Welcome 2015!

I was trained to be a teacher. No matter what we do, nothing can be as important as how we treat the children, except perhaps the ways in which we treat the environment. This year, let us all resolve to spend more time with children and in nature. It is healthy for us (we humans) to touch the Earth intimately and to share our love for learning with the next generations coming up. We have seen the damage that can be done when we abuse, ignore or tear away at either. Let us think long and hard about how we will better serve both the planet and her people. If I can teach one concept effectively, let it be the value of learning to exude compassion. We have heard hundreds of thousands of stories about what has gone wrong. We (humans) have been told billions of times that the world is big, scary and dangerous. The echoes of these warnings and admonitions are rattling around in our brains, stifling our development and retarding our growth. As an individual, each of us has the right and responsibility to ignore what does not serve us. We have the power to walk away.

The "moral majority" was neither, but that has not stopped them.

When I realized the depths to which our educational system had plummeted, I had to find a different way to teach. The majority of people inside educational institutions understood completely my decision tom turn my back on the failing system, but they could not understand how I could educate outside the strictures of public/private schools. Teaching, in my opinion is not a top down, in a classroom, I give you homework and tests sort of thing. Teaching to me is the art and science of discovery made accessible to others through insightful understanding and enticing perspectives that reflect quality and invite reciprocation. There is no need for schools or books or desks in this conceptualization of education. Let me take a step back from my idiosyncratic example, perhaps that will allow a better view of this overarching concept. After all, we may not all see ourselves as teachers. (But we are.)

Imagine, a world that has been hemmed in on all sides by concrete, steel and blacktop. Strictures that have been carefully and strategically laid with such subtlety that the inhabitants no longer understand the nature of the limitations that have them imprisoned. Look around and you may not need to imagine. Realize that what we have been told is of primary importance, namely money/status/power (these things are lumped together so thoroughly that they now constitute nearly one thing) have no value or meaning. Let this really sink in. not only do they have no meaning, but ultimately, there is no value to them, except what we give them.) Then, take a deep breath and plunge into life as if it were a placid lake, anxious for you to make ripples upon her surface. The world around us is far more welcoming than we are usually told. In the rare cases when it is not welcoming, it is at least accepting. When one learns about how to live within the natural systems in which we find ourselves, it can be downright accommodating. Even when we choose to wreak havoc upon the breast of  Mother Earth, she at least tolerates us. The ultimate value and the pinnacle of power is to perfect the art of the give away, giving selflessly to the next generations, for they will be here to carry on long after our demise.

We will need to give up a few things to find our way forward, but silencing the admonitions to fear will unleash virtually unlimited human energy. Letting fear melt away in the face of abundance allows our true self to flourish. As we find our soul purpose, possibilities open up that had never been considered before. Inside each of us there is an abused and neglected child who needs to be loved. Even if your parents were wonderful, loving and never made a single mistake, the world around us has ways of telling us that our ideas are "dumb", that we are naive, or that we do not deserve love. Nothing can be further from the truth. This year, let us all be the change we seek in the world. When I was in school, I can hardly tell you the depths of assault that I had to endure. When the attacks were from bullies, they were crippling, but when they came from teachers, I often felt completely incapacitated. The teachers that I respected the most encouraged me to try, even if my ideas had been deemed "wrong". Sometimes, the best way to suss out the differences between right and wrong are to plunge in, test the waters and use the resources that one has to make better sense of the world. We could each make a list of what we deal with daily that makes no sense, but trying to figure out what is right with the world requires resources that we are frequently denied.

Take time to get to know yourself. Let that relationship, between who you have been told that you are, what is "expected" of you and your "station" in life and the true you, who will forever remain hidden from the world, grow and develop. Learn to love into being a "self" that more accurately reflects who you really are, not be content with what people have told you. Make resolutions that are important enough that you will stick with them, even when the world seems hell-bent on crippling your spirit. Commit to making the future better no matter how dismal the present seems and there will be rewards that spread far beyond your ability to perceive them. 2015 is as good a time as any to do what you were put here on  Earth to do. There will always be turmoil and angst. What humans do best is to rise above whatever hostile conditions they may face and to find solutions to problems that confront us. Blessed Be my friends and may the New Year bring you enough time, as well as the inclination to find your true self. I guarantee that it is the best gift you could ever present to others.