The Money Bowl Didn't Work

I made a money bowl.

It didn’t work very well and I think I know why, but let’s take a trip around a verbal mountain to get there.

Would you like a Diet Coke? Perhaps a giant bouquet of mint from my overgrown garden that’s stressing me the heck out?

Let’s dive in.

If you’ve known me for any length of time, this money bowl thing may come as a surprise. Or, if you know me well enough it comes as a zero percent surprise. And, if you grew up like I did, this is also the kind of thing that probably comes with a mild theological emergency or personal existential crisis.

I can assure you, I'm having neither. I've survived enough identity crises, faith crises, career crises, marriage crises, and "why did I walk into this room?" crises that one decorative bowl with some cinnamon sticks in it barely moves my crisis-needle.

So, anyway.

The idea of a “money bowl” isn’t really one ancient tradition that’s been handed down for thousands of years exactly as you see it on TikTok. It’s more like a recipe that’s been tweaked by a lot of different cooks. It’s a smorgasbord/cross-section of hundreds of years of humanity across many continents, so let’s get the backstory.

Because I always want the backstory.

So what happens without backstories?

Brace yourself, because I’m about to rant.

In an effort to survive this triple-digit summertime depression, I declared this season Summerween and proceeded to read every Grady Hendrix novel I could get my hands on while simultaneously rewatching The Haunting of Hill House.

And do you know what happens when writers refuse to give us proper backstories?

(I’m not talking to you, Grady Hendrix, keep being perfect.)

You end up with Episode 10 of Hill House, where a dozen ghost backstories were introduced, baked to about sixty percent, and then yanked out of the oven with jiggly dough centers before anyone explained a blessed thing.

I mean, what the Halloween, you guys. Was the house actually evil? Were some members of the family psychic and it wasn’t the house at all? Why did the house let some people leave but trap others forever?

And in what universe is, “Congratulations! You’re all trapped in the haunted murder casa together” supposed to qualify as a hopeful, feel good, emotional ending?

Boo. Hiss. I felt cheated.

So no, I wasn’t about to write an entire article about money bowls without first figuring out where they came from and why people make them.

SOME OF US believe in backstories.

(Exhibit A for why the money bowl didn't totally work: I found my dream Anthropologie curtains on Poshmark, and no bowl full of rice was going to stand between me and my deep desire to live inside a 2014 Pinterest board.)

So what makes a money bowl a money bowl?

Some of the ingredients come from traditional Chinese feng shui. Others trace back to farming communities and ancient households (think Roman grain jars, Egyptian granaries) that filled bowls, baskets, jars, and pantries with grain, coins, or treasured possessions because a full vessel has always represented security.

(Please don't get me started on the fact that half the homeowners on Homeworthy tours call their vase a vessel. Girl, we all know that came from TJ Maxx. I assume this vocabulary travesty starts occurring around the same time they start overusing the word "bespoke.")

An empty bowl says, “This isn’t good.” A full bowl says, “We're all going to eat well tonight and that will give us the energy to spend the evening arguing about Great-Aunt Janice flirting with the 21-year-old deckhand down by the dock, because it's getting weird.”

Which, now that I think about it, may also explain why women have apparently been collecting decorative bowls since the dawn of civilization.

I can’t be the only one with a bowl-collecting problem. You can only fill so many of them with seashells, bird nests, or turtle shells before you start thinking, “It’s not enough to just look pretty in this household, everyone has to get a job.”

Then history did what history usually does. Ideas traveled the globe and boats crossed oceans and empires expanded and people traded and idiots started wars. But somewhere in the middle of all that mess, folks looked at each other and said, "Huh. That's actually a pretty neat idea. I'm taking that home with me."

Traditions started to blend, and somewhere along the way, folk magic showed up with a bunch of herbs. (Which tracks because I'm convinced half of folk magic was invented by people with overachieving, overwhelming herb gardens. At some point they had to start stopping total strangers and yelling, "HERE. TAKE THIS BASIL. IT WILL MAKE YOU RICH! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I HAVE TOO MUCH.")

Then the New Age crystal folks arrived on the scene, and manifestation culture started hitting us over the head with vision boards, and then social media looked around and said, “Love this aesthetic for us. Somebody cue the Harry Potter soundtrack.'"

And that’s how our current version of money bowls were born. A little ancient symbolism, a little New Age spirituality, a little psychology, and social media convincing us to buy cinnamon sticks in bulk.

Big Cinnamon must be crushing it lately.

(Exhibit B for why the money bowl didn’t totally work: Michael’s has an entire line of old-school-vintage paper mache Halloween decor. And giant frogs.)

So now that we know the backstory, the obvious question is… what is this thing actually supposed to do? Is it spiritual? Is it symbolic? Is it psychological? Does it actually work?

And if you grew up in a conservative Christian church like I did, perhaps the bigger question lurking in the back of your mind is…

Am I accidentally dabbling in the occult?

Is this how it starts?

Today it's a decorative bowl with some rice and cinnamon sticks. Tomorrow I'm hosting séances in the dining room, asking the spirits whether I should refinance the house, a Ouija board spontaneously appears and spells REDRUM, and before you know it the elders are meeting and I'm getting churched.

It’s no secret that I started out life as a striving-for-biblical-perfection Church of Christ girl, and it’s also no secret that I've spent a good chunk of my adult life separating what I actually believe from what I was simply taught to be afraid of.

One thing I haven’t lost, though, is the belief that objects aren’t where power comes from.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that human beings desperately need physical reminders of invisible things.

Whether it’s a wedding ring on your left hand, a grandmother’s Bible with notes in the margin, keepsake baby shoes, a rock found on vacation, a red string tied around a coin, a lock of hair, or a cat statue with a waving paw at the entrance of a building, humans have been assigning meaning to objects for as long as we’ve been carving pictures on cave walls.

Which, ironically, isn’t all that different from the faith I grew up in. We had bread and wine. Baptisms. Crosses. Tiny physical things that pointed toward much bigger ones. They weren’t the point. They were reminders of the point.

And that’s all a money bowl is.

A reminder of a goal.

(Exhibit C for why the money bowl didn’t totally work: leaf garlands were 40% off and yes, that’s staying up until Thanksgiving.)

So, surprise, surprise, the money bowl wasn’t magic.

I didn’t inherit a Victorian house from a mysterious aunt.

Powerball has, once again, passed me by with the flick of a metaphorical middle finger.

But that money bowl sat in the middle of my dining room table and I noticed.

Every time I looked at it, or lit a candle, I noticed. I thought about the difference between buying something because I was bored or because I loved it.

(I’m totes probs going to be being buried with those curtains, by the way).

Psychologists would call this a “cue” that prods our brains toward a particular thought. And while my little bowl of rice was not magical, I did go to Sonic a little less. I flea-marketed a little less. I paid attention more.

And what do you know?

There was a little bit more money left over at the end of July.

And if that means I arrange dollar bills around some crystals in a spare bowl while Kevin watches me from across the room wondering if any of it is edible, well, I think I’ve made my peace with that.

And maybe that’s all the magic I needed.