Today with a new moon in Pisces, we add credit card payments as an option for online orders. Green Hope Farm has been here for 35 years so this seems absurdly overdue, but there is a story about why we never had credit cards until now (Isn’t there always a story with me?).
In the late eighties, the early days of sharing our Flower Essences, it seemed simple enough to take a check or cash for Flower Essences. Sales were mostly with visitors to the farm or people at workshops or after a past life reading I had done. However when we had our official summer of many thousands of visitors in 1993, we did go to the bank to get set up for credit cards. And the bank turned us down.
We’d been turned down for a building loan several years before when building our farmhouse, so we were used to banks turning us down. Later when we finished the house, banks were happy to throw money at us, except for this credit card thing. The bank was part of a greek chorus indicating there was no way I could make money with Flowers. But wasn’t that my problem? What skin off their teeth would it be to give me credit card services even if I didn’t use them much. Yes, I was annoyed.
But I was also far enough into working with Angels and Elementals to know there was a good reason for any roadblock including this one. The Angels and Elementals consoled me and said the best way forward was to move on without credit cards.. They suggested we send out orders on a trust basis. When folks called or sent an order in the mail, we would mail their Flower Essences out with an invoice in with the order. We asked everyone to send us a check when they got their order. This worked splendidly. In fact, we still offer this method of ordering, and it still works wonderfully well
A lot of people thought it was a bad idea to do business this way, but we found that almost everyone sent payment. When they didn’t, it was usually an oversight, and the missing check was in the next day’s mail. Yes, there was the occasional person who didn’t ever pay, but we learned not to take it personally. I felt chagrin for anyone who ordered Flower Essences made with the help of Angels and Elementals and then didn’t pay. I personally wouldn’t want to rip off a gnome or fairy.
From the beginning, there were absolutely wonderful things about our honor system (and still are). It made for a different experience than credit cards would have. You often wrote us lovely notes on beautiful cards when you sent your checks. We treasured your love and friendship, because of course we got to know each other in this back and forth of mail. Additionally, we learned so much from you as your letters shared thousands of insights, anecdotes, funny stories and testimonials that helped us understand our Flower Essences better and better.
We’ve always loved the photos too. Today for example, a photo sits on my kitchen table as I type this. It shows Quinti cat (long time Green Hope Farm friend) sitting on the box of Green Hope Flower Essences that have just arrived at her home. How wonderfully thoughtful you have been to share your worlds with us. In fact, the trust system created this network of friendship that makes me almost startled when someone uses the word customer to describe one of you. I have always thought of you all as friends.
In recent years, more people have found our honor system cumbersome and slow, so when we created our online system, we offered pay pal. We knew next to nothing about pay pal when we chose it, but we learned that it is not always people’s favorite online payment system. So perhaps too slowly, I got webmaster Ben organized to add credit cards to our online platform. After all, was it fair to be snippy about credit cards because of some bank person from thirty years ago at the expense of everyone who would now find credit cards convenient? Obviously not! Yet I lingered long in the nostalgia of how well the honor system had worked for people in a different era when there was more time for handwritten letters.
I heard someone talking yesterday about how the job of being out in the world is a matter of balancing being one’s authentic self and being willing to flow with the spirit of the times. I have had my own peculiar unique challenges flowing with the spirit of the times. Some old GHF friends will remember I was leery of email and I wanted every transaction to be done with me using a fountain pen of purple or green ink. And there has been a bit of foot dragging by yours truly about credit card options.
Bless the staff goddesses for urging me to accept the spirit of the times and embrace credit cards. Can you hear them shouting with glee that finally we have credit cards and they don’t have to tell anyone ever again that we only offer pay pal?
And bless you all, both those who like our honor system and those who are glad for the arrival of credit card option. I will delight in offering a tidy and efficient credit card system that works for you, just as I have long delighted in offering a system for those who like the old fashioned banter of our honor system.
No really, I mean it (Though it does makes me laugh to think that the last blog was some sort of freudian slip in praise of the mail!).
Sometimes those staff goddesses have to work really hard to get me to throw down my fountain pen and surf with the spirit of the times! But once I do, I love it!
