Receiving & Giving: Donations & The Gifting Cycle
It’s hard to believe, that I once imagined I could pay for this land, build a teaching center and serve the world with no income… while refusing to accept help from anyone. This stemmed in part from a disproportionate belief in myself and my vision, but also out of a truly ridiculous, thick headed pride. From the time I ran away from military school at 13 and lived with bikers on the streets, I had bought into the John Wayne, cowboy, pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps logic that proclaimed anyone taking handouts with two working hands ought to be ashamed of themselves. Hence there were times I scrounged for food in dumpsters, but I never stood in a soup line. I still had not changed in this way when, a decade later, I committed to making payments on this land and sharing with others the insights it holds. It was only after becoming an activist conservationist, with our travel expenses to perform and speak covered by caring audiences, that I began to understand. Friends pointed out that I worked 12 to 18 hours a day for a purpose and cause, charging nothing for what I gave to individuals and communities… and that even if that weren’t true, I myself taught how opening to what is given was as important as giving in the gifting cycle. “Don’t deny us,” I was told, “the satisfaction of being a supporting part of this project.” In the years since, we have never had anything extra over the basic expenses of running this place and getting the work out there, never a chance for health insurance, savings or a safety net of any kind. And yet never have we gone long for what we needed most, from internet costs to an annual donation for the liver herbs that help sustain me. Some of the first and absolutely the longest lasting, sustaining supporters have been the Morgan family, a larger part of the Animá family whom we are pleased to acknowledge here.
-JWH
Categories: Understanding & Practicing Animá
