Monday Morning
The alarms starting ringing and the digital roosters were crowing at about 6:45.
I ignored them.
I lay next to my thirteen year old son, Makiah who is the world's most difficult person to awaken and get out of bed in the morning. I decided that I would lay next to him and attempt to get into his 'space' of sleepfulness to begin to understand his morning perspectives on sleep vs being awake.
As Makiah's mom, Shari arrived from the upstairs bedroom to start the process of getting Makiah ready for school...i sank into a deeper level of semi-consciousness and didn't move a muscle. Until Makiah had made it out the door to his awaiting Suburban which would take him to Clearance Iowa the home of his seventh grade class at Mid Prairie.
Shari started her noisy start to the morning. I sought the silence of a deeper sleep.
I floated upstairs to the large bedroom which Shari had been occupying in order to find some new levels of REM sleep...and that i did.
Quiet and peaceful.
Into the late morning i awoke.
slowly.
Meditating on what the unfolding day might appear as or be co-created as, i began to move.
I looked onto the floor next to the bed and noticed the latest book which Shari had been reading,
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.
Starting from the index and then going to the end of the book, i began reading her year long account of how to create happiness in your life.
I loved what she was saying...her journey into self discovery...her resources...methods of motivation
began to inspire me. To remember to remember. That at sixty, i was feeling confident that i had mastered the art of health and happiness. Well, at least was 'on the path' of mastering the art of health and happiness.
I own the websites:
Americas Healthiest and Happiest People
Americas Healthiest and Happiest Towns
The Apple Project
and who knows how many 465 websites communicating the benefits of health and happiness.
Gretchen was inspiring me.
She mentioned money as a possible asset to health and happiness and that was the one area of expertise and mastery that i was completely failing. As...i am basically homeless and penniless, without a saving account...trust fund...or stocks and bonds or whatever it takes to give money some meaning in the world.
Okay....
I would take one week...Monday...Tuesday...Wednesday...Thursday....Friday...Saturday...Sunday
to experience and focus on creating a life overflowing in abundance and wealth.
I felt really really great. I jumped out of bed full of enthusiasm to start the day embracing the challenge
of truly mastering the art of money. Especially in how it integrated with my health and happiness.
I returned downstairs to computer central which was next to the queen bed in the master bedroom which Makiah and I sometimes shared. I looked up Gretchen Rubin to get move inspired and motivated for Monday's new beginning. I enjoyed her bio...her websites...her sense of involvement...her success at learning happiness...which seemed to have opened up doorways of opportunities for increased wealth.
'I want money,' seemed to be the perfect name for my new website. I checked out the URL at my favorite place to buy such assets, GoDaddy.com ....and it was already owned and the asking price was $5000. Meaning, it was a great choice for my book title, idea and concept of attaining new levels of nirvana.
But...not in my non existent budget. So, I took a skip over to Google keyword tools and found money to be sizable searched word with exchange and conversion being words connecting with money that were also in demand.
Some where in life i developed the idea or notice and attitude that i was entitled.
Several days ago, Shari and i were in the kitchen discussing our problems...mostly mine, as i am always reminded. I was homeless. Shari had asked me to leave a year ago because she had found a new love interest and wanted me out of the house. I left.
A year later...i was in 'visiting' mode because i had basically run out of gas....foodstamps...and opportunities to embrace a new beginning. Therefore our discussion in the kitchen centering on....
"you always seemed like you were entitled to everything and you never had any respect for me"
I began to feel tears flowing down from the corners of my eyes.
" that is so sad " i replied and communicated that i would meditate on where the sense of entitlement came from and where any feelings for lack of respect might sprout from. And from that conversation i realized that basically i always felt entitled. My mom and dad and sister always loved me...dearly. I was always so full of love that i never really felt as if i needed anything. I sought nothing, as i seemingly had everything.
I was me.
What more could there be? There wasn't enough emptiness within me to even ask the question.
I had no motivating desire to be a policeman or fireman or dentist or farmer or banker or doctor
or or or or or or or or or any of the professions that everyone seemed determined that i be.
Being me ...suited me fine and dandy. I felt entitled in just being me. Simple, easy and true.
Respect.
That is the one and only thing my dad 'preached' if he was to preach anything. Be respectful.
Of everyone of everything. I felt i was respectful from the depths of my heart, out of pure respect for my father who demanded so little and loved so much.
I realized it wasn't respect that i lacked for Shari but frustration.
Shari is a very beautiful talented skillful human being. From the moment i first layed eyes on her at Lairs Theater, i could feel a lack of completeness or empowerment in the flow of energy thought her body.
When i got to know Shari...i could clearly see her geniusness of being the Star leading lady of her own play.
Yet, she wasn't playing the part. She was always busy attempting to survive whatever drama presented itself to her, working at roles that never really suited....just being herself.
I was expressing frustration with her not lack of respect.
The last year of my life has been my most challenging learning experience. As well every year should be.
My ability to master the art of meditation was paramount in surviving my situation of being homeless.
Without money....i grabbed a tent and some body by vi shake mix and headed to the middle of a secluded corn and soy bean field in the back acres of The Bass Farm. My first three days of constant meditative solitude was amazingly enlightening and empowering. So much so, that i continued on with my meditation for twenty days ....ten of which i was completely awake.
memories past ....the every present now....and the future we walk into....
My mediation basically took me into the ever present moment to moment existence. What else is there when you are homeless with nothing. It is an almost choice less choice of attitudes.
I started designing a website that was very simple and easy for ' i be money ' project.
I decided on a simple seven page blog book, which would include everything for the project.
The website itself....i be money....would be a title page.
I bought the URL from Godaddy for less than nine dollars. I created a simple title webpage on my limitless space available from my Homestead.com account and linked my newly created and designed free Blogger account to the website and TA DA...i was ready to start writing.
Makiah came home from school. Shari came home from work via a trip to the physical therapist. Randy Mass called to remind me that it was his birthday tomorrow and that he had a wonderful new friend in Elizabeth VonDuffel. I was being interpreted. Yet, it was all part of my seven day project of experiencing
" i be money."
Makiah wanted a doctors appointment. His teacher had even asked his teacher Todd Cox to give both mom and dad a call to remind us ...'He wanted to see a doctor' ....I asked him what hurt when he got home, he said..."you know, the accident." ....he and shari were in a car accident in July were it was though maybe Makiah might have had a concussion....he was feeling like he wasn't remembering things at school...his memory wasn't just right and he wanted the doctor to fix the problem. As well as Shari was still going to twice a week physical therapy appointments to fix the problems. She had just recently got the MRI results back from her neurologist who strongly suggested spinal cord surgery....soon. She was worried as was i ...it was just a couple months passed that she had her gall bladder removed...that was between theater performances of being Chastity the nymphomaniac for "Self Help for Dummies" at the Starlighters Theater in Anamosa Iowa and her performance in "On Golden Pond" at the Cedar Rapids Theater.
and ...and and and and
She is still in the process of seeing gynecologist concerning unknown 'situations' in those feminine areas of life. I should know more after having seen 'The Vagina Dialogues' more than most men on the planet. But thankfully my expertise on the subject area does not come from medical text books but from that area of the brain specializing in art and aesthetics.
So what i am attempting to communicate here is .....medical issues have always been at the forefront or our relationship.....it was early in the morning June 22 1999 that Shari was screaming as if she were dying ...bleeding all over the bedroom like she was dying ....until i delivered Makiah to planet earth safely in time for the first res-ponders and medics to rush mother and child to the hospital...where he was rushed to University of Iowa Childrens Hospital were he underwent his first heart surgery for critical aortic stenosis.
Two years ago he underwent a twelve hour heart operation, the Ross Proceedure by Dr Davis to replace both his heart valves. He has recovered beautifully. Until the emotional pain arrived of not having a stay at home dad occurred...and the readjustment of definitions of family hit hard at home.
Randy called to say he was totally enjoying his new friend Elizabeth. No, she was not going to be his art agent but he was enjoying his several phone calls a day to his new exciting wonderful friend who he was contemplating a trip to Cann, France and she was a great birthday present ' in turning fifty-one.'
Friends or is it relationships....are everything.
everything......
Life is really so simple and easy, or so it should be. It seems to me.
My friend Ann sent me this email quote for the day.
"When you understand the Laws, then you understand that it is not more difficult to create a castle than it is a button. They are equal. It is not more difficult to create $10 million than $100,000. It is the same application of the same Law to two different intentions". --- Abraham
Money.
Until i started a paper route when I was ten, money wasn't really a part of my world.
My grandfather returned home from WWl and started a bank in his dad's store in the small Iowa town of Atkins Iowa. He got married and my grandmother and he were there for the first day of running the Farmers State Bank in Alburnett Iowa. They made it through the depression without having to close, the bank is still thriving. My grandparents long gone. It seemed banking had its financial standards of well being associated with small town accounts of stress. Money wasn't an interest or passion of mine. When i started a paper route part of our job was to go around and collect money every week for the newspapers. Accounting responsibilities wasn't much fun for me and it always seemed to take up most of my prime play time Saturdays.
I had a lot of jobs growing up....mowed lawns, a tandem bike rental business, factory work, restaurant work, retail, hospital tech work...owning businesses to part time temp work....if it wasn't for the perceived need TO MAKE money....i'm not sure what my work career would have existed. I was pre med in college...chemistry and biology interested me til i discovered psychology and that there might be a mind to healing. Psychology took me down a long winding path of self discovery into the many open doorways and mansions of being healthy and happy. It lead me into the heART of understanding a more holistic view of integrating all aspects of body-mind-emotional-spiritual well being. Art became my passion for life long freedom to learn anything about everything. I fell in love with learning. Money was still far down the list of passions that i wan't to explore. And when i did have interest in learning about it...nothing seemed to make sense.
I would read the new age books on how to grow rich, i would read boring text books on the subject of accounting, banking, micro and macro economics...i'd watch an overwhelming amount of video's on the subject of money. i always seemed to get more and more confused.
After i graduated from college i spent a full year in independent study reading all day every day while working in a factory being a crane operator...making enough money for my early retirement from the hum drum everyday kind of work to work kind of existence to ....it was time to go to Europe to find my art and explore the world in discovering my passions for all future reference
Time for bed.
Monday was the inspiration. Thank you Gretchen Rubin and Shari for purchasing her book 'The Happiness Project'.....I love inspiration. It is the spark that ignites the fire in the heart, again and again and again. Tonight hoping to dream BIG dreams so that tomorrow i can chalk Mount Vernon in preparation for President Obama's Wednesday's visit to town. Hoping to dream money dreams, insightful dreams getting to the heart of money and how it integrates with who
I am. I be money. I be me. I be energy. I be vibration. I be attitudes.I be movement. I be elements. I be oneself. I be art. I be naked. I be......
Time for bed.
Monday was the inspiration. Thank you Gretchen Rubin and Shari for purchasing her book 'The Happiness Project'.....I love inspiration. It is the spark that ignites the fire in the heart, again and again and again. Tonight hoping to dream BIG dreams so that tomorrow i can chalk Mount Vernon in preparation for President Obama's Wednesday's visit to town. Hoping to dream money dreams, insightful dreams getting to the heart of money and how it integrates with who
I am. I be money. I be me. I be energy. I be vibration. I be attitudes.I be movement. I be elements. I be oneself. I be art. I be naked. I be......
