@vincentnijman this evening, after having received some big download from Nature on our land today, I am so empassioned to speak to this subject of Being Paid… As an uncompromising artist and visionary, for the greater part of my adult life I have not been paid – or have been severely underpaid – at least in fiat currency - for my (not insignificant at all) contributions to the collective effort.Reflecting on what a life-long sense of being Gifted by the Divine actually means, I want to try and communicate a more tangible core essence of HOW LIVING IN GIFT WORKS, particularly in regards to Nature, which is really the only way/ place/ dynamic through which the Inherent True Richness of Life can be received.
we are rewarded with the highest form of payment; nutriment, wellbeing, strength, consciousness
we are rewarded exponentially, according to the quality of our presence and attention
in Nature (and in Our Nature) is the only context in which EVERYONE EVERYWHERE will be returned APPROPRIATE, GROWING Gift returned for their input
our ‘payment’ from Nature and from God is rooted in Mastery, NOT in transactional or binary relationship: LIVING RELATIONSHIP means quality of attention, capacity to comune on an integral level, and ability to accumulate True Wisdom, which is that transmitted holistically and DIRECTLY from Nature/ the elements
when we work cooperatively and cocreatively with others, our reward will grow exponentially even more so
all our systems and structures will be successful and highly functional IF we base them on natural systems and structures – and so, IF we listen deeply and act from aligned attunement to the environment in which we are living
living relationship with our environment, with plants, animals, insects, elements, comes through humble symbiosis; breathing in and breathing out where we are, following subtle signs, hints and facts that are presented (i.e. Gifted) to us, as we move through Nature
NO-ONE IS LEFT BEHIND in the True Natural Hierarchy: all will be Gifted, all will be cared for; there is great wealth and abundance for everyone
NO HUMAN BEING HAS THE RIGHT TO TAKE MORE THAN THEY NEED, FOR THEIR PROFIT, IF THIS MEANS THAT OTHERS LACK
and no-one has more right than an Other, except through their physical labour – and their time and attention – to enjoy the fruits of harvesting or foraging
the closer that we are to Nature, and to Natural vitality, rhythms, structures, systems; the greater our ‘payment’
by consequence: the further we are from Nature, the less health, wealth and happiness we will have, both individually and collectively; we can live far from the land, but our structures, systems and rhythms HAVE TO BE ALIGNED WITH THOSE IN/ FROM NATURE, if we are ALL to be ‘paid’ in full
So I have had good cause to question what it even is to ‘get paid’, and have spent multiple decades taking apart the whole concept of payment, of reciprocity, of being rewarded (‘appropriately’??) for my work.
I realised relatively early on, that the rewards I was receiving came more in rhythm with nature, or at least ‘seemingly’ 'randomly'- rather than in accordance with any specific work schedule or structure. I explored the latter too, agenda-ed work, just to test and test and test the perpetual spouting on of this/ that/ the next business guru, around “If you just implement this characteristic, discipline, format, yadda, yadda, yadda….” None of it worked. Ever. Full stop. No matter how high a subscription I paid out of my meagre artist's earnings.
The crystal-clear revelation came to me today: Nature is the only One who pays us all FULLY and RIGHTLY according to our quality of attention, our energy and our resources invested (correctly) In Nature: IF we listen deeply, learn master-fully, and act humbly and for the benefit of all - rather than forcing nature into disharmony or structures and systems that do not cause flourishment of harmonious life… Rather than striving in nature, IF we co-create gently, tweak sacredly, then we are amply rewarded in the highest form of Meeting Our Needs.
This highest form of Meeting Our Needs is obviously not in coin, note, or even jewel or precious metals… At least not for us right now…! Our payment is in the riches that, even if we were being paid a lot in conventional moneys, we would be neither able to find nor to afford, in the world.
Our land has been under our care for less than 4 months, and yet already we might be receiving a good percentage of the worth of the (conventional) payment that we made for it. Seriously: the cost of accomodation (camping), electricity (solar), water (comes out of a tube from a local fountain), firewood (lots of dead trees in the mature forests), food (myriad crops already, many more to come!!); the epic quantities of materials, nutriment and seeds that we are inundated with – to the point that we literally can never pick it all… We occasionally ruminate on how much our walnut or fig or olive harvest would be worth, if we’d had to buy it from a market or supermarket: the numbers are crazy; if a pack of (profoundly inferior) walnuts is selling at 1 Euro for barely 5 shelled nuts, packaged in plastic and labelled with inane colourful promises of health – our 1000s and 1000s would be worth…..?????
The point is, we are not selling anything, and we are not buying much, either. We are cutting out the expense of the car ride to a market, the petrol, the shopping bag, even - and the filling of it with loads of tins, packets, boxes and sacks.... The time and the attention being reeled in by the adverts and the confusion of too-much-choice. The darned inferiority of everything, and the vast amounts of energy involved in just choosing things. Yes, if one has sufficient income, this is not such a striving, stretching outpouring of our resources. But to folks like us who have been squeezed and elbowed out of the (familar dis)comfort zone of earning-and-spending; we’d be under intolerable strains if we had to make our tiny wee incomes stretch to the modern shopping experience. And even then, we’d have to be making massive compromise on the quality and flavour of everything.
So being rewarded IN ADDITION TO having this beautiful landscape to live and breathe, relax and work, in: being able to learn and grow, gain mastery and feel so deeply fulfilled and purpose-full: our riches appear to be acccumulating exponentially!
I hesitate typing these words: I feel a potential frown of a reader who doesn’t own land, who might judge us as ‘gloating’ or ‘smug’, ‘privileged’ or the like. But we know our righteous path: we know that we suffered and strained like everyone else, but then... chose to NOT do so. We lived without the majority of the mod cons, the comforts, the ‘riches’ of convention. We both, Beloved Vincent and I, did without, and felt the isolation, the hardship, the poverty of being "Have Nots' for more than long enough. We do not wish for others NOT to have what we have; we’re communicating the profound sufficiency of it all, so that others might be signalled to come and see for themselves!
So many mythologies keep us in our grind and strife. The brainwashing is real: it becomes a collective dream state and it keeps compounding and compounding. Money is expensive; it requires money to fund it, and it keeps asking for more and more, the less we get in return for it. It is a hungry monster who screams to be fed day-in, day-out, then bays for our blood, despite the fact it is US feeding IT.
Payments might feel lighter, easier, less consequential, now that things are moving into the digital realm, but there is the distinct air , to me, that humanity is now free-falling – tumbling into a bottomless abyss of empty darkness, the further we move away from a grounded, balanced, wholesomeness in our living and in our transacting. Our collective arrogance seems immeasurable: our belief in there being infinite supplies of everything, available at any time of the day, at the click of a pixelated button, ad infinitum, forever and ever... Does it really feel like freedom, to be able to click buttons like this, and then to accept a package at the door? Would it not feel betterto pluck a ripe fruit, put it into a homemade basket (rather than a metal fabricated one that is borrowed just for the time spent perambulating the store), jar it up for later. Look at the jar later on one’s crammed larder shelves, bursting with bright condiments and nutrition? Or to visit a local producer of such riches (minus the strip lighting, the loud beeping, the tinned music and advertising whacking us on the ears), to dine with them in the sacred natural light, communing with truly holy food and presence….?
Vincent and my days become more and more meaningful. Our health is returning! And our sanity and sense! My tastebuds seem so much more alive! I can sense when a plant is calling me, more succinctly. I am beginning to feel the voices of the trees, the form and character of individual olive plants. Remembering microclimates and elemental details, the curve of the earth and the light changing in the changing moments of seasons. All of this is our reward: the meek inherit The Earth.
I get a strong thrill rippling through my whole being, when I put my attention on a photo that I took earlier, of the bucket of olives I harvested: the close-up of the bright blue fruits transmits the afternoon I had with a particular tree: the sounds, the smells, the taste of the air, the moisture and sunlight on distant bright-coloured trees… The patience of the olives, quietly ripening. The mystery all around, and my part in it. The awe of how perfectly all is timed, balanced, inter-related. The simplicity of it all, and yet the deep, deep complex union-of-all-things. The elation of the weight of the bucket when it is picked up at the end of the work session: the hope of all the olves coming out good, once they’ve been soaked in salamoia for a month or two, then put into jars under oil, herbs, spices, garlic, etc… The tentative hope-full-ness of anticipating those jars – of spooning out fat cured olives into a pasta dish, a salad, a stew….
All these Real Riches flowing from a snapshot….
