True wealth is held in the cradle of our heart’s wisdom and compassion. This is the entrance to unlimited abundance for all the Earth’s children and ourselves. Here, the gold waits to be scooped up, enjoyed, and shared.

As we continue this journey toward embracing our Power Woman, we find ourselves in the realm of money and prosperity, preparing to accept the Power of True Wealth. Material wealth and money elicit an odd mixture of sensations in most people: excitement, disdain, fear, envy, jubilation, anger, tightening in the chest or belly, cringing, and sometimes a feeling of expansion and acceptance. Positive feelings and sensations allow us to know real prosperity, just as negativity forces us into poverty.

In our culture, having lots of money means having power over others. As we redefine power on this journey to our Power Woman, we must redefine and re-envision money by learning the Power of True Wealth. A Power Woman eschews all that causes pain and suffering in the world. And right now money, or its lack, causes more pain and suffering than almost anything in the world. But that hasn’t always been true.

MONEY IN THE REALM OF THE SACRED MOTHER

In pre-history, money was sacred. It lived in the realm of the Great Goddess and was part of the sacred dance of life. Money is actually nothing more and nothing less than the energy shared between people for the purpose of surviving and thriving on the planet. That exchange began when the first tribes met and shared the bounty of their hunting and gathering and progressed as we settled down in farming communities. You give me some grain, and I’ll give you a cow. Your grain will help feed my village; my cow will help feed yours. The grain and the cow both come from the womb of the Mother. The Divine Mother was the Earth and all that she produced was sacred.

MONEY IS ENERGY

Money has had no real value since we left the wheat-and-cattle standard a millennium ago. Even gold and silver have no value except that which human beings assigned to them during Neolithic times. And forty years ago, the gold standard was discarded. If money has no actual worth, why does it have so much power?

Money is the energy people exchange for the purpose of surviving and thriving. When you hold a $100 bill, or the equivalent in another currency, you can sense the energy. It is the energy to create, to do, and to bring forth. But if money is energy, why are we always afraid that there won’t be enough? After all, energy is limitless. It is all in the way we think. We believe there is a limit to the amount of money existing in the world and that belief makes it so. In our society, the amount of the money held and directed by the dominator is directly proportionate to his power. Therefore, for the dominators to maintain power over others, they must keep the illusion of limited funds alive.

In quantum physics, it is understood that energy responds directly to thought. When looking for quarks, a particle of energy smaller than an atom, scientists discovered that the quark would appear in the exact place they look for it, though it wasn’t there previous to the scientist’s decision to look in that spot. This illustrates how human thought directs the movement of particles of energy.

The collective thought of the dominator society has conspired to create a world where there is a limited amount of money that can be fought over and won. In the pre-dominator culture, collective thought was driven by the divine feminine principles of nurture and abundance for all. And now, because money is energy, we can return it to its Divine purpose by changing our thoughts and opening our hearts and minds to the truth that there is unlimited abundance that can support all the children of the Earth.

In The Kaballah of Money, Rabbi Nilton Bonder interprets the Talmud as saying “True wealth is abundance that does not create scarcity.” As we are able to embrace the concept that money is energy and energy is limitless, we can bring “True Wealth” into our reality. And as we Power Women help to bring honor and respect back to the feminine principles, we will help transform the energy of money from a tool of division and destruction to its original intention of nurture and healing for all.

WOMEN AND MONEY

Because women have been part of the dominated class for the past five thousand years, we have had very little participation in money and how it is distributed. When the dominator model of society began women, once respected and equal members of society, were relegated to lowly servitude. Older women, once revered elders, medicine women, and tribal shamans, became the most useless members of society. Only childbearing women had worth, and that worth lasted only as long as they could deliver male children into their husband’s line.

Having little or no worth in society, women lived in constant fear for their survival. Until the twentieth century, few women had means for supporting themselves. Most were completely beholden to the men of their communities for their livelihoods. A woman without a husband lived with her father or brother, joined a convent, or became a prostitute.

No wonder fear surrounds most women’s experiences with money. It has been the sword hanging over our heads for millennia. Now, after little more than a century of women’s activism, we find ourselves in the workforce, struggling to carve a place for ourselves in the male-dominated world of finance. It’s not an easy fit. Over the past thirty-five years women have been making more money, but not necessarily enjoying the process. Some have an easier time than others learning and participating in the patriarchal model of business and finance. Nevertheless, although a lot of women have learned to play the game, I have met very few who truly enjoy it. Making a killing in the market just doesn’t satisfy women the way it gratifies men. We have different priorities.

Making a good living doing fulfilling work must be our goal. And we should expect and desire to continue working at what we love throughout our Power Women years.

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

- How have you gotten money in your life?

- Have you always earned your own money or did you get some, or all, from a spouse, a parent, or an inheritance?

- How do you feel when someone gives you money?

- How do you feel when you make your own money?

- Do you believe that housework and raising children are jobs that should be paid for?

PUTTING MONEY AS LOVE TO WORK FOR YOU

Our wise, emerging Power Women selves know the folly in the bottom-line mentality of our current culture. The truth that money is part of the Divine lives deep in the cellular memory of our sex. We know that the real bottom-line is love and caring. Because we have depended for our money on men for thousands of years, our talent for effortlessly allowing abundance into our lives has lain dormant. It’s time to change that. It’s time to connect with money directly. We have to cut out the middleman by starting our own businesses, banks, and institutions, trusting and following our instincts instead of the male financial model.

As you move closer to understanding your life’s purpose, you may find yourself saying, “yes, but how can I make money from this?” Or, “how can I find the money to support this new way of life?” When you put your attention on your money and turn your money into love with your thoughts, you will find that doors open and ways appear that you’ve never imagined.

TRANSFORMING MONEY INTO LOVE

Because money is nothing but energy, we can use the power of thought to transform the energy around money from greed, anger, lack, and suffering to love, care, goodwill, and abundance for all. Try writing Money is Love on your checks, credit card slips, and deposit slips. This simple affirmation transforms the energy and our own fears.

Transforming money into love will enhance not only your financial life, but also everything else in your life. Paying bills will become a joy as you send love-money to the gas and electric companies, the phone company, your credit cards, and, yes, even to the IRS.

Money is the staple of life. Money was originally food, and now it buys the food, shelter, and clothing that support life. As we women who bear and raise children and take care of families know, you don’t deny food, shelter, or medical help to any part of your family. When a woman deprives her children of any of these things it is considered aberrant and even criminal behavior, even when she can’t provide for them. But when the entire human race denies food, shelter, and medical care to huge portions of the human family, it is considered normal.

This dysfunctional concept must change. We must be that change.

Barbara Wilder is an internationally acclaimed author, teacher, and healer. She is the author of Embracing Your Power Woman: 11 Steps to Coming of Age in Mid-Life and Money is Love: Reconnecting to the Sacred Origins of Money. A former actress, screenwriter, and film production executive, Wilder is a master teacher of light-energy healing and growth techniques and meditation. She currently lives in Boulder, Colorado, where she writes, teaches, and maintains her practice as an transformational therapist and light energy healer. She is the founder of The Transformational Light Center there. For more information on Barbara and her work, please visit her website www.BarbaraWilder.com.

Copyright © 2006 by Barbara Wilder