alizations" about life and several epiphanies that opened my eyes. As we move forward, it seems reality as I used to understand it is gone, and in its place is a simple, new reality. It has shown me that I am not what I thought, and I am more than I thought, and that we truly are here to change the world.Take for instance the Dow Jones. It seems to be matching my rollercoaster ride. This is symbology at work, reflecting an inner feeling of an individual to an outer-world reality.
This month I have seen my shadow side frequently, and often plunged into its depths, distraught at my failures, frustrated with my inability to create or manifest, feeling so alone and apart. Then suddenly a wave of light arrives, and on that wave of light comes the realization that without the dark, I could not see the light, the truth of who I am. The darkness is just the other side of the coin. And after night, comes day. My eyes open and I see the perfection around me: the winter trees, the rocks covered in snow, and my place among them.
And so follows the Dow Jones. Strange, isn’t it? What baramoter have we created that we were unaware of? Go to the Dow Jones to see how you’re feeling today. What came first, the chicken or the egg? The plunging dow or my dark side?
But it is just so: Wall Street is looking for good news, then sees bad. It goes up, it goes down. And like Wall Street, every individual’s inner barometer is measuring their inner turmoil right now. Like Wall Street, every individual is being asked to look at their situation and question their reality. In the words of Suze Orman, we thought there was a house with a foundation, but under the foundation was an enormous sink hole.
That sink hole exists in each and every one of us. It was based on lies, we lied to ourselves to get these loans, and the banks lied to themselves and us to give the loans, and now there is nothing to support the lies.
Ask yourself this: Do you have a home now? Where is it?
Some might say the home is that beautiful house you had to give up, or one answer might be "not this stinking apartment." But your home is none of these, is it? Because as long as your heart beats, your home is inside of you. You carry it with you, it is not an outside object made of wood and slab. It is the part of you that keeps your family whole, that speaks to who you are as you go through your day. So long as you have your home and your health, you will be living a truth. Not a lie.
When individuals begin to balance their polarities, that is to say, balance their struggle between material (house outside you) and the immaterial (house inside you), right and wrong, good and evil, masculine and feminine, being and doing - whatever their struggle is - the new economy will become stable.
For example, the polarity I am working through is integrating the male and female aspects withi
n me. This doesn’t mean I’m a guy trying to come out of a female body, it means that within all of us there are male aspects and female aspects. I am learning to integrate the feminine concepts of allowing, acceptance, creating, and surrender into the masculine concepts of doing and powering through. When I burned out in the corporate world - “cratered” - I lived off of saved money to invest in the time I needed to discover what I wanted to become. Eventually, I sold the snow machines and other items on Craig’s List (not the cabin!), and did the "big taboo" of the financial world: I re-framed the purpose of my 401K and IRAs.
Times are changing. Money was based on greed and accumulation. I could see the money disappearing before my eyes even in October 2007. Did I want it to disolve on Wall Street or did I want to pay my bills while I worked through the greatest learning period of my life? It was an investment in myself, like college had been. And it was what I was inspired to do.
There is a new economic trend coming. It is to reframe the concept of wealth. People and the planet will matter more than money. What we needed yesterday, is not what we need today. What we need tomorrow is not money for security; what we need tomorrow is to know that if we are cut off from utilities, can we get heat, light, and sanitary water? If we are cut off from food sources, can we get food to eat?
It is what we are being that is valuable now, not how good we look as we are doing. Not what money we have saved or hoarded. If you want your money to matter, find out who you want to be in earnest. Take time to sit alone and think about what you want your future to look like. Does it matter if it involves a fancy car, or that your family is healthy?
Money will be taking a back seat soon. Money will no longer matter because you can’t have enough of it to keep your stocks from “cratering.” You cannot have enough money to protect you from a world that lived in lies about money. That world was based on greed, dishonesty, disrespect, and “not enough.” Always never enough.
A good quest
ion to ask in times like these is, What do I know about sustaining myself? If you know nothing, then start to learn! It is never too late and time only goes by. One of the best schools from which to learn about living is the cooperative extension services at your local universities. Most of their programs are free or priced very low. They have the classes that teach you about collecting and growing foods in your area, composting, raising farm animals, master gardening, canning, and so much more. When I started to learn sustaining methods 3 years ago, I didn't realize that was what I was doing. I took master gardening classes, learned to can, played with building structures, and learned to use a chain saw. But it was not until this month, October 2008, that I had the “epiphanies” that all that I had learned will pay off in the next few years. After I left my job, I used my 401K and IRA money to determine the most important question: In the present, what am I representing as I put my energy forward? In the past, what has been my “passion” – those themes that pepper my life with joy? In the future, who do I want to become?
If you know all that you are and you are comfortable even as the stock market soars and plummets, then ask yourself what your community needs, because it is your community that will be your foundation in the future. An example of this is the banks: big banks are “Cratering”; small local banks are fine because they didn’t use the bad business practices, didn’t get greedy, and stayed true to their customers, the local community.
In the end, we’re all going to be fine. But in an almost Taoist way, we must come to terms with who we really are. We must face our polarities, bring our energies and money and resources into ourselves and our communities, and allow this global economic ride to unfold.
