Think you understand greenbacks? Here’s a 47-minute video that may challenge your assumptions:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Money+as+Debt

Watch it, then let me know what you think! Make sure it’s in that order…

Trying (often unconsciously) to be a renunciant or ascetic while also raising a family, or running a business, is an exercise in silliness, a bleed-over of two separate systems. I know, because I’ve spent a lot of time in this life doing just that.

Those who are in love with “spiritual drama” (it’s a special category!), tell the truth: Doesn’t your suffering make you feel more worthy, above the materialism you see around you? Yet tell the truth, too, about how attached, how un-free you actually are in the midst of these spiritual dramas. This blindness is no less blind than any other type!

Like learning to deal with having a body while also knowing that you are not ultimately your body, learning to navigate the world of material - in the form of housing and transportation, food and clothing, is no less important, is no less a spiritual lesson!

Dreaming will tell the truth. For example, I am now open to a relationship for the first time in several years. I know this to be the case, not just because of my waking awareness, but because my dreams concur. Most nights, I have a lovely connection with a very interesting potential partner. I’m not sure that it’s not actually happening—a pre-meeting meeting, a discussion with other souls, a meeting of possibilities.

I’m also changing the way that I move through my life, with a willingness to succeed and to fly free from my previous belief in the spiritual merits of poverty. So much is my world being shaken in this challenging and growth-filled way, that I also dreamed last night that I had lost my purse. Gone was my ID(entification), my money, the wallet I love, etc. When I was much younger, I acted this same thing out in a physical way - -losing an ID card or two, an address book or two under those same circumstances - - when outgrowing the life I thought was me.

How about a laptop that would allow your head to stay up fairly straight, encouraging better posture?  A laptop whose hinge would allow the screen to raise up a few inches when opened. I tried raising the whole laptop for this purpose, but then the keyboard was too high. Anyone out there who wants to take on this idea?

Denial digs deep to undermine truth that is seen as threatening. This is true on any level, whether that of the individual or the nation. As above, so below; a nation is, on a metaphysical level, a reflection of its people. Therefore, it is our duty to expose our own self-imposed delusions, our denials.

As we speak, a 3-term Texas Congressman is running for President, but, in a sense, it’s not happening. Nowhere is there a report of his quite viable, main-party candidacy on our mainstream news. Because he’s not running for a marginalized, 3rd party ticket, because he’s got proven experience, and, most of all, because he tells the truth, he’s being denied.

Does that sound familiar? What’s most valuable, most true for you, if you’re not careful, will be denied, as it has the highest likelihood to shake things up, to rock your world.

So look for your own dark spaces, the truths you pretend don’t exist. Clean up denial and deception where you can most clearly control it—in your own mind! At least do that.

While maintaining a calm, Zen attitude is a wondrous and useful thing, preparing yourselves and others for what looks to be careening down that very same path is in order. Here are my recommendations:

1) Buy a copy of America: Freedom to Fascism - or make sure your library has a copy! Show it to your friends and family.

2) Join the work of those in the film:

Ron Paul - currently running for President (and he’s both experienced and trustworthy!)

Catherine Austin Fitts - who can help you rearrange your financial world on a sounder, more ethical and
community-supporting framework

We The People Foundation - who are fighting, in a sane, Constitutionally-based way for your rights

Joe Bannister - former IRS investigator turned public educator, who could use your help in his current battles with
IRS, who are trying hard to silence him.

Katherine Albrecht - author of Spy Chips, and the subject of a previous blog entry.

To see my review of this amazing film, see http://shantimai.rentmovie.com/

Don’t despair if you’ve held yourself back (as I have); when you cleanly heal, that “holding back” becomes a slingshot! That very same backward-seeming movement then catapults you forward, much as the very non-activity of meditation aids in activity. Lost time can indeed be made up in some instances.

“Clean” healing means having gone through the grief of the potential you’d lost before it was ever utilized, no pretending. No pretending. I’ve heard the expression “Truth is God”, and there is truth in that. You’ll never find God - or your Self - without it.

I recently worked with a client who was very moved to find herself in the role of what she perceived as the blind –or the very recently blind– leading the blind.

Never forget that your conscious presence in the face of difficult growth can result in your ability to lead another through the same treacherous waters. And that act of charity, that act of leadership for another, will also lead YOU out of the treacherous belief in yourself as victim. Go for it; let this experience push your buttons! And learn from that, too.

Expose yourself and your daughters to Katherine Albrecht - I adore this woman! Sincere & sweet, yet unhesitatingly brave, brilliant. Turn to her work for personal inspiration and to make a difference in this, the age of Big Brother’s big-time birth.

Her book, Spy Chips, with co-author Liz McIntire, is the primer to introduce you to the world of Radio Frequency ID systems and technology - and why you should care about them. It’s humorous, insightful, reader-friendly and hard-hitting; the best of balances.

And to put your membership where your mouth will be when you’ve finished this book, join me in Katherine’s organization,
CASPIAN (Consumers Against Surveillance, Privacy Invasion and Numbering). You’ll be SO surprised at all the privacy you’ve already lost, and how the undifferentiated media isn’t reporting it.