I have lived on a low income for almost all of my adult life and below that mythical landmark called ‘the poverty line’ for much of it. Yet I admit that I get along just fine these days because early on I discovered the beauty of trade.
I joined our local LETS (local exchange trading system) many many years ago when it first began in this town but I never really understood it back then. I thought that I had nothing to offer or not enough time. I was scared of being in debt and feeling the pressure of having to find a way to repay someone.
Scroll forward a couple of decades and I’m back in the trading system and loving it! I don’t think I have more to trade than I ever did, but perhaps I’m more comfortable with myself and trust that I and the things I do are worth something. Plus I love the inherent creativity of the system and it’s taught me so much about economy and even about money, strangely enough
It makes it really obvious when you’re trading that it’s all about flow rather than credit or debt. It’s about being an active part of a community, something I think many of us have lost contact with in the way we live these days.
There was a point where I had way too much credit in the system and I became aware that this was not positive but negative because it meant that I was not working with my Community and that I was not offering them the chance to trade with me. So I looked for things that I would like help with that I never would’ve asked about before; the occasional help with dusting or cleaning or another hand on a whipper snipper or turning a cubby house into a chook pen.
I trade the food that I make, the veggies from my garden, my help at working bees and the emotional tools to navigate tough times that is part of my employment history.
The weekly markets are the best part of our system to me because it’s a chance to be more of a physical Community than one that just appears on paper or on a computer. We get to know each other and by natural extension, how we can support and care for each other; and how we can be supported and cared for… which doesn’t always come easily to us.
The challenge to consider what we can offer, not just what we want, has become so alien in our culture where that relationship of give-and-take is so tied up in finance and rarely personal.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt more apart of a Community in my life. No, we don’t always agree on everything but that’s true Community and there’s always space for me to learn more about compassion and kindness.
We agree on one thing
and that’s what holds us together I think,
sharing that one thing in common~
that we need each other for this to work
… and isn’t that the truth of life in general!
MALETS 
Leave a comment