Articles by Kathy Baxter
It's Not Us and Them Anymore
Jumping Over
What Is That Green Thing?
Letting Go and Surrender
Truth
Manifestation Explained
The Joy of Being
Give the Very Best You Have
Into the River
Candor and the New Energy
Recognizing Transformational Leaders

It's not Us and Them Anymore

It's not Us and Them Anymore

For three generations on this planet, we have been living under the shadow of the nuclear threat.  Our politics, our economics, our global relationships have been and continue to be driven by the manipulation of the fear of nuclear war and its consequences for life on the planet.  I use the phrase manipulation of fear purposefully because I believe that it is this manipulation that has created an environment where we repeatedly elect leaders dedicated to empowering a ruling class that seeks to oppress the hopes of the many in order to maintain the privilege of the few.  The nuclear threat has been a vital tool for embedding the values of post- industrial  revolution corporations bent on maximum control and exploitation of natural resources and human labor.  The fear of nuclear holocaust capable of global destruction is the ultimate weapon for those who wish to exert strong and self serving central control.  The world has been co-opted into a belief that strong father figures are needed to shepherd the innocents through this grave threat.  We are not encouraged to see the global situation as something that arises out of personal day-to-day decisions made by each of us, and to see the underlying ties we have to every other being on the earth.  Rather, we cling to an Us vs. Them mentality where We are defenders of the Good, and They are the purveyors of Evil.  In this duality, it is easy to see how whole populations can be convinced that We must dominate earth resources to keep Them, the evil-mongers, from dominating Us.   We projected the fear and destruction out away from our own actions and placed the threat in Them.  For a long while They were the Soviets.  As the Soviet regime dissolved and the Berlin Wall came down, a new Them was required.  This time the new Them is diffuse, decentralized and chaotic.  It is Global Terror.  How convenient this target is for global control interests.  You can't find Them, They are always moving, shifting, and very amenable to Us vs. Them thinking.  This manipulation by fear works well for the oligarchic power structure that needs us to follow when it is not in our personal or collective best interest to do so. We placed the fear outside of ourselves and lulled ourselves into the sleep of neglect.  We neglected to be stewards of our own actions, consumption, choices.  We believed that in order to progress, we had to consume greater and greater amounts, to expand and expand the market.  Greater consumption requires ever more natural resources, and the drive for greater human productivity lays the foundation for human exploitation.    This is the mantra of the industrial revolution:   To be is to make.  To live is to consume.  With this paradigm, if you sell you win, and if you win, someone must lose.  There isn't enough to go around, so you are justified in protecting (and increasing) your slice of a shrinking pie. We are convinced that we must protect our access to these shrinking resources, even if it means we must bring on nuclear destruction.  It is easy to look at this as a function of oppression.  It's easy to see this as another thing that is happening to Us against our will.  But this is not the case.  Choice by infinitely small choice, we add atoms to our own personal nuclear bomb of consumption.  Oil feeds this insatiable engine.  Consumption of natural resources is the backbone of industrialization.  We have all participated in creating the potential for the nuclear winter which could ultimately be the death of all of the oceans on the planet.  We are the consumers.  And in America, we are fabulously well practiced consumers.  Only in the last few years have we even begun to be aware of the consequences of our choices - the choice of the car we drive, whether we eat beef or not, how many plastics do we have in our kitchens, how do we consume energy to run our homes?  How much stuff do we put in land fills because we are tired of it and want the latest, newest stuff? So now we have the worst oil spill in history - and most of us sense that we have been made privy to only the surface of what is really happening in the Gulf.  This oil spill is so catastrophic that it raises the possibility that entire oceans could be killed.  This is the equivalent of nuclear war, yet it is not something They did to Us.  It is something We have enthusiastically created.   We have met the enemy and it is us.  Pogo lives.  No longer can we look outside of ourselves to find the boogey man, the bad guy, the threat to our way of life. We are that boogey man.  We have created this reality one selfish choice at a time.   We can choose differently.    Each time you reach for a credit card (petroleum based) to make a purchase, you can ask yourself this question:  Will this purchase contribute to health and balance in the earth, or add to the degradation of the planet?  That's pretty simple.  It is the dawning of mindfulness.  I've written before about the Spilling Hope project that my daughter's church took on.  That project asked everyone to consider, purchase by purchase, what was more important - that immediate purchase, or clean drinking water for an African village.  Mindfulness requires a Spirit driven foundation.  To build that foundation, you must engage in internal work to square yourself with Spirit and to embrace unity consciousness.  Until we see from a deeply spiritual place that we are truly all connected in one living, breathing organism, each and every essence critical to the expression of the whole, we will not be fully mindful. To arrive at a balance of consumption that honors and supports the earth and is sustainable into the future, we must first look inside and find those parts of us that are being consumed and wasted.  We must look inward to find the balance of love and service that will sustain us.  What precious value within you is being wasted?  What gifts are you hoarding?  What part of you are you failing to embrace and love?  This is a process that begins within.  The antidote to mindless consumption is giving.  Give the best that you have to give, give it freely, and give it with joy.  Give of your understanding and compassion.  Forgive.  Forgive.  Release judgment, anger, hurt, resentment, rage, worry, separation, guilt, unhappiness, grief, negative thinking.  Forgive.   Forgive yourself and embrace your potential for good.  Forgive Them.    Whoever They are, it is time for us to see that They are part of Us.  We are One.  We have to climb over this hurdle in order to create a new paradigm, and this new paradigm is our lifeline.  After you read this, go out today and do something nice for a stranger, or for someone for whom you have negative feelings.  Just do it.  Do something nice.    Mindfulness practiced with loving discipline will help you to achieve unity consciousness which is the gate through which we must pass to achieve fifth dimensional consciousness.    Dr. Masaru Emoto, famous for his work on water and the power of intention to change  water, has prayerfully requested that we all invoke this intent for the healing of the waters in the Gulf of Mexico.  This prayer embodies everything that I have just talked about, and is simple and elegant. Dr. Masaru Emoto's request for worldwide prayer: "I send the energy of love and gratitude to the water and all the living creatures in the Gulf of Mexico and its surroundings. To the whales, dolphins, pelicans, fish, shellfish, plankton, coral, algae, and all living creatures . . . I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. "

Jumping Over
 The big news is that in September, our world split into two dimensional realities. The changes in the energy hit me like a ton of bricks shaking me out of my home, my orientation to the world and certainly out of my comfort zone.  But it seems that Spirit has delivered me to a spot where I can go deep within and find the new equilibrium necessary for the next part of the journey.  After months of not having a clue what to write in these messages, I now realize that there are many of us struggling with these changes, and maybe hearing about my experience might be helpful in sorting out some of the chaos.

  We have been teetering between the third and fifth dimensions for so long that it almost felt normal to have one foot in each reality.  It only got impossible when they started to separate and our legs just weren't long enough to hang onto both!  This fall, we had to choose.  It was jump or fall last fall.  No more fence sitting.  If you jumped, we're in this together.  Over here it's a brave new world that is replete with amazing, mind-boggling possibilities.  Thing is, it's a create-as-you go situation, and we have jumped onto a blank canvas.  Think of yourself as a cartoon character dropped onto an empty page with nothing but pure potential for all kinds of hi-jinx!  The freedom is awesome, yet it is a challenge to access all that potential when we are still learning how this all works. 

In my world, this feels disconnected and disorienting at times.  One thing that brings me comfort is that I can prove to myself that I am a master manifestor by stating my desires with strong feeling, then watching them appear.  For years now I have been longing for a space that was my own.  I pictured it in my mind, saw the view of the water from the window, studied the way the light hit the walls, felt it's location high above the ground, and wondered how I would ever pull it off.  In September when the Universe booted me out of the place I was living (oh, boy, is that a long tawdry story...) I suddenly had to pull together logistics, resources, cash (!) and intention.  I followed my urges to look on Whidbey Island where my vision was waiting for me, only even more perfect that my imaginings.  High above the ground, my precious cottage looks out over the water and the soft green fields of the local farms.  My yard is filled with an orchard of fruit trees and perennial gardens, and my landlords are clearly soul family.  All this for half what I was thinking I would have to pay.  Affirmation #1:  I AM manifestation made manifest!  It works on little things too.  The vacuum cleaner that you need shows up in the neighbor's give-away pile.  The check book fills up with reservations at the Snug.  YES!  This is pretty great. 

Karen Bishop (What's Up on Planet Earth) told us that Spirit has plans for all of us, and some of us needed to be placed in such a way that we would get rest and rejuvenation to prepare for the next big push.  Thank you Spirit, for this perfectly tranquil place.  And thank you for doing this for so many people I know - people who really needed a place to heal, re-center and gather energy. 

That's the great news of the results of Jumping.  Now, what about the folks who didn't jump?  From the perspective of the longest, widest lens, there are no worries.  These souls simply want more time to master the third dimension.  Short term, it won't be a very easy ride.  A lot of negativity, anger, hostility, suffering and turmoil is in the picture for those who cling to the third dimension in the current earth energies.  If you insist on holding on to a belief that there is not enough for everyone, you will fall on the sword of winner-take-all competition.  Without unity consciousness, a certainty that we are all one, in this together, part of one organism, well - it's jus gonna be rough.  Ironically, this suffering is a fast track to spiritual attainment of mastery of life lessons. 

We all know people who opted for 3-D density.  Everything is a struggle and fear rules the roost.  It's painful to watch, so painful in fact that we can only handle short exposures to this dense energy.  These days we have to actually travel dimensionally and compress our energy to pay visits to the old earth.  Until we get really good at working with our creation abilities, we will still make these visits.  It  can be hard. 

How do you know when you have travelled to the old earth?  You find yourself interacting with friends, family, colleagues who once you included in your normal course of life, but now they are impossibly negative, angry or full of spiky energy.  Being around them drains your energy and drags you into fear.  After a few days of being in this energy you feel compelled to escape and return to tranquility someplace.  Sometimes this might result in a few days of joint pain, nausea, gastric upset and deep fatigue.  As time goes on, these symptoms will intensify until you make the choice to let those old relationships fall away from your reality. 

You should know that you are not in this alone - our very earth and all her passengers are going through this separation.  When you leave old relationships, new ones begin that are grounded in energy that supports your evolution.  You may retreat into you deepst core for a bit as you prepare for these new relationships, but they will come, and they will be full, rich, and rewarding. 

This is the time that we have been longing and preparing for.  You are more ready than you think!     

'width' is a duplicate attribute name. Line 1, position 37.       
What Is That Green Thing?                                       

Over the course of the last month news of instability, corruption, graft, manipulation and decay seems to have increased exponentially – making some feel that the “end” is nearing.  Yet, it is surprising how many are seeing this as a welcome sign that the shift is upon us, and balance is finally being restored on earth.  It is such an unusual and hopeful reaction to outer difficulty – it bears closer scrutiny.  Of course mass media is not served by looking at this as a good thing so we are barraged with gloom and doom reporting.  What we have here is a matter of focus.  Are you looking outward at the systems that are breaking down, or are you looking inward at the manifestation of a new reality?

 

Think of our reality as being incubated in a very large egg.  It is time for the hatchling to emerge, and it has begun to peck at that shell.  A few pecks, a little crack. Oh, there comes fear.  Everything familiar and “safe” is beginning to fracture.   A few more, another crack.  We have been pecking for a while now, fearful of the outcome, yet anxious to emerge into the light.  The shell is riddled with cracks, and in a short while, there will be that last critical outward push that shatters the shell, reducing it to a powder around…around what?  Are we to be annihilated or freed?

 

This is the question that defines the inward focus.  What is hatching?  Inside this corrupt and antiquated shell, a green thing is emerging.  When you move to a new house, the first spring is filled with curiosity as green things emerge all over the yard – as yet undefined, but promising new life and beauty.  As humanity moves into the new spring of the 5^th dimension, this green thing is pushing its way into being.  We are creating this new reality and it deserves and requires our attention. 

 

I have been working hard over the last year or so to shift my focus away from the fear based focus on what is breaking up and falling away, and toward understanding what that green thing is and how I might best feed and cultivate it.  The more I study it, wonder about it and love it, the more I have been rewarded with an intuition about its marvelous potential.  Probably the chief reason I was fascinated and in love with the Obama campaign was that he was asking us to look forward to what could be – to pool our creativity, hope and heart in a massive focus on what is fair and good – on what honors the earth and each other.  This felt like the green thing to me.  Seeing the jubilation and celebration on election day and inauguration day felt like the green thing. As he continues to speak to us in the language of values I am reminded again that we elected ourselves president, and made him chief spokesperson.  There is a way in to that inner circle of decisions – a way to be a part and to be heard.  That’s a green thing too.

 

Looking at the collapse of huge financial institutions it seems hard to imagine that something good could come from it.  But leave it to Bill Moyers to find a way to point out the possibilities.  In his interview with Simon Johnson Prof. Johnson talked about a possible scenario where big banks would ultimately be broken up into smaller units – institutions with a more human scale and more direct accountability.  As I listened to this I thought, this is part of the green thing!  Then the next week (is Bill Moyers a guru?) he interviewed Parker Palmer about maintaining your spiritual focus amid the breakdown.  .  That’s part of the green thing too!  Internet based micro lending – where one on one we find partners and create magic – another part!

 

Here are some sign posts I use to identify the green thing:

Human scale is affirmed.  Whatever institution or collective used to accomplish the common good is close enough to us to assure transparency, individual participation and accountability.

 

Community is reinforced.  Either we grow closer to and more interdependent with physical neighbors, or we build stronger personal relationships in virtual communities.

 

It is organic.  It is much more grown by intention, individual participation and person-to-person sharing than through management by large institutions or government.

 

It is elegantly and surprisingly simple while the issues surrounding seem to be beset by byzantine complexity.  (This is the “why didn’t I think of that” criteria.)

 

It recognizes our commonalities and points to the unity underneath all of our diversity.

 

It affirms the power of collective conceptualization.  It recognizes that we are creating this new reality with every thought, feeling and action.  (Thoughts are things.  Keep the good ones.)

 

In the weeks and months ahead, I hope to add to this list, and to my understanding of what that green thing is that is emerging in the broken shell.  I hope to be able to keep my focus, my curiosity, my creativity and my love directed on that creation.  If you see a resource, and recognize it as being part of this green thing, please share it with us by sending a note or a link to kathybax@gmail.com.  I’ll put your links up on the Harvest of the Heart website so that others can see them too. 

 

It is always nice to know that we are not alone out here working on this evolution thing.  To assist you in connecting to the grand energy of ascension, here is a prayer that you might like to include in your daily practice, just a reminder that what you are doing on a daily basis has more power and more significance than you would ever guess. 

 

 

Archangel Michael's prayer for Light workers

 

I am a divine instrument of Light, through which the higher dimensional frequencies of creation flow.

From this moment forward, I will fully and completely live my perfected vision of Heaven on Earth.

Each day, I am becoming a master of Divine Manifestation in the world of form, and I move beyond the restrictions and limitations of the third and fourth-dimensional reality.

I carry the torch of God Light; I radiate the love of Angels

Henceforth, each and every day I draw to, through and around me more and more of my Perfect I Am Presence of God.

 

http://www.truthout.org/022409A   Reinventing Wealth in a Progressive World

http://www.truthout.org/022409R  The Obama Code

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02202009/transcript2.html  Moyers with Parker Palmer

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02132009/profile.html Moyers with Simon Johnson

'width' is a duplicate attribute name. Line 1, position 37.Letting Go and Surrender
In the last two years or so, I have been moving further and further away from the familiar life I had created that included frequent encounters with family, the security of a permanent place to live, the predictability of consistent income, a comforting routine with friends, and so many more things.  Spirit seems to be calling me to morph on a daily basis, continually taking on new aspects and letting go of old ones.  A few months ago I wrote about how I feel like I have stopped walking on land in the old, familiar way, and have moved into the river and joined that less familiar flow.  The lesson I got then is that I'm only fooling myself if I think I can plan my way into the future.  I've gotten the big message that the future is just an illusion - and a shifting one at that!

Every week it seems that something else comes up to give me another lesson in letting go.  It happens often enough that I can see a pattern in my own process.  My initial reaction is to fight like a mother bear against the change.  Especially after having separated from so much in my life, my ego screams out against having to say good-bye to anything else.  I might cling to a difficult relationship, or keep doing something that isn't yielding abundant results. Just the fact that I have done it before is enough, at this stage, to keep me engaged in holding on.  We all are familiar with what Universe does with the recalcitrant aren't we?  If at first you don't let go, the next nudge gets a little harder, and the one after that harder still.  When it is truly time to let go of something there is little to be done to avoid it. 

When I get to this realization, I have a little tantrum.  I'm such a grown up!  If people are lucky, they don't have to be around me on my tantrum days because I can be pretty owly.  Now that I recognize this I can make it a little shorter - maybe even only a half day depending on how big the letting-go is.  And then I have the flat time.  Ok, resigned to this, not happy about it, not wanting to figure out alternatives, just plain depressed that I'm in this familiar and tiresome spiral again. 

Are you recognizing the classic stages of grief?  Yes, I do follow up with bargaining and eventual acceptance. 

It can be exhausting. Since I'm giving up a lot of things (in the end, willingly), I find myself in up and down cycles that can overlap each other and keep me engaged most of the time in this dance of re-defining myself, grieving the lost self, and welcoming the new.  That's the deal with letting go.  It can happen in clusters, in series, relentlessly.  Roles drop away, friends get sick, jobs don't work out, clients cancel appointments, promising business ideas don't pan out.  No matter how efficient one gets at the process of letting go gracefully, there will always be more just around the corner.

The quality of surrender is the ocean to the mud puddle of letting go.  To finally get off the gerbil wheel of managing change, it is necessary to reach the state of surrender to the present moment.  Surrender is global, profound and complete.  It is affirming that a bigger power (bigger than your 3-D ego) is in charge of your life and the best way to handle your affairs is to get out of the way and let it work.

Letting go can be handled piecemeal.  You can dribble it out, put it off, negotiate it, put it to the side and imagine that you can pick it up again at another time. Surrender is total and irreversible, and it requires trust, optimism and faith.  Surrender requires the impeccability of self-love, honor and integrity.

We return  once again to the baseline of love and acceptance of ourselves.  A couple of years ago a wonderful trance medium from Belgium told me that what we need to do to incend (bring in) higher dimensions into our 3-D world is to fall passionately in love with our own God-selves.  Even erotically in love.  Part of this has to do with integrating our masculine and feminine energies and seeing this marriage of our energies as the one true and perfect partnership that lays the foundation for all other relationships.  Another element has to do with suspending judgment and accepting who we are as a perfect expression of Spirit, constantly changing and growing.  If we can learn to give ourselves unconditional love and acceptance, surrendering  to the higher guidance and unfoldment of our lives can become a serene, joyful and satisfying act.

Ekhart Tolle reaches this point of surrender when he stands in the observer position in pure consciousness, watching the ego react to events and thoughts.  Letting go is an act of the ego.  One surrenders to the Observer - to pure consciousness.  Surrender is what you do when you fire the ego, when you give the straw boss the pink slip. To surrender requires one to stand with impeccability in the moment, alert and observant, detached from ego and aligned with Spirit.

In this place, you will always find peace.    

'width' is a duplicate attribute name. Line 1, position 37. Manifestation Explained 

                                      
In the dark ages, when I was thirty, I finally got around to taking calculus.  For a brief and loony moment I thought I might try to get an MBA…it seemed logical at the time.  Now I can see that this calculus course was another of the bricks in my own personal yellow brick road to the transpersonal.  As I was plunging into derivatives and solving all those equations, I GOT in a big way, in one of those great Aha! moments.  You can describe anything – absolutely anything - with math.  A painting, music, an emotion, an idea – anything.  It took my breath away.  I was lost in the Zen of a calculus moment.  As I look back, that moment changed my perceptions forever.

So here I am today, trying to get my head around sacred geometry.  I have this burning desire to bring the whole concept of sacred geometry down to earth so that some of us mortals can understand what it is and why we would care anyway.  Thirty years later (my guides have assured me that I am not the slowest soul in creation) I’m having another Aha!  It just ain’t that complicated, kids!  Yes, you can get twisted into the mathematics of the golden ratio and the platonic solids, and how they interact with the energetic grid, and how your thoughts are projected into that grid and begin the process of manifestation by organizing into simple geometric shapes that then spin into motion in the fourth dimension before the “voila!” moment where they take on substance in a 3-D world. 

You can also take your TV apart and try to find the little tiny pictures inside.

Here is what the everyday user of Sacred Geometry needs to know:  all creation is based on ridiculously simple geometry.  Our thoughts energize atoms into vibration.  They collect in predictable ways around the energetic grid (you can call this the collective consciousness if you want).  These particles form into clusters arranged in predictable geometries, patterns and progressions.  When they have gathered sufficient mass, you have – stuff.  Yup.  A manifestation.  Since this manifestation is “creation”, a rather god-like concept, we call it sacred.  And it is, although we are all going to have to get more comfortable thinking of ourselves as gods.   You can do this with or without an intellectual or intuitive understanding of Sacred Geometry just like you can watch TV without all the technical details.  

Knowing a little bit about the Sacred Geometry of human consciousness can help some other things snap into focus.  Again, sacred geometry is the physical shape our thoughts take as they become things.  It is us being co-creators of the universe.  The human consciousness is expressed geometrically as a dodecahedron.  OK.  Lay terms.  Twelve-sided soccer

                                             Dodecahedron

.    

This is your consciousness.

  Each face of this ball is a pentagon – one of a very few shapes that have equal sides and equal angles at every corner.  (this is a significant fact but fits in the category of little pictures in the TV, if you know what I mean.)  If you occupy a place on the surface of this ball, you are aware of those things on your plane of the ball, but you can’t see or experience anything on any of the other eleven surfaces.  That’s too bad, because all twelve of these surfaces combine to make up your consciousness.  You know how they say we only use a fraction of our brain cells?  Well, we are only aware of a twelfth of our human consciousness!  That’s life in 3-D. 

Now let’s add evolution into this discussion.  As the frequency of earth’s vibration increases, so does the frequency of our own human vibration.  We are in an evolutionary place where we are opening up to hold vastly increased amounts of light.  How?  Well, for one thing, our little 12-sided ball is changing.  In the old 3-D world, each of those faces is a plane – flat as a pancake.  But we aren’t going to hang around in the third dimension much longer.  Many are already well into, and some are through the 4^th dimension.  Here is how that looks different:

                                    The Stellated Dodecahedron

This is your consciousness on light

To understand this shape better, imagine taking a string that is attached in the exact center of the pentagon, and pulling it straight up into the air at a 45-degree angle.  Yikes!  Now every pentagon has five NEW sides!  And when you start to spin this in space, you get a major manifestation machine! 

Even more than thirty years ago, I listened to Buckminster Fuller talk for three days about 4^th dimension mathematics.  I understood exactly nothing about what he was saying until the end of the last day, at which time I realized that though I couldn’t do any of the proofs or remember any of the formulas, I did understand that the fourth dimension was about the mathematics of shapes moving through space.  Imagine my delight at figuring out, in 2008, that he was talking about the math behind human manifestation!

Lest you get too intimidated to read on, know that you don’t need to understand any of this to do it!  If you are a lightworker on the path, you are increasing your physical ability to hold light, and your dodecahedron has already become stellated!  You are already a pointy soccer ball.
 
What can you get in 4-D that you didn’t get in 3-D?  Well for one thing, in 4-D you can “see” from all faces of your human consciousness – not just from one. Your telepathic or clairvoyant abilities develop, and the desire to follow Spirit becomes more and more irresistible.  As you learn to navigate in this emotional body (as distinguished from the physical body) you begin to have more lucid dreams, more déjà vu experiences.  You move from the conventional base of knowledge into a heart based knowing.  You will be drawing from the knowledge in all twelve of the dimensions of your consciousness. 

(This seems a little bit like being able to go back to high school, knowing what we know now. Ah the delightful possibilities!)

That’s all well and good.  How do we increase the likelihood that we will actually get to the fourth dimension?  If you aren’t tuned into meditating on sacred geometry, you can try an exercise that Lightworker introduced a few years ago that works with this geometry in a more approachable way. The Group began teaching Lightworkers how to interact with the orthagonal matrix.  That process required picturing life energy as being drawn down into the body through a series of three right angle turns.   Successfully navigating the orthagognal matrix yields a trip into multidimensional consciousness. Here is how you do it:

At each turn, take three deep
breaths in through the nose and out
through the mouth.

Begin by drawing the golden light of

Universal energy in through the

rown charka to the count of three

crown chakra.  (three deep breaths)  Bring the light down

the spinal column to the hips. 

Turn the light at a right angle and send it out to the edge

of your hips. (three breaths)    Finally, send the light at a ee the energy take it’s third

right angle turn down to the earth

(three more deep breaths).

Expressed as geometry, the first “right angle turn takes the energy from the universe and brings it into the one dimensional pentagon on the flat page. The second turn interacts with the pentagon on the flat page and turns it into the 3-D soccer ball.  The third right angle turn pulls the five sides up and out of each face of the soccer ball into a 4-D reality.  Now when you put that whole shootin’ match into motion, spinning in space, you have the vibration of creation.  Then look out, because your world is about to change.  You may not notice you have entered a multidimensional reality right away, but over time - hours, weeks, months, you will begin to shift your perceptions and allow more light, more energy, and more experience into your consciousness.  And that, friends, is how you begin to manifest consciously!

Two months ago I wrote about having left the solid ground of cause and effect for the mysterious flow of the river.  (Into the River)  I'm still working on the "how" of being in this flow, but am being supported by an abiding presence that keeps saying to me "Give the very best that you have to give, and take what you need."  So, being a literal type, I ask, "What am I supposed to be giving?"  I'm coping with the enigmatic answer.  "You are to give whatever you are asked.  You see, you don't need to plan this."

Oh.  I see.  I am not in the position of deciding here.  I am in the position of responding to opportunities.  And the way I respond has everything to do with evolution.  I am to respond with an open heart, enthusiasm, and a desire to give it my all.  I am being asked to INVEST in the smallest thing, to approach each moment in the NOW reality as though this was my best chance to demonstrate my intentions to the Universe.  And of course, it is my best chance.  This is true of every moment.  If I can let go of my need to know where all of this is going and just be totally enthusiastic about every single thing I do, well, I'll get there, and I will be alive and vibrant the whole way there. Wherever that might be. 

The concept of contributing the best that you have to give is the foundation of a new economy that can eventually move beyond money exchange.  It is a brave step away from our belief system in that it requires us to leave behind the idea that we are in competition for scarce and insufficient resources.  We have so many defenses in place to protect our position, to guard our egos and our resources.  We spend so much time counting and comparing that we have little time left to enjoy our lives.  But imagine a world where every single one of us did give our very best at every opportunity.  Imagine a world of unlimited generosity.  Imagine a world where your contribution is received with gratitude and joy.  Imagine the magnificent exchange of energies - and hold that thought.  We are going in that direction. 

Suspend all of your self-judgments.  Let go of your conditions.  Open your heart to your greatest inspirations and give your best - all the time.  Whatever might be called for.  As you do, you will touch more people with your example than you can possibly imagine.  And as you drop your protective guard, you will be saying to the Universe that you trust that you are ready for excellent opportunities. 

Now what about taking what you need?  This is a tricky one because so many of us don't feel worthy of taking.  Receiving a return from the Universe completes the giving cycle.  When you receive, you allow the cycle to complete so that it can begin again.  If you resist receiving, you are blocking the energetic flow of the whole cycle. 

Life is really a fantastically intricate barter system.  Right now we depend heavily on money as an intermediary between what we have to give and what we need to live and thrive.  But there are other energetic trades that bybass exchange of money.  These trades aren't always as obviously paired to action.  When you extend your best effort into the Universe, resources begin to appear.  A surprisingly inexpensive apartment will become available.  Someone will be letting go of exactly the laptop you wanted.  Friends will appear to take you out to dinner.  As the balance shifts away from competition towards the unifying energy of collaboration, this kind of exchange will become the predominant one, and money will begin to lose it's power over us.  In the meantime, work on ridding yourself of the belief that what comes to you deprives someone else.  This is not true.  Each individual is creating their scenario and can create a flow of resources of their own.  Your lack dos not support others in lack.  Holding this belief in lack contributes to the impoverishment of all.

We are reaching the end of a most challenging 2007, and we are in the season of ritual and tradition as we return to our center and wait for the return of the light at the solstice.  According to numerology, 2007 is a “9” year, a year of completion.  So many things are winding down and playing out.  For many of us, this has meant some wrenching challenges and losses, accelerating change, a sense that time is rushing by.  What no longer serves us is being left behind, and even though the short term is sometimes agony, in the long term this is good.  It feels to me like we are wringing the sponge out, extracting the very last drops of those things we need to leave behind.

 By the middle of 2008, I predict that we will be experiencing a radically different kind of interface with life itself.  Cause and effect aren’t working the same way any more, we are moving away from the constraints of time and space, and we are also losing our relationship to the way we act on the world to make things happen.

I feel a deep sense that I have left the land and have entered the river.  The current is carrying me past events and manifestations, but I don’t yet have an idea of where the current is taking me.  As events pass, there is no possibility of attachment – they flow by, and others follow in a constantly changing array.  The one thing it demands most of me is trust that the current, which is much bigger than me, is purposeful, and that my work in the world will be presented to me as I continue in the flow. 

The tools to work in this new interface are so different that they are sometimes hard to recognize, but one old favorite is still most useful.  Ritual that connects us to larger themes now has the power to connect you to a multidimensional reality full of richness and grace.  The magic of ritual is that it encourages you to identify with a consciousness beyond your ego.  As you participate in the comforting traditions and practices that  connect you to profound philosophical and spiritual truths, you lose your self identification and become one with the All That Is.  At the moment of unity realization, you are open to your higher self and spirit more powerfully than at any other time.  When you reach that place, slow down, notice, and listen.  You will be richly rewarded.

Traditions and rituals can come in many packages, and need not be attached to organized religion or cultural expressions.  The important things is that they speak authentically to your soul.  One tradition I treasure is a labyrinth walk on New Year’s Eve.  It is a powerful time to lay down the old year and open to the possibilities of the new.  Your own rituals and traditions will be as unique as you are.  If you are served well by them, honor them with more focused attention this year.  If you feel a desire to create more meaning in this season’s activities, ask yourself what you are missing.  Is it a connection to the earth and the energy of creation?  Are you longing for a different sense of family?  Would you like to feel deeper roots in your cultural heritage?  Do you feel a calling to service?  Take some time during this darkest month of the year, this very busy month, to listen to your own heart and give yourself the gift of connecting to ritual and tradition, new or old, that serves you and lifts you up.  2008 is a “1” year of new beginnings.  Now is the time to charge up those batteries and get ready for action!

'width' is a duplicate attribute name. Line 1, position 37.Candor and the New Energy: 
My Inside Voice Editor Just Quit

One of the warning signs of middle age seems to be an odd and disquieting inability to keep the Inside Voice (thoughts) from becoming the Outside Voice (faux pas.)  I have a dear friend who opened my eyes to this trend a good ten years ago when she said she was voluntarily taking herself out of a lot of social and political activities because she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut at crucial times, and she feared the consequences of her sometimes brutal candor.  It was a great loss to many of us, because along with her sometimes razor sharp honesty, we also lost her humor and insight.  Ten years later I am most definitely in her candor category.possible to lie to ourselves or others.  So perhaps my candid friends and I, and a whole lot of other plain-speaking people, have been trailblazers for this new Consciousness of Candor.  We are learning through experience that pursuing what  It may just be my age, it may be that I have had some big jolts in my life that made me wake up to the reality that it was time to pursue authenticity to a deeper degree.  But I have a much lower tolerance for letting things slide than I used to.  End result:  sometimes it’s dicey to have me in a group discussion!  It seems my Inside Voice editor was sick and tired of her job, and she has walked out.

 I would be a lot more disturbed by this defection if I didn’t know something about the acceleration of human evolution and the increasing frequencies of the earth’s vibration.  One of the artifacts of this increase in rate is that truth becomes much easier to discern.  Put in another way, we are becoming more transparent and our ability to read others is increasing.  We are coming into an age where it is no longer  is true for us and speaking that truth may have a short term cost, but it has long term benefits that far exceed the price.  For one, we can live in the light of our truth with the ease of pure integrity.  For another, as we live in the truth, and others find it safe to do that with us, we realize that the judgments of others are rarely as harsh as we imagined them to be.  Imagine a world where there were no lies!  “Yes, you do look fat* in that dress.  These sentence doesn’t flow very well.  Can you think of another example that a person could say in the same sentence?  On the other hand, there were no weapons of mass destruction.”  (From the little white lies to the big, fat ones!)  Aren’t we more destabilized by discovering a lie than we would be if we heard the truth in the first place?

 When I sat down to write this article, I pulled a card from my Animal Tarot deck to guide my writing.  The card I pulled was Dragonfly.  I am always delighted to be accompanied by Dragonfly, but today it was particularly auspicious.  The Dragonfly’s primary message is that it is time to trust in the power of the light.  Dragonflies perceive the tiniest shift and expression of the light – they can see light in very dark places.  Truth is a pure expression of the light.  Pursuit of truth is pursuit of light, and it is en-lightening intellectually as well as spiritually.  Putting the Dragonfly to work with the conundrum of the defection of the Inside Editor helps to sort out some of the stickier problems with speaking your mind.

The trick with candor is to find the most refined and light-filled path out of the web of the thousand little deceptions we have created for our social selves.  We create these deceptions (or hold our silence) to protect ourselves from danger.  The Piscean age which we have recently left behind was a period characterized by the male energy of dominance and control. Fear was used to great effect to control the masses and impose the authority of One Truth. Throughout the Piscean age, the will of the One Truth has been used as a defenworld over.   Of the many ways that feaour silence and let the anger build.  The problem with responding to oppression or threats with anger is that you have now chosen a path that can do little but return anger to you.  Just what I wanted!  A White Hot Piss Off marked Return to Sender!  OK, that really doesn’t work for me!  Not only have I failed to educate the Monkey Brain of my oppressor, I now get t(or my own repressed anger) as well!se for wars and tyranny the r can be processed, for mostanger.  We feel threatened, we angrily put up a defense.  Or we make up a protective lie and resent having to lie.  Or we hold o deal with their returned anger

The way out of anger that works best for me is to accept the responsibility for having created every experience that I have.  My soul brought me an experience so that I could obtain the benefit of a lesson.  If I can take the energy of my anger and turn it toward seeing the lesson I am learning, and thus capture the gift of the encounter, I can then, from a place of integrity and compassion, speak my truth in en-lighten-ment.  From this vantage point, I am more likely to be able to see the fear in my oppressor and to find compassion and understanding for their position.  Takidiscipline of pausing and choosing a reaction rather than being guided by my own Monkey Brain.  I like to imagine that I have a menu at these times and that I can order my reaction from that menu.  I can choose a path that leads me to a higher awareness. 

 The Piscean Age has given way to the Age of Aquarius. The Aquarian energy evokes co-creation.  It is reawakening the divine feminine.  Feminine creation energy finds common ground.  It builds from the bottom up using the contributions of many to arrive at the creation.  Feminine energy makes the base assumption that every soul has an authentic contribution tong this reflective step requires the  make. We each have precious pieces that are meant to be sewn into the quilt of collective expression. Respect both expressed and received allows the gift of authenticity to be shared. Honestly presenting our truth with compassion and courage – that is a powerful contribution to the quilt!  Opening a space to compassionately receive the gift of another soul’s honest expression – this creates a quilt with magic powers!