Last Friday I posted a note soliciting questions from you, fair readers. I took the list into an entheogen journey on Saturday and have emerged fresh-faced and ready with new perspectives.
How do we make money and the whole energetic field around money regenerative? –Eugene, Oregon
What is the future of money? – Seattle, Washington
Does money = control? – Ireland
In response, I wrote 16 pages. I was having to type so fast to keep up with the stream of insights coming through my head that I gave up and dictated into my phone for 72 minutes. It’s gonna take me a while to sort through all that… Lordy.
I was also responding to some of my own questions:
What is needed for me to come into right relationship with money at this time?
How do I disconnect my mood from money arriving (yay!) or money being “lost” (aaaaaaagh!)?
What conversations about money am I avoiding?
What’s needed for me to make a steady stream?
Cryptocurrency?
Centering, not Centralizing Power
I have to give first some exposition. A HUGE theme of this trip was bringing the power of the medicine fully into my body. Even the way I phrased “Ask the Medicine” gives away that I was giving away my power to the medicine.
I didn’t title it “Ask Cris.” That would seem egotistical, right? Well, it’s much more accurate and humble, actually.
The medicine isn’t telling you nuthing… I am. If that resonates, great. If it doesn’t, well at least you know the bozo it came from. So, I hereby take full responsibility for these words. Take them as you would anyone’s perspective – with a grain of salt. I am *not* the infallible oracle of the medicine.
I realized the medicine isn’t doing anything to me. It’s opening a powerful door, but it’s up to me to walk through it. It’s up to me to make sense of the sensations, perceptions, and insights that come through. This is a delicate art well worth mastering.
You surely know many people who use the same medicine with incredibly different, even destructive results.
The power, insight, and love that I experienced during the medicine were much more grounded and helpful once I owned the power and insight as emanating from my core. (If you’re curious to hear more about this process drop a note in the comments and let me know so I can write more about it.)
Now obviously, you can go so far towards owning your power that you land in the megalomaniac ditch, but mine and many people’s tendency is the ditch on the other side of the road – in giving away our power.
Example A: Money
What we see as “money issues” are actually a collection of issues related to power. To the question “Does money = control?” I got a clear “no, but most of you give your power away to it.”
One big aha moment was that I had been thinking about money issues as a big gray hunk. Until we begin to break down the malformed lump into component parts, we have no discernment of what happening and thus… can’t do much.
We can’t unhook ourselves. We can’t affect systems change. We are individually and collectively stuck.
But, that’s not what we’re looking for. Let’s begin to unpack and unstick.
Allow the pain of some early money trauma to arrive.
If you’re up for it, take a moment to close your eyes, breathe for a minute, and ask your deepest wisdom to arise a memory of being a kid getting a painful lesson about money. Go with whatever you think of first, even if it doesn’t totally make sense at first.
If it brings up a big emotion, keep breathing. All there is to do is to be with the memory and that little kid this thing happened to. If the kid wants a hug be sure to give them one.
My memory was being called to the principal’s office for selling Atomic Fireballs on the playground in 6th grade. I nearly died of embarrassment and fright after hearing my name go out on the public address system to the entire school. “CRYSTAL BEASLEY COME TO THE PRICIPAL’S OFFICE.”
The first time I remembered this incident, I recalled only the embarrassment. Now I can see the horribly scared little kid who had done, in the whole scheme of things, a very minor thing.
She was learning what it meant that she was poor. Her granny had to tell her “we are poor!” over and over because she didn’t understand what money was or what being poor meant. I still don’t know what being poor is.
Poor means shame more than it means anything.
Poor is comparison. It meant I had less than my friends. My friends’ parents owned their trailer. We rented ours. We didn’t have a teal green Geo Tracker to ride around the country roads and go mudding in the gravel pits like Kimberly’s parents.
Poor is relative. Poor people in the US buy gas on credit cards with exorbitant interest rates. In Mexico, being poor means you don’t even have a car. You ride the bus for 8 pesos ($0.40) or take the shared taxis where two people have to share the single front seat. Chances are, there are no seat belts in that yellow 1998 Nissan Sentra.
None of this hits the root, though.
Poor means fear.
Poor means your health is compromised because of money. It means your children's health and education are compromised. It means mom has to get up early and leave the baby with granny who feeds her condensed milk since mom can’t breastfeed. They can’t afford a breast pump.
Poor means sadness.
Is that sadness different than rich people’s sadness? Surely we know by now sadness, as well as stress, anxiety, depression, and every kind of mental and medical health problem, are not the exclusive province of poor people.
Is poor people’s sadness different? Now we’re getting at the root of the wound. It says
I’m suffering more because I don’t have money. My life is fucked. It would be less fucked if I had money. To unfuck my life I need money. To pay healers I need money. To pay for my kid’s therapy I need money. To live I need money.
Even heroin addicts on the street need money to keep the fix flowing into their veins.
I DON’T WANT TO END UP LIKE THEM, DO I?
I can’t. I won’t. I’ve made it this far.
This is the unholy McDonald’s twist cone of sadness and fear that has us give away our power.
Now we’ve landed at the base of the tree. The ax laid to its hide only can see that the tree has value if it’s measured in board feet of lumber. While it lives it has no worth according to the spreadsheet way of reckoning. When the tree is dead we “realize” its value. Is a live tree real if its value hasn’t been realized?
Are our lives any different than that tree? Are we real if we don’t have a price tag/salary attached to us?
We are collectively hooked by fears around money. We’ve already been snared. Imagine we are all in a big dark forest covered in underbrush and leg traps. I’m stuck over here and you’re 10 meters away where I can’t seem to reach you to help you pull your ankle out. It can easily appear that there’s nothing to be done.
There is something to be done. Even if we can’t directly untangle someone else, don’t forget we can call out to each other. We can tell each other what we’re doing to get free.
This will require us to talk about money.
It’s been so taboo in our society to talk about money, but that only keeps the dominant narrative of capitalism entrenched. Start talking about money to people you can trust. Talk with ever-increasingly bold and honest truth until you cry either from anger or laughter.
We can grieve as much as we need to. Don’t underestimate the value of getting to speak out loud where another person can hear. There’s much shame around money, but as soon as you say the thing out loud, it never has the same power over you again.
«««« THIS is what there is to do. This is how we get unhooked. »»»»
Besos from Oaxaca,
Cris and Team Dragon
P.S. If you enjoyed this transmission, please consider forwarding it onward to two friends who would love it.
P.P.S. If you need a laugh after this, two of my favorite comedians on this topic are Gina Yashere and Dusty Slay or this German guy trying to cut an Atomic Fireball with a mere paring knife. Silly man.