>     They’re caucusing (whatever that means) in Iowa today and the media is holding it’s collective breath as if this were the actual election for President that will take place later in the year. While we should be concerned about the outcome in Iowa to some extent, I think our focus needs adjusting. It’s not about which one of the many potential candidates will come out on top, but rather which of them most closely reflects who we are and how we want to see ourselves mirrored. You see, the choice we make about who should lead us is simply a reflection of where we are at any given point in time.
    The process around electing representatives and leaders is in flux… as are so many of our processes and institutions at this time. As each of us realizes the extent to which we create our own reality, the corresponding realization is that we are also responsible for that reality. So, it’s no longer enough to sit back and say either 1) I’m voting for the lesser of two evils, or, 2) I’m not voting. I mean, yes, it’s certainly possible to still choose either of those options, as long as one realizes that the outcome of one’s choice will be the reality one lives.
    George Bush will likely be the last President to have been chosen by an unconscious and irresponsible electorate. Even those who voted for him find themselves in a position of having regretted it. Mainly, because he failed to follow through, to have integrity, around the things he said he would do if elected. And, because that was OK with us, he and those with whom he shares power felt emboldened to proceed in ways in which they had not only little mandate, but in ways in which they had no mandate at all. They understood that we didn’t want responsibility for the truth of our choices and would pay any price to circumvent that responsibility.
    We owe a debt of gratitude to George Bush, as we do to all of those people in our lives who, by their actions, challenge us and prod us to look more closely at who we really are and what it is we are really creating. For, in the end, it is never about them but always about us. Earlier today I heard someone say in referring to two other people, “They are ruining my life.” Well, no one has that power. Only we have the power to create from, or destroy through disregard, the life we have been gifted.
    The state of the nation, and it’s leaders, are just the macrocosm of the microcosm that is our individual lives comprised of the choices we make each day. Where we look out and see greed, apathy, self-indulgence, and aggression we must turn inward and eradicate the seeds of those outgrowths that were first planted, then cultivated, within.
    I am an optimist. I look around, listen, and am heartened by the sights and sounds of people awakening from the unconscious state of personal abdication of responsibility and choosing none-the-less, although on shaky limbs, to move into a new reality where harmony and unity are the destinations and responsibility to truth the vehicle used to get there.
    Yes, Iowa matters. But not nearly as much as we do.

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