Notice of Incorporation

[Mystress]

  As of October 1, 2008 ownership of the
Fire Serpent Tantra Kundalini Mystery school
will change from
  Mystress Angelique Serpent (sole proprietor)
to
Fire Serpent Tantra inc.
which is also owned by Mystress Angelique Serpent.

 

[Mystress]

Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:04:49 -0800
From: Mystress Angelique Serpent <Mystress@fire-serpent.com>
To: Kundalist@kundalini-gateway.org

  I went to see an accountant last night. The appointment was long overdue.

  Very nice man, he specializes in accounting for the entertainment business; actors and musicians. In Canada, psychic services can only be sold as entertainment and any non-vocational training including Kundalini Tantra is also considered entertainment. So, I thought I was in the entertainment business and an actor friend gave me the phone number of this accountant.

   I've been getting slowly increasing levels of anxiety these past years over the fact that I am extremely bureaucratically challenged because of my ADD... almost to the point of it being a phobia (trying to sort out paperwork gives me anxiety and my brain goes fuzzy until I end up in tears) and haven't done any taxes in quite a while... which in itself was compounding the anxiety.

   I brought a box of documents to the accountant; receipts and spreadsheets and summaries prepared by a friend, a stack of file folders of phone bills and stuff, going back the past four years.

  Columns A: income, B: expenses and C: donations and gifts  people have offered in support of my work. Column A is pretty small, especially since I retired from public session work. My husband came with me, and also brought his tax statements showing where he has deducted me as a dependent and declared my tiny income.

   My fella is an engineer who works hard all day like a little ant to pay our mortgage and bills, and being able to claim me as a dependent helps him a lot. If not for his support I would not be free to sit on my ass at the computer all day and do this stuff I do.

  I explained to the nice accountant about my business and what it is I do and how actually 90% of it is volunteer work and the donations keep things afloat... much like any other school, I thought. I explained about how I also make soap but don't sell it, instead shipping it as thank you gifts to people who make donations and I figured that made it a PR expense.

  He explained to me, that I don't have a business. (I don't??? ) No. With a business, the goal is profit.

  He told me I am a humanitarian;  I am largely supported by donations, and I do the work whether I get paid or not and any profits are incidental. If I had a business my goal would be profit and looking at the numbers and what I am actually doing, it obviously is not. The fact that a lot of the donations come from people who do not directly benefit from my work but want me to be able to keep doing it, reinforces that I am a humanitarian.  Since I don't have a business, (really??) I don't have to file a tax return. OH!!??!!

  He said just keep throwing the receipts and stuff into a box in case the taxman asks about it someday... Well, I do that already. That is about all I can manage. Got hatbox to throw receipts into, and I am a bit obsessive so I throw *all* my receipts in.  He promised to take note of our conversation as well, to support me in case the taxman comes callling.

  I explained I have been trying to get my business (which turns out is not a business) incorporated largely for the sake of protection from liability.  I am very very careful in what I say or do, to not be misunderstood... but I work with a lot of sorta crazy people and if somebody did something stupid and decided to sue me it would be very bad. I don't make enough money to pay lawyers.  My husband could lose which would not be fair at all because he is not involved in my business (which is not a business) except he supports me and pays most of the bills or else I wouldn't be able to do it.

  The accountant explained I don't need to be incorporated, incorporation is for businesses and I don't have one. I need to set up a trust... then I can give my husband a tax receipt when he buys me computer parts and stuff.  If someone sues the trust I just shut it down and set up a new one.  Explained how contractors who build huge apartment buildings do it all the time.

  I gave the accountant a big hug.

  Driving home, still trying to wrap my brain around the discovery that I am not in business, I noticed my legs and butt were really stiff and sore, like I'd run a marathon. Hmm. Strange.

  When we got home I commented to my husband that here all this time I thought I was a greedy profit-sucking capitalist but it turns out I am actually a humanitarian. I am still trying to wrap my brain around the idea.

  he laughed at me and said "I already knew that, Mystress."  Oh.  "I think everybody except you knew that...(Really??!!) People who are out for profit make very different decisions than you do."  hmmm... I guess he is right.  Well they say, the wife is always the last to know... (giggles)

  I thought, I was using the spiritual principles of business to make decisions about my business. Granted, I was taking them much farther than the books about it suggest, tithing 90% or more as volunteer work and charging for less than 10% to pay for the expenses. That is actually opposite, the books say to tithe 10% but I figured if 10% is good then 90% is better.. especially as most of the people who get messed up with Kundalini cannot affoard to pay me anyway.

   I did not realize that if you take the spiritual principles of business far enough, you are actually, not in business at all... hmm.

   I am a humanitarian? Really? I thought I was a greedy profit sucking dominant sadistic capitalist bitch.  Well... looking at the evidence I guess it's right.. Honestly, I had no idea. "Humanitarian" is not a word I ever thought to apply to myself.

  Someone once said to me, that I am the most generous person she ever met. That totally made no sense at all to me because she is the one most consistently making donations in support of my work, and I do not think of myself as a charitable person.  I figured she just saw herself reflected. Hmm.

  I'm born a Shaman, we don't get much in the way of free will. The Gods will make us sick and crazy and then kill us, if we stray off the path.  I am ok with that, I understand it.  The Shaman gene and the training grants such enormous and unusual powers that someone using it in service to ego would become such a dangerous monster that they have to be taken out for the good of all. For the Gods to kill a bad shaman is just sensible, like shooting a rabid wolf.

  Shamans are always given a tribe to serve (its part of the definition of a shaman)  and you folks are it, Kundalites... I'm stuck with ya.   I love the work and the people, but I always felt sort of spiritually coerced into doing it and given that it is a necessity of survival and I have no choice, ...  I did not feel it was really any sort of charity or generosity.  Do it or die... sorta self serving, eh?  I'm not afraid of dying but there are people who care about me who would be very upset if I did and I care about them too so I'll keep toeing the line of "as Goddess wills" (as best as I can understand it) and stick around.

  I told the accountant that I guess he is right about the humanitarian thing, because I have thank you letters and testimonials stacked up to my neck from people who say I helped them. That is what humanitarians do, right? Help people.

  I see Goddess in everyone and so I don't actually believe anybody needs my help...  but they don't see Her in themselves and think they do and I guess Goddess must agree because here I am...

  A couple of hours after the appointment with the accountant,  I noticed my whole body was aching and stiff, even fingers and toes and I was very tired. I recognised it was  unconsciously held tension releasing because I know now I am not a very ineffective capitalist potentially in big trouble from the taxman, but actually a humanitarian who is exempt. Still shaking my head in amazement, I went to bed early.

    I am still trying to wrap my head around it. All this time I thought throwing my receipts into a hatbox and not doing taxes was the very wrong thing to do but I am too bureaucratically challenged with ADD to be able to do anything else... and it gave me so much anxiety but it turns out it was actually the right thing to do.  Goddess had it handled.

  I think, I will give the accountant a lovely gift basket of beautiful handmade soap... he didn't even charge me anything for the consultation. He said it was because he hadn't done anything... but to me, what he did was huge!  He turned my very unprofitable business into a humanitarian cause. Wow!

   Blessings...


_____________________________
Kundalist at www.kundalini-gateway.org

[Sigmund]

Congratulations on your good fortune, Mystress.  I'm uplifted and edified in reading it.  Just goes to show you sometimes never know how things will turn out.  :~~>