How do we heal our relationship with money? Community.

in #sustainability6 years ago (edited)

How do we decolonize our relationship with money? I have been thinking about this the past few days. The answer I came to: strong, healthy community

I think of a balanced community like a balanced family with healthy components of sacred masculine and sacred feminine. I wonder if women had more influence in how the worlds money is used would we all have a healthier relationship with money?

I want to learn how to bring more feminine traits such as compassion, generosity and nurturing into my own relationship with money. I admit it is difficult because I have many past habits that are contrary to this view.

This is why I believe that I should not be the only one leading Homesteaders Co-op. If it were just me there would not be enough balance, and it would just be @sagescrub's Co-op instead of Homesteaders Co-op.

This week I chose to open up our blog to have members of our community join in the voice of the @homesteaderscoop blog.

They will be rewarded with the majority of the post payout as beneficiary because I want them to feel reward and ownership in being part of the Co-op and helping the Co-op to grow. This is one step of many to come that I hope will lead to balance, shared ownership and pride in our Co-op.

Clearly having money in itself is not a bad thing because we need it to survive. This is why one of my goals is to help individuals and families earn a portion of their living for their hard work, living and working more sustainably, with respect for nature, the environment and other living beings.

It is not that they need our help, so much as they need a venue. If we can create a healthy, ethical venue we can all have pride in the commerce that is conducted here. This can only happen as a community, not as a company whose first mission is profits.

So I have re-aligned my first priority and intention to helping facilitate this venue for ethical commerce, without regard to profit.

I am trusting in my intuition that steem will reward us if we are successful in creating more resiliency and value on the steem blockchain in an ethical way. If neither happens then that's another story for another day :)

For now my focus is on learning how to facilitate this community and get the right ingredients together so that it can thrive. We have a lot of work to do together to build awareness of our little Co-op and find our market, especially now during a bear market.

My greatest desire is for the community to take ownership of itself, because I believe that is the only way that it can thrive. I think this includes everyone involved: the contributors, the vendors and the customers as well.

cooplogo2.png

With that said I'd like to introduce you to our first contributors, the voice and family members of Homesteaders Co-op:

@riverflows

@riverflows is an amazing woman and homesteader with a lot of talent for connection and community. One of her passions is Natural Medicine. She is doing a superb job leading the @naturalmedicine (#naturalmedicine) community. This community is thriving and bustling and full of love, generosity and passion. That is clearly a reflection of @riverflow's warm spirit and passion for community. I feel so lucky that @riverflows agreed to contribute to Homesteaders Co-op as a voice and I feel that @homesteaderscoop and @naturalmedicine will have a nice synergy :)

@goldendawne

I remember when I first came online @goldendawne was one of the first to welcome me into the steem and discord homesteading communities. I have been in awe of the dedication that @goldendawne has made to helping others thrive on the steem platform. I know that @goldendawne is working hard to make a living from blogging, including steem. But it is clear to me that she prioritizes helping others over making money because that is what I see time again in her actions. @goldendawne does such a fantastic job of combining her passion of homesteading with helping others. I am so glad she will be contributing as part of the voice of @homesteaderscoop!

@thetreeoflife

I met @thetreeoflife only recently here on steem but feel great affinity towards her positive, warm energy. It is incredible how energy can come through over blog posts and chat. @thetreeoflife is passionate about seeking balance, healing, and clean energy in her life and she is making an effort to share that with others here on steem. Combined with her passion for nature and sustainability, we are lucky to have @thetreeoflife contributing to the voice and direction of @homesteaderscoop community.

@nateonsteemit

I can't express enough gratitude for @nateonsteemit. His actions embody generosity every day. He has been extremely generous to @homesteaderscoop with his time and energy, but more importantly he is generous in sharing his time to build community. He is passionate about connecting people here on steem in homesteading, permaculture, natural medicine and sustainability. @nateonsteemit is so driven by his heart that I am often surprised - even though I should be used to his actions by now, I am still not. I am so glad to have @nateonsteemit join in the voice of @homesteaderscoop.

These are our new contributors. They are our voice and leadership. Be on the lookout in the near future from posts under @homesteaderscoop by these amazing people.

We do also still have several spots open for more contributors of @homesteaderscoop. If you or someone you know might be a good fit, please reach out to @sagescrub on discord.



A Free Marketplace for Steem

We provide a FREE marketplace for you to transact in SBD. Our co-op vendors are committed to sustainability, ethics and quality in their lives and work. Support our alternative economy:
  1. Purchase handmade products with SBD at https://homesteaderscoop.com
  2. Spread the word that sustainable vendors are accepting SBD
  3. Up-vote our posts and/or delegate to @homesteaderscoop
Our SP is used to up-vote Homesteader Co-op vendors to support their hard work.

Who is Homesteaders Co-op?

Get to know our mission in our introduction post

Want to sell sustainable, handmade products for SBD?

Learn more and apply here
coop-logo-1.png homesteaderscoop.com


Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://homesteaderscoop.com/how-do-we-heal-our-relationship-with-money-community/
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Thank you for the intro @sagescrub, I am truly honored to be part of this initiative!

BTW... All you homesteaders and wildcrafters and medicine makers, I am officially taking on interview volunteers for @homesteaderscoop! I love chatting with people and sharing ideas, and if you are interested in taking part by sharing your stories and skills with us, please hit me up on discord chat @thetreeoflife
I'd love to chat, and your interviews will be published, and you could even earn something for your contributions!

Thanks again @sagescrub, so stoked to be here.

Xx ToL

You're welcome + thank you @thetreeoflife!!! That's a great opportunity that you are putting out there to help highlight peoples efforts, intentions, knowledge, skills, etc! You are doing such a great service, I love it!

p.s. maybe this would be a good call to action in our @homesteadercoop post footers, what do you think?

Sounds great @homesteaderscoop, let me know what I can do and I will!
😊👍

I will put your message above into our post template, unless you want it worded differently in which case just lmk :)

I'll dm you with edit! Thanks!

Posted using Partiko Android

I love this initiative!

Perhaps one of the things that have caused much of the world to develop a toxic relationship with money is that we have started thinking of this "global community" we are part of (due in large part to the Internet) o much that we have forgotten LOCAL as a definition of community. I know people here who try to trade with "the whole world," but they don't even know what their neighbors are doing.

Anyway, really like what you're doing because it takes Steem/SBD into the realm of fuctional and more than just something you "invest in."

Bright Blessings!

Thanks for pointing that out. That is a really good point. Its interesting to me that our little tribes here on steem have a "local" feeling even though for most of us we are not local to each other. Its a good feeling. Your comment does make me wonder though if steem gets popular enough that it is a household name int he future, then we can bring it local. It will be interesting to see what happens. Thanks for the nice comment and recognizing the functional aspect of what we are doing :)

I think there is a big influence that community size has on how much people become lost in pursuit of money above all else. People value relationships more and also can make decisions based on relationships more when they personally know the people involved. Or at least know they are only 1 degree removed from everyone involved.

The larger the economy gets, the more people feel no connection to others. So everyone becomes just someone to climb over who is trying to take from you before you take from them. Within real community though, we care about everyone thriving. We make decisions with that in mind.

This is a great initiative. I look forward to seeing how it develops.

That was really well said @indigoocean. Right now we are a tiny niche community of a few dozen people, but we are growing. Being worldwide gives us opportunity to grow, but being committed to steem homesteaders will keep us limited on how big we can grow. Even still, we may face growing pains one day if we grow to a certain point because we will be faced with the challenge of keeping our relationships, ethics and values as a larger group. Hopefully we can keep it organic and keep this conversation open as we evolve! thanks for your thoughts :)

This IS groundbreaking @sagescrub - that I am not digging quite yet with my shovel is only about "stuff" at my end. Loving this project and have 3 weeks of relative downtime ahead to refocus on what's important. and this IS one of those priorities.

You've read my mind @artemislives :P I have been biting my tongue not to both your about your store because I know you have been sooo busy,, but I am itching to see your products joining us in the co-op! But we are still just getting started and you haven't missed out on anything! Congrats on your much deserved downtime! I feel lucky that you consider our co-op one of your priorities :)

Great Idea to get steemit real applications. Have you ever heard about faircoin and their coop? They have a great blockchain on a very low energy level: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@sirwinchester/faircoin-activates-world-s-first-cooperative-blockchain-introducing-the-proof-of-cooperation-consensus-poc
I am wondering if this is not the better choice?

Hi @johano, thanks for letting me know. No I have not heard of faircoin before. It looks interesting! Is it gaining any traction? I think if we have enough interest in faircoin we can look into it. For now steem/sbd are the currencies of this platform we are using so it makes the most sense, but as we move forward we can look into accepting other currencies.

Thanks for coming back. faircoin seems to be very promising after they have moved to Proof of cooperation. Then there is the Coop shop: https://market.fair.coop/de_DE/ It is all more about solidarity and real alternatives to what we have now. So, not money in the first place.

This is very interesting! Wow thank you for sharing this. I will have to keep an eye out, maybe reach out to them in case we can collaborate.

I can remember @goldendawne when she first turned up the fire under her Steemit blog

Posted using Partiko Android

Yes! Fire is a good way to describe it :)

I'm a little bit humbled to be included here, and I hope I can come up with something fitting and wise to live up to your lovely words about me! You do seem to have captured me because, as much as it's hard to praise myself, I do really really feel passionate about community here and totally love the crew in our communities and in fact Steemwide. We've really created something special, and I love that I can walk into the @homesteaderscoop and go - oh wow, I know that person on Steemit and look how amazing and creative they are! And to be able to support them in that way is a real honour for me.

What you are doing is groundbreaking @sagescrub - you might be relinquishing control but you are still the beating heart centre that is supporting everyone and nourishing them in an intelligent, thoughtful and respectful way, and it is your vision and hard work that will see this new paradigm for ethical commerce into a wonderful future.

xx

I am also humbled that you are here with us @riverflows! Your presence alone makes a huge difference already. You don't need to try, you just are already amazing.

Totally agreed about the amazing and creative people we are lucky to know and hang out with here on steem!

Thanks for the words of encouragement, you are very sweet :)

Hello @homesteaderscoop, this is such an inspiring article and you definitely have some amazing contributors on board. @tribesteemup is very excited by this project that you and @sagescrub have created and we would love to invite you to be part of our Tribe, where we will work at helping to promote your marketplace and encourage more people to support and buy sustainable products.
https://discord.gg/ygSy5GU

I accepted the invite, but the weird thing is I don' see anything in the group. Is that a permissions thing?

This is so great @tribesteemup, thank you for the invite and thank you for recognizing what we are trying to accomplish :) I am so grateful that you want to help us with getting the word out about our mission, that's exactly what we need right now. thank you thank you!

so so excited to have such wonderful contributors as part of this project, such amazing potential and really excited about the year ahead of us and where this is going to take us xx

Yeah!! How wonderful that we are already off to a great start and it's still 2018!

To chase money is certainly foolish and in our work we meet many souls that were once very "well off" moneywise, but now they are broken and lost. I don't want to preach here, but many of their hurts could have been avoided but for their love of money. I have no desire to be rich and everything we need is added on to us due to the work that we do. All blessings to your Co-op growth.

Thank you for that. I don't feel that my soul has been lost, but it has been off track, in part because of my relationship to money (and other things!). Its great to have this medium for some healing and getting more "on track" :) Thank you @papilloncharity!