A Year To Remember

As the year draws to an end I sense we are all reeling with the speed that brought us here, and what a year. For me it was a year filled with hope, the feeling of a real sea change with XR coming from nowhere and becoming such a huge voice in the world. 

I have been overwhelmed by the feeling of positivity and change that has been sweeping throughout communities everywhere. The cry to stop destroying our planet and ourselves is beginning to be heard and although it’s just the beginning, I am optimistic.

However, this voice has been temporarily lost here in the UK, stifled by an unfavourable election result, and what the aftermath will mean to so many. It’s time to regroup and make plans that can enable us to move forward positively.

I would like to think that this is where my PIPPA project comes into its own. With the sense that our parliamentary system is so broken and dysfunctional, I feel this is an open invitation for all those with the will and the capacity to step up and take responsibility for our future, to do so now. 

This can only be done if we choose to work together, question and change aspects of the status quo that no longer serve us, starting with corruption and the manipulation of power and the Media.

So, how to begin again with this huge setback; the reinstatement of a government even more entrenched in wanting to uphold these untenable values. 

Where can we start? I always look to what Mother Nature is showing us for answers. When I look out my window I see that everything has gone still on the surface. I know that as she steps into winter and begins drawing the curtain across these ever shortening days, she is starting her journey of breathing in after months of breathing out. Now we are seeing everything dying back and going into hibernation, as prepares and nurtures her energy for spring.

Never before has this seemed so important as we are experiencing this crushing defeat of hope, with the growing wave of politics that has become even more inward looking, manipulated by the shadow side of the Internet. This amazing connecting web we have at our finger tips, has the capacity to bind us together with love or fear; the choice is ours.

So, it is my belief that rather than lashing out in anger in response to our fears of what lies in the future of our country, it is vital that we use this time well. Sagittarius, the archer who sends a fiery bow into the stratosphere in search of the truth, is also the wounded healer, reminding us to be aware of our mortality. It is a significant time, as we journey on our quest to find new answers and also our voice, if we wish to speak of our findings. 

First we must remember that this is possibly the most important time in human history, that we are all just tiny cogs in a huge wheel and that maybe the part we play might not be felt in our lifetimes. Knowing that we are sowing an important seed is like the people who plant trees that won’t bear fruit until their grandchildren are grown. We have to be in this for the long game; the spring we are hoping for maybe many years away, but that doesn’t mean we must give up hope.

On the other hand I am a total optimist and I’m sure we are all aware how quickly time is speeding up for us and who knows what can happen in ten short years. 

As the wounded healer, we are being asked to find our truth. This can be done on an outward, physical journey, a personal pilgrimage, or an inward journey. They are actually the same, one mirroring the other, as we go in, the micro shows us the whole world as it opens up again into the quantum realm. Here we find the whole truth. A door that was opened by Einstein a hundred years ago, but one that we still fear to step through as a culture. This realm informs us that we are all connected and that everything we do has an effect on everything else and is felt by all simultaneously.

Let’s find our voice, speak out against the limitations of fear and hatred, and show love in every communication we encounter. If we meet negative views with negative reactions we just strengthen that emotion and that energy continues to hold power. If we meet the negative energy with compassion the anger dissipates and we can resolve differences and make huge changes. 

I believe we need to come away from technology and meet face to face, where no algorithms can influence us or corrupt our thoughts.

The inner voice is the only voice that stays true, the one connected directly to the heart. It takes dedication to be able to hear it, especially in this noisy world we have created, but it is worth putting in the hours. Finding stillness and listening to Mother Nature is still our best hope.   

Journey to the golden city: The Shadow That Lurks Within

Journey to the golden city: The Shadow That Lurks Within: Never before has the need for us to face our shadow been so great. Never before has our shadow been so present, as if it’s lookin...

The Shadow That Lurks Within

Never before has the need for us to face our shadow been so great. Never before has our shadow been so present, as if it’s looking at us full in the face challenging us to return the gaze. Whether we choose to engage with it or look away, the choice is ours.

I feel like we are poised on the precipice of saving ourselves or plummeting over the edge. But, I am an optimist and I know that we have everything in our capacity to work the magic needed, make the necessary changes and create a new way to shape our future. However, this is not going to come easy, we will have to make difficult choices and perhaps be forced to make huge sacrifices. This comes with the birth of every new age and we have been here before and each time we, or at least some of us, have survived.

I have been watching how, over the last few years, everything has become split apart. It is explicit and implicit, in all aspects of life. The place this most evident is in our Parliamentary system. As the two main parties are breaking into two, the hostility is both in-house and cross party. However, this rancour is appearing everywhere. 

Although it feels very frightening I am holding my faith in the process, whether it is Newton’s Law of motion: to every action there is always opposed an equal reaction, or the concept of yin and yang and how everything is in perfect balance to create harmony. I know that when we see the darkness growing in our society, then the light must also be present in equal measure. The idea being that when everything is in equal balance, we can then choose to make the necessary breakthrough to rise like the phoenix.

As we are stepping into winter, in astrology, we have come through the learning experience of spring and summer, representing childhood. Virgo prepares us for adulthood, as summer comes to an end, and Libra teaches us, as we step into autumn, that as we learn to live we are also learning to die. To do this properly Pluto, God of the Underworld takes Persephone down into his domain and initiates her, ready for womanhood. This is a vital journey, however, scary it may seem. Pluto, ruler of this archetype, offers the initiation process necessary to become true adults, and discover our inner power, however fearful the journey is.

Unfortunately over the millennia, our culture, has become smaller and smaller in its outlook, so that now we ignore anything beyond the physical world. Our fear of what lies there has led us to lose all the necessary wisdom from our ancient mythology, and in doing so remove important aspects of our development. This has prevented us from growing up in any sense other than our physical growth, the only aspect of life we endorse nowadays. 

So we enter into adulthood as emotional and spiritual children, trying to ignore anything we are too frightened to look at and constantly attempting to prove the non-existence of anything we believe belongs to the ‘Dark Ages’.

The centuries of witch burnings has stopped us from valuing our holistic wisdom and kept us judging each other if we choose to venture into that world. Scientific know-how has enabled this view to hold its place till now. This dark history has been left largely ignored and remains festering in our psyches as we are too scared to own it. 

Now, a hundred years after Einstein opened the door to the quantum world, we are still trying to disown what we have found there, desperately trying to close the door on it. But our efforts have weakened us and we are tiring. The truth will out and if you are still refusing to acknowledge it you will soon become out fo date, like flat Earthers. 

The inter-connectedness of everything will soon be scientific law understood by all. We have, over the centuries, been teaching how we can find the truth by breaking things down to their individual states. Slowly that illusion is being shown for what it is. A truth is being unveiled, that the more we look into the world of the tiny, the more it opens up to the whole and nothing is indivisible. Those that choose to look inwards and see only the separation of all things will soon be standing alone will hopefully want to come in from the cold. 

The discovery that everything is held together by love is quickly now gaining ground. Stepping into love whole-heartedly is sadly much harder than we realise. Generations of learned, conditional love means we judge first and forgive later. Loving each other, however bad we seem to behave is not something we have been taught how to do. Sadly, we only have a few role models, Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King to name a few obvious ones. But the more we see people reacting out of fear and hate, the easier it is choose another way. Accepting without judging those who are not ready to change is vital and if we can’t accept, and still judge others,  then we are still coming from a place of fear. 

We are living in one the most important ages of humanity’s time here on Earth, learning to understand itself and so choosing to evolve. We can only truly grow if we examine every aspect of ourselves, not just the parts we like.

This winter, as the decade draws to a close, I invite you to spend more time looking at your world, how it looks within and so how it looks without. It is important to hold up our hands and admit our mistakes as well as our successes; awareness is the key for change. As the saying reminds us, we are the ones we have been waiting for. Its up to us to rise. 

Becoming Our Own Generals

I am constantly amazed at how the model I have been using for life over the last ten years continues to serve me so beautifully. It is based on an image of the universe as a set of Russian dolls; worlds within worlds; cycles within cycles, all mirroring each other. I have been working with the journey of the seasonal year mirroring our lifetime journey and then adding any others that come along the way. So the lunar cycle fits beautifully as does the journey through the chakras. 

I know many people struggle with astrology but I feel it is the best tool, the best paradigm, through which to view the universe. The holographic view of our world, of every part containing the whole, means we can use anything as a mirror to reflect on ourselves and the millennia of archetypal study that has been woven into this field offers such a rich tapestry to work with, it never seems to fail. 

As I have just returned from London, being a part of the Extinction Rebellion and experiencing its wonderful gathering energy I can’t help but be excited by it. 

In my previous blog I talked of the Virgo archetype being the preparation for adulthood, the end of childhood and the potential we have built up through the summer months. Mother Nature has completed her outward physical journey as we have experienced growth and our understanding of the physical world. 

Now as the leaves are turning, showing us this beautiful colourful display, we are ready to step into adulthood not just learning to live but learning to die; but it is beautiful. As we develop the understanding of growing up emotionally, in our hearts, this means we have to face our mortality and come to terms with building a life that is not just about ourselves but about our community and how it will continue when we are no longer here.

On our long cultural journey away from our spiritual awareness and towards a solely physical interaction with life, we have lost all this wisdom. Mother Nature offers us this visual and emotional reflection of ourselves, all the metaphors built into our exquisite environment, in the hope that we will see and absorb it into our way of being. I feel we have, as a society, come so far from this truth we are at last crying out for a return. Now I finally believe change is on its way and the peaceful rebellion rapidly growing throughout the world comes at the end of a long line of practice runs of former failed rebellions.

The Libra archetype teaches us that when we step into our hearts and open them completely, miracles are truly possible. We can build a beautiful world that is just and fair. 

If, however, we try to step into our hearts but our hearts are closed then the leadership is taken over by our heads. We become cruel to ourselves with internal battles and play that out on our world around us. We build societies that are unjust with hierarchies which make us all poor. The Libran playing out its shadow side becomes the general that sends its foot soldiers - the Aries warrior, its opposite sign - into battle for them. This is exactly what we have now, leaders that are willing to send their people to their deaths for their treasures of war. 

I was amazed when I heard the Veterans for Peace speak. It occurred to me that our soldiers are trained to suffer the very extreme of our cultural mindset. They are taught that everyone else is worthless, even the next battalion, that they are the best, the top dog. However, to keep them in control, to shut them off from any feelings of empathy towards others, they have to be stopped from thinking, like factory workers, they are given only their slice of the story. This piece work mentality has shown us how we are suppressed in life in so many areas. This blinkered view is so important to the generals that want to keep us in line, but is detrimental to our mental wellbeing. Eventually any person with any heart will rebel and these veterans who have dared to stand up and question their world are the real heroes, I believe. 

Before we step into our hearts, the chakra journey takes us through the Solar Plexus, our energy centre where our personal power can be found. This mirrors our adolescence on our lifetime journey, where we have grown physically but not yet emotionally developed. It is the teenage years and the astrological Leo when in its power is shining. However, in its shadow it is self-obsessed and self-centred. It is a time of great conflict on our journey through life, trying on our personal power in the world but not having the emotional awareness to put it into play with a true understanding of ourselves or the world.

I believe this is where we, as a society, have become stuck. I believe our culture upholds the shadow side of the teenage mindset; a complete loss of humour, black and white thinking, extreme anxiety, and self obsession to name a few. 

The spiritual wisdom, from which we have become disconnected, is still available to all, should we put down our phones long enough to tune in. But while we remain lost and cast adrift form Mother Mature’s guiding hand, we have become spiritual children. 

However, if we choose to listen to the movement that is growing faster than I could have imagined in the last year, then we can step up and become generals ourselves, leaders in a peace movement like never before, where we all walk together, no one in front or behind. 

The purpose of the astrological wheel is to find balance and bring all the archetypes into play. We tend, in our ego centric lives, to just concentrate on our sun sign and maybe one or two others. The real purpose is to engage with all twelve of our personality types and balance all the archetypes, especially the oppositions. So here we learn to become the generals and the foot soldiers walking together towards love. To me, this is the true meaning of anarchy; (see note) people taking full responsibility for their lives in a community that reflects this back, a community based on love and not fear. This is the Leo archetype shining, all of us together, in balance within its opposition Aquarius (the age we are moving into) the sign that deals with the community.

For five-hundred years we have been in an age led by science and this has brought us many gifts. However, a hundred years ago and amazing scientists opened the door onto the next age, the quantum age. To move into this new world we have to engage with information which is so mind-blowing a hundred years later we are still terrified of stepping through. The issue is that we can only step through if we open our hearts, our heads can never lead the way. The past hundred years has been a gathering of pace and learning for this moment, are we now ready to engage with a new paradigm that can, if we choose, blast our old world apart? I can’t wait…..

Note. Original definition: without a ruler.  But as we have lost sight of how to to be self-governing, it has come to mean: lawless, confusion and disorder.

Preparing for Graduation

This month we are looking at our potential, personally and as a community. Our new scientific understanding informs us that these two states are inseparable, as indeed nothing is. So, when we observe something in our world that we feel is not working then we must remember to look within ourselves too, at what is lurking there unresolved. 

When I look at the state of our political parliamentary system I am caught between two emotions. First I feel shame. I feel like our country has become a laughing stock, a shining example of how not to hang your dirty washing out in public. Not that I’ve ever worried what others think but it’s just I feel we deserve so much better as a community, and we are so much better.

Second, I feel it gives me hope - two polarised emotions, mirroring what’s going on in our world perfectly. It is showing me what I have always believed, that our political system is not fit for practice. I have always believed it which is why I always kept it at arm’s length. For generations we have silently acquiesced, and so been complicit in letting it continue without question. Now as the cracks become ever more evident, the chance for something new to grow up through the old paradigm and blossom is ripe.

This is the terrain we find ourselves in, and I am constantly asking myself where can I be of best use. The answer is, I don’t know, but that doesn’t stop me from keeping on and pointing my compass in the direction I believe I am meant to be headed. My life is quite unique as I don’t have to keep my head down in a career,  but I also know there are many others like me, willing to turn their energies and engage in a new way. 

Knowing I am not alone in my endeavours gives me comfort, but knowing this can only be done as community is vital. 

I feel it is very important, at this stage, to make it clear that it is my intention not to pass any judgement, good or bad, on those who are or who are not appearing to prepare for change. It is important to remember that we are a collective, moving towards this new world as one and everyone is playing their part, seen or unseen.  In every walk of life there are people who may seem to be working towards a better world and those who don’t, but I believe its important not to look at everything at face value.

I am just doing what I am doing because I understand I have been brought to this point. I feel in a place of great privilege and so it makes perfect sense for me to put my energy here. My life has been a blessed one and I feel very lucky to be able start my new journey into a world of activism and politics. 

This, however, doesn’t mean any of it may have any value or any level of success but i am going to attempt it anyway. It certainly holds no more value than those who are working hard and maybe bringing up a family and grounding our much needed heart energy and love into the next stage of our development.

What I’m trying to say is, it is my continued intention to attempt to view the world with a different perspective; to remove judgement, see the potential in everything and stop myself from thinking anyone is better than anyone else.

Last month I attended a wonderful Campfire Convention weekend (a wonderful gathering of a couple fo hundred people, with speakers, music and lots of sharing) and heard some very interesting stories. They taught me how there as many people in corporations trying to respond positively to the crises we are facing in our world as there are people bringing about our demise. I also realised there are as many trying to make changes from the grass roots level with hate and judgement in their hearts as there are those choosing love as a way forward.

Once we truly understand that everyone is doing the very best they can with the tools they have, then we can learn to love and respect each other without condition and begin the process of graduation, which is what we have all come here to do.  

Our potential is huge, let’s celebrate that and nurture it.

Learning to Shine

This month has felt like a proper August month. Some days have been real scorchers with exceptional temperatures, we had an amazing storm, and it wouldn’t be right to have a British summer these days without some flooding. We should never under estimate the power of the weather, its tempestuous nature and ability to cause immense destruction. Then again neither should we underestimate the power in ourselves.

We are, as humans, incredible beings, our bodies and our minds, with such great potential. Sadly, however, I truly believe we are vastly under utilising all of this. Isn’t it a known fact that we only use ten per cent of our brains? In that way we probably use even less of our hearts, especially as few people really understand its emotional power let alone the fact that “the heart's electrical field is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain” (HeartMath Institute)

I am constantly amazed at the upside down nature of the way our minds work. As a culture we know how amazing we are. We fully believe that we are extremely sophisticated in our understanding of the world and how we utilise and control it to our advantage. And yet we also completely aware of how out of kilter we are. 

I do believe that if we stopped trying to control our environment and started to collaborate with it; understand our relationship within this connection rather wanting to have a power over it, then we could exceed all our expectations.

The archetype pertaining to this month explains it very simply. We have, at our core an intelligence, we call it gut reaction. Scientifically there has been some study into the cells in our gut being like brain cells. The Eastern traditions link this power to our solar plexus, our 'power centre’, where we can connect to a deep understanding of our purpose and place in the world. When we open this inner conversation with ourselves we gain a sense of inner strength, like the lion in the jungle, king of his domain. With this strong sense of self-worth comes the knowledge that we are totally supported by the Universal energy and have no need to prove anything to anyone else. This is because, here we discover that we are all, in ourselves, enough. The pride turns to humility when we recognise we are all the same, all kings of our own universe, working together as individuals, in a larger body or community.

This sun-like energy is shown to us in the image of the sunflower, that comes out at this time, standing larger, taller and stronger than most other single flowers, the perfect reflection of the sun, here on Earth, shining in its own glory. This is an invitation for us all.

Marianne Williamson said it perfectly in her book A Return to Love and Nelson Mandela quoted her in his inauguration speech,

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us….We are all meant to shine, as children do… And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 

Now Marianne Williamson is doing just that in her presidential campaign; she is standing up and speaking her truth. It’s so powerful that much of the media in America is at a loss as to know how to deal with her. She is ahead of her time and we can only hope she will, just by her gentle ability to stand and shine, give others permission to join her in her campaign to stand for love. This might take some time to come to fruition, but I am confident that this is all about the perfect timing.

It is time to find our individual power, to stop giving it away to others who believe they have it. For it is those that assume power when they don’t understand its true meaning who then abuse that power, as it is not meant for wielding over others. 

We will only be able to harness a new way of being when we free ourselves from the bonds of self-created slavery, stop giving our power to those we think know better or we believe have claimed their right to it.

It is time to make a stand, reclaim our rights as equals and remember exactly who we are.

We are here to shine.

Journey to the golden city: Going Home

Journey to the golden city: Going Home: This month we are slipping into the ‘sweet spot’ of the summer and slowing our step as we feel the sun grind to a halt at the summer sol...

Going Home

This month we are slipping into the ‘sweet spot’ of the summer and slowing our step as we feel the sun grind to a halt at the summer solstice (sol-stice meaning sun stands still) and turns itself around. This heralds the shortening of the days and longer nights to come.

The solstice invites us to celebrate and value all that we are in this moment and asks us to remember who we are and where we came from. We are the sum total of all those who have come before us and I wonder what we have to show for it?

It is my belief that we learn far more from listening to our elders than by breaking away and forging new paths. The only reason, in my view,  this might not seem such a great idea, is because as we have not listened to our elders for so many generations, there is the illusion that the wisdom has run dry. 

It seems that communities around the Earth who still hold their elders in esteem, have remained steeped in their spiritual beliefs. They have emotional wisdom woven into the very core of their essential ways of being; whereas I feel that we only inherit knowledge rather than wisdom.

I have long held the belief that anyone, born into the culture of the Abrahamic religions, who is seeking a spiritual path elsewhere, will eventually have to come home. This has been my personal realisation and was delighted to hear recently that the Dalai Lama has said something similar.

I remember talking to a friend, born of Christian parents, about the idea that Krishna, whom he had been seeking for so many years, is simply the same God appearing in the Eastern culture under a slightly different pseudonym. If he is to make peace with himself he will have to heal the rift between himself and his Christian parents that sent him on this pilgrimage in the first place. That is the story of the Alchemist, who journeys to find that what he was seeking was waiting for him at home all the time. He would only discover this when he is was ready to return for it. That thing is, of course, love, of the most unconditional kind.

For me, the rift isn’t between ourselves and our parents but the what the religion has done to our understanding of God. I do believe there is a vast gap between Christ and the religion we now call Christianity and healing this divide is the imperative.

The Cancerian crab, with his hard shell exterior and soft under belly, is inviting us to choose, to use the shell as a barrier between ourselves and our feelings or to go to that vulnerable place and do the work. Sadly, the latter, which is the most needed and what we will eventually discover is the gold, is the least trodden path.

It seems to me that what we fail to reconcile, the pain that we carry down through the generations, causes us to reenact the story over and over again. We try to cover up this pain and protect ourselves with a hardening of our hearts, creating divisions within, between ourselves and our own innate ability to love.

This shows up as our society starts to break down and compartmentalises. We see the division in our families as we disengage, with extended families breaking down to such an extent that single parent families appear to be normal. We have also experienced the break down of our spiritual journey from one holistic expression of God, even though he might have many different faces, to a completely divided church, with new denominations springing up with each new age. 

I believe it started with Cain and Abel. When (and of course I am talking metaphorically) Adam and Eve were thrown out the Garden of Eden, thinking it was a judgement of their wrong doing, it created a judgement of our head over our hearts. This was played out as sibling rivalry in the extreme and has run like a river all the way down through the millennia, till this time.

I believe, this is actually just our path around the galaxy, the human race as a whole on the Alchemist’s five thousand (or even twenty-six thousand) year journey, physically moving away and returning to the vibration that is God.

It is time and we are now being asked to choose to turn around, to find our power and recognise that it lies where we might least expect it. It lies in our vulnerability where, just like the sun that can change direction, we can discover and truly feel love and come home.

The question is, are you willing to forgive yourself and all those who have come before you? If we all, or at least enough of us to create a tipping point, said ‘yes’, I believe we would change this world over night.

Letting the Jester In?

Thank goodness its summer, now we can all bask in the long summer days and enjoy the fruits of nature’s banquet. I am not usually one for sarcasm but what has happened to our weather?

Luckily for us, we are have been very slow to feel the effects of any issues in our weather system or even any effects of our lifestyle. I am certainly not complaining. We are not feeling the waters rising over our land, violent tsunamis wreck our homes, or the catastrophic effects of nuclear disasters, as so many have already endured. So any subtle changes in our lives are not as yet calling us to action. What will it take to choose change?

The archetype that we can choose to connect with at this time of year is Mercury, the winged messenger. He is also the trickster. The archetype is alive and kicking in many older traditions, particularly the first nation peoples of America. However, sadly he has been lost in our culture today.

To immediately contradict myself, I can also see that he is emerging in unusual ways. When we had our general elections in 2010 and Cameron and Clegg created their coalition, I almost did a double-take as the Gemini twins appeared on the TV screen. It did not escape me that these two were also born in the same Chinese calendar year, twins indeed. It reminded me of how our political system is riddled with liars and tricksters.

It didn’t take long for America to find the jester in their culture to find his way to the top. This new president is a shining example of what happens when we install in our youth, the rhetoric that you can achieve anything you want. When we disregard the consequences, and put personal desires over the good of the country we find we have placed a Homer Simpson style mindset in the driving seat. 

Now in our constant desire to follow America, like an anxious puppy, we too are putting a jester in the leading role. Here again we have the twins, I can’t believe they look alike as well, just like Cameron and Clegg, waving at each other across the pond. Of course many of us saw this coming but to see it actually playing out for real has to be the biggest joke we can play on ourselves. 

I always like to see the opportunity in every situation. I have also felt that when we stop taking ourselves too seriously, stop thinking we’re the best and most important in the world, then we will start to grow up as a nation. Maybe this is our chance. Like the bully who thinks everyone likes them, we may have to sink to the lowest point, go through our own dark night of the soul to come through this smiling.

I have spoken before about being open to change, as change is the only thing that can be relied on. We would do well to first make an internal shift. If enough people can do this, and often the shift can be very subtle, the external changes can be much easier and so far more dynamic. 

I heard two stories recently. The first story, which I first heard in my junior school assembly, was about the difference between heaven and hell and how they initially appear the same. We are given a vision of a great banquet with spoons that are far too long to manoeuvre and eat with. In hell everyone is starving but in heaven everyone is helping each other by feeding each other and so well fed and content.

In the second story it was revealed to me how people are feeling that they are being controlled and enslaved in poverty by the principles of globalisation, free trade and open borders which they are told will prevent us from keeping our sovereignty and sense of national identity. This, naturally, frightens people into losing their usual generosity of spirit and creates a narrowing of the mind.

However, it is only a story. For me, the notion of globalisation and open borders tells a tale that frees ourselves from limitations, enriching our society and strengthening our sense of self and individuality.

I find it fascinating how one story, or image, can open up completely opposing emotions depending on your standpoint. The difference of a fear based view point rather than an open-hearted can turn a vision of heaven into a hell. At the moment we live in a world where both perspectives exist and also the effects of both. How should we mind the gap, walk from a state where fear seems to carry more energy than love and turn it on its head? That is for us to explore. It is an unknown but I don’t believe it is unknowable.

What is needed here is a revisioning of our future by re-examining our history. If we want to make positive changes it is important to understand and recognise our wealth and strengths rather than seeing only our weakness and lack. We might do well to listen to the ones who are playing the role of the trickster for us so we can choose to see through the fake news and find our own truth. That’s what this archetype is really trying to show us. When we listen to the still voice within and stop listening those who are trying to keep us undermined and living in the small version of our potential, then we can start choosing positive change.

The Turning of the Tide

Imagine if tomorrow everyone woke up remembering that our individual responsibility is not just for ourselves but for our whole community, and that our community and the way we live has an impact far beyond the reaches of our towns, cities an even our nation. What if we felt not only responsible for ourselves as a global community but that this responsibility extended to the environment knowing that we are a part of it and an intrinsic part at that.

This is the basic premise on which I wish to base my project that I have called PIPPA (People in Positive Politics Association). When I asked somebody if they might be interested in supporting me, they told me they weren’t really interested in politics, only in supporting their community. This shows me how much our system is broken; that the two have become so separate and our politics in such disarray, people don’t feel it has a place their community any more. 

Actually it cannot be separated, politics is how we organise our society, but party politics has forgotten that. I feel the ‘party’ is well and truly over. It is time to grow up and take stock. I am not saying that everyone in the party political system has lost their way, I am saying that the system is out of date and so the people trying to do good from within it, are being stifled by it. I believe it’s time to break free.

As information becomes ever more available to all we would do well to remember that although knowledge is vital, how we use it is key and that requires wisdom. I am not convinced our political system reflects this. 

There are people who have lived on our planet for eons sustainably and respectfully. They understand that the Earth has its own innate wisdom, greater and more complex than anything we can understand in our minds. We have not only forgotten the ethos these people uphold but have completely devalued them as a race at best and annihilated them at worst. 

I believe that now is the time to look to this wisdom and be prepared to learn from them. But I also believe that is still a wisdom we know. For some it has become clear again, but others may have to dig deep as it has become buried beneath what our society has pushed on us for centuries.

Every moment in our lives is the sum total of all that has been before it but never has this felt more poignant than now. As I sense the tide is finally beginning to turn, I know I am not alone when I say that I have been waiting for this for many years,

As events grew in intensity over the last month, the peaceful rebellion that descended on London, but also all around the world, marked a significant moment of change. Extinction Rebellion might have grown out of nowhere but the energy behind it has been building for years. With the tragic loss of the Ecocide warrior Polly Higgins the metaphorical baton seemed to be almost immediately passed to the young Greta Thunberg. She took this on, along with the political elite of the country, completely in her stride. She has set a new standard showing us how the everyman/woman can be politically engaged.

However, talk is cheap. How can we really start to turn our ship around, look the pollution of our waters, the devastation of our rainforests, the melting of our ice-caps squarely in the face and choose change?

This will not happen by simply passing a few laws, a few companies divesting from the use of fossil fuels and a few less plastic bags being thrown away. This runs deep. We have to reinvent ourselves and our relationship to our beautiful Earth.

Six years ago a young South American fourteen year old boy went to talk to the UN. The message he brought was not that we had to save the Earth but that we need to save ourselves. This sage would have to wait some years for his wisdom to be heard. 

Change can only come when enough energy has been generated and there is a critical mass, enough of a shift in people’s hearts, for it not to be met with resistance. When we truly understand our role here, find the humility needed, we will remember that we are a cog in a wheel of a mechanism that only works when it is in balance. 

I am the eternal optimist, ever confident that we will find our way, but how we get there, how we bridge the gap is the unknown, the challenging but interesting aspect of the journey. Awareness and respect for everyone, starting with oneself feels like a good starting point and my book of the month, Bergman’s Utopia For Realists, has been mind expanding for me. He talks of all the various studies on poverty that have already been carried out and almost implemented. Knowing that we could have been living in a completely different landscape, an alternative reality, had they been brought in, intrigues me.

It is clear that keeping people in wealth and good health costs far less than allowing people to slip into the terrible states that poverty creates. The costs to the state become huge in policing, hospitals and prisons. It is important to remember that the mental anguish is not limited purely to all those concerned here but to society as a whole. This is not only immeasurable in terms of the suffering felt and so beyond financial evaluation. Even more ironic is the fact that the rich suffer more emotionally too.

I can only ask, when are we going to realise that we don’t have to continue like this? When are we going to stop under valuing ourselves as a community and start thinking big, thinking collectively and open-heartedly?

Lighting the Spark

As it’s spring, I believe it’s time to begin. I have spent the last eight months building myself up to launch my project, but after all this time of talking about it I am still only ready to launch its conception not its birth. However, maybe it is important that the idea is born and gestated for a while before any action can begin.

I have called the project PIPPA - People in Positive Politics Association and its fundamental and main tenor is to take the ‘party’ out of politics and put the people back in. 

If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard people - young or old, completely indifferent or interested in the subject - say how our political system is broken and no longer serves us (as if at one point it did?!) I would have many pennies. It seems like the topic of the moment and it has picked me up and swept me on a new journey whether I am ready, like it or not.

My dream is to create a body of people who are willing to support this change and eventually I know this will involve everyone. It is likely, however, that it will draw politicians and people interested and already working in that sector first, but as I believe we will start to see the structure that we have upheld for generations crumble, we will also see that it is up to all of us to pick up the baton and create something new that works for all and engages everyone.

Obviously, not everyone will engage at first, but I hope that it will initially draw enough people from all walks of life to set it in motion. Diversity is the key to what makes this new method of working function in a sustainable way.

Even though I feel I am stepping into the unknown, I also feel that everything in our world, as well as my own, has brought us to this point where this is not only absolutely possible, but necessary and inevitable.

The shift in the relationship between the people that make up our society and those we have allowed to take control and power over us has changed beyond recognition. The arrival of the Internet to connect us and the knowledge that we have all played a part in the destruction of our ecosystem brings us to a pivotal point. I do not believe in blame or judgement here but I feel the key factor is that if we have played a part in damaging the planet then equally, we have the power to repair the damage done. However, it is important that we stand up and choose to take action now.

I want to create a political environment that puts life first, a system that works in connection with everyone and everything on this Earth. A system that is sustainable in all ways, that serves us and is served by us. This is not what we have at the moment; what we have is out-dated and no longer fit for purpose.

It is understood that humanity only changes when we find ourselves confronted with no alternative; a combination of complacency and extreme anxiety has prevented us from stepping forward until this moment of necessity. So although the majority of people are not in a position to act, I believe there are enough who are.

I want to play my part but although every birth is a personal experience I also know I can’t do this work alone. So over the next few months I will be putting this idea into a thing of substance while putting out a call for people to join me.

I wish to stress that what I am offering here is not something new. It’s happening all over the country and all over Europe and beyond and Citizen’s Assemblies lie at the heart of this new landscape. 

Frome is a leading light in many ways, having its own independent Town Council and acting as a beacon as many towns are starting to follow. So I feel perfectly placed to work alongside what is happening here to provide a hub, a link and a springboard for sustenance and growth.

I am intending to start locally first and then broaden my reach and join forces with other organisations already looking to make important changes for our future.

If you feel inclined, please get in touch.

A Gentle Evolution

Spring is approaching and all the hope that new growth brings is stirring in my heart. I can’t believe that after decades of cynicism and disenchantment that morphed into dreams of utopia and wild optimism, I finally feel like I've arrived in a place of quiet but realistic confidence.

I have no idea what the future will bring but I do feel change is on its way. Of course, it is not a widely held belief and the media will be the last to tell us, but I can see the small shoots of shifting paradigms sprouting up everywhere I look. You just have to search for them in places you may not have looked before.

I have been told that some of the huge ships that cross our oceans have rudders that have a small rudder set inside the main one. Before the ship can change direction the small one has to be aligned in the right direction first. This is true for any great change and if our society is going to achieve anything positive we have to set our internal rudders for the right course before we make any outward shifts. Although I believe this is happening on a global scale, it is only just visible on the small scale. This is how positive change succeeds.

People are beginning to wake up to the power we hold as individuals when we act as a community. The strength of the group is more than the sum of its parts.

We have remained in a state of believing we are separate from and in conflict with each other for centuries as governments and dictators have upheld the ‘divide and rule’ doctrine. This has kept fear and hatred alive in our hearts.

Now, everything is set for change to bring us all together. Science discovered the world of quantum mechanics and this has brought us a greater understanding of the hidden, mysterious workings of the universe. It has also given us the technology to create the Internet. Global communication, although many people believe it has brought us more shadow than light, has actually shown us how we have more in common than not. 

Those still clinging onto the fear are shouting louder than most as the wind is being removed from their sails, making it seem as though there are many more than there actually are. Those who are finding their way are quietly and gently going about their business. It is up to those who trust and believe in the power of the many to stay strong and keep walking forwards positively, united, and with love in their hearts. 

There are many ways in which this is happening but I am particularly interested in the shift in political power. I understood change would only come up from the grass roots. Our political establishment was formed many centuries ago from a society that was ruled by the old to keep control of its large, younger population. This has now shifted and the percentage of old people has grown so that the mean age of the rulers now matches the mean age of the populace. We are now in the position of being able to rule ourselves. 

Citizen’s Assemblies are proving that this is possible. Not only are they proving that they work, but they are proving that they work where our existing political structure is completely failing us.

On February the 14th Stella Creasy was asked to put her views on citizens’ assemblies to the panel of Andrew Neil’s television programme This Week. Unfortunately she was up against two, or three if you count Andrew Neil, patronising men very fixed in their belief of the necessity our party political structure. 

I believe, party politics has come to the end of its road and no longer serves anyone except those who have the money to exploit it or simply do well by it. As the system creates a huge divide between those who have and those who do not, the power and the money is put in the hands of fewer and fewer people, who become increasingly out of touch of the realities of day-to-day life for the many.

Creasy is trying to make changes from within the political structure, and I would normally say that this is always the best place to be. However, in this instance, Portillo just saw the whole subject as a ruse to play the Remain card against the Brexit. Of course, caught up in his narrow vision of two party politics he cannot see beyond the binary view he works within.

Citizen’s Assemblies come from a stance of no preset agendas or outcomes and certainly no investment gains to be made. It is made up of a group of people of completely diverse backgrounds, the more diversity the better, with experts on hand, and where everybody’s voice is heard. It does not ask for ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers but comes up with best solutions formulated over time with facilitated, calm discussion. This is grown-up politics, not the ridiculous theatrical farce we see on television from our House of Commons. 

Although, England’s politicians may be slow on the uptake, fearful of losing their position in society, Europe is picking up the baton and starting to run with it. A precedent was set in Ireland and now Belgium and Spain have put some assemblies in place as a permanent fixture alongside their councils.

Maybe there is a feeling that Britain is lagging behind but in 2015 Sheffield and Southampton both set up an assembly to look at constitutional change, asking the question ‘how should we be governed?” What has come from this? It feels like they were testing the water but no one has been bold enough to make it part of the political structure. The UK is certainly not short of assemblies being set up. A new group has formed in Bideford out of a concern that people are felt that are not being listened to and two London borough councils are going to run an assembly, but these are generally about asking the community what they think, not as an alternative to the way our politicians make decisions. Other than these toe-dipping exercises where are we going with this?

Although this might sound like impatience, I am actually quietly content that this is the best way forward; a slow but steady growth of political change that doesn’t upset any apple carts, no revolutions, just an easing into position of a new system that works so that when the old one crumbles we have something ready to take its place. No one really wants to run before they can walk!

For those still set on being right against anyone they consider to be wrong at any cost, there is a poem written by the Sufi mystic, Rumi, a thirteenth century Persian poet. 

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.” In searching for this quote i found another:

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Sometimes it is wise to listen to and be guided by those from times past, before stepping into an unknown future. But I believe it’s time to find a new way forward rather than to keep relying on old methods that truly no longer serve us.

Let’s get creative together.

Creating Sustainable Ideals

Five weeks into the new year and already my mind is cluttered with over sensory bombardment. All of it, my doing, of course. Time to take a deep breath and address where I feel I need to be putting my energy this year. For Christmas, my partner bought me a book, The Choice by Edith Eger, a holocaust survivor. It is the most amazing testament to hope, strength and commitment to love and forgiveness I have read in a long time. I haven’t cried so much, over a book, in years. But they were tears of joy as much as for another person’s pain and journey to love. However, I had to finish it fast before my asthma, triggered by my empathetic feelings of grief, kept me awake yet another night! 

No sooner had I finished that book, my hand was drawn to another I had started a few years back but put down after thirty pages because I don’t do horror stories. It was Naomi Kline’s Shock and Awe, which filled me with more terror than Edith Eger’s powerful book.

What does our recent past tell us from stories such as these, whether they are personal or worldly tales?

It is clear that people only create change when forced or unhappy with their lot. This means that the desire for change always draws upon ideals, whether they are sociological, economic or political, propelled by a need to swing the pendulum, bound to ideas of revolution. So history shows how each new era seems to ping pong from one extreme to the next, driving the people, as mere pawns in all these leadership games, from one state of misery to another.

I feel a growing global demand for change, no more revolution, but evolution. In this age of information we, the general public, are becoming more aware of the twisting and rewriting of information we are offered as truth. Although it is probably the most confusing of times, with the Internet showing us as many untruths as truths, I live in hope that from the confusion will grow an understanding that we need to become discerning and more responsible. 

Past ideals have, from these continual revolutionary style changes, shown that nothing from our known history has worked, that anything that creates divisive and wholly opposite mindsets can, obviously, never serve the whole of humanity. Daniel Schmachtenberger offered a beautiful concept in his talk about emergence, when he said that if you are happy in the belief that you will go to heaven while there is also the possibility that others may go to hell, then you have the mindset of a ‘psychopath’. That sums up my whole vision of how our society is working at the moment and has worked for the past few thousand years. It’s time for change.

Everything we have created throughout known history, seems to be based on a binary perspective, that there can only be one way or the other. We have socialism or capitalism, communism or fascism, left wing or right wing, and on it goes. We are all aware of the horrors and the death tolls created by so many corrupted leaders throughout history, culminating in the last century with Hitler, Stalin and Mao (the latter two with the genocide of millions of their own people) but how much are we told about the sadistic ventures of post American reaction to Communism and Marxism. The man who gave us Capitalism, Milton Friedman’s belief that he’d created a beautiful idea inspired the Chicago school of economics that fuelled the Capitalism that lies at the heart of the US policy at home and abroad. I won’t go into the story of the many regimes that US governments removed and installed in South America leaving it stricken with communities split apart with so many problems, the most obvious being division of those living in extreme poverty and those with shameless wealth. But this corrupt construct can be seen across many corners of the world. Of course, I am not saying that America was the first, but this self-proclaimed ‘land of the free’, - created out of those fleeing from persecution of the ideals of other regimes, has fallen, once more into the pit of extremism - perhaps needs a strap line - ‘only for the 0.5 per cent’.

For years, to me, Capitalism has always been a dirty word, one that seems to herald consumption, consumerism, greed and opposition. It felt exploitative and unscrupulous, led by the few to keep the wealth to themselves while the rest can go hang. Then slowly I began to realise that the socialism I had clung to for so long wasn’t perfect either and that maybe one could cherry pick rather than stand at opposite sides of the bench and throw stones.

Then, my horizon expanded and I heard about positive Capitalism and I realised there was some hope on its way. I saw that, like so many other ideas given to us, only part of the story was initially available. I was reminded of the gospels and how many of them were hidden because they told a different story to the one the founders of christianity wanted us to hear, or Darwin’s theory of evolution where only his theories on ‘survival of the fittest’ are handed down to us, when actually that is only mentioned a few times and love is mentioned over and over. 

I learned that the Capitalism we have created, that only serves the shareholders and top echelons of the hierarchy, creates a system that is top heavy and unsustainable. I was to be presented, by a group called Conscious Business Initiative, a model that would transform my feelings and feel positive that there was a way forward without needing to rip up the program, create more devastation and rebuild (exactly how the Friedman Chicago Boys have worked for the past few decades).

Working with astrology, Gaia and now TreeSisters I have been learning for the last decade or so how nature is our mirror, our guide and our teacher. When we choose to remember that we are not separate from our environment it shows us the way. The torus is a mechanism or a model of the universe, now called the ring doughnut theory, that can be found throughout creation, from galaxies, to the Earth, to ourselves. I first heard about this in the movie Thrive. It is a universal geometric shape that generates a constant flow of energy. When we understand it metaphorically we can see how the Capitalism we have now, flies in the face of this universal lesson. Instead of a Torus we have created a pyramid, where the energy, money in this case, flows up to the few at the top and instead of naturally flowing back down to the many, it has stayed there, stuck in off shore accounts and other such accumulations of wealth. 

Sadly, when we work against this way of nature, (in the fluid way shown by trees or our weather systems etc.)  and stem the flow, more can be upset than the economies of a few counties. Now our whole ecology is at stake.

As we are now discovering, possibly too late, that all this is to our detriment, we need to find a way through this crisis. First, we need to accept that as an interwoven connected species we are all responsible for where we find ourselves. Portioning blame will not solve anything, it will simply add to the chaos and desire for retribution which will only fuel the fire of revolution. More than ever we need evolution, especially as we have to accept that it is not just ours, but the evolution  of the whole Earth.

We need to feed the vision of our future; that a sustainable world is possible and that the desire for competition, fear of scarcity and attachment to money can simply slip away. However, I do believe that the road to change starts within for each individual. While it is impossible to think we can all do this inner work, I believe that enough can begin to remember that we too exist as a torus; the embodiment of the life force, love in motion. I also believe in the one hundred monkeys theory: that once enough of us have learned how to step into the new way, as we are all connected, we all step up together. 

Creating the possibility for the pyramid to open up to the form of the torus, we can begin to heal and start to function as a society based on love and compassion. The vision of conscious capitalism works as a circle, where everyone connected to the business, be it the shareholders, the stakeholders the customers, the suppliers and anyone else involved, all need to be considered. Here everyone becomes part of the community, everyone is valued and brings their own diversity and uniqueness to the world. It is, of course, too simple for us humans who love to complicate everything with too many words and concepts. I am fully aware that I am part of that issue too!

We have to learn to trust and love and believe that we are all capable of working together in reverence for ourselves and the whole of our community.

Many years ago, when I was driving to Liverpool alone, I was guided to pick up a hitcher. (I would never have considered it without the inner guidance.) I retold the story to my friends explaining my delight when the young man who got into my car turned out to be just like me, a musician, a music teacher and a healer, almost my mirror. We had a very enjoyable encounter for just a few hours. I was chastised by some friends who told me it so easily could have gone the other way. I replied saying ‘yes it could but if everyone woke up one day and decided that everyone, including ourselves, was lovable and trustworthy the world could change over night’.