I Ran Out of Elbow Grease

It took me a long time to believe in Elbow Grease.

My mother initiated me in the idea, and gave me a great number of opportunities to use my Elbow Grease. “Put some Elbow Grease in it,” she said encouraging harder work.

I think I fully grasped the value of the E.G. from sport, shagging fly balls, hustling, entering all the track events.

Later as someone said, ‘Do trips are better than don’t trips’.

"With little or no doubt, Saying yes!

Taking risks.

I extended participation, the verb, into partying, a way of being with Elbow Grease.

Elbow Grease had me follow through, got me warmed me up, and made the extra effort.

So now as I found myself painting the neighbors walls, and my elbow began to ache, I recognized it was from lack of Elbow Grease. The effort was there, but the invisible, now so obvious lubricant, that allows long-term elbow over exertion, was gone.

Where did it go?

Is it age?

Did I diminish my supply? ‘Guess I just used up all my elbow grease.’

Where went the elasticity?

Did I pop a seal?

Do I need an oil change, tune-up, overhaul?

What’s the lesson here?

What is Elbow Grease?

What paths of opportunity does Elbow Grease open?

Where can I get some more?

Is E.G. helpful or impeding belief?

E.G. was an indoctrinated belief, I can still hear mom’s voice of encouragement.

Elbow Grease is mom’s effort.

But I also modeled E.G. Like using it to shift into a higher faster gear-

‘Being able to leap tall buildings in a single bound….’

Working to make, Kahlil Gibran’s quote real, “Work as love made visible.”

So E.G is about effort. What do I want to learn about effort?

Ah, is it time to learn/find a new kind of effort?

Since I am out of E.G. should I learn a lesser Zen-type effort?

Perhaps it was a the moment the Elbow Grease ran out and the efforting, the trying, teeth gritted, fist clinched, mouth held just the right way, breath holding, EFFORT, let go, and as some New Ager’s intone LET GOD.

As I worked on the Sleep to Dream book, with dreamland as my laboratory, result required a brand of E.G. to awaken and write out the results of the experiments.
On 10/2/03 I awoke with a start (interesting verb that started a process I am encapsulating) it was 1:23am and that moment I felt a key to unlock the mystery of how to become more real.

Then an epiphany.

My desire to know the wordage, the process, of how a number code could be so meaningful in becoming real for others.

I was as easy as the digital clock said, 1,2,3.

When I aligned my primary affirmation to be real and present for others, I AM.

Likewise, I could align to my self-important show-off or un-align to my higher self and I become separate, as in: “Birds of the land and sea. I am not a bird as you are. A high ambition moves me, and to satisfy it I am separate from other creatures.” From the Sufi tale, Conference of the Birds.

Reminds me of lines that date to my childhood.

Remember "One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go."

Well here’s a passage from Charles Johnson’s book, Middle Passage, Madam Marie Toulouse, a Creole who had spent her young womanhood as the mistress of first a banker, then a famous actor, a minister, and finally a mortician was asked. "Why these four?" Madame Toulouse replied to her questioner, "Why dear it was one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go,”….