Between the Cracks: A blog by Albert Clayton Gaulden

What makes living in the Republic in these perilous times so hard are all the opinions and judgments that bombard us. Rather than function through proactive integrity more journalists and talking heads judge, damn and condemn rather than praise what someone in high places is doing. The word transparency has become the new buzz word that congressmen, news anchors and political journalists are bantering about. To be transparent is to be free of deceit, to be easily understood.

Because the new President has had several cabinet nominees dismissed because of non-payment of back taxes and stumbled somewhat in his stimulus package to try to avert the Great Depression 2, the chattering classes have begun their name calling that Barack Obama is a light-weight, or worse. And to those ‘smarter-than-the-rest-of-us I say, “Put your knives and guns away. The man has been in office less than a month and from where I live, although I cannot see Alaska like Madam Palin, I detect the same honest Abe that we elected to the highest office in the land little more than 90 days ago.”

Barack Obama is going to be a great president and he will steer the country where the country needs to go. It is fine and dandy to weigh in, just make sure it is with the intent to unilaterally support President Obama. It may be fashionable to throw stones at someone like Obama, but for my money, I would rather stand back and let him lead. There has been too much nay-saying for my blood. And by the way, I for one have not seen true transparency since the 60’s on a catwalk in Milan.

I am Albert Gaulden and I approve of this message.

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There was a rowdy song in the Rita Hayworth movie, GILDA (1949) that put the blame on a hip-hopping floozy for the San Francisco earthquake of 1906-sing-song that said a hoochie-koochie doll named Mame’s shimmy and shake caused the quake. There was a list on the Internet today that asked: Who’s to blame for the nation’s economic condition?

Politicians

Lending institutions

Shopaholic consumers

Federal agencies (Fannie Mae, SEC, etc.)

Investment firms

Housing industry

All of the above

Nowhere does it give the chance for us to check all of us in the United States. As long as we are given the opportunity to play the blame game with our latest fiasco we will continue to point fingers at everyone else but where the finger pointing needs to be: the three fingers pointing back at ourselves. Taking the blame for our part in all of this does not excuse the runaway disaster that greed and entitlement caused amongst those listed on the survey. (When I saw that Bernard Madoff’s wife had secreted $10 million dollars the day before he was arrested for his elaborate Ponzi scheme I was flabbergasted. What do you have to do to be thrown in the slammer with other crooks?)

The Federal Government can give all the incentives and stimuli to the Republic that it wants to but we will recover when each of us does our part to reconstruct our nation. I don’t for a minute see victims in all of this, I see volunteers; rather I see me and what I did to start the ripple effect that eventually sank Wall Street, housing…and thank God, the oil cartels. (If I ever see gas again at $150.00 a barrel I will question if we need to legislate how much gas any of us can buy as well as outlaw the Hummers on the street).

The real factor in the stuck place we are in after that humongous Bailout Package is FEAR. In recovery circles we refer to fear, as false evidence appearing real. What really happened was when all things that were too good to be true, like sub-prime, and when credit cards were easy to come by, and when we joined money programs that could not possibly be true, a la Bernard Madoff and his shenanigans, the money schemes and scams caused our world of hoodwinking and “it’s all about me” to come tumbling down.

Change you to change the world.

I am Albert Gaulden and I approve of this message.

Albert Clayton Gaulden is the founding director of the Sedona Intensive and author of You’re Not Who You Think You Are: A Breakthrough Guide to Discovering the Authentic You. For more information about Albert and Sedona Intensive visit http://www.sedonaintensive.com.

Purchase You’re Not Who You Think You Are at http://tinyurl.com/5gycfm.

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When the Congressional Committee was interrogating the CEOs of major banking institutions this week the Gang of 10 money changers reacted like deer caught in the headlights. One rogue financial whiz, John Thain, former CEO of Merrill Lynch and most recently an axed employee of Bank of America, had given a separate television interview where he said that ‘in order to keep good help you had to pay those [outrageous] bonuses’-which was what ultimately got him kicked out of the BofA.To some of us his misplayed sense of entitlement and hubris echoed the attitude of that infamous Emperor who fiddled while Roma burned. As I watched the proceedings on C-SPAN, I was also reminded of all the “became we can” stupidities that led to the bloodbath that became the French Revolution.

Heartening to me was Congresswoman, Maxine Waters from California who was relentless in her pursuit of the answer to the question, “How many of you raised the interest rates on credit cards of the very taxpayers who are saving your banks to the tune of billions of dollars?” As only in civilization when the Republic is about to sink into both oceans, the moderator told her to shut up! I was, perhaps, reading his mind; ‘scuse’ He gaveled that her time was up.

I feel that in spite of all the earthquakes beneath our houses and the insecurity that most of us are feeling, at the same time I believe that it is that proverbial, ‘payday someday’; it is a time of reckoning; it is a time of living within our means; and it is a time to look at how we put our very lives at risk. Never forget how the wings of a butterfly can contribute to the tsunami. But it is also a time to stop the suckling greedy pigs living like fat cats on tax payers’ money, or worse, you know, fiddling while our Republic burns to the ground.

I am Albert Gaulden and I approve of this message.

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When I left the grocery store yesterday an elderly woman was struggling with her sacks of groceries so I took them from her arms and carried them to her car. She was so thankful that she asked me, “Now what can I do for you? I replied, “You already did.”

Kindness is what we need in the world more than trillion dollar stimulus packages from the government. Consideration for another’s needs takes priority for me over how the money men can shore up my retirement. Love of freedom to worship as one chooses means more to me than all the proverbial tea in China. Seeing what really matters in these perilous times is a benchmark of how far I have progressed in the Consciousness part of my life.

The next time you see someone who needs you, ask them if they could use a helping hand. Go the extra mile to ease their burden. We all think too much in terms of money and what it can buy. From now on look to see what money can’t buy that you have to give to someone else.

I am Albert Gaulden and I approve of this message

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My business partner Scott’s horse named Magic had to be put down today because the veterinarian said that the horse was in too much pain to live. Although everything was done to try to save him, Scott made the decision for the vet to euthanize Magic. As the last shot was administered to Magic, he raised his head and looked back at Scott one last time to say goodbye. When I talked to Scott to see how the horse was doing, Scott told me that Magic was dead. I started to cry and I could not stop crying. I called a lot of friends to share Magic’s passing and I cried and cried some more.

The odd thing about my attachment to Magic was that I have never had a pet, although I have made a contract to raise a wire fox terrier beginning March. Still more curious for a non-pet owner, I had looked at a few horses with Scott several years ago when he decided he wanted to buy a horse. When I walked up to the stable where Magic lived, I knew the minute I saw him that he was Scott’s horse. He was an American Paint Horse, and a beautiful one at that. To tell the truth I went to see Magic half a dozen times, never rode him, but fed him some hay and a few apples. But there was something about that horse that drew me and I felt we had a mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart connection.

Scott told me today that there were many times when he first bought Magic that he wanted to sell him back to the people who had sold the horse to him. Magic was spirited, stubborn and very strong-willed, oftentimes frustrating Scott as he tried to adjust to Magic’s temperament. But Scott stuck with his tough start with Magic and the two of them had a symbiosis like I have never seen anyone have with a horse.

I don’t know how long it will take me to let go of the pain of Magic’s death, but this I do know: horses, like people, never die. Magic will be back someday I am sure and possibly as a young colt for one of Scott’s children, who are sure to be here one day in the near future. But until he does return I have to say “Goodbye, Magic-Happy Trails”. What a great three years you had with Scott and I enjoyed the chance to watch the two of you trudging the road of happy destiny together.

I am Albert Gaulden and I approve of this message.

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There was an old saw a few years ago that said ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say about somebody, sit by me’. A lot of people had those biting words stitched onto throw pillows and placed them where bad mouths could see it and heed it by chewing up anybody who was not in the room. The Internet has had the same effect. Nasty, biting and mean-spirited vitriol spreads like the Great Plague throughout the communication network. Since we are all passengers on the Ship of Fools in the sinking Republic due to all the malfeasance in the financial markets (to which most of us co-signed by investing in or expecting something too good to be true to be true-subprime), every doomsayer in the world is typing dark and hopeless despair for us all to read so we can all die beneath these ‘latter day’ predictions.

I know that I am just one person who knows what he sees when he looks and what he hears when he listens, but here are my predictions for all to read-etch them onto that solid rock in your front yard, stitch them onto pillows on your settee, but most of all enter them into the caverns of your mind and allow them to open your heart:  BETTER TIMES ARE HERE. And make sure you repeat a phrase for your self to hear, I WILL DO MY PART TO CREATE BETTER TIMES. If we created bleak we can create blessing.

I do not like rap music or heavy metal, so I do not listen to it at home or away. I do not expect the bank to extend me revolving credit, so I pay as I go. I do not judge, damn or criticize other people, so I balance my head and my heart to discern who is safe to be with and who is not. But I never ever am going to be a part of the vast conspiracy to sink the planet because I gossip and destroy other people as a way to make me feel better about myself. We are at a crossroads in our survival which depends on how connected we are to the whole. Did you ever suspect that when the geometry professor said the ‘sum is a whole of its parts’ that he was speaking about the collective unconscious made manifest?

Bad words boomerang. Make sure you change you to change the world, including cleaning up the bad things you say about anyone doing the best that he or she can with what they have left.

I am Albert Gaulden and I approve of this message.

http://www.sedonaintensive.com/

http://www.yourenotwhoyouthinkyouare.com/

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