On The Loss Of A Loved One

Life is meant to be lived to its fullest, to the best of one's abilities, with loving kindness and compassion for the Universe and our fellow travelers, be they human, animal or vegetable. What happens after death is basically irrelevant; the cycles simply continue as they do in Nature. Grieving is a necessary process, but a selfish one, nonetheless. - - - - - (we) have to surrender to it and be as gentle as (we) can with (our)self. Mitzi Sudlow

The Global Village

The following information was sent to me in the form of a PowerPoint Slide Show, an attachment to an email from a friend. The author is unknown to me and I cannot vouch for the correctness of the facts but I thought it both interesting and enlightening, so I transcribed it for posting here. Wherever we, as individuals, fit in the jigsaw puzzle of human Life that makes up our Global Village, we should be grateful for what we have and for the opportunity to better ourselves through the power of our individual self will. Again, I don’t know about the accuracy of the facts stated here, but I assume whoever wrote it did the appropriate research. I think it is worth reading - several times.......

A GLOBAL VILLAGE
If you could fit the entire population of the world into a village consisting of 100 people, maintaining the proportions of all the people living on Earth, that village would consist of;
57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 Americans (North, Central, and South) and 8 Africans.
There would be; 52 women and 48 men, 30 Caucasians and 70 non-Caucasians, 30 Christians and 70 non-Christians, 89 heterosexuals and 11 homosexuals.
Six people would possess 59% of the wealth and they would all come from the USA. Eighty people would live in poverty, 70 would be illiterate, 50 would suffer from hunger and malnutrition. One would be dying, 1 would be being born, 1 would own a computer, 1 (yes, only one) would have a university degree.
If we looked at the world in this way, the need for acceptance and understanding would be obvious.
But, consider again the following;
If you woke up this morning in good health, you have more luck than one million people, who won’t live through the week.
If you have never experienced the horror of war, the solitude of prison, the pain of torture, were not close to death from starvation, then you are better off than 500 million people.
If you can go to your place of worship without fear that someone will assault or kill you, then you are luckier than 3 billion (that’s right) 3 Billion people.
If you have a full refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over you head and a place to sleep, you are wealthier that 75% of the world’s population.
If you currently have money in the bank, in your wallet and a few coins in your purse, you are one of 8 of the privileged few amongst the 100 people in the world.
If your parents are still alive and still married, you’re a rare individual.
If you are able to read this, you’re extremely luck because you don’t comprise one of those 2 billion people who can’t read.
And So....
Work like you don’t need the money.
Love like nobody has ever hurt you.
Dance like nobody is watching.
Sing like nobody is listening.
Live as if this is, indeed, Paradise on Earth.

The Daffodil Principle

The following short story, the truth of which is unknown, has a very important truth to tell. It was sent to me as an attachment to an email that I received from one of my friends, who frequently sends me something to ponder on. It is a PowerPoint Slide Show and I liked it so much that I transcribed (edited) it so that I could post it here. The author, who is unknown to me, tells us a nice little story while explaining the meaning of ‘The Daffodil Principle’...............And so it begins - - Several times recently my daughter had telephoned me to say, "Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over. They only last a little while."
I wanted to go, but mainly to see my grandchildren, as it is a two-hour drive in LA traffic from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead, which is located inland in an area known for it’s spring flowers, especially daffodils. "I will come next Tuesday"’ I promised a little reluctantly on her third call. Unfortunately, that next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Traffic was at a standstill. Still, I had promised, and so I reluctantly drove up there. When I finally walked into Carolyn’s house, I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children. I delightedly hugged and greeted my wonderful grandchildren. "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn," I told her. "The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!"
My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this weather all the time, Mother." "Well," I assured her, "you won’t get me back on the road until it clears, and then I’m heading for home!" "That’s OK, Mother," replied Carolyn, "but first we’re going to see the daffodils. It’s just a short way," Carolyn said. " I’ll drive, I’m used to driving in this stuff." And so off we went into the storm. "Carolyn?," I asked nervously, "Please turn around...."
"It’s alright, Mother, I promise," Carolyn replied. " The weather is lifting and you will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience."
After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small grave road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, "Daffodil Garden." We got out of the car, each took a child’s hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path past the church. Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight I’d ever seen.
It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain and its surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemony yellow, salmon pink, saffron and butter yellow. Each of the different colored varieties were planted in large groups so that they swirled and flowed like their own river with their own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers. An absolutely unbelievable sight.
"Who Did This?" I asked Carolyn.

It was just incredible. I could hardly believe it when she replied, "Just one woman. She lives on the property. And that is her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept small A-frame house, modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers To The Questions I Know You Are Asking", was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. "Fifty Thousand Bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One. At A Time, By One Woman. Two Hands, Two feet, And One Brain" The third answer was, "Began In 1958."
For me, that moment was a life-changing experience.
I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, almost fifty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time, often just one baby step at a time and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find that we can accomplish magnificent things. It just takes the desire and the will to do. We Can Change The World.
"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it ‘One Bulb At A Time" through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve"
My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said.... She was right, of course. It’s so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays.. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is only to ask, "How can I put this to use today?"

And the answer is, "Use the Daffodil Principle...... Stop waiting........
Stop waiting - until your car or home is paid off. Stop waiting - until you get a new car or new home. Or until your kids leave the house. Or until you go back to school - Until you finish school, Until you clean the house, Until you organize the garage, Until you clean off your desk, Until you lose 10 lbs., Until you gain 10 lbs., Until you get married, Until you get a divorce, Until you have kids, Until the kids go to school, Until you retire, Until summer, Until spring, Until winter, Until fall......Until you die.......Until you get started.. Why not get started NOW.
There is no better time than right now to be happy. Happiness is a journey, not a destination.
So work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt, and Dance like no one is watching. We live Life moment by moment. So make every moment count.
Don’t be afraid that your Life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.
Wishing you a beautiful daffodil day !

A POWERFUL STROKE OF INSIGHT

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions shut down one by one. Dr. Taylor’s is a truly astonishing story.
One morning, a blood vessel in Dr. Taylor's brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions – motion, speech, and self-awareness - shut down one by one. Amazed to find herself alive, Dr. Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right brain. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the "Singin' Scientist."
"How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I've gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career." Jill Bolte Taylor

A POWERFUL STROKE OF INSIGHT
As transcribed nearly verbatim and without permission from the video found at the website: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

I drew up this study of the brain because I have a brother who has been diagnosed with the brain disorder schizophrenia. And as a sister, and later as a scientist, I wanted to understand why is it that I can take my dreams, I can connect them to my reality, and I can make my dreams come true. What is it about my brothers brain, and his schizophrenia, that he cannot connect his dreams to a common and shared reality, so they instead become delusions? So I dedicated my career to research into the severe mental illnesses, and I moved from my home state of Indiana to Boston, where I was working in the lab of Dr. Francine Bennett, in the Harvard Department of Psychiatry. And in the Lab, we were asking the question, what are the biological differences between the brains of individuals who would be diagnosed as ‘normal control’, as compared with the brains of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizoaffective, or bipolar disorder? So we were essentially mapping the micro-circuitry of the brain - which cells are communicating with which cells, with which chemicals, and then in what quantities of those chemicals. So there was a lot of meaning in my life because I was performing this type of research during the day, but then in the evenings and on the weekends, I traveled as an advocate for NAOMI, the National Alliance On Mental Illness. But on the morning of December 10, 1996 I woke up to discover that I had a brain disorder of my own. A blood vessel exploded in the left half of my brain. And in the course of four hours, I watched my brain completely deteriorate in its ability to process all information. On the morning of the hemorrhage I could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of my life. I essentially became an infant in a woman’s body.
If you’ve ever seen a human brain - it’s obvious that the two hemispheres are completely separate from one another. And I have brought for you a real human brain. (Audience sighs heavily as assistant brings on stage an intact human brain...) (Displaying brain) So this is a real human brain. This is the front of the brain. The back of the brain with the spinal cord hanging down. And this is how it would be positioned inside of my head. And when you look at the brain, it’s obvious that the two cerebral cortices are completely separate from one another. For those of you who understand computers, our right hemisphere functions like a parallel processor, while our left hemisphere functions like a serial processor. The two hemispheres do communicate with one another through the corpus callosum, which is made up of some three hundred million axonal fibers, but other than that, the two hemispheres are completely separate. Because they process information differently, each of our hemispheres think about different things, they care about different things, and dare I say, they have very different personalities. (Returning brain to assistant) Excuse Me - Thank You - It’s been a joy - audience laughs)
Our right human hemisphere is all about This Present Moment. It’s all about Right Here, Right Now. Our right hemisphere, it thinks in pictures and it learns kinetically through the movement of our bodies. Information in the form of energy streams in simultaneously through all of our sensory systems, and then it explodes into this enormous collage of what this present moment looks like, what this present moment smells like, and tastes like, what it feels like, and what it sounds like. I am an energy being, connected to the energy all around me through the consciousness of my right hemisphere. We are energy beings, connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family.
And right here, right now, we are brothers and sisters on this planet, here to make the world a better place. And in this moment, we are perfect, we are whole, and we are beautiful.
My left hemisphere, our left hemisphere, is a very different place. Our left hemisphere thinks linearly and methodically. Our left hemisphere is all about the past, and it’s all about the future. Our left hemisphere is designed to take that enormous collage of the present moment, and start picking out details, details and more details about those details. It then categorizes and organizes all that information, associates it with everything in the past we’ve ever learned, and projects into the future all of our possibilities.
And our left hemisphere thinks in language. It’s that ongoing brain chatter that connects me and my internal world to my external world. It’s that little voice that says to me "Hey, you gotta remember to pick up bananas on you’re way home. I need them in the morning." It’s that calculating intelligence that knows, that reminds me when I have to do my laundry. But perhaps most important, it’s that little voice that says to me, "I am", "I Am.." And as soon as my left hemisphere says to me, "I AM," I become separate. I become a single, solid individual, separate from the energy flow around me, and separate from you. And this is the portion of my brain that I lost on the morning of my stroke.
On the morning of the stroke, I woke up to a pounding pain, behind my left eye. And it was the kind of pain, caustic pain that you get when you bite into ice cream. And it just gripped me - - and then it released me. And then it just gripped me - - and then it released me. It was very unusual for me to ever experience any kind of pain, so I thought, "OK, I’ll just start my normal routine." So I got up and jumped onto my Cardio Glider, which is a full body, full exercise machine. And I’m jammin’ away on this thing, and I’m realizing that my hands look like primitive claws, grasping onto the bar. And I thought, that’s very peculiar and I looked down at my body and I thought, "Wow, I’m a weird looking thing."
And it was though my consciousness had shifted away from my normal perception of reality, where I’m the person on the machine having the experience to some esoteric space where I am witnessing myself having this experience. Now, it was all very peculiar, and my headache was just getting worse, so I get off the machine, and I’m walking across my living room floor and I realize that everything inside of my body has - slowed - way - - - down. And every step is very rigid and very deliberate. There’s no fluidity to my pace and there’s, - there’s constriction in my area of perception so I’m just focused on internal systems. And I’m standing in my bathroom getting ready to step into the shower and I could actually hear the dialogue inside of my body. I had a little voice saying, "Ok, You muscles, you gotta contract. And You muscles, you relax." And then I lost my balance and I’m propped up against the - the wall. And I looked down at my arm, and I realized that I could no longer define the boundaries of my body. I can’t define where I begin - and where I end. Because the atoms and the molecules of my arm blended with the atoms and the molecules of the wall. And all I could detect was this energy. Energy. And I’m asking myself, "What Is Wrong With Me? What Is Going On?" And in that moment, my brain chatter, my left hemisphere brain chatter, went totally silent - just like someone took a remote control and pushed the mute button. Total silence. And at first, I was shocked to find myself inside of a silent mind. But then I was immediately captivated by the magnificence of the energy around me. And because I could no longer identify the boundaries of my body, I felt enormous and expansive. I felt at One with All the Energy That Was and it was Beautiful there. And then, all of a sudden my left hemisphere comes back online and it says to me, "Hey, We Got A Problem. We Got A Problem. And We’ve Got To Get Some Help". And I’m going, "Oh, I Got A Problem - I’ve Got A Problem.
So I thought, "OK! OK, so I’ve Got A Problem." But then I immediately drifted right back out into the consciousness and I affectionately refer to this space as LaLa Land.
But it was beautiful there. Imagine what it would be like to be totally disconnected from your brain chatter that connects you to the external world. So here I am in this space, and my job and any stress related to my job, it was gone. And I felt lighter in my body. And imagine, all of the relationships in the external world and any stressors related to any of those, they were gone. I felt this sense of peacefulness. And imagine what it would feel like to lose thirty seven years of emotional baggage. OH - I felt Euphoria - EUPHORIA... IT TWAS BEAUTIFUL THERE. And again, my left hemisphere comes on line and it says, "Hey, You’ve Got To Pay Attention. We’ve Got To Get Help!" And I’m thinking, "I’ve Got To Get Help. I’ve Got To Focus!" So I get out of the shower and I mechanically dress and I’m walking around my apartment and I’m thinking, "I’ve got to get to work. I’ve Got To Get To Work. Can I drive? Can I Drive? And in that moment my right arm went totally paralyzed by my side. And then I realized, "OH, MY GOSH, I’M HAVING A STROKE!!! I’M HAVING A STROKE!!!"
Then the next thing my brain says to me is "WOW - THIS IS SO COOL!!(Audience laughs) THIS IS SO COOL!) How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain from the inside out? (Audience laughs) And then it crosses my mind, "But I’m A Very Busy Woman. I Don’t Have Time For A Stroke."... So like, "OK, I can’t stop the stroke from happening so I’ll Do This - - - for a week or two, and then I’ll get back to my routine."
Ok, so I’ve got to call help. I’ve got to call work.. I couldn’t remember the number at work, so I remembered in my office I had a business card with my number on it. So I go in my business room and pull out a three inch stack of business cards. And I’m looking at the card on top, and even though I can see clearly in my minds eye what my business card looked like, I couldn’t tell if this was my card or not because all I could see was pixels and the pixels of the words blended with the pixels of the background and the pixels of the symbols and I just couldn’t tell. And then I would wait for what I call A Wave Of Clarity. And in that moment I would be able to reattach to normal reality. And I could tell - "That’s not the card - That’s not the card - That’s not the card." It took me 45 minutes to get one inch down inside of that stack of cards.
In the meantime, for 45 minutes, the hemorrhage is getting bigger in my left hemisphere. I do not understand numbers, I do not understand the telephone, but it’s the only plan I have, so I take the phone pad and I put it right here. I take the business card, I put it right here, and I’m matching the shape of the squiggles on the card to the shape of the squiggles on the phone pad. But then I would drift back out into LaLa Land and not remember when I come back if I’d already dialed those numbers. So I had to wield my paralyzed arm like a stump and cover the numbers as I went along and push down so that as I’d come back to normal reality I would be able to tell, ‘Yes, I’ve already dialed that number.’ Eventually, the whole number gets dialed and I’m listening to the phone and my colleague picks up the phone and he says to me, "WooWoo, WooWooWoo.." And I think to myself, "Oh my gosh, he sounds like a Golden Retriever." (Laughter) And so I say to him, clear in my mind, I say to him"  This is Jill. I need help!" And what comes out of my voice is "WooWooo, WooWooWoo!" and I’m thinking, "Oh My Gosh, I sound like a Golden Retriever!" So I couldn’t know, I didn’t know that I couldn’t speak or understand language until I tried. So he recognizes that I need help, and he gets me help and a little while later, I’m riding in an ambulance from one hospital, across Boston to Mass. General Hospital, and I curl up into a little fetal ball and just like a balloon, with the last, last bit of air just (poof) just right out of the balloon, I just - felt my energy lift and just - I felt my spirit surrender.
In that moment I knew that I was no longer the choreographer of my life and either the doctors rescued my body and give me a second chance at life or this was perhaps my moment of transition. When I awoke later that afternoon I was shocked to discover that I was still alive. When I felt my spirit surrender, I said ‘Goodbye’ to my life and my mind was now suspended between two very opposite claims of Reality. Stimulation coming in through my sensory systems
felt like pure pain . Light burned my brain like wildfire and sounds were so loud and chaotic that I could not pick a voice out from the background noise and I just wanted to escape. Because I could not identify the position of my body in space, I felt enormous and expansive, like a genie just liberated from her bottle. And my spirit soared free like a great whale, gliding through a sea of silent euphoria. NIRVANA ! ! I Found Nirvana! And I remember thinking there was no way I would ever be able to squeeze the enormousness of myself back inside this tiny little body. But then I realized ’But, I’m still alive. I’m Still Alive.’ ‘And I Have Found Nirvana.’ ‘And - And if I have found Nirvana and I am still alive, then Everyone who is alive Can Find Nirvana’.
And I pictured a world filled with beautiful, peaceful, compassionate, loving people who knew that they could come to this space at anytime. And that they could purposely Choose to step to the right of their left hemispheres, and Find This Peace. And then I realized, what a tremendous gift this experience could be. What - What a Stroke Of Insight This Could Be to how we live our lives. And it motivated me to recover.
Two and a half weeks after the hemorrhage, the surgeons went in and they removed a blood clot the size of a golf ball that was pushing on my language centers. (Showing Picture) Here I am with my Momma, who is a true angel in my life. It took me eight years to completely recover.
So, Who Are We ? ? We Are The Life Force Power Of The Universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds and We Have The Power To Choose Moment By Moment Who And How We Want To Be In The World. Right Here, Right Now I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where We Are, I Am, The Life Force Power Of The Universe. I am the Life Force Power of the fifty trillion beautiful molecular genius’s that make up my form, at One With All That Is.
Or, I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere, where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuralamagnus - -
These are the We inside of me.
Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And When?
I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres the more peace we will project into the world and the more peaceful our planet will be.
And I thought THAT was an idea worth spreading............!!!

Lecture ends with a standing ovation and audience cheering loudly.

Now that is a lesson worth learning. We are, indeed, One Human Family. And while we are all different, we are also all the same, remnants of individual humanity torn from the very same cloth, a part of the All-pervading Unity of the Universe. We are the current lead carriers of an advancing Evolution. And if we choose to allow it, we can become at One with the Life Force Power Of The Universe. And we have the power, right here, right now to choose to step to the right of our left hemisphere - to step into the consciousness of our right hemispheres and choose moment by moment who and how we want to be in this world that we are creating. So it is really up to me, and up to you, and up to every individual to choose for ourselves. Heaven and Hell are here right now. I know where I prefer to live. Life is too short to choose anything else.

MONEY

MONEY - MONEY - MONEY - MONEY - MONEY - MONEY - MONEY
The word ‘money’ is a noun that means something customarily and legally used as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment (as pieces of stamped metal or printed paper) . Money is the thing that allows us to possess all of the other things we would like to have. And so we sing the praises of our god MONEY.
Money, get away. Get a good job with good pay and you’re okay.
Money, it’s a gas. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
New car, caviar, four star daydream - think I’ll buy me a football team.

Money, get back. I’m all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack.
Money, it’s a hit. Don’t give me that do goody good bullshit.
I’m in the high-fidelity first class traveling set - and I think I need a Lear jet.

Money, it’s a crime. Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say - is the root of all evil today.
But if you ask for a raise its no surprise that they’re - giving none away.
Lyrics from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon - Money

Money - it is the thing that runs our human society. But what do we really know about money? Where does it all come from? The following article from the June 2003 Idaho Observer may help us understand what it all really means. Posted here without permission - so read & learn.
Money? It's not what you think it is.
There is nothing so revered, yet so misunderstood as the subject of money. Most adults spend half their waking hours laboring to acquire it. Many people measure a person's standing in society by how much ”money” they have. And nearly everything in our modern world is measured by its monetary value.
But how many people have a clue what money is? Where it comes from? What gives it value? The history of money? And what value would our modern money have if everyone knew what it really was?
Pull out a dollar bill, look at it, and ask yourself, How did this get here? What gives it value? Do you know what makes money, “money”?
by Hari Heath
In the Beginning
Before money, there was barter. One thing traded for another thing. This only works if both traders want the other's thing. Otherwise, no trade. By having a commonly accepted third medium of exchange, expanded commerce became possible.
Coins, drilled shells, beads and animal skins were among the early forms of money. In the early forms of money, value came from the rarity of the material or the labor to produce it.
So how did that paper “dollar” in your hand become money? An excellent answer is found in G. Edward Griffin's 600+ page book, “The Creature from Jekyll Island.” This highly illuminating and educational study on money covers the history of money, banking, wars and the political shenanigans behind the money powers. But we don't have 600 pages here to answer every detail of that question.
The short history is that coins made of precious metals became the favored medium of exchange since at least the Roman times. The word money comes from the word “Moneta,” an epithet for the Roman goddess Juno. A temple to this goddess, who was considered the guardian of the Roman treasury, was converted into a mint, according to James Ewart in his book, Money -- Ye shall have honest weights and measures. The Romans began to call this temple “The Moneta” and later used the name for other places where coins were made. Moneta evolved over the years to an abbreviated “mone” or “monet.” The older English spelling of “monie” eventually became “money.”
From Roman times through Medieval Europe there was a proliferation of coinage and various ways to debauch the coins by lightening their weight, plating or alloying with less valuable metals. But the ultimate debauchery came from the Goldsmiths in the 1200s who discovered the dirty scheme of fractional reserve holdings. The Goldsmiths issued paper receipts for gold they held in storage for their customers. The receipts came to be used “as” money since they could be returned to the Goldsmith for the gold held in storage.
The Goldsmiths discovered that, since not everyone wanted their gold at once, they could issue more receipts than they had gold and create wealth for themselves “out of thin air,” or more accurately, paper and ink. This little experiment has been tried over and over again ever since. It forms the basis for the banking industry and has repeatedly led to the same inescapable result -- financial collapse caused by unfettered greed.
What is Money?
Money in the pure sense of the word, can only mean coins, not paper currency. Congress was only given the power in the Constitution to “coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin.” The Constitution does not authorize Congress to issue currency or create a central bank. Constitutionally, only coins can be money.
Ewart makes another clear distinction. Money is not something to be used “as” a medium of exchange, money “is” a medium of exchange. Money doesn't represent value, like a note, it “is” something with intrinsic value like a coin.
But all of these otherwise correct definitions do not correlate with our modern misguided notions of “money.” Do you have coins in your bank account? When you write a check to someone can they cash it for the face value in gold or silver coins? When you swipe your credit or debit card at the gas pumps does a coin fall out of the card and into the pumps to pay for your fuel? Of course not; you don't really use “money.”
In modern reality, since we have no “money,” what we use “as” money, has become “money.” Being an advocate of constitutional reality, I am often perplexed when explaining real money to my fellow citizens who have lost all sense of monetary reality. How can I explain the value of precious metal coin money that “is” a medium of exchange, to members of the current herd who have been programmed to believe Federal Reserve Notes, credit cards and bank accounts are money or have money in them?
The Four Kinds of Money
Griffin provides the answer in the Creature From Jekyll Island. He offers a working definition that “Money is anything which is accepted as a medium of exchange and it may be classified into the following forms:
1. Commodity money;
2. Receipt money;
3. Fractional money;
4. Fiat money.”
Ever since the era of the goldsmiths, if monetary systems are allowed to run the full course steered by human greed, they eventually end up somewhere in the latter two forms before they collapse. Griffin's book provides example after example throughout history of the short lived and devastating effects of paper currencies.
That “dollar” you are holding in your hand has been in the “fiat money” phase for 70 years -- one of the longest running fiat schemes the political and monetary scientists have yet devised. To understand the nature of the fiat scheme we must first visit the other three forms of money and see how one begets the next.
Commodity Money
Commodity money is just that. Some thing “is” the money. Gold, silver or copper coins; deer skins; trade beads; whiskey, sugar or salt. When the American colonies became productive they were short on money but long on tobacco. Bales of tobacco were widely accepted in colonial ports as a commodity money to purchase the goods imported from Europe. On the return trip, merchants accepted tobacco as money for more goods purchased for shipment to the New World.
Gold has been a preferred commodity money for thousands of years. It is relatively rare, doesn't spoil or corrode and, unlike jewels, it is infinitely divisible into a consistent quality and quantity of coinage.
Griffin points out another often overlooked advantage to the use of a commodity money. It automatically creates stability in an economy through the natural forces of a free market. The supply of the commodity money will naturally regulate its value relative to the products and services available in a given society. He presents numerous examples of economies that were essentially self-healing after their fractional or fiat monies collapsed and they returned to whatever commodity money they had on hand.
Griffin also debunks the myth that there isn't enough gold to go around if we had to go back to a gold monetary unit. He details how gold or another commodity is only a measure of value. The amount of gold available and the items available in commerce would not change -- only the measurement we use between them -- money.
He offers a well-thought out 16 point plan to replace the Federal Reserve System with silver and gold based commodity money and receipt money. His calculations, based on September 1993 data, include the quantity of gold and silver held by the government; their historical, relative and current (1993) values; the quantity of the Federal Reserve Note (FRN) “dollars” or M-1 money supply; and the bottom line if the FRN “dollars” were redeemed by silver dollars. The bottom line is that FRNs would be valued at .0047 silver dollars or a silver dollar would be worth 213 FRNs after redemption.
Receipt Money
Receipt money is literally a receipt for commodity money. It is used “as” money. If it remains 100 percent backed by the commodity it does no harm. It's lighter and can be very valuable if, for example, the receipt entitles the holder to a large stack of precious coins.
Typically, receipt money offers some terms of redemption such as “payable to bearer on demand.” American Liberty Currency from NORFED (www.norfed.org) is a modern example of receipt money. A “$10” Liberty Currency Warehouse Receipt is redeemable on demand for a one-ounce silver coin.
The only problem with receipt money is when by some fraud, legal or otherwise, it is turned into fractional money. The Goldsmiths pioneered that concept which was one of the steps along the way to make that “dollar” in your hand what it is today.
Fractional Money
Fractional money is what happens when more receipt money is circulated than there is commodity money to redeem it with. Only a fraction of the substance is there to back the promise to pay. Fractional money is the direct result of human greed -- the desire to get something for nothing.
The Creature From Jekyll Island provides many examples of receipt money gone bad. With various motives from simple greed to the funding of wars, bankers and governments have been fractionalizing receipt money for the last 800 years.
What happens when banks or governments get caught with their pants down, and the commodity money demanded doesn't match the fractional money in circulation? There are three basic options: Total collapse of the economic system involved; partial collapse of the monetary unit where it is devalued to match the commodity money; or conversion to fiat money.
Fiat Money
Fiat money is often defined as paper currency not backed by gold or silver. It is sometimes “enforced” by “legal tender” laws which compel people to accept it even though it has no real value. “Fiat” is Latin for “let it be done,” as in an arbitrary or authoritative order or decision.
Fiat money is what we have “let be done” to our economy, which constitutionally is required to be a commodity money system of coins. There are good reasons why the founders of our nation mandated a coin-based economy.
The fiat paper fiasco began in the colonies in the 1690s. Griffin states, “Massachusetts was the first to use it as a means to finance its military raids against the French colony in Quebec. The other colonies were quick to follow suit and, within a few years, were engaging in a virtual orgy of printing 'bills of credit.'”
As one colonial legislator explained it, “do you think, gentlemen, that I will consent to load my constituents with taxes when we can send to our printer and get a whole wagon load of money, one quire of which will pay for the whole?”
But there is a hidden tax called inflation associated with the issuance of fiat money.
Inflation is the natural result whenever more currency is added to a given economy. The value of the existing currency is deflated relative to the amount of new currency issued and circulated. By the late 1750s Connecticut had price inflated by 800 percent, the Carolinas had inflated 900 percent, Massachusetts 1,000 percent and Rhode Island 2,300 percent. Fiat inflation was so out of hand the British Parliament stepped in and banned the production of fiat money. Griffin described the result:
“What followed was unforeseen by the promoters of fiat money. Amid great gloom about 'insufficient money,' a miracle boom of prosperity occurred. The forced use of fiat money had compelled everyone to hoard their real money and use the worthless paper instead. Now that the paper was in disgrace, the colonists began to use their English, French and Dutch gold coins again, prices rapidly adjusted to reality, and commerce returned to a solid footing. It remained so even during the economic strain of the Seven-Years War (1756-1763) and during the period immediately prior to the Revolution. Here was a perfect example of how an economic system in distress can recover if government does not interfere with the healing process.”
But that was not the end of fiat currency in the colonies. To fund the revolutionary war the printing presses began rolling again. The Creature From Jekyll Island provides the following figures which speak for themselves:
* At the beginning of the war in 1775, the total monetary supply for the federated colonies stood at $12 million.
* In June of that year, the Continental Congress issued another $2 million. Before the notes were printed, another $1 million was authorized.
* By the end of the year, another $3 million.
* $19 million in 1776.
* $13 million in 1777.
* $64 million in 1778.
* $125 million in 1779.
* A total of $227 million in five years on top of a base of $12 million is an increase of about 2,000 percent.
* On top of this “federal” money, the states were doing the same in an approximately equal amount.
* And still more: the Continental Army, unable to get enough money from Congress, issued “certificates” for the purchase of supplies totaling $200 million.
* $650 million created in five years on top of a base of $12 million is an expansion of the money supply of over 5000 percent.
The result? In 1775, the colonial money called the Continental was worth one dollar in gold. In 1778 it was valued at twenty-five cents. By 1779 it was worth less than a penny.
Thomas Jefferson clearly explained the nature of the hidden tax called inflation:
“It will be asked how will the two masses of Continental and of State money have cost the people of the United States seventy-two millions of dollars, when they are to be redeemed now with about six million? I answer that the difference, being sixty-six millions, has been lost on the bills separately by the successive holders of them. Every one, through whose hands a bill passed, lost on that bill what it lost in value during the time it was in his hands. This was a real tax on him; and in this way the people of the United States actually contributed those sixty-six millions of dollars during the war, and by a mode of taxation the most oppressive of all.”
Is there any question in your mind now as to why the founders of this nation only gave Congress the power to “coin money? Oliver Ellsworth, a Constitutional Convention delegate from Connecticut and later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court said, “This is a favorable moment to shut and bar the door against paper money. The mischief of the various experiments which have been made are now fresh in the public mind and have excited the disgust of all the respectable parts of America.”
Not all fiat money follows a progression from commodity money, to receipt money, to fractional money, to fiat money. Many of the colonial currencies began and ended as fiat money. The modern “Euro” is nothing but pure fiat money.
The Fractional Fiat
There is another “fractional” money that has been conjured up by the monetary scientists. It's not really a separate form of money in our working definition of money, but it could be called fractional fiat money. Instead of fractional money where only a fraction of the commodity money is kept on hand, a fractional portion of the fiat money is used by the financial institution as a basis to make loans. It is more commonly referred to as fractional reserves. The “reserve” is kept on hand just like the goldsmith's fractional gold to pay out to the unsuspecting customers and keep them unsuspecting.
The fractional reserve rate is carefully calculated by the monetary scientists at the Fed to keep our fiat world rolling along. Fractional fiat money is part of the grand scheme to create money out of thin paper and ink. We'll cover that further, as we unravel the magic illusion of that “dollar” in your hand.
The trail of economic treason
So how did that “dollar” bill you're holding become money? The first thing to understand is that the Federal Reserve Bank or Fed, is not part of the federal government. Most Americans fail to comprehend this fact.
Griffin summarizes the real purposes of the Fed since its conception: “stop the growing competition from the nation's newer banks; obtain a franchise to create money out of nothing for the purpose of lending; get control of the reserves of all banks so that the more reckless ones would not be exposed to currency drains and bank runs; Get the taxpayer to pick up the cartel's inevitable losses; and convince Congress that the purpose was to protect the public.”
Conceived at a secret meeting of the western world's financial elite on Jekyll Island, Georgia, in 1910, the Federal Reserve Bank became the fourth and current experiment in American central banking. The history of that experiment, and the wars, chaos and mayhem caused by it are already the subject of numerous books. We can't begin to touch on its history in this article so we'll stick to a short timeline of the Fed's transition through the four forms of money and how the Fed's mechanisms manipulate our fiat world.
In 1913, the Fed was created by the Federal Reserve Act. Congress also gave away many of our Treasury buildings to the Fed and the Fed assumed control of our nation's gold stores. In the true spirit of European bankers (who held the strings behind the scenes), the Fed began the looting of America.
Federal Reserve Notes, which apparently began as receipt money, “payable to bearer on demand,” no doubt were soon converted to fractional money. But many more FRNs were issued than they had coin money to back them. Congressman Louis McFadden made some inquiries and reported to Congress about the Creature called the Federal Reserve. He found that in 1928 alone the Fed had made loans of gold-backed “dollars” to its member banks in an amount that was six times the world's known gold supply. Simultaneously, As Congressman McFadden pointed out, much of our nation's gold supply was being shipped overseas in trade for German notes and other paper “assets.”
Heavily fractionalized, the “roar” of the roaring 20s was fueled by infusions of Fed fractional money. This continued until the Fed tightened the purse strings, contracting the money supply and causing the crash of 1929 and the ensuing depression. By the spring of 1933, enough Americans figured out there wasn't enough gold in the vaults to “pay to bearer on demand,” so they made a run on the banks to get their gold while they could.
To avert a meltdown of the Fed, President Roosevelt declared a banking holiday and closed the banks by Executive Order. Congress soon followed suit and declared that Fed notes were no longer redeemable in gold. Fed fractional money became Fed fiat money with the acts of a compliant and complicit president and Congress. Why would elected politicians who presumably want to get re-elected violate the will of the people and the Constitution, in favor of a private central bank?
The Mandrake Mechanism
It's easy to say fiat money is made out of thin air or paper and ink, but there is more to it than that. If it were that easy, more people besides the Montana Freemen would be doing it. The magic of fiat money is something bankers, presidents and congressmen would do anything for.
Griffin, in The Creature from Jekyll Island, explains this magic and calls it the “Mandrake Mechanism” after the 1940s comic strip character “Mandrake the Magician.” Mandrake's specialty was making things out of nothing and making them disappear back into the same void. First, the principles behind the Mandrake Mechanism:
“In truth, money is not created until the instant it is borrowed, It is the act of borrowing which causes it to spring into existence. And, incidentally, it is the act of paying off the debt that causes it to vanish....In spite of the technical jargon and seemingly complicated procedures, the actual mechanism by which the Federal Reserve creates money is quite simple. They do it exactly the same way the goldsmiths of old did except, of course, the goldsmiths were limited by the need to hold some precious metal in reserve, whereas, the Fed has no such restriction.
“It is difficult for Americans to come to grips with the fact that their total money supply is backed by nothing but debt, and it is even more mind boggling to visualize that, if everyone paid back all that was borrowed, there would be no money left in existence.”
Federal Reserve Governor Marriner Eccles testified before the House Committee on Banking and Currency, September 30, 1941. Congressman Wright Patman asked Eccles how the fed got the money to purchase two billion dollars worth of government bonds in 1933. Eccles answered, “We created it.” Patman asked, “Out of what?” Eccles replied, “Out of the right to issue credit money.” Patman queried, “And there is nothing behind it, is there, except our government's credit?” Eccles responded, “That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn't be any money.”
Griffin explains the immorality of the Mandrake Mechanism:“When banks place credits into your account, they are merely pretending to lend you money. In reality, they have nothing to lend. Even the money that non-indebted depositors have placed with them was originally created out of nothing in response to someone else's loan. So what entitles the banks to collect rent on nothing? It is immaterial that men everywhere are forced by law to accept these nothing certificates in exchange for real goods and services. We are talking here not about what is legal, but what is moral.”
He continues, “And what did the banks do to earn this perpetually flowing river of wealth? Did they lend out their own capital through the investment of stockholders? Did they lend out the hard-earned savings of their depositors? No. Neither of these were their major source of income. They simply waved their magic wand called fiat money.
“...The bottom line is that Congress and the banking cartel have entered into a partnership in which the cartel has the privilege of collecting interest on money which it creates out of nothing, a perpetual override on every American dollar that exists in the world. Congress, on the other hand, has access to unlimited funding without having to tell the voters their taxes are being raised through the process of inflation. If you understand this paragraph, you understand the Federal Reserve System.”
So what actually happens to operate the Mandrake Mechanism? First, the government adds ink to a piece of paper called a Treasury Bond or note, which is a promise to pay a certain sum with interest at a certain date. The bond is then given to the Fed where it is classified as a securities “asset.” It is considered an asset because it is assumed the government will pay it back with money from future taxation. This “asset” can be used to offset a “liability, ” so the Fed creates a liability by adding ink to another piece of paper called a Federal Reserve Check, which it exchanges with the government in exchange for the “asset.”
At this point Griffin states, “There is no money in any account to cover this check. Anyone else doing this would be sent to prison. It is legal for the Fed, however, because Congress wants the money, and this is the easiest way to get it.This way, the process is mysteriously wrapped up in the banking system. The end result, however, is the same as turning on government printing presses and simply manufacturing fiat money to pay government expenses. Yet, in accounting terms, the books are said to be 'balanced' because the 'liability' of the check is 'offset' by the 'asset' of the bond.”
The Fed check is then endorsed and “deposited” in a Federal Reserve bank where it becomes a government deposit. It can then be used to pay government expenses by issuing government checks. This begins the first wave of the creation of fiat money. The government checks are either deposited or cashed, adding to the M-1 money supply as an account balance or circulating currency. The deposited government checks become commercial bank deposits, which Griffin describes:
“Commercial bank deposits immediately take on a split personality. On the one hand, they are liabilities to the bank because they are owed back to the depositors. But, as long as they remain in the bank, they are considered as assets because they are on hand. Once again, the books are balanced: the assets offset the liabilities. But the process does not stop there. Through the magic of fractional-reserve banking, the deposits are made to serve an additional and more lucrative purpose. To accomplish this, the on-hand deposits now become reclassified in the books and are called bank reserves.
“Reserves for what? Are these for paying off depositors should they want to close out their accounts? No. That's the lowly function they served when they were classified as mere assets. Now that they have been given the name of 'reserves,' they become the magic wand to materialize even larger amounts of fiat money. This is where the real action is: at the level of the commercial banks.
“Here's how it works. The banks are permitted by the Fed to hold as little as 10% of their deposits in 'reserve.' That means, if they receive deposits of $1 million from the first wave of fiat money created by the Fed, they have $900,000 more than they are required to keep on hand. In bankers' language, that $900,000 is called excess reserves. Now that they have been transmuted into an excess, they are considered available for lending. And so in due course these excess reserves are converted into bank loans.
“But how can this money be loaned out when it is owned by the original depositors who are still free to write checks and spend it anytime they wish? Isn't that a double claim against the same money? The answer is that, when the new loans are made, they are not made with the same money at all. They are made with brand new money created out of thin air for that purpose. The nation's money supply simply increases by ninety per cent of the bank's deposits. Furthermore, this new money is far more interesting to the banks than the old. The old money, which they received from depositors, requires them to pay out interest or perform services for the privilege of using it. But, with the new money, the banks collect interest, instead, which is not too bad considering it cost them nothing to make.
“Nor is that the end of the process. When this second wave of fiat money moves into the economy, it comes right back into the banking system, just as the first wave did, in the form of more commercial bank deposits. The process now repeats itself but with slightly smaller numbers each time around. The deposit is then reclassified as a 'reserve' and ninety per cent of that becomes an 'excess reserve' which, once again is available for a new “loan”.
“Thus, the $1 million of the first wave of fiat money gives birth to $900,000 in the second wave, and that gives birth to $810,000 in the third wave ($900,000 less 10% reserve). It takes about 28 times through the revolving door of deposits becoming loans, becoming deposits, becoming more loans, until the process plays itself out to the maximum effect which is [that] the amount of fiat money created by the banking cartel is approximately nine times the amount of the original government debt which made the entire process possible.
“When the original debt itself is added to that figure, we finally have approximately ten times the amount of the underlying government debt. To the degree that this newly created money floods into the economy, in excess of goods and services, it causes the purchasing power of all money, both old and new, to decline. Prices go up because the relative value of the money has gone down. The result is the same as if that purchasing power had been taken from us in taxes. The reality of this process, therefore, is that it is a hidden tax up to ten times the national debt.
“Without realizing it, Americans have paid, in addition to the regular taxes, a completely hidden tax equal to many times the national debt! And that is still not the end of the process. Since our money supply is purely arbitrary with nothing behind it except debt, its quantity can go down as well as up. When people are going deeper into debt, the nation's money supply expands and prices go up, but when they pay off their debts and refuse to renew, the money supply contracts and prices tumble. This alternation between periods of expansion and contraction of the money supply is the underlying cause of booms, busts and depressions.
“The only beneficiaries are the political scientists in Congress who enjoy the effect of unlimited revenue to perpetuate their power, and the monetary scientists within the cartel called the Federal Reserve System who have been able to harness the American people, without their knowing it, to the yoke of modern feudalism.”
Do you understand now what a criminal enterprise the Congress, the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve have been operating? Do you see why President Roosevelt and the Congress ignored the obvious will of the people and took their gold to protect the bankers scheme in 1933? And why Congress can appropriate to no end, with bail-outs and give-aways for the whole world?
In history, most fiat money schemes lasted only a few years and rarely over a decade. The Fed has been running their system in a total fiat mode for 70 years. The monetary scientists have honed their fraud to a fine art, keeping tight controls and making adjustments to extract their control over every last drop of American productivity without creating the collapse of their otherwise hollow scheme. Their partners at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, also creations of the U.S. Congress, have stretched the fiat money net around the globe.
And so now you know where that “dollar” bill in your hand came from. Does it still look like the dollar bill you thought it was when you started reading this article? End Of Article

Well, I don't know about you - but it sure makes me wonder - and if this is all true - and with the global economy in 'crisis' as it is said to be, then where will it all go, what will happen, how will it all end?? Guess we will just have to watch and see what happens... So Hang On Now...

WITH MONEY... With money you can buy a house, but not a home. With money, you can buy a clock, but not time. You can buy a bed, but not sleep. With money, you can buy a book, but not knowledge. With money you can see a doctor, but you can’t buy good health. With money, you can buy a position, but not respect. You can buy blood, but not Life and you can buy sex, but you cannot buy love. It seems like there are a lot of things you just can’t buy, no matter how much money you have. But then again, the best things in Life are free.

It is better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable. Money will buy lots of things, but it won't buy happiness.

Five Important Lessons

Five Important Lessons To Make Us Think About The Way We Treat Other People.
By An Unknown Author

First Important Lesson - The Cleaning Lady. During my second month of college, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions until I read the last one: ‘What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?’ Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman many times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her fifties, and even though she wore a name tag, I had no idea what her name was. I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. “Absolutely,” said the professor. “In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say ‘Hello’ to them. I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned the cleaning woman’s name was Dorothy.

Second Important Lesson - Pickup In The Rain. One night, at 11:30 PM, an elderly African-American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rainstorm. Her car had broken down and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car. A young white man stopped to help her, generally unheard of in those conflict filled days of the1960's. The man took her to safety, helped her get assistance and put her into a taxicab. She seemed to be in a big hurry, but wrote down his address and thanked him. Seven days went by and then came a knock on the man’s door. To his surprise, a giant console color TV was delivered to his home. A special note was attached.. It read: “Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain drenched not only my clothes, but also me spirits. Then you came along. Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband’s side just before he passed away. God bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others. Sincerely, Mrs Nat King Cole”

Third Important Lesson - Always Remember Those Who Serve. In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a ten year old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. “How much is an ice cream sundae,” the boy asked? “Fifty cents,” replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the coins in it. “Well, how much is a plain dish of ice cream,” he inquired? By now more people were waiting for a table and the waitress was growing impatient. “Thirty-five cents,” she hurriedly replied. The little boy again counted his coins. “I’ll have the plain ice cream,” he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left. When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table. There, placed neatly beside the boy’s empty ice cream dish, were two nickels and five pennies. You see, the little boy couldn’t have had the sundae, because he had to have enough money left to leave his waitress a tip.

Fourth Important Lesson - The Obstacle In Our Path. In ancient times, a King had his workers place a huge boulder in the middle of a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would try to clear the way of this big rock. Some of the Kings wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road, where it would be out of the way for other travelers. After much pushing and straining he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked his load of vegetables back up, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand! Every obstacle presents us with an opportunity to improve our condition.
Fifth Important Lesson - Giving When It Counts. Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her five year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to the little boy and asked him if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, “Yes, I’ll do it if it will save my sister.” As the transfusion progressed, the brave little boy lay next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks. Then the boy’s face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, “Will I start to die right away?” Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the doctor. He had thought that he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood in order to save her life.

Remember these five lessons and work like you don’t need the money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like you do when nobody’s watching. The End By An Unknown Author

THE ROOM -

This Is My Unauthorized Remake of Brian Moore’s unauthorized remake of Joshua Harris's essay, ‘The Room’ or as I call it,

‘The Lifestory Files’.

This has been my re-occurring dream. I am very, very relaxed and drifting off to sleep. I am almost there. but not quite. In that place between wakefulness and dreams, I find myself in ‘The Room’. There are no distinguishing features in ‘the room’ except for the one wall covered with small index card file drawers. They are like the Cardex files at the library whose drawers are labeled by author or subject in alphabetical order. But these files, which stretch from the floor to the ceiling and are seemingly endless in either direction, are labeled with very different titles. As I drift off to sleep , the dream begins with me drawing near this wall of files. The first label to catch my attention, of course, is one that reads 'Girls I Have Liked.' I open it and began flipping through the cards. I quickly shut it, shocked to realize that I recognize the name written on each of these cards. I step back and look at this wall of files and then, in an instant, and without being told, I know exactly Where I Am. This lifeless room, with its many files, is a crude catalog system for my entire Life. Here are written the actions of my every moment, big and small, in a detail my memory could never match. These are my Lifestory files. A sense of wonder and curiosity, coupled with horror and fear, stir within me. This is both amazing and scary! I begin randomly opening various of these ‘Lifestory’ files and exploring their contents. Some bring joy and sweet, wonderful memories. Others bring a sense of shame and regret, some so intense that I look over my shoulder to see if anyone is watching me. Oh Shame On Me!, some of the things I have done. .... A file labeled 'Friends' is next to one marked 'Friends I Have Betrayed.' The titles ring from the mundane to the outright weird, like ‘Places That Scarred Me.’ And then there are ‘Cars I Have Had’, 'Books I Have Read,' 'Lies I Have Told,' 'Comfort I Have Given,' 'Jokes I Have Laughed At’. Some are almost hilarious in their exactness: 'Things I've Yelled At My Brothers.' Others I can't laugh at: 'Things I Have Done In My Anger', ‘Things I Have Stolen’, 'Things I Have Muttered Under My Breath At My Parents', and then a similar one for my children and another for my co-workers. Oh yeah, and there’s the one that makes me cringe titled ‘Things I Have Yelled At My Computer’ and another labeled ‘Times I Have Completely Blown It’.The categories are endless. I never cease to be surprised by some of the contents, when I have the courage to look. Other times, I know in advance what I’m going to see, if I can actually force myself to look. Often there are many more cards in a file than I expect. Sometimes fewer than I hope. I am overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the Life I had lived in these sixty-some short years. So many experiences. And so many forgotten ones. Could it be possible that I have had the time in my years to fill each of these thousands or seemingly millions of cards? But each card confirms this is true. Each card is written in my own handwriting and signed with my very own signature. When I pull out the file marked 'TV Shows I Have Watched', I realize that the file drawers grow to contain their contents. The cards in this drawer are packed tightly and yet after two or three yards, I don't find the end of this deep file. I shut it, shamed, not so much by the quality of shows but more by the vast amount of time I know that this file represents. I cannot bring myself to open the drawer labeled 'Mistakes I Have Made' but when I come to a file marked 'My Negative Thoughts And Deeds’, I feel a chill run through my entire body. I pull this file out only an inch, not willing to test its size and I draw out a card and, reading it, shudder at its detailed content. I quickly return the card to the file and close the drawer, not wanting to even guess at how many cards might be within. I feel sick to think that such moments in my Life have been recorded. I start seeing certain past images in my mind. An almost animal rage arises in me. One thought dominates my mind: No one must ever know of this file. No one should ever see these cards! No one must ever even see this room! But I still have to destroy these particular cards!' I would be so ashamed if they were read by any one. I know that I couldn’t even bear to look at some of them, myself. In an insane frenzy I yank the file drawer back out. Its size doesn't matter now. I have to empty it and destroy the cards. It is an unbelievably large file. But as I take it at one end and began pounding it on the floor, I can not dislodge any of the cards. They won’t come out. I become desperate and pull out a single card, only to find it as strong as steel when I try to tear it. Defeated and utterly helpless, I return the file drawer to its slot. Leaning my forehead against the wall, I let out a long, self-pitying sigh. “Oh Geeze, What Do I Do?” Maybe I should try to glue this drawer shut or in some other manner secure it so that it can never again be opened. I can’t bear the thought of really being known as the scoundrel that I am. And then an amazing awareness comes over me. It is the awareness that history is recorded, whether we like it or not. And that only by being aware of history’s existence, being aware of both the good and the bad in our Life and trying to learn from all of our Life experiences will any of what we do in our time here on this Earth be of any benefit to ourselves or anyone else. We cannot hide from ourselves any longer. We have to see ourselves as the evolving animals we truly are. We have to acknowledge both our positive and negative selves, for as in everything else in the known Universe, the positive would not exist if the negative wasn’t there. This is a real awakening. And I must follow through. But now that I’ve dreamed myself back awake, that would be a whole other story in a completely different dream...Let’s See - Now what was this dream really all about????

Great Story, I think. Thanks to Joshua Harris and Brian Moore for writing their story and my apologies for re-writing it and putting my own spin on it. The idea is just too good not to pass on as food for thought for those who are interested in such things.....