Thursday

Las Vegas

When I wrote The Miracle Man I'd not been to Las Vegas for nearly a quarter of a century so it was an interesting pilgrimage to see if I got the geography right...

We came into 'Sin City' on Highway 5, stopping off at Primm on the border to check that Josh and his parents could have called Jude from a diner with gaming machines. Yes, he could; it was there. So that was okay. Phew. No matter how much you research something, you won't get it all right unless you show up and do the walking.

Vegas itself is a real culture shock. If I had different astrology I'd probably have like it more to start with but it did grow on me over the five days that we were there. It didn't help that our hotel turned out to be a bit like Alcatraz in that the rooms are inside a border wall, probably for extra security. Perfectly fine inside though ... and three minutes from the Strip. Which is weird. So much fantasy in one place and, of course, gambling everywhere. And I mean everywhere, not only in the palaces and fake frontages of the hotels. In one food-and-gambling area there were games set up where you could try to throw ping-pong balls into half-full plastic cups of beer. And this wasn't just a one-off.

Before leaving the UK I'd contacted five radio stations about the book — no reply. However, I emailed them again the first afternoon and within hours one had come back to say 'yes please, drop a copy in and we'll see what we can do.' That was the one which had an online blog inviting comments on Sin City and the Nature of Evil so I was able to give them something to quote on air as well as asking for their assistance.

While we were there, we 'stalked' six stations and then headed out to the Hoover Dam and The Valley of Fire to see where Josh lost his Gemma and became transformed. Still looking forward to the radio stations' responses (one interview request came in the day after we left - thank God for Skype and the good old fashioned telephone!).

The dam is wonderful; still is. As the novel is fiction it takes place just a couple of days before the new by-pass bridge over the Colorado river was opened (the bridge was actually opened while we were out there - much earlier than scheduled - so how that's for timing?). It's fiction - in a parallel world - so not actually having the exact date in the book doesn't matter although it felt a bit odd. It was just amazing that we were there the exact week that it happened! And we were able to drive over the bridge as well as go across the dam.

And oh, the fountains at the Bellagio in Las Vegas...and the wonderful inside Venice...and as for Cher, well I'll just quote my friend Michael: "She's going to look real good in the casket.'

I'll write more in another blog.


Wednesday

Diary of a book promotion tour part 1

So, here I am in the Days Inn Motel, Barstow, California ... the epitome of hopefulness. You see, we (my husband, Lion, and I) are on our way to Las Vegas to promote my new novel The Miracle Man. A targeted mail-out from my publisher's US publicity company, Ascot Media, will be hitting Las Vegas media tomorrow. And so am I.

I have two gigs booked in Vegas, at Unity Center in the Valley this coming weekend (looking forward to those very much). The hope is all on the publicity. I shall present every local radio and TV station with a copy of the book and show up looking like a very interesting interviewee. I am doing this totally on spec. I am putting myself where my heart is. I love this book and I am willing to travel across the globe to give it the chance it deserves in the world.

Will it work? Yes of course it will. After all, as Woody Allen said '90% of life is about showing up.' Am I scared? Sure. But feeling scared and feeling excited are twin sisters so sometimes it's hard to tell them apart. And I do understand that it may not work in exactly the way I hope that it will. But on an energetic level - yes, and I say yes, and yes and yes!

Why Las Vegas? Because The Miracle Man is based there. It's the story of a modern day Messiah who comes to Vegas and heals the city of all its reasons for being known as 'Sin City.' And he does it on live network TV because he's a judge on a TV talent show just like America's Got Talent.

So, this will be my blog of just how I get on in Las Vegas. One thing's for sure, I hope they have some vegetables there. Or a juice bar or two. I'm not a vegetarian but after three days traveling in California my whole body is yelling for produce. San Francisco, where we landed, was fine. Fantastic in fact. Cafe Gratitude is stunning and the food yummy (even though I'm not a raw food fan in general). But rural California? That's a different story.

Here in Barstow - and in our previous overnighter, Cayucos — there wasn't a restaurant in town that knew what a vegetable was. Salad, yes — but there's only so much lettuce a girl can eat (their standard of salad just here is pretty British as in 'throw a tomato and some dressing at it and it's a salad). And I can't get anywhere close to my five-a-day on orange juice and lettuce. It would be better if I liked Mexican food because I guess the beans count.

It's not just me. Beloved Lion who is the carnivore of carnivores, a petrol-head currently wearing a Cream teeshirt from the reunion concert at the Albert Hall, London, in 2005, is also pining for the green stuff. In fact it was his suggestion, after we had trawled the town, to buy salads from the produce section in the local supermarket and take them back to the motel for supper.

So we picked up the green stuff and took it to the check-out ... where the assistant said: "I'm sorry Ma'am, the produce section is for display purposes only." (just kidding but it really is that crazy here).

Tomorrow, we arrive in Las Vegas. I'll see you there...

Friday

It’s got nothing to do with money…

Hi Everyone,

Your October article is below.

It’s now just 20 days to the publication of my new novel The Miracle Man. There’s a new blog on http://themiracleman-maggyw.blogspot.com. It’s a work in progress at the moment but it will tell you all about the book.

This month I’ll be speaking at the Kabbalah and Healing Conference, College Heights Church, San Mateo, San Francisco, Saturday 16th October, Home of Truth Spiritual Center, San Francisco, Monday 18th October and Unity in the Valley, Las Vegas, Monday 25th October so if you’re on the West Coast of the USA come along and say hello.

Wishing you a wonderful autumn.

Maggy

It’s got nothing to do with money…

I know that it’s still hard to believe sometimes but I don’t believe that our financial problems have anything to do with the actual amount of money that we have (or don’t have). Everywhere I do a talk, whenever I ask what money is, people reply ‘energy.’ So if it’s just energy, it responds to who we are; what we think and what we believe in doesn’t it?

But we still think that it
is about the money itself.

In the last week I’ve spoken with people who had sporadic income and nothing coming in for two clear months with mortgage still to pay, people who had jobs that paid enough to cover the rent and the debt repayment for the next six months at least, with a woman who ‘only has £5,000 left’ in her savings, no mortgage or rent to pay, a good pension and not a debt to her name and with someone who has a life-time work redundancy payment, no mortgage, no debt and a partner who’s earning more than £30,000 a year. What did they have in common? They were all frozen with
exactly the same level of terror whatever their circumstances.

So what does money mean to us?

Survival.

Pride.

Worth.

In the Western world we are unlikely to be attacked by a lion or to experience crop failure and famine but we still fear anything that can mean that we can’t hunt (earn), have shelter or eat. So we fear the lack of the means to support ourselves. Even though most of us live in a welfare state where we would be taken care of and most of us have families who could put us up if push came to shove.

So we could survive. But not without a huge loss of pride. We would feel that we had failed and were lesser (we often feel that we have already failed with the examples of other apparently wealthy people before us). The interesting thing is that the ‘wealthier’ people felt no less fear about losing status than those who had much less money.

The status we have in other people’s eyes is the biggest demon in our prosperity consciousness. To give you an example: our fridge freezer is poorly and we’re not sure what our plans for next year are yet so instead of buying a new one, my husband has replaced it with an old fridge and separate freezer that we had in storage from a friend’s house. We usually use those only at Christmas time when we have visitors. So the old equipment is now sitting in the kitchen instead of the more modern appliance. It looks old; it looks (to me) scruffy and my ego loathes and detests it because I think visitors will look at it and think that this is our standard of living.

Does it work? Yes. Should I care what visitors think? No. Do the visitors actually care? No. It’s all about me and my pride.

Last month a dear friend cut herself out of a photograph of her family enjoying a special meal because she had not got a wine glass that matched the others on the table. She thought people seeing the picture would think she didn’t have any sense of style.

Now, we don’t have more than four matching glasses of any shape or form and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest but, given the fridge situation, I can relate because it’s exactly the same thing. It mattered so much to her that we don’t have any record of her being there at the lovely meal. She probably wouldn’t even notice my fridge…We all have our own push-points with this poverty-prosperity-ego thing.

So the answer? I think it’s Worth. Self-worth at the level of the soul. It’s not even about the ‘did you do the pink ribbon walk last weekend and get sponsored for charity?’ kind of worth because that’s the automatic (temporary) good feeling we get when we’ve helped others. It’s about
real worth.

It’s about feeling loved by God. Sorry, but there it is. We call It the Source, the Universe etc. nowadays because of all our projections about the mean man in the sky who punishes us. And much as I love the Abraham teachings and the other Law of Attraction teachings, I’m not sure that they help us with the relationship with our loving Creator. If we are one with God (which we are), where is the relationship? We humans do crave relationship; it’s the reason why duality exists. We can’t laugh without duality; we can’t cuddle and taste and smile without duality so we need relationship. And for worth, we need to have a loving relationship with the Holy One. If we feel valued by God, then it is easier to let go the need to be socially acceptable to others — and then the whole ‘having to have the goods and chattels’ bit will ease and the money issues will ease too.

To quote Mike Todd: “I've never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is only a temporary situation.”

You
can’t be poor if you feel loved by God even if you’re broke. And you are loved by God. You don’t have to believe in God — or anything — to be loved. God is particularly fond of you. How do I know? Because I’m the author of 15 books and I simply cannot love one of them any more or less than the others. I can – and do – love them completely differently. Even the ones that are really out-of-date and don’t even reflect who I am now are cherished because I find something special inside them every time I pick one up and read a few paragraphs. And if I can do that over 15 books, what can God do about every one of us?

You are worthy; worth it; loved; adored; special; desired; perfect; gorgeous; glorious and cute to God. Just as you are (
even in those old PJs with socks on — especially in those old PJs with socks on…)

Just thought you might like to know that. It might just help with the prosperity consciousness thing...

Time For Some Not Fake Food.