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Dear EarthTalk: I’ve heard of the slow food movement, but what is “slow money” all about? — Phil Nimkoff, New York, NY

“Slow Money” is the name for a movement started by socially conscious investing pioneer and author, Woody Tasch, who essentially borrowed the conceptual framework of “Slow Food”—whereby participants eschew convenience-oriented “fast” foods, instead filling up their plates with traditional, unprocessed and, ideally, locally produced foods—and applied it to personal finance and investing. As such, Slow Money is dedicated to connecting investors to their local economies by marshaling financial resources to invest in small food enterprises and local food systems.

Image courtesy of Homini (Flickr)

Tasch’s vision for Slow Money, now not just a concept but also a non-profit organization, seeks nothing less than a complete overhaul of the way we think about and spend our money, channeling much more of it into producing healthy local food, strengthening local communities instead of multinational corporations, and restoring our flagging economy in the process. Instead of venture capital bankrolling far flung high tech start-ups, Tasch hopes to see “nurture capital” funding local merchants and producers who, in turn, plug half of their profits back into their communities, ensuring one small local virtuous circle that values soil fertility, carrying capacity, a sense of place, care of the commons, diversity, nonviolence, and cultural, ecological and economic health as much as financial return. Tasch hopes to get there by persuading a million Americans to invest at least one percent of their assets in local food systems by 2020.

Tasch started Slow Money in November 2008 after the publication of his book, Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered. Hitting the road to promote the book and the nascent movement in 2009, he was able to attract 450 intrigued investors, farmers and other entrepreneurs to Santa Fe, New Mexico to trade ideas at a three-day gathering. “We just wanted to see who would show up, but four of the small food enterprises that presented raised an aggregate of $260,000,” says Tasch. Tasch then organized another event for some 600 attendees the following June in Shelburne, Vermont. Investors there poured $4.2 million into 12 more producers, and that’s when Tasch knew he was really on to something. More than 1,000 people converged in San Francisco for the third event in October 2011, and Tasch expects untold amounts of “slow capital” to be changing hands for the better as a result.

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Whether or not you have money to invest in Slow Money’s virtuous circles, you can show your support by visiting the group’s website and electronically signing the organization’s Principles, a list of six core beliefs shared by the Slow Money community. Or if you have just $25, you could park it with the organization’s Soil Trust, which will seed small food enterprises that promote soil fertility in locales from coast to coast. Tasch sees the Soil Trust as key to opening up the Slow Money concept to all of us and achieving the group’s goal of getting a million Americans involved in the movement over the next decade.

Another key to achieving Tasch’s goal is growth of leadership at the local level. To that end, a dozen autonomous local chapters have sprung up nationwide, with more sure to come as word gets out. The local groups have already gifted or lent hundreds of thousands of dollars to entities working to improve their own community “foodsheds.” Now we all have a way to truly put our money where our mouths are.

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Slow Your Money Down is a post from: Modern Hippie Mag

I have to admit that I was a little hesitant about getting into The Soul Solution by Jonathan Parker. Although he’s developed an immense library of personal growth audio recordings, I wasn’t sure how effective it would be to read a book of guided meditations. While reading through them in a meditative fashion is a bit more user intensive than using a recorded guided meditation, I found that the author’s word choice combined with the more participatory experience proved to be quite a pleasant experience.

As for the book itself, Parker sets his meditations between chapters of user friendly material that explore that nature of the soul and how we can more greatly cultivate our relationship with it. Moving in a smoothly flowing progression, the reader is not only taken on a journey through each of the sixteen meditations, but the book itself reveals a greater journey within each of us.

In the fifth chapter, suitably titled “The Soul Solution,” the author identifies three steps of the soul solution process, a process that seemingly guides the journey of the book. The first step is to identify underlying patterns. The second step is to dis-identify underlying issues. And the third step is to let the soul dissolve the issues.

The book follows this process by first identifying what the soul is and what its qualities are. It then addresses the stumbling blocks that keep us from that connection, namely fear and ego. And once we have transcended these barriers, the soul is free to let true healing begin.

I was pleased with the unique nature that each of the meditations possessed. Whether utilized as a script for guiding others through meditation or simply read for personal fulfillment, The Soul Solution offers a nice blend of practices for a variety of stages in life’s journey.

My biggest criticism, and I hope that it is merely an editing issue that will be corrected in later editions, was the occasional offering of audio recordings throughout the book. At the beginning of a few of the mediations, the reader is offered a free download of the mediation by using a code at the website JonathanParker.com. Unfortunately, the actual website is JonathanParker.ORG, and the code doesn’t work. On the upside, his website does offer a few other meditations and audio recordings – so as long as you’re not overly picky, you may still find a solution that will help you encounter your own soul.

Steve

Steve McAllister, newly appointed “Lifestyle Guru” of Modern Hippie Mag, describes himself as a Renaissance Man. An author, filmmaker, songwriter, and perpetual artistic experimenter, he has recently re-released his second book The Rucksack Letters into paperback to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the journey. His latest book, a comical foray into philosophical science fiction, is How to Survive an Estralarian Mind Meld. His latest artistic project is The Labyrinth of the Unbroken Path. Connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

Finding The Soul Solution is a post from: Modern Hippie Mag