FREELY EXCHANGING

money as gesture, gestural work, passing knowledge freely

This morning is so beautifully quiet. I hear some sparrows in my waking up yard. There is, already a joyful ease coming. There is, a nice cadence to this morning. I feel blurry like this arrangement. This painting is from a series that I did on the Fisher Mansion—a storied place in Detroit, full of strange wonder. I have been visiting its grounds since the eighties. The last time I was there was with a woman that I have known since she was a small child. Her mother and I used to take her to see the peacocks and eat a free meal the Krishnas provide weekly.

“The most flamboyant of the seven Fisher brothers, Lawrence Fisher, built his mansion on one of the 46 lots purchased by the Fisher family in the Grayhaven community on the Grayhaven Canal at its eastern entrance to the Detroit River. As a wealthy bachelor, Lawrence wanted to show off his fortune and had the mansion built close to Lake St. Clair with a boat house to house his 106-foot yacht.

Located at 383 Lenox, the cream-colored stucco and red tiled roof, 22,000 square foot mansion cost $2.5 million in 1928. Designed by C. Howard Crane, architect of the Fox Theatre, the home has 50 rooms set in a blend of Italian Renaissance, Moorish and Spanish styles. Oddly, the mansion contained only two bedrooms. The interior of the mansion is filled with marble columns, gold and silver trimming, black walnut paneling, Pewabic tile, hand-painted, leather-covered walls and rosewood parquet floors. The grounds include four acres of gardens with fountains and a waterfall.

Bought in 1975 by Krishna devotees Alfred Brush Ford, great-grandson of Henry Ford, and Elizabeth Reuther Dickmeyer, daughter of UAW President Walter Reuther, the mansion was donated to the Bhaktivedanta Cultural Center of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and is open to the public. The Krishnas also maintain a vegetarian catering service on the mansion’s grounds called Govinda’s Catering.” (From the Detroit Historical Society)

FISHER MANSION

It may be the only place on the planet where a person can see a red Pewabic fountain shaped like a devil, that used to pour champagne, right beside a giant Krishna. The peacocks are long gone, but otherwise, it is quite the same, albeit perhaps a little bit in need of repair.

That little girl is now in her thirties, and just sent me the most beautiful recording post vipassana on the West Coast. She was thanking me for some wisdoms that were passed down to me, that I passed on to her. I felt complete in the knowing that I am a link in a chain, that is attenuated to the passage of helpful energy teachings. It is passed freely, back and forth, out of genuine love for others. To me, this is the way that it should be. She too, has wisdom and often passes her knowledges freely to me, teaching me new things and new ways of seeing things. She refreshes me. It is so wonderful when these links we forge with each other are full of love and health. It is the way it is meant to be. Fellow (sistren/beyond binary) travellers, respecting the times where one is mentor and the other is mentee and how that shifts. I am currently reading Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kilmer, and keep thinking of the introduction where each woman holds the end of the sweetgrass for the other to braid. I love this. I wish that it were so easy to let go of the ego that keeps us from that with each other. Pride. Whatever it may be. I am less interested in the exchanges that feel defensive or selfish on either end. I hate how power dynamics constantly play out. I instinctively know to not pursue these conversations, or patterns. I find the shape of me, and articulate my needs, and move on.

I feel that knowledges should be passed up and down, loose and free like this strange formed/not formed work. There is a shape to it, but not. It is a very rare thing to be asked for help. To be a trusted person. It is just as rare to feel a flow of mutual respect. To find a true mentor with no agenda. When being in this position is not an uphill battle of ego, and it just is, it allows for such an expansiveness. It is feeding. Undulating.

Another friend recently purchased this work. Her generous and immediate spirit shone through in this transaction, which, while in economy, had also nothing to do with capitalism. It was a shoring up. It was validating. She is also a paid subscriber here. I don’t meet many who know how to use money completely as energy, but this friend, she does. She is right now teaching me how to have conviction in support that is the shape of dollars. I see her supporting others too, with little bundles of bills here and there. She does this quietly and for her own satisfaction. I see how economy is on a whole new level for her. It inspires me to find a few good people to support here on substack. To get behind. We forget often, that money is here to support flow. It is so important to support each other, even if it is with a quick five bucks. It is our lesson right now, to understand the nature of supporting locally.

When my friend became a paid supporter here, she was holding me in such a beautiful space. She understood that that was lift under wings—a codified validation. It is how I feel when I tuck a twenty in the hat for a musician, or how I feel when I buy a local coffee. It is beautiful to show support for things of wonder and beauty that someone else is doing. It aligns things in a dimensional, worldly way. We also have to get through/past our resistance to support others with money, while getting over the transactional anonymity of money. We are all so fucked up about this. My first instinct is to believe that I cannot afford to support this or that, when the truth is that I can. A dollar. A twenty. A little scrape through the piggy bank. It is just a limiting belief that I have, that I cannot afford to support you, if I feel you. Sometimes, when money is tight, it is another offering. A piece of vintage clothing, a brooch. A necklace that I strung. I also have come to wish for support back. Another place of complication. A place of healing. To welcome support is to heal self hatred and other limiting beliefs on this end. This one, I am working on. I find it much more difficult to receive.

I wish everyone could see economy so freely. To not be afraid to give or to receive. To see the value in this gesture of support and the energetic that lives behind it. I am fortunate to have women in my life that flow back and forth with these things: knowledges, economy. It is how we heal. To free up this frozen, fearful place of money. To overcome the mentalities of scarcity. I love the image of tucking five dollars in someone’s hand, all folded up and secretive, but knowing. A knowing of what this ‘on the ground’ support means.

While this is not a hard pitch for support here on substack, it is also a hard pitch for support here on substack, or elsewhere. It includes me doing so as well. Money as gesture. Thankfulness as gesture. To be gestural in a meaningful way. To mark appreciation with a coin. A symbol that is not only dimensional, but tangible in other ways. The creation of true, local, economics. Heart money.