A FREE Global Money Summit
The recent economic crisis has woken many of us up to the fact that there is something very wrong with our money system. We are finally beginning to notice that it has something to do with our personal alienation, the competition we live with continuously, and scarcity we experience in our society, all of which have undermined connection, and community, value, agency and meaning in our lives which are the stuff of our core, our True Natures.
I venture to say the current money system is coming to an end, and a new paradigm is about to be born. I don’t know the timing, or even if it’s in our lifetime, but it seems the writing is on the wall from several points of view. The earth no longer has the natural resources to allow continued expansion which the growth and scarcity model of money we have been living under requires. We are reaching the end of our ecology. Further, expansion masked the zero-sum game that is implicit in the model, but with the slowing of expansion we see there are winners and losers, and the losers are those left holding the debt. Why debt? Because in our money system, the expansion of the money supply is accompanied by a corresponding increase in debt. In America, with the bailout of the banks, the accompanying debt has been pushed onto the American people as taxpayers.
When the production of goods and services, which is our measure of growth, can’t service its growing debt, creditors seize assets instead. We have been spectators to this phenomenon in America since the 2008 financial crisis—just look at what’s happening to homes and mortgages in this country—the extraordinary level of foreclosures and houses under water. People are being turned out on the streets and houses are being left empty. How many of you have been threatened with foreclosure or have lost their houses or know people who are?
So the biggest losers are those who are left holding the debt. They have no way to pay it off, with the new bankruptcy laws there is little debt relief, there’s no place to get money from, and nothing left to convert into new money. This whole growth and debt phenomena is the root of the crisis our civilization faces.
In Rome when expansion slowed, there was a concentration of wealth in the privileged classes, and the middle classes ended up in debt. Sound familiar? This time we are now living in brings to mind a prophecy I heard twenty years ago that profoundly impacted me. It was predicted that globalization was going to create serfs on a global scale, slaves to debt and to money and to the 1% who would hold all the wealth, before the money system would begin to shift. I remember hoping that this oligarchy would happen after my lifetime, but it is already here.
And then there is the trend that Charles Eisenstein in his book, Sacred Economics, which I talked about in my post on Sacred Money calls the commoditizing of our world’s resources.With the advent of privatization, which was intended to allow creativity to escape the bonds of bureaucracy, instead opened the door to turning just about everything in the world into commodities. This is a reflection of the ego’s focus on objects and the shell world and so is really a natural consequence of our society’s level of consciousness. We have failed to recognize in economic terms that the air, the water, the land and all of our basic resources are things we all share. In other words, our necessities have been stolen and are being sold back to us.
When we bring awareness to all these money trends and recognize they are the result of the economic growth model we have ascribed to we can also see that it is meeting its consummate end. The amazing thing about human beings is that they will act when the truth becomes apparent and because of that, we are at the point which opens the possibility of finding a money system that supports our Beingness. But , it is our consciousness- or not- that will determine how a new era of money will unfold.
As a culture we have gone from one where money originally arose to facilitate sharing and generosity and sufficiency, to a money cycle that has taken us into the depths of separateness, greed, and deprivation, which can again will lead us to another era of sufficiency and maybe even abundance. This is not different from the journey of each human being. We are born in Being, but without consciousness, and then we create the ego- which is a separation from our Being, our True Nature, but a necessary stage of development, and then as we continue our journey of consciousness, we again move toward Being, but this time with awareness and consciousness. One is the journey of the human race, the other is the journey of each of us. They mirror each other. How could they not? After all, planet earth is a mystery school.
On this journey, money needs to be given back to the creator, to our Beingness, our True Nature, so that each of us can be free in the world to become who we were meant to be. We have to be interested in each others freedom as that will optimize the conditions of all life on earth.
But to change our consciousness, we have to begin where we are. Around money that requires two things: both an inquiry into our own personal consciousness and issues such as separation and greed. But it also means, knowing our collective beliefs and cultural situation. And thus we need to know what is happening in the world. A really great way to do this would be to attend the The Healthy Money Summit that is happening this week, November 7 to 9. It is hosted by money visionaries Hazel Henderson, Vicki Robin, author of Your Money or Your Life, and Susan Davis.
They promise:
A healthier, more empowering relationship with money
Greater knowledge on our financial systems-and how we can change them for the better
Increased understanding of new and emerging economic models
Practical tools to improve your personal finances
Inspiring insights you can use to begin transforming your own community
I attended a money conference earlier this year at Whidbey Island in Washington State with some of the same speakers which I spoke about in my blog post Money and Life, and I know from personal experience that you will be challenged, informed , and your consciousness irrevocably changed. That is what is needed.