I loved this. It's true, it's lighthearted ... so is life itself :))

I think we're saying the same thing in different languages:
http://www.openone.net/blog/index.php?itemid=64

Thank you, DK, for seeing clearly.

There is too much glossing here, and no mention of the average person who will be most direly affected by the global loss of confidence.

The financial markets are 'also' under pressure because they're responding directly to a deeper understanding of the same credit freeze that's affecting businesses worldwide.

Asia has always been more responsive to news, both good and bad, than Europe or the US. Its Monday downturn was expected.

The reason for the Monday slide in Europe is that region of the world has woken up to the real effects of the credit freeze. If they'd have done the waking up a week ago, you could have written this piece and criticized the US government for not passing the bailout bill. As it is, you can write it and say the US bailout bill was passed and it has had no effect. Yet the US bailout has not yet been activated. The bill was passed, but nothing has been done so far. To judge its effectiveness at this moment is premature. If you were expecting passage of the bill as a morale restorer, that was its effect for a few days. The effect faded, and on Monday, after what I'm certain was a sobering weekend of thought, emails and phone calls, European markets showed that they finally realized that the credit freeze is global.

This post seems to me to be a schadenfreude dance, more than anything else.

I would have liked to read about real ideas that could help average people weather the storm caused by a few. I'd have liked more information about how the average person will be affected by what's happened so far, and what may come.

Today, markets worldwide have expressed their hidden confidence, by seeing buying opportunities, stopping the market slide for a day.

The real financial story is mostly hidden from average people, because that story isn't on publicly-traded markets. It's about the credit freeze, not about markets. There's good reason for it in some quarters -- there are many instruments out there that are so highly leveraged as to be virtually worthless unless the schemes upon which they were built continue to run as per the status quo of three months ago -- and that won't happen. However, in other areas, the freeze is an expression of profound worry and fear on the part of a small slice of the population that has control of credit that's not highly leveraged, credit that's backed with instruments that are financially sound unless markets are depressed below their real value. It's such movers that governments (in US and Europe) are working to reassure with their various support actions for troubled banks and companies.

The fearfulness or confidence of those movers has a powerful effect on those who have no say in the matter, who don't really know what is going on, and who are and will suffer the most from credit freezes and any abnormal market downturns.

What to do?

That is what I would have liked to read about.

Heath,

Matai is saying something very profound in reminding us of Humpty. We have built our economy on credit. We, including government, business and householders, have spent our way into debt levels which not only cant be sustained but now can no longer be funded. America is spending a $1 billion per day in Iraq. The national debt is now at levels that are not only unimaginable but impossible to support. Humpty is the system. We are witness to the decline of Western Civilization and the madness of materialism has finally be brought to its knees.

Dear Heath,
then this might interest you, from my blog.
love,
aurora

------

What to Do in Times of Financial Crises

The financial world is in turmoil and many people are anxious, wondering what is happening and what to do about it.
Here are some unconventional but real answers:

In short, what is happening is that our prayers are finally answered. What we need to do about it is get real.

Allow me to explain...

Be honest with me, really honest. Aren’t you tired of the world we have created together? How many times have you changed TV channel looking for something other than images of greed, ruthlessness, killing and poverty? How many times have you had to close your heart lately because of your own or someone else’s cruelty? How many times have you wished this world was a more peaceful and kind place to live in?

Even if you haven’t heard your own prayer, life has. Believe it or not, life is always answering our deepest prayers. We all want another world, and so, what is happening is that our old reality is crumbling. It has to, in order to allow something else to emerge.

Our world is a reflection of who we are. If we get radically honest with ourselves, we will understand how we have created it. We have prioritized the surface and forgotten the essence. We have pursued externals like appearance, money and status, which we thought would give us value, safety, happiness, peace. In the process, we have hurt ourselves thoroughly, because those who got what they thought they wanted ended up as empty hearted as those who didn’t get it no matter how hard they fought. Both rich man and poor man are standing empty handed, unless their hearts are full.

If we get real with ourselves, what we truly want is the love, safety, happiness and peace found in our own open heart. We want to love and appreciate ourselves, feel at home in this world and with each other; we want to be abundant, generous, joyful and carefree. Let us become clear about it, let us affirm it as our new identity. Let us be that abundance of love, the joy and freedom from hostility in our every interaction.

We have changed, so our new world is already happening. Why be scared? This is our prayer being answered. And all we have to do is keep being real.

There are plenty of people who have been real all along. There are many parts of the world, even in Europe and the US, where people didn't buy into the credit-based economy because they didn't have enough income to get much, or even any, credit. They have no adjusting to do, in terms of their expectations. Yet it is their jobs and housing that are most at risk. Such low-income people have no power to control what will happen to them, collectively. They aren't scared. They passed that point long ago, if they even hit that point. They are simply enduring. It's not their world that is crumbling, it's someone else's world. But unfortunately they're going to get hit with the debris of that other crumbling world, while most of those who live in that apparently crumbling world will come out of any economic downturn relatively intact.

Honey is nice once the real meal has been taken. People such as those I've written about are starving for a real meal.

David Brooks, writing for today's NYTimes.com, has written about the psychology underlying the market movements that we see on the indices.

I don't agree with all of his perceptions, but this column is unusual and immensely interesting, in being one of the few pieces on the crisis that takes a look at the emotions of the players who do the actual big trades.

It's here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/opinion/07brooks.html

or click my name.

dear Heath,
So many regular working class folks in America are getting hurt by the financial disaster which is unfolding (has been unfolding for several years) now - from the prices of food and gas fluctuating upward, the prolonged funding of the war in Iraq, stocks wiped out, 401K plans depleted, jobs lost, etc.

This has also affected the global stock markets and security of our European and Asian friends.

It really is a challenge to know what is the 'best' plan of action, to get back on 'track'.

love,
~ Kate

p.s.
I was not in favor of the bail-out plan. I feel the banking situation and credit lending - is the uppermost issue to solve.

from the article you linked:
(thanks Heather)

"In his astonishingly prescient book, “The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy,” David M. Smick argues that we have inherited an impressive global economic system.

It, with the U.S. as the hub, has produced unprecedented levels of global prosperity. But it has now spun wildly out of control.

It can’t be fixed with the shock and awe of a $700 billion rescue package, Smick says. The fundamental architecture needs to be reformed.

It will take, he suggests, a global leadership class that can answer essential questions: How much leverage should be allowed?

Can we preserve the development model in which certain nations pile up giant reserves and park them in the U.S.?

Until these and other issues are addressed, the global markets will lack confidence in asset values.

Bankers will cower, afraid to lend. America’s role as the global hub will be threatened. Europeans will drift toward nationalization. Neomercantilists will fill the vacuum.

This is the test. This is the problem that will consume the next president. Meanwhile, the two candidates for that office are talking about Bill Ayers and Charles Keating".

Because deregulation allowed primary banks to open or acquire investment bank divisions (formerly a very big no-no), bailouts of investment banks will enhance the stability of the banking system overall, which will allow credit to flow a little more easily. Right now, banks are having to prop up their investment bank divisions with capital from their primary banking divisions. The bailout will free up some of that shifted capital to go back where it belongs. And the bailout requires increased oversight, which is a partial replacement for the rules that were scrapped when the system was deregulated.

#7

"Meanwhile, the two candidates for that office are talking about Bill Ayers and Charles Keating"."

The sin of reporting political equivalences by the media.

Though one can draw an equivalency between talking about McCain's Keating Five record and the GOP trying to liken Obama to a terrorist sympathizer, there is no equivalency at all.

While the attacks on Obama are absurd extrapolations, it is undeniable that McCain was formally rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for his involvement in a financial scandal most analagous to today's economic crisis.

See: KeatingEconomics.com

While both Obama and McCain bowed down to Wall Street in supporting the recent bailout bill, only one of them - McCain - has displayed a zealous fervor for deregulation, and the Keating Five scandal is about as a good an example of that fervor as there can be.

"Such low-income people have no power to control what will happen to them, collectively. They aren't scared. They passed that point long ago, if they even hit that point. They are simply enduring. It's not their world that is crumbling, it's someone else's world. But unfortunately they're going to get hit with the debris of that other crumbling world, while most of those who live in that apparently crumbling world will come out of any economic downturn relatively intact." Heather

This is not reality, Heath. Reality is that we all have the same power regardless of externals like...income. It's time to stop letting the surface blind us.

The way to get a real meal is to create it from the abundance within, for yourself and for everyone else. The problem is that most people don't know their own abundance. It's there all right. When you believe yourself to be powerless and a target for someone else's debris you will keep yourself in powerlessness. Let's get real and remind ourselves and each other that creativity is the way out of the old and into the new.

"Can we preserve the development model in which certain nations pile up giant reserves and park them in the U.S.?

Until these and other issues are addressed, the global markets will lack confidence in asset values." David M. Smick

---
Until we don't find the real value we have to give to each other, we will lack confidence in the shiny empty forms we keep offering each other ;) I don't blame us...

How downtrodden people with not enough to eat feel. They are beset with worries about their ability to keep things together for themselves and their families. Until people who promote attitude and spiritual practice as solutions can come up with a reliable method of turning those internal foci into real shelter, meals, clothing, jobs and transportation, poor people have no choice but to go with whatever they believe works at least some of the time. They are not without a spiritual focus. Often their very survival is evidence of their strong spirituality.

Most poor people, and many who are called working and middle class, at least in the US, already are real.

Most people are uncomfortable with being grouped in a "we" way, as in we should do this, or we should do this. When an individual says "we" that way, smacks of preaching. Are we back to that, along with that schadenfruede I mentioned early this morning? Or can we see the common man as a not necessarily lyrically-articulate, but surely sensible and clear-seeing class of human being already connected to a viable reality?

When someone else's house falls on your head, it is not your fault. Poor people don't believe themselves to be a target for someone else's debris. Rich people see poor people as real targets, or as a class that's unimportant. They create conditions and act out actions that make poor people their target, out of unconcern or deliberate negativity towards the poor. The poor who suffer from these conditions and actions are not taking a stance of powerlessness. They are being bullied. Many rich people are more aggressive and greedy than the norm.

To demean or devalue these realities and say the solution is all in one's head, is to preach in one's sleep in a dream world.

From a distant perspective, you're right. But people have to live moment by moment. It takes leisure and extra resources, beyond those needed for survival, to have the time and energy to put aside to develop that perspective. When something slams you on the side of your head and you were not expecting it, being told by someone on the outside to stop feeling powerless and get focused on mental success -- as the only solution -- is not a welcome thought.

See, that real meal isn't there if someone five thousand miles away is controlling your seed and water, or your shipment of wheat, barley or rice. Nor is it there if someone else seven thousand miles away has your former job because the owner of your former company wanted more cash in his pocket, and you can't find work. These are realities that people solve in a multitude of ways -- with private spiritual practice being one of their tools, and social and political pressures being others. People are so disparate that there is no single tool that will solve all problems. No single tool even lasts long enough to make a permanent dent in our problems.

Dear Heather,

I don't know why we should keep dividing our one world in poor people and rich people. These are only externals, and if we keep staring at the amount of money in someone's pocket, we'll miss the point: We all have the same spiritual potential. We are in this together, have always been.

Being in danger and powerless just because you don't have money is not reality, it is the very illusion we need to go beyond. Being safe and powerful just because you have money is also not reality, it is illusion to be seen through. Money is not the center of the world, even if we have believed it for so long...

If we look closely and without getting caught in emotional drama, this will be obvious. We are leaving the illusion and entering reality.

The only universal tool to solve all our problems is finding out that spirit is real, that it is what we all are and the core of our ceativity. It is reality and it will give us real change, real food and real abundance, instead of the castles of sand we have believed in until now.

To find out that spirit is real, we need to let it flow from our heart into the world. For that, we need to let go of the hard grip of fear and anger that keeps our heart locked. No heart will overflow with abundance if it is locked by anger and judgment, fear and greed. If you think that the anger and greed are a result of the situation around us, I will ask you if they aren't also the cause of the situation. And as with the hen and the egg, we'll never know who was first. But instead of trying to change the world, why not change our hearts? Only then will we have the -proof- that spirit is real. Until then, spirit will sound like something far away, in a fairytale.

Why not get real?

dear Aurora,
what is real - is the body must be nourished.

For many people, if the body is not nourished, the mind is not - and the Soul is 'hidden'.

love,
~ Kate

I'm not part of your we -- I don't divide the world into poor and rich people. Those things absolutely are only externals. Those ideas are created by the small group of people who amass more of material value than they need to live on. These are people who have more than the norm in aggressiveness and greediness. Or perhaps, those qualities are simply expressions of their extra neediness. Whatever. It comes to the same thing: they take more than their fair share. It's not my idea, I don't make these divisions. However, I observe that they exist, due to others' actions. Those same actions put masses of people who are not as aggressive or greedy at a survival disadvantage. To deny that this is a real problem is to avoid all possibility for a real solution for it.

Being in danger and powerless just because you don't have money is a reality for many people. There is currently a drought in Afghanistan, and winter is coming on, and there is still fighting in the country. These people, who don't look at themselves as being powerless, are geographically isolated and cannot grow their own food. To survive in the short term, they require our assistance. We are not giving them enough. Some of these people will die this winter, only because of not enough food and heat in their cold, difficult living environment. What choices do they have? How should they use their minds to overcome this situation? These people did not believe in castles of sand. They believed in themselves as farmers. And that was the only way they could survive in the past, and it's not a sufficient option right now. If they had money, they could purchase what they need and have it shipped in before the bad weather comes. But they have no money, because they were living a subsistence life in a hard land before, and now even their ability to subsist was removed due to drought.

When you speak of letting the spirit flow from out hearts, and letting go of the grip of fear and anger, why not phrase it as talking about your own story? Then it reads like an exemplar tale, rather than a sermon.

I cannot understand how people who have more than enough for themselves can overlook the realities of the lives of those who don't.

Mallika's new post is one that supports dialog about real solutions for people who are really suffering.

Craig, this one's for you:

The financial and social leverage of some:

"...A week after the insurance giant, the American International Group, received an $85 billion federal bailout, its life insurance subsidiary, AIG General, held a weeklong retreat for its top sales agents at the exclusive St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif. Expenses for the week, lawmakers were told, totaled $442,000, including $200,000 for hotel rooms, $150,000 for food and $23,000 in spa charges.

"In addition, the former A.I.G. executive who led the London-based division whose implosion is largely blamed for the insurance giant’s downfall, Joseph J. Cassano, continues to receive $1 million a month from the company, on top of the $280 million he received in the last eight years..."

full article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/business/economy/08insure.html

Credit default swaps are to blame. Not bad mortgages. If it weren't for the swaps, the mortgages would never have been written in the first place.

Fact: You can't take life insurance out on your neighbor and then off him.

But that's exactly what happens with these derivatives. Buy the credit default swaps, short the stock of the underlying security which you never had to own in the first place, destroy that company, and get a payout for default that exceeds your wildest dreams. And if you team up with other speculators, you could even pull off something like, well, you could destroy a whole lot that way.

It's a form of financial terrorism.

No wonder things have been so dark since 2000 when all this was set into motion.

The cardinal rule of insurance indemnification is that you can't enjoy an insurance benefit from incidents arising from perils that exceed what you would've experienced had the incident never occurred. Ben Franklin set it up that way so that we were not destroyers and killers but creators and innovators. It's Insurance 101, and it's what makes insurance one of the greatest assets America has.

But we now have a world of speculators who are taking insurance out on their neighbors and then and then running them over. This is unregulated insurance, and it's one of the worst sins America has ever committed.

It's treacherous. Bad.

I believe that Monday is also referred to as MOONday. The moon reflects, as it has no light of its own.

hump - a difficult, trying, or critical phase or obstacle

dump - to get rid of

Like a freshly hatched chicken ...

Hi there Char!

Let's break the - riddle - egg.

"It should be noted that it is not stated in the rhyme that Humpty Dumpty is an egg. In its first printed form in 1810, the rhyme is posed as a riddle and exploits for misdirection the fact that "humpty dumpty" was also 18th-Century reduplicative slang for a short and clumsy person; the riddle being that whereas a clumsy person falling off a wall would not be irreparably damaged, an egg would be."

The orgins of the rhyme here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty

Dear Heath,

our thoughts, our anger, our righteousness might divide us in "my we" and "your we"... but we are not our thoughts and not our emotions either.

When we see the deep suffering of people who die of hunger, if we also accuse other people for it and say that "they" are the repositories of greed and agressiveness, then we are dividing the world. It is like saying that greed and anger are to be found in that particular section of the global population, and "they" are responsible for the situation.

But "they" is an absurdity in a world of "we". If our judging thoughts of "others" were bullets, how many people would still be alive on this planet? How many of us would be free of the responsibility for our suffering?

A judging observer is a god with a machine gun. A loving observer is a god of endless nourishment. We choose.

love,
aurora

Dear Kate,

every body is the body of the universe, it is automatically nourished and taken care of in the big scheme of things. Most people today don't see this. If we feel separate from life itself, we believe we have to fight to stay alive. Fear messes up all our thoughts and actions, our whole existence becomes a struggle, and we will make all the choices that lead to our suffering.

I agree with you that the challenge of realizing the safety of our own spirit can get too big when fear has become our only reality. But beside helping each other out with food, money and socio-political activism, we need to keep waking each other up from the illusion of fear. This is to me the only real healing. Instead of reinforcing the false belief in powerlessness, we need to continue to support each other in finding out that we and life are one and not two, in conflict with each other. No outer stuff will bring tht kind of safety. These are times when reality is starting to shine forth through the rags of our self created suffering. Amazing, glorious times...

#24
Aurora, my friend, were you that brave lady who sky-dived over Everest? I see exactly what you are proposing. Aren't you lucky that I've seen ;)

This is not the end of the world, merely the end of an era as we have known it.

It should be obvious by now that collapse has a life of its own. There is much we can do in response to it, but nothing we can do to prevent it. Getting stuck in one fixed response or another, precludes realizing the underlying reality that we are in a time of transformation from one cycle to the next.

Outwardly we can use this time to make the transition a little less traumatic for all of us and support those efforts. Inwardly, we can use it to build our own inner strength and courage.
We need both.

B

Dear Ed,
You too? :)

I listened to scientists yesterday, trying to explain the physics nobel prize this year (spontaneous broken symmetry, the reason for our planet's existence) through a metaphor of an inverted pyramid. DK speaks here about the credit pyramid. Yesterday I read in Deepak's book "Why is God Laughing" a description of a pyramid consisting of all of us, every one in his/her place striving to reach the top, and of spirit raining on us like spring rain. This morning I got a message from a friend about The American Prayer, and his dream of a mountain and the top we are about to reach.

And now you say Everest :)))

I hope you know that eagles are starting to gather at the worldhealersforum.

To tell someone who's starving that by changing how they think about their own suffering, they will be physically nourished, is a fantasy. To view someone's cruelty to another, and abstain from labeling the cruel actions as cruelty, is dishonest. Such approaches help neither the sufferers nor those causing others' suffering.

Humans developed language to share with each other what they think about what they see and experience. A basic aspect of communication is the ability to see danger and name it as such. By communicating a dangerous situation to others, we provide safety to them, by allowing them the possibility to act before being touched by the danger.

To see people acting cruelly and not say that that is going on makes others less safe. It also sends a message to those being cruel that their actions are OK.

If person A takes more than his or her fair share of things, and by so doing leaves twenty other people starving, in my view it's an act of moral and ethical cowardice not to say what person A is doing. A sense that unfair actions are unfair is pervasive in humans and other species. It's part of our biology.

When we name things and actions for what they really are, we don't shut the door on love, forgiveness, compassion, hope, faith, devotion or any other positive thoughts.

For anyone to assume otherwise is an expression of their underestimation of others' emotional, intellectual and spiritual potential.

Thoughts, observations, labels and judgments are effective social tools that constrain the worst in humankind, and celebrate the best, so we can all live together as harmoniously as possible. To deny their effectiveness shows ignorance of how people and society actually work.

If one fears being too judgmental of others, I can understand that. One may have a tendency to be too judgmental oneself, or one may have experienced, or observed others, suffering at the hands of someone who was overly or inaccurately judgmental. But that fear doesn't mean that most people who look at something and label it for what it is are themselves being overly or inaccurately judgmental.

One aspect of maturing as a person is learning how to exercise care and empathy in one's communications and judgments. That means one learns to listen to, and accept, others' points of view, as well as one's own. It is in the maturing process that we learn to avoid being overly or inaccurately judgmental. The way we do this is to get negative feedback from others when we're wrong.

One subtle aspect of learning those things is finding out when we're projecting our thoughts and ideas on others, and learning that it's wrong to do that. Another subtle aspect is finding out when we're being patronizing towards others, and learning that it's wrong to do that, too. Both projection and patronization are expressions of the personal ego attempting to dominate others.

In my conversations with you, I never tell you how you should think or what you should feel. I tell you how I think and how I feel. It would be very nice if you would converse with me in like fashion. Nice words and kind sign-offs don't erase or negate the elements of projection and patronization from a conversation, if they are present.

Dear Heather,

You are right. Good luck :)

love,
aurora

sometimes a wall thinks it's a door...it so wants to be a door...but a wall, it is....there is no passing through....you come right up against it and it does not give an inch....yep...a wall..

hmmmmm..pondering...

Wow this is an amazing correlation, a cryptic Humpty Dumpty post occured here on Intent Blog on July 16, 2008 11:00 AM perhaps it was some divine demonstration, somehow responding to this future Humpty Dumpty post.

click my name and scroll to the comments.

Ref. 17. Yea I saw that heath. Yea . . .

Dear DK,

It is not the credit pyramid, it is the ■INTEREST■
■INTEREST■
■INTEREST■

Attached to the debt!

The interest being in effect a charge for participation in the economic system, I ask again why one should be charged for the ability to make economic contributions?

Again what value do gamblers provide other economic system participants in return for the wealth they extract?

Interest is profit that does not come from the creation of something of tangible value; it is a monopoly on access to participation in the system.

The control of a symbol required for participation in commerce. You are allowed to use the symbol if you agree to give up a portion of the wealth you create to the controllers of the symbol, those that own the master accounting system and the master chart of accounts. Sounds like the mark $ of the beast in that story line called Revelation.

Debt in the current system is the only way to create new money to match the creation of new products and services that occur on a daily basis. This is a bit flawed mostly because of the interest, because of the interest the master balance sheet can never balance, part of the fundamental flaw in the current system design.

Notice that people were able to pay the principle on their mortgages not the interest in our mortgage crisis.

Only in an ignorant system would one pay more for interest in the purchase of their shelter than they would for the cost of materials and labor.

I think the planet needs to put me in charge or at least consult so that I can quickly destroy the fictions that impede our evolution.

If one bothers to study http://coinage.me there would be greater understanding it has some new articles of thought.

Of course it is all fuel for the REVOLUTION and the resulting shift in consciousness.

Unless the wealthy support one’s endeavors, they will be put on par with the homeless man in the street.

Of course the divine plan may still be to destroy all the incumbent hoarded wealth through erasure.

I hope everyone will join in the development and implementation of the new Balanced Value Exchange Accounting System lest we all become localized and return to barter.

Please help destroy this illusion.

THERE IS NO RATIONAL REASON FOR ANY ECONOMIC SLOW DOWN

This idea of deep recession or depression is contrived, bogus and may simply be a device to initiate huge transfers of tangible wealth to a few. It is BS being sold to everyone by the system operators. What we are really seeing is a classic example of massive legal sanctioned embezzlement taking advantage of the ignorance of the economic system participants.

The essential economy does not disappear over night. The consumers of energy, food, shelter, transportation, and tools still have their needs and wants, and the producers still exist to provide fulfillment. What has happened is the system to account for the exchange of value between the producers and consumers has been totally corrupted and mismanaged.

The producers and consumers need to adopt a new system that they own and control collectively and cast the other aside rendering the billions or millions a few have accumulated of null value in the present economy. It is also important to note that in a balanced and well designed system we all play both the role of consumer and producer.

The Producers will rise to be King not the thieves, hoarders and coveters of ill gotten wealth and the controllers of the symbol used for commerce, for it is they the producers that will produce the real value tomorrow and a new system will ensure a balanced exchange.

Along came a hen and gathered the pieces
Took them inside and glued without creases
All the King's horses and all the King's men
Had laid at their feet Mother's gobsmacken

If one has much money? then this is a time of great uncertainty.

If one has lived a life not putting much stock in money? then "we have nothing to fear...".

If one has a little money, just enough to feed oneself and share with others around and if one is content with that throughout ones life, then one lives on and never has fear. One is grateful and this gratitude pays back by itself.

I cannot explain this, have tried out many things to prove it in my life but can only prove it to myself.

The past week i have made the most wonderful, wonderful natural labyrinth in Nature and I feel rich. I made a heart labyrinth, so simple and yet so beautiful from big fir-cones and in it so many coloured autumn leaves.

The wonder was that I made one with a left entry and one with a right entry, opposite towards each other and it turned out to be the most beautiful natural butterfly I have ever seen.

Creativity without a single penny spent.

It is ones own perspective. My perspective is focussed on gratitude towards Nature, towards Spirit, towards happiness with the smallest things that can bring joy in ones life.

I have found my creative way to create with natures abundance in a simple way.

I do recognize the body needs to be nourished
I do recognize the spirite needs to be nourished

I stand with two feet on the ground to create the first need.

I have my head in the clouds to provide the second.

My soul therefore is nourished by both.

Perhaps if we learn to be more satisfied with the basic needs in life, we would be able again to appreciate the not so basic ones as a plus that can be shared in ones life.

http://www.heartphone.org/possibilities_of_the_labyrinth.htm

The possibilities to be creative with the labyrinth are endless and everytime one walks a labyrinth one receives some more inspiration to proceed.

Well, guess this is what life is all about :)

Much love and creativity to all!!