The Butterfly Effect: A Magical Manifestation of Abundance

It's August 3, 2012, and I'm sitting at High Vibes Coffee & Crystals in Orem, UT, where I volunteer/trade working hours at the shop in exchange for meeting Reiki and Tarot clientele, and training in Reiki through Lisa Ross-Walker.  Troy Walker, the owner of the shop, and I, are having a little chat as I relieve him on his shift - something we do almost every day for 30 minutes or so.  I'm feeling deflated, tired and down.  As Troy and I are taking a look at why I feel like such crap, I start on a rampage.

Troy and Lisa

"I'm on my last pair of contact lenses, Troy, and I've been wearing them for like two months.  I finally saved up enough money to buy more, but the Optometrist won't let me renew my prescription unless I pay for a full eye exam, which I can't afford right now.

"I need to get a business license to make sure my Tarot and Reiki business is legal, and to make sure my student loan payments stay in deferment.

"I dropped my phone in the toilet the other day, and it survived until two hours later a can of soup fell out of the kitchen cupboard on it and smashed the screen.  I waited two weeks for a new screen to arrive in the mail, and as I was installing it, for some reason the LCD connector on the motherboard of my phone short-circuited and now the phone's totally ruined.  John and Cindy Hoover brought me a loaner phone until I can afford a new one, but it's the wrong technology to work with the SIM card I have.

"I gave a Reiki treatment the other day to a guy in desperate need who said he'd bring me the $55 the next day - two weeks later I still haven't heard from him."

Enter my tears, which I apologized for, and Troy insisted that I allow myself to cry as much as I needed to, even though I was "at work running the shop."  I started bawling.

"I just don't understand, Troy.  I understand how the Law of Attraction works, I'm reading the Divine Matrix and studying A Course in Miracles which confirm that by feeling positive and excited about my financial abundance I will pull it in to my space - but every time I get the money I need, the cost of what I hope to accomplish escalates.  I've been doing meditations and worksheets and grids for my root chakra, and embracing each experience as an opportunity for my situation to always be improving, but I'm reaching a breaking point where I just can't feel it any more.  I don't have a car or a phone, so it would be really challenging to even get a job if I wanted one at this point ... I mean, fuck, man, I just feel so screwed!"

After another 30 minutes of releasing my frustration, I started to feel better.  The release was good, and with a shaky resolve, I was able to step back into an energy of gratitude, hopefulness and happiness.  At around 3 PM I posted this on my Facebook page:

"In my life I'm surrounded by the nicest, most caring people on Earth, and I'm really grateful for it. Today, Troy W. Walker listened to me bawl for about an hour about how I don't understand how to live a life with passion and also make the money I need. How often does a 30 year-old chick get to bawl on her boss' shoulder? Thank you to all of my friends - I lack for nothing in that department! :) "

The next day, I came into work.  Troy handed me an envelope.  I opened it, and found inside a card and letter from him and his wife Lisa, and a $100 bill.  I grinned and thanked him profusely!  Holy crap!  A free $100 bucks in cash!!!

Two hours later, my dear friends John and Cindy Hoover pull into the parking lot.  Attached to their car is a trailer with a barely-used beautiful white-and-chrome scooter motorbike of theirs on it.  They get out of the car, and say, "Surprise!"  Cindy hands me the title to the scooter, signed over to me!!!!  "Check out your new scooter, sister!" she and John exclaim! Dudes - they loaned me a car for six months and asked nothing in return, and yesterday they GIFTED me a totally functional, barely-used scooter!!  Cindy then hands me a blank check to pay for the registration on it, and lets me know that she's prepared to take me helmet shopping on Monday if I can't find/afford a helmet in the next two days.

HOLY.

CRAP.

!!!

All I can do is talk and talk and talk and giggle and laugh and make sure every person who comes into the shop congratulates me on my new motorcycle!!  :)  :)  And take it for like 5 test-drives around the parking lot.  And insist everyone that comes into the shop takes it for a test drive.  :)

James and Sunny

I leave work, and know my brother-in-law, James, just sold his motorbike, and may have a helmet.  I go to his house on my new ride and ask him, and he offers me this crazy helmet that was squishing my chubby cheeks.  The helmet wasn't ideal, but I thanked him and said I may or may not keep it depending on what else I could find.  I head over to my other sister, Shauna's, house, show off my scooter, and ask her if she has a helmet I can have.  As I'm telling her my whole story for the day, she stops me and says, "I have a cheap AT&T phone you can use!"  She runs into her office and brings out a phone for me, that's still in the box, and lets me know I can keep it as long as I need to, until I can afford my own replacement.

"By the way," Shauna's husband Billy adds, "Your dad was trying to sell some motorcycle helmets last week at his yard sale.  He gave them to Sunny and James.  So they should have extras that maybe James didn't know about..."

I head back over to Sunny and James' house and ask them about the other helmets.  "Oh yeah," they say, "but I think they're kid-size helmets."  They pull one out of their goodwill pile, and sure enough it fits like a glove!  And it's white and matches my scooter :)  Granted, it's like 20 years old, but it doesn't squish my face, lol, so I was STOKED!!

In short, in 24 hours after my breakdown, I had purchased my business license, had a new scooter and everything I needed to safely and legally operate it, got a replacement phone, and had $90 left over to put towards my contact lenses.

Shauna and Billy

Oh yeah, and right after my breakdown, Troy, who works as a Real Estate Agent, hooked me up with a job at his brokerage as a Spanish-to-English translator for shortsell files with Spanish-speaking sellers (because no one at his brokerage speaks Spanish!).  I already was assigned to my first file, and will be making $20 an hour just to go to meetings with sellers and translate - on my own schedule of availability, totally part-time, and doing something I can totally believe in (helping people get through a sticky financial time in their lives).

Problems.All.Solved.

SO...

Liberty.  You're welcome for
this choice in pic, Lib :)

I've been thinking about it, and why the timing happened as it did.  First of all, as I was talking to my sister Liberty (who feeds me and lets me live with her for free and totally gives me anything she can in terms of financial support and assistance even though she's a single mother of 4 kids and a student, because she believes in me, which is amazing in and of itself), and we realized that when I go to anger with issues, which I usually do first, it buries sadness deep inside of me.  By crying to Troy, and actually acknowledge that I'm not just mad and frustrated, but sad, I acknowledged and released the sadness, which was likely blocking the flow of energy/abundance to me.  Once I released the sadness, I immediately manifested major abundance through the generosity of an amazing community.

Lesson 1: Playing tough and angry blocks my energy.  Releasing sadness moves my energy.

Awesome.

Next, I couldn't stop thinking about the power of the Butterfly Effect.  In this situation, a whole cascade of blessings was waiting for me, and what really set it off, what released the avalanche, was me releasing my feelings, and THEN posting with honesty about my shortcomings and needs, and also gratitude for the support I WAS ALREADY receiving from a member of my community.  One small post got John and Cindy excited (and definitely not feeling obligated) about joining in on the fun of making someone's day (as Troy had done by listening to me and giving me permission to cry).  After John and Cindy left from dropping off my scooter, this is the stuff THEY were posting on Facebook:

"When you hang with amazing people,amazing things will manifest in your life."  - John Hoover

He was posting that hanging out with ME made his life manifest amazing things for HIM when he gave ME his scooter.  Like, what??  I'M the one who benefited from having HIS amazing friendship.  He is incapable of seeing how I have been blessed any more than he has by this experience.  Cindy was texting Liberty all night, reveling in her excitement at having seen my shocked face.  Cindy felt like SHE was getting the blessing, when she gave ME her scooter.  Amazing people!

So Troy listened to me bawl, John and Cindy immediately started cleaning up and making small repairs on the scooter, Lisa bought a card and found a crisp $100 bill, and I had done NOTHING to make that happen other than be honest and grateful despite my sadness over my trials.

Lisa was so excited about HER gift, her energy and juju was SO inspiring, that as she was picking up a rental car later that day, her economy car was upgraded to a brand-new sexy red mustang!  So she raced back to the shop to show me, and lo-and-behold I had my own cool new car and we all just laughed and laughed in a big happy family about the crazy fun abundance we were manifesting.

Then, as I was sharing my joy and hopping to new tasks, my sisters were thrilled to join in on the fun, giving me a phone and helmet.  Ripples and ripples of effect, ripples that John and Cindy felt, that Troy and Lisa experienced, that my sisters were able to perpetuate, on and on...

Going for a ride on my new bike with helmet!  Yeah!

And it was all happening because of relatively simple, but heartfelt and loving gestures on everyone's part.  A listening ear, passing around used but still useful resources, words of gratitude and simple tokens of appreciation.  There was no scheming, no master plan, to make this happen, and especially not to make it happen in such crazy, perfect timing.  It was just a ripple - a huge-ass ripple that somehow flowed out to my community and came back to me.  I didn't create it, I received it; they didn't create it, they received it and passed it on and the flow will continue forever, as long as the waters of connection and community are receptive to that marvelous rippling that does nothing but bless us.

That's the Butterfly Effect.

Hopefully, this blog got you feeling excited, and feeling a little fluttering of gratitude and hopefulness.  Hopefully, my words, your reading them, and sharing the possibilities of the power of unity and generosity will pass on a ripple that will reach your life and beyond!  I think it can and will.  I believe it's your turn to also receive!

On joy and contentment, and the spirituality of unemployment

The other day I was writing a quick message to an old, dear friend of mine, just catching him up on the going-ons of my life.  I wrote something, which seemed natural at the time, but when I reviewed the note later, this statement jumped out at me as pretty interesting; I wrote:

"I have been happier in my life, but I've never felt more *at peace* in my life. It's a very interesting thing."

Apparently, it is a thematic contemplation for me, for just a few days earlier I had done a tarot reading for a friend of mine and wrote these words to her:

"True joy comes from the mundane. Remember that. *Fixes* come from the exciting and novel things in life, and usually involve a crash."

It has me wondering and thinking about the nature of the relationship between peace and happiness, joy and contentment.

I live now with my sister, 'da Renegade Mama (dRM), and her four children (and my two children...er cats).  dRM is pursuing an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, and so we discuss philosophical things together quite a bit, and even at times I read her texts to keep up.

Plato has become a favorite of ours, specifically The Republic, and the quest for justice.  What is justice, how do we achieve it?  A teacher of dRMs (Michael Minch) stated in her Political Philosophy class that "peace is the fruit of justice."  That justice, or contentment, is to be pursued as the path for a society or person to know peace.  Relating this to the Biblical thought that "by their fruits ye shall know them," I believe a society or a person may be identified for their justice and well-being as is indicated by their degree of peace.  (And, as a very unpatriotic American, I do see my country's inability to stay away from conflict, war, threats, mudslinging, and general fear as indicative of our thoughtlessness with regard to justice, and our disdain for contentment as evidenced by our non-satiation and competitiveness.  I digress...)

A common philosophical argument (Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, etc.), too, is that joy and happiness are spikes of events but that contentment, justice, and consequently peace are the underlying core of well-being, both for a person and a society.

Relating this to my life, I have recently made a commitment to simplicity and have decided to shed the shackles of competitiveness and "keeping up with the Joneses;" I have decided to not "work" and to live off of gifts and alms, and dedicate my time and energy towards community building, support of friends and family members, and spending a lot of time doing nothing.  I keep my slate relatively clear of commitments, and am therefore free to spontaneously listen to inner promptings to take actions, or stay inactive and just think, ponder, or relax mindlessly.  I also only "work" for no pay - I have let everyone that I offer my time to know that I neither want nor expect monetary remuneration, or any form of exchange.  Thus, my aspirations and commitments are not placed in areas of greatest achievement and return-on-time-investment, but instead on following my inner guidance and personal interests.  It's an experiment.

I'm not perfect with it - I have a lot of ingrained habits that I have to fight daily, the most potent of which is heaping judgment and guilt upon myself.  "I should be doing more," "I'm lazy and a slacker," "I'm a burden on society," and so forth, constantly barrage my otherwise peaceful and contented mind.  But I'm making progress.

And instead of fighting, struggling, and as The Avarians call it "moving through the nails, the sharp glass of life" - which is flatly dismissed as unnecessary - I increasingly feel peaceful.  Not elated, not joyful, not even happy necessarily, but calm.  I no longer feel like I need to control my life, or need to fight to maintain control, or even need to work towards a certain direction, because I see that the only thing fighting against me is my own mind, my self-imposed guilt.

It may sound like I've stepped right onto the wide path of laziness and ease, which to an extent I guess is true.  But I have found a razor's edge of spiritual insight and attunement that I can follow easily if I keep my mind and intentions purely focused on releasing guilt and listening for intuition and guidance.

I do still have moments of joy and elation.  I have little sprinkles of them throughout the day, mostly when I feel noticed, acknowledged and praised.  But I'm finding that they aren't worth seeking; they aren't worth the effort, because they're fleeting, and instead of fueling more compassion and kindness in me, they leave me feeling unsatiated - hungry for more.

And finally, I have found a lot of opportunity to offer small tidbits of peace, acceptance and forgiveness to people around me who are fighting for survival.  Little opportunities, here and there, to stop and listen to people, to jump in when they're struggling, and to employ my skills and expertise towards their challenges.  

The word "vocation" comes from the Latin root vocationem which means "spiritual calling."  Would we feel the world was more just, would we experience greater contentment, and would the world be at greater peace if we chose to spend the majority of our time - if we chose our vocation - based on the calling of our spirit?

The big question that comes up, of course, is how, then, will we pay our bills?  How will we eat, clothe ourselves, and find shelter?  These are legitimately scary questions to face.  I have had three conversations/witnesses in my life that have answered this question to me:

1. Personal revelation.  My first answer came when I did a little seance and some automatic writing and got a message from Spirit Guides. I will post the revelation in my next blog.
2. About a week later, my sister out of the blue said, "You should read these two articles by Hugh Nibley that were assigned to me in class today.  They were so interesting!"  (Hugh Nibley was a renowned LDS scholar).  The articles are untitled "Work we must, but the lunch is free" (Click here for full text) and "But what kind of work?" (Click here for full text).  In short, Nibley argues that God and Jesus have commanded us to share with each other and not worry about how the bills will get paid.  Just follow the spiritual call and it will all be taken care of.
3. Just a few short days after that, The Avarians (Click here for more info) had a channeling event at a shop I volunteer at.  They spoke of following the Divine Calling, and upon following the material things we need will manifest through the power of our own creation.  It basically matches Jesus' teaching in the New Testament to consider the lilies of the field, for the rich man to drop all money and follow Him, and his command to his disciples to carry neither an extra coat or a sack of coins, and not to think beforehand of what they would say, but to just walk forward and trust.  If they did so, He promised they'd be taken care of.

So I'm experimenting with that as well.  So far it's working.  I have a free house to live in, free food, some really magnificent friends gave me a free car, and every now and then people give me gift cards for clothes, gift certificates for restaurants, and straight-up cash.  Totally unsolicited, people just hand me cash now and then.  It's only been six weeks of living like this, maybe the novelty of it will wear off, I don't know - but so far it's working.  Why not just trust it and keep going?

I don't hope or expect to have wealth and riches come from this.  I anticipate a relatively Spartan way of life.  And that's ok with me - I don't really care at this point in my life in having things, going places, experiencing grand adventures, or looking cool or put-together.  (We currently sleep 6 people to one bedroom, and I gotta admit - it's perfectly fine.  Everyone else in the world - outside of the US and other highly developed nations - sleeps together in one room, so it's actually quite normal.) 

I have certain tastes and indulgences too that may eventually go away (smoking and drinking) because they aren't exactly necessary for my survival, and may or may not be detrimental to my spiritual well-being (I'm not that worried about my physical well-being, but we'll get to that another time).  For now, I accept what is provided and use it as I see fit.  I make a point not to pray for, "call forth," or request anything coming my way.  I'm just trusting.  Letting it be.  And it's working.  

And I feel at peace.  Which is kinda a new thing for me.  I like it.

Christianity: A Contemporary Oxymoron

I'm not intentionally trying to post a lot of religious or controversial posts - but simply what's on my mind.  (And naturally, as I search for Truth - or as Gandhi called it "Experiment with Truth" - I cannot help but question sensitive topics.)  The Orwellian double-think that pervades much of contemporary culture is such a virulent pandemic that I sometimes cannot help but erupt into a fever.

To begin, I love Jesus.  I consider myself a follower of Jesus - even a disciple.  But I am not christian, for as far as I can tell, modern christianity has nothing to do with Jesus.  (I concede that many people are true disciples of Jesus and also call themselves "Christians" - i.e. my sister Sunny Jo -, but the institution as a whole is very, very confusing to me.)

Take, for example this picture that I saw posted on Facebook today.  It was posted by a friend of mine - a very christian friend who I know through my previous engagement with a christian religion.

In case you can't read it, it reads: Urinalysis:  Shouldn't you have to pass a urine test to collect a welfare check, since I have to pass one to earn it for you?

I cannot, for the life of me, understand how a person calls themselves a fan or follower of Jesus, and could post this.  Not because I'm a religious zealot, not because I'm holier-than-thou, but because it simply doesn't make any sense at all.

This would be like posting a picture that says:  "Beating people with clubs: because you beat me first.  Brought to you by people who love and follow Gandhi."

Jesus, was very specifically an advocate of giving away lots and lots of free stuff, especially forgiveness and compassion to the poor.  Not just the poor - but the prostitutes, the "welfare moms", the "drug addicts" of his day.  When crowds would come and get hungry, Jesus' disciples would be like "dude, we only have enough food for us - not enough for them..." and Jesus said, "Nonsense - give them your food, we'll be taken care of."  So ... today that would translate into, "I don't care what percentage of your income you pay in taxes (render to Caeser what belongs to Caeser) for drug addicts to get to eat, they are human beings and deserve to eat, so feed them.  Don't horde your money - I don't care about money, let them have it.  You have enough.  Have faith that God will continue to provide enough for you and them."  The whole parable of the Good Samaritan is about showing mercy to anyone who is downtrodden on the streets, and not judging them by their history.  Anyway, I should think the examples are replete, and I can't quote them all here.

Jesus was also a recipient of welfare and told his disciples to not worry about where they'd get their food or raiment or bed from, but to trust that God would provide it.  He commanded his disciples not even to pack an extra coat or to take money with them, but to trust that someone would give them what they needed along the way.  So for those people who don't have jobs, who don't have income, who struggle to survive, because of addictions or any other reason ... aren't they actually living the teachings of Jesus?  (Nowhere in the recorded literature about J's teachings is there any mention about avoiding drugs; in fact, he specifically states that what goes into a mouth is far less important than what comes out of the mouth.)

Matthew, chapter 6:

30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

---

So I'm confused.  I don't understand what I'm missing here - as a student of Jesus' life and work, I can't corroborate the myriad spewings of hate, judgment, insensitivity, cruelty, pro-war, pro-violence, pro-torture, anti-equality, anti-aid, anti-compassion commentary I hear all over (particularly all over Facebook) from self-proclaimed christians with the man Jesus.

Jesus was the ultimate socialist.  He believed in owning nothing, living off of gifts and alms and magically-appearing food; he stopped working at the age of 30ish and just walked around and talked to people, offering free healing, free advice, free forgiveness, free everything.  He eschewed money, eschewed savings accounts, eschewed having-a-ton-of-stuff ...

I'm glad I got this out of my system - it's been confusing me for a while, and at least I can now refer to this post anytime it comes up again and not have to let it bother me.

As Gandhi said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."