Talk about Goddess list words that I have been avoiding! When I glanced at my chart this morning, one word popped out: Money. For four years, I have been putting it off and putting it off in the context of this list (although I have certainly spoken of it frequently in other posts) so today seems to be the day. Just for the record, I have not gone back to look at past essays, so I suspect I may repeat some of the things I have said before. My apologies to regular readers.
And I guess I should also tell you that I came "this close" to removing "Money" from my Goddess list entirely, as I recently did with "Worshipped". This is because nowadays, I don't think that money will exist in any form in a future Goddess- or Love-centered paradigm. Even twenty years ago, I'm pretty sure I was already at that "place", so I am not quite sure what I was thinking -- perhaps I still saw money as a way of expressing the potential for bounty. Perhaps I was hoping I would still find some way to earn or attract a good income...I'm not sure. Today, I think we have a few years left with money systems in place. It might be premature to completely discount it as a building block to the new paradigm. Might.
Almost thirty years ago, I attended kind of a free-for-all workshop where attendees could offer talking circles on any topic they wanted. It still stuns me that I had the courage to do this, but I did: I called my circle something like "The Future of Money"-- and a bunch of people showed up. Basically, I spoke for about ten minutes about how I thought money's future was limited, and my reasons why -- and what ensued was a completely fascinating discussion! I mean, right down my alley, non-"partisan" and visionary, people trying to imagine a world entirely without money.
Because, apart from any other issues I've had with our specific financial system, here is my core problem: not understanding why something that (in my view) really doesn't exist is so central to our world view, our politics, and virtually every aspect of human life. Every definition is essentially the same, that money is a medium of exchange. It's a ghostly ether between two tangible things or beings.
There's me. There's a dozen eggs. If I want those eggs, I need to pay money. I need to exchange some dollars for eggs. Yet I've never really "gotten" this. Why even have this strange, insubstantial middle ground? I mean, all right. It's part of the old ownership paradigm. The farmer's eggs belong to him or her, and in our current construct, giving the eggs away will lessen that person's personal worth. So if I (the buyer) do not have some other object or service to offer the farmer that is the rough equivalent of a dozen eggs, something that the farmer needs, say, a skein of wool or a small toy, then I need to use the common currency.
Let's back up to the moment before the very first use of money in the modern sense -- no matter how many thousands of years ago that might have been -- and imagine a completely clean slate. There is no sense of human ownership of land, animals, plants, or other people. Let us say it is commonly accepted that such ownership is impossible, as is human ownership of Gaia or The Goddess. Everyone and everything is of equal value as part of Her, a reflection of Her. If everything is done from a place of Love, and that Love is all-existent and all-replenishing, then nothing I give away will leave me diminished. There needs to be no medium of exchange, monetary or otherwise. If everything on this planet is an expression of Love, my actions are done lovingly and freely. Love draws to all of us a modest roof over our heads, and meal on the table. Love draws to humanity the best that the earth has to offer, for free. But individuals in the new paradigm don't seek to take too much for themselves. People in the new paradigm are far more community oriented than now.
In a sense, this lifetime has been a practice run for me and the new paradigm, whether or not I ever "live to see the day". I am living proof (and I am sure there are others like me!): you can survive with little money, occasionally even thrive, although you may be seen as using people or being a bloody idiot. And I couldn't have let this experiment go on for so long if I had been responsible for children. I am thankful that I remained relatively free, and that I gained at least the feeling place of what will be the norm not too long from now: Love as "currency". The construct of "earning a living" has gone by the wayside. Ownership has gone by the wayside. "Money" -- in whatever form or system -- will be in museums, if we even have those in the future! For the moment, I'll leave it on the list, but not for long!
