poverty

[kitty fabulous]

is it any wonder i am living in a slum, without the means to consistently meet my basic needs? the place is crumbling from basement to roof, due to damages caused by seriously faulty plumbing, a very deep clog that hasn't been fixed. it's not a fincancial poverty that is the real problem, although it is a serious symptom that needs to be brought under control, but the terrible vampiric emptiness of poverty of the spirit. i have wanted so badly to share and to give, but feel at a very deep level i have nothing to offer, or worse, that which i do have is of little or no value, nothing to make myself worthy of welcome. as a result i feel helpless, act in ways that are self-defeating, my behavior ineffective and without direction. look, i say, i have all these gifts! where do i put them? and i fear that nobody wants them - they are too odd, too complex, too simple, too big or too small or too loud or too soft...dammit, now all the porridge is cold!

we who seek healing often hit a stage of percieved victimhood, and will whine about the injustices that have caused our wounds. i am guilty of this. i have been told i have no rights. i have been told i am a lesser person, bitch, tramp, trash...well, i have been told a lot of things, as have we all. intellectually i know that they are blatant falsehoods. the real injury in need of healing is not caused by the petty names i have been called, or the baseless judgements against me, but by the acceptance and internalization of those falsehoods, which has given these lies the opportunity to bore deep with their nasty little teeth and get a stubborn hold somewhere within, lurking in all the dark places. vampires, cops, and lies have this much in common: they make lousy house-guests. if you let them through your door they think they've a right to power over you, they take free run of the place and won't leave voluntarily. i let the lies in through the doors and windows, and now they are making themselves at home, raiding the fridge and putting their filthy little feet up on my coffee table.

how do ask a vampire to leave, permanently? you contain it, disempower it, banish. it sounds so simple, but the little bastards keep coming back for what they think is their stuff. there have the been jar-in-the-water visualizations, zen-based awareness meditation, shamanic journeying, spells of healing and protection. currently it is something i struggle with creatively, altering cast-off clutter, trash and found objects into works of talismanic art. but of course it isn't the spell or the prayer or the affirmation that does the healing, it's the power behind it. my own spirituality is based on the concept of immancene, and yet i am having difficulty getting in touch with that power, and holding onto it, so i can let go of lesser things. gotta fix that clog.

[BlackGuardXIII]

I grew up in the poorer side of town till I was 13, then moved in with my dad, in a nicer area. I never felt I fit in, and to this day, I do not save money, it goes as soon as it comes in. It is something I know I have to change....
but will I?
I think lots of people would want your gifts. I'm here to listen if you want to bounce any thoughts off me. The one thing I feel really good about my life is that I have gotten to meet the most amazing people from all income levels. To me, a couple of survivors from the streets, who lived through stuff I think would have killed me, are the most inspiring ones I have met. Their success is more of an influence on me than the successful multi-millionaires I have met. Nothing against them, I was invited for dinner at a couples house, and the husband is worth easy 500 million.... and they were one of the most down to earth, friendly couples I met. I just wish people wouldnt judge poorer people so harshly.
Poor boy sews patches on his clothes, stuffs newspaper down his shoes.'

[Moving_cloud]

kitty fabulous,

now if we realize – if we really really do realize – if we allow ourselfes to see that we are the creators of our lifes in all things, we need to look at the vampires not as enemies but rather as guests whom we feed out of one of our most powerful driving forces, the fear of rejection. And while facing with disgust how they put their feet on the sacred coffee tables we give them still more power.
The way through is to openly face and embrace the fears that you already are living and consciously release them, and appreciate all those who help you to stumble across again and again … and consciously trust into the freedom that is yours originally instead of trusting into the fears … even if, and because, and in spite of the fears will not allow that. But fear too is just energy. It is all yours.

And so all that poverty maybe just adds to the richness of experience.
And maybe wherever you live you find yes it is a wonder.

Much love

[MrRee]

How poor did you say you were??



http://www.cropcirclemessages.org/starving_baby.jpg

[kitty fabulous]

did you read my post at all, or are you just looking for a reason to be smug and self-righteous? welcome to my ignore list.

[kitty fabulous]

i was referring to spiritual poverty, not material. and i think you are just as sick as he is.

[WayfaringStranger]

i found that my material poverty helped alleviate my spiritual poverty. it was a fun adventure, both times, well all three times, ok for the past 10 years . . . . but im happy, i got some bills saved up now, im on top of the world. anyone wanna buy a hemp necklace?

[WayfaringStranger]

theres pics in the fashion and crafts forum, but alot of them have been sold. i sold one here, 8 at a festival, then i sold 3 today at the beach.

[NaykidApe]

it sounds so simple, but the little bastards keep coming back for what they think is their stuff. .
"If you drive demons from a person they go and dwell in dry places but unless you replace them with something else they'll come back with 7 times as many of their freinds"--in the bible somewhere

this isn't a word for word quote, but I think I got the the gist.

I went through a major house cleaning a few years ago--got rid of some phony friendships and one or two bad habits, and my life got alot better but it took me a long time to start forming real freindships and even longer to get into less destructive patterns and in the meantime I was constantly taking unconcious steps back the way I came.

Just using this as an example.

[kitty fabulous]

if meeting daily material needs is so "evil", why does the christian lord's prayer ask "give us this day our daily bread?" (incidentally, i don't believe in "evil". the lack of balance comes from how we percieve money, and what we choose to do with it, not the money itself.


poverty is often a mindset, not a lack of excess material goods. however, there is also a difference between voluntary simplicity, of which i am an advocate, and smug self-righteous martyrdom, which is not spiritual, but self-serving and false. there is nothing spiritual about not being able to meet the daily needs of your children. nor is there anything spiritual about shaming someone for trying to earn a living. i feel very strongly about this kind of false spirituality; in a sense, it too is a poverty mindset.

shaming someone else's discomfort by flaunting someone else's tragedy (as in the picture) is not only not spiritual, it is twisted. if i was still able to view mr.ree's posts, i would ask him if he himself has experienced such material poverty, that it gives him the right to use it as a weapon against others who are struggling with poverty of a different sort? i would ask if he is above the inner and outer challenges, the dark times that foster growth towards the light? perhaps mr. ree is so spiritually advanced he has no more need for challenges or growing? "let him who is without sin cast the first stone." and expressing the desire to nuke anyone for any reason is sick, no matter how you frame it.

wayfaring stranger, i know you meet your needs by very simple means, and i admire that. however, i see that as more of a freedom from excess, rather than poverty. in fact, from what i've read, you seem fairly "wealthy" in many ways. however, am i also correct that you have no dependents to support? in such a case material freedom must be tempered with financial responsibility, and there is a different kind of intangible wealth that comes from that.

however, the poverty i was referring to, as i said, was a spiritual poverty, an unbalanced mindset that needs correcting, of which the outer material poverty is a merely reflection. an irony is that often this poverty is accompanied not by bare simplicity, but an excess of worthless clutter and trash that we cling to in the belief that it is all we have. too often the spiritual housecleaning that naykid ape mentions needs to be accompanied by physical housecleaning. the outer world relfects the inner in many ways.

in my case, my "demons" or "vampires", so to speak, are not false friendships but internalized beliefs that were never really mine, but to which i have been clinging in the belief that i have a responsibility to carry them. likewise, most of the clutter in my apartment is actually other people's junk. and it is an interesting bit of synchronicity that the damage to my apartment building is caused by faulty plumbing, a deep clog that is causing all kinds of problems elsewhere, because nothing is flowing as it should. one might say these internalized beliefs are clogging my own energy in a similar fashion.

bits are beginning to break up and get washed away, however. i'm planning on having some reiki done soon, and it helps to have some other place to put my demons, rather than continuing to internalize them. that's what my artwork is for.