Freeconomy
Me and Grace woofing in Norway. Photo by Per-Arne Ytterman.
The other day a friend emailed me to tell me about Mark Boyle. His big message is that we need to reconnect…with each other, with the Earth, with ourselves.
He comes at this message from the perspective of money and he’s become known as the Moneyless Man…he even wrote a book about his year-long experiment of living without money.
He coined the term freeconomy, meaning giving away things for free for the love of it. He started a web site, Just for the Love of It, which is the center of the freeconomy community. There people list the skills, tools, and offerings they’re willing to share for free and search for things they’re looking for.
For instance, do you need a skill saw for that home improvement project you started weeks ago? Log on, search for a skill saw, and find someone in your neighborhood with a saw to lend. Or maybe you’ve wanted a massage for months and haven’t had the cash to pay for one? Search for a masseuse.
So does this really work? It did for Boyle…that’s how he lived without money for a year. But even within that experiment, he didn’t have everything given to him. He traded his skills for accommodation, for one thing. However, money didn’t change hands
I lurked in the forums to see what the community is saying. Some argue that trading or bartering for things counts as an exchange and that means it isn’t really free. Others say if it doesn’t involve exchanging money, it counts. It’s an interesting debate.
I’ve dabbled in this world a bit…on my trip to Europe I stayed for free for all but two weeks of my trip. At several places I traded skills like cooking, painting, and gardening for my accommodation. At a few places I stayed without any kind of trade.
Now that I’m back, I’ve traded intuitive readings for haircuts and a house-sit for accommodation. People have gifted me items I need. It’s great when it’s a win-win situation and I think moving in this direction is part of reconceiving the dream.
Boyle is onto something by encouraging us to move away from money. How that will work in the grand sceme, I’m not so sure; but capitalism certainly isn’t going to get us there.
Boyle says, “Money is a symptom and a perpetrator of the illusion of separation.” I agree.
We don’t know the farmer who grew our food. Even if we shop at farmer’s markets, it’s often not the actual farmer who sells us our produce (although I did have the pleasure of establishing relationships with farmers like Penny of Rose Lane Farm and Erica of Nunez Farm when I lived in Concord). When we shop at a grocery store, we don’t know the person who pulled our carrots out of the ground or baked our bread.
Taking it a step further, think about buying shoes, computers, or appliances. Hundreds of people worked to bring our iPhones, Doc Martens, and Maytags to us. Factory workers, truck drivers, stockers, salespeople, vice presidents, administrative assistants, and managers of all kinds were involved. We’re so far removed from contact with these people we have no idea how our purchases affect their lives. And that means we don’t really know how these purchases affect our lives.
I found a lot to like in Boyle’s recent talk at the Bank of Idea in London.
Here you can see part two and three, the ones I found most interesting. See what you think of Boyle’s ideas.
And answer me this: have you ever tried living without money? Do you do regular trades or bartering? Do you think this could work as a new economy?
Care of She Tele-Class
We’re moving into a new time. You sense it, don’t you?
Outmoded structures are collapsing around us; just look at the Arab Spring. Systems that do not support life and love are being challenged; just look at the Occupy movement.
But there’s something even deeper happening. I like to think of it as the return of the Divine Feminine (and I didn’t come up with that; there are many others in this camp).
Many of us can see and feel that our patriarchal, hyper-masculine, capitalistic society doesn’t nurture us. We sense that something is off, that something needs to change. And the great news is, it is changing.
What do I mean by “the return of the Divine Feminine”?
A return to the honoring of Earth, the ancestors, women, children, and animals; living in the flow; believing dreams hold valuable information; and deeply understanding how intimately connected we are. Moving through the world more gently, getting out of Ego and into Self, listening to inner wisdom, intuition, and synchronicity.
I don’t sense that this is a radical rejection of the Masculine, however. I believe that this movement will bring back an honoring of the Feminine and then we will enter a time of balance between the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine.
We’re all steeped in this shift and it has many of us feeling unmoored. How do we navigate this time of change? How do we resist the rampant messages of fear and move toward our authentic, creative way of being in the world?
I know many people, especially women, who’ve felt called to move toward this new way.
And as a result, many of them are on what we might call the Heroine’s Journey. It’s similar to the Hero’s Journey, a term coined by mythologist Joseph Campbell and made manifest by men like George Lucas with Star Wars and JRR Tolkein with The Lord of the Rings. We all know the Hero’s Journey well because it shapes so much of our entertainment industry.
But what is the Heroine’s Journey and how is it different from the Hero’s Journey? And where can women who are on this journey find support?
I’ve been pondering this deeply for a long time and more recently I started a dialouge about it with Jamie Walters of Ivy Sea. We’ve created something to help women in the thick of the Heroine’s Journey traverse its tricky terrain.
It’s called Care of She. Our first offering is a four-week tele-class called Reconceiving the Dream.
In the class, we’re helping women reclaim their power, take ownership of their authentic, heart-felt stories, and use their Feminine gifts to navigate this new path.
You’ll learn how to recognize your unique journey and your role in it, you’ll develop a different relationship with fear and other triggers, and you’ll discover the power within Feminine archetypes and myths and learn to work with them on your journey. We’ll also provide you with a number of practices to integrate into your daily life that will help you navigate this new path of change and uncertainty.
The class begins Thursday, February 16, and we’re hosting a preview call on Thursday, February 9 on the Feminine Mojo show so you can learn more about the class.
The class is significantly discounted to those who sign up before February 3, so visit the event page today and claim your spot.
By registering early, you’ll also have the chance to win a session with Jamie, and a healing or dreamwork session with me. We’ll select five winners at random.
Dream Guidance: Let Go of Your Old Life
Recently, I’ve gone through waves of panic as a result of big bills: my cat, Jack, got sick and had to go to the vet, and in the same week I needed a new logic board for my new-to-me Macbook.
As soon as these mini-crises hit, I went into fear. How was I going to make it now? I watched my bank account dwindle. Then the voices started in. “Who the hell do you think you are to go with the flow, live from your heart, trust that something is coming? That’s all total nonsense. How do you expect to feed yourself? It’s irresponsible.”
When these voices show up, it’s hard for me to ignore them because they’re mean, loud, and obnoxious. They purposefully obscure my inner guidance. It was rough there for a while. I thought I’d probably reached the end, that the ride was over and I was going to give up.
That’s my old pattern: a crisis hits, I go into panic mode, I look for and apply for jobs I don’t want, and then end up working for two years at a job I don’t like.
This time I stepped right into that pattern again. I immediately trolled Craigslist for crappy jobs I didn’t want. I made a list of them and told myself I’d apply for them the next day. But when I actually sat down to edit my resume, an intense stomach pain showed up. The longer I worked, the worse it got. Then the pain in my left ovary, my true indicator of doing the wrong thing, showed up. I knew I needed to quit working on my resume.
I turned off the computer and took a shower. When I was done, I realized the stomach pain and the ovary pain were completely gone. I spent the rest of the day growing my business and writing and I felt immensely better. I haven’t returned to the resume since and the pain hasn’t returned either.
During all this I asked my dreams for clues about how to proceed. I needed guidance: should I keep working to grow my business and work on the book or should I look for a job?
For weeks I got no answers. Just when I felt especially down about my guides and dreams staying silent, this dream came:
I park my car and go in to shop. I come out and think I know where my car is parked. I walk to the spot, but my car isn’t there. I decide if I feel for it, I can find it because it’s just invisible. I’ll be able to sense it’s energy. I stand there and put out my hands, trying to sense the energy of the car. I think if I can find the keyhole, I can put my key into it and the car will reappear. Eventually I realize this is silly. The car isn’t there. I remember my car is parked up by the building on the right side.
I walk into the back of a grocery store into a room that looks like an employee lounge. I sit at a desk and try to work on something on my laptop. Two very serious-looking people come in, a man and a woman. I can’t see them because the light is shining in my eyes so their faces are in shadow. I have sunglasses on. I look up to see them better. They’ve come to tell me my elementary teaching license was a waste because there are no jobs. I already know this and laugh it off and say I don’t regret going to JFKU.
So many things are happening in this dream! The most relevant ones to my question are these:
- I’ve just come from shopping
- I can’t find my car
- I try to sense into the car and give up
- I go to an employee lounge to work
- Two people, a man and a woman, tell me my old education was a waste and it won’t get me a job
First, in the dream I’ve just come from spending money and then I try to find the car. Just like my waking life pattern: I spend money and I go looking for a vehicle to get work and money.
Then there’s the car. In the dream the car is my old Pontiac, a car I drove several years ago and then gave to Lance, my ex. Since I sold my Prius during my trip, I’m now driving that Pontiac when Lance isn’t using it. So I’m driving around in a vehicle from my old life.
This is highly significant. Vehicles in dreams often represent what is moving us forward. In the dream and in waking, I’m getting around in a car that represents a very old life. In the dream, I can no longer see it, find it, or get into it. Trying to sense it, find it, or put the key into it doesn’t work. The dream is saying that old life just isn’t going to work anymore.
Even though in the dream I realize where the car is parked, I don’t go to find it. Instead I end up in an employee lounge. This isn’t my ideal workplace…it is bare with a few folding tables, white walls, and drab décor. But at least I’m in the lounge, and it’s not a stressful place. And, I’m working on my own thing on my new laptop. It’s a step forward.
Then the man and woman come in, with serious faces, to tell me my old education was a waste. It’s not going to work for me in finding a job. And I laugh, saying I already know that and I don’t regret it. The funny thing is, I didn’t get my elementary teaching license at JFKU, but that’s the school I defend in the dream. At first I thought this was a message not to pursue teaching children, but my DreamTribe colleague Amy pointed out that the dream might be saying my old education was “elementary,” implying I am moving on, going further.
So I’ve got two signs in the dream that the old way isn’t going to work: my car is gone and unusable, and my old education isn’t going to get me a job. I can’t rely on any of those old ways anymore. Seems like a pretty obvious message.
A few days later, I dreamed about a shaman I’m training with. In the dream, she is paying to have three different cars fixed up for me. They’re at the shop and we’re standing outside while she negotiates the price and the repairs. Looks like I’m getting not just one, but three new possible directions. Positive steps forward indeed.
Reconceive the Dream
Let go and enter the flow. The River by Aristide Maillol at the MoMA sculpture garden.
“I am proposing we reconceive the dream….That we find freedom, aliveness, and power not from what contains, locates, or protects us but from what dissolves, reveals, and expands us.” ~ Eve Ensler
Last week I read Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security Obsessed Culture on the recommendation of a friend. In it, Eve Ensler, creator of the ground-breaking plays The Vagina Monologues and The Good Body, discusses how, in her fifties, she finally came to a place where she was okay with insecurity. And she argues it is healthier to be insecure, because this is the nature of reality. Nothing stays the same, there is no ground under us. Any sense of security is an illusion. The more we try to cling to security, the more locked down we become until we’re frozen in the darkness.
Allowing life to break us open, over and over, lets us grow. It keeps us fresh, pliable, ready for change – change that is inevitable.
I know this intellectualy. I studied very basic quantum physics, which demonstrates that everything is made of space. Nothing is truly solid.
I also know, and like, the Zen saying that you can never step into the same river twice.
But knowing these ideas in the mind is one thing; it’s quite another to embody them. That’s been my journey the last nine months. It’s scary, unnerving, and it takes a lot of time to adjust.
At least I made it this far. Two years ago, I was in total lock-down.
I knew things were changing in my marriage and I was absolutely terrified of letting Lance go. I didn’t know how I’d live without him. Who would I be if I wasn’t married, attached, in a relationship? I tenaciously clung to that identity. Then, when I graduated from my master’s program two months after we decided to split, my unmooring intensified. Again, it had to do with idenity. Who was I if I wasn’t a grad student? What kind of career did I want to create for myself?
The funny thing is, I sensed all this coming months before the events occurred. I remember saying to a mentor in December 2009 that the ground under my feet was gone. And he smiled sagely and said, “What makes you think there was ground there in the first place?”
Then he said I had to make a serious choice. I could jump and give in to what was happening, or I could freeze and hurt myself in unimaginable ways. Before we parted, he asked me if I would have the courage to jump. I wasn’t sure. I was scared. He said, “I really hope you do this for yourself.”
As you know, I took the leap. I let go of everything. I have very little left from that old life. I see now that nothing is stable. And honestly, this kind of freedom is what I longed for for years.
However, actually settling into this flow, this uncertainty, takes some serious work and trust. It isn’t the usual way to live. Everything in our society screams at us that we have to be secure, we have to have the marriage, the 2.5 kids, the mortgage, the car, the 9 to 5 job. We have to believe things are solid, because if we don’t we’re unleashing a whole lot of chaos.
And yet, the old way is crumbling. We see it everywhere. New ideas emerge daily and a more feminine way of living is being created. More of us are finding the old ways stale and even uncomfortable and we’re willing to choose this new way, even if there isn’t much of a path to follow.
While reading Ensler’s book I also came across this provocative article. The author, Julie (JC) Peters, writes about a little-known Hindu goddess, Akhilandeshvari, whose name means “never not broken.” The kind of broken referred to here is the kind we should all aspire to, she says.
“It’s the kind of broken that tears apart all the stuff that gets us stuck in toxic routines, repeating the same relationships and habits over and over, rather than diving into the scary process of trying something new and unfathomable.”
I think Eve Ensler was channeling Akhilandeshvari when she wrote her book. It’s precisely this kind of letting go that is needed now. The kind that makes us insecure…in a good way.
As Peters writes, “All the places where you’ve shattered can now reflect light and colour where there was none. Now is the time to become something new, to choose a new whole.
“But remember Akhilanda’s lesson: even that new whole, that new, colourful, amazing groove that we create, is an illusion. It means nothing unless we can keep on breaking apart and putting ourselves together again as many times as we need to.”
Follow Your Heart: Daria Musk
Today I’d like to start an occasional series about people who are out there following their heart. These people serve as inspirations to me as I tread this path and I hope they also shine light on the dreams you’re holding in your heart.
Daria Musk, Internet Sentation
Have you heard about Daria Musk, Google+ sensation? She used Google+ Hangouts to launch her career. On one night last summer she played her second ever online concert for 9,000 people in 100 countries. It’s an amazing story.
I know about Daria because her older brother, Evan, is my good friend. She sang at his wedding and I remember being impressed with her talent then. I’m so happy she’s able to share it with a much wider audience now!
Recently, Daria did a TEDx talk and I found it super-inspiring, so I wanted to share it with you. Daria is a woman following her heart. Her story encourages me to keep going, to keep believing in myself. I can do this (and so can you).
image from dariamusk.com
