Of Wolves and Lawyers

By Scott Kalechstein

Rest your case
Lay it before God's smiling face
Let yourself surrender to sweet Grace
No matter the illusion
There's only one solution
Rest your case!

From Rest Your Case (C) ScottSongs 1989


I was telling a story at a Unity church service recently about my encounter with a woman nineteen years before, when someone stood up in the middle of it and shouted "That was me! I was that woman!" I was more than a little amazed, never having been interrupted like that in the middle of a sermon.

To begin my talk at church that day I had used the profound Native American teaching tale about the two wolves. For those of you who haven't heard it:

An old Cherokee was teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy, a fight between two wolves. One of them is greed, arrogance, superiority, resentment, self-pity, guilt, inferiority, lies, false pride, and ego. The other wolf is joy, love, peace, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

And the grandfather's simple reply: "The one you feed."

I had a chance to first meet the woman who stood up at church in Santa Cruz, 1990, while giving a house concert. Towards the end I was taking requests for personalized healing songs, and someone mentioned that it was her birthday and that she would love a special song. I invited her to come into the center of the room and lie down on the carpet, and people to gather around and lay their hands on her while I brought forth a spontaneous song to honor and celebrate her unique journey. She started to cry. It seemed obvious that her tears were happy ones, as she also had a beaming smile on her face. I kept strumming and delivering the birthday telegram, connecting deeply with her on a soul level with the song. She continued to accompany me with her crying, adding occasional bursts of laughter as percussion.

Perhaps fifteen minutes went by. The good vibes were contagious, potent, and palpable. I assumed everyone else in the room was flowing with the experience and enjoying themselves, until out of the corner of my eye I registered that one woman had gotten up, found some sage, lit it, and was spreading the incense around the room. She seemed agitated. "What's up with that"? I wondered.

Eventually the concert ended, and after snacks, cassette sales (it was almost twenty years ago!), and goodbyes, I finally called it a night, feeling more than satisfied with the evening's work/play.

But the following morning I got a telephone call from the lady who had been saging, and she was truly incensed. She spoke with great anxiety and volume, and I put her on speakerphone, partly so my traveling buddy Stephen could hear what she was saying, and also to get a bit of distance from her voice. She let me know, in no uncertain terms, that the night before I had been over the top inappropriate with the song recipient, that the poor, vulnerable, birthday girl I had been singing to had obviously been re-living past sexual abuse, and I ignorantly let the song and her anguished wails go on and on. A real healer would have intervened and not let her drown in her experience. I was not at all trained or equipped to handle such a situation, and I had no business trying to do any healing work I was doing. I should immediately stop going deep with people and stick to lighthearted humor and entertainment. She was sure she was doing both the world and me an important service by calling out another New Age charlatan and putting me in my place.

While she was giving me a piece of her mind, Stephen was giving me a peace of his. "Scott, this is all her stuff! It's not at all about you. She's deep in a projection. The woman you sang to was having the time of her life! The only abuse going on is happening right now. Don't take this seriously. Don't give her power. Just breathe. You're safe, you're innocent, it's not about you at all!"

Two voices. Two wolves! One howling accusations, and the other reminding me to relax and not to take it personally. Which wolf to feed?

Did I listen to my friend Stephen-Wolf?

Wish I had.

While I sided with him intellectually, the woman's feedback was far too captivating, as it brought to the surface some long harbored self-doubts. The inner critic blamed and shamed me for weeks, replaying the tape of her words as evidence of my inadequacy and guilt in the courtroom of my mind - which, by the way, is not a very fun place to go to, nor even to visit – and I seriously questioned if I should throw in the towel and leave the healing part of my work to valid professionals with authority and credentials.


Never mind that the woman who received the song left the concert gushing with gratitude. Never mind that I had a folder in my file cabinet filled with letters of appreciation for the work I had been doing with people. The prosecution had filed a far more forceful and emotionally compelling case, hypnotizing a jury of my fears by continuously chanting the mantra/verdict, "Inadequate, Not Enough, Guilty!"

I've often tried to win the courtroom fight by beating the prosecuting attorney at his own game, feeding my defense with affirmations and declarations of my innocence. For years I have tried. It's been very trying work, and all my trials have left me pretty tired.


In meditation one morning I was listening to the lawyers in my head arguing once again about my guilt and innocence, worthiness and unworthiness. Both voices were clamoring for my attention, when I remembered the Native American story about the wolves. Which one should I feed? A novel idea occurred to me. How about instead of struggling to feed my defense and starve the prosecution, how about I just rest my case instead?

I decided the time had come to settle this matter entirely out of court. So…

In my mind's eye I got up out of my uncomfortable chair and walked to the back door of the courtroom, delighted to find it unlocked. Stepping out into the warm, sunny day, I skipped down the stairs. Nervously, I looked back over my shoulder, but the judge, jury, lawyers, reporters, my parents, teachers and critics, even the wolves were not following.

I crossed the street and entered a playground - monkey bars, swings, and grassy hills. There were children playing, and I joined them, rolling down a hill, giggling, laughing, picking up speed, getting silly. Free at last!

And now, back to the church, where I was telling my concert story, where a woman had jumped up and exclaimed, "That was me! I was the birthday girl, and you were singing to me that night. I'll never forget. It was one of the highlights of my life!"

A part of me that had never been totally sure, relaxed. After the service we got to catch up with her while I munched on church snacks and sold a few CD's. We both were amazed and grateful that we had crossed paths again and got to say hello.

What did I learn from all this? The courtroom is no place for God's Kids. Our innocence needs no defense. Not when the earth is filled with playgrounds, green rolling hills, and pure, unconditional love. I learned to listen to and let in the love. That's why we are here doing time. To learn to unlearn guilt and let in the love. That's our life sentence. Case closed and dismissed.


Scott Kalechstein shares his own healing and awakening process through music, humor, and the spoken word. He travels the U.S.A., Canada and Europe, giving workshops, talks and concerts at churches, conferences, living rooms, and wherever people are open to a heart-centered approach to learning. Scott is also a prolific recording artist, life coach, comedian, and a licensed minister. For a catalog of his music or booking information he can be reached at www.scottsongs.com



Those are my sweeties, Venus and Aysia, down below, who continuously remind me to stay out of the courtroom. For irresistable family and baby pictures and videos, visit: Linked text

SCOTT'S 2009 SCHEDULE


TORONTO, CANADA

October 13 - A concert in Toronto. Email Julie Ward at julieward@hughes.net or call her at 905 939-8482.


October 14 - An evening of healing songs to support, empower and celebrate women. This is for a Woman's Group but is open to the feminine public. Email Katia at katiaboom@hotmail.com

October 15-19 - I'll be the conference troubadour and keynote comic once again at the 2009 Energy Psychology Conference in Toronto. Visit Linked text


SANTA CRUZ

December 13 - I will be giving the message and music at the Unity Temple of Santa Cruz. Following the service I will be conducting a workshop called The Conscious Relationship Workout. Visit Linked text for more info.








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MY ONLINE INVESTING ADVENTURES

In April of last year Venus came in to my room to announce that we were going to have a baby. I felt an immediate rush of both exhilaration and fear, the fear coalescing around the question, "How are we going to be able to afford this?"

We put our heads together and prayed. I heard my inner voice say, "Life more abundant, is coming to bless you. Let it in."

Besides regular prayer, Venus and I began setting our intentions on manifesting greater abundance, relaxing, trusting, and releasing the fear of lack. A few weeks went by and I got an email from a man named Scott Snider who had been touched by an article of mine he came across on the Internet. He signed his email, Passive Income Specialist. I saw that he had a phone number under his name so I called him. He told me about the online investments he was in, ones that required no soliciting of other people to make money. He even paid my way into one. I was quite skeptical, knowing scams and ponzis abounded out there.

A few weeks later, in a session with my non-physical entity friend John, I casually ran by some of the programs for him to scan, and he shocked me by saying that one or two of them actually had good intentions behind them and a good possibility of making me money. He agreed to regularly help me weed out the programs that were trying to rip people off and were not actually investing money, and steer me to the legitimate ones, ones in which modest investors were pooling their resources together with the assistance of the internet to get returns that previously only the very rich were able to enjoy. John has, for almost a year and a half now, been giving me a behind the scenes energetic look at these online investment possibilities. He has not been accurate all the time. He has picked a few that turned out to be stinkers. But his guidance overall has made me far more money than I have lost.

I am also a member of numerous online forums and have come together with groups of people from all over the world who research programs and find the few good ones in a haystack of nonsense. I have been mentored by people who are making a good living doing nothing but these programs. A pretty good track record has evolved, and since I love sharing what's been working for me with others, I created my blog, in case you feel inspired to join in on the fun.

Here's my intro and first entry into the blog:

Welcome to Receptive Income. What's that? Receptive income is easy money. Ease with money. Why not call it passive income? Because calling it passive sounds so, well, passive. Letting go of the idea of needing to work to make a living can take some work. I have had to do some significant inner work, changing my beliefs about myself, about life, and even about God, to get to a place of self-worth where I am comfortable receiving money, easily and effortlessly.

Behind the shadows of the global agreement called the work ethic is the belief that we have separated ourselves from God and are therefore undeserving of having things come easy. Yet through hard work, sweat and self-sacrifice, we can earn and struggle our way to having some love or money. (Both? God forbid!) Hard work and good behavior, the story goes, also might get us a place in Heaven, reserved, of course, for after we die...procrastination at its finest!

The bottom line is we are quite worthy of both love and money right now, just for being who we are. God don't make junk. Unworthiness is simply a case of mistaken identity.

This blog is for those attracted to doing the work of undoing unworthiness. The side effects of feeling worthy and innocent is that good things come in for no good reason. Unreasonable happiness, love and money, inner peace and outer flourishing. The whole enchilada. Having it all.

How does all this tie in with online investing? A reasonable question! Sort of like, "Show me the money!"

I have been intuitively drawn to certain online investment programs, with which I am receiving bread for the journey, funds for my family. They require no recruiting or selling. They make me money while I sleep, while I exercise, while I play with my baby.

I also have lost. Ouch. Disappearing money down the drain. As of this writing, I have lost about $7070 from various investments that got derailed before the money train arrived. And also as of this writing I have allowed over $24,000 to enter my bank account. So I'm currently way in profit. I'm presently receiving over $350 a day, five days a week, just from one of my online investments, Cash Tanker. (http://www.cashtanker.com/?rid=U1375989).

Not bad for a day's absence of work!


Losing can be painful, but also profitable, in terms of getting an education. It's been quite a learning curve for me, like anything else that's new. I have learned from my losses to discern and diversify when choosing programs, not to put all my eggs in one program. I have learned that when I lead with greed, or what I affectionately refer to as money-lust, it makes me stupid. I have learned to graciously grieve my disappointments, shake the dust off my financial feet, and move on.

These are high risk investments. They are not for everyone. I like some risk. I think being human involves risk, the biggest of all being playing it safe and comfortable too much and missing out on a fully lived life. Been there. Done that. Not fun.

In the world of online investing, I've learned how to calculate and minimize the risk. I've gradually upped my daily dinero by doing due diligence and diversifying. I know that was a lot of d's. I know you are thinking that I should throw in a pun about ducks in a row and then get off the d-thing. I must be a mind reader.

I know how to have fun with all of this. I know it is all a game, that there is nothing really dangerous about losing money, and nothing really miraculous about receiving abundant multiple streams of investment income, easily and effortlessly.

I think we all have this really great inheritance coming to us, that we all have been remembered handsomely in our Father's Will, and that being Children of God, we were all born into family money. It's about letting it in, being receptive. Hence the name.

We are God's Kids, and God wants his kids to prosper, to manifest, to have fun, to not be stressed. Perhaps it's time to really consider the lilies of the field, as Jesus asked us to do. Having to work hard and struggle doing something you would rather not be doing to bring home the bacon probably causes much more cancer and heart disease than bacon. By the sweat of thy brow is so last millennium. Perspiration is out. Inspiration is in!

Please visit my blog by clicking on: Linked text

If you would like to get an email each time I add an entry to the blog, send a separate email to scott@scottsongs.com, and write Subscribe Me To Your Blog in the subject section. Do not hit reply to this newsletter.

Warmly,
Scott