LETTER TO A FRIEND WHO IS THINKING OF COLLAPSING THE BIZ AND LEAVING TOWN --

YOU are the keystone of a family, a parent to children, a key person in a growing business, and in a way, you are a GOD TO -- and IN -- a baby universe.

You run things that are important to not only your family but to this planet. It took GOD and Creation approx 50 million years to evolve the human race to the point that you became the final flowering bud, fruit and twig on a branch that took millions of years to develop -- on a tree that is itself, billions of years old.

Then, it took a few decades of raising and educating you to make you what you are today. A KIND person, a wise one, with specific talents and gifts and the grit to run that business that so many depend upon.

The miracle is that God has taken a gentle butterfly like you and turned into the TRIANGULAR PIECE OF IRON that holds up a very definite arch. You are the keystone.

If we compared your universe to a SOLAR SYSTEM, -- you are like a SUN holding multiple circles of planets in its gravitational field, planets called friends, family, coworkers, team, clients and strangers. You are an ENERGY BUNDLE in human form, not unlike a keystone that holds up an arch or the SUN that holds up a universe.

God spent a few decades getting you situated, in that unique job, in that circle of workers, friends, family -- basically placing an angel in a position of use and power to those people and to the world one day, if you move (as you will,) in exponential gradients forward.

You are a spirit whose main talents were faith, gentleness, prayerfulness, ....some numerical or business talents, some esthetic taste, a lot of good manners....but who basically was a little floppy winged angel on earth. NO TIGER at all!

AND God PUT THIS BUTTERFLY in a position of power where usually only ambitious tigers and sharks end up. The Saint as a baby DONALD TRUMP? THE gentle ungreedy, do-gooder, as head of a clan, a family, a business? Well, hey, IT MAKES SENSE. The universe wants kind people in power so God moved you to the place that you occupy.

He wanted the prow of the boat to be as gentle as the swoop of the vessel over the waves. That was the intent of the Supreme Architect. He didn’t put the shark on the nose of the boat, did he? Now, you say that there are too many killers around you, it’s worn you down and you want out.

Think for a moment, do you think Fate put those SHARKS around and behind you as a trick? To make you suffer? NO. They ARE behind you for a reason. They are destined to carry YOU to your destination the way a heavy, cumbersome ship, flapping noisy sails and reeking of smelly sailors will carry the ORNAMENTAL PROW OF THE BOAT across thudding choppy seas so that everything has the appearance of bliss.

THE thugs rowing the boat, the snarling captain are all in your service, at your service. THE BOAT will always be behind you, noisily, SCARY maybe but you will always be in front and on top floating. YOU HEAR THEM sweating and growling and fighting and scrimmaging behind you and FEEL they are after your soft butterfly wings. NOT SO! Even if they are on some level, what can they do? You carry them so the basic truth is, they serve you. They row the boat. They certainly do test the pilot .. with all that snarling rage but hey LET THEM be tigers. Let them be rude and crude. THEY ARE THE MUSCLE lower down, the motor. MOTORS make noise. It's their nature. CONCERN YOURSELF WITH OTHER THINGS. The air, the dreams, the prayerfulness, the true heading... BE THE BLISSFUL BUTTERFLY and continue to occupy the ornamental but also quite functional position that GOD AIMED YOU FOR ALL THESE billions of years of human evolution and your own set of MAGICAL decades of learning and now service.

Keep that higher perspective in mind. Maintain LOFTY VISION, compassion for tigers and sharks that make you chronically nervous…..as well as for yourself and your anxiousness being placed near them. But don’t think of lower critters, basically just AIM yourself and them at infinity. And when you tremor at the growl or the rek, ask THE GODS to TAKE NOTE OF your PLIGHT, their INTENT, their PLANS and be your Celestial spymaster and help you intuit what to do if they should attempt to move close and take a bite out of your beautiful, inspiring butterfly wings.

FOR US PASSENGERS in the hold of the ship you lead, your family, friends? YOU are like an old BURGUNDY that has smoothed out and is resonant with deliciousness. A sweet, red, complex tone, -- a richness, the ability to laugh and weep alternately. We marvel at how unique you are. You keep us all in laughter and contentment even when it rains and pours outside. You are our lodestone, the most successful member of our group.

TO SUCCUMB to some SPORE OF UGLY VINEGAR and let one molecule of life’s ugly, acidic germ into your consciousness is to turn all your well-earned, time-gained ripeness into being sour, cranky vinegar just like the one they’re made of.

YOU sit in a throne room before your courtiers, students, friends, family. To us, you are the royal personage. A THOUSAND SEEKERS listen to your smallest word. We learn from you. We need you here. What do you think it takes an ordinary, gentle person to win that respect and good will? YET YOU are thinking of turning it all in at the cash register and getting a few dimes back? Giving up? Packing off for faraway lands and starting over?

When folks sell businesses they usually sell their GOOD WILL for an extra hundred grand. YOU WILL NOT TAKE YOUR life's GOOD WILL TO this paradisical other place that you plan to go to live in. NO you will arrive a forty or fifty yr old with the shakes and find the keystone figure all alone in a new place is going to have a damn hard go of it. You are going to land in a strange place and have to launch a new biz, impress a new crowd ... all of them so strange they’re almost like foreigners. And if you haul kids with you, the trauma is multiplied.

Maybe this would have been do-able and easy when you were younger but believe me, harder at our age. WHO can LAUNCH himself as a KEYSTONE on his or her own? NOBODY. It will scud across the landscape and roll to a stop, another heavy rock.

GOD LAUNCHED YOU THERE. THERE IN this city, where you are the Emperor or Chief Vizier Guru. Don't succumb to some damn fortuneteller telling you that you have a VENUS LINE in this other land. Don’t believe those inner voices that tell you that the sharks' breathing won't be heard in Costa Rica or EUROPE. Don’t believe that Asia is some gossamer paradise where you can lay your head down on Mother Nature’s green breast. Bull! NERVOUS BREAKDOWN TIME! PARADISE is where you are.

YOUR patch of earth is there -- GOD designed it that way. After all those YEARS of work put in here are YOU GONNA TRASH what IS for what isn't? APPRECIATE and be grateful for what IS and what God slaved to get you. AVOID believing in COMETS. Comets are bright and come in a shimmer of sparks and promise a fast ride but they swish by earth and put its lights out and kill all the millions of years of evolution in ONE FELL SWOOP. COMETS are disaster. THEY ARE NOT RELIABLE chums or buddies. They are cold, lifeless places. Their glamour false. Their shower of diamonds just chips of ice.

IF the evolution, so hard won, over your five decades SINKS into the DARK AGES at GOD's will and cannot earn its way, then God will send you to Costa Rica or Paris soon enough. Frankly a week in either place is all I’d want. BUT DO NOT fearfully anticipate this disaster and succumb and give in like mold on an orange, collapse this gorgeous piece of fruit that was won by millions of years of evolution of humanity and the evolution of your business, this precious ORANGE tree standing in a GARDEN city and mold the thing down cuz you hear sharks breathing hard behind you!

AS FOR THE PAIN of personal blame in this disaster befalling your biz? The money disaster in USA is so bad that our markets fall daily, they plunged yesterday, the day before I wrote this. CONSUMER spending is so bad that it's REALLY MAKING HEADLINES in papers. Ditto joblessness, Export of manufacturing and services. As a stargazer, I keep my fingers on that pulse. There is no blame if your biz sinks to l0k when it can do 30k a mnth. NO BLAME. Except our nation spends 500 million a day to keep unrighteous killing of ARABS and plundering going. And the IMF knows USA is on a death course and cannot rescue its butt by seizing Araby’s oil. AND OIL WENT TO FIFTY yesterday instead of the usual FORTY and the center does not hold, it's true. BUT YOU HOLD UP YOUR CENTER. PEOPLE like you who can skirmish by in hard times follow the BOTTOMFEEDER philosophy, and be frugal and make it fine. JUST be the butterfly that is the KEYSTONE of our universe, be decorative, charming, beautiful, colorful. Even if you think your wings cannot hold up the arch, have faith. I think there is a superior force holding you up there….cuz I know a butterfly’s wings couldn’t hold up the huge arch you’ve been holding all these years.

You are going to have to fight the battle better, and not let it tear at you. Fight the way GHENGHIS KHAN fought, in fact, summon up his consciousness. Or if you prefer, ask the Goddesses known as the Valkyries to assist you. They were the NORSE GODDESSES who carried shields and spears, horned hats. You see them in Wagner operas. Ask the actual ASTRAL DIETIES of the VALKYRIES to assist you in moments of fear and trembling. They are especially sympathetic to the plights of women who head families, work a hard job or run a business.

Last, study Metaphysics as the problem isn’t out there, it’s in here. We have immense resourcefulness and pulling together as a family, studying the LEGACY WEBSITE which teaches GUERILLA CAPITALISM.