Dogboy, “As The World Turns,” indeed! So here is the latest amazing episode: As mentioned above, my new job is going GREAT! I mean, certainly I would rather be a practicing psychologist for $100+/hour than reading Tarot cards for about $15/hour, but since that is not possible due to state licensing restrictions, I am very happy to have this opportunity to use my psychology education to help people. And, in our little impoverished redneck area, $15 is actually considered quite good; most of the jobs here are minimum-wage, so again I am VERY thankful! Plus I won’t have to commute into town.
However, in the few months that passed after I was given the contract, prior to the position actually opening up, we had fallen deeper into debt, in part because our tenant had lost her job and couldn’t pay rent. I really did NOT want to throw her and her adorable little son out on the street during the holidays, but I desperately needed income from the trailer - whether to rent out, or to sell, but either way I couldn’t really afford to have them living there for free. I had told them they needed to be out by the 1st. Well, the same day I began my new job, Dec. 23, my tenant also found a great new job! But, it didn’t actually start until this week. So we are both working towards our first month’s paycheck. Meanwhile the tenant had lost her car insurance due to nonpayment and subsequently her driver’s license as a result. She was driving home the other day and her car suddenly conked out just a few blocks away; a policeman stopped to help her push the car over to the side. He was almost ready to drive off when he came back and said, “I see that your license is suspended due to lack of insurance?” She burst into tears and he said, “Well technically I should take you down to the station, but since you are having such a hard time with your car being broken down and everything, I will let you go, but you MUST get your insurance a.s.a.p.!” Thank goodness he let her off! But now she has to purchase new insurance AND pay for car repairs - which will probably take her first paycheck.
Now, my husband FINALLY has health insurance (“Obamacare”), thank God, and he saw the surgeon today. The surgeon said the hernia he acquired at work but which was not covered by Workers’ Compensation due to a loophole in FL law, is now life-threatening and he needs surgery immediately. He said, “You waited too long!” but my husband explained that he didn’t have insurance previously so he could not do anything about it until now. The surgeon scheduled him for surgery next Monday! (It’s unusual to get a surgical appointment that quickly.) Husband will be off work for at least a week, probably two.
So, we find ourselves still in an untenable financial situation for at least another month, especially with the ongoing repairs to the trailer and continued attempts to pacify the sinkhole before it swallows the trailer and other parts of the property. Well, when I got the mail today I had received another very generous donation from the same person who helped us a couple of months ago! This will definitely offset the lack of income from the tenant and husband’s surgery. Just in the nick of time, once again! Wow. I am so humbled with gratitude at this person’s kindness and generosity, not only in helping us to meet our immediate needs, but also, more importantly, to be able to keep the studio open for yoga students. I am looking forward to teaching again in the near future. We will use part of the donation to “tithe,” i.e. contribute to charities that we support when we are able, such as the local homeless shelter. Very, very grateful indeed!
Wow! Thoughts, prayers, samyama coming your way!
So touched by your post Radharani. It’s wonderful to hear of kindness and generosity, yours to your tenants, as well as your donor’s charity.
I’m sending love and prayers your way too 
Sounds like things are truckin’ along!
Sey
quick update: Need to be “quick” because my new job is going GREAT and the calls have been virtually non-stop! Today I am being “Featured” (special promotion) for the second time and I haven’t even been there 90 days yet. Last week I came within one hour of reaching the threshold of talk-time required for a raise, and I hope to be there soon. Like I said above, I’d rather make a living in my profession, but since that’s not possible, this is a great alternative and I am now actually making WAY more money doing this, than I could at a “real job” in town! I am SO thankful. Now today, as much as I love my job, I’m actually looking forward to being DONE for the night because my throat is getting sore and voice is wearing out. I have tomorrow and Monday off and plan to do some gardening. Thanks again to all my friends for your encouragement!!
Well my dear friends, I have not been on this forum much for quite some time, and for a good reason: My job/contract with the Famous Psychic Line has been VERY busy! Since it began last December, I’ve received several promotions and raises, and to my great surprise and humble amazement, have quickly risen to near the top of the list and have so many clients calling that I barely have time to take a break to pee in between calls. I am truly blown away by this unexpected success. It’s hard to believe, at age 52, I can FINALLY say, “I LOVE my job!” something I always thought was darn near impossible. It’s almost too good to be true. I love the company, I love my clients, and I feel really good about being able to help them. I set my own schedule so I can still teach yoga on the side. And the icing on the cake is that with the raises I am now actually making pretty good money, especially relative to the jobs available in this little town.
The only problem now is I have to figure out a way to pay my taxes, being an independent contractor - I had not anticipated the huge jump in percentage when you go from “poverty level” to “just barely middle class” (which is, nonetheless, a lot of money to me!). It is ironic because now I can finally pay the mortgage, but if I can’t pay the taxes, the government will take my house anyway. “They get you coming and going.” 
But, I don’t want to get political here…
Anyway, I am SO grateful for this wonderful opportunity AND for all the support and encouragement from you, my dears! I don’t think I would have had the courage to go for this position, to believe that I could do it, without your help. Thank God for the sangha.
Also of interest, and very pertinent to AYP, there is absolutely no question that the ability to successfully do my job as a “psychic” is enabled by my yoga practice. I’ve been extremely busy with renovations on the trailer subsequent to evicting the Tenants From Hell (Lucifer 
had thrown them out because they were too messy for hell, a horror story for another time!) and putting in lots of hours on the Psychic Line, as well as my vegetable garden, so I admit there have been days when I don’t get to devote as much time as I’d like to my practice. While Divine Grace gets me through those days and allows me to fulfill my duty to the clients, the fact is I feel a huge difference in the energy, I lack confidence, and it’s somewhat difficult and draining to do my job. Whereas, on the days that I do make time for my full yoga practice, I totally feel my oneness with the Source, get out of my own way and just be a clear channel for Divine Love and Wisdom to effortlessly flow through me to the clients. So even though it sometimes feels a bit “indulgent” to enjoy a nice long ecstatic yoga session, in reality it is necessary and beneficial to my ability to help others. Funny how that works, huh?!
So I don’t have time to be on here much, but will try to drop by from time to time, and regardless, I keep you guys always close to my heart! And you are always welcome to contact me by email any time. LOVE!
Love you, Radharani, and so happy things have turned for the better! If you must work, there is nothing better than loving the job. Perhaps your tax situation will ease with an extra “Abundance” sutra ( ). As my practice has deepened, so has my belief in allowing and surrendering to “openness”, yoga will assist in meeting all needs.
Blessings to you. Thanks for the update
I’ve loved following your story… Thanks for sharing it! And I’m so happy for you!
Keep on truckin’, Radharani! [OM]
Dear Radharani,
NIce and refreshing to see your update as the first thing on a Monday Morning…
FILLS me with HOPE… as i too seek to claim " I LOVE MY JOB, MY WORK "
Amen…
Best Wishes…
Doing a “I am overjoyed at your good news” dance
Sey
Hello again my dears - well, it’s been a little over 6 months since my last post, and now I will bring you the latest fascinating episode of this soap opera:
After the Tenants from Hell moved out, husband and I were busy at work on renovations to the trailer and made excellent progress. We had to remove garbage that covered the entire floor and all surfaces, kind of like on that “Hoarders” t.v. show except in this case it was “only” about a foot deep. The debris included large amounts of food waste, especially sweets, along with hypodermic needles and empty insulin vials in half-eaten boxes of cookies (tenant was type 1 diabetic, making the findings even more horrifying, and I suspect heroin as well). All the plates were covered w/ moldy food remnants and scattered throughout the home. Every surface in the kitchen was covered with maggots and the stench was unbelievable. While cleaning off the maggots I chanted japa (silently, or else the little flies hatching from the maggots would have flown into my mouth!) Also found a leaky pipe under the kitchen sink that apparently had been that way for months and nobody had bothered to tell me, leading to rotted wood and mold. In addition, there was a bedbug infestation. I’d never seen them before; what was this, a sort of tick? Had to look it up online. Upon closer investigation, the bed was so heavily infested that it had to be taken to the dump, and the bugs had spread throughout the trailer. It was an incredible challenge to get rid of them, and several people actually advised us that arson might be our best option… Cleaning and debugging the trailer was a truly Herculean task akin to the Augean stables, but we prevailed! By the end of the summer we had mostly restored the trailer to its former beauty and were ready to move in. The plan was for us to live there, while keeping the house as a yoga studio and retreat center. The floor of the master bath still needed to be replaced (that part was not rented out; we’d been using the master suite for storage), but since it would hold my weight we figured it was not urgent and could wait until we had more money for major repairs. So, by fall we moved in and were quite happy there. I got the house ready for yoga students and had several retreat guests lined up!
But, then I started getting progressively sicker. At first I assumed it was just a CFIDS relapse, to be expected after all the exertions of the renovation while trying to keep up with my job and the vegetable garden. But even with rest, I kept getting worse. Husband also complained of a cough and respiratory problems but as he is a heavy smoker, hard to tell. Then one night our cat was looking up at the ceiling fan meowing at a black rope-like thing hanging off one of the fan blades. We had so many other things to clean that I’d neglected the fan up until that point. The blades were covered in a fuzzy black substance - not ordinary “dust.” Then I noticed the ceiling was also covered with the substance, especially near the HVAC intake, and I began to cough and sneeze convulsively, eyes burning, throat tightening. WTF?! It suddenly dawned on me: Black Mold! It explained the aggravation of my immune deficiency and all the other symptoms we’d been having. Unable to determine the origin of the Mold, and couldn’t afford professional analysis and intervention, we had to move out. There was no alternative. We had to move into the yoga studio/ retreat center!
Meanwhile we had the worst plague of insects in memory which devoured 90% of our crops despite using all manner of natural, unnatural and toxic remedies including help from our many reptile and amphibian friends. And the sinkhole has progressed closer to the trailer, perhaps a moot point since it was now uninhabitable. Additional pretty but worrisome springs and streams came up on the property. Upon studying sinkholes on the internet, I learned some fascinating information; more below.
We moved into the house/yoga studio with all our animals and it soon became apparent that I could not teach yoga here because it would never be clean enough for students to lie on the floor unless I took lots of time off from my regular job to clean, in which case I couldn’t pay the bills. Thought about trying to sell the parcel w/ the trailer on it to pay off my debts, but now with the sinkholes and Black Mold, that would not be possible (or even legal). After speaking with several debt counselors and attorneys, I finally decided to file for bankruptcy. This was a very good exercise in humility and ego detachment which took me a while to process. Once I’d agreed to take the attorneys’ advice and began the filing process, a banking error turned up which required that I must wait a year to file bankruptcy! (The bank had for some reason shown me as a “joint owner” of my father’s accounts, which I was not.) So as there was nothing further I could do, I left the matter in God’s hands, hoping I would not be sued before the year had passed, and turned my attention to my work - my wonderful job as Spiritual Advisor for the Famous Psychic Company, which was now full-time, quite busy and demanding, and very rewarding! I would not be able to do this work were it not for the siddhis that come with a lifetime of yoga practice and exist for the purpose of helping others.
Meanwhile the rain, which had been unusually heavy since 2013 when the sinkholes began appearing, continued to come down and they grew, with new springs and streams bubbling up. Husband said it looked like the ground was sinking (technically, I learned, “subsiding”) although it’s difficult to tell without objective measurements, like probably satellite telemetry. I did some research and learned about the fascinating terrain of our property, which includes limestone “cliffs” and areas resembling the Grand Canyon on a smaller scale, with springs and streams. I never knew Florida had cliffs. Turns out, it does not; our “cliffs” are the side of an old sinkhole! The property, like much of Florida, has a substrate of limestone caverns and underground streams, which causes the surface of the land to collapse when the water table rises or falls substantially. The water table here is just about 3-8 feet below the surface, hence the shallow sinkholes that had been forming and the lovely clear springs rising to the surface in low spots and flowing down to the creek which borders the property sloping down on 3 sides. So basically, from what I have learned, the entire property is geologically unstable and the ground could open up under us at any moment and swallow everything up! It could take a century or it could be tomorrow. Certainly there has been significant progression since I moved here in 2001 and especially since 2013. I designed and built the house to be hurricane proof, with 10-inch thick cement walls and a propane generator. Wouldn’t it be ironic if it fell into a sinkhole instead?!
It very well might, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. I don’t really know how to “worry” anymore but it would do no good in any event. It’s all in God’s hands. If we are to be swallowed up by a sinkhole, so be it. I am more concerned about not having a place to teach yoga, but I suppose this will work out somehow. Maybe we can find other living arrangements in another year or so after the bankruptcy is done and we get back on our feet financially. Until then, I am sending potential students to the HOY free video series on YouTube and to AYP Lessons and advising them to practice at home, and call or email me with any questions.
And so the ordinary, or even extraordinary, drama of life goes on and everything is ok even when it isn’t. It simply is what it is. Meanwhile as the Sufi saying goes, we just “do what needs to be done.” Dig ditches, shovel crushed concrete, mend fences, reinforce the barn floor, haul buckets of water in there for the horses on cold nights, etc. Soon we will plant our spring vegetable garden in the hope of getting a crop before the summer insect onslaught. All the while, thanks to yoga, we rest in God’s Love and Bliss in the center of the heart which remains the constant Reality amidst the movie.
Hi Radharani, nice to read you again! Your experience resonates with me because I am also having some special troubles in my life, and through yoga I feel/know somehow that everything is allright although by society standards one coild think that life is hard on me. Wish you all the best.
After reading your account of sinkholes, maggots, mold, etc., there is a sutra in the Samyama book appendix that comes to mind…it’s “elements”…which results in “mastery over the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, and inner space), enabling manipulation of all matter.” In addition to the core set of sutras, I’ve been throwing it in the mix, and having some success. You may find it beneficial as well.
Keep on truckin’, Radha. 
Oh Rahadrani, so sorry to hear of your misadventures. Your attitude is admirable and I hope the Universe provides for you and your spouse