Seeds for a happy planet

Since the last day of our Women Moving the Edge gathering, which is more than three weeks ago, finishing my harvest has been at the back of my mind all the time. But working life is always rather full after a week away, and these last four days I had a low level energy – not really sick, but not able to work in a ‘normal’ way. It was the time and energy needed to tend to my subtle energy levels.

So I went back to my notes and started at the beginning – the preparation day – the day before the start of the gathering, when the hosting team came together. We were hosted by Lisette in her house in Amsterdam. I’m always delighted how these old city houses have so many windows and light is pouring in all over! So different than the rural Flemish houses of that age with small windows.

The day started with some synchronicities. Judy had lived in Amsterdam (she now lives near Boston), somewhere in the nineties, and it turned out that the place where she had lived had been only a few houses away from Lisette’s! So she strolled around the neighborhood in the morning, trying to find back a spot that she had loved and she succeeded. The spot was the ‘Begijnhof’ of Amsterdam. The begijnen, are a local and feminine story; very Flemish. These ladies lived together in the 13th and 14th centuries, under no religious order, making their own rules and having a certain influence on society. Aren’t we like them? The beguines of the new life?

The guiding question for our gathering was: If the need of the world/Earth is an invitation to become fully ourselves, then what is our role as the evolving collective feminine? This is a high level question with no easy or immediate answers. We have noticed over our different gatherings that these questions keep working in us, and pieces of the answers show up later also.

In our check in, the first major theme was: How domesticated are we? How deep is society ingrained in us? And where is the wild feminine, the natural under these layers of socialisation? This linked in with books we were reading – like Women who Run with the Wolves and Rewilding the World. Are we prepared to let the natural come back into our lives? Who knows what will happen then? The Wild is the archetypal, the instinctual, the natural. It is not new; but it seems to us that more and more women are hearing its call. And through internet we can find each other and relate with one another.

Another line in the conversation was about the movement, the transition from the Piscean age – where all sorts of parent-child relationships can be found in society – to the Aquarian age, where relationships are made out of true partnerships. We can understand true partnerships between humans, but how does this translate with the Earth, and with this archetypal level we talked about before? We were bringing in information from others’ books (Co-Creative Science from Machaelle Small Wright and Return of the Feminine and the World Soul by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee) and from our own experience to allow a new picture to form in our minds, hearts and bodies. We know that woman – or, rather, the feminine in every human being – has a natural tendency or capacity to be in direct communication with nature and the Earth. From that inner experience we have a deep sense of what is in balance with both inner and outer environment. True partnership with Earth, or with nature, then seems to be that we can use our human free will to choose for this overall balance, instead of the current ruling paradigm of separation and fragmentation. We have the free will to choose ever more balance, on all levels of our existence. We seem to get to a lived experience of the oneness of humanity and the Earth.

I have to tell you that this clarity wasn’t present our conversation then. It is now, by re-reading my notes and those of Helen, that I am able to give some coherence to what we were speaking on that day.

So, a deeper partnership with Earth seems somehow feasible and understandable, but how to understand a true partnership with this wild, natural, archetypal level of the feminine? And as we put it in our guiding question: a true partnership with the collective feminine?

From the Spirit-Source model that I developed to understand how emergence can happen, we know there are many layers between the existing potential and the manifest. The archetypal level is one of these deep layers, way below the manifest form of our daily life. Because it is an energetic level – it can be translated into the multitude of forms that we know exist on our planet (and maybe beyond?) – I understand the archetypal as a blueprint level and most likely such a blueprint exists for the feminine and for the collective feminine. Now, because our consciousness evolves, and we can make different choices than our ancestors, the forms that can become manifest out of this archetype evolve too. And because everything is reciprocal you could say that we influence the archetypal blueprint too.

This was a shocking realization for me! If this is true – and I can’t see why it wouldn’t be – then it leaves me, and us, with a huge responsibility! What we choose now has a huge influence on what will come after us, because we will, in one way or the other, change the blueprint out of which the multitude of forms will be generated over time. Do we really dare to move this edge of consciousness? There is a lot of power – at least influence – in this. Are we sure our intentions are clear and without ego? Moving the edge of consciousness is not a small thing!

Looking back at it now, I realise even more deeply that this mutual influence is going on all the time, and has been going on for ages – whether we are conscious of it or not. So my and our power or influence doesn’t grow, it is just that our understanding of the consequences of our choices is growing. My power is not greater than before, but now I can choose to apply it in a more conscious way.

On the other hand, there is also so comfort in all this. If we understand the nature of these archetypal and other energetic levels that exist before something becomes ‘real’ on the manifest level of time and space, then we don’t have to worry about how things will emerge. All these energy levels – some call them deva’s and nature spirits – will do their job! We just need to set our clear intention and co-create with these subtle levels along the way! For me that is a big relief. I/we don’t have to do it alone! Of course – for a good understanding – we never did have to do it alone, but most of us didn’t realise that. We were so trapped in our power position as the ‘highest evolved being’ that we blanked out all these other layers. Probably what we need to do more is to listen more deeply to the information that these layers are sending us.

Being in conversation about this, listening ever more deeply to what was arising in the middle of our circle, I suddenly reached a level of these subtle layers that I hadn’t reached before. I saw in my mind’s eye a huge web, a kind of irregular woven fabric that was in many, many places completely torn and broken. It looked like a woolen fabric eaten by the moths, no pattern to discover, but broken in many places. I recognized this as the archetypal energy level of connectedness and of collectives. These holes where made by fragmented thoughts, over and over again. Thoughts about ‘me, me, me’ – about separation – all influence this energetic level, which then starts to die off, to decompose.

I realized why we need to come together in circles, over and over again: because it is only these kinds of collectives that can heal again this fabric of being a collective, of being in connection with all of humanity, all of earth and all of nature – probably all of existence. At that moment I understood the deep meaning of the web of life, I understood the many stories, myths and fairy tales about weaving, knitting, mending, stitching… all images about restoring the connective tissue in the greater web of life.

Coming together, as a collective, for the sake of darning the energetic fabric of the collective and keeping it strong; that is probably what women’s circles have done through the ages, consciously or not. This is what we need to do now too. Even as fully individuated individuals, we need to do that now. So these circles, these collectives are no longer about conformity. Rather, we are looking at a collective of fully conscious beings bringing their intention and attention together for the sake of the whole of life. We have a role to play in bringing forward that collective potential.

Sunday morning we invited every voice in the circle to check in, as we have come to realize, again and again, how important that is for the energy in the circle. It took us almost till noon, but it was surely worthwhile!

Following upon the affirmation we had named the day before – The need of the world/Earth is an invitation to become fully ourselves; that is our role as the evolving collective feminine. – of course that turned into new questions:
What does it mean to become fully ourselves?
How is it to be the new collective?
It seems like a sacred meditation in itself…

Living as the web of life is living from a meditative space…
the flow is enticing but is not always there…
the flow becomes a stream of evolution, completely natural.

I feel the need to report how it has started snowing here again. Snowing with these thick drops of snow that make the perfect layer to use the snow to sculpture. It is an amasing view because there are windows on almost three sides of this room and it feels as if I am right in the middle of it, but still warm and protected.

I also notice that the further it gets into a gathering it becomes more difficult to sculpt out the meaning it has – for me at least. More really new things are coming in, new insights and new information, and I need more time to digest all of it before I am able to write something coherent about it. So I will stop here for now, and go to have breakfast instead of forcing myself…

As always in our Women Moving the Edge gatherings, I’m getting behind in blogging all that happened because it is such an intense time. It is Monday morning now and I have slept almost 10 hours, as my energy collapsed to almost zero yesterday late afternoon. So I wasn’t part of the second evening in the hot tub… I will hear the stories later today.

What if the new is here now? that is how Judy invited us into the afternoon on Saturday. A few themes that I wrote down in the moment:

Healing
The circle is a safe birthing place for the broken off bits of ourselves. I’m becoming more of myself, in this collective feminine that we are…

Birthing the new woman
The new woman is soft, has a clear focus; she knows; she brings the pain into relation; she is all of this and doesn’t need a definition. She receives in the womb, gives it some form and brings it into relation with the outside.


Trusting the intangible
Trusting the color to pick; trusting the image to follow; trusting the impulse to speak…

Yesterday morning, which was Sunday, we started the circle with reading my two blog posts; as a way to mirror back what had happened so far. Of course, and that’s the point I want to make here, this is only my experience, the things that I have picked and found meaningful, out of the vast amount of what was spoken; not able to mention all that happened inside the other participants in the process.

In the late afternoon energy got low in the group and also in myself. I was wondering what this was about. I was not normal tiredness, at least not for me. Some were laying down… coming in and out of the dream state… resting to allow to open up to new ways of sensing… cherishing the silence… resting to open up the vagina… resting to let the broken off bits heal…

It was noticed that after connecting with ourselves – to reconnect the lost bits - and connect with each other the next step is to relate with the Earth; ‘allow myself to grow into the soil’.

Relaxing – as if nothing needs to happen – to improve my confidence in myself and the confidence to use my wisdom in the outside world. This gathering is the place to receive and then ‘giving’ my view into the world. I’m tired of being this or that, I want to be the way I am!

So, it dawned on us that we needed to change our question into affirmative mode: The need of the world/Earth is an invitation to become fully ourselves; that is our role as the evolving collective feminine!

It is Sunday morning now, more snow has come during the evening and the night; so postcards are everywhere you turn your head. Meditation has just ended and a few people are doing their morning exercises.

Yesterday evening we treated ourselves with a special gift: a hot tub in the open air, with the full moon right in front of us! It was a fabulous experience, with the moon coming in and out of the clouds, getting hot in the water and then rolling in the snow to get cold and back in the hot tub again. Time to just be and enjoy the experience and nothing more...

It wasn’t an easy morning yesterday. We were in the proces that Arnold Mendell calls becoming a True Community. First there is the happiness of finding like-minded people and then – all of a sudden? - the diversity shows up! Weren’t we friends; and now I am angry at you! In the language of Theory U this is the point of opening the heart, realising that all emotions that we project on each other are ours and we have to take responsibility for them ourselves. Going beyond the right and wrong, or any polarity that is present, and opening to the diversity and how other people are different than us. It was a big reminder for all of us, me included, never to violate the rule of the talking stone and an invitation again to speak to and from the middle and not addressing someone in specific. Reclaiming our projections is needed to re-weave the strands of the collective.

It was nice to see how throughout the day more and more people started drawing or playing with colors on paper. Amasing pieces of art emerged before our eyes by just taking one color after the other, not having a plan upfront what it would need to look like. This is exactly what we invite people to do here – to be here – to live in the moment, sensing where impulses are coming from and express them when they are authentic. We were releasing the tension of having to reach something. And we were, step-by-step, coming to this point of not-knowing. The mental not-knowing that hasn’t a clue how to draw energyfields, but if we try it turns out we can! It is possible to sense into that and observe and notice it in some way. There is something below the visible and the tangible...


Saturday morning in our 9th Women Moving the Edge gathering. I’m sitting here in our working space, early morning, while many others are sitting in deep meditation. Looking out of the walll with windows all over, there is this fairytale landscape, every branch of every three fully covered with a small layer of untouched snow. It is extremely beautiful as the surroundings here are all natural and birds don’t fly up when you approach them.

Yesterday afternoon we gathered with 12 women for this gathering, here in The Netherlands. We spend our time on arriving, being present and sharing stories. For me it is special to be in this venue as it was here that I got a deep, transformational and life-changing training in the early 90’ties, called Emotional Bodywork. Here I got my basic lens to look at people, relationships and transformation. Of course what I learned here has been moulded by my unique way of being and many other trainings and workshops, but it is still a deep root in my way of being.

We checked in yesterday around the questions: What made you come? What is your edge? The stories unfolded, all held within the container of both a deep circle practice and our guiding question: If the need of the world/Earth is an invitation to become fully ourselves, then what is our role as the evolving collective feminine? Sharing circles and our way of working of going with the flow and what is unfolding doesn’t give us a straight line right to the answer on the question. We wander around, we circle around, we explore the territory... so here are some of the themes that came up...

We are all part of the puzzle; we all have our unique place.
...healing sisterhood...
The need to be connected, because that’s the way we will reach the needed intelligence.
... the magic of co-creation...
What if it is easy? IT IS!!! It is a change of perspective...
Being in the rhythm with Earth... re-weaving the web...
Do I dare to return to the Wild...
the Mystery...
the natural below the conditioning...
where magic is real...
the truth beyond the heart...
the rhythm of the body...?

I’m here to be with what is...
to get out of the way...
no interpretation...
witnessing what is happening...
to learn together the feminine approach.

Evoking all our grandmothers...
reweaving across time...

The courage to make connections...
across time...
reaching out to nature spirits...

Connections growing from parent-child relationships
and power dynamics
and sisterhood
to real partnerships.

I need you, because of us.
I need you, because of the web of life.
Can we live as the Earth?


(last blog post of WMtE8, which happened in Magnolia, Cape Ann – this happened on Nov 16, 2009)

The writer in our midst said: “This is about the mythic proportions of our time. It is not going to be an easy journey. Do you know the story of Metis, the first wife of Zeus? Metis was the wisest! And the wisest is no longer remembered. “ She told the whole story with lots of details and I was impressed because I never can remember these kind of stories, and because of the content of this myth itself.

The wisest is no longer remembered…
Men hold the love, women hold the wisdom, that is how it should be…
It raised the question in me: What then really is this wisdom?

It was said that our natural gifts – beauty, holding space, awareness of relationships etc. – have not been recognized; our natural wisdom has been devalued; but these gifts are still present and beautiful!

And as I said in a previous post, I didn’t fully grasp what the real meaning was of ‘women and need’. It was an important thread through our last morning conversation. Need, not from emptiness and deficiency; but from impetus.
Not: I need you, as I want you to be.
But: You asking me to be, is healing. The receiving draws out the being.

How can we respond to a need in a way that enlivens us, in a way that shows originality? If I am asked to spread the word about a book written, then a book party will show more of who I am than sending around email messages.

This brought us to this flipping insight:
The gift of need as invitation to others,
to be and to become more of who they are.
Two weeks and many conversations later the real meaning of it still is landing in me… it is a total flipping around, an upside down and inside out of need…
I need you, because of us.

Before the Ubuntu saying ‘I am, because we are.’ had been mentioned. (And I know now it was the title of a film about Ubuntu!) It does speak about the interrelationship between the individual and the collective; but I realized on a deeper level that ‘I need you, because of us’ is a more feminine way of saying the same. ‘I am’ puts the agency, the consciousness in the foreground; ‘I need you’ puts the interdependency, the matter-of-fact in front. It is a much deeper realization of interdependency for me… it is still trickling in…

One of us made a connection with our conversation around money and the sacred exchange system. The use of money is objectifying the people, because it reduces people to goods and services. There is no existential exchange going on; we don’t have a relation with the ones that produced the goods, or the way it was produced. It occurred to her that an exchange of true wealth happens from this existential soul level; it happens from subject to subject. Like we said a few days earlier, the new and sacred exchange system should put the soul’s callings in the middle!

The gift of need, Need as invitation to become our true self,
Our soul’s calling in the middle…

As I am writing this two weeks after the actual conversation, relying on my colorful notes on a big piece of paper, I come to understand why it is always the case that I finish my blog posts of a gathering some weeks later. Many times I have urged myself to do it right away, not to postpone it. I didn’t understand why I could do a lot of the harvesting on the spot and then there was this big time delay. Now I get it! Most of the gathering is more or less on known ground; there are new insights for the participants and also for me, but they flow naturally for me from previous conversations and insights. The more we go into deeper teritory, I am myself turned inside out and upside down. My way of looking at the world needs to shift, my perspective is challenged quite a lot. I realize now that I then need some time to digest more in order for me to be able to harvest it out, to be able to write something that – hopefully – makes sense to others too.

This said, in this last morning conversation we went into a more mystical thread.
Mythic and mystical…
I told my deep emotional experience of looking back on my life, at the time of Atlantis, in the last moments before death, because the world was collapsing due to humans actions. In these moments I had a deep realization that I had used my co-creating power with my partner and others for the sake of power; for the feeling of being god-like. And as I saw this, I promised myself I would never ever again explore these realms of magic, this co-creation with matter and energy. Now, 2009, in this circle of women we are talking about our natural gifts, our inner wisdom… our magic?
Then my memory gets triggered! Then I get scared.
I need all of you, because of us.
I need all of you, because I want to explore the real life-affirming co-creation; not an abuse of power. Our inner wisdom holds power. Can you please tell me when I am acting from personality or when from my soul level?
When is it memory? When is it true inspiration?
But not bringing our deep inner wisdom is holding back, and can do harm in another way. When we hold back, we devitalize the evolutionary impetus and potential of magic. From the integrity and alignment of soul we are needed to step into full partnership with magic, into real life-affirming co-creation. And in the ‘I need all of you’ there is the invitation to the collective (feminine) soul to fully step into right use of our wisdom in working magic.

The scientist in our midst chimed in with some of the current facts and integrated it with her spiritual understanding. There is a relationship between the manifest and the not-manifest. The not-manifest can be moved and shaped… it brings about an expanded sense of who we really are… If soul is from Source,
and Source is pure light,
what we know in light can be moved through density.
She ended with saying: Soul has a piece to play in how to understand the world.

That said, it was time to close the circle. It had been a full and inspiring morning, and there was no real need to do an elaborate checkout; another song was the best fit.

(continuation of harvest Women Moving the Edge Cape Ann)

It was Monday morning now, the last half day of our gathering here in Magnolia. I had a lot of notes from the day before that I didn’t grasp enough to be able to talk or blog about it. There had been this ‘flipping’ around the notion of women and need, but I didn’t understand it really… I didn’t ‘get’ it. So I raised the question if someone was able to help me out in the morning circle… this seemed like an invitation to dive deeper into it, until the last moments of being together in the circle. It had grabbed most of us.

Throughout the whole gathering we had been repeating one of the agreements in Circle Council: Ask for what you need, offer what you can. This is a splendid agreement to make every group into a leaderful group. Everyone is supposed to take responsibility for their own needs and passions and to offer in service of the whole. But what we had come across was more than this. It seemed to be beyond the paradox of need and offer. As one woman said: “No person can follow their own soul’s calling.” If we are on the level of soul my need seems to be an offer, or at least an invitation…

Some notes from Saturday afternoon:
This is an invitation to dramatically alter the way women can be together.

This is the feminine way of what it is to be on a team for men.

Because it is about wisdom, we each need to stay unique and link from there; receiving each other and see the need as receiving. The reception creates the next unfolding! I don’t understand this; I need to sit with this a lot, but I sense it!

Maybe it explains… needing in the context of peers, needing in the context of consciousness…

At the very minimal level it is about receiving the gifts from the others.

We are needing something from each other in order to co-create.

What is the level of honesty that is asked for here? First it is about going inwards; then there is the come out through voicing it; last is to be received in authenticity.
When you receive my gift then the cycle of gratitude works, and it cycles, over and over…

There followed different stories of remembering and pain…
… being initiated in re-connecting with the Earth in a very physical way… wanting to weep: Where have you been? I’m so glad you are back! How lonely we have been throughout history. And now we are not alone if we pursue what we pursue.

… a story of Enough is enough! against abuse by priests and church… I needed someone who stood with me. I need people who can stand and make a big noise if need be.

… a story of fear… if I ask for what I need, I might not be able to get it… particularly with women… now experiencing the solidarity…

The wounding is collective, not just individual.
The story is old, not just this lifetime.

Somewhere in the night appeared this sentence in my awareness:
I need you, because of us.
(more in next blogposts)

Soon after lunch we were all more than ready to go for a walk and to be in nature. We were guided along Shore Street, over the beach into a small walking trail that led a little bit uphill to end on Ocean Lawn: a splendid open view on the ocean, with some beach trees in full autumn color. Everyone of us followed their own impulse and we went in all directions; to sit on the bench, going to the trees or straight to the ocean… It was more than marvelous. When we came back many told about an empty head, a stillness inside and so on.

I had been sitting on the huge boulders of granite, right in front of the waves, with the sun trying to pour through the grey of the sky. It made some soft glow in the sky and some twinkles on the water, and it didn’t blind my eyes; it was just perfect for me on that spot. Some headache had been going on for me, which is always a sign that some energy is moving, that something wants to break through. It feels to me like a pressure that is just below my skin, both in my head and in my face. Sometimes it is quite uncomfortable, but now it wasn’t too bad. Sitting on the rock in upright position like in meditation I realized on a deeper layer what the aboriginal elder had told Birute: Men hold the love, women hold the wisdom; that is how it should be.

It seems to be a challenge to us, women, to move from love within – which we have came to know from every possible angle – to knowing within. I expect it to be as challenging for men to move from knowing in the head to real love. It seemed to me – sitting on that rock – that what is asked from us is Clarity of Knowing. A knowing within, a knowing related to nature and the cycles of life, a knowing that was present in these women called witches, a knowing that asks us to re-member.

Back in our circle a poem was offered: The Unknown She, she who watches… I thought: she who knows…

Then a deep knowing came through the circle, the collective. We need to look at women and needing, and we need a new language here. I need you! Not in a neediness way, not the old dependency on a man, but a needing beyond our being strong and being able to do it alone. A needing that is an interdependency. A needing that is needed to stand together.
This stirred both a lot of emotion and resonance… we had hit a pivotal point; a breakthrough in understanding…

When needs gets reciprocal it is effortless.
Is this a new kind of energy?
There is something emerging in women and I have a need to be part of that.
Talking about it is creating ley-lines across the country and across the globe.
I need each of you in your own way!

It was also touching me on a very deep level. All the times that I had invited the other women to speak from the place within and to drop from the head, and the already known – the memory – I had asked them from my need to be with me. Be with me in this quest of remembering to be in reciprocal relation with all of matter: the threes, the rocks, the ocean, the flowers and much more.

There is magic in relating with ‘life within matter’; magic that we will need in order to heal the wounds of our world and to solve the many intertwined problems on the Earth. But the memory of the witch-hunts and the collapse of Atlantis, due to abuse of magic, resides also on this level of knowing within, and I am very, very afraid to use this power in way that is not life-affirming and maybe manipulative. I need all the other women to go there with me and sense together with me: Is the knowing from within pure or somehow distorted? And only together we can see the whole puzzle.

Judy then offered her gift of synthesis: Clarity of inner knowing leads to magic and our next step is how to do that together. She named some elements:
There was something in the body;
There was wounding, fear and vulnerability;
There was clear asking;
There was moving to ground and to Earth itself;
The Earth is calling each soul to voice its inner knowing;
Then there is a spark and something is ignited.
In the inner stillness the trees, the rocks etc can speak to us.

A new morning on Sunday, still grey but with the promise of some sunshine sooner or later in the day. Judy asked to check in with whatever was present. In the morning I had been going for a walk along Shore street – just like the other day but this time with no rain – and I had been wondering if we were really on the edge, where we really in a space where we felt totally alive?

Lisa immediately offered us her edge: to sing another song for us. What a fabulous voice! What a gift!

And the message that came with the song: the answers are blowing in the wind…
Susan offered the sentence that came to her in the morning: It needs to be stable. Not understanding what this sentence was really about she looked up the true meaning of stable, which is: to stand together. This is what we need, this is what we can offer: to stand together in our soul’s calling, because it cannot be done on our own anymore. Someone mentioned Aikido and someone talked about Joanne of Arc, it seemed to point out that a new warrior archetype is born in women. An archetype that isn’t afraid from aggression or denial, but that – like in a true Aikido move – can use the movement of the opponent as an emotional recycling. The question came up: when we feel vulnerable is it really ours, or does it come from memory; either individually or collectively? And can we leave the memory for what it is and relate to situations in a new way and with inspiration? In this way take 100% responsibility for all of what happens in our life? This is truly a challenging concept but do we want to go for less? Isn’t this the difference between a warrior or being a victim?

We had a break and we tried to figure out when to go to Ocean Lawn, according to Edveeje, who lived here for ten years, the place with the most magic present. Some wanted to go now, some wanted the freedom of not to rush back… anyway the sun called us out and with no agreement or conversation about it we ended all up on the lawn in front of the house, talking in little teams of two, three or four. This is what I like about living in emergence, some things are spoken about and agreed upon, but there are still things that just happen, as if the collective does its own thing and we just go along. It was truly nourishing to feel the sun and we were called for another great lunch.
Our caterer takes a lot of effort and care to provide us with excellent food that is local, seasonal and organic as much as possible. It really feels like a blessing and it is totally aligned with the purpose and intention of WMtE. Also the house we are in, called the White House, but actually a little pink, is full of details that show the care and quality that has been gathered since it was build in 1880. If you were a photographer you could spend a day or more here to capture all the little details of beauty. In this regard it is a feminine energy that is present, which is so different and a lot more supportive than being in a conference center, even when it is situated in a beautiful nature surrounding.

Saturday afternoon wasn’t easy. As much as the morning was flowing and inspiring, lot of the afternoon we spend in the groan zone. Somewhere in the chaos, trying, groping in the dark for where the new and shared meaning would appear.

I had brought in the thread from previous gatherings and from our preparation time around the system and the culture of the current money system and how to think about that in the new paradigm. As I said, not easy…

Do we need to invent a new system?
Talking about money doesn’t seem to hold a lot of passion; actually it feels quite dead.
Although we are not economic experts, through history it were the women who held the keys of the households. So it seems that women – together – are now holding the keys to the world household.

Keys? Do we hold each a key?

Soon I changed the word Money System on my big piece of paper into Exchange System. It is clear that we need something to exchange, but not the current money with its disfunctionalities.

Somewhere it was said that Money will be replaced by Love. Great and interesting idea, but how will that look like??? And what is Wisdom in this domain? There wasn’t coming much on my piece of paper; not much that was inspiring… we were sure in the chaos…

Wasn’t this a mirror of the bigger system? Because the economic system seems so complex, so big and so overwhelming that we just don’t start thinking about it; we withdraw or hold back? or we all try to solve it on our own?

The break seemed to shift things and the conversation got full of passion, full of great insights; some of the keys that we hold became visible. I think the greatest key was that we need a sacred exchange system and we would need to put our soul’s calling in the middle; not even our competence or profession, but our true authentic gifts that are surfacing bit by bit. If we do that and exchange around that in a circle, in a web of interdependencies then something starts to happen and that something is like magic. But it always requires our full participation; our full engagement; our Yes! Yes! Yes! Even if it is our tiredness or our doubts if we bring them in the circle then we are engaged and new things can happen.

It was clear for all of us that we don’t want to prostitute our soul’s calling anymore in supporting the old system. What if all women would follow their passion; wouldn’t the outcome be that Earth was saved and all local and global needs met?
So one of the keys is: go where the juice is! Don’t let a lack of imagination hold you back; but keep on sensing what is life-affirming and what is not. Keep your senses open not to energise the old system.
At one point one woman used a little woman figure as a talking piece, a really tiny one. Someone else felt drawn to take a look closer by and asked to see it; then the woman who owned it said: You can have it!
That’s where the juice was! This generosity is surely a big part of the sacred exchange system that we are all looking for.