CapitalismReposted from Collapsing Into Consciousness

[EDITOR’S NOTE: It was my pleasure to join Gary in the Sacred Money Seminar to which he refers in this article, and I’m immensely grateful to him for writing this piece.–CB]

Michael C. Ruppert, author, former Los Angeles Police Department narcotics investigator turned investigative journalist specializing in Peak Oil and Collapse, says, “Until we change the way money works, nothing changes.”

The way we use money is part of a dying system that no longer serves mankind. It creates scarcity, fear, and separation and the system as it has existed for over 5,000 years creates a world of “haves” and “have nots,” that allows the accumulation of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, leaving more and more people on the planet struggling for survival.

But it’s not just the extreme wealthy that are at fault…It’s us, too, because we bought into the separation mode hook, line, and sinker!

No more.

Charles Eisenstein, writing in his book, Sacred Economics; Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition, says it is the way we use money that “embodies our cultural sense of self, our unconscious myths, and an adversarial relationship with nature thousands of years in the making.”

Those of you who have been following my writing here on Collapsing into Consciousness know that I’ve been advocating that we must develop new systems that are relevant to the changing consciousness that is arising across the globe. I’ve not advocated overthrowing the old systems as they don’t need to be overthrown and have consistently said that they are perfectly capable of that on their own.  Ponzi scheme economics  and other systems are  crumbling under the weight of their own corruption without any help from us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help them along. I’m a believer with R. Buckminster Fuller who said

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Starting today, I’m offering you – and me…us – an opportunity to begin building a new model that replaces an old model and we’re going to use this website to create a new conscious model on how website memberships can work…I hope.

My wish is to begin a discussion of this proposed system through comments at the bottom of this article, to get your feedback and to see how it might be improved.

 

An Experiment Begins

Many of you know that my wife, Anyaa, and I have been totally supporting this website since we began in November of 2012. It’s been a massive undertaking of writing, creating a huge set of forums and content relative to solutions about the overwhelming problems we face at this “Great Transition” that we all find ourselves in.

Unfortunately, our plan on how to “monetize” the website is not working and it’s not sustainable.

This isn’t exactly news. We’ve suspected all along that it’s not sustainable as it is, and that’s been confirmed. Part of the challenge we’ve been facing – and are facing – is how to make it sustainable in the most conscious way possible, and also how to model a new way of creating “enough” that doesn’t rely on fear or scarcity.

What we’d like to do is to move this website into multi-dimensional consciousness, which is just a fancy way of saying we want to build a more conscious system.  In terms of multi-dimensionality, we want to move from 3D into 5D reality. In SDi (Spiral Dynamics Integral) terms, we want to move from thinking in the 1st tier way of doings thing that is the existing system, into 2nd tier consciousness, and specifically into Turquoise consciousness that not only provides a holistic way of doing things but also builds community.

An interesting aspect of all of this is how other systems are supporting this effort. Corelight is an organization that supports the awakening of the global heart. I’m in the process of taking their “SACRED MONEY AND OUR FUTURE” intensive with Leslie Temple-Thurston, Brad Laughlin and Victoria More. It’s about Abundance and Peace for Spiritual People in the New Paradigm, and they are focusing a lot on the same issue: how to trust later stage consciousness and the universe when we do our sacred Work, and that our relationship to money is one of the primary wounds. By healing our money issues we clear up a majority of what holds us back

Conscious Evolution Coaching is another organization I’ve partnered with that is concerned with healing the wounds of separation that prevent us from being everything that we’re capable of being. CEC is a dynamic multi-dimensional process that integrates ancient and modern wisdom to facilitate a rapid expansion of personal and collective consciousness.

Corelight, Conscious Evolution Coaching, and Collapsing into Consciousness are all pointing at the same thing: that we’re in serious trouble and the only possible way around our likely ecocide is a massive shift of consciousness.

Maybe this is the way new systems replace old systems: Changing individual systems one at a time until we shift the consciousness of enough people  – us – to reach the tipping point we need to change the world.

5th Dimensional Consciousness, or the holistic Turquoise level of consciousness of SDi is where we find Unity Consciousness, but where there is still an experience of “I” as an individual member of the group. Linear time and space do not bind consciousness here, and there is NO illusion of separation or limitation. Instead, there is a constant experience of the Oneness of Spirit/God/Goddess/All That Is/I AM-ness. According to the website Dimensional Consciousness:

All actions on this plane are based upon love because, just as a dead leaf cannot survive the higher vibration of a fire, fear cannot survive the higher vibration of the fifth dimension. If we were to experience fear while in the fifth dimension, our vibration would drop and our consciousness would instantly be lowered to the lower sub-planes of the fourth dimension. It is only within the consciousness of fifth dimensional Unconditional Love that we can maintain a conscious connection with our Spirit SELF.”

It’s an experiment on many levels.

First, it’s an experiment to find out if my consciousness has developed sufficiently to actually create a new 2nd tier system based on 5th dimensional consciousness. If I don’t have the capacity to develop that approach to creating a new system, it not only won’t attract multi-dimensional thinkers and community members, it won’t  model the changes that need to happen to help support  the “Great Transition” opportunity that lies before us.

Second, it’s an experiment to see if there are enough people that are also feeling the need to shift by helping to create and support the new systems that are showing up. It’s been pointed out that all six of the great shifts in 1st tier consciousness have been the result of a “tipping point of about 10% of the population. We’re now working on building a tipping point in 2nd tier that will move us into multi-dimensional thinking. I’m not saying that we need that tipping point for this website, but literally all of the work I’ve been doing over the past few years has been about trying to help people – including myself – to move into later stage consciousness and create a tipping point.

That only happens, I believe, by healing the Wounds of Separation. Shadows, or the wounds of what is hidden in our subconscious, are the primary reason we’re not  able to move into later stage awareness. It is only by bringing those shadows into the light that we can heal them and release their hold on us. We’ve written about that extensively in other articles. When we talk about “doing our work,” this is mostly what is meant.

 

How Will This System Work, Part One

First, let’s examine what isn’t working. For the past ten months I’ve been using a system that is based on the tried and true model of what most websites use: A membership-based model where you have free access to the blog (where you are now) and to the vast majority of the forums – which are also free – if you sign up for our newsletter.  Then there’s a small section of exclusive content that can be accessed for about $10 a month.  We also receive a very small number of donations. As I said earlier, that’s just not working.

So using Charles Eisenstein’s Sacred Economics as a general guide, we’re going to move into gift economy mode and give all of the content away for free. How do we define a gift economy? A gift economy is a mode of exchange where valuables are given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards.”[1]

I can hear you asking, how is that sustainable? By itself, it’s not. What we’re also going to add is a membership form. You’re going to have to fill out the membership form to gain access to the forums, and here’s what hopefully helps make it sustainable like other sites that typically charge $10 a month for access:

  1. Anyone can access the forums for free with registration if that’s what they need and/or can afford, or simply want to pay or not. We won’t be checking, and make no assumptions about why. You want it? Don’t want to pay? Okay.
  2. Anyone will be able to view the forums but without registering they’ll only see part of the posts (we’re working on the mechanics of that one).
  3. True to the concept of a “gifting economy, this is a “pay what you want” approach. In the registration form there will be a series of selections, something like this:
    • I can’t pay anything
    • I’d like to make a one-time donation
    • I can commit to $5 a month
    • I can commit to $10 a month
    • I can commit to $20 a month (let me help someone who can’t afford to pay anything)
      *

This is a relationship of givers. I give you the content and place for discussion and expansion, and you give this site a reciprocal gift but are under no obligation to do so. Using this system, you get access to the entire site, becoming a participant in a gifting culture and play an actual role in helping shift the way we use money. Because we’re part of a non-profit organization, these are considered donations and may be tax deductible (consult your accountant).

What if I just don’t want to pay? Well, okay… We surrender into that and trust that it serves a higher purpose. If too many people choose that route, the site remains unsustainable and eventually goes away. Author of “The Gift,” Marcel Mauss, appears to provide a look into how a gift community works by arguing “that a return gift is given to keep the very relationship between givers alive; a failure to return a gift ends the relationship and the promise of any future gifts.”

 

How Will This System Work, Part Two

There’s another aspect that needs to be discussed. Collapsing into Consciousness has not accepted any outside advertising. Rather, we have focused on gifting advertising to moderators and contributors to the website. That’s also been sporadic and non-reciprocal, and therefore unsustainable. So we are going to start accepting conditional advertising and are looking to develop system where that will work to the benefit of all. Some starting points are

  1. We’ll accept money for banner advertising – we’re still in 3D, remember? – and other forms of payment, including barter, gifting, trade, Bitcoin (?), local currencies, or what have you. In August, Including new and returning visitors, we’re averaging about 25,000 visitors a day who look at a total of 332,000 pages and we are working hard to maintain those numbers. That’s a huge audience.
  2. We’re going to do everything we can to encourage like-thinking advertisers and will only accept advertising and sponsorship under strict guidelines to be developed.

Summary

We’re going to try to build a new system that will benefit as many people as possible and we’re looking for your input. Do you know of any websites that are doing this or something like this? Do you have a website that is touching on these issues? Are there existing models that we can emulate and get ideas from?  This is new territory and we’re looking for your help.

What about you? Do you have a business or know of someone who would benefit from being an advertiser on CIC? Got your own website? Would you be willing to trade advertising space? Are you a writer, a possible contributor? Have you got ideas to share, comments, thoughts that might spur deeper thinking and outcomes?

Please join me as we explore the possibilities of actually creating a gifting community firmly planted in 5D reality and operating in a 3D world. Is this possible? I have to think so. Can we actually do this? I don’t know, but think we can in spite of the massive problems we face as a planet, and despite the very real possibility that’s too late and that we may fail. I’m willing to surrender into it all, but I’m not ready to move into resignation.

Let’s keep changing the world.

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