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The big news today is the surprising decision by Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut) and several other sitting members of the Senate not to seek re-election in 2010.  Both the political Left and Right have quickly gone on record to put their interpretations on why… and what this means for their parties’ respective political outcomes come the midterm elections.  Of course, each believes it will work to their partisan advantage.

In the midst of so much economic uncertainty and recent resurrection of the potential threat of another terrorist attack upon Americans or U.S. soil, let me posit an alternative outcome.

There will likely be more such announcements by sitting members of Congress in coming weeks and months.  Its political hunting season.  House and Senate members with skeletons in their closet, or guilt on their conscience, know the American public is armed and looking for game.

But let me turn from such a violent metaphor and say that I think its all good.  What it signifies is that, no matter what has personally or politically precipitated these decisions to walk, they open the door for a change in the character and focus of the individuals who will fill these seats and, therefore, truly represent We The People. 

Things are never as they seem.  While the Democrats appear to be scrambling and shaking things up within to effect damage control… and the Republicans are scrambling to strategize how to seize those seats now in play, I think there is a “higher ground” scenario at work here. 

I believe that individuals with a more Universal view and expanded consciousness will emerge to become frontline spiritual warriors in the transformation of the Consciousness of this nation… not in the sense that Progressives view that transformation as occurring, but rather in the sense of a renewed dedication to freedom, individuality, responsibility, integrity, creativity and compassion.

Yes, these are challenging times.  But they are exhilarating times as well… filled with the potential for greatness and expansion.  Not territorial expansion as has always been the case.  But expansion of mankind’s understanding of, and contribution to, a Plan that is infinitely grander, profoundly wiser and irresistibly more loving than anything we have participated in thus far.

There’s a standard joke that goes, “There are only two things in life you have to do.  Die and pay taxes.”  Perhaps that’s why we devote so much human energy to fending off death and managing our financial resources. 

Theoretically, in opposition to the joke, one could argue that someday we may actually figure out how to live forever or at least maintain the body for renewed life (cryogenics), or that a new form of revenue raising may be created so the need for taxes becomes obsolete.  Therefore, perhaps someday even the joke itself may become obsolete.

What is no joke is that the one thing we all will face for certain in life, and have to deal with, is Change.  How ironic, and sad, that along with all that is taught as part of formal, and informal education, we spend no time or resources in teaching how to traverse and manage Change.

Change isn’t something that happens in life. 

Life is Change. 

At every level of Nature, and within human nature, Change is the stuff of Life.  Its how things grow.  Without change there is no growth.  Whether its the physical, emotional, mental or spiritual worlds we talk about, its the Process of Change that moves us through trial and error towards a more fully developed and expansive existence.

The harm in not teaching the fundamentals of Change is that so much time and energy is wasted on resisting rather than embracing it.  Because there is something comfortable, even seductive, about what we know versus the unknown, we have a strong tendency to want to maintain the status quo… even if its a condition not particularly desirable, enjoyable, or supportive. 

But the status quo, by definition, is “the existing order of things.”  Its similar to another Latin word, stasis, which i s “the state of equilibrium or inactivity caused by opposing equal forces.”  The status quo implies an accepted, or at least passive, acquiesce to how thing are.   But nothing is how it is since everything is in a constant state of change.

So what’s the opposition to Change?

Precisely that it upsets the status quo!

Change necessitates being in a constant state of creativity in order to adapt to it.  The only thing I know we teach as being in a constant state of creativity is Creator. 

Uh-oh!

If we accept that 1) change is always occurring; 2) creativity is required to adapt to it; 3) Creator is in a constant state of creativity; then we will, by necessity, have to be as Creator is.

There’s the resistance to teaching and learning about Change!  The prospect that to embrace Life and live it fully requires us to be in a constant creative state of Being, such as Creator, is more responsibility than we want to take on.  Hence, our preference for the status qou.

But here’s the rub.  The joke, it turns out, is on us.  For in resisting Change, we defy the Law of Creation.  In defying Creation, we guarantee our own demise.

So perhaps we can dispense with all the time, effort and money we put in to postponing death or trying to figure out how to resurrect the body.  The short answer to that dilemma appears to be to live Life as Life Is… constantly in a state of change and thereby live forever. 

Death, it turns out, isn’t an ending but a transition to another form of Life.

Of course, its only that for those who know how to transition.  Who know how to Change.

I think that’s worth teaching, don’t you?

When you’re on a spiritual path, and all of us are whether we’re aware of it or not, you go through spiritual growth spurts just like any other growth process.  These are exhilarating times filled with optimism and faith. And, as you’d suspect, you also reach plateaus, or periods of “flat-lining”, when there appears to be no growth at all.  Finally, to our collective dismay, there are those times when it appears that some or all of our progress to-date has been lost…or at least seriously misplaced…and we wonder, in our confusion, where hope or inspiration may be found.  Often times, this is when we reach out and call a friend.

In such moments, well meaning
friends can empathize. They can even show compassion. That’s why we
call them.  But, if what you really need is a transfusion, there’s
simply nothing in a first-aid kit that will do the trick.  You must go to
the bank where the blood is stored. 

I have another suggestion born of experience.

Call God instead.

What it means to “call God instead” is to forgo the urge to ask someone other than yourself to lift you up.  It means to surrender, in the most positive sense, the unfolding of your life to the Power that has given you life.  It means to ask, out loud, for clarity as to your Life’s purpose and how to best manifest it.  It means to move your ego to a back burner and acknowledge that while you are not in control… you are in process of Be-coming that which you were designed to Be.

I choose the word “designed” here for a reason.

There is, in fact, a blueprint, for each of us.  A plan for our fruition and our purpose. There is nothing in Creation for which a blueprint does not exist… encoded within its very essence.  It’s how a rose “grows up” to become a rose and not a daisy.  For us, its encoded into our DNA.  The only difference between the rose and us is that we have Free Will to interfere with the encoding and a mechanism with which to effect that interference…called “ego.”  

When ego’s interference misleads us too far from our intended purpose (which, by the way, is to Be All That Love Is) we feel the dismay that sets in as a result of our self-imposed distance from Source.

This is the time to call God because God is where the original blueprint of You exists in its clearest form. 

Since God created You with the intention that You Be As You Are Designed To Be, it is God’s delight when called upon to shine The Light in order to show you, once again, the way back upon the path of your intended purpose.

By the way, when you make that call, you never get a busy signal.

God originated call waiting.

I watched CBS’s “This Week” on Sunday morning when Director of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, was interviewed and asked how the terrorist who tried to blow up a Delta flight from Amsterdam to Detroit managed to get a multiple visit U.S. visa and board the plane when he was a known security risk.  But for the quick response of a passenger who jumped the terrorist and disarmed him, the ending might have been tragic. The Director’s reply was that the system had, in fact, worked and the passengers and everything necessary came together to thwart the attempt. 

My 16 year-old-daughter was walking through our living room at the time the Director spoke those words and, without missing a step, my daughter said out loud “It wasn’t the passenger’s job. It was yours.”  It seems my 16-year-old gets it….even if the Director of Homeland Security doesn’t.

Now, one day later, it seems Director Napolitano has had a change of heart.  Within 24 hours of that  comment she has, apparently, made a startling realization. The system, it now appears, failed.
.
No kidding, Janet.

I pride myself on being able to find the higher meaning in every story.  I have found it here.

Either 1) the Director changed her mind due to the outrage that followed her comments, making it a political change of mind not necessarily an enlightened one; or 2) she really is that dense and believed the system worked as intended, or 3) absent political fallout, she will defend this Administration regardless of the correctness, truthfulness, or even logic of her assertions. 

Whichever is the case, the incident has given us insight into the necessity of replacing her as Head of Homeland Security.

It is hardly in the interest of this nation, or its citizens, to have an individual so unqualified, political and/or clueless, as Janet Napolitano in charge of our individual and collective safety.

So, let us be grateful to the Nigerian terrorist who failed at his intended purpose… but succeeded, brilliantly, at an unintended one.

We now know Napolitano must go. 

Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

In giving thought to both the “successes”, endurance and recruiting power of terrorist groups worldwide, its apparent to me that the one thing they have going for them is Certainty. No matter how irrational or destructive their goals, terrorists are certain, they have no doubt, about those goals or the acceptable means of achieving them. 

Certainty is the engine that drives achievement.  Its the power that moves an idea or intention to fruition.  Lacking certainty, it is easy to either 1) lose your way, or 2) be persuaded by the power of someone else’s certainty.

How this applies to our current political and economic situation is of utmost importance.

In any free society  (read as “democracy” or “republic”) there will always be an endless onslaught of ideas. This is the nature, and the intention, of such societies.  The free and unfettered exchange of ideas.   The extent to which an individual, or group, has certainty regarding their particular idea will drive, and likely determine, the dissemination and acceptance of that idea by the many. 

Particularly in times of economic hardship, when individuals seek out way to alleviate the burdens of financial uncertainty, an idea or proposed solution buttressed by the passion of certainty is most compelling.  Such was the power behind the success of Adolf Hitler and, as said earlier, global terrorism.

So how do we translate this awareness and apply it to the United States in 2010 as we face greater economic uncertainty that ever before in our nation’s history? How do we make it work for us and for the good?

Poetically, and literally, I suggest you listen within.

Each of us has an inner knowing and that inner knowing has a voice.  The key is to trust that you know then turn down the onslaught of external chatter so you can hear the voice of knowing.

Knowing tells you that you cannot get out of debt by spending more money that you have.  Knowing also tells you that the money in Monopoly is neither real or valuable nor are vast sums of money that are continuously printed with nothing to back up their worth. 

There is statistical evidence through a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll out that the movement identified as “The Tea Party” currently has a higher approval rating (41%) than both the Democrats (35%) and the Republicans 28%).

Why?

The growing popularity of the Tea Party Movement can be understood by its certainty.  Adherents and followers alike know with certainty that the federal government has lost its way. To the contrary, politicians are being manipulated, tossed and bossed about like falling leaves on a windy day.  Their collective uncertainty provides no momentum for sustained problem solving and so they have become ineffective at successfully addressing that which needs correction.

And so the Tea Party Movement’s message of certainty is compelling and contagious.  I suspect their numbers will continue to grow as will their influence.

This may be a good thing. 

Ultimately, however, as tougher and tougher decisions need to be made as part of the course correction that is coming, each of us will have to know, with certainty, what it is we want and what we are and are not willing to do to achieve it.

In the meantime, what we can do individually is go within, listen, and be certain about what we believe… for the time is coming when inner certainty may well be the only guiding force you can rely on…with certainty.

 

 

    

The recent news about Senator Max Baucus and his behavior with a former staffer has an interesting undercurrent to it.  While on its surface the news seems to be about yet another unfaithful member of Congress who, at the very least, improperly used public monies to fund a romantic trip to Asia with a former staff member turned current live-in lover…there is a broader and more important story within the story.

Wanda Baucus, the Senator’s former wife, is speaking out on the subject and its not her first foray into the subject. 

The subject I’m referring to is the effect that the dominance of men in positions of power in Washington has had on women and, inevitably, on the country.  Both their presence in such positions as well as their complicity in failing to hold one another accountable for immoral and, at times, criminally actionable behavior. 

Now if this were the 60’s or 70’s, you’d likely think “Here we go. Another feminist male-bashing tirade.”  But its not.  We’re closing in on 2010 and both the means and the goal are of a higher order.

Wanda Baucus, a former outspoken supporter of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, has recently said that ” If the women I know in Washington in the Senate talked and said all
the things they know, this government would — I mean talk about the
revolution… this place would be turned upside down.”

She’s t alking about sexual harassment and more.

Sadly, we have become so accustomed and hardened to such revelations that when they occur we are no longer shocked.  It takes the fall of a seeming paragon of accomplishment and morality such as Tiger Woods to even phase us anymore…and even then only for a week or so.  Thereafter, we go back to business as usual.

But here’s the thing.

The country is broke. The government keeps spending money we do not have.  Millions are unemployed.  No one trusts the politicians… a state of being they’ve justifiably earned, I might add.   

I’d focus on the excesses but I think it more important to focus on the deficiency. 

The Divine Feminine has been too long absent.  

By the D ivine Feminine I do not mean feminists.  I don’t refer necessarily to women exclusively.  However,
for the most part, what has been absent and what is now being resurrected will come forth mostly by and through women. 

What I am referring to is the resurrection of that aspect of Creator’s energy that balances out the qualities and characteristics inherent in male energy. 

Male energy, in its natural state, is positive and expansive.  Female energy, in its natural state, is negative and receptive.  Be careful that your mind doesn’t immediately attach worn out definitions to any of these words.  There is nothing inherently “good’ or “bad” about the words positive or negative.  Where we run amok is when they are out of balance in relationship to one another.  S uch imbalance results in chaos which lacks the ability to self-organize.  When in balance, we are a self-organizing species.  We will return to a state of being that is the highest good for all concerned.

Absent balance, we will go the way of the dinosaur.

Which beings us back to Wanda and Max Baucus.

I know nothing about either of these people personally.  What I do know is that Max Baucus is symptomatic of a diseased and dying concentration of perverse power run amok.  Wanda Baucus is symptomatic of the emerging Divine Feminine that will, by its very presence and design, bring the human race back into the necessary balance to sustain physical life, expanded consciousness and spiritual growth.

Often following a long journey in the darkness, an emergence into the light can momentarily seem blinding.  Remember, its just momentary. Our future is here and its bright.  Just be patient and allow yourself some time to adjust to the re-emergence of the brilliant Light of the Divine Feminine.

Politics aside, I admire Glenn Beck for his unabashed courage in speaking truth to power.  At least his truth.  Which is all anyone can be certain of.

And that’s the point.

What Beck is standing for is your right to think, speak and act upon the truth as you know it.  He’s doing it  peacefully… but not without power of his own.  Not force, but power.  And while he can’t do it for you, he can do it for himself… thereby acting as both example and guiding light for how its done.

Sure, you can say “easy for him” he’s got a platform, a microphone and sponsors.  However, each of us has a calling and is similarly provided the means to get there if only we have the courage to embark upon the journey.

Which got me to thinking about Ayn Rand and Mahatma Gandhi.

I’ve always been fascinated by Ayn Rand’s writings and her fierce advocacy on behalf of individualism as opposed to collectivism.  You know, Capitalism and individualism trumping Marxism, Communism and Fascism.  Yet, despite my dedication to re-reading Atlas Shrugged every decade or so, I’ve been uncomfortable with her obvious disbelief in a power greater than man or woman.  To be specific, a lack of God in her philosophy.

I’ve had a similar fascination, and respect, for Mahatma Gandhi.  He peacefully turned away a world power  by bringing to the political arena a deeply held spiritual belief in the dignity of humankind tied to a responsibility for the well being of one another.

I thought if I could snap my fingers, I’d merge Rand and Gandhi and come up with a compassionate political solution to the world’s problems.  You know, kind of “Hope and Change.”

So I snapped those fingers… and here’s what I came up with.

There is a spiritual concept called Oneness.  It is an eternal concept founded in the connectedness of everyone and everything that ever was or will be created.  Socialism, Progressivism, Marxism, Communism, Fascism are all political perversions of that spiritual concept.  What Oneness accomplishes naturally through an understanding of how Spirit works and, consequently, our relationship to all things living… those political systems try to artificially impose through intimidation and redistribution of wealth.

Any Rand almost had it right… but for her resistance to the spiritual world, which leaves her characters unforgiving, ungrateful and sometimes even cruel.  Such is humankind absent Spirit.

Gandhi had it right… but enough of the world had not yet reached the tipping point necessary to be able to hold onto his accomplishment.

Which is why I admire Glenn Beck.

He knows with certainty what Ayn Rand knew… which is the value of a fully conscious human mind.  He also knows with certainty what Gandhi knew as well.  That we are all born of Creator and our success is tied to understanding how that makes us all connected.

What Glenn Beck is standing for is why this Administration must not prevail.  To try and artificially impose, through force, intimidation and redistribution of wealth, that which has been Divinely seeded within the hearts and minds of All existence is to try to defy Universal Law and usurp the right of every human being to reach that realization in their own way and in their own time.

Its called Divine Time.

Hope and Change are qualities inherent in Creation placed there by Creator. They are neither to be toyed nor tampered with… and they most certainly are not a bumper sticker.

 

I’m always fascinated, awed actually, by synchronicity…the  simultaneous or corresponding occurrence of seemingly unrelated events that turn out to be profoundly related after all.   I’d like to share one.

This week I read “Cosmos of the Soul” by Patricia Cori.  Its a “channeled” book about the future of the Earth and all life living on the planet.  In it, Ms. Cori speaks about the “Earth’s (or Gaia’s) Desert Period” as a challenging transitional period we are about to live through.  What that looks like is not well-defined, although how we should prepare for it and what our roles in it will be, is.

This morning, I was listening to a radio interview with Bruce Feiler, author of “America’s Prophet.”   Apparently, the book is an historical look at the teachings from the story of Moses and how they parallel with the story of the Pilgrims who colonized America.

And it hit me.

In an instant I understood what Particia Cori’s channeled message was about.

As the Israelites went out from slavery and bondage to Egypt…as the Pilgrims went out from the slavery and bondage to a King… so are We about to go out from slavery and bondage to a government no longer in service to its people and our own addiction to raping the planet for personal satisfaction and gain.

The one thing that all three situations have in common is materialism.  The Egyptian consciousness, and the Israelites in service to it, were obsessed with gratifying every earthly pleasure and glorifying the human ego.  King George III of England and the aristocracy were obsessed with the same pleasures and goals at the expense of the dignity and freedom of those they governed. 

And here we are.  2009.

We have a government and ruling class comprised of financiers and other elitists who have long since stopped caring about personal liberty or the Will of the People but who, instead, are enthroned in a power structure that for hundreds of years has exploited, sedated and enslaved the general  population while maintaining that power base through fear and intimidation.

We, as citizens, are never without personal responsibility.  As did the Israelites and Pilgrims before us, we allowed the conditions of sedation and enslavement to entrap us in exchange for creature comforts.  The problem is that materialism is always a slippery slope and, inevitably, “more is never enough.”  We have been complicit in our own entrapment by our silence, compliance and greed.  We have injured the planet, and its other life forms, by our disregard and disrespect for their parts in this glorious experiment called Life on Earth.

Now we are about to make our own journey across the desert.  In reality, I do not know what the terrain will look like or precisely what obstacles we’ll find along the way.  But as the Israelites crossed their desert and the Pilgrims crossed their sea in order to go out from bondage and find their way to “higher ground”… so must we.

Growth is never easy or comfortable.  It can be life threatening.  But the alternative is no life at all.  I, personally, would rather risk mine for the opportunity to grow than to capitulate by default to something other than a fully conscious existence.

As we set out through “Earth’s Desert Period” let us learn from those who have gone before us on similar journeys:

With faith comes protection. 

United we stand. 

The Promised Land is no better than the effort we make to get there and the energy we invest in keeping it sacred.

 
Last week my  Mother passed away.  I don’t use that phrase because I’m afraid of death. I use it because I’ve always thought we misunderstand death and so I don’t use the word.  It think “passed away” is pretty descriptive, actually.  I think we do pass away from the physical, material world and continue on in pure consciousness where having a body is superfluous. 

I can remember when I was about 14 years old and my Grandfather passed away.  It was my first funeral and I had never seen a body in a casket before.  As I stood there with my Father looking at my Grandfather, I said out loud, “Now I know there’s no such thing as death. That’s not Grandpop. That’s his suitcase.”

But back to my Mother’s recent passing

We had an emotionally distant relationship, she and I.  She was uncomfortable with the giving and receiving of affection.  As she once told me, “I never had that growing up so I didn’t know how.”  Sad.  But true.  So, you do the best you can under those circumstances, as I tried to do.  In her final years, after my Dad had passed away, and she had 10 years on her own for the first time in her life, we shared a few genuinely Mother/Daughter moments that had been all too infrequent in the many years that preceded them.

For those I will always be grateful.

But here’s the important part.

Since the funeral, I can’t remember any of her personality that was distant or judgmental or just plain irritating to me throughout my life.  Since her passing, it’s as if it all never happened.  All I can see is the beautiful Soul that was the woman I called Mother, who struggled with the same human issues each of us struggles with, and who exhibited rather incredible patience and strength in confronting life’s challenges.

In a much earlier blog, I wrote about how wonderful it would be if every day an angel walked before every human being wherever they went announcing their arrival with a shout of “Behold the image and likeness of God.”  How differently we would see and treat each other, and ourselves, if that actually occurred,  And yet it does. 

We are each created in the image and likeness of God and so this is who shows up whenever and wherever we do.  Only by how we choose to act do we determine how holy the experience is for ourselves and others.

I wish I had seen that angel announcing my Mother throughout my life, I think I would have seen her and our relationship differently. I’m grateful to be able to see it now without all the earthly stuff that masks Its presence.

Perhaps what I’m finally seeing is simply the Angel… I happened to call “Mother.”

Lately,it seems that life is too frequently stranger than fiction.  When an institution of higher learning such as Harvard University’s Ethics Center chooses to invite Eliot Spitzer to speak, I find it difficult to overlook the dire implications.

Have we lost our minds… or have just Harvard’s Administrators lost theirs?

This public servant, this former Chief Executive Law Enforcement Officer of NY, willfully violated the law while in office while prosecuting others for the very same behavior.  Historically, I think we call that hypocrisy…not to mention, in this instance, a felony. Oh, yes, and also morally reprehensible since the felony was participation in prostitution.

I find the title of the advertised lecture particularly offensive. I am offended on behalf of Ayn Rand. Anyone familiar with the economic determinist views of Rand knows that Eliot Spitzer’s ethics and morals are the very ethics and morals Rand found disgusting and detrimental to a fully functioning society that honors, above all, the individual and a commitment to truth and integrity.

I am unmoved by Harvard’s attempting to justify their choice by claiming that Spitzer’s speech will be limited to economic issues and not encroach upon ethics.  Isn’t the Bill Clinton legacy fresh enough in our minds to raise a red flag about trying to compartmentalize a role model’s behavior to fit the issue at hand?  I think the economic boon of the Clinton years, in hindsight, was not worth the moral depravity exemplified by both he and his wife lying about a pattern of morally deficient behavior. 

Such was the slippery slope, one could argue, that brought us Reality TV. And we all know how helpful and uplifting that’s been working out for us.
 
I think Eliot Spitzer should stay home and not speak at Harvard. 
I think Harvard should rescind his invitation if he does not volunteer to doso.
I think sold out ticket holders should turn in their tickets.
I think students should protest his appearance.

I think how we respond to Spitzer’s scheduled appearance will say more about us than his appearance will ever say about Harvard, ethics, or our financial future.
 
As always, the choice is ours.

Lately, we’ve been facing a lot of really important ones.

Have you noticed?