I had finished this book and sent it in to the publishing firm that was originally scheduled to publish it. It had been edited and was ready for my final corrections before being sent to the typesetter. Though I felt vaguely dissatisfied with the last Part, I couldn't pinpoint what was wrong. So I shrugged and gave up. I had done my best.
The last chapter contained several examples of community projects women are working on in this country. None of these was perfect, of course, but then, I rationalized, we are in a peculiar time, an interim space - one foot in and one foot out of patriarchy.
Then as I was doing a final check of information, a woman whose project I had described at length mentioned that she was still searching for funding. Somehow this coalesced my reasons for discontent with the chapter. I knew at that moment that most of the material I had included in it did not belong in this book, and I knew why.
First, my motive was wrong. I was giving in to the pressure to "give examples" of what might "really" be done, trying to alleviate the anxiety that is natural to the terrific ambiguity of being feminists at this moment in time. Ambiguity should not be dispelled even if it could be. It is necessary.
Second, in giving examples I limited the possibilities. None of them was an example of a genuinely new mode, a distinctly different order. All of them were variations on women's age-old accommodation theme - how we can live easier in patriarchy, how we can get the system to work a little better for us.
Third and most important, I had not thought wildly enough myself. Specifically, I had not dared out into the wilderness beyond the bounds of money. The moment I knew, however, that I had to discard the whole last Part as it then existed, I knew what had to take its place. I had to examine the blocks money sets up in our minds and in the ecosystem before I could see how we could reestablish the flow of energy in our lives and in the life of the planet. In Chapter 20 I had mentioned Genevieve Vaughan's work on this subject. Now I knew that I had to do more than mention it; I had to make it the basis of the entire section.
As usual, it had taken my mind a couple of months to digest, understand, and bring to consciousness the significance of an idea that was destined to change my life.
What follows, then, is the best gift I can give at this time toward recreating women's abundant universe.