choice around this news.  We can feed the fear and panic or we can say to ourselves, “Time for a change. Let me keep a look out for the butterfly. I know it’s coming as certainly as is the sunrise.”
    Sometimes, when I share thoughts such as these I can almost hear some (or several) readers thinking, “What a Pollyanna! Is she living in the real world?”  Well, I’m neither a Pollyanna nor am I delusional.  But I can tell you that they are absolutely correct to ask if I’m living in the real world. The answer is Yes, I am living in it…but not of it.  Meaning that I am learning how to accept the totality of it all while at the same time learning how to Be within it and in relation to it without becoming it.  It’s sort of like being able to discern what you do (as in your work) from who you are (as a uniquely created aspect of God).  I used to be lawyer and I thought that’s who I was. So when I stopped practicing law, I temporarily lost my identity. Fortunately, when I went in search of it, I found that identity inside myself and it had no resemblance to the lawyer I thought I was.
    Similarly, when we can watch the events of the material world unfold around us and not think that the quality of our inner lives will be determined by them, we awaken to the realization that we ARE the butterfly.
    It doesn’t get much more beautiful than that.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “TOO MANY SECRETS.”

face=”Times New Roman” size=”3″>     face=”Times New Roman” size=”3″>  Let me disclose from the outset that this is about two separate issues. One is how manipulated we are by the media. The other is about the inevitable effects of hatred. While these seem unrelated at first glance, my thoughts on both are the result of one single news story I listened to this morning.
    A little background music, please.
    I had to leave home very early today. Usually, I check out the headlines on the computer before I do but today there was no time. So my information about the latest news was obtained from my car radio.  Over a three hour period I had listened to three separate radio talk show hosts and the focus of each was whether or not Barack Obama needed to seriously distance himself from his minister, Jeremiah Wright, a very vocal and seemingly racist voice from the Chicago community. Apparently, some breaking news story was focused around Minister Wright’s angry delivery to his congregation on the failings, and prophesied “damned” future, of the United States. And although each of the hosts played excerpts of the Minister angrily delivering his opinion, I looked forward to getting back to my computer to read the story for myself.
    The problem arose when I returned home and logged on. I couldn’t find the story. In fact, I couldn’t find any indication in today’s news why this story was such a hot topic for talk radio. The contrast was a stunning example of how we are manipulated by not only how we get our news, but also which news we actually get. I bet if you had been a mouse at the water cooler in any business where the employees had listened to talk radio on their way into work, Barack Obama and Minister Wright would have been the hot topic. To the contrary, same water cooler… different company with employees who only saw CNN or MSNBC on their computer or Blackberry screens on their way in…well, you get the picture.
    The moral: Think for yourself. Refuse to be manipulated by a select group of people whose political affiliation or agenda spoon feeds you only what they want you to know in order to control you and get from you the reaction they desire.
    The second issue is Minister Wright’s delivery. While the substance of what he had to say may have some merit, the delivery was so filled with anger and blame that the ultimate outcome of his rage can only be more anger and more hatred. I am reminded of an entry I once wrote shortly after the Reverend Jerry Falwell died contrasting his spiritual message with that of Dr. Martin Luther King.  Reverend Falwell had a person or group to blame for every evil…a scapegoat if you will…while Dr. King was about the potential for good in all of us and the need to override lesser instincts for the highest good of all.
    Minister Wright could learn much from that contrast.
    Thousands of years of war have gotten us nothing but more war.  It’s the same with  hate speech. While it may temporarily satisfy a need making someone, or some group, accountable for past injustices…in the long run it just sets up someone else somewhere who, as the object of that hate-filled accountability, eventually feels the need to vent their oppression on some new group down the road.
    And the cycle never ends.
    If Minister Wright wants to be the very public voice of the Black community in America, not to mention the spiritual mentor of possibly the next President of the United States, he would do well to temper the delivery of his grievances with a higher and more effective tone. Such a tone is founded, and grounded, in the knowing that spiritually, only a loving heart heals, and only Love trumps hatred.
    Just as it’s the Light that banishes darkness, not more darkness, so is it that only a loving intent is able to find it’s way into a hardened heart.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book “TOO MANY SECRETS.”
   

>    It’s a good day for justice. Mark Jensen, the Wisconsin husband convicted of poisoning his wife with anti-freeze then suffocating her to death was sentenced to life in prison without parole, and Bobby Cutts, Jr. the 30-year-old former Illinois police officer who killed his pregnant girlfriend was sentenced to life, as well, with the possibility of parole to be considered at age 60.
    The “lucky run” era of O.J. Simpson-like escapes from justice appears to be over. Which supports two of my basic beliefs: 1) there are no secrets and 2) the winds of profound change are in the air.
    Let’s look at these two beliefs a little more closely.
    There’s another story out today claiming that a report to the Pentagon by Marine technology expert Franz Gayl states that “casualties could have been reduced by half among Marines in Iraq if
specially armored vehicles had been deployed more quickly in some
cases.” Gayl found that if the mass procurement and fielding of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles had begun in 2005 in
response to the known and acknowledged threats at that time, as the
United States Marine Corp (USMC) is doing today, hundreds of deaths and injuries could have been
prevented.” What’s this got to do with “no secrets?” Well, apparently Gayl had previously made some pretty damning allegations around this very matter so the USMC gave him the opportunity, on government time, to prove his allegations. And apparently, that’s just what he’s done.
    Now combine this with the fact that David Walker, head of the Government Accounting Office since 1998 has resigned to become the head of a new $1 billion dollar private research firm. What is stunning about Walker’s resignation has been his very recent public appearances and statements regarding the “three sets of books” the U.S. government is keeping as well as his warnings that without radical changes to “business as usual” the U.S. economy is a train wreck in the making. Note that Walker was appointed and confirmed by George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George Bush. Walker has no political ax to grind.
    These are two of many recent examples that support my belief that we
are moving into a phase of consciousness evolution where deception will be unmasked every time it’s tried.
    There is no longer time or place for behavior that will not support the highest good for all concerned. Even esoteric writings that have been the purview of a select few throughout history have begun to surface, becoming available for all who wish to know their content.
    All of these events, and more, are why I say “There are no secrets.”
    As for my second belief around the winds of change, what could be more obvious than the rapid ascent of Barack Obama (literally predicated upon the word “change” itself) and the simultaneous repudiation of the type of politics practiced by Hilary Clinton?
    While this phenomenon is intriguing, it’s critical that we look beyond the surface and see what it is that people are actually seeking.
    Yesterday, I was being interviewed by Carolyn Firestone of WBZ radio in Boston. Carolyn Hosts “Women’s Watch” and she asked me what I thought about all the despair that appears to be so widespread. My reply was that I am actually encouraged because I do not see despair any longer. What I now see is dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction is a vast improvement over despair because despair is immobilizing. It is where we have been. But dissatisfaction has an active component that moves people to action. The very vocal clamoring for “change” that is in the air is, in fact, that active component.
    What we must stay conscious around, and present with, are the types of changes we seek and the means by which we intend to effect those choices. Change for change sake, without a conscious awareness of where we are, and where it is we wish to go, opens the door to a usurpation of our inherent power as individuals by those who wish to power over us. This has been our history. It will not be our future.
    Each of us needs to get our thoughts and our actions in alignment with our intentions and then commit to the tough work ahead that is necessary to manifest those goals.
    So, having looked at the news today I am heartened. We are on the right track. No more secrets and the winds of meaningful change.
    It’s a great day in America.

P.S.   Remember to click here to download my FREE e-book “TOO MANY SECRETS”
    

>     I grew up in suburban Philadelphia. There was, and still is, a restaurant in the historic section of the the city named “Bookbinders.” It is one of those places that tourists go to eat, but also a place my family and I frequented as well as I was growing up. Although both the food and the service were good, I dreaded dining there because as you were seated you had to pass by a large lobster tank filled with fresh lobsters. It was from that tank that you chose the specific lobster you wanted boiled alive as your entrée. A friend who knew me well back then said, “Carole, you’re the only person I know who can walk past a tank of lobsters and feel for their confinement.”
    My friend was right then and it’s still true today. It’s why I am a vegetarian and also why I cannot read the details of this past Sunday’s recall of 143 million pounds of beef processed and distributed nationally by Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company. When I got to the part of the article that began to outline the unashamed cruelty inflicted on the animals I couldn’t go on. It’s also why, today, driving in Center City Philadelphia and seeing a horse and buggy pulling smiling tourists around Constitution Center by a crippled and obviously pained horse, I cried.
    I don’t know what it is that makes humankind think it has been given heartless dominion over all other forms of life, but obviously something has. Whether it’s whaling to extinction, slaughtering elephants for their ivory tusks, or effectively torturing laboratory animals in the name of science, we have become arrogant about our relationship with, and responsibility to, all other living aspects of the planet.
    We make “progress” at the expense of our own capacity to empathize and sympathize. By so doing, we have over time hardened our hearts and set the stage for an ever descending spiral of indifference to pain and suffering that, perhaps, is not so unrelated to the proliferation of   violence we are now experiencing throughout the society at large. Which may, in fact, be the best proof going that what we do to others we ultimately assure we do to ourselves…for there is only One of Us.
    Nature is a gift as is Life itself. What we do with each is not only a statement about who we are, but also the way in which Source gets to experience Itself through Us. Do we really want to be the reason that the Beauty which created All That Is comes to know the intentional infliction of pain by one of It’s creations upon another? Is this who we really are?
    Coincidentally, I watched a wonderful movie tonight, Kate and Leopold. It’s a romantic comedy with Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman that spans two centuries by finding a portal in time. Leopold is royalty from the 1800’s who accidentally lands in present-day Manhattan. Kate works for an ad agency and enlists Leopold, due to his charm and sincere delivery, to film a commercial for diet margarine. He does so until, on a break from filming, he tastes the product. Repulsed by it’s taste, he refuses to continue filming. Kate, panicked by the potential harm his refusal could do to her career, tries to convince him to just finish what he started. Leopold refuses on the grounds that he finds himself “peddling pond scum to an unsuspecting public.” Kate sees no conflict and Leopold is incredulous that she, knowing the product is awful, would still proceed with trying to convince people to buy it. He is a man who follows his heart regardless of what it costs him. In the end, it is what makes him so irresistible.
    Just as Leopold, each of us in our hearts knows that wanton disregard for the feelings and general welfare of living beings, regardless of their positioning on the evolutionary ladder, is wrong. Yet, each day we,just like Kate, ignore the shameful behavior all around us and by so doing, condone it.
    I don’t know the particulars of what Hallmark/Westland participated in and I do not need to. I hope they are put out of business, if not by criminal prosecution, then by the refusal of consumers to do business with them.
    After all, it is up to each One of Us to stand up for All of Us…and most notably for those who cannot stand for themselves.

P.S.   Remember to click here to download my FREE e-book “Too Many Secrets.”
    

>     The now confirmed tragic and unintended overdose-caused death of actor Heath Ledger is an opportunity for us all to shine a bright light on the several issues his life, and death, present. On the surface, it’s about the proliferation and ease of obtaining both prescription and illegal drugs. However, just below the surface are lurking several deeper issues equally, if not more, in need of our attention.
    Yes, the drug issue is the most obvious. Ledger was in possession of a potentially fatal cocktail of legally prescribed sleeping pills, anti-anxiety meds and pain killers. The question first asked is “What physician, if in fact a single physician is involved, would have prescribed such a combination and allowed a patient in such “pain” (physical and/or emotional) to have unfettered access?”
    Yet the underlying issue around the prescribing of drugs is “Why are we as a culture so quick to medicate and suppress symptoms rather than treat root causes?” While I do not know if Ledger suffered any physical source of pain, it does appear from reports that he suffered from emotional pain and depression as witnessed by close friends. In this regard, he was no different than countless numbers of Americans who daily take drugs, legal and illegal, to mask their underlying problems.
    I have a good friend, a chiropractor, who has always said, “To heal you have to feel.” And it’s true. Whether it’s a broken leg or a broken heart…whether it’s Hyrodcodone for the broken leg or Prozac for the broken heart…at some point real healing cannot be accomplished by sedating or distracting the conscious mind from the painful reality of the growth process. As we experience pain, we learn from it. We learn what and how not to do as well as where and how not to go.
    I am reminded of Thomas Edison’s reply when asked how it felt to fail so many times before he succeeded at inventing the light bulb. “I never failed” he replied. “I discovered a thousand ways how not to make a light bulb.” Edison ultimately succeeded because he was willing to experience the pain of not succeeding. Edison learned by that pain how not to reach his goal, which gave him momentum and direction on how to reach it.
    We have become a nation unwilling to feel the pain. And so, in our desperation to hold true to that goal, we try and circumvent the natural process of how things evolve, and what evolution feels like, by trying to insulate and sedate ourselves. It’s a losing proposition. For it’s impossible to shut down one aspect of yourself without impacting all of the other aspects as well. We, like Heath Ledger, have moved into a quiet sleep from which it’s very easy to slip away.
    We are in denial about this pervasive problem. I was reading an ABC World News on-line article about Ledger’s autopsy findings and navigated over to the comments that people were posting. Almost all of them were raging against our denial of the magnitude of this problem and how children, in record numbers, are on drugs.
    Then there’s the fact that he was 28 with enormous success and a child out of wedlock with a woman he had met on the movie set of Brokeback Mountain, and, with whom he had recently split up. He was reported to be a doting father to their new daughter and yet a wild partier. So many issues here: The capacity to handle fame and fortune at age 28; bearing children out of wedlock; sex vs. love; the pressures to achieve money, fame, stardom, success, whatever.
    Such are the stuff of a national dialog that needs to commence and run deep. We need to get to the root causes of our weakest links and do something about strengthening them rather than anesthetizing them. Like Edison, we need to acknowledge out loud all the ways we have tried that have taught us how not to get to where we want to go so that together we can alter course.
    It’s too late for Heith Ledger, but not for the 1.5 million runaway children each year…or the 1 million high school age children who attempt suicides each year…or all the others of whatever age group who cannot seem to understand how we’ve created the world they inhabit…or who cannot seem to find an opening to a path leading to a better one.
    Death is only meaningless if we fail to find meaning in it. Heith Ledger has left us an opportunity that, if taken, can provide him a legacy far beyond any Oscar ever could have.
    Let’s give him that.

>     How timely that in yesterday’s blog I wrote about the ways to deal with chaos born of change and today we have a three-continent wide interruption to internet and electronic communications as a result of a severed underwater cable. This “interruption”, as governments and media are characterizing it, is more like a high-tech tsunami. And it’s just one of many such “interruptions” that will be occurring. As I said yesterday, we are in the midst of enormous change and change’s “middle name” is chaos.
    For those of you who may not have read the previous blog, the point was that the challenging economic experiences we are encountering are symptomatic of a deeper and more profound shift taking place in the “non-material” realm. You can read “non-material” as “spiritual”, “religious”, “cosmic”, “extra-terrestrial”, or “religious”…whatever your preference. What matters is that you secure your boat for these are rough seas approaching. While I don’t intend to sound like I’m prophesying anything, or giving credence to prophecies gone by, I can’t help calling it as I see it.
    What I see is an
imbalance among Nature, humanity and technology. At some point in
our development we lost sight of the inter-relationship and necessary
balance between these aspects of our existence.     The natural state of an organism, if allowed, is to self-organize when out of balance. Given the “opportunity”, it will bring itself back into balance through realignment of those parts that are the source of the imbalance. We are now experiencing the correction, or realignment, of the parts of our world, our reality, that have become so misaligned as to inhibit it’s proper functioning and impede movement along it’s intended path. Simply stated, our choices have created misalignments that are in need of correction. Now, also as I see it, all parts are impacted by realignment but not all parts are impacted equally. Depending on where a part(you) are “located” in relation to where the “change” occurs, you will experience that change differently.
    Since the “organism” in this case is human consciousness and what we have created with it, changes will occur at critical points where misalignment is most egregious. So, if for example, you are a day trader in Dubai and you’re working on a multi-billion dollar trade that needs to take place today or it will result in a loss of mega sums of money, you will feel the effects of the damaged cable, “the realignment”, significantly greater than a charitable person feeding the homeless on the streets of New Delhi. Same part of the world, same humanity…just positioned differently in relation to the misaligned part and the applied correction.
    If it all sounds a little mystical, or just a little esoteric…let me simplify it.
     We have let the technology that we created run us. We became too caught up in power. We lost sight of our connectedness to one another and the responsibility of what that means. We abandoned the children. We abandoned the women. We abandoned the elderly. We became egocentric. We, humanity, lost our way. That’s the bad news.
    Wait. There’s good news.
    You can’t find your way home unless you’ve been lost. Well, maybe you can but it’s not the same. Once you’ve been lost, the journey home takes on profound meaning and the arrival untold joy. Yes, we have been lost and the journey home is a difficult one filled with obstacles. We can surmount those obstacles with lesser or greater difficulty, depending on where we put our thoughts, words and actions. Like the day trader in Dubai and the person feeding the homeless in New Delhi.
    We are on our way home and determined to get there. Each of us has a faint memory of how wonderful it feels to rest safely in the warm Light of Home. It is toward that feeling, and by that Light, we now travel. Welcome and embrace the opportunities to make personal choices that help move the collective consciousness, Oneness, back into alignment with Itself.
    That’s a homecoming no one should want to miss.

>     Remember the 1990’s when the stock market was soaring through the ceiling and everyone who had the chance to have been invested in it was making more money than they ever dreamed they could? Back then every news report led with the DOW and NASDAQ numbers. I remember it clearly because it drove me crazy that the world seemed to revolve around the money. I tired of it, and yet it was almost impossible not to be inundated with those rising numbers on an hourly basis.
    Now, we’re headed back there again. But this time it’s the falling numbers and the growing apprehension around an economy that appears to be headed into tricky, some even say disastrous, waters. The tension, fear if you will, is becoming palpable. Combine this with a Presidential election on the horizon and we’re smack in the middle of some serious uncertainty.
    What’s a person to do? There are a few guidelines.
    First, hold on, but not too tightly. The ride is likely to be a bumpy one with a fair share of tossing and turning…that’s why the admonition is to keep your grip steady but flexible. Holding on too tightly can get something you’d rather not, snapped. Changing times are an opportunity to exercise the skill of adaptability. Better to ebb and flow than hunker down. From a flexible position, you will be better positioned to make necessary adjustments as things unfold.
    Secondly, know your core. By that I mean know what your guiding principles are and where your bottom line is in regard to what you value and what you are willing to let go. By having a good, working knowledge of what is important to you in Life, you will be positioned to be both inner directed and flexible.
  Thirdly, change is chaotic by it’s very nature. So expect the unexpected. Let go now of ideas and ways of doing things that have previously worked for you, as they will likely no longer bring the same end result. Old ways applied to new patterns will hardly create harmony. What will be required is an open mind and willingness to not react to the chaos, but rather to creatively approach situations with an expansive eye toward possible solutions…for there will be many.
     Finally, as the chaos intensifies, resist the urge to look to others for “answers.” Instead, go within and source your own inner guidance, trusting your own instincts to see you through.
     The economic news is a symptom, not a root cause. And when symptoms appear, there is always the choice between acquiescing to the potential “bad news” before it’s confirmed that it even exists (thereby guaranteeing that it will come)…or refocusing one’s efforts on identifying the most prudent and expeditious course to wellness.
     Let’s treat the economic indicators as symptoms that the underlying organism is out of balance and realign our priorities and our goals to bring It back to Center.
    This isn’t the end of anything other than worn out ways of living Life that need to be updated.
    We are living through Source’s correction. The DOW is just a symptom.