There hasn’t been a minute to waste, there is urgency in the air, in the water and in the sky … something is rising up and it won’t wait for me to any more ready. That is how I have felt this week, where convergence was the word of the week a few weeks ago, this week it has been arrival, crossing of thresholds and thrills and spills of excitement and energy oozing out of pores. I’ve tripped over myself (metaphorically) in the rush of it all accidentally causing a few little upsets. A couple of folks around me said it is overwhelming how much is going on … but I don’t feel overwhelmed … it is more like an delicious feast and the exhaustion of having had too much to eat that you can’t move. A veritable cornucopia of abundance. And the fitting conclusion to this season were chickens being collected and making a home in their new coop in my backyard!
I wrote a piece to frame up a finance session for this week’s Australian SheEO Summit and it is one of the reasons I am feeling full to the brim. I am seriously worn out so am going to take the liberty of sharing it as my blog this week on Fast, Fabulous, Feminist, Finance. (If you want to watch the whole session and see how participants played with the themes check out the recording here).
I framed up the session, and in doing so, inadvertently framed my entire week! It was indeed fast, fabulous, feminist and even had finance thrown in with a surprise little tax return due to me taking serious hold of my finances this past year, tracking down little amounts in out of the way superannuation funds, making a few investments based on my own decisions, and not the decisions of someone in a board room I have no idea about, and seeing the launch of my friends Regen Farmers Mutual equity crowdfunding campaign come to life to boot!
Here is what I said:
My job is to set a frame for our session today. This isn’t a rigid picture frame, although there are some inside and outside pieces. This isn’t a single still image that turns up on the last miro board you used, although there is clarity about the boundaries. This frame is a way of seeing the world, and for this session we are seeing it through the power of 4. The power of amplification, the exponential power of combined energy, skills, talents and networks. Our 4 – Fast, Fabulous, Feminist, Finance.
Lets start with the fast – we are running to the future so we can meet Riane Eisler who is already there – this place has a new caring economic paradigm, an earth sustaining future, nurtured by partnership, where we take instruction from nature and a fair share is the norm. This future is regenerative, like the SheEO perpetual fund, finance flows fast – there aren’t long delays waiting for others to authorise and validate your business, your self, your contribution – you can ask and give in a single experience. It’s fast because we have high trust. Someone said recently that in SheEO the due diligence is done, so when you arrive into the community, you can get straight on with it. Fast is when we can quickly get the changes in place, the systems to respond and new systems to emerge.
Now we come to Fabulous – and aren’t we all fabulous ! Fabulous means of great value, no basis in reality, mythic, extraordinary – and that is what we are. Let’s never forget that. Turn to another woman on this call or in the room you are in and tell them they are fabulous. I want to coin a collective noun for who we are when we gather – we are a fabulous of activators !
Next in our quartet is Feminist. The fundamental principle of feminism is the Personal is Political. Everything is connected – we know this to be true, and we also know that what happens to us at the micro level is a reflection of something at the macro level – the systems level. What gets noticed, gets reinforced and valued, this tagline underscores the connection between our personal experiences and the larger economic, social and cultural structures. As the great feminist poet Audre Lorde wrote: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” This is not separate from a financial agenda – it is deeply interwoven with our wellbeing. Nikola Tesla talked about a future that was female – where feminine principles were embedded in systems. Together let’s #femthefuture.
And finally, finance – did you know the word finance comes from the Old French finer ‘make an end, settle a debt’, from fin ‘end’ (see fine2)? The original sense was ‘payment of a debt, compensation, or ransom’; later ‘taxation, revenue” To settle a debt! Well there are debts to settle – colonial debts and just settlements to come as the largest wealth transfer in history is around the corner. Women are poised to inherit a large share of the $30 trillion that will be passed down from the last generation.
For those of you who have been following the Finance stream on SheEO.World you will know some of us have been reading and talking about David Graeber’s work Debt – the first 5000 years.
This is deep work we are doing in SheEO to turn around thinking from scarcity to abundance. SheEO is heralding a jubilee – and we are the ones to bring this to life, working on the worlds to-do list, shaping the conditions for new partnerships and collaborations, building a finance world that is fast, fabulous and feminist.
I am saturated with inspiration by Toni Cade Bambarayou who says: The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible. This is the way I want to meet as many moments as I can, and this week has afforded me so many. I intend to keep finding more and grabbing more opportunistically, making them and curating them for irresistibility – the activator as artist.
Letters to 