Never let
other peoples’ voices or opinions take priority over the voice of your
own intuition. And always be leery of
advice from family.
If Florence Nightingale would have listened to her family,
hospital reform would have happened a hundred years later than it did. I am convinced that hundreds of thousands of
soldiers would have died in hospitals over the course of a century, if Florence
Nightingale hadn’t taken up her activism, from her bedroom, where she spent
most of her life. She was permanently
grounded, because her parents thought it was unfitting for a Lady to be
working. She worked anyway and she even
worked for the US government, who sought her counsel when establishing civil
war hospitals. All from her
bedroom. Because her folks wouldn’t let
her go out to work. Long before
internet. Long before telephones.
As a young woman, she convinced her family to let her
volunteer at a hospital in the Crimea.
She only served six months -- but she was a numbers girl (like me) and
she figured out quickly that more men died in the hospital, than in
battle. The hospital was built over open
sewers. The hospital staff didn’t have procedures
for cleaning tools; infections spread.
The food fed the patients didn’t take into account their illness. Some died from malnutrition or complications
from aggravating the stomach lining.
She
went home to England after her assignment was over, and pleaded with her
parents to allow her to go to nursing school.
They refused. So she retired to
her bedroom and for the next fifty years, she reformed hospitals.
She started a letter writing campaign, activist that she
was. She requested statistics and
stories from nurses and patients from hospitals all over the world. And the hospital workers and soldiers
responded. She was particularly focused on soldiers and
became an icon of support for those boots on the ground. She is my heroin. She is the patron saint of the Sisters of the
Valley.
Long before I was an activist/anarchist nun, I ran a pretty
successful little consulting company. I
specialized in launching ka-ching machines in telecom, cable, internet, and
energy sectors.
Ten years ago, over a million dollars disappeared from my
consulting business. All of the money
the company had. All of the money I had. All the money earned and saved by me since
starting the business.
Nine years ago, I came across a locked and hidden business
filing cabinet that contained the evidence.
Eight years ago, seven years ago, and six years ago, I spent
three months per year dedicated to the task of piecing together the clues from
that filing cabinet, to paint a picture of how and when the funds went
missing.
Five years ago, I took my mounds of evidence to one of the
best forensic accounting firms in the world, and begged and pleaded with them
to take my case, even though it was a forty-thousand dollar plus project, and I
could only pay them one hundred dollars per month for their help.
What’s family got to do with it? If I had listened to my family, I would have
never gone down that path. If I listened
to my family, I would have believed that my search for justice would end in
grave disappointment. “The money’s gone!”
they would say. “Just forget it.” They would say. “Possession is nine tenths of the law,” they
would say. “You will never see it.” They
would say. “You’re just aggravating your soul . . . let it go, move on.” (They
would say.) It made me sad. It made me feel misunderstood. And most especially, it made me determined to
prove them wrong.
Three years ago, the IRS investigated the thief and charged
him with a felony for ‘structuring transactions’. He was really moving money all around the
world, to keep me from finding it. I had
both my attorney (bless her soul) and the forensic accounting firm demanding
statements and more statements from him.
Every time he had to disclose, he would move the funds again. He moved over two hundred thousand dollars
into North America, from South America, in amounts of $9,999 every month until
it was all over. He knew the ten
thousand dollar limit would trigger a report to the IRS; he wasn’t very bright
about how he did his thievery. He
negotiated his way out of going to prison by paying the IRS that whole bucket
of my money.
One year ago, with him sitting at his attorney’s office in
Kentucky, and me in mine, he agreed to give me a check for one hundred seventy
thousand dollars, and the required wording to notify the IRS “Hey, you know
that money I paid to get out of jail free?
It wasn’t my money to pay. It’s Kate’s.”
It’s important to note that I took on a lot of debt to fund
this battle. I had three kids in middle
school and in order to help my brother save his house, I moved to one of the
most economically destitute corners of the world. From that first round, last summer, I got my
attorney and the forensic accounting firm paid in full, my mother paid back,
and eighty percent of my other debt cleared.
I also got to buy a new car for the Abbey and it afforded me the luxury
of launching the tea and tincture business – in style.
One half year ago, my attorney filed a request to get the
money back from the IRS. And one week
ago, I received those funds. (Hell, yes,
I did a jig! My victory jig lasted
days!)
When I notified our attorney in town, he said, “Good God,
Kate, I’ve never heard of anyone wrestling that big of a chunk of money out of
the hands of the IRS, so quickly! I
think I am in love!”
“You should be!” I told him.
“I rock!”
The victory was all that much the sweeter, for the
nay-sayers, actually. It was all the
sweeter because no one believed I could make this happen. But I was determined. “Pitbull with lipstick” determined. There were many times during the ten years
that I was frustrated to tears . . . especially
when he would make counter-offensive attacks.
He attacked me for full custody, demanding from the Kentucky courts that
I return the children to him, from California, within five days. I remember I didn’t sleep and lost ten pounds
over the two weeks following that. I
remember that he had the court order land on me ten days before Christmas. It was its own horror show.
In the past year, he launched another counter-offensive,
trying to ‘take me to court’ for my frivolous demands for copies of his bank
statements. (My attorney batted that
away with no effort whatsoever.) During
the ten years, I lost count of how many different attorniess he has had
representing him. I lost count at
six. I still have my original.
A little sage advice to anyone who knows they are going to
be divorced (marriage or business) and knows their partner is hiding
money: demand a ‘finder’s keepers clause’
in the final agreement. Make sure it says
that any money that you find (that the other party didn’t disclose at the time
of the split), you get one hundred percent.
That was the basis of my whole battle.
That was the wording in the Agreement that kept the court doors open and
ensured he had to respond when my attorney requested banking information.
Last summer, my attorney convinced me to ‘bifurcate’ the
issues, or more accurately, ‘tri-furcate’, because there were three doors to
walk through, at this final stage of the decade-long chase to find my business
funds. Door number one was last summer
and those funds got me out of debt, got the new business launched, and got me a
car that doesn’t break down monthly. It
made my life immensely better. I love
the Sisters of the Valley business, the plant growing and medicine making, the
holistic, organic and earth-loving life, the reach of the internet to sell
internationally.
Door number two is the money just received from the
IRS. It will give the Sisters of the
Valley a home. All the work for Sisters
of the Valley has thus far been done in an overcrowded, rented, little house by the
railroad tracks in a city best known for being a permanent occupant at the top
of Forbes “most miserable cities in America” list. The
Sisters experience hardship in the cloister department, with growers,
recovering addicts, and short-time college students co-habituating in our
living space. It’s really hard to keep
sacred focus with rap music blaring from somewhere in the house, and mariachi music blaring from a nearby neighbor.
This is all to say that the money from the IRS was turned over
last Friday, and by Sunday, we had put an offer on a farm. It has two homes and four barns. It has a brother-house and a
sister-house. It has a guy place and a
girl place! It has canal water on two
borders, and it has its own well.
Yes, instead of calling each and every one of the nay-sayers
to say ‘nah nah nah-nah-nah, I was right and you were wrong’, I just went to
work getting that farm we need. I was a
good girl (this time).
My personal credit is in the toilet after this decade long
of being poverty level, food-stamp level, dirt-poor. However, I survived and my kids are
fine. My oldest son is about to graduate
from UC Davis, in December, as a mechanical engineer. My youngest daughter is about to start her
sophomore year at UCLA, and my middle son, with about two years of college behind
him, and with his meth addiction behind him (knock on wood), is seriously
considering just devoting his time to the farm and the business of farming for
the Sisters. I think it fits awesomely in with the
Sisterhood plans, because if we can create a healing place for him to work, then
maybe we are on our way to making such a place for other recovering addicts and
PTSD vets and their families.
The sellers accepted our offer, but it’s a short sale. So two banks are going to have to approve the
sale price and we offered a price substantially below asking price. And my
own bank is questioning my ability to qualify, since the Sisters of the Valley
has only been providing wages
since January. Maybe the whole amount
will go to the farm and we will be back to being poor farmers, but we’ll be on
our own farm!!!
I am anxious to have a place to spread out in. I am anxious to have some separation between
female energies and male energies.
Somehow, I feel that’s necessary for our medicines. (If the residents or visitors need to
comingle, there are barns.)
I am anxious to have a vegetable garden and flowerbeds of dandelions. Dandelions are the antidote to Monsanto, I do
believe. And we have to bring them back
from the brink of extinction, because they are powerfully curative.
Everything is falling into place. When you feel you have a calling, when you
know in your heart that you have to do what you are doing, no matter how many
people point you in the other direction, continue your march. Listen to your heart. Determination is everything. None of this happened when I wanted it to
happen – it all took too bloody long.
But I am winning. And I still
have Door number three to walk through.
Sometimes justice needs a little earth-place assistance. Sometimes people just open their mouths and
talk, without giving thought to your needs.
There were many times I needed encouragement, and I remember fondly
those of my friends who did believe in me.
I remember. I cherish. Take whatever encouragement you can get,
dismiss the nay-sayers, and whatever you do, don’t give up.
You made some fine points there. I did a search on the subject and found a good number of persons will go along with your blog. Canna Findr
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