Image - Dandelion It's been a while since I've written a personal post -- full of I's and me's and my's.... (Along with reader comments, on-going details about my personal life migrated to Facebook and Twitter a few years ago.) Indulge me. There are at least a few good reasons for it -- both for me and for you.

Joy only happens in the present. Right now, I have everything I need to feel full and at peace.

My parents are living and healthy. They are both retired in relative prosperity. They are emotionally close to me and available. They are proud of who I have become.
My brother is successful in a creative career that coincides with exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up. He is loved by a sweet woman who is like a sister to me. He travels the world, and is about to start his fourth decade of outdoor adventures. He still looks up to me.
My pets are a daily source of joy and unconditional love. I know the Universe loves me because it sent me my Sam. I am in awe of the synchronicity involved in finding this creature on my doorstep. I know I'm on the right path because it brought us together in this time and place.
My friends are diverse, loving, clever, funny, interesting, and loyal. When I moved here six years ago, it was hard to meet people. I spent a few lonely years, isolated and focused on writing Shift Your Spirits. Simple hellos in cafes led to conversations, to invitations, and the momentum eventually became exponential. Today, I find myself in good company. I am surrounded, enfolded, included.
My romantic life has been virtually non-existent for eleven years. But, hey, what do you know? Someone with whom I've been shyly exchanging smiles across a cafe for several months just came over to my table and asked me out to dinner. Regardless of whether or not that leads to anything, one of the best romantic moments for me is the one when I realize someone likes me back.
My environment is magical. My home backs up to a fairy tale wood with a creek where I go for walks with my cats after supper. The view I see coming and going every day is the edge of the Appalachian Plateau that stretches from Alabama to New York. It hangs on the horizon, a tsunami wave of tree-bedazzled stone, hiding the sunsets.
My body has never been this strong. I've never been this comfortable in my own skin. At times during the past five years, my health has been a scary roller coaster. Now, in my early forties, my workout schedule would be absolutely daunting to a younger version of myself. I am physically powerful, and it energizes every aspect of my existence.
My creativity feels like living with a more-interesting twin. Somewhat manic-depressive, yes -- when he's uninspired, he's exhausting to be around ... but when he's turned up and on, he's a starship captain.
(Incidentally, the creativity of others sustains me. Trailing only food, water, and air to breathe, novelists provide the most important substance in the Universe. A perfect afterlife for me will be an infinite stormy spring day on a screen porch with Heaven's equivalent of a Kindle connected to an Amazon gift card that never zeroes out....)
My writing reaches tens of thousands of people all over the world every week. It is my magic. It expands my existence. It takes my mind and my heart beyond my edges and becomes part of others. My previous article "Pushing the River" was shared, retweeted, linked to, and republished hundreds of times. It has already received about a quarter of a million views -- a record for a new post. Just this week, I completed revisions of a piece of fiction that will introduce readers to a world I've been working on -- visiting and recording -- for thirteen years.
My partners are amazing. I believe one of the main ways that Spirit answers our prayers is by sending us other people -- my personal trainer, my fitness class teacher, my yoga instructors, my psychic, my therapist, my mentoring students, my peers, my editors, my beta readers, my sounding boards.... My co-creators at this time and place rock.

Does this all sound a bit too self-congratulatory? Damn right! Shouldn't it at least be celebratory?

What if that elusive Place and Time I'm always striving to reach ... is Here and Now?

There are three reasons I need to share this with you:

I need to acknowledge my blessings with gratitude -- loudly, proudly, at least once with great feeling.
I need you to think about how Right Now you too have (at least some sliver of) everything you need to be happy and at peace.
I need you to see that not one thing on the list above has anything to do with manifesting money.

No amount of money could buy what I most value. No amount of money will allow me to experience more of what I most cherish in this life.

Synchronicity. Serendipity. Peace. Love. Family. Friends. Children. Consorts. Motivation. Inspiration. Attention. Teachers. Partners.

Can you make your own versions of both these lists?

These treasures can be drawn out and expanded by your simple acknowledgement of even their faintest traces.

Even when none of what I've shared here today is true for me, it is still potentially true. Its essence is still there, waiting for me to pull it into this dimension like a magician's rope of knotted silk scarves.

Manifesting More than Money

Money may actually be the easiest thing to manifest -- we know what it looks like; it's a global language; it can be held in the hands or weighed in the mind; it can be valued against all kinds of things that have physical form, that you can lift and throw from your balcony....

I have a hunch that money may even be a side effect of all the others -- it is drawn to the gravity of massed blessings or attracted to the attitude that accompanies meaning and purpose.

Maybe money kind of grows in the soil of your priceless joys. Just for the record, my financial situation is flush and more fertile than it's ever been in my life.

Manifesting money is not enough. It is not enough for me. Is it enough for you?

What I require, what I desire, the abundance that I gratefully revel in, can be manifested. We can make anything happen.

Money is just one thing -- one facet of experience. Is it really your soul purpose for being here?

Surely, among everything available to you, there is at least something amazing you realize you either do not have to buy or cannot buy.

Seven years ago, I could not have made the first list. None of what I've shared here was true in my life -- in many cases, it was the complete opposite.

In 2005, I decided to practice manifesting the second list using a system based on the Sacred Elements. The Sacred Elements -- Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit -- are the simplest and most flexible set of filters I could identify.

The system works for me and it works for others too.

There's a difference between manifesting the money to buy a Thing, and simply manifesting the Thing itself. Which is especially important when you want to manifest anything that cannot be bought.

Manifest Anything

Manifest Anything is not a "secret" -- it's a system you can use to simplify and practically organize your efforts to manifest.

Click the thumbnail cover art or go to this link -- https://sladeroberson.com/classes/manifest-anything

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image credit Terence J Sullivan via Creative Commons on Flickr