Re: Living the Sun

[Guest guest]

Dear Frances,

I like your style. I am not in a shock or in a panic, but i feel I am in a lot more secure position financially than millions, and I grieve for those who don't know what hit them.

An example. My sister (age 84) called me 2 weeks ago in tears to tell me she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. .." I am so scared" she said over and over. She was moved from her retirement apartment to "assisted living" which naturally costs more. ( She is in a retirement home to which she gave all her money from the sale of her house...$300,000 8 years ago. She also pays a monthly "maintenance fee". She has been a widow for more than 10 years and in the last 3, has lost 2 of her sons who died before their time.)

Anyway, her oldest daughter is trying to figure out how to keep her mother where she is. My sisters stock portfolio, never big has been decimated by the recent market. She has ,as of today, 6 months left to pay for her "assisted living" Her " companion" who cost an extra $800 a month has been let go, and my sister cannot understand anymore why. She calls me very often because "she forgets things" although she was told her diagnosis, and is scared and confused..

Her oldest daughter, a P.A. is sick with worry, just as I was when my mother could no longer live with us and we moved her to a nursing home for which we paid until we could get Medicaid ( we had 3 in college at the time and she had "run through" her money)

So, the downturn has its relatively "innocent" victims. No, not everyone is innocent of spending too freely, of not taking their jobs seriously, of expensive "essentials", but untold millions are.. It is those I think about as I sit eating a good dinner in a lovely place with husband and friends. ( I can take my cancer and my heart problems and the unpleasant results of my chemo which seem a lot...but how would I react to a diagnosis of Alzheimer's and a fear of the uncertain future of where I live and what I am used to???)

Those of us who have fought for awareness are the minority, and it wasn't an easy fight, was it? But there are millions who feel as pawns in someone else's game, and who have not the ability to do what you did.

Fear is a dreadful burden, and those who live that way do not know how to conquer it. I cannot judge them, because by the grace of G-d I have come to accept(when I don't instantly try to take back what i just gave to the Lord, and then re-accept WHAT IS.)

I have survived a lot too, maybe more than many people can even understand. I suppose what "doesn't kill you makes you strong" But I know with every ounce of my being that it wasn't I who survived alone, the grace of G-d was with me all the way. But my concerns are not about "me" and how I survive....that is as a matter of fact a question not yet resolved physically,only universally, but it is about all those who have not been given the strength you write about.

I try to be un-attached (not detached, which is different) to what is happening around me, but I live in a retirement community where many people rely on their portfolios after years of "due diligence" and are now facing great uncertainty at 80 and on. I remember too that some lessons we as a country face may be the best that could happen for our awareness and our attitude toward the world and our money.

I don't think this is a "money" problem. I am blesses with not having that as a personal concern.In my life, it seemed a check floats from heaven whenever the need was great. It is about trying to help others with their fear and lack of security...especially for those that never had to worry about insecurity before.

I think about the collective unconscious a lot and hope that some consciousness can filter in for those who desperately need it. When I first learned of my unpleasantly large tumor, I tried to get in touch within with all those who had gone through the same and emerged on the otherside. My always trying- to- be-close relationship with the One is, along with my family ,especially Ray ,.what got me through with the minimum of fear.( I am not saying "I triumphed" at all, I am saying and am aware I agree with Scripture that there cannot be love when there is fear.

There is too much talk about the past, the depression of 1929, and not enough about community and community responsibility on an ever widening scale.

I am so glad to hear about how you have resolved your own encounter with materialism, and your victory over fear. I wish you well, indeed I am glad that others around you can find you an example. Since I no longer "go to work" my circle is pretty small. I see few of the really 'down and out' although I receive a million pleas for help by post and snail mail.

In the end though, we must each find our way without, like me, sometimes feeling guilty that I am in good circumstance when so many others are wanting. My way out is simply to thank G-d constantly and try to help where I can (which isn't much, I am afraid.)

I have see what you say " With life in balance, the money comes'. We are the fortunate, but millions have not seen or know how to see that. And I do not believe it is of our own doing, so we cannot stand apart from them

Thank you for your thoughtful post. It gave me some time to think about all this in peace once again.

thanks, I am happy to dance with you in the Sun.

Toni

Original Message -----

From: Frances

To: JUNG-FIRE

Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 6:32 PM

Subject: Living the Sun

Toni: What I take into myself from this economic crisis and it may be true for others here around the fire who’ve had to survive the traumas of WWII, post war rationing, years of austerity, limited options for education, career opportunity and personal development is that this is nothing to be in a shock or panic about. Thanks to Jung, I’ve done my Shadow work around money, looked at the shame, restructured my life to be able to embrace the value of living within my means. With life in balance, the money comes. The flow goes up and down, that’s a more organic way to describe how money works for me. Having been at the bottom and survived, I don’t fear it. I like what Obama says about “defying the statistics”, it applies to me and is for me about finding that transcendental vision and belief in one’s own strengths and courage. In alchemy the "sublimatio" stage is often used to describe having sort of detached or philosophical attitude about something that one could just as well react to. My writing has been about sending that tap root down into a grounded reality where nature and humans live in a balance. Living and gyring in ever widening circles out of that centre, finding meaning makes sense in itself because one’s being in grounded in reality, or as T.S. Eliot calls it - “the life of significant soil.” But I do feel the real suffering of people around me, the ambient stress and anxiety that’s in the air on the commute to work. I work in the financial sector have to understand it all, and hear the stories of layoffs, shutdowns, and lost business firsthand. Going into a place of prayer, finding compassion works, as does savouring the simple things in life. In the dance, Frances.Dear Frances,I won't argue.But a lot of people are panicked about a lot less esoteric stuff like jobs, groceries, Blacks in the White House, their kids in Iraq, and a very insecure future. Financial instruments don't worry them...they don't understand economics, and $250,000 guaranteed in the bank has quieted that one fear.Let us face the future, not the past. it is done, it has happened and there is no way to avoid the solution ...if we can find one...and it will not be pleasant..let's dance instead. I for one am not in the dark about the wall Street meltdown, nor is anyone who has been keeping up with our capitalistic greed in the last 5 or so years in the market, especially. Maybe we don't know specifics, all of them, but it no longer matters. We need to live in the NOW and pay more attention.That's my personal opinion. I am not panicked, i have lost lots too, but I intend to buy, not lament as soon as i can.My Sun is still shining, even when clouds momentarily cover it.maybe we can lighten the collective unconscious some?????Could we perhaps learn some worthwhile lessons from all this?Toni