About the author of this website…
“Money is not meant to make money, money is meant to make the earth ready for the advent of the new creation.” – The Mother (Mira Alfassa)
First of all, though the base of support for this movement is potentially quite large, currently this initiative is known only to a handful of people. As I write this, it is backed only by my own efforts (in Fort Wayne, at least, though there are many initiatives throughout the world, which have the same aims – http://community-exchange.org for one).
Who am I? My name is Gloria Lois Gouty, also known as Gargi, gargi-devi or “glogo” on the net. I grew up just outside the city limits of Fort Wayne on Covington Road. Formally educated at Anthony Wayne Elementary, Portage (then) Junior High and Elmhurst High Schools, I graduated with the class of 1974.
After seven years of marriage to Michael Thornton, I divorced and left Fort Wayne for New York City, living primarily in New Jersey for about seven years. In 1989 I emigrated to Germany, where I spent about 14 years, off and on, with frequent stays in primarily the southern part of India. All told, I have spent more than 17 of the last 20 years on foreign soil.
On the 23rd of July, 2009 I flew back to Fort Wayne, entering the city for the first time since 1984. My older sister graciously put me up in an extra bedroom in her house on Home Avenue in the Broadriver district, just north of Foster Park, north of my late uncle’s service station.
It was a very great shift to migrate suddenly from two years in the heat of Tamilnadu to the cooler temperate climate of northeast Indiana. This shift was not only felt as a difference in climate, but of course also a cultural one.
As the climate, so also the population. India teems with life and in the south it is no exception. People tend to be open and friendly, welcoming, even aggressively so. Here I felt as if I had entered almost a ghost town. Everything was shut up tight, there was no life on the streets, people seem closed, distant, even fearful of each other.
I first spent several weeks working in the garden in my sister’s back yard. That helped to balance my mood. There is something about working directly with the earth, tilling the soil, planting, cultivating, watering, that heals the heaviness of soul that overtakes one in such times of transition.
Slowly I started to widen my circle, take walks, look around. I am not going to pretend that I was shocked at what I saw. I left Fort Wayne originally in the early 80s because of the downturn in the economy. Several big production firms had moved out. Unemployment was high even then. I don’t remember how many people had been laid off the year I left, but within a few years it was perhaps 20-40,000. For a community the size of Fort Wayne, that is a lot of bread.
So, I basically knew that the economic situation here had always been more or less negative. But this time, walking around my new neighborhood, I was simply impressed with how *many* houses were vacant, run-down, for sale, for rent, condemned, abandoned. It seemed like more than I ever remember.
And as I walk around the city, I ask myself daily, “What can I do? How can I help? What is the way to get this city back on its feet? Where is the solution?” I have been asking myself that question now every day for the last four months.
One might take a cynical viewpoint and say, now this person thinks she has found a solution? She has been away for over 20 years! She has not experienced the difficulties here. She has no knowledge of the local markets, of the political developments, etc and so on.
That is certainly true. I am a “new-comer” here, in a very real manner of speaking. I jumped ship when the going was rough. But it does not mean I did not experience economic hardship. In fact, everywhere I went, it was almost like “from the frying pan into the fire”. In New York I made three times the money, but went immediately into debt because of the astronomical cost of living. I remember that when there I left in 1989, the streets were flooded with homeless people, quite suddenly.
In Germany I suffered perhaps less direct deprivation, since there is a social system there, people are not left to fall through the cracks. By some fluke I immediately found work and was able to somehow get a work permit. But very soon, when that job was no longer available, the market hardened and I had to struggle to get any working papers. So, even though I had enough to eat, living from unemployment, it was a kind of spiritual poverty I went through. There was no avenue for personal expression. Without work you’re kept out of the loop. You cannot develop your talents, you cannot expand. The question of money is really secondary. The main source of misery is the lack of opportunity to give your life some kind of meaningful shape.
I spent seven long years after arriving in Berlin dangling between two worlds, not able to move forward or back. I tried all sorts of things. I learned the language of course, had different jobs, friends, tried my hand at running my own business. But in the end it was all a lot of effort with no result. I left finally in 2005, unable to pay my debts, having been homeless or nearly so on a few occasions.
I was invited to return to India in 2005. From 2005-2006 South India was my home, after that Nevada between 2006-2007. In the summer of 2007 I was again graciously invited to travel to India and remain there. I stayed there for almost exactly two years and returned to Fort Wayne this past July, as I said.
Why did I come back? I was forced to return because of the political instability in South India. I did not have the proper form of visa that would have allowed me to remain there indefinitely. It was not a conscious choice to return to my birthplace, but once I arrived here and saw the condition of life here, I felt strongly, I have to try to do whatever I can to help.
If I were a cynical person, I could make a case that the financial difficulties associated with the market downturns here and abroad have ruined my life. After all, the economy has been the major influence on the course my steps have taken over the last 30 years. I used to be very quick to bemoan my own fate, but when I lived in India I started to see a lot of things from a very different perspective.
I’ve always disliked the political arena. I never felt that the so-called democratic process enriched the lives of the people the way it has been touted to do. It always seemed to me a mockery, a farce. So for the last so many years I have not even bothered with reading the newspapers. I would pick one up, read a few lines and throw it down in disgust. It all seemed to be a pack of made-up stories to me, a complete waste of time. And I was distracted by my own difficulties often. Now I don’t feel that I have any real personal difficulties left. There is the chronic shortage of cash, but everyone suffers from this, most everyone I know anyway.
Now that I am no longer so acutely aware of my own misery, I am looking around to see what I might do, as I said. It was quite by chance, actually, that one day I happened to see the excellent video “The Money Makers”, which anyone can watch on “Youtube” if they have a dsl connection. This video fundamentally changed the way I see the world, the political system, the environmental crisis, the high crime rate, the drug addiction problem, the constant military conflicts, everything. It all just suddenly clicked.
Once I understood the banking system, particularly the so-called “fractional reserve” system, I was all set. It all made sense. That has always been the missing piece of the puzzle. How do they do it? How do they stay in power? Now that I know this little fact, I want everyone else to know. Because once you know the secret (this is the REAL SECRET) of where money comes from and what it is, you will never be the same.
That’s my current mission. My teacher (an Indian saint) has said, “Long before the baby bird pecks its way out of the shell, the trees are filled with fruit.”
There is enough for all of us. The earth can support all creatures, if we follow natural law.
CONTACT: google/bing me on facebook, twitter, linkedin. Skype: glogo_