For a while now I’ve been sitting with discomfort about charging for aspects of my work. It’s not that I think there is anything wrong with money, it’s simply a measure, however it has a place and that is in the world of quantification and standardisation. When it comes to art and relationship which are the primary business of my life money feels like it takes something away from our communities and our sense of exchange, creativity and connection with each other and with our planet. The system is set up so that there is more debt than money which means that few thrive while many fight and squabble to avoid to destitution, it sets us up against each other and keeps us in competition rather than co-operation. Life systems are naturally co-operative and abundant and the modern notion of economics keeps us in a false state of scarcity and isolation from true wealth.
What do I mean by true wealth? To me true wealth is in beauty, co-operation and community. It is community that will sustain us when we lose all the luxuries of a social system and community that makes those luxuries worth anything too. I’m not just talking about human communities but communities with nature and all living beings. A love affair with life that thrives on generosity and co-creation. There will always be pain and struggle, this is part of being alive and what allows us to appreciate beauty and joy and transience. It is with courage we can find ways to reach out, repair and make new systems that embrace all life. We’re not looking so much at everyone being equal, having the same amount or living the same way instead everyone being and feeling equally worthy, everyone’s diversity being deeply valued, everyone’s unique calling being celebrated and honoured with gift and story by their community.
So I feel called to work on dharna, or gift basis, I am wanting to diversify and move into offering other options than monetary exchange and free offerings too. I want to work and live in trust, that for the work I do unpaid, I will be cared for by those who have more financial abundance and by the generous reciprocity of my community. I want to acknowledge my situation is one of privilege and not everyone is able to do this or called to do this. I’m not suggesting that this is the ‘right’ path or even that I will do it permanently but it’s what I’m being called to at this moment in my life and it feels good to let go of control and lean into my values and see what I learn and what I can offer my community. Lately I’ve been wondering what I’m doing in the valley and I’m hoping this choice will help me find out!
I was inspired by the dharna system at Gaia house where I recently enjoyed a silent retreat. We did work each day as a way of contributing to the community (karma yoga). They spoke to generosity and making a donation that felt pleasurable. They encouraged us to let go of thinking about the right amount, what you could get away with, or trying to prove something and suggested we listen to our hearts and what felt easy and good to give that honoured the spirit of reciprocity. I then came back home and a friend suggested I listen to Charles Eisenstein talking on sacred economics.
Eistenstein talks about the original meaning of the word economy as it related to a sense of home and maintaining a home and community. I love the idea of this link between our homes in human society and our home as part of the wider eco- system. We are at a point of crisis and collapse and this point is an opportunity to own our own agency and response-ability. Eisenstein says that community is build through ‘gift’ and ‘story.’ I love this and I feel blessed to live in an area where there is an unusual amount of reciprocity and connection in community. There is a need for the creation of new systems that can be ready to step in when the old systems fail. These systems will exist at the margins and will emerge from diverse and inclusive communities, communities centred in love and awareness of our interdependence with our earth home. These marginal systems will be emergent and beyond anything our rational minds can imagine, generated through a choice to create even when there is no clear path and no guarantee. It’s time for us to learn how to do something we don’t know how to do, this requires a period of conscious incompetence – I’m about to enter this now as I walk a path fraught with risk and complexity and at odds with the dominant social system. Many organisations and individuals are already living this way and lighting the way and I am inspired by them and by indigenous and marginalised communities for their wisdom and leadership in resilience and in deep reciprocity with all life. There is a line from a song by Woody Guthrie ‘we are what we owe’ and perhaps we are also what we give, what we create and what we receive. In this there is liberation from the small self and a chance to live in delightful and fulfilling service to all that we love, not our of force or trying to be good or righteous but because it feels so wonderful to live in love and pleasure and let go of the exhausting striving. So natural and liberating to listen to authentic power of source calling through you soma, calling you to what you love and what moves you viscerally into more aliveness and out of despair.
Check out my one to one work here.
Land art with my lovely friend Gabrielle, offered as a gift and an act of listening and reciprocity with local land and farmers at the awesome Cows and Sows in Truro, Cornwall.