Over the holiday weekend, I participated in a symposium entitled"Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream" hosted by Lynne Twist who wrote the book Soul of Money.
( http://www.soulofmoney.org/ BTW - I recommend this book all the time to friends and clients - I'll revisit other material in this book in future comments.)
The workshop is an outgrowth of the work that of a group that Lynne created called The Pachamama Alliance. The Pachamama Alliance has a twofold mission :
"To preserve the tropical rainforests by empowering the indigenous people who are its natural custodians.
To contribute to the creation of a new global vision of equity and sustainability for all."
The experience of the day was transforming for many of the participants and I recommend it VERY HIGHLY to anyone reading this column. You can learn more at http://www.pachamama.org/atd/
The workshop is based on many generations of indigenous wisdom, born out of deep relationship with the earth. The material in the workshop is a clarion-call from the ancestral wisdom to our modern civilization to restore our balance with the planet we live on.
What does the workshop and the rainforest have to do with sustainable wealth?
I found a part of the answer when I "randomly" cracked open Lynne's book today, seeking the answer
Here's what I found - it speaks for itself!
Chapter 4 "Sufficiency"
She writes - "When you let go of trying to get more of what you don't really need, it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you have. When you make a difference with what you have, it expands."
In the chapter Lynne speaks of her encounter with the Achuar people in the Ecuadorian rainforest in the early nineties. She refers to them as "naturally prosperous" since they hadn't "won some economic game to be prosperous"
She continues by saying
"With no money, no accumulation of goods, and none of the conveniences of our Western lifestyle, still there was no suggestion of scarcity; no lack and no fear that there wouldn't be enough of what they needed. There was no chase for more, no resignation or belief that they were living lives of less-than."
"They lived (and still do) in the experience and expression of enough, or what I call sufficiency. Instead of seeking more, they treasure and steward thoughtfully what is already there."
"for the Achuar, wealth means being present to the fullness and richness of the moment and sharing that with one another."
Naturally, we don't have to live in a rainforest to experience the same state of being.
These ideas point me to an innate fullness of being that is right here and always available to us.
They are a reminder that we don't need to live in the rainforest in order to return to the natural state of abundance-consciousness which we can share with eachother so fully.
Obviously, we can embrace the state of sufficiency and express throughout our relationships no matter where we live - to me this is true wealth and the hallmark of well being.
1 comment:
great. if we all were satisfied with what we have we wouldn't be depressed and worrying about what there is to get. It's the curse of living in western society. When we die all we can take with us is who we were being while we were here.
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