Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Ten Thousand Villages

“Do you know what “wisdom” means?”

I looked up from my seat on the floor. I was counting rocks. The were imported from India and each has a word carved into it….Joy, Peace, Love, and Wisdom. (We were out of Strength.) They had to be inventoried and to do so, I was sorting them so that I could count the rocks that had each word on them.

She had asked is she could read the words on the rocks. I had said that of course she could. She had spent a few minutes looking at them and announced the there were many Joys. We agreed that we could certainly use more Joy. She giggled and left to examine some of the store’s other treasures.

I did not realize that she had returned until I heard her question. I looked up into her six year old face and had to think about how to answer. “Yeah,” I said, then paused a few seconds. “ It’s like being smart,….and knowing how to use it. Does that make any sense to you?” She is very solemn for a few seconds. “Yeah,” she said with a smile.

With her long straight hair and inquisitive expression, she reminded me so much of my daughters when they were that age, which only seems like a few days ago. She was one of a dozen or so people who had taken refuge in Ten Thousand Villages from a furious rainstorm.

It is spring break and in Austin that means South by South West, a music conference that draws people from far and wide, as well as the state basketball playoffs and the rodeo. Ten Thousand Villages has a great location on South Congress in an area known as SoCo. Once an inexpensive hippy hang out, the area is now terminally trendy and is not to be missed by our ever increasing horde of tourists. I have been volunteering there for a few weeks. It is a nonprofit organization which brings fair trade art and décor to market from developing countries. There are Ten Thousand Villages stores all over the country. Most of the workers are volunteers. The Austin store has two full time and one part time employees. You can see the Ten Thousand Villages website to see if there is a store in your area.

Friday, March 2, 2007

Law Of Attraction

I have been busy applying the Law Of Attraction to all areas of my life. I have been amazed at how fast it is working. One of the things I most want to attract is more joy in my life. Guess what? I took a craniosacral class last weekend and, wouldn't you know it(?), one of the other participants was a woman named Joy. She really lives up to her name,too.

The class this not only was at no monetary cost to me, it also fulfilled some requirements for certification with the Milne Institute that would have been much harder for me to get otherwise.

One of the biggest material things that Stephen and I have been wanting to attract recently is a three bedroom, two bathroom house with all the modern amenities that we don't have in our current home as well as a big, fenced back yard for Lani. We will be moving into that house in the next two or three weeks. Not only is it the 3/2 that we wanted, but it has been completely redone on the inside and looks and feels like a new house. It is really better than a new house because all the landscaping is already done. We were very specific with our manifestation practice about this house. We had a set price for the rent we would pay. The other day I named a number $200 less than we have been talking about and said' "wouldn't it be great if we found a house for $.....'. Stephen found this house a few days later. It is in our current neighborhood. It has as wonderful room for me to work in. This Law of Attraction stuff really works.

I have also been concentrating on having enough private clients that I will have no need to work for anyone else. I just got a new client today who will most likely be an every week appointment. I am concentrating on attracting at least $800 per week every week with very little effort on my part. I feel that I am on my way to getting there and that it will happen very soon.The hard part of all of this is just staying in the flow. I have had as few weeks of almost nonexistent business.

I have to confess that I let that get to me more than a little bit. I have had to do a lot of segment intending to keep from getting in a place where I would be attracting lack. Sometimes all I need to get back into the flow is for a little something that I have wanted to have or to happen come my way. This time it was a quartersawn oak buffet that Ii found on craigslist for $20. It needs a lot of work but I have a friend who is a fantastic furniture maker and who is very excited about my find and will do the major part of the repair for me. I have been spending a lot of time on line looking at Stickley pieces. These are very expensive and it is easy to let the daydream become a fantasy(feeling like you'll never have it). The segment intention that I used was, maybe I can have one little piece like this before too long. My piece is not Stickley bu it looks a lot like it and that is all I really want. The big beautiful Sticklely type dining room furniture is close by, I just know it.


Life is Good.