Make 2012 the year where we dare to dream..

2012 has been surrounded with so many different energies; those who promote it as a year of doom and chaos, those who say it is a new beginning, those who say it is a year much the same as any other.

 So which is true? They all are. Because what we imagine things to be is what they can become. How we react to change shapes our ability to influence outcomes and ultimately our life is only ever limited by the limits of our own imagination.

What is it we all want really? I would say it is peace. Peace in our own hearts, peace in our communities and peace on the planet. The problem with peace is that we are very clear on what peace is not, but no one ever really sits down and gives real time to imagine what a peaceful world might actually be like.

As my teacher often says, there are hundreds of paintings of hell (just think of Bosch). Every kind of horror is imagined. It's gruesome yes, but it's very varied and generally shows tremendous detail.  However when it comes to heaven what do we get? Generally some fluffy clouds, green fields, angels and cherubs, girls in pretty dresses with flowers in their hair and that's about it. It all looks a little bit samey and deep down, if people are honest, they are not quite sure that wafting around in fields of flowers or fluffy clouds forever is really going to be that interesting or exciting!

This might sound amusing, but actually, if you look at it, whether we are aware of it or not this is quite an entrenched thought, deep down in many of our psyches. And if our lazily imagined peace is not really what jazzes us then how can we really expect that we can create peace on our planet?

So historically we haven't been that good at putting effort into imagining peace. And if we don't imagine something we have little hope of creating it.

Dare to Dream

So my challenge for 2012 is to forget the resolutions about what you are not going to do any more and resolve to do one thing - Dare to dream, dare to imagine a worked out version of peace. It will take effort, because it's a new territory.

Someone once said that there are no new ideas any more just recycled versions going round and round. That is true. There is very little new on the planet except for this one thing, there are absolutely no worked out imaginings of a peaceful world that also manage to stay interesting, stimulating and rich with innovation and creativity. Just think about it, there are no books, no movies, no songs - it's a whole new concept that collectively we need to dare to imagine and dream into existence.

So maybe we can make 2012 the year where we really begin to dream a whole new way of being into existence. We can ask ourselves these questions:

What is peace for me in my own life?

What can I do to contribute to peace in my own family and social network?

What would an interesting world of peace look like to me?

Wishing everyone a year filled with love, light, laughter, joy, strength, good health, peace and prosperity and I leave you with a prayer and a song ...

A Prayer for 2012 

Guardian Angels of all creatures, 

protect us all; 

teach us to love, 

to pray, 

to respect the world we live in 

and to be kind to every living thing, 

so that one day we may understand 

that all we do now 

will be a part of us forever. 

Angel Prayers & Messages by JM Hurley & Rosie Ismail 

(verse from the Prayer to all Guardian Angels for Balance and Peace in the World)

The universe is listening to your heart.

This lovely song came my way today and gave me the motivation to write something...

My heart was knocked this past week as some awful animal cruelty stories appeared in the press. I make a point not to read the papers too much for all the reasons I have already written about before. However these came to my attention and I'm not even going to describe what they were about as I don't even think it's a good idea to publicize such cases. I know it's important to highlight the work of animal rights workers, but over reporting such cases, I feel, just gives more ideas to those who are so damaged that they just go and reenact them,

What bothered me most is how it affected me. I went through rage, hatred, despair, the desire for vengeance and then gloom and despondency! So obviously I handled it really well - not!

I am so of the same view as Byron Katie that we are one giant schizophrenic mind trying to free ourselves one thought at a time. And if we are all one, then they, these people whose actions I so abhor, are part of me too. But as I tantrumed around the house berating the awful state of humanity I couldn't find any identification with these inhuman people.

I settled down a bit, got to a peaceful place in my knowledge practice and then went back to questioning again. 'I cannot identify with these people, is that true?' In reality it wasn't. As I felt my own inner peace and connection with my heart get stronger I saw immediately that I wanted to do to these people what they were doing to the animals. In fact I wanted to find even slower and painful ways of unleashing terror on them!!!

But these sad people are also living creatures and I was so hurt by their actions that for a brief period of time I had no problem whatsoever with the idea of even worse things being done to them. And in that moment of realisation, I found them in me. I saw that they could only do these things because some part of them is so hurt that they are lashing out because they have lost a sense of connection.

It doesn't excuse their actions. But it does give hope that connection can be restored as long as we keep our hearts open. I was shaken by how falling into the pit of rage disconnected me so absolutely, even if it was just for a few days. But I am lucky, I have to tools that help me to reconnect and feel my heart speak again. As lightworkers we must keep on going and spread whatever tools we have at our disposal to reach out, even to those we think we cannot reach.

And just as I got back to a place of peace, this beautiful song came my way and so here it is...