I could start by saying something very cool, happy and hopeful about the launch of the site... However, although I do feel hope and gratitude, I can't start there, it just doesn't feel good.
I want to start by acknowledging humanness.
In all this process from the Coming of Age campaign a year ago to now, i have felt clumsiness and confusion, anger and shame, just like a teenager. I'm not special at all. We all are.
You know what? The new site is really amazing. At least I love it. You'll notice that it's bilingual, and in a number of ways it proposes bridges between different worlds. I want to invite you with special enthusiasm to register and engage in The Forum, which is a kind of facebook inside the site.
The Forum is the space where economia sagrada becomes what it really is: the Economics of Everyone.
The idea is that by simply feeling what one feels, and expressing oneself in a contained space (respectful, free of judgments), one discovers with the heart the essential truth of one's own economy. To share in the Forum it is not necessary to say intelligent or elevated things, only to be an ordinary human being. Through this sharing, oneness is built.
It may be strange for me to say personal things without knowing each other first. If you like, you can visit the About section. There you can find out where it all comes from and who I am.
In these moments I remember how since I was a child I always wanted to be special, to be able to do something really well. When the abusive voices of the obligatory society assaulted me, humiliated me, treated me like garbage, a part of me submitted, and I deeply believed that it was true that there was something wrong with me (otherwise why would they treat me like that). And another part of me, a part of my soul, got angry and somehow I promised 'revenge': that I would prove that I can do something very well. There began this desire to be very special, which I now humanly honor.
Certainly this desire to be special is ridiculous, because we all are ( it is not necessary to try to be it). I also realize that sometimes the desire to be special is offensive, or at least unpleasant for others. For that, and for anything else I say that might be offensive, I apologize sincerely. And I truly hope that through this vision of economia sagrada I can at least not interfere (and hopefully accompany) each human being unfolding that special and unique treasure he/she has to share.
On the other hand, that humiliation, that anger and that desire took me through a very valuable journey from where I gathered all this. Above all, thanks to which I learned the most valuable thing I can imagine: that if one trusts oneself, human as it is, just as it is: one shines. You don't have to improve yourself.
Something has changed through this Coming of Age process.
At the beginning I wrote that I was intensely frightened. Surely it was the fear of feeling everything I was going to feel during the process: feelings and emotions that lay dormant or repressed.
What a powerful time to feel immensely supported by the mystery of life, truly supported by the web of life that surrounds me. It was always there! It is there for everyone, without a doubt.
I have felt foolish to say that there is a web of life that sustains us, as if we needed to know, as if we needed reasons to trust. As if trust were a choice and, therefore, it was advantageous for someone to convince us to trust. Feeling silly has been part of this coming of age.
Feeling angry has definitely been part of the passage as well. In fact, anger was there all the time (now I realize it). I gave myself permission to feel it (here). I felt sure it was good to let it out. I even anticipated that I needed to do that when I wrote about education and our children (here). But I didn't know what it meant at the time. Then I had to ask myself, what's the difference between letting it out and feeding it to make it grow...? So what else is there besides all that shame and fear? Someone advised me to own my anger, to become a family. Everything changes.
It's already done, and it feels just like an initiation rite.
During the process, I felt the pain of leaving childhood, and the stubborn claim to be a child again. For example when I saw Charles Eissenstein launch his campaign to finance his new website (here), with a notorious difference in magnitude. His campaign had a goal of $50,000, compared to mine which had a goal of $2,100. When compared to a referent like Charles, whom I deeply admire, for a few moments I was ashamed to have felt so grateful and proud to receive $4,000 in nearly 60 donations (I felt it was a lot!). Then for a while I congratulated myself on being lesser, as if being smaller had the supposed advantage of provoking a measure of pity...
[By the way, from now on, you can continue to support this vision and my work with donations here. ]
Just like it's funny the habit to compare: better / worse, bigger / smaller, more important / less important. I believe I no longer care about importance, magnitude, authority, finally!
Now, I can say that my great admiration for Charles is the same admiration I have for myself, and it is the same admiration I know that it is awakening in me for every human being. Just the way we are.
Even in a grain of rice there is unimaginable freedom.
It is time to once again express gratitude to all those who supported the gofundme campaign, with or without money. A big thank you to each of you, I am very aware of how important your support has been, regardless of the amount. There was even a street artist friend here in San Cristóbal who sincerely offered to donate $25 but never did: even in this case I literally felt and received his support. There was another friend in the Tamera community in Portugal who wanted to donate $10 but did not have access to the logistical means to make it possible, and she symbolically gave me the $10 in her meditation. I have no doubt that in this case too I received her donation.
But I've really been supported in every way from the beginning.
I have been supported with the deepest dedication with over a year of work by my brother Joe Golinveaux (www.mightybydesign.com). Thank you brother for believing in this dream of oneness, for being part of the same vision of connectedness of all life. Your support has been incredibly valuable in many ways.
During this period of transition to adulthood, my family and I finished building our own home in a beautiful place in nature. It was literally impossible, and now it is beyond possible. And just as we were literally running out of money, my dear friend Pablo P. made a truly generous donation to the Coming of Age campaign. A very significant generosity because we met in the doctoral program in economics at the University of Chicago. Isn't it incredible that Chicago economists support economia sagrada?
A time when my family and I were welcomed into the land of the spirit of abundance: Montana. Did you know that in Montana everything is bigger, more abundant? Rocks, plants, hugs, friendship, healing, giving and receiving, sharing, helping each other, all open to abundant giving.
By the way, let me share something I can hardly believe. In October 2016 I wrote one of my favorite essays, The marriage of Abundance and Sufficiency part I. Towards the end of that essay, I played with the metaphor that in the second part of the story Vincent and Alice would visit the "Temple of Sufficiency in Kumbaktu, the Pyramid of Abundance in Chechelén and the Tree of Love in Ankermein".
Do you know what I just realized? I, my wife and our children have already visited the sacred site of Abundance that I envisioned Vincent and Alice would visit. It's in Montana.
The second part of the story has arrived.
Thank you Javiera, thank you to my children. Thank you again brother Joe Golinveaux for the brilliant, unconditional and unparalleled work you have done designing the website with all your heart to accompany me and Economia Sagrada in this rite of passage.
It is what it is. One more buffalo in the herd, one with life.
I'm left with two dreams rooted in my heart right now. First, the dream of including our children in everything we do, of being able to do my work and everything I do and care about in full oneness with my children. Impossible? Conceive the inconceivable.
Second, the dream of the divine abundance, from the heart, for each human being. What I call the Divine ATM. On behalf of all those who are oppressed by scarcity and those who truly suffer it. Freedom. We will do our best.
What's next? You.
Please, engage in the Forum, comment on the blog entries, let's organize a workshop. Consult me about your own search, invite me to your project.
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