Then suddenly, with a grokking so blinding that he trembled and forced himself not to withdraw, he understood the abstract symbolic nature of money.  These pretty pictures and bright medallions were not "money"; they were concrete symbols for an abstract idea which spread all through these people, all through their world.  But these things were not money, any more than water shared in water ceremony was the growing-closer.  Water was not necessary to the ceremony... and these pretty things were not necessary to money.  Money was an idea, as abstract as an Old One's thoughts - money was a great structured symbol for balancing and healing and growing closer.