What are you Investing in? Wealth Pt.2

Picture by Gregory Colbert from the Ashes and Snow series

How do we price goods and services if the metric is no longer scarcity and uniqueness?  Can we still seek to thrive through short-cuts?  Will we have to be more conscious of everything involved in an exchange at an awareness capacity beyond mere industrial 1950's linear rationalization?  Are we willing to be as clear and grounded as that type of economy would require for fluidity and mutual benefit to all involved?

These are just handful of the many questions coming up for me as I study the money system alongside my exploration of Self-Love and Exchange.  As I write this last line, it's just fallen dark outside and a hummingbird is poking his beak through the screen at my window repeatedly, and buzzing in his characteristically George-Jetson-car-like way.

After my last blog piece on Wealth, my Mom emailed me, commented, "Losing our way with financial discipline does not get resolved by bartering, as we still must deal with the history of making financial choices that hurt us." 


I let her know that I wholeheartedly agree.  One of my biggest concerns with the various local currency systems and barter groups that are proliferating is with the repetition of the same dysfunctional self-images re-creating similar patterns around exchange.  Rules can only do so much to guide the unfolding of a project.  The awareness of all the people involved intimately shapes the emergence from and through the group.


Number one ~  I must know myself.  Not just my address, or my favorite kind of cheese, but who and what I really am; independent of thoughts and emotions.  Who and what am I?  I if I don't know myself, I'm liable to be unconscious at the wheel of life and make blind decisions detached from their impact on the world I am integrally a part of.


Number two ~ I must honestly value myself as a beingness.  This is where the self-love comes in.  Self-Love stems from true Self-Knowledge.  Self-love doesn't come from a number of standing ovations from large crowds (though it can help break up a person's distorted negative self-image by having his gifts witnessed and appreciated).  Self-love comes from intimately knowing that I am not my past, I am not my psychological wounds, I am not the thoughts in my mind.....moving into the realm of knowing ~ I am Nothing, and I am Everything, and I am right here.  I am perfect, whole, and complete in every moment.  Nothing I can do, say, think, or feel can change what I truly and already Am (though these things can hide it from my conscious awareness).


Number three ~ I must value You!  And see that you also are Nothing, Everything, Perfect, Whole, and Complete.  I can't do number three fully without first deeply engaging with numbers one and two.  If I try to value you without knowing and valuing me, my perception of you is only a projection.  As soon as you do something I don't like, I'll withdraw my valuing of you.  What about that makes sense?  Either you're valuable, or you're not.  


Number four ~ I must consider the impact of every footstep I take on the whole of which I am a part.  I'm not suggesting shredding your mind with a infinite number of new thoughts for policing your actions.  I'm suggesting that when you begin to know yourSelf as you Are, you won't have to go to the mind for that kind of Awareness.  It'll arise spontaneously in the moment, fed by your intent and willingness.


In a competitive paradigm driven by scarcity and uniqueness, someone must lose.  Someone goes hungry and without clean water.  We have the resources on this planet, for every human to have enough to eat and clean water to drink.  In an "accumulation" paradigm, the competitors have no time to look out for the welfare of anything outside their sphere, unless it's a public relations attempt at throwing a "glamour" over their image to gain more resources through a short-cut.


It's time for what Buckminster Fuller calls a You AND Me world....a world where everyone matters.  But if this paradigm is imposed it won't last long.  Resistance will buck that like a mechanical bull on rocket fuel.  For a real and grounded You AND Me world to emerge, awakening must dawn in more humans.  A powerful pathway?  Self-Love.  It's only a matter of time and focus before Self-Love reveals Awareness of One-Self....even if it's like a flower fluttering open and closed throughout the day, a little goes a long way.

WEALTH

I am one of the wealthiest people I know.

I have unlimited access to Abundance.

My Abundance can not be even minutely reflected by a number in the current monetary system.

"Contemporary European author, Bernard Lietaer, former senior officer of the Belgian Central Bank and one of the chief architects of the Euro currency, in his book, Of Human Wealth, says that greed and fear of scarcity are programmed; they do not exist in nature, not even in human nature. They are built into the money system in which we swim, and we've been swimming in it so long that these shadows have become almost completely transparent to us. We have learned to consider them normal and legitimate behavior. He concludes that Adam Smith's system of economics could more accurately be described as the allocation of scarce resourses through the process of individual greed. The whole process of Smith's "modern" economics actually has its roots in primitive fears of scarcity, greed, and the implementation too -- the process by which this became real -- was money."
~ from THE SOUL OF MONEY by Lynne Twist

I have an abundance of time, Love, Awareness, and Healing...all of which are valuable commodities that can be exchanged without limit. On more directly observable levels are all the skills and talents I have been blessed with and continue to uncover, develop, and expand.

As we inch and perhaps eventually sprint into what will be the new economy of Exchange inside of a circle without beginning or end, you and I will have an ever expanding community with which to exchange our abundant resources for food, clothing, shelter, learning, entertainment, health & fitness, and so many other commodities.

This form of exchange requires that I develop and expand Self-Love, which allows me to clearly recognize, honor, and value the abundant resources I steward and share. As I have authentic awareness of the value of these gifts, they become recognizably valuable in the marketplace of Exchange.

When I let the status of my debt-to-income ratio in the current monetary system become the metric for my self-worth, I can not and do not perceive my innate abundance and the profound abundance of the natural world, and reflexively obscuring this value, rendering it unable to be exchanged within the world at large.

Perhaps this is in the direction of what Jesus meant by teaching his students to "Be in the world but not of it." For it's not about pretending the current monetary system doesn't exist. At the moment, I can't walk into Whole Foods and ask the cashier to exchange a cart full of groceries for a healing session. That, however, doesn't confine the scope of exchange solely to the current monetary system.

For example, there may be one or more people who have services I would need or want, and who see great value in experiencing my work. By exchanging outside the monetary system, money I would have spent on those services now becomes available for purchasing that cart full of groceries from Whole Foods.

So I'm not presenting an "either/or" scenario. Rather, a complementary relationship between the two systems...a way to think, step, and act outside the box that so many of us have found ourselves at one time or another confined by.

As I have more and more successful exchanges in this type of barter system, where all parties are uplifted by through the entire process all the way to completion, each of us leaves these exchanges with a deeper awareness of our innate Abundance, Value, and Worth...bolstering the whole system.

I do believe that developing the musculature for these types of Awareness and Exchange is crucial if we are to thrive in the times ahead. My intuition tells me that we've only seen the beginning of the crumbling of the current economic structures, an appetizer for a potentially very unpleasant meal for those dependent on the current system.

And let me be crystal clear here; I don't think this crumbling is some form of retribution or punishment for past deeds as such. I am being shown that it is part of our collective Awakening to the Truth of Who and What we Truly Are.

In the process of Awakening, illusions are exposed. Any and all illusions. The current monetary system is no longer backed up by gold. It is mere printed paper based on indebtedness. There is very little, if any, reflection of the true abundance of the natural world, and what you and I truly are. This neither makes the monetary system good or bad. It is simply a reflection of our collective conscious awareness. We are growing and realizing more expanded levels of consciousness, so our systems will mirror this phoenix-in-the-flames movement.

What's the key? The main key I see for myself is to deeply, viscerally know what I am, to honor, value, and steward This in myself, and all of life through the ways I take each and every step in my life.