What does it take for our collective ideas around money to move, wiggle, shift?

During one of our sessions on the Money Bling learning journey, we took a deeper look at our monetary system and the emerging alternatives towards more just, regenerative, and proximate economies.

It is a truly humbling experience to be in this exploration with an intimate group of people from across the field, both in terms of their diverse cultural and financial backgrounds. Grounding, in the sense that, as facilitators, we often swim in our own bubbles, expecting certain constructs or information to have a broader, stronger hold out there than it actually does. Awe-inspiring, feeding our perspectives with a notion of difference and the invitation to simplify, clarify, play with metaphors until there is resonance. A profound practice that stands out particularly in moments when we attempt to explain the workings of our current financial system. There are not many examples where teachers/mentors/storytellers truly manage to take you by the hand and artfully use language not to break things down, but to speak to the whole elephant rather than the single parts of ‘the economy’ (Brett Scott and Kate Raworth are two outstanding examples). Where our education, our jobs, and even the norms that pattern our intimate relationships tell us to be more intellectual, more professional, more abstract, how can we root ourselves, our words, our work in the ecologies that hold and weave us? How can we allow language to become a thread that weaves new narratives into the world as we demystify Pandora’s box?

In her new book, "The Body is a Doorway," Sophie Strand beautifully elaborates on the idea of unweaving the webs and narratives we find ourselves entangled in. Not by choice, but by birth. Capitalism, patriarchy, neo-colonialism - only some of the collective webs that strangle many of us. And yet, there is choice. The choice to let the weight of the world pull us down, stretching the web until we feel its tight hold. And beyond, until it bends to a point where we can unwind ourselves and start weaving new homes, spun out of the decomposed truths that once kept us hungry.

I do firmly believe in the parallel nature of these processes, the weaving and the unweaving. Just as the process of making good soil: as the old decomposes and more matter is added on top of the compost heap, new, vivid realities start taking shape, generating heat, fostering more life, and creating community on the other end.

In all of this, trust appears as a fundamental ‘ingredient’ to get the process going. How we, as hosts, tend spaces that allow this invisible tissue to evolve is of critical importance. Many contexts do not provide the fertile soil needed for collective unweaving and reweaving, yet I deem it necessary to build on the belief that there is a seed of trust, a common ground that is enough to hold us all. That we are not safe in this absurd world, but can tend safety and belonging right now, right here. Find agency in agony. Growing resilience as we learn from our origins and into a wilder, more vivid future. It doesn’t need words, but how we show up and how we communicate matters.

Do you know any inspiring folks who untell the spells of our current economic paradigm and are skilled in hosting the weaving of new, proximate realities?

Let us know!

Photo of honey by FlyD on Unsplash