SOUNDING THE HORN: THE CONDUCTOR’S BRIEF: (A fast, clear summary of the key takeaways to keep you informed on the go)
Middle East carnage is being sold as “rescue,” priming the stage for a scripted WWIII while the Strait of Hormuz shutdown threatens the global economy.
A pledged jihad and rising instability signal a widening chasm that will be defined by what we do next, not by the people in charge.
Time banking offers a parallel, neighbor-powered currency of hours, no grid, no bank, no internet required, that you’ve already proven works in Nevada County.
It won’t pay the mortgage, but it frees up cash, rebuilds trust, and replaces dependence on their systems with reliance on each other.
I invite you to my March 16th, 6 PM Pacific, webinar to learn how to launch your own off-grid-capable time bank and turn crisis into community strength.
FROM BAD TO WORSE
Whenever people ask me, why would humans do this to other humans? I pause for a beat and then I say: I’m not sure they are human.
That answer almost always gets a nervous giggle.
That’s exactly where I am right now: watching the Middle East get pummeled into rubble in what is being sold to us as a rescue operation. People are being sacrificed in order to “save them.” It’s so Orwellian it practically writes itself, a Shakespearean soliloquy delivered on cue, with full theatrical lighting. Iranians: cannon fodder. Israelis: cannon fodder. And every other geographically compromised soul caught in the Babylonian crosshairs of what I’m quite certain will one day be formally known in the history books as WWIII, probably already storyboarded in a Simpsons episode that will tell us exactly how it ends, who gets assassinated, and on which blood moon. Because at this point, why not?
I look up sometimes. Literally look up. Half expecting one of those warm-gelled LED theater canisters to drop out of the sky and confirm what I already suspect: that this is all a production. A very elaborate, very well-funded Truman Show. And we’re the audience and the cast.
Like Covid, many of us are watching another train wreck in slow motion. Horror and helplessness running neck and neck. The kind of thing you can’t unsee once you’ve let yourself actually see it.
WHAT WE KNOW RIGHT NOW
The Strait of Hormuz is effectively being shut down, essentially running a seismic faultline directly under the global economy, including ours. The shockwaves from that alone are going to be felt in ways most Americans are not remotely prepared for.
And we have Middle Easterners, pushed to the edge, targeted repeatedly, watching us go after their spiritual leaders, who have now committed themselves to jihad against Americans. Including on American soil. I don’t say that to stoke fear. I say it because I have spent decades trusting my instincts, and right now every single one of them is firing.
I traveled the world mostly alone for years. You learn fast, in those circumstances, how to read the room. I don’t bat a thousand anymore, no one does, but when it comes to the big picture, I’ve learned to trust what I see. And what I see right now is a dangerous chasm.
But here’s the thing about chasms: they are also, simultaneously, the largest opportunities of our lives. This is where we come in.
TWO POSSIBLE ENDINGS FROM WHERE WE STAND
There is a dark one, and there is a good one, and the distance between them is almost entirely determined by what we do next. Not them. Us.
The only way to ensure the outcome we actually want is to stay flexible. To be able to absorb unexpected impacts without shattering. The only way to survive impacts is to be able to adjust, not in weeks, not in days, but on a dime.
And that requires building the infrastructure now, before the lights go out. Not metaphorically. Literally.
LET’S TALK TIME BANKING
No. I’m not talking bartering. Bear with me.
I’ve been down this road before, I launched a time bank in Nevada County back in 2014, and I am not speaking to you theoretically. I lived it. I ran it. And when I really got into the bones of how it works, it created a paradigm shift inside my own brain that I did not see coming.
Here’s the short version: time banking is not bartering. Bartering is transactional and awkward, you need a mechanic, and the mechanic just happens to need his pants sewn up. That’s a tough match. Time banking is something else entirely. It’s a community of people who agree to exchange time, hours, minutes, as currency. I paint your door for an hour, I earn an hour in my time bank. I spend that hour getting guitar lessons. Someone else walks my dog for ninety minutes, earns ninety minutes, spends it getting their gutters cleaned.
The accounting is what turns it into currency. And once you have currency, you have leverage. There are a myriad ways of utilizing time banking to build a stronger community.
For example, during the City of Nevada City’s biannual citywide cleanup, Time Bank members were able to earn time bank hours by helping us shine up our city.
TIME BANK BEGINNINGS
This system was born in 1940s Japan, out of the exhaustion of a woman named Teruko Mitsushima, who literally fainted from overwork and decided there had to be another way. In the 1950s it evolved as a way for young people leaving their villages to ensure their elders were cared for back home, all tracked on the honor system, in little notebooks. Dr. Edgar Cahn brought it to the U.S. in the 1980s when he saw the fabric of community fraying: government services drying up, the dollar weakening, neighbors no longer knowing neighbors. He called it Time Banks USA. Later, an online version called hOurworld made it scalable and even international, yes, you can use your time bank hours in Paris.
But here’s the version I want to teach you: the one that doesn’t require the internet. The one that doesn’t require the power grid. The one you can run with a notebook, a pen, and your neighborhood block.
Because I would not be betting on the stability of our energy grid right now. Or the internet. Or online banking.
A PERSONAL INVITATION
I’ll walk you through the philosophy, the core principles, the logistics, and the step-by-step on how to launch a time bank in your neighborhood, your church group, your child’s school, your family, your garden circle. I’ll have a PDF, simple, printable, ready to hand to your neighbors the moment things get bumpy. Grab a notebook before then. A good pen. You’re going to want to take notes.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR NOW
Join me Monday, March 16th. Link below. 6 p.m. Pacific for my time banking webinar, March 16th, 6 p.m. Pacific:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87495926823?pwd=rLOrqSS5qMxnatfhzU4HlghxtQEjX9.1
Meeting ID: 874 9592 6823
Passcode: 439449
LEVERAGING WHAT YOU HAVE
Time banking won’t pay your mortgage. Let’s be honest about that. It won’t pay your rent or your car insurance or your health premiums. What it will do is leverage the dollars you have. It frees you from needing cash for the things neighbors can do for each other, so you can point whatever money remains at the bills that actually require it.
More than that, it rebuilds something we’ve been systematically stripped of: the knowledge that we can rely on each other. That community is real. That exchange doesn’t have to run through a bank.
We have been taught, conditioned, really, to believe that nothing of value changes hands without a dollar involved. Coins. Zeros and ones on a screen. A credit card swipe. Time banking blows that false construct wide open. It says: the accounting is what matters, not the instrument. And we can create the instrument ourselves.
DON’T SURVIVE. THRIVE.
I mean, sure, survival is step one. But I want us to thrive. I want us to come out of whatever this is with stronger communities, more trust, more resilience, and a model that doesn’t require any of the systems that are currently teetering.
The powers that be, human or, ummmm, otherwise, are counting on our fragmentation. Our isolation. Our dependence on infrastructure they control. Time banking is a direct answer to all three.
It doesn’t matter if you’re rural or urban, wealthy or broke, well-connected or starting from scratch. This works for all of it. That’s the point.
Again, join me Monday, March 16th, 6 p.m. Pacific.
Bring your notebook. Bring your questions. Let’s get to work.
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