[Helpers] News and updates...

[Mystress Angelique Serpent]

   In case anyone has not been reading the tea room.... since Sept, 
complications from my whiplash injury has been severely limiting my 
computer time, and is spelling a lifestyle change, away from spending 18 
hour days at the computer. Sometimes I forget, and fall into old habits, 
then I hurt for days after.

   So, though it may seem like I abandoned this list when I went to Europe, 
in truth  I am more dependent on my helpers than ever before. At the 
beginning I said I was learning to delegate and not micro-manage... now 
Goddess makes it an imperative.

  I have started writing emails to this list a dozen times in the past six 
months but didn't finish or send them because I could not get clear or 
focused.  You all have been in my mind, I did not like to keep you waiting 
but I could do aught else. Sorry.

  I don't even know how many of you are still with me, and interested. If 
you have given up, I understand.

   I was occupied with sorting myself out... I've been through some pretty 
intense changes this past year and fell into bad resistance that hit bottom 
at Yule... but, I surrendered and now I am retiring from public session 
work, and training healers to replace me.  I want to use the computer time 
I can manage to focus on writing and tending to FST.

   I want to do more travelling, to teach... but I am too fragile for it 
right now. For months I could not lift anything heavier than a tea pot, now 
I can manage a small laundry basket... the whiplash is complicated by a 
compressed disc from an injury a decade ago, and another at age 15. It is 
right under my bra strap, between the heart and power chakra so slouching 
at a desk is very bad... and it is difficult to maintain perfect posture if 
I am out of body, channelling or hyper-focused on work.

   The past two years has brought a sea change in my attitude about my 
work.  I have always held the position that everybody is God of their own 
lives and nobody needs me to do this work. I do it because it is enjoyable 
and because quite frankly I am ADD grrl, really not very employable.  This 
attitude theoretically protects me from falling into a hero trip, and 
reminds me to keep giving power back to people.
   I don't advertise much, because Goddess brings me people... more than I 
can handle, usually.  I really don't make much effort to "sell" my work.

   Two years ago someone gave me a gift.  He turned it around. He suggested 
that if people are benefiting ( holy testimonials batman yes there is 
evidence people benefit) then because I am a hermit, people who could 
benefit never even know it exists. They don't get an opportunity to say yay 
or nay...  which made my attitude seem very selfish.

  Sat with the idea for two years... balancing the two chakras perspectives 
and finding the common ground.  Realizing that I hit the limit of what this 
one woman show can do... well, quite a while ago!

   It came to a head this fall, on realizing I must retire from public 
session work, feeling burned out and wanting to chuck it all... and at the 
same time feeling like what I do is just not meant to die with my 
retirement. Goddess gave it to me, to  share...

  One thing that has really come up is how much I have been sabotaging my 
work and holding things up to keep it small enough to manage myself.  It 
seemed ok to do it, but now it just seems wrong.  FST is meant to grow way 
bigger than me, and it being held back because I am ADD grrl control junkie 
Marlboro woman just seems not ok anymore... for that reason I am beginning 
a lineage.

   I have never been able to stick with one career for more than 6 years... 
ADD folks have colourful resume' ... but my spirituality is one thing that 
has always been of interest.  FST passed its sixth anniversary last summer, 
the K-list it's tenth.

   Either I pass it on and let go of control, or it dies when I finally and 
fully burn out on it.

   The icon: Confucius leaving China.

   How the books of the Wisdom of Confucius came to be written:  Confucius 
was on his way out of China, to retire to a monastery in Tibet and prepare 
for death. One of his students was a border guard whose job it was to make 
sure the treasures of China did not leave China.  The guard declared that 
the wisdom of Confucius was a treasure of China, and would not let 
Confucius leave the country until he had written it all down to leave 
behind. It took years...

  I've been getting a funny but nice though odd image of myself becoming 
like Osho... the devotees would bring him out to talk every afternoon, then 
put him back in the box after... and the students would take the 
transcripts and video and make books and tarot cards and meditations and 
they built a whole luxe Kundalini retreat center around him. He died, and 
it didn't matter... the snowball kept growing.

   I am on some internet marketing type email lists... one link led me to a 
page of "top ten musts for every successful website"  and I could not 
understand a bloody word of it. What the heck is XML??  I am the dinosaur, 
sinking into the tarpit.

   When we were videotaping the first FST videos, I was doing as I do when 
posting to the K-list: opening to the thoughts and questions of those who 
would read, through time and responding to that content as well.

   The K-list only has a few hundred people... but on the other side of the 
camera, through time, were uncountable thousands.  It was quite 
overwhelming, I was drowning in Amrita so much I could barely speak around 
the flood.  I had to reorient, and turn inward.

   When the course first opened I was disappointed that the thousands did 
not materialize, then as things got busier, relieved.... because I 
discovered a limit to what I could do.  FST now gets more students some 
months, than it did in the first year... still, with no advertising but 
word of mouth and search engines.

   I did some work on K-teacher these past few weeks.  There has been an 
ongoing problem with my email and the K-list quotas... I finally figured 
out that "800 emails per hour per domain" means fire-serpent.org, most of 
my other K related sites are in subdirectories of that.
   I have a reseller account, so I moved K-teacher to its own cpanel. FST 
is next... volunteers welcome!

   I also changed my email response form on K-teacher to redirect to a new 
guestbook-bulletin board. I have never been able to keep up with the mail 
it gets, now the healers in training can help out... the testimonials get 
posted automatically, and the board can grow into a searchable FAQ.

http://kundalini-teacher.com/visitors/YaBB.pl

   Please help break the ice, login and tell a story? People are telling me 
they cannot post to all the boards but I have no idea why...

    In other news....

   I need to update my payment processing system and members database for 
FST.

   Right now it is all by hand. I get an emailed registration - sometimes- 
not if they use a proxy server.. then wait for payment before adding them 
to the members list (copy & paste usernames and passwords from their email) 
via cpanel and emailing back their confirmation with a sig file. Sometimes 
I don't get a registration form, just a payment. Sometimes it shows up 
late,  sometimes I email them asking them to try the form again or I email 
them another sig with the registration info.  Some people sign up and never 
pay, but fewer and fewer, these days.

   My student database is the email box in Eudora that filters 
registrations by "to" and subject. Searchable. Handy.... but ... then as 
you know, in the sig file of the confirmation I ask people to add 
themselves to the announcement list.

   There has to be a system that would do most of this automatically... and 
for good measure, it would even send a friendly reminder when the year is 
ending... but not delete people from the member list because it is good 
that grads hang around the tea room to support newbies.

   Additionally, because I am retiring from public session work and I am 
training helpers to take over public sessions and I need to work out some 
sort of a client list database and payment system to sort out who goes 
where and give the helpers their commissions.

   Hey I'm back... sorta... in a limited way... :) Anybody here?

   If are, please update me on where you are at, what you were working on 
and how far you got with it. Thanks! Blessings...

  PS:
I'll  be hanging out in my chatroom tomorrow, on and off between noon and 
4pm pst