"Service to All Life with Grace Through All Philosophies"
Kari Nienstedt ~ Arizona State Director, The Humane Society of the United States
Donate Your Furs! Campaign ongoing to Earth Day 2010 *Video Coming Soon*
As you may or may not know, I am also President of the Path To Fulfillment Institute, inc. ~ an organization dedicated to providing the highest resources for those seeking to improve their beliefs and attitudes on creating and maintaining financial security and prosperity.
I have worked with some of the most successful people in the U.S. today, including U.S. Senators, and learned extensively from these great teachers just what prosperity and being prosperous is all about. It's simple. It's what you feel about yourself.
For instance, if you do not feel prosperous ~ you will not get that raise, that promotion or make more money, most times, than you did the previous year ~ because that will be the general attitude directed toward any manager that you may work for. This is what they train for, and they are very good at reading others.
What does it mean to be prosperous? That is an individual question that each one of us has to answer for ourselves. And, keep in mind, that answer, or set of answers will change, grow and evolve over time. Which brings me to this campaign.
For over 20 years I worked in downtown Chicago. I made a very good living during that time as personal assistant to these executives, and lived in some of the most chic high-rises at the time. What were my qualifications for being prosperous? A large apartment with a view of Lake Michigan, expensive clothes, lots of jewelry, owning fine china and crystal, and so forth.
Also on my list was owning a fur coat.
After a number of years of me asking for one, my husband did the research, found a fur company that claimed their furs were farm-raised and not trapped, and he finally gave in and bought me a fabulously stunning Finnish Raccoon full-length fur coat. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw, and it definitely was the warmest coat I had ever owned. On top of that it made me feel like a million dollars and that I had "made it."
I loved that coat and I wore it every chance I got.
Over the ensuing years, as older relatives passed away, I ended up inheriting several other fur pieces ~ a sheared raccoon stole from my Aunt Frances, a Persian lamb coat from my mother-in-law, a mink full-length stole from my mother, and so forth. Now, some of those items I have since donated to Goodwill, but others, I still have.
Why do I bring this up?
Because that coat, as well as the other pieces, represented prosperity to me at that time. And, to many others, fur coats may still represent that as well. However, when I began my own process of finding out just what being prosperous meant to me ~ I realized, as I write about extensively in my book "An Independent Prosperity," that all my ideas about being prosperous were about "things" ~ not feelings, not a sense of satisfaction on the inside of my psyche.
And so I began a process of learning just what prosperity means ~ to me.
Along the way, The Humane Society of the United States ~ www.hsus.org ~ founded a new department called Animals & Religion ~ www.hsus.org/religion , and asked if they could place my Council's link on their site. I was honored and thus began my introspection into how I viewed owning fur ~ especially as I considered myself an animal lover and animal advocate, always having at least two or three beloved felines in my household and regularly rescuing other critters that came my way.
And I found that I was ashamed of myself for wearing fur. And, then I realized that it was ok that I wore fur. Why?
Because that was who I was then ~ not necessarily who I am now. Pretty simple, huh!
So, now I am ready to donate my furs to the Humane Society in their "donate a fur" program ~ http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/fur_fashion/donate_old_fur.html . I'm sure many of you already know about this wonderful program ~ a program takes donated furs and uses them to help injured, abandoned, or nurturing animals while recuperating, in foster care or waiting for new homes ~ to line their living areas to make them more comfortable and more secure with familiar furs.
I am writing this because I recently met with Kari Nienstedt, the Arizona State Director of the Humane Society, over the Thanksgiving, or rather "ThanksLiving" Humane Society weekend this year of 2009, and donated my furs to this cause ~ see photo above. We will have a video coming soon, so check back here to view it.
This, to me, is another way for me to be prosperous! How? By saying, yes I enjoyed wearing this beautiful coat ~ thinking it was farm-raised (something I'll never know for sure) ~ but now, I'm a different person, and by donating my fur I am helping create harmony and healing for any animal that may need it. And, that to me, is one of my definitions of being prosperous.
No shame in the past ~ just love for the future for our beloved partners in the animal kingdom!
