7 Ways Nature Can Help Us Make Peace With Money
We are alive in a time of access to endless financial experts, manifestation teachers, and a bottomless Universe of opinions, beliefs, and thought forms on MONEY.
I invite you to take a moment and let the energy of all the money energies you've taken in sit outside of your body in a bubble. You can come back to these energies when you're done reading.
I, too, have done my fair share of intaking around money. And time and time again, I am guided — nay, forced — to release it all and return to the altar of the most profound money teacher I have ever sat at the feet of.
Nature.
Enjoy 7 ways Nature can help us make peace with money.
The wisdom of true reception
Nature is a master at reception.
She allows herself to be penetrated by every nutrient that feeds the ecosystem. She wholly receives, metabolizes, and intelligently utilizes each input.
When Life offers her sustenance, she does not collapse into questioning nor guard in defense. She turns towards the offering and makes herself completely available to it.
The wisdom of her ability to be fed is why Nature doesn't mindlessly and endlessly take.
She is sustained by what she needs to thrive. Nothing less and nothing more.
Nature embodies the subtle art of homeostasis.
We, as humans, are deprived of the true nature of receiving. Specifically when it comes to money and resources.
You see it mirrored in massive financial inequality, where a small percentage own the majority of the resources and a huge percentage are barely getting by.
You see it reflected in our inherited money safety mechanisms, from mindlessly spending on things we don't know how to receive to obsessive hoarding to feel safe and cared for to an inability to feel truly supported by money.
The wisdom of proper reception can and will restructure the flow of resources on a global scale.
Life whispers, Courageous One, turn towards me so that I may teach you the wisdom of what it means to be truly fed.
2. Nothing is truly free
Nature reminds us that nothing is truly 'free.' Everything costs something.
The more we fall into the trance of ‘free,’ the less we hear the symphony of Creation.
Everything the Earth offers us took a supremely intelligent orchestra of interdependent components.
You happen across a shrub of raspberries on a wild trail. You have been walking for a long time and are growing hungry. It's as if the Earth knew your body’s needs and created this shrub just for you.
As you eat, you are struck by the awareness of what it took for this fruit to make it to your mouth. From the original seeds spread by a collaboration of wild critters, birds, and plants; to the consistent offering of sunlight and water to the nutrients that the plants receive from the ecosystem of the soil, the mycelium, and the entire kingdom of surrounding life.
All working together to, in what feels like a moment, burst forth into an abundance of fruits.
We live in a world obsessed with discounts, cheap and free. Though there are myriad complex and valid reasons why this obsession is only growing, Nature never stops reminding us of the intelligence of reciprocity.
Our communion with her puts us in touch with everything that went into the sweetness of the raspberry, the basket of fresh food from the farmers market, the oil change from the mechanic, and the energy poured into the many free downloads and content we have access to online.
Nothing is truly free.
3. A sustainable ecosystem is interdependent
Ecosystems model what is possible for the human species.
They show us the illusions of independence and codependence. The delusion of thinking that we are meant to do anything ruthlessly alone. The fantasies born of believing that the other is our only source.
Ecosystems are a living mirror of what occurs when each participant makes a unique and authentic contribution to the whole.
When a tree in the forest is sick or suffering, the other trees — without thought — offer their extra resources to that tree. They do not deplete themselves; they give from the overflow. They do not hoard; they recognize that this tree's sickness is, in a way, their sickness as well.
When some sort of disease is nearing the ecosystem, everything works together to wisely defend that which requires protection. The whole work together to ensure that all parts are taken care of.
Almost everyone has found themselves mired in some form of ruthless independence or codependence as a reaction to the myriad attachment patterns we were born into and absorbed.
Yet, anyone who walks with a willingness to show up for their work knows that eventually, you meet the recognition that neither of these states is the final frontier. And in the inevitable uncovering and emerging of your authentic energies, you find that your uniqueness can only be truly revealed as an offering to the other.
Your song was never meant to be sung alone.
Your song is the very thing that returns you to our interdependent Nature.
Money is a terribly isolating thing. When you don't have enough, you feel isolated in your poverty; when you have too much, you are isolated in your wealth.
We have fallen asleep in the nightmare of independence, born of a lack of Belonging. The financial state of the world mirrors this.
4. honoring cycles honors Life; overriding cycles destroys Life
Nature is the Mother of cycles.
She is constantly humming the omnipresent hymn of creation, sustenance, and destruction.
Within these cycles are endless sub-cycles. The seedling—sprout phase is one of the most subtle and tender phases. The sunflower finally stretching open to the Sun appears loud and independent, yet there is an entire community of support making the bloom possible. The middle of Winter is deafly quiet and still. To the naked eye, one might think that nothing is occurring. Yet, if you listen closely, you hear endless ranges of earthen divinity toning underneath the surface.
We are naive to think we can outsmart and override these cycles without paying a price.
In the realm of money, the price we are paying is total destruction.
In certain arenas of money work — there is a great emphasis on more, more, more. The endless summer, a year full of blooms.
These teachings are often propped up with half-truths around desire, expansion, and the pedestaling of the I. Often leaving out the true function of desire, the naturalness of contraction, and the reality of we — of interdependence with each other and all of Creation.
Honoring cycles honors Life. Overriding cycles destroy Life.
5. The medicine of poison
A healthy ecosystem is well-equipped to meet poison and transform it into nutrients.
Nature understands the non-negotiable's of this process—meaningful sacrifice, inevitable yet–manageable destruction, and working in harmony.
But Nature also knows that poison will only make it stronger. More resilient, adaptable, and open to all of Life.
Most money work whether verbally articulated or not — encourages avoiding or transcending the poison. Scarcity, the harsh financial realities of the world, the wounding you've experienced around money? Pay no attention to that and focus on the good-feeling thoughts that help you feel (temporarily) better.
This is equivalent to a garden sequestering all of the various poisonous inputs into one corner until, eventually, the garden is destroyed by the very energies it sought to avoid.
Vehemently avoiding what belongs to us around money, or — what the energy of money holds for us to transform — is slowly and surely divesting us from the wisdom of Nature.
When we turn towards the poison as skillfully and gracefully as possible, we create a field of spacious acceptance. In that acceptance, healing is a boundless and natural byproduct.
6. The deeper the roots, the sweeter the fruits
Nature tirelessly emits a living transmission that begins with stable and vital foundations. Anyone who gardens knows that trying to grow in depleted soil is futile. Spraying poison creates "bigger" fruits void of nutrients and full of toxicity.
Healthy roots know how to sprout, grow, and bloom all on their own. They know how to create and sustain real nourishment over time.
Pineapples take 2-3 years to fruit. Hellebores can take up to 4 seasons to bloom. A permaculture food forest takes a minimum of 7 years to be established, and then it can begin to produce and feed with little maintenance.
In the money world, it can be easy to fall prey to the idea of getting rich quick, rapid and flashy manifestation stories, the ever-present allure of the next best thing to invest in, and more. While some of these do ‘work’ on the surface, an abundance of fruits will never be sustained in a good way without healthy and deep roots.
I would extend this metaphor to include that when you prioritize the roots, the empty chase to ‘quickly’ obtain fruits becomes obsolete.
I don't remove the possibility of things like "quantum leaps." But instead, I recognize that life-giving manifestations will be the fruits of well-tended foundations. Because anything grown from these roots is something you will have been well-prepared to steward.
7. True prosperity is simple
The Earth is the living embodiment of simplicity is complexity integrated.
The dance of Creation, in its endless complexities, appears divinely simple.
In esoteric traditions and spiritual practice, the deeper you go, the more simple it becomes. You inevitably reach a point where no explanation can do justice. This is where poetry, music, and silence become the only viable modes of communication.
My money journey has been deeply complex, as I'm sure it has been for you too. Yet, just like in Nature — I am always reborn into the profound awareness that true prosperity is born of simplicity.
True prosperity arises, within and without, when we are in flow with our nature. When we are deeply engaged in the dance of Life.
Authenticity and flow require consistently engaging complexity in order to arrive at them. Our very willingness to engage opens the doorways to the ever-present paradox of simplicity.
In a turning towards money and all it carries, simplicity is not the starting point — it's the gift of being willing to show up for the practice.
I hope you enjoyed this journey.
You may now retrieve your bubble of money-thought forms and decide what feeds your nature and what is best to be composted.
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