The Money Series Part 3. The archetype of money and why that matters
Our society under today’s money system is polarised by either greed or scarcity, arising from a pool of fear.
I have yet to meet anyone with a stable, neutral relationship to money.
Take the test…which side are you on? Do you live on scarcity street, where there is never enough? Even if you have a lot? Or are you the person who is greedy for more…and more…and more? Where more gives you a sense of power?
When we look at any archetypal patterns, such as the archetype of the warrior, or the mother, they have each have their own shadow and light.
What is the archetype that manifests its shadow as greed and scarcity? For if we know this, we would know the archetype of money. We would also know the elements that need to be introduced to restore right relationship to money to balance out the greed and scarcity.
That archetype is the Sacred Earth Mother. She represents fertility, birth, creation, flow, nature, death and destruction. In her benevolence, she is full, abundant, flowing and creative. In her shadow, she is rapacious, driven by greed, scarcity, consumption and destruction. She exists in every single culture going back as long as we have records.
Our current money system, being a Yang-based currency, is absent the benevolent side of the Earth Mother.
We have separated money from Source. From productivity, nature, flow, abundance. And in so doing, we have met its shadow; we only know its shadow and have done so for most of the last 5000 years.
But it doesn’t end there. In separating from Earth Mother, we have created the destruction of precious resources. We have said that it is perfectly normal to take and take, consume and consume, feed the hungry beast endlessly, go for growth…knowing full well that to do this, we must reach a point where there is no more to be taken. The larder will be empty.
Now this doesn’t mean that we should go out and start to practice paganism, build temples to the Great Mother, or other such activities.
But it does mean that if we want to restore right relationship to the mechanism for storing and exchanging value, then we must reintroduce the Yin qualities of flow, creativity, abundance, care, relationship, productivity.
This is not just a good thing to do. It makes very sound economic sense. (Economic = managing the home. Do you think it is funny that we have a world that lives by the economy as the central decision-making point, run by the masculine? We are managing the most important home, our Earth and our cities, almost completely devoid of the influence of the feminine.)
Even the Romans knew this. For four centuries, Roman money was minted in the womb of the temple of the Goddess Juno Moneta. (around 300-400 BC). They knew the intrinsic nature of money: that it was an expression of the Earth Mother and that it needed to embody both the shadow and the light elements.
Let’s ground this conversation. Remove any of the fluffy stuff…
Over-dominance of any one element has never worked for the long term. Our bodies cannot go hard 24/7 for days or weeks. We cannot consume endlessly. This is not an argument. It is fact.
Yet we have a money system that has, for 5000 years, been over-dominant in the Yang energy.
And now it is breaking down. Are you surprised?
And if you really ask yourself, are you surprised by the solution? Really? How long can we continue to rape and pillage, consume and take? There must be a countermeasure…and we know what that is.
To Read Part 4. Societies focused on the long-term view through complementary currencies
To Read Part 2. Male and Female Currencies
This series has been inspired by the work of Bernard Lietaer. Please check his site out.
