Living in the city, it is very difficult to resist becoming swept up in the materialist river of the dominant culture. Some say that each person dreams the world into existence – meaning that we imagine our circumstances before they come into being – and so we can choose to live in any kind of world we desire. However, if one doesn’t *choose* to dream their desires into reality, then they unconsciously participate in the cultural dream – in our case, a nightmare of materialism, greed, and fear. A catch is that we are influenced by the psychic spheres of the people we spend our time around; even if our friends are conscious waking beings, the vast majority of urbanized humans are deeply asleep, co-creating the cultural nightmare by not actively envisioning an alternative.

So I find myself. Overly concerned about money, and thusly having money problems. Continuously wandering the detour-laden route to a potential happy place in an indistinct future paved with dollars and credit cards. Work to earn money to buy food and pay rent to have the space to do our practice (the personal work that will purify and strengthen our bodies and minds) – but somehow there’s just always some more work or more chores and the practice is ever elusive. Worse, is that the money never seems to come quickly enough, and is spent faster than it is earned, accruing debt, so the money becomes even more important, and either the quality of work goes down to earn more, or simply more hours are contributed to earning money. Finally I find myself thinking, “if I just dedicate *all* my time to work, then I’ll earn *loads* and can pay off the debt and then save and then *someday* I can quit all this and *someday* I can dedicate all my time to the practice.”

Eh, No. A step in the wrong direction.
One cannot serve both God and Mammon.
My dream is not to work part time and practice part time. No.
My dream is to be a Hacker Ninja Poet Healer. All day, every day. With or without the money.
So: Sell the junk! Give it away! Destroy the credit cards, quit the job! Go. Go out to a place where the air is clean and the food comes from the Earth (did you know that??). Sleep and wake up and practice. Cook food for others and find enough to eat.
There is no strategy. There is not a plan. And it’s frightening, because there aren’t role-models wandering the streets of Reno who I can follow and learn from. People might think I’m crazy. I might not have a working car all the time. And it’s pretty likely that I’ll be uncomfortable.
But I’m uncomfortable right now, surrounded by too much shit.
And I don’t serve Mammon.