COURAGE + Money. A Meditation, A Call to Action

How are you? How is your heart?

To continue to LOVE in these times takes courage.

I can't stop looking at this word, COURAGE, like its a meditation. All I can see is HEART (*cor,* latin) and RAGE.

It's not a reckless rage I feel, but a purified - and purifying - rage.

It's like a laser. Precise. Necessary. Exposing.

What we're witnessing is unchecked power. Corruption on full display. Our government killing and terrorizing its people, and violating our constitutional rights. While this is not new in our country*, it has reached a level that many of us never imagined we would see in our lifetimes.

In this moment, we are being personally called to express our humanity, our morality, and our decency.

Its past time we shine a light on the dark underbelly of MONEY playing a central role in all that we are witnessing in this moment.

I could write pages about the financial incentive for recruitment into ICE, the financial side of the Epstein files + the web of corruption that will soon be exposed, the unprecedented 1.4 billion the president has grifted since taking office a year ago (not to mention the top 15 billionaires adding 1 trillion to their wealth in a single year - and staying silent about the fall of our democracy which has provided the stable conditions on which their wealth was built).

Yet you don't need more evidence to see the correlation:

MONEY = unchecked power = greed = an apparent lack of human empathy. All true, but not ALL true.

You see, MONEY in this context is simply an expression, not the root.

The root is the staggering lack of empathy.

The root is the distortion of, and obsession with, power.

The root is small, weak, trembling fear behind a mask.

The root is foul, putrid, rotted.

I know, in the deepest part of my bones, that MONEY can also be the salve and the solution.

What would happen if we collectively wielded the power of MONEY, yet sourced from an alternate root?

Roots nourished by a wellspring of empathy, compassion, and grace for each soul who walks beside us on this earth.

Roots whose boundaries block exploitation, extraction, and greed.

Roots who source power within the interdependent web of creation.

Roots who know love, practice love, and express love.

Roots that flourish, nourish, and sustain.

Let your rage shine a bright light on what IS, so that we can begin to move towards what could BE.

Practice observing what roots your MONEY stems from. Practice nourishing these roots, or exposing the rot.

May all the ROT be fully exposed - be it personal, be it collective. Now is the time to weed it out.

Because what you choose to do - or not do - with your money is POWERFUL.

You have the power to withhold money (boycotts, divestment, strikes - like the one 1/30/26).

You have the power to direct your money (invest, support, circulate - see below for a short list of ideas)

In this moment, MONEY is the most powerful tool we have - in fact, its the only language that *some* can understand.

Earn a lot of it. Direct it. Withold it.

Wield the full power of your MONEY. Your voice. Your heart. Your time.

Do so with courage: with heart and purified rage.

*Lynchings in South, The Tulsa Massacre, Japanese Internment camps to name only a few.