Minimum questions required for an understanding of a concept as applied to life.

[Sharing Lights]

Coming back to the wise men, who realized that small silver and golden coins were convenient and a great idea to all.

These men were, also, quite honest.
They decided that, based on proven qualities, silver and gold are precious and valuable to all people and not sticks or small stones.

Therefore, they gave orders to make such coins.

It did not, even, enter their mind to make coins out of dry poop or shells, for example.

Since silver and gold existed, it was decided to use them only in order to preserve honesty.

Some "wise guys" who could never become wise men objected.
They said, "common old, silly men, what' up with you all?
Listen to us, let's use sticks, stones, let' use bear crap – as there is so much of all of that and we can bring plenty.
Let's do that men and give us your silver and gold. We can save it for you, all."

The men of wisdom replied,"don’t give us bear crap as you don’t have to, even, go far to look for it.
You have too much of your, own already.

You keep your ideas and your bear crap, yourself, and you shall have even more the way you think.


If we would listen to you and use your sticks, stones, and your bear crap, there will be no value as any one can get those without working for any value at all.

Just go in the woods and pick and choose.
And you expect us to give cows, pigs, eggs, weapons for your nonsense, which has the value of nonsense only. Are you for real, wise guys?"

"Of course, we are," replied the wise guys, "that's why we are wise guys."

Old wise, men replied. "we can’t afford your ideas.
We need stability and that is based on real value and real coins of real silver and gold and not on real crap."

It was determined, then, that silver and gold coins have real value; all could touch and taste them. They are real.

“We wish to deal with real and genuine value only,” said the old, wise men and we warn all to, never, use any crap. Use real silver and gold coins only as the children of your chldren for thousands of generations can, still, use them as they (coins) are not perishable."


perishable
adj
Definition: liable to spoil, rot
Antonyms: continuing, durable, enduring


“Real and genuine value would assure us all honesty and realness. Go away wise guys - you are not even men,”
replied the wise men.

So silver and gold coins were used as they had real silver and gold value exactly according to the value of silver and gold as was determined by those wise men at that time.



When one saw a golden or silver coin, he/she would know right away that such is a coin, indeed, and not dry feces or pretty shells.

As there are wise and honest men and women, there, always, such who are not so wise or not so honest.

Those who were not so honest but thought they were so wise, were called “the wise guys.”

They always looked for easier ways and did not want to do what most of other fellow citizens did, which is work.

These guys just had to outsmart others but, since turned out to be not so wise, they resorted to cheating.

Some of them tried making coins out of much cheaper metals and, then, alter them in such way that they appeared to be as silver or golden coins.

When more people found out about such scheme, it became customary to bite a coin so that, by the strength of the coin and the taste, the folks could tell whether the coins were genuine or of the con artists.

(:
Once a peasant, for example, bit on dry poop that was passed on as a golden coin, he/she, being an expert in dealing with poop most of his/her life, knew right away that dealt with coin-poop and not real gold.

He/she was happy enough to tell, “I know well how poop tastes. This one tastes like just like it, therefore, it got to be poop. Am I not lucky - I didn't fall for it? ”

The peasant was inconvenient by the time loss and slight, emotional discomfort with some after taste effects but, could satisfy, his/her sense of justice by soaking the head of the con-artist in the of real poop. It was perfectly fine in those days.


"Taste your, own poop" is one of the best ways for true Justice.

That's why there was not that much of crime in those days from con-artists.
The con artist could get a taste of his own medicine and the scales of Justice were pretty even.
There were, also, no lawyers at those times; therefore,
not much of poop business was going on in the first place.

One of the best Justice that we could have, nowdays, is to make laywers, who actually, are attorneys, to taste their, own poop and con, so much of which they can't live wihout anyway.


Meanwhile, both parties would tell themselves, “poop happens,” and every one went his/her way.


That is the reason for practice of “biting” money or coins – to make sure thy were real.

Otherwise, there was no cheating; all who had those carried real coins and could exchange them for whatever could of equal value or whatever both parties agreed to.

“I will give you two of my silver coins and one golden one. You give me your cow, that one, the fattest, ok, deal?”

“Deal!” All are happy. One knows he/she got a real cow.

The other one is happy as he/she got real coins.
He/she knows they were real as he/she bit them hard and they tasted fine just like those, other coins.

“Praise, the Lord”, everyone was happy, except the wise guys who had tough time to perfect their con craft and just could not come to terms that they had to work as most of others.

“Lord, send us our Savior,” prayed the “wise guys.”
Send us, even, a monster, make him as hairy all over, as devil, himself, call him even such names, as karla marla or kaka or communaka, call him whatever you want, Lord, but send him to us, already, so that we don’t have to work as idiots and can, finally, make great living.”

Lord or no Lord, but, one day, their prayers were answered and such, kaka-communaka-karla-marla, as hairy as devil himself came upon this Earth to teach them how to become, truly, wise guys.



Until, their prayers were answered all used coins and that was fair enough, unless someone was too drunk and saw double coins and, thus, overpaid double or received twice as little as “saw” depending on whether was a buyer or a seller.
(:

to be continued until all 21) are finished

[Sharing Lights]

The Many Forms of Money


The exchange of life energy, money, has taken many forms over the years. Here are examples of a few of them.

In China in 140 BC White Deer Skin
In Malalita (in the Solomons) porpoise teeth - with red teeth being 20 times the value of white teeth
In New Guinea Boar Tusks
In Santa Cruz islands Red feathers of a jungle bird
In the Pacific Northwest Beaver & other skins, Snail shells, blankets & human slaves, fortunately for the slaves their only value was if they were alive where on Borneo Human skulls were used as money
In Egypt grain was used
In the Mediterranean countries Cattle was used
Coastal and Island peoples in India, China, the Middle East used strings of shell thousands of years before Christ and later in Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands
In the New World Wampum (seashells) became the first currency. A 1648 law stated that they should be strong and not disorderly, probably to eliminate counterfeiting. White beads, 4 to 8, equaled a penny but they were often died to simulate the more valuable black beads. Massachusetts allowed wampum to be used for small debts but not for payment of taxes.
In the 12th Century BC in China agricultural tools were used as currency and miniature tools were minted to act in the place on actual tools. The first coins were minted by the Greeks in about 750 BC
In the 6th Century Croesus, the King of Lydia, minted coins of pure gold and silver.
Romans used salt as currency. The Roman word for Salt is Salarium which in its modern version is salary.
In the late twentieth century in New Guinea pigs were used; about 28 pigs were required to purchase a wife
No matter what physical form the exchange took place in the exchange was always the same, life energy for life energy.

[Sharing Lights]

Money in Early America


In colonial America, governments fixed the values of various farm products for use as currency.

In fact, taxes could be paid with produce.


Laws even established fixed values for corn, rice, and cattle; and some of these laws were in effect as late as 1720.

Tobacco, in particular, offers a fascinating history of the power of money over the minds of its inventors.

In 1619, Virginia declared tobacco, already used as a currency with one pound to be equal to three shillings. Because production increased so rapidly the value of tobacco tumbled and laws were enacted forbidding certain people (such as carpenters and other crafts workers) from growing tobacco and restricting the amount that could be grown.


In 1640 and 1641, the legislature fixed the value of tobacco at about five times its value in the marketplace and growers were forbidden to sell their tobacco for less than the official rate. Not only were these laws ineffective, but they also created serious inequities between debtors and creditors.

When increasing cultivation resulted in declining value the legislature passed a law requiring that contracts be payable in tobacco.

This virtually made tobacco the sole currency.

So, of course, people wanted all the more to grow money.

In 1666, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina entered into a treaty in which they agreed to grow no tobacco during that year. But by 1683, the falling price of tobacco caused vigilante groups to go about burning the tobacco crops and the legislature viewed this destruction of currency as subversion and made it punishable by the death penalty.

Once given the magical designation of money, tobacco became far more than a crop. Its seeds were no longer rooted in the earth but in the minds of the people as well. Its power as money caused for more tobacco to be planted than the price of tobacco could have justified. The authorities refused to accept the prices set in the marketplace, but instead believed they could legislate the value that tobacco should have. Crops were not planted and fields were burned, but the powerful lure of money was such that the supplies of tobacco/money increased nonetheless.

[Sharing Lights]

The Stone Money of Yap

Money can really be anything that we agree it is. To illustrate the power our minds give to money - and money’s power over our minds - let’s look at the island of Yap (one of the Caroline Islands in the Pacific) in the nineteenth century.

On Yap, the money, called fei, was in the form of quarried stones with a hole drilled in the center of each stone. The stones were one foot to twelve feet in diameter and the hole allowed this very heavy money to be slung on poles and carried.


Their money was quarried on an island four hundred miles away and after being transported to Yap, many of the pieces of currency were so large to that they could not be moved easily around the island.

This led to transactions in which the ownership of the fei would be transferred, but the actual stone would not be moved.

The old owner would merely give a verbal acknowledgment of the change of ownership,

and although the stone itself didn’t move, everyone understood the ownership of the fei had changed hands.

Since everyone agreed who owned a particular stone, it didn’t matter where the stone rested.

This is particularly true of one special stone that was so immense and exceptionally beautiful that it bestowed great wealth to anyone who owned it.

After being minted on the distant island the boat carrying it back to Yap encountered a violent storm and sank.

However everyone agreed that because the owner could not be faulted for its loss, the stone continued to be traded as currency for generations even though it lie at the bottom of the sea.

The islanders simply decided that their money did not have to be in their immediate possession, or even visible, to have value and be owned or transferred.

In 1898, the German government acquired the Caroline Islands, including Yap, from Spain.

Since Yap had no roads and the paths were in poor condition, the German’s ordered the islanders to improve the condition of the paths.

The islanders had walked these paths for generations with fei hanging from their shoulder poles, and neither needed nor wanted to improve the paths.

Faced with the passive resistance of the people of Yap, the German authorities pondered how to force compliance.

The wealth of the islanders dotted the landscape in the form of fei, but it would require far too much work to confiscate this money.

And if it could be moved, where would it be stored?

At last the Germans came up with a diabolic plan.

In order to rob the island of its wealth and force compliance with it’s work order, a man was dispatched around the island with a can of black paint.

On the most valuable pieces of fei he painted a small black cross.

The German’s then announced that any stone with a black cross was no longer money.

Without their wealth the islanders went to work and improved the paths.

When their work was done the Germans sent another man to remove the black crosses and reinstated the island’s wealth.

Of course nothing had changed on the island except for paint being applied and removed and the thoughts in people’s minds. Whether it was money or wasn’t or was again, it was all in their minds. If the island of Yap’s system of money seems primitive, consider the modern worker.

He or she will go to work, the employer, through direct deposit, tells the bank how much money has been earned.

The worker then goes to the store slides an ATM card through a card reading machine and the bank tells the store that they now have the money.

Did the money actually move?

What form was the money in anyway?

While it was kept track of by computer bits, it was all really in their minds, by mutual agreement, of the parties involved.
Just like on the island of Yap.

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The social earmarking of money appears throughout ancient as well as modern societies. Often money attained special qualities and distinct values independent of quantity. How much money was less important than what type of money it was and who owned it. It was not unusual for multiple currencies to have coexisted in the same village. Each currency would have specific and restricted uses and, sometimes, designated users.


Historically a “woman’s wage” was very different from a “man’s wage.” On Rosell Island separate lower-value coins were reserved exclusively for women. While on Yap men used the large stones as currency, mussel shells strung on strings served as women’s money. In the early twentieth century a woman’s wage was set not by productivity but by what seemed proper. This led to an interesting moral balancing act, because high wages were seen as encouraging independence yet wages that were too low might push young women into prostitution.


When a wife did not earn wages of her own, her husband would give her money as a gift or occasionally as an entitlement. The wives money was not meant for her personally but for housekeeping and family expenses.

Pocket money was after all, for husbands and children but not for wives. The amount of the wife’s allowance was not determined by her domestic contributions, but by prevalent beliefs about what was a proper amount for a wife to receive.

Therefore, when the husband received a larger paycheck he was under no obligation to give more to his wife, he simply had more money for himself.

Money as Coins

The word “money” derives from the Roman goddess named Moneta. Coins minted in her temples were issued to the far reaches of the empire. In fact, the Latin word moneta (meaning mint or coins) evolved into the Old English word mynet (meaning coins or money), which became the English word “mint.”


The Greeks minted the first coins in about 750 BC, and in the 6th Century Croesus, the King of Lydia, minted coins of pure gold and silver. In the 5th Century BC in Greece, the temple at Delphi began minting silver coins. As a continuation of the fertility/prosperity rituals, these coins paid homage to the gods. The coins were minted with the likeness of Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, and Apollo. As these coins started to circulate, the energy of the spirit started to move into the world of trade. One of the most important early coins was minted in Athens in 525 BC. It pictured Athena, who served as a goddess of fertility on one side and her owl on the reverse. This coin was widely used in trade throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond.

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4)



Viewed against this background many aspects of our coins and bills reflect the sacred origins of money. Early US coins were minted with the image of Liberty or Standing Liberty, which were similar to the likeness of Athena. And today the motto “In God We Trust” appears on all our coins and bills.

- What is Money Today?

While we tend to think of money as something exclusively created, distributed, and guaranteed by the government, this is not now and has never been the case. In the late 1700’s churches issued their own notes and tokens. In the 1830’s merchants distributed copper “hard-time tokens” that served as both currency and advertising. Patriotic and political tokens were common before the Civil War. During the Civil War, when silver was more valuable as a metal than as a coin, privately issued “shinplasters”--paper money in small denominations -- along with thousands of tradesmen’s and political tokens were used as substitute currency in everyday transactions.
Transportation companies, hotels saloons, restaurants, and retail stores that could not carry on business without change out of necessity produced their own currency. For example, Boston’s Young’s Hotel issued a system of checks for 15, 25, and 50 cents signed by the proprietor. Gold coins were also privately issued. Between 1830 and 1860, individuals in California, Georgia, and other states produced thousands of coins. Indeed, from 1849 to 1855, private gold coins were the main currency in California.

In the 19th Century, America worked to create a standardized national money. It taxed thousands of state issued paper currencies, suppressed the private issue or tokens, paper notes, coins by stores, businesses, churches, and other organizations and stamped out the personalization of money by individuals. At the time there were 5,000 or more distinct varieties of state bank notes not counting thousands of counterfeit issues. Merchants and bankers had to rely on bank-note directories to keep track of the different denominations, sizes, and colors.

In 1863, the National Banking Act allowed newly chartered national banks to create a uniform currency. Still there remained a variety of currencies in circulation including interest-bearing legal tender notes, government demand notes, postage and fractional currency, as well as silver and gold certificates—not to mention silver and gold coins.

In many cases different monies were earmarked for specific purposes. Greenbacks, for instance, were receivable in most payments but neither for duties on imports nor for interest on bonds and notes. Gold was largely used for foreign transactions but was also used for certain domestic payments such as customs duties.

For decades debate raged over the legitimacy of money. Was gold the only true standard or was silver equally sound or was only government issued currency acceptable. In 1900, the Gold Standard Act established the gold dollar as the national monetary standard, but it was not until 1933 that Congress formally declared all US coins and currencies as equal legal tender.

As hard as the government tried to unify money into a single entity, the general population worked just as hard to expand currency. Instead of adopting the idea of one type of money, people expanded the idea of having multiple monies. While the currency itself was looked upon as a single entity, its use was fractionalized. A windfall was treated differently than an inheritance. There was men’s money and women’s money, family and children’s money. Wages and bonuses were thought of as separate monies. Legislatures debated whether tips were an acceptable kind of money or a punishable misdemeanor. Categories of almost all types of income and expenses were treated differently.

More than just different categories of money abounded. Retail stores created trading stamps and product coupons; they issued credit cards and gift certificates. Companies issued stocks and bonds. Various levels of government offered bonds. The whole idea of wealth in a single currency was lost in an explosion of ideas

Let’s be clear: money multiplies! People are constantly creating new types of monies. They earmark certain monies for particular uses; distinguish others by how they are earned, designate some for special users; as well as converting non-monetary objects into money for exchange. Of course, quantity makes a difference; people care about how much money is involved in their transactions. But what kind of money it is and whose money it is also matters greatly.

[Sharing Lights]

Types of Money Today


The differentiation of money is not just by individuals, but organizations and even the government distinguishes among forms of legal tender.

Today, the Federal Reserve recognizes as part of the national money supply not only cash, currency, demand deposits, and travelers checks, but also, among other financial assets, overnight repurchase agreements, Eurodollars, money market mutual fund shares, savings bonds, commercial paper, banker’s acceptances, and liquid treasury obligations.

It seems that FR has a strong grip on the US Government, while the latter may not claim the same...

Multiple monies are thus not curious residuals of an earlier era but a vital part of today’s economy.

Types of Money Today

Currency, Bills and Coins
Money Orders
Gift Certificates
Stocks
Bonds
Options
Mutual Funds
Treasury Bills
Money Market Funds
Credit Cards
Debit Cards
ATM Cards
Checks
IRAs
403(b)’s
Keogh’s
Trust Funds
Savings Bonds
Municipal Bonds
Many more and many more to come

So from the earliest fertility rituals to the modern dollar bill, we are using a connection between our personal life energy and our, eternal spirit.

It is in this way that we honor the cycles of life: planting and harvesting, earning and spending, giving and receiving, saving and investing, and even living and dying. When we understand that money is a symbol of life energy, we begin to honor and respect it. Not that the symbol is the treasure, but the treasure resides in you.

Prosperity Without Money

The Art of Prosperity defines prosperity as the ability to function effortlessly in the world without regards to money.

For most of us it also means an increasing financial abundance.

[Sharing Lights]

The Power of Circulation

This concept really came about in the 1300’s.
Devised as a way around the religious prohibition of usury, charging interest on loans, Italian bankers found a loophole that immediately started to create more wealth.

Commerce had flourished through vast regions and with many differing currencies being used.

This banking challenge led them to come up with a brilliant concept.

They wrote contracts for money.

Instead of a shipment of coins that could take three weeks to travel four hundred miles and risk being stolen, lost or pilfered by the very guards who were paid to protect it, a contract would arrive in eight days and even if stolen couldn’t be cashed.

It was cheaper and easier to use the contract than coins.

Under this new system a bag of florins that might have sat for years in a noble’s stronghouse could now be deposited for safekeeping in an Italian bank that had access to branches across the continent. The bank then lent the money and circulated the bill of exchange as money.

The noble still had his one hundred florins on the books. The merchant who borrowed the florins was richer, and the person who held the bill of exchange now had one hundred florins as well.

Even though only one hundred gold coins were involved, the miracle of banking deposits and loans has transformed them into many hundreds of florins that could be used by different individuals in different cities at the same time.

The more the money circulated, the more money there was to circulate.

The Dollar Game

Here’s another example of how the power of money grows as it circulates.

Imagine a room with twenty people sitting in a circle. One person takes out a dollar and asks the person next to him what goods or services they might sell him for the dollar.

She responds that she has an extra pen she could sell him.

He agrees takes the pen and gives her the dollar. She then asks the next person the same question. That person offers a good or service, she accepts, and the exchange is made.

When the dollar gets to the twentieth person he then turns to the dollars original owner, offers the same proposition, exchanges the dollar and receives his product or service.

Then dollar is then back with its original owner but twenty dollars worth of goods and services has been exchanged.

As the dollar circulated its power grew and it will continue grow because it will continue to be circulated.

Money, as energy, grows and expands. That’s the heart of the matter.

[Sharing Lights]

The Heart of the Matter


This leads us to the heart of the matter. Money is alive with energy and by its very nature it wants to circulate. The power of circulation fuels prosperity. As blood must circulate to bring life to your body, so must your money circulate to bring life to your prosperity. At the center of your circulation system is your heart. How you circulate your money is the heart of your prosperity.

Your physical heart has four chambers that must work together and so does your prosperity heart. To maintain proper circulation your money must go through the four prosperity chambers.

A part of your money will be:

Given away. A 10% amount is traditional

Kept forever – this money can and should be invested.

Any money that your money makes should go back though the four-chamber process.

Saved to be spent at a later time.

A part of all you earn you must save/invest for the future. As opposed to the second chamber at some point all of this money can be spent. As example you might be saving to purchase a large item like a car. Once you have enough money, you buy the car.

You then start the savings/investing process all over.


Spent. A part of all you earn you must be spent on your daily expenses.


Every time you receive money keep some of it forever, save some of it to spend later, spend some now and share some with others.

As your money circulates with prosperity consciousness its power will increase.

Its power will increase and as it circulates it will multiply as money has always done.