Is the Big Breakdown-Breakthrough Moment Almost Here?

I'm sure most of the people who would read my blog have heard of Charles Eisenstein, who is very hot on the circuit these days. I have been following his posts with interest, particularly because I feel his work on "the new story" is in alignment with Enough. But I've noticed something else. He is yet another prominent person who is admitting he does not have a clear vision of the way forward.  In a 3 post series he shares the story and aftermath of a near mutiny at his retreat in Bali.   He is supposed to be the expert, people are coming to him for answers he does not have. They are angry and frustrated. They want him to take charge of the group.  Through his posts, he is trying to come to terms with not knowing how to fix it and how to find the silver lining, the breakdown-breakthrough.  I witnessed a similar near-mutiny at the New Story Summit at Findhorn in late 2014 during which "mutineers" in the middle of the night had littered the stage with post-it notes spelling out "We don't know."  I use the term mutineers lightly because I believe they were divinely inspired truth-tellers, people who were courageous enough to face their uncertainty, discomfort and pain and to name it.  

Last winter, Margaret Wheatley was having what seemed like an existential crisis of her own, so went on extended retreat at Pema Chodron's convent up in my neck of the woods.  She wrote that she was losing faith in humanity as not much had changed since she first wrote Leadership and the New Science.  I predicted the fall of the expert paradigm when I wrote the  "Expert to Essence" section of my book three years ago. But it seems to be happening now with increasing public regularity.   These are tough times to be an expert, particularly in the higher consciousness community for which the expert paradigm is quickly losing relevance.

I know by all outer measures, the world seems pretty grim right now, and change seems to be happening far too slowly to meet the enormity of the challenges we face.  But I see every reason for us to feel optimistic about the future because I am looking in different places, the places that I believe birth the future and offer the kinds of solutions we cannot even imagine yet.   I see that much has changed in the subtle (causal) realm and feel the pulse of the spiritual women's movement quickening significantly just beneath the surface. I witness profound inner and outer breakthroughs every day in those who are dedicated to their spiritual growth. I see thriving social movements and green businesses finding firmer footing and more fans.  I see people moving out of jobs and relationships that no longer fit. I see people being less materialistic and more introspective. I see technology making it cheaper and easier for people with similar visions of the world to come together and to collaborate. But perhaps the greatest breakthrough is in our increasing ability to directly access what Rumi called "the field" and Rupert Sheldrake called "the morphogenetic field."  Ideas that come from this place are fully, instantaneously formed. They come from outside the box of our current Never Enough mindset, instead drawing from the well of abundant enoughness and connectivity.   One small example of this:  it is from this place that the Enough Message © came to me.

Despite acknowledging that the Enough Message was accessed from this divine field of awareness,  I still cannot assess the Enough Work without obvious bias. I have been its scribe and guinea pig for three solid years, so have a personal relationship with it that disqualifies me from possessing true objective perspective.    But I've never felt a more opportune moment for the simplicity and optimism of the Enough Message. From what I understand about the Enough Message, it is not complicated what we need to do to flip the paradigm.  All we lack at the moment is a simple common focal point for action, a shorthand if you will, a way to feel we are all in this together. The 60's had the peace sign. We need the equivalent of a peace sign for our present time.   I get a strong feeling that Enough could be that symbol because it is not a prescription but an inner, personal assessment of ourselves and the world.  Your enough is not my enough, so defining Enough invites participation, relationship and co-creativity.    At a time when even the experts are doubting themselves and some of the most popular TED speeches are about shame and vulnerability, I think we may very well have reached the breakdown-breakthrough  - the "enough is enough" - moment where "I'm not enough" is so intensely painful and so in our collective experience, that we are ready to do something radically different to shed it for good. 

In his post below, Charles searches for an answer to the question, "What should we do?" I love his description of how we cannot seem to find peace with whatever we try to do, and why, no matter how hard we try, we feel that we are failing.  I would add to his vivid map of the "I am not enough and am not doing enough" landscape, that the game is rigged by the Old Never Enough Story itself.  I would suggest that  believing "I am not enough and am not doing enough" is the cause of our ineffectiveness and not merely a symptom. Our embeddedness in the Never Enough belief system is like finding ourselves in a pool of molten tar. From within it, we cannot move far or quickly. But who is to say how quickly and effectively we would be able to take action from outside of it?  For most of us, the "not enough" limiting mental model of ourselves takes root long before we even reach kindergarten and certainly long before we have the capacity to challenge its validity. And so we ingest its poison without even knowing it, limiting our potency and effectiveness as change agents despite all our efforts, insights and good intentions.

Enough as a new sign of unity could express a refusal to internalize "never enough" disempowerment, victimhood and disenchantment ever again.  Enough could be a statement of conscious divestiture from old structures and old systems that abide by an exploitative, destructive  "Never Enough" ethic. But the most powerful potential for Enough as a symbol of unity is when we use it to claim and define the beautiful vision that we do want - enough for ourselves, enough for our communities AND enough for our planet. If we claimed this more complete, whole enough as a group, and held governments, companies and institutions to OUR standard, the world would have to meet us where we are - in a place of expanded consciousness where we only choose to be in relationship with people and institutions that pay it back and pay it forward.

See Charles' most recent post below.  (red accent added by me):  

Previous posts in his series: 

http://www.thenewandancientstory.net/home/breakdown-chaos-and-emergence

http://www.thenewandancientstory.net/home/the-space-between-stories

Wasting Time I'd like to comment on one of the responses to my piece about the breakdown followed by the powerful emergence at the retreat in Bali. The commenter said: I haven't read the full story but my thought is this. Why are they wasting time moaning about the cutting down of the forests, and use that 4 days reflective time to stop it fucking happening? And use the money that they have spent getting there to buy some of it? I quote this, because it is a question I ask myself every time I lead a retreat, or even speak at a two-hour evening event. It is also a question many of the participants are wrestling with. They are not, by and large, New Age spirituality addicts seeking an easy escape from engaging with the problems of the world. Quite the contrary: many of them are seasoned activists in environmental and social justice issues, sometimes (like the rainforest ecologist) with decades of experience. They come to this inquiry for much the same reason I do: dissatisfied with the methods and the failures of their movement, they sense a far greater potency is possible. With few exceptions, anyone who has grown up in the dominant civilization is deeply programmed with the same story of self, theory of change, and habits of perception that are also responsible for ecocide and social injustice. That is why simply trying harder, putting more effort into doing what we have been doing, is unlikely to produce different results. After doing that for a while, we burn out. That is when the deeper inquiry begins; that is when invisible programming comes visible and is available to be changed. At risk of being presumptuous, I hazard to guess that the comment above comes from a place of frustration and helplessness with which I am much familiar. We want to do something about the unfolding horror, but what? The jaded activist has an easy rebuttal to any suggested course of action. Sign a petition? A submissive act that reinforces and validates existing power relationships; a useless exercise in self-righteousness that picks a single fashionable issue from among a million, which, even when the petition succeeds, leaves the system unchanged while lulling us into thinking we're actually "doing" something. Donate to an NGO? What, and contribute to the infamous NGO-industrial complex that depends for its very survival on the continuation of the problems it supposedly seeks to solve? And which has grown too cozy with its ostensible opponents in the corporate and political sector? Join a protest march? Do you mean the permitted kind, which feeds the mainstream media discourse about how wonderful our society is for allowing free speech? Or the spontaneous kind, which is usually crushed before it even begins? Engage in direct action and civil disobedience? Sure, now you're going to feed the narrative of a few disgruntled extremists - then go to jail and congratulate yourself on being a martyr for the cause (if only anyone were paying attention.) Start an organization? Yet another one, you mean, competing for funding, members, and mailing lists with a hundred thousand other organizations? Buy up threatened rainforests? If only it would be more than a drop in the bucket. If only the government there would allow foreigners to own land. If only illegal loggers cared who owns it. If only something as flimsy as property rights couldn't be swept away by eminent domain should the government, at the behest of "investors," decide to develop its "natural resources." OK, enough of that. My point in quoting the jaded, burnt-out activist is not to disparage any of the above tactics, all of which, I believe, have their utility. My point is that there are usually no easy answers. Accordingly, it is hard to know whether "doing something about it" is actually doing something about it, or if it merely satisfies an emotional need to believe that one is doing something about it. Sometimes, whether in our personal lives or in our work as change agents, we come to a point of "I don't know what to do." At such a time, to continue going through the motions of previous doing is usually counterproductive. Why? Because the "I don't know" comes from a realization that whatever I've been doing isn't working, or isn't working well enough. That is the moment to sit back and ask why. Part of the process of uncovering why is a phase of hopelessness and despair. It seems that the world will never change, that the powers-that-be are just too powerful, that our efforts will never be enough. After all, look how hard we tried. We gave everything, and still it wasn't enough. So we fall into helplessness, victimhood, and blame. Maybe it is those other people, those myopic self-interested greedy idiots who just don't care. But then, the conscientious person begins to wonder, Is my blame and victim story obscuring something in myself I have been unwilling to see? How have I been sabotaging and limiting myself? What beliefs about change are a product of my indoctrination in this culture and not the truth? How have I been perpetrating by my actions the same things I seek to overthrow? Why is my organization a microcosm of the same dysfunctional system that rules the planet? How is the world mirroring back at me my own inner ecocide and inner oppression? What can change in me, that would allow me to be as effective as those inspiring individuals I so admire? It is questions like these that launch people on a journey of inner and interpersonal development. (They are not abandoning the cause or indulging in New Age narcissism.) That journey can be scary, for most of us harbor an inner cynic who, echoing the words of my commenter, demand that we do something about it - now! Don't waste time in moaning or self-reflection. There is no time to waste! Do you know how many trees were cut down while you were reading this essay? Perhaps you recognize that inner monologue, as well as the hortative tactics it mirrors, as an example of a failed approach to change-making, as a subtle echo of the domineering relationship to the Other that has brought society and the planet near to ruin. I hope, my dear reader, that it is clear that I am not saying, "Don't take action." If I am saying anything beyond "I don't know what to do," it is to warn against reflexively acting from an urgent need to seem to be doing something. And also, to invite us all to trust the impulse to look inward, to do work on oneself, to accept that by healing the inner dimension of oppression and ecocide, we can become more effective at healing the outer as well. And perhaps sometimes, yes, to moan about the destruction, to let in the grief and the anguish, and especially to be witnessed in it in community. All of this, surely, can proceed alongside continuing action, but often we require an empty space, a retreat, a time of non-doing in order to deprogram ourselves from old habits. We can trust ourselves to know when that moment has come in life, and also to know when that moment has ended, bringing a shift in perception, a new experience of self, and an expanded awareness of what is possible.

Laurie McCammon is a planetary change agent, blogger, facilitator and author of Enough!How to Liberate Yourself and Remake the World with Just One Word, published  by Conari Press, out  April 1, 2016.  You can contact Laurie with comments at lauriemccammon@gmail.com, Like LaurieMcCammon on Facebook or follow her on Twitter at @EnoughMessage

Enough for Ourselves, Enough for Our Communities and Enough for the World

Just a few days ago, I was working on designing a website to introduce my upcoming book, Enough: Beyond the Myth of Lack. I was searching for a concise way to describe what it is I do - my mission, and my book's mission.

Suddenly, it was clear to me: My mission is to help people to remember they are enough so that we can work together to create a New Story in which there is

enough for ourselves, 

enough for our communities 

and enough for the planet.  

Just after getting that clarity about my mission, I stumbled across a viral video on YouTube entitled, "How Wolves Change Rivers." Obviously, you don't get over 14 million views by presenting a pleasant nature documentary on the lives of wolves.  The video must have been saying something more profound.  I was interested.  I watched the video and it took my breath away.  The wolves were demonstrating how nature creates enough.  It also demonstrates how our inability to sense the subtle ways nature does this almost had disastrous results.  

Humans play an unfortunate role in the story of the wolves presented in the video below.  Thinking we knew what was best, we removed wolves from Yellowstone National Park. Happily, the wolves were later reintroduced and the story has a happy (if not surprise) ending.  I believe that the Enough dynamic is all around us, in all the interwoven relationships in the cosmos and in our inner heart-knowing which is also rooted in relationship and in the subtle. We are getting better at seeing, better at sensing the subtle, better at trusting the quiet voice within that simply knows what is needed and what is right.

I was deeply touched by the story of the wolves, and I think it is because it tells a fundamental truth: we all are connected. We all are precious and irreplaceable, often in ways that are difficult to sense.   All species were meant to have enough, but also to give enough back to the systems that sustain them - pay it back and pay it forward.  Somehow many humans have lost this very basic principle which is essential to all naturally-occurring ecosystems:

To have enough, we must give enough.

Laurie McCammon is a planetary change agent, blogger, facilitator and author of Enough!How to Liberate Yourself and Remake the World with Just One Word, published  by Conari Press, out  April 1, 2016.  You can contact Laurie with comments at lauriemccammon@gmail.com, Like LaurieMcCammon on Facebook or follow her on Twitter at @EnoughMessage

Could Humanity Be the Last to Know That Lack is a Myth?

In her new book, Enough: Beyond the Myth of Lack Laurie McCammon, MS makes an intriguing claim: lack is not real. How could this be when we see evidence everywhere of dwindling natural resources, species extinction and global warming?

“I am not saying there are no limits,” she says, “What I am saying is that most of the lack we see around us is the result of human choices and that such conditions do not exist naturally. Because the lack we see is a result of man-made choices, we shouldn’t accept it as ‘just the way things are.’ We should challenge the premise that keeps lack perpetually in place. Homo sapiens appears to be the only species on earth who lives according to this “Never Enough” myth. Wouldn’t you think we’d pay attention to how the other 8.7 million species successfully create healthy, sustainable ecosystems that work for everyone without depleting the systems upon which everyone relies?”

McCammon points out that if you examine human biology, you will find a nervous system designed to cope with short bursts of stress, but not one built to sustain a perpetual state of heightened alert. “And yet, isn’t this exactly what is perpetrated by politicians, mainstream media and advertising who would have us believe we don’t have enough and aren’t enough, or that if we are one of the fortunate ones to have enough, we should be afraid of losing it any minute?” Whole industries, she points out, such as luxury goods, insurance, and cosmetics are built upon this idea that we aren’t enough as we are. “We never seem to look back over our decisions to buy more stuff and ask if those decisions ever brought us the feelings of adequacy, belonging and accomplishment we expected them to. “ She believes that this insatiable longing to feel enough results in all kinds of hoarding and over-consumption, which greatly adds to the material burden humans place on the planet. She puts it this way: “When we lose our sense of belonging, we tend to fill our lives up with belongings.”

“What we tend to forget is that what one person needs to be happy is actually very different than what another person needs to be happy. In other words, my enough is not your enough. But when we get caught up in a consumerist society, we are apt to believe we must check off  the same list of standardized boxes in order to prove we are enough. This list becomes a story that rules our lives, creating achievement anxiety, shame and guilt. In truth, we could do without a great deal and never experience it as a sense of lack.  And conversely, when we have too much, there is a palpable stress burden placed upon us. In essence, we've traded a portion of our freedom for the material objects we possess, whether it is labor we’ve invested to buy the item in the first place, or labor and time required to maintain what we’ve bought. Then there is the emotional burden of worrying about our things – are they safe, in good working order, might someone damage or steal them from us, is there a better, updated version we should have instead?”  McCammon believes that the stress burden of things greatly complicates our lives and distracts us further from cultivating the real source of happiness - an inner sense of enoughness. "Enoughness comes from a felt sense of our own beingness, a sense of belonging to a universe which could not possibly be enough without us. Many things in the material world may leave us craving and wanting more, but most of us are absolutely starving for meaning - to know that we really do matter. What I've found is that the universe is absolutely barraging us with subtle messages that we do matter, each and every one of us."  

To understand how, when and why we forgot our "enough" roots, McCammon turns to anthropology, mythology and systems theory. According to McCammon, the “Never Enough Paradigm” began more than 5,000 years ago when humanity entered the Agrarian Era. This monumental shift in perspective involved moving away from total dependence on nature to take on the mantel of “masters of the material realm.” The progression of the “Never Enough Paradigm” accelerated in the industrial and digital ages, representing the height of intellectual prowess and physical efficiency, but crowded out the heart and acknowledgement of the spiritual and the sacred. Everything, including humans and the earth became objects in the drive to have more. We no longer oriented towards our depths. All that mattered was at the surface, in what we do or have. 

“The brain is very fond of breaking things into parts for analysis and manipulation, but it isn’t as good at perceiving subtle relationships and nuances, cause and effect at a distance, or whole systems dynamics," says McCammon.  The human capacity to perceive interrelationships and holism, she claims, is essential to survival of our species, and yet it has been greatly devalued in our society.  "It is not optional. Intuition and subtle reception aren't fluff.  They are cutting-edge. Both capacities are absolutely essential to keeping up with today’s science and technology which are huddled right now in the realms of the subtle, interconnected and intangible, such as quantum physics, scalar waves, wireless networks, and cloud-based technologies.” McCammon suggests that all we need to do is look at our cutting edge technologies and ask how they reflect the corresponding frontier of human consciousness. "It is always a mirror and a metaphor for the inner work we need to do to move forward. A greater awareness of subtle interrelatedness is where we are going. This means beingness. This means spirit. This means essence. It is unstoppable and inevitable.” To attune to the subtle, Laurie suggests that we explore something referred to as heart intelligence, which has been proven by science to be real and measurable. Heart intelligence is inherent and has always been evidenced in indigenous and feminine ways of perceiving. “The idea is that we are becoming more whole again in our ability to perceive. This means mind and heart. Yin and yang. Material and spirit. We’ve done our work on testing the intellect for 5,000 years. Now it is time to focus on the heart.“

McCammon shows how the last 5,000 years correspond to humanity’s adolescent stage of growth. “This means that we aren’t, as we have assumed, at the pinnacle or adulthood of our species. We have yet to enter adulthood as a species, which is characterized by taking responsibility for our actions and fulfilling our desire to widen our affiliation from ‘me’ (humans) to ‘we’(all beings on earth). We have been exploring tribal mentality so far in quite an adolescent way. Although the tribe has expanded over time from smaller to bigger – from family to village, to religious or political affiliation, to country - it doesn’t become truly mature until it reflects an ability to think globally and universally.” The motivation and action to fuel global change arise naturally from an expansion in what McCammon calls affiliative consciousness. Affiliative consciousness is incorporating more “other” as “we,” a departure from separation consciousness. “This is why it is pretty useless to try to convince someone whose primary consciousness is himself, his job or his family’s economic well-being that he should care about what his employer is doing to contribute to global warming. He is not a bad person. He just can’t see beyond his own affiliative bubble right now.” says McCammon. “But what this also tells us is if you are someone who deeply cares about the earth or other species or regions of the globe, you are already embodying the expanded consciousness. You are the proof of the ripening maturity of our species. You are proof that humanity’s capacity for solving the earth’s most threatening and complex problems is amid a great transformation and expansion. And the good news is as this circle of affiliation expands, so does humanity's own felt sense of security, joy, empowerment, purpose and fulfillment - automatically.”

What does this have to do with the book’s primary focus, “enough”? “If we look at all the forms of suffering in the world today, we find a common cause, the belief in lack or “Never Enough.” McCammon says, “The imperative to get more is so reinforced from an early age that we are blind to how it distorts everything from our self-esteem to our relationships to our consumer and career choices, leading to the waste, exploitation and hoarding so prevalent on our planet today. We have mistakenly believed that 'survival of the fittest' was our primary orientation as human beings, and this false idea with no basis in science unfortunately has lingered on, taking on benign or overly-positive names such as competition, achievement, winning, success and growth. Self-preservation and individualism became the name of the game, driven by the belief that we were not born enough, so must prove it over and over again through what we do or own. All this keeps us from being available to participate in the bigger game, which is participating in our planetary ecosystem in a way that sustains enough for ourselves, our communities and our planet.”

To illustrate how ingrained the idea of “Never Enough” is in our thinking, McCammon poses a question to her readers, “If I were to ask if you are enough, what would you say? Most people would conclude, ‘ No, I am not enough yet. I haven’t achieved all I want to yet. I have goals I haven’t reached, so no, I’m not enough.’ But here’s the trick. I didn’t ask if you have enough or if you have done enough. I asked you if you are enough.  Do you see how quickly we skip over beingness? A newborn baby hasn’t achieved or owned anything, but would you say he is enough? Does a newborn need to do anything to be deserving of his family’s or society’s love and care? Of course not. We need to cultivate a sense of our own beingness, deservedness, worthiness and preciousness, a sense that we are enough because we are here. Then we find we do not need our achievements and our possessions to do the heavy lifting for us. We can relax and focus on doing what we really love to do. Really, the stories we carry about not being enough cause us so much deep suffering, so much 'stuckness' and disempowerment.  All this suffering is optional, not mandatory.  Do we really love our 'I'm not enough' story so much that we won't let go of it? Nature builds in an aversion or pain response for a reason - to guide us to safety, health and well-being."     

Enough: Beyond the Myth of Lack is a book whose optimistic tone is a refreshing departure from the bleak, urgent arguments posed by so many that it is almost too late to correct the damage humans have done, an assumption she states is only true if we remain in the adolescent “Never Enough” consciousness. “And this is not going to happen. We are part of a much larger evolutionary flow, a design which is the based on the dynamic of enough, and we are waking up to it, realizing we have outgrown the Never Enough Story. Exponentially more intelligence, creativity and courage becomes available to us when we embrace that we, too, are part of the universe’s big Enough design. We are enough to address every man-made problem, and to do it quickly and efficiently together.” The latter chapters of Enough are devoted to highlighting the global explosion of independent social movements and green businesses that McCammon says are proof that the Enough awakening is already happening in earnest.  All of this is to say that she wholeheartedly believes that  "An Enough future is inevitable. The shift is happening now. And each and every one of us are enough to be part of it."

Laurie McCammon is a planetary change agent, blogger, facilitator and author of Enough!How to Liberate Yourself and Remake the World with Just One Word, published  by Conari Press, out  April 1, 2016.  You can contact Laurie with comments at lauriemccammon@gmail.com, Like LaurieMcCammon on Facebook or follow her on Twitter at @EnoughMessage

The Lego Movie...So Much More than Meets the Eye

What may seem to most moviegoers as an entertaining flick with an unexpected and heart-warming ending is so very much more than meets the eye.  Notwithstanding the father and son dynamic that many would consider the understory, what I saw was a third layer,  a deeper and more universal theme about consciousness, revolution and evolution here on earth.

Through clever use of humor, the beginning of the film, set in Lego City, turns out to be a commentary on how media and advertising controls our habits and behaviors. We learn, for example, that the main character, Emmet, is willing to pay over $30 for a cup of coffee.  The villain, named cleverly, “President Business,” is an amalgam of “the powers that be” that control the world behind the scenes and without the awareness of the pleasantly ignorant public.  That government and business are linked in the name of this one character is probably closer to the truth of the matter than we’d like to admit.  Is there really a separation between these two bastions of power in our world?  Unlikely.    

In one of the most astonishing scenes, we see that in plain site, city blocks are blown up in order to be reconstructed all over again exactly as they were, and all seemingly with no alarm from the public whatsoever. Such scenes cause one to take on a birds-eye view of our own society and the ways that behaviors, buying habits, fashions, entertainment and fads take up much of our conscious lives, robbing us of original thought and more importantly, of the ability to think critically and perceive honestly.  It could be said that the hero’s journey is his journey to regain the use of his creative and original mind, and to trust his intuition.   We, like those in Lego Land, seem oblivious to repetitive meta patterns such as war and the economic system which repeatedly cause the problems they then rush in to solve, all keeping humanity on a hamster wheel of problem, solution, problem, solution.  Meanwhile, we make no progress in really addressing root cause of our most dire and rampant problems – environmental devastation, starvation, violence and the like. Can we see that the powers that be are distracting us from concentrating on these real problems?  

But if the movie were to stop there, it would be quite depressing.  Thankfully, it instead presents a blueprint for getting out of the current malaise and brain drain imposed on the people.  There are some very simple, but essential elements I will break down.  But first, how is it I noticed the story behind the story and why am I so convinced that there is one?  Just a month ago I completed the a draft for a book about the topic of enough. What I saw unfolding on-screen gave me the chills.  It was practically a chapter by chapter demonstration of what I had laid out in the manuscript,  only mine is to be a serious book about the imminent shift of consciousness in our world. Those watching the movie will wonder how it could be about the rise of the feminine as the main character wasn’t a woman at all, but a man.  However, the qualities Emmett  drew upon to complete the hero’s journey were not the usual masculinized ones  of  cleverness, brawn or bravery.  Quite the opposite.  It was instead his humility, his willingness to listen to spiritual or intuitive messages, and his ability to see connections between vastly different things that propel him on his way.  So, not to get hung up on masculine and feminine, hopefully we can agree that this is no ordinary screen hero.

What we realize is that Emmet, if anything, is positive.  When he learns about President Business’s evil plot, he does not go negative, cower or run away.   For a very brief time, he considers the traditional hero’s path, believing the prophecy that he is special because he found the Special Piece.  But quite quickly, he is discouraged from taking the egoic path of the lone wolf, and admits his insecurities to an assembly hall of Master Builders (experts.)  It is this moment which actually propels him to a level of worthiness of a leader, on a path more like that of Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela. His authenticity and humility become  the powerful magnet for bringing together those who have until then operated as independent egos.  He gives an inspiring speech to these experts about what it is they are missing, essentially saying, “If we would bring together your creativity and genius with my ability to work as a team, we’ve got what we need to change the world.“ Only when we acknowledge and appreciate our unique enoughness can we give up the competitive game and trust that together we are stronger and wiser than we are apart.  We essentially find how our piece fits with that of others to create a bigger whole.  Humanity’s evolutionary step is to marry the heart and the brain, so we can remember how to share leadership that benefits the greater good. Before Emmett came along, the Master Builders were hanging out in a cloud land, being creative independently, but missing how relevant they could be as a united and more cohesive force.
  

Much like the main character in the Lego Movie, I was unprepared to stumble upon “the special piece” and had to figure it out after the fact.  For me “the special piece”  was a simple word, ENOUGH.  And the more I examined it, we realized that our society had only examined half of the enough story, the NEVER ENOUGH half.  Never Enough has been the underlying “instruction book”  which keeps recreating the same old problems over and over again for the past 5000 years. Daring to build beyond the instruction book is the daring step Emmet and his allies take.  For humanity, this means moving from the tight adherence to Never Enough thinking and perceiving to explore Enough thinking and perceiving.  Without giving away the ending of the Lego movie, I will at least say that another thing “the special piece” and Enough have in common is that they both invite heartfelt connectedness to replace ego-driven, fear-based rigidity. It is about feminine qualities such as nurturing and acknowledging another’s value.  It is about flexibility and creativity, collaboration and the thrill of transformative discoveries embarked upon as a community. It is what we are seeing blossoming all around us as “the sharing economy.”

I hope as many people as possible see the Lego Movie, and I hope that for every one it plants the seeds of what is truly and realistically possible.  And I hope that for more than just a few, it becomes much more than that, an invitation to become the bringer of the New Story here on earth right now.   

More at www.weareenough.com

Laurie McCammon is a planetary change agent, blogger, facilitator and author of Enough!How to Liberate Yourself and Remake the World with Just One Word, published  by Conari Press, out  April 1, 2016.  You can contact Laurie with comments at lauriemccammon@gmail.com, Like LaurieMcCammon on Facebook or follow her on Twitter at @EnoughMessage

United Nations Meditation a Success!

Reporting Back from the 57^th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women 

by Laurie McCammon

I begin my three part report from the 57^th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women with a hearty thank you to those who participated remotely in the grassroots effort to bring light and love to the center of the United Nations on March 5th.  I am so happy to report that together we were hugely successful!  Other of my colleagues reached out to their constituencies and hundreds of thousands of people were invited to join us in spirit for the synchronized meditation within the belly of the United Nations.

I was present in the cavernous hall which was high on the 21^st floor of the Nigerian Mission, a multi-story space with three walls of windows looking up to the skies, one of the few quiet and peaceful spaces I encountered during my entire week at the United Nations.  How appropriate, instead of at the belly, we were positioned high, at the heart chakra level of the United Nations sprawling complex of buildings. Three candles were lit, set atop multicolored scarves with special meaning from across the world.  Three nested circles of chairs surrounded this central altar of the otherwise empty room where approximately 50 people (mostly women) sat silently with eyes closed in communion with one another for over an hour.    

I have asked for others present to send me their stories, but for now I can only share mine.  From approximately 4:05 to 4:10, I felt an influx of energy that was so strong I had to breathe deeply in order to ensure it kept flowing through my body and into the ground.   I could absolutely feel the prayers of people from around the world who had chosen to join us at that time from wherever they were.  The energy was deeply, deeply loving and intentional, and brought me to tears it was so beautiful and powerful.  No one spoke for the hour.  At the end, we were invited to speak aloud the names of those we wanted to bring into the circle.  Many named loved ones, and others named world leaders, Gaia, all living beings, even perpetrators of violence that they be healed of their desire to harm. 

Steve Beckow, Founder of the Golden Age of Gaia blog site recently wrote of a powerful dream in which he attended a conference but then realized that the “real” conference was something else entirely.  I want to thank you, Steve, because  I believe your vision arose at a time to help us to notice that this is exactly what was occurring at the United Nations this year (and I would suggest at conferences all over the planet right now.)   We were attending a conference within a conference.  Quietly, those with eyes to see realized that the “official” conference had gradually been reduced to a formality.  In speaking to veteran attendees of the conference, there has been an ever so gradual erosion of effectiveness and welcome.  Spaces for informal gathering have been systematically removed, venues have gradually spread out over as much as 50 blocks (a real challenge for women wandering in the biting winds in sandals and saris and with very little English language skills), food and water were no longer provided at all-day sessions, programs were given out not at registration, but at one single event which less than a quarter of attendees could attend.  Workshops which challenged the status quo were cancelled or moved at the last minute with no vehicle for communicating the change.  Caucuses which were designed to gather input from grassroots women instead have become tightly controlled report-to-the-people sessions.  This is the old system in decline trying hard to slow the progress of the new story.

Why am I not discouraged?  Because the “real” conference happened anyway.  We do not need to fight for a platform or demand that we be heard.  We are engaged in something far more powerful, lasting, and practical than those embedded in the old structure can possibly imagine.  This is heart-connected activism, and it is heart-centered activism that is alive and well and growing by leaps and bounds in ways and places too numerous to count or control.  One cannot look to the headlines to know what is really arising in the global women’s movement.  It will only report the paltry results of the “official” conference or try to fan the flame of the old “mommy wars”(as is happening with the launch of Sandra Sandberg’s book, Lean-In.)     The stories that guide our better future are passed heart to heart, person to person, and move well beyond the gridlock of the service-to-self paradigm.  In these moments of connection, our hearts melt and our stories begin to merge.  All busy work and positioning subside and we enter a timeless realm where truth shines through and where basic human values become the sustenance that feeds us.

My sense in being at the United Nations last week is that the old machinery is gradually grinding to a standstill.  All the “oil” and “grease” which facilitates freedom of movement is not available in the old brittle structures any longer.  Many refer to it as the collapse of the old grid. It is palpable.   All the light, excitement and flow had moved to heart-connected activism, and to what connects us as whole human beings cross class, culture, age, and gender.   It is not of the mind or of the ego or in the old patriarchy.  Fear and political correctness cannot contain it.  It is motivated by love and authentic connection between people who come in a spirit of service-to-others and service to future generations and the earth.  It is deeply dedicated to solutions, and to moving beyond the victim-perpetrator-hero trap and into mutual empowerment and shared leadership as fully present solutionaries for our world.   It hears of suffering and responds without hesitation or delay.

We came to the United Nations  to speak our urgent desire for a global women’s conference (the first in 17 years), but we found ourselves modeling a new reality together which made the old paradigm of lobbying and influencing feel very old and slow and surprisingly irrelevant.   “Speaking truth to power” is only important if you believe the power to change the world is in the hands of the “other.”  When we combine our own inner truths with our own inner power, we reclaim the ability to begin living the new story now.  Not tomorrow, not when the structures change, not when we are given permission or resources by someone else, but now.   We don’t need permission to do this from anyone, least of all the “powers that be.”  If anything,  the “powers that be” are already the “powers that once were.”  They become exceedingly irrelevant when you reclaim your own power and heart-connectedness with other people.  Perhaps this was the true gift of going to the United Nations.  We need not look beyond ourselves to live as united nations with our sisters and brothers from around the world right now.  Waiting for the old structure to change has kept us in a state of confusion, separation, and disempowerment for far too long.    It is not necessary to feel help back any longer.  Our hearts are ready to lead the way to connection and healing right now.  The new conference is here. You’ve already been living it.

In part II I will introduce Ambassador Chowdury,  an angel of the New Story at the United Nations and a proven  heart-led champion for women, and Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen, who has been encouraging us towards a grassroots tipping point of heart-connected activism known as “the millionth circle. “  

You can watch videos of his VERY IMPORTANT speech at

   

and

Grassroots Women Weigh in on "Lean In"

A Response to the New York Times February 21, 2013 article:  “A Titan’s How-To on Breaking the GlassCeiling” and Maureen Dowd’s “Pompom Girl for Feminism” February 24, 2013

A February 21 New York Times article profiled Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg's “Lean In” initiative and book which she is strategically launching in tandem with the 50^th anniversary of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique next month. Sandberg has openly put herself forward as the possible next leader of the “new women’s movement.”   I reviewed the Lean In materials with interest and was left utterly stunned, with some very sobering questions and concerns to say the least.  As a woman involved in the global grassroots women’s movement and whose career has primarily been spent in the nonprofit sector focusing on women and girls, I wonder, is Lean In even close to what women really want?  To give you an idea of the gravity of my concerns, I quote from the Lean In materials themselves: “These publicity programs will be translated into social media campaigns to drive people into our activation funnel.“  and “Lean In will drive community members though partnerships with corporate influencers” and “We will target individuals with large followings.”  Do we really want to be funneled in, driven (like cars or cattle), targeted, and seen as someone’s “acquisition”? (Which is also a term used in Lean In materials to refer to women.)  Aren’t we absolutely tired with being seen as objects?  As Maureen Dowd states, “People come to a social movement from the bottom up, not the top down. Sandberg has co-opted the vocabulary and romance of a social movement not to sell a cause, but herself.”  And I could not help but notice the standout piece of advice in the Lean In material, "Don't invite flakes.”  It leaves me wondering, how did we go from consciousness raising circles in the 1960’s to being targeted, driven, then funneled to corporate influencers fifty years later? Seems more like consciousness-contracting to me.   The focus of the global grassroots women’s movement has long since moved away from self-interest to include our sisters in and beyond US shores who have not yet benefitted from the first or second  wave of the feminist movement.  It is a global grassroots women’s movement that is about working collectively and cooperatively to serve the greater good and to care for each other and planet earth. Many women are not looking for a leader-driven movement at all, but see themselves as collective midwives of a New Story – a world that works for everyone.   

Quite possibly the most unsettling thing about the Lean In is co-opting the term "circle."  Why am I so triggered?  Because there has been a long standing sector of the women's movement that believes circle leadership could very well be the very key to solving most of the world's problems. And the numbers who believe this are exponentially growing.  This despite a concerted effort on the part of some enterprising people and companies like Ms. Sandberg and Google to try to brand this word, which many, many women in the global circle movement consider a serious and unfortunate turn of events.  Circle is fast becoming a homogenized buzz word. In contexts such as Lean In, it has been stripped of all its rich and relevant meaning and context. This in contrast to my colleagues in the global women's movement who have used circle principles in peace-building efforts at the United Nations and to help empower oppressed women in third world countries for over 28 years.  Yes, we take circle leadership very, very seriously. And this is because in a world rife with war, injustice, and acrimony, circles offer one of the few real and practical alternatives.  

Circles go back to ancient times. Our best teachers of circle technology are the many indigenous tribes who have never abandoned circle leadership for the top-down hierarchical model.   Egalitarian circles are the first and purest form of democracy. They ensure outcomes that are best for all, not those which arise from individual self-interest or win:lose intentions. Lean In’s interpretation of a circle is watered down and distorted.  It is not possible to pick and choose elements of circle principles and to mix and match them with top-down hierarchical methods.  For example, contrary to Lean In’s approach, there is no place in a true circle for the sole expert from outside who lectures to the group.  This is the absolute antithesis of a circle. In a circle all are leaders, and all share wisdom and experience.  The core learning comes from women sharing their insights and experiences to arrive at a higher order of collective wisdom.  No doubt, Lean In will respond by saying this is their intention, for women to share stories and learn from one another.  But I must ask who among us will feel comfortable sharing our most intimate, confidential stories in venues where corporate interests are pulling the strings behind the scenes?  It seems to me that Lean In Circles are in the end not any different from old style workplace training and development, just with a few bells and whistles borrowed from the circle movement thrown in to make them seem new and woman-friendly.   But at its core it is just more of the top-down, service-to-self, act-like-a-man to succeed-like-a-man prescription that devalues what is uniquely brilliant about a woman's natural or preferred way of doing, seeing, and relating. Do we really want to pass on to our daughters and nieces the “never enough” triggers we women have had to bear in the “do it all” world?  Do we really want to send the signal that they aren’t doing enough or are not successful enough unless they rise to the top of the corporate ladder?  And where is corporate responsibility for damaging the environment and exploiting people the world over, most particularly women? Is there a Lean In curriculum for this?   

In my brand of feminism, grassroots women taking compassionate action are the answer. Women are  not inadequate and in need of coaching and re-training to be better received in a man’s world. This kind of top-down prescriptive approach of “leader knows best” is moving against the forward momentum and positive gains of consciousness-raising grassroots feminism, not with it.       

I do not join others in attacking Ms. Sandberg's personal choices, deservingness of success or right to speak her views on feminism or anything else.  To me, these personal attacks are divisive without serving a constructive purpose.  My aim is to call attention to a worthy and timely issue.   Ms. Sandberg’s is asserting that she is a" or "the" rising leader of the women's movement.  Her platform, connections and wealth are being leveraged to create what is supposedly a “women’s circle movement" but which has very thinly veiled profit-based undertones (adding users and advertising dollars to Facebook). In a recent NY Times article about Sandberg, columnist Maureen Dowd said, “she doesn’t understand the difference between a social movement and a social network marketing campaign…She says she’s using marketing for the purpose of social idealism. But she’s actually using social idealism for the purpose of marketing.”  It seems to me the corporation is the last place women will look for the new leadership of the women’s movement.   I fear Lean In is an expression of the old patriarchal establishment who hold skewed, arrogant and myopic views of feminine leadership which ultimately serve corporate ends. Sadly, Lean In’s first curriculum module tells women how to sit and how to speak to be taken more seriously.  It's the old story all over again, imposing definition on women rather than listening for what they’ve been vehemently asking for and offering by way of solutions.   How is this "new" or even "feminist"?   Where are the feminine qualities such as compassion, deep listening, and flexibility in this plan? Where is the concern for our planet and for the less fortunate?  Lean In seems to miss the point.  Where is the courage to challenge the definition of success as being principally corporate or moneyed?  Who says the only kind of power that can change the world is power in the work place?  No, Ms. Sandberg’s vision for the women's movement is not nearly wide enough or inclusive enough for me.  Call it what it is, a corporate-driven workplace development plan for women, but it is disingenuous to refer to it as a new global woman’s movement. 

The real danger of a Sandberg-led movement is taking the focus away from the grassroots global women’s movement which already exists and lacks needed funding and deserved media attention.  It is another case of bringing attention and resources to those who already possess it.  Lean In arises from an elite, resource-rich class of women, mostly white and mostly in the west whose primary interest is career self-interest.  But I wonder, have we even begun to fully tap the vast power global women wield as consumers, as shapers of the next generation, as community-builders? These are all roles in which women already lead.  No  re-training required.  Just ask Nicholas Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn, Pawl Hawken,  Nina Simons, Frances Moore Lappé and Jean Shinoda Bolen, to name a few who have documented the mounting accomplishments of grassroots women. 

As a grassroots woman, I’d like to issue an invitation.  What if wealthy and influential women and corporations invest their millions into existing grassroots women’s programs and help us to do what we do best – enlist grassroots community towards social change? I believe our best hope for achieving shared leadership between the sexes is for women to go out and build businesses, groups, and organizations for which they make up their own, more humane, socially-responsible rules and standards. This is why we do what we do, and many of us for no pay whatsoever. Because we care.  We see very little social value in wealth-building for its own sake if it does not lead to advancing the greater good.   Women have a choice.  There is room for all kinds of feminism, certainly, but to me, the grassroots circle movement is a feminism that satisfies, that’s accomplishing great things with very little, and brings us somewhere new, connected and above all real.  I’m quite sure this is the kind of feminism that would make Betty Friedan proud.

Want to join real grassroots circle leadership in action?  The first week of March thousands of grassroots women from all over the world will be gathered near the United Nations headquarters in New York City for the 57^th annual Commission on the Status of Women NGO Parallel Forum.  You can attend one of the thousands of workshops being presented by grassroots women and NGO’s. Recommended are  particularly those with “circle” in the title.  Many are free and open to the public. 

Laurie McCammon, MSAEd, is part of a collaborative of circle-based women's organizations, several which have consultative status with the United Nations.  Laurie is the co-author with Anne Smith of Enough: The Rise of the Feminine and the Birth of the New Story and is Co-Founder of wearenough.org, a global and free grassroots wome

Time to Uncloak?

Do you know where you are?  How can it be you are in the same old room yet not at all “in the room”  the same way you once were?  Could it be you are experiencing being here yet not here in some way,  a new detachment, an out of synch feeling, a lack of desire to participate in activities, relationships, or tasks which once brought enjoyment and satisfaction?  Are you somehow not drawn into the drama like you used to be, more an outside observer?  Are you feeling peaceful for no apparent reason?   You are not crazy.  You are not disappearing. You are becoming a quantum human being. 

I encourage you to begin interpreting your reality through the lens of vibration because it is far more able to guide your understanding of what is going on than the vastly outdated mechanistic “black and white” way you have been taught.    Enter the quantum age.  It is long overdue, for its inventions and conveniences  have been all around you for almost 100 years, and the people controlling these powerful technologies have not been eager to share their mechanics with you.  Technology has completely outpaced humanity’s spiritual and ethical capacity to wield this technological power.  The gap has widened exponentially, dangerously, needlessly.   It is time to grow up and not be as a child kept from learning the secrets of the magician.  You are the magician.  We all are.  You may have no interest in knowing how a cell phone works, but you should have every interest in knowing  yourself as a quantum being.  Why?  Because this understanding is where  your power and freedom are.    

Whether a cell phone, microwave, wi-fi, ultrasound, sonar, remote control, radio, or satellite, all are quantum,  in other words, work by operating both in the unseen and seen world – particle and wave.  Do you need proof the signals are real?  Of course not, because you possess devices which turn the unseen (wave) form into something observable (particle).   Did you know that YOU are a device which turns vibration to matter?  You possess a decoding ability that enables you to sense directly that which arrives vibrationally, let’s say as intuition, hunches, dreams, premonitions, visions, knowings, and thoughts.  And through your intellect, will, and  body, you turn these into actions or creations, do you not?  So could it be that you can only do this because you, too, exist as a quantum entity, as both here and not here, as particle and wave?   As you acknowledge the quantum aspect of absolutely everything around you, you will come to accept that you, too, are beyond the physical – both local and non-local, both separate and connected to everyone and everything.  When you realize this, you come to understand that you are never alone and that you are far more powerful and supported than you had ever imagined.   

And you will start to understand that your vibratory signature – or the unique frequency amalgam which identifies who you are as a unique entity is not a constant, but is changing in wonderful ways.   And it is changing because the universe is changing.  We call it evolution, growth, life, maturing, learning.   We and the universe are dynamic, not static.  We are on a deliberate journey.  Your vibratory signature  is changing because the Shuman resonance of Earth is rising, and you are part of the earth.  The magnetics of the earth are weakening, and you are part of the earth.  Every cell in your body responds and attunes to electromagnetic energy, and your consciousness, your vibratory signature does, too.   What does it mean when magnetism drops?  More spaciousness is introduced between particles, density is diluted, freedom of movement increases, less energy is needed to animate matter.  What happens when Shuman resonance rises?  Frequency rises, particles are energized, move faster, travel farther, and sometimes their form changes, such as from solid to liquid, or liquid to gas.   As above, so below, as particle, so wave.  So do you see that you are being freed up – both physically and spiritually for your own expansion and freedom? No wonder the powers that be didn’t want you to be aware of your own quantum potential.  Who you really are is virtually if not literally limitless.  

What does this mean, to step into a quantum awareness of yourself?  It means  that you realize that nothing can ever harm you, not really. I would like to tell you a story to illustrate this point, though it is of a real time and of real persons who lived in the time of the darkness when the divine feminine was persecuted, and the penalty in some places for practicing  earth-based spirituality and healing  was torture or rape, then death.    

In a temple in what is now known as France lived a community of priestesses practicing the way of the Mother(earth).  They had done so for as long as recorded history in peaceful service to the villages of the area, healing the sick and tending lovingly to the spiritual needs of the people.  Word came of a growing and violent movement that was sweeping across Europe to eradicate all goddess earth-based religions.  The call was to destroy all sacred texts, icons, and symbols and to kill all the priestesses in order to destroy the knowledge forever.  

The High Priestess, alerted in a dream that this darkness was to come to her village ten years hence, had secretly been training a handmaiden in all the ancient ways of the priestess.  No one knew about this, not even the other priestesses in the temple, as the teachings took place privately in the High Priestess’s chambers every night.  One night, receiving the word that the men had arrived from away to kill all the priestesses and to destroy all their scrolls and relics, the High Priestess sent her handmaiden out into the night, knowing the men would follow her.  She gave the handmaiden  the most ostentatious object of the temple, a scepter encrusted with jewels including a giant ruby and instructed her to hide it in the hills.  As expected, the men followed the handmaiden, noticing her clutching to her chest a large object wrapped in woven rag cloth.   They waited for her to bury the object and did not kill her, not wanting to alert the priestesses that they had arrived to plunder the temple, and surely a lowly servant woman dressed in a drab tunic would be of no threat to their plans. They took the scepter, feeling smug and triumphant.  

When the handmaiden returned to the temple, the priestesses were waiting. Quickly, they offered her a man’s cloak and disguise, money and food, and she was sent on a journey to the shore to board a boat that was sailing to the New World.  The priestesses knew that their time had ended, and that if they were to flee or hide, it would only mean the men would punish the villagers and burn their fields which were soon to be harvested.  When the men arrived, the priestesses were waiting, sitting quietly in the candlelight in a circle, each with a small vile of poison to speed their deaths.   As the men broke in with great violence, the women in unison drank from their viles and passed from this world speedily and peacefully, the men none the wiser that their deeds hadn’t been the cause. 

Meanwhile, the handmaiden was successful in her journey.  None on the ship, who were all gruff and hearty men, had noticed she was a woman.  She seemed to fade into the background, and none could really recall having known or interacted with her.  The High Priestess had assured her this would happen, that to those of a different vibration, it would be as if she was not there.   It is not that she would be literally invisible, just unnotable and irrelevant to their own ambitions and interests.  When the handmaiden arrived in the New World, as instructed, she sought out her ancient kin, the Hopi.  I say ancient kin as both of their clans had descended from the Priest and Priestess lines of Atlantis, and had fled to all corners of the earth during the big flood.  Not only could the Hopi ”see” her, but the union of their wisdom brought affirmation and strength to what they each knew and remembered.  The true knowledge was saved and strengthened by the reunion. The ancient way was kept safe.  

I tell this story because the wisdom that was embraced at that time was that of vibration, although the people saw it more as natural rhythms and a respect for the sacredness and wisdom of nature.  The High Priestess knew that the men coming to kill her would be looking for “things” and for “people of power.”  They would not recognize or be able to see the truth that resides within, only the outer priestess robes, the trappings and symbols.  Therefore, one person of true wisdom, protected by the cloak of humility and anonymity, could pass completely unnoticed.  

I believe we in 2012 are connected quite intimately to that time, the time when the meek was forced to go underground, saved by hiding the magic of our natural quantum identity.  This is the time of fruition – the time of fulfilling the promise “the meek shall inherit the earth.”  The meek are those in touch with the lightness of being – the quantum “wave” aspect of spaciousness, spirit, freedom, and expansion.  We are “She Who Knows,” she who has kept the knowledge safe until this time of rebalancing.  It is the divine feminine and the indigenous wisdom speaking freely and openly again, the part of us connected with the flow of the natural world able to breathe fully again.  But because the majority still slumber under the delusion of particle identity, we are departing from societal norms of competition and lack,  tapping into an alternate reality  that not everyone can understand.  Because of this, we may be “invisible” for a while longer, but this should not be our concern.  We have bought our own freedom and soon others will notice, trust, and follow.  From our place of freedom and expanded identity,  the game of greed, lack, ego, lust, competition, and control feel out of place and small, no longer befitting the connected, whole, peaceful beings we are finding ourselves to be.  When in our “wave” awareness, nothing can touch us or harm us, for we are literally part of the One that embraces and accesses the all.  We cannot be offended and we cannot fail.  Everything in our journey takes on a sacred purpose, even the experiences our particle awareness would have formerly labeled as challenging or unwelcome.   We have what we need, we are connected to the all, we are at peace with the cosmos and feel no need to convince anyone that we are right.  We know we are enough and that we have enough.   We move swiftly and bring our potent presence, our inward “I Am that I Am” authority, and our great loving awareness that we are all one, to change the harmonics of any situation.  We need not rely on outer trappings and titles to do so.  People feel our groundedness, our purity, our love, our light. In comparison to these, any trappings are mere child’s play.

Just last weekend, on an obscure cable news show came the announcement that an invisibility cloak  like that in the Harry Potter story has been perfected by researchers at Duke University.  There were several photos of people holding the cloaks in front of them.  I was astounded.  With further research,  I found that not only had this technology been around for some time, yet not quite perfected, it had been made public to the science community the month before, but that no major news outlets had picked it up.   How interesting, I thought, to leak it out now and so quietly.  Why now?  I believe it is part of the controlled leak towards shifting the paradigm to the quantum perspective.  I believe it is done begrudgingly and as a last resort because we are soon to realize so many advances in a very short time that it could truly be a shock.  For some reason, we seem to need affirmation of what we already know spiritually by “proving” it through science.  But why wait? We can access this directly, NOW.   As for cloaking, it reminded me that we already know how to do this vibrationally, and have been doing it for thousands of years.  Ironically, just as we learn publically that invisibility cloaks are real, we find we no longer have a need for them.