A personal reflection on the theme of scarcity and belonging

Loo ponders the idea that our economic system has been installed in our bodies and minds and become so pervasive, we don't even notice it.

I created this watercolour and ink image in response to the question: “What does home feel like in my body?” The image shows a female figure stretched out on her back with swirling water beneath her and different tones of brown earth. She turns her head to look towards distant mountains and a dusk sky. She has gold orbs around her feet and hands and one in her belly.

After sharing my conversation with Elli and Wren last week, I feel moved to share some personal reflections. These ponderings were spurred by my experience of doing the Gathering at the Gate course earlier this year, and by my exploration of the economics of home. The more I’ve learnt about our economic system, the more I’ve connected with a fundamental sense of scarcity that seems to be inherent in it. I feel like I carry this scarcity with me in my body and in subtle background ideas that I hardly even notice. It’s a sense that there won’t be enough to go around - that I have to hold on to what I’ve got or I’ll lose it. 

Recently I’ve been learning about the development of capitalism by listening to this amazing eight-part podcast about Sylvia Federicci’s semenal book, “Caliban and the Witch”. The hosts discuss how, in the early days of the capitalist system, people refused to give up their pastoral lives working on the land to accept jobs for wages in factories and fields. At first the people in power used force to terrify potential workers into submission. But then they discovered a much more effective method - reshaping the way people thought so they would keep themselves inline. Sylvia Federicci presents a very convincing argument that in order for the capitalist system to succeed, the self-determination and confidence of women and other non-white straight males had to be dismantled. And people of all kinds needed to be convinced that being a productive worker in the new capitalist system was synonymous with being morally good. 

I’m struck by the profound idea that our economic system has been installed in our bodies and minds. It’s been there for many generations now. It’s become our culture. And it has cut us off from our natural belonging with each other and the earth. 

In the following piece of writing I explore the feelings of scarcity and belonging in my body. 

I feel thick with meaning. 

It’s all sitting in a column in my chest, in front of my spine,

throbbing slightly. It has no obvious story.

And yet there must be many stories wrapped up there. I wish I could hear them. Pull a thread and unravel histories and images.

But I don’t want to disturb the sleeping animal.

What I long for is to curl around the animal and sleep in that column in my chest

To protect what needs protecting.

I don’t want unravelling. I want closeness. 

I want belonging. 

Not the distance of seeing where everything and everyone came from. 

To feel my way. 

Why do I believe I’ll run out of money and time and fail?

that the stocks will run dry and not be replenished?

It’s a separation from the family of life, which loves and provides.

Where did this fear and separation come from?

I can’t change it by muscular acts to fend for myself, to set goals and achieve them.

It feels more pervasive than that. 

I’m up against an ancient belief

That I’m not enough.

I suppose the practice of feeling might be an answer…

Acknowledging that old belief 

Reassuring myself 

That I am enough

That I am part of the family of life, that wants me to sink back into its support and refreshment. 

That we are better together and that I do belong. 

I belong here in my body, in this home, in this valley, in this city, in this whenua. 

Those words fall down a resistant pipe - full of ready obstructions

An oesophagus trying muscularly to regurgitate the words

And yet they seep in despite the efforts.

I feel it now. The wanting to escape - the fear of being wrong and not enough. 

This column in my chest. 

Dense and hovering.

Old. Tender. Fearful. Shy.

Here in the muck and beauty of it all.