MotherWealth

MotherWealth: The Feminine Path to Money,

by Naomi Rose

Published by Rose Press

Cover illustration by Naomi Rose

What if having money isn't about “going out and getting it”?

What if we only need to connect with our true nature to have all we need?

This profound, beautiful, deeply honest book offers a heart-warming perspective on why the patriarchal model of money isn't working ~ and what will. A magical story of how the death of an old self brings an endless ocean of treasures from within ~ including money. You don't have to “Go Out” and get it. You just have to be Home to receive it.

CONTENTS OF THIS PAGE

Reader Reviews

Contents of the Book

Chapter Excerpt

Purchasing Details

Book Review

Reader Reviews:

"Pure joy!"
"This book went straight to the core of me and touched me in inexplicable ways. The experience was unquestionably sacred and because of that, some form of healing took place.”
“This book isn't just for women. As a man, I also find this book true ~ and beautiful. It isn't just women who have been wounded by having to Go Out. The machismo way of working doesn't work for any of us.”
“At first I speed-read through the book, looking for the ‘how-tos' and money-management ideas. ‘Hey, what is this?' I thought, a bit annoyed. But I took the book home. I stayed up with it all night. I wept, and came out cleansed, and as pure of heart as when I was a girl.”
“If you've ever felt you couldn't comprehend money, how it works, how to get it, its meaning in our lives, this book is for you. As a writer, I was impressed with how the author weaves together the universal and the personal. The story reveals and illuminates women's most vulnerable feelings as they face finances, bringing insight and clarity to where there is much confusion and misunderstanding. It's also about the relationship between mothers and daughters. And by taking us with her onher own quest to understand money, Naomi Rose ultimately leads us to the meaning of life itself.”
“You know how it is when you're hungry, and you're given the perfect morsels, at the right time, in the sweetest way? First you don't believe it; then you really taste it; then you gobble a bit; then you slow down and savor it. And when it's all gone, you don't want anything else. You just want to let the flavors steep in your memory, and feed your soul forever. That's MotherWealth.”
"This book is like Holy Scripture."
(Please see review by Jyl Cohen at the end of this page.)

Contents of the Book:
“Gentle Reader…”

Introduction

Chapter One: The Myth of Going Out to Make a Living

Chapter Two: Following the Threads

Chapter Three: Athena and the Weaver

Chapter Four: A Hunger for Wool

Chapter Five: Tuning

Epilogue

Excerpt from Chapter 1:

"The Myth of Going Out to Make a Living"

One season last year I was sitting in enforced retreat because I had broken my ankle. I had no choice but to bear my own company minute by minute, and to examine much that I'd been trying to run away from. Each day for six weeks I sat with my back against the headboard of my bed, wiggling my toes gingerly, breathing the hot breath of desperate fear, and trying to calm myself. “ Don't ,” I begged in panic, “panic. At least the toes work.” Bit by bit, week by week, my spiraling world of worries condensed down from the largest of survival, existential, familial, and spiritual of issues to the simplest of tasks: getting from the refrigerator to the sink on crutches, or on hands and knees; navigating the oceanic space between the kitchen and the bathroom; crawling back up to bed on hands and knees, stair by stair.

Time, my enemy, became my friend by default. All my resources were needed to do the tiniest task. I could not afford the luxury of philosophizing, or collapsing. I was injured and alone. If I deserted myself, there was no one to pick up the pieces. My mind needed to go as slow as my body.

Slowly, sitting up in bed, severely restricted by my cast-bound ankle, my lack of funds, and my lack of family support for the first time after twenty-three years of marriage, I saw my choices as suicidal despair or a leap of faith. And so I took a deep breath and began to pay attention to what was going on inside me.

“Here I am,” I began silently, “alone and deserted, broken and without resources. No money, no clients lined up, no cushion of safety, no health insurance.” And as this true litany was recited, I noticed that my chest froze in terror, my mouth went dry, and my head was clogged with swirling hot air.

“Here I am,” I repeated, “and while it's true that I am alone and without funds, I do have the ability to notice the weight of my body on the bed.” And as soon as my attention shifted to my weight, I felt the tug of gravity and my body eased a bit. This surprising response, this moment of physical reprieve, even pleasure, became the touchstone I would use again and again. “Here I am, here is my body, here is the weight of my body, here is the pleasure of rocking my body half an inch, here is the pleasure of being present for the slightest movement.” I felt like a balloon that had been given ballast a kite provided with a tail. I might still be hovering in terror, but at least there was a way to approach the ground, and the faint hope that the darkness that blackened the grasses below my descending balloon might simply be my own unfamiliar shadow.

Just before the ankle broke, I'd been pushing myself to get my life together. That meant, of course, going out to find work, to make money.

I had done it thousands of times before. But since my marriage had ended, I didn't have the appetite I used to have, or, it seemed, the resources. When a severe financial crisis surfaced, I could not mobilize my former capacity to “roll up my sleeves and do what needs to be done.” This time, I was hampered by sorrow, by grief and by shame. And I was embarrassed by my further, internal, demand to “catch up” to career women of the ‘90s, next to whom I felt like Rip Van Winkle.

“Go,” I whispered to myself like the ghost of Competence Past, “get dressed up, make calls, solicit work. Ready, set, march, NOW!” But I was in a state of paralytic shock. I could not move. “‘Just do it!'” I quoted some popular book. “‘Feel the fear and do it anyway!'”

But there was nothing to be done. No amount of badgering myself got me going. If the only game in town were the hustle-and-bustle game, the helmeted battlefield, I could not play. I hadn't the heart.

What I needed was to spend days weeping. Walking with slow, tentative bare feet. Feeling the weight of the air, the warmth of the sun. Nothing that could possibly bring in money.

Purchasing details:

Print version : Paperback, $14.95 plus $2.50 shipping (CA residents add $1.46 sales tax), per book.

E-Book: $10.00. (CA residents add $.98 sales tax)

Audio Cassette Tape of Naomi doing a live presentation on MotherWealth (mentioned in review at end of this page): $10.00, including shipping (CA residents add $.98 sales tax)

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For the Print version: $14.95 plus $2.50 shipping (CA residents add $1.46 sales tax), per book. (To purchase multiple copies, click multiple times.)

If purchasing in California: $14.95 + $1.46 = $16.41 (+ shipping):

Outside California: $14.95 (+ shipping):

For the E-Book: $10.00. (CA residents add $.98 sales tax)

If purchasing in California: $10 + $.98 = $10.98:

Outside California: $10.00:

For the Audio Cassette Tape: $10.00, including shipping. (CA residents add $.98 sales tax)

If purchasing in California: $10 + $.98 = $10.98:

Outside California: $10.00:

________________________________________

Review of MotherWealth, by Jyl Cohen (after a live reading and presentation):

"As a self-employed speech coach, and yet another casualty of our nation's economic meltdown, I was eager to learn more about Naomi Rose's theoretical model and recently published book – MotherWealth: The Feminine Path to Money – on which she spoke at the Berkeley JCC on May 19, 2009 as part of the Aquarian Minyan's monthly Literary and Fine-Art Series.

"Although the title intrigued me, piquing my curiosity, I found myself setting out for the talk only half-heartedly, anticipating that this California-based writer would most likely espouse the necessity of subscribing to the oft-repeated spiritual mantra of 'abundance vs. scarcity' which so many well-meaning folks in a 'holier than thou' tone of voice reflexively advise others ad nauseum.

"En-route to the JCC, I reassured myself that even if the central thesis of this talk was the aforementioned spiritual platitude, it would still be a worthwhile evening, since I was a long-standing appreciator of Naomi's brilliant mind and fine writing style, and trusted that at the very least it would be a pleasure to once again experience her rich finely-wrought language and the compelling imagery her writing evokes.

"Naomi began the evening by playing a melody - sweet and soothing - on her beautifully carved mountain dulcimer. This musical introduction was followed by sharing memorable spiritual highlights of her life journey. In her characteristically understated yet 'fraught' style, she described the first 7 years of her childhood as living in a state of pure bliss – a Gan Eden – gently caressed by gossamer angel wings and delicate rose petals (my image, not hers). This idyllic floating in paradise was followed by a suddenand jarring fall from grace, which I perceived to be razor-sharp icicles stabbing her tender unguarded heart; an annihilation of her emotional innocence which was so harsh and devastating that a self-protective armor, a social persona of toughness, soon layered over her exquisite sensitivity and vulnerability, continuing for the next 3 decades of her life.

"Naomi went on to describe a significant turning point later in her life when 'tsuris' from multiple sources converged in the same time window. She was recently divorced with a broken ankle, no support network, and in desperate financial straits. During this period of overwhelm and despair she began formulating her current model of MotherWealth. As a result of several profound experiential insights, Naomi came to realize that despite the externals of her life having been stripped away and her emotional and physical resistance/paralysis re: jumping into the competitive fray and 'just going out there and doing it' was the standard advice she received, she intuitively knew on a deep level that it was antithetical to her inner truth if she were to ignore the compassionate attention and nurturing that was critical to the sustenance of her heart and soul.

"By choosing to separate herself from the pressure of 'biting the bullet' and acting in accordance with the patriarchal model of dispassionately developing an action plan for job seeking, and instead trusting her wise intuitive self, Naomi recognized that in order for the universe to be able to support her, it was essential that she first transform her consciousness into a place of surrender and receptivity so that a sacred opening could arise within her into which the sustenance of the universe could flow. Embracing this paradigm of the deep feminine, which involved honoring her essence and letting go of orchestrating the specific way in which the universe was supposed to help her in generating the money she so desperately needed, she thus readied herself to be supported and shown her unique path.

"Listening between the lines, I interpreted the essence of Naomi's model to be the recognition that the spiritual principle of trusting the universe as being there to support us is actually only the first phase of the process. Until we've each done our own inner work and prepared our personal vessel to avail its holy self of the generosity, riches, and abundance inherent in the world, we will encounter only more despair and brick walls in our quest for a shift of our external reality. In other words, rather than just wish and hope or take actions counterproductive to our true nature, we must work in concert with the universe, thus facilitating its support.

"It is possible to reconcile the deep feminine of 'being' with our culturally sanctioned value of 'doing' by interweaving the most sane aspects of each model.

Those of you who resonate to Suzie Orman—anointed financial guru and current 'media darling'—with her sardonic smile (snow-white teeth front and center) and no-nonsense pragmatic advice drawn from patriarchal models will most likely not find Naomi's book personally meaningful.However, for the rest of you I feel certain that you'll find Naomi Rose's book refreshing and I strongly encourage you to check it out and purchase extra copies for your friends and relatives who are experiencing the financial sting."

— Jyl Cohen, M.A., C.I.C.S. Principal; Accent Modification Training Institute

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