In 1999 we were in an upward spiral to infinite financial independence due to our investing in a foreign bank which yielded enormous returns. My beloved and I watched this growing abundant horizon with excitement and humble gratitude for the blessing of this fortune.

We embarked upon many life-style changes including a full year of traveling and moving to Maui to create our home. We greeted these opportunities with tremendous  gratefulness, while practicing generosity toward others less fortunate.  Our spending was conscientious and we never over purchased for the sake of material gain.  Rather, we pursued the opportunities of bringing art and beauty into our lives and to others.  We were new at this concept of being millionaires, so approached the territory with restraint.

The tide turned when we were not able to withdraw money.

The explanations from the offshore bank officials were sporadic and perplexing.  However, we placed our trust in the continuity of that financial institution, and did not, in our naivety, heed to any whispering inner voices that might be telling us to pay attention.  We continued to focus our energies upon creating our home, and placed a large sum of money into purchasing a house that we loved.  The foreign bank promised that they were resolving the disruption.

During the next month, we sat on pins and needles until the unthinkable news came our way: the bank has failed, we had incurred serious debt, and we lost the house and a large sum of money involved in that transaction. We had just arrived on Maui, we knew no one, we were in our 60’s, with $5,000.00 left to our name.

Until this financial disaster, I had never known lack in any form.  I always had plenty of money for my needs and desires, and didn’t know the meaning of “survival”.  In the Fall of 2000, in shock, I wrote of my experience.  It was important for me to fully feel the impermanence of life, and I wasn’t very good at accepting it then. The miracles and grace DO happen however.    .  .  Stay with me

Journal Entries–beginning October 2000
Oh God, why me—why us?  Is it because I must learn the abject dismal plight that millions of humans must endure?  Cannot I compassionately embody their condition without having to live through it?
Tonight I am only posing questions and writing about my nightmares. I feel no gratitude for anything in this moment.  I am in the dungeon where trust eludes me.  I am terrified.
Ram Das speaks of karma yoga as the path of knowledge inherent in what’s here now, in my face, as life itself.  It is not about the escape, but rather the full embrace.  Resistance is what creates suffering for me—-the holding back from full participation because I want the circumstances to change.  So many beliefs are being tested and I am wondering who I really am.
I do feel a shift in my energy and perceptions today and am less in the doldrums of despair.  In allowing myself to really feel all the emotions that I skillfully avoided all my life, I have shut myself off from seeing a larger horizon. I cannot stay in this dimension of scarcity, lack, fear, anger, and victimhood to which I have succumbed.
Where is trust now? I have no other choice but to accept grace and love since love is all that really exists.  In this moment, am I grateful?  Do I have love in and around me?  Do I have food, clothing, shelter, friends, family, a car, some money, good health?  Yes, of course I do, and I am far more fortunate than 99% of the world’s people.  My path right now must be devoted to gratitude, knowing that all is well and always will be even through the times of pain and discomfort.

Having our very survival at stake, we met wonderfully generous friends who offered places to live, opportunities for work, and true friendship as we began to draw in our community of like-minded and hearted souls.  The more we were thankful, the more generosity we were offered. We are cared for, supported, held, and nourished. When I touch into fear around lack of money, I know it’s big medicine to really accept that there is no security, and security most certainly doesn’t revolve around money.  I watch when anxiety seizes, how awful it feels, and how it has become  a huge collective, and certainly familiar, wound that is working its way through our global humanity.

Now nine years later we live abundantly and peacefully and dynamically in a world of great upheaval and terror which I do not consider to be my own reality. What I think and believe is my reality, so I try to make choices to experience what is beautiful, sublime, loving, and in integrity.  I am always learning to choose harmony over despair.  Emotional housecleaning is a necessity to my ongoing sense of balance, and attunement to a larger landscape allows more acceptance than simply seeing what’s at the tip of my own nose.

Present time–March 2009

We are in a comfortable, elegant life of simplicity and grace where we want for nothing.  We live on combined social security and the little work that continues to come our way. Our determination has been to afford plenty of spacious time to nurture our relationship, our friendships, to enjoy this lovely island, and to create satisfying projects.  I am seldom anxious about our financial future because life has taught me that I am always provided for. What’s best for me always appears if I don’t try to manipulate the direction I am shown. Nothing is too wonderful to happen and I invite in the magic of unexpected  blessings.  God is my true source of abundance.

Above all, I know the peace inherent in surrender—-a surrender that comes out of acceptance of what life is presenting in this moment and knowing that it is mine to respond to—a constant choice of fear or peace. One is not wrong or right, but I am free in one and imprisoned in the other.

Lotus—Maui, Hawaii