5 things money can’t buy

“Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself, Love possesses not nor would it be possessed: For love is sufficient unto love.” – The Prophet 

More "Funny Money" images here.

As many jectaspecta readers will know, I decided about 3 years ago to go traveling until money ran out. I stepped out of the game, had paid my debts, never had a credit card and only had my personal life savings to financially support myself.

Every now and then I would get paid for good deeds done on tour, but otherwise, life has sustained me by living humbly.

It has not been easy.

Neither is it easy being in London without money and working as a yogini (which is integrally non-competitive).

All things said however, I have realised some personal truths on what gives meaning and value to life which I thought would be worth sharing.

1. Moments with loved ones.
Being with someone I care for, having their presence in my life and sharing good times is the most heart-warmingly divine experience. That time when Dad and I played backgammon and I won three times in a row is among many of those moments that I will treasure for the rest of my life and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

 2. Naked tumbles.
Those moments of love-wrapped intimacy can transcend everything. A Sunday spent naked in the arms of another, empty tea cups by the bed and the musky scent of naked tumbles steaming from the sheets is something you can never put a price on.

3. That light in time of need.
Life isn’t always easy. Sometimes there are storms leaving one feeling lost and afraid (I learned this sailing in the Caribbean). When there are disasters personal or at scale, the most natural thing for a human being to want to do is be there to help. Having someone there in those moments of darkness can be the light that guides you through. Like a lighthouse as your boat comes in to port through stormy seas, their presence is invaluable.

4. That last bite. 
It’s amazing how scarcity invites one to reflect on the meaningful things in life. As human beings we don’t need as much as we are lead to believe and when hungry one truly appreciates every morsel. We live in a world where there’s enough for everyone. But we don’t have enough for everyone’s greed. Appreciating the small things; kind gestures and last bites is worth more than any amount of money taken for granted.

5. Love.
With everything and with nothing - the hearts of gold will love you no matter what. No amount of stuff and no amount of money will ever change that. Love is the most powerful force on Earth; it purifies karma and teaches us lessons in all its feeling and through all its pains.

BONUS: NATURE.

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money" - Cree Indian Proverb

Being a happy-go-lucky character living in Australia, insulated from some of the harsh realities of this planet, I didn't realise how sensitive I would be to some of the deeply saddening circumstances people live in and behaviours cultures can deem acceptable.

What has continually pulled me through is nature (and inner strength!) Experiencing unity with nature has lead to the most healing, empowering and awakening experiences.

We live in urban swells far removed from the stillness, serenity and spirit of nature. Furthermore, we are incredibly wasteful as a species and our mass consumptive behaviour has devastating results on our environment.

I feel passionately about this subject and I hope technology and infrastructure can keep up with the growing demands of increasingly westernised nations such as India and China with their growing demands and consumerist paradigm of 'buy the latest' while destroying our land and contaminating waters with toxins.

I likewise hope to see consciousness evolve to a level where cultures can unite and become more harmonious with one another, while humans act as the guardians of the planet we once were, yet somehow in our insanity, lost along the way.

IN OTHER WORDS: 

NATURE. NATURE. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE!!!

there's no place like home

It was Sunday 25th September 2011. I was wide awake at 3am feeling a wee bit lost and confused. I had a good friend on the other end of the line kind enough to put my situation in to perspective and remind me of my deep down wish to travel and that there was nothing (besides my job) holding me back.

The next morning, before I had chance to change my mind, I handed in my notice. Shortly after I was booking flights to the destinations that had called me; Japan, India, Nepal and Argentina while preparing a spreadsheet complete with budgets, destinations, timings etc. By the 29th of October I was hosting my "not goodbye party" with my nearest and dearest of Sydney preparing for my next adventure.

I estimated that my life savings could afford me one year of travel; finally the belated gap year that I'd always dreamt of! I gave myself enough time to work out where I wanted to resettle after leaving Sydney behind, while also allowing some quality time to myself, to creative projects, to explore the world and devote to family.

Benchmarking the duration of my travels against my savings was both the stupidest and smartest commitment I made to myself. My savings incidentally have stretched a lot further (with the odd surprise top up through working as a teacher, giving therapies or cooking as a chef on a super-yacht) while life created 'money can't buy' experiences that I could have never even dreamed of... taking me further from Argentina on to Venezuela, Antigua, touring Europe, the USA and Colombia. And despite all these blessed opportunities to keep moving... I have wanted to stop and settle down at pretty much every country I have visited.

It's been 32 months that I've travelled solo. I've couch-surfed, hired rooms, rented apartments, slept on various surfaces in various conditions and in various moving vehicles. The outside world has taken me up mountains and across oceans. I have never felt so alive and yet I've never felt so alone. So vulnerable and yet so fearlessly empowered.

I've met all kinds of people. The faithless and the faithful. The open and the closed. The resentful and the forgiving. The obnoxious and the timid. The wealthy and the poor. Characters who's hearts bleed for something or someone that they lost or had to let go of.

This nomadic lady has filled her boots with the ups and downs that one endures in the world of the unknown pushing the boundaries of the human spirit. While also giving myself the space and time to heal and grow while nurturing the patience and love to care for another. I've also prayed a lot. I'm pretty sure I've saved lives and pretty sure, I've had mine saved a few times too.

I've laughed so much at the world's ridiculousness and cried more tears than I knew I had. I've been struck by panic in the rush of neon city chaos and felt the comforting relief of arriving at the station just in time for a long bumpy bus journey. I've got myself supremely lost and faced some unpleasant fears yet had enough giggles and light hearted experiences to lift me out of them. I've been gravely disappointed by unconscious behaviour yet filled with joy at another's sincere generosity. I've felt abandoned to the core and loved to the max. Blimey has it been intense; the wrinkles and the scars do enough of the talking.

Last week I finally ran out of travel savings just as I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As I neared the end of the savings bucket I realised all my insecurities tied up in money. While I recognise it as a form of energy, there's so much conditioning we can have around capital and I'm glad I allowed myself to go there and wonder on my own worth along with it. Of course if I wanted to make money, with the skills and experience I have I could get a paid job easily, but I wanted to know this feeling and stick to my promise to keep going until I ran out. This feeling of not being able to afford to do what I want to do and humbly accept it. To live on the bare minimum and to swallow my pride in accepting the hospitality of another. To feel supremely insecure and take full responsibility for it. And of course to finally reach the end of this chapter of my life and arrive independently with my marbles intact.

The concept of home has been much food for thought along the way. Is it a matter of having walls to decorate or friends to see? Is it my family? Is it a country that speaks my language? Or is it the person(s) I am in love with? The world has shown me so many homes and I must admit the one I have loved the most, besides nature, was that of the poorest family I stayed with in a small village in the Himalayas of India. Perhaps it was their humility and acceptance that I was so moved by, their ability to live simply and so connected to the land and their welcome, love and support for one another and their community.

So I turn 30 this year. I left England when I was 22 and hit the road after a break up at 26. These years have been the most defining and remarkable collection of moments of my life which I'll continue to be grateful for in many years to come. And it's also quite plain to see that they've also been the most reflective time of my life... Sorry about that readers! Yet the greatest realisation of this long winded tour has got to be; as much as the journey is the destination - there's no place like home. 

Where is that exactly? Well for me it's a place of being and personally, a journey to go on that no-one else can do for you and at times may require strength, courage and grace.

are you worth your weight in gold?

There are two things I really wish I was taught at school: Economics and, being British, Nutrition. Yoga would've been appreciated too.

I recently spent an afternoon in Bogota Colombia at the Gold Museum. An incredible shiny place of a very powerful element: Gold.  It illuminated to me the history of gold and the energy associated with it from days gone by.

It also made me wonder on how the value of gold is perceived today and the irony that we now have pieces of paper that we hold up as value when behind the scenes there's no gold to be seen to represent it. The history of gold before the the Hispanic societies invaded is quite an important observation because therein lies much wisdom of a people's much more attuned to the spirit of nature and the responsibility of those with power.

Gold artefacts were greatly valued by pre-Hispanic societies, because of both the meanings and stories attached to them and the materials, knowledge and skills involved in working them. Many of these objects were therefore repaired by goldsmiths. Some got damaged through the constant use and were remade using wires, bands or rivets, while others which had manufacturing defects, were repaired using new metal pourings or, as in the case of the filigree earrings from the Caribbean Plains, by mending the weave with metal threads.

These Pre-Hispanic gold-working societies developed special ways of understanding the world. With these, they gave order to their surroundings and filled them with symbolic content. These cosmologies answered problems that were central to their existence, such as death, illness, and the meaning of life. Imbued with a profound religious sense, they converted the universe, society and its creations into sacred realities, while establishing a link between man and his ancestors that was essential to the continuity of the traditions.  Metals, particularly gold, symbolised the fertilising powers of the sun and expressed the divine origin of the power held by the rules.

Chieftains, priests and shamans had the responsibility of guarding, transmitting and renewing cosmological representations. Endowed with special sensitivities and skills, they were subjected from childhood to lengthy processes about mythology, sacred plants, astronomy and ritual practices. With their work, gestures and objects as tools, they did a symbolic job, one which transformed the world in order to guarantee not only the wellbeing of society but also that nature would reproduce herself. Alongside them, the technical and at the same time magical work of goldsmiths transformed metals in to objects that had cultural meanings much like the artwork of today.

Because of its colour, intense shine and unchangeability, gold was associated with the sun. Gold ornaments expressed the celestial, divine origin of the rulers power.

The shaman's believed that metal that is transformed by goldsmiths returns to its place of origin. It takes the form of the bird-shaman who flies through the middle, upper and lower worlds and adopts the posture of the seated shaman who, in his hallucinatory trance discovers the secrets of the cosmos and controls the forces of regular life. Metal objects return to the Earth as gifts to the gods. Imbued with profound religious meanings, they are offered up in lakes and caves in order to restore the balance in the world. The metal cycle is thus completed, manipulated by man, it is used by him to manage the universe.

And thus we see the incredible stories attached to gold within ancient civilisations where spirit was at the heart of the matter. What was once an art has since become a commodity of which the craftsmanship of its creation is overlooked in a world of modern day mass consumption.

My Australian friend Jess Miller (who wants to see Australian Politics shaken up) decided to invest her pension in artwork instead of conforming with societal norms of major institutions while another friend of mine, Jamie Stockwood is selling this awesome Banksy piece (on eBay) that if I had walls for, I would love to invest in. Craftsmanship that is commentary on society today.

Gold was once something pure, unchanging and divine in these regions of the world. An art that connected man with the land. It strikes me how much that story has since changed.

God, the ultimate commodity

Money is a huge story in the USA at the moment (and obviously for a vast amount of the world) and while I feel we all must search within for the cause of this global drama we are playing our roles in, overlooking the money story would be naïve of me, because it evidently pulls a lot of strings and pushes a lot of buttons. It also has powerful society figureheads printed upon it.

There seems to be a mentality along the lines of “lets keep destroying the world and hope someone else will take care of it after I die” mentality aided by a powerful country’s ability to price up food, have a massive FMCG market and rejoice in the superficial while 1 in 6 people are going hungry. I sincerely hope people wake up and step out of their drama and see this political misuse of power.  Even small steps like eating healthily, recycling and volunteering would be something or even becoming a conscientious objector...

The American Dream is like an oversized melting sundae, the cherry’s already slid on to the floor, the straws blocked up with a chocolate chip and the ‘have a nice day’ that the gentleman at the counter said with a smile is ringing in the ears but lacking in authenticity and heart.

While love, devotion, inclusiveness and faith are beautiful facets encouraged by religion, there are some dramatically interesting ways in which God and commercialism have joined forces in the United States - from car parking billboards (above) to words inscribed on a powerful currency that also cites “In God We Trust”.  But perhaps, dare I suggest, this "God" may actually be a false God in light of the fact that 'money' itself is being callously printed without the gold in the banks to support it as we live in a world that trades the debts of its citizens?

I’m certainly not positioning myself to debate on religious ideals nor economics (eek), however a tight association with mass consumption in a country where the biggest epidemic is obesity while it also manages a ridiculous amass of debt, tells me that perhaps it’s worth checking who or what one places their heartfelt trust in. Transforming fear in to faith is powerful, as is evidently manipulating people in to having faith in something that may not truly have the welfare of its people at heart in a time of unprecedented economic inequality.

Is time really, REALLY money?!

I'm currently in the consumerist capital of the world. The United States of America. Wooooow. Not only that, but I've been staying in one of the most powerful cities in the world; New York City. This is where its at. O...M...G.

As I meandered the wide streets, laden with yellow cabs and lit up signage, one sign really caught my eye; a painful American paradigm that read TIME IS MONEY.

I have seriously wondered on this idea and I am sure I've got stuck on it given my travels will extend as long as the money in my bank account has funds. I hope like many of the travelers out there I provide a strong insight that one might live abundantly without needing to spend frivolously or be imprisoned by ones own fears. Or at least that even in those moments of nothingness, somethingness will always appear... many of these somethingness moments having lit up my travels in memories that will forever be treasured.

So how, I wonder, is time equated to money? What on Earth is time, or money for that matter, beyond a bench stick for an idea we attach energy to? The advertisement didn't answer that question not even in the small prints for one to grasp. So I got to some points in my limited mind of understanding which has had tendencies to delve to proverbial deep and dark parts of the ocean where the vampire squids live (awesome David Attenborough footage here):

Time scientifically is the movement of objects through space. So time only exists in relation to something else. So does it even exist? Meh.

In Hindu philosophy, "Time is Death" Gasp! So every moment we die a little. I still don't find the connection to money. Money cannot reverse that. Perhaps the 'signs' of it by virtue of cosmetic skin cream... but inevitable decay is the nature of life. Yes morbid and dark but true unless you are Walt Disney.

Then in profound Ms Reynard (aka Lyra Ray) wisdom "The soul doesn't know time". A perfect excuse for someone living perpetually in the present and subsequently struggling at times with her 'time keeping'. I love you Ms Reynard. So perhaps; the soul doesn't know death. Tick. Immortality. An elixir. Alchemy. Absolutely nothing to lose if one wishes to speculate.

Now Freudian goes in to the dualistic forces of Death and Love. I'm going to sit pretty on that point and leave anyone reading this to work out which might be the most powerful or what duality even is and perhaps jump in to a rabbit hole of ah-haaas and oh nooos. Good luck with that. My advice would be to take a wind up flashlight or good SCUBA gear with an extra oxygen tank.

I took these points on board as I pondered on said giant black and white brainwashing sign telling me that 'TIME IS MONEY' with a New York accent in my head.

Which is one more afraid of not having? Here's a big question written in giant marker pen on a piece of scrap cardboard. And how about bringing this paradigm home. Home to a place of family. Of unconditional love. Of true connection, responsibility and understanding.

Keeping it simple.

I am a perfect example of a child brought up with way too many hours of television, Mario Brothers and Tetris, I had nannies and didn't see much of my father busy working to 'earn a living' that despite affording me a really wonderful foundation of education, meant that I also didn't get to spend much time growing up with him. We've made up for this in adult life, thankfully, but when I look at this on a grander scale, when I look at some of the biggest issues that plague the 'developed' world; I see countless children who've grown up dreaming of making lots of money to buy lots of toys and destroy lots of land and exploit lots of people in the process. 

There are way too many powerful naughty boys out there not playing fair with the other children... I won't be surprised if mother nature came and spanked their bottoms.

SPEND TIME NOT MONEY ON YOUR KIDS sings true to my heart. That's what I wish the sign really said. That's the message that perhaps the most powerful city on this planet could be sending to its people.

Money will never, ever, replace the experience of being in the presence and sharing time with a loved one. Sure it might buy an awesome toy to distract one from missing them and even stop them from nagging (brilliant article here), but no amount of money can replace that lovely warm feeling of sharing those treasured moments and memories with the ones you love.

Kahlil Gibran writes it beautifully in The Prophet when he says much more poetically;

And is not time even as love is, undivided and placeless? But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons, And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

Embrace every moment with or without money. 

That rainy day may never come.