Welcome to the beginning of a new reality. We are entering another year of tremendous change, both personally and culturally. Who you are right now will be different than who you will be next January.

Take stock of yourself at this moment. How do you feel? What concerns you most? What life do you seek? Be fully present as you step into the hurried current of 2010. It will take wisdom, wellness and awareness to navigate its chaotic currents.

This year will forever transform our existence. We may lose more jobs, face financial hardship, health challenges and sudden endings of relationships. Institutions we relied on might disappear; people we placed our faith in could prove unworthy of that trust. The unexpected will become the familiar.

These struggles are real but the potential to gain from them is profound and long-lasting. Nothing outside of us holds the truth to our happiness. When things we believe in crumble, when we lose grip on the handles of external control that dominate our lives, we are finally free to experience who we really are and begin to build a more meaningful, satisfying existence.

Change is inevitable and will be particularly illuminated in 2010. It is how we manage this change that will determine the people we become—and the planet we inhabit. There has never been a more important time to take care of your body. Invest in your health with good foods, physical activity and nutrition. Seek innovative ways to dilute relentless stress. There are many people waiting to assist. You will need your health more than anything else to sustain you this year.

Honestly share your experiences with others and seek solutions together. Open to new ideas. Own what is happening in your life, however difficult. It is important to engage these experiences completely so that you are not swayed by fear and anger, but instead learn to empower yourself through tolerance, kindness, compassion, and gratitude. We have strayed too far from these words.

We're heading into extraordinary times. Not for the faint of heart, but for the full of heart. Follow the nagging goodness within yourself, regardless of how far that seems to take you from the pack. Everything is about to change. And that’s a good thing.

Enjoy the ride!

I recently read a brilliant essay called Reasonhood. It’s about the relationship between reason and adulthood and deserves much consideration and accolades for its author, Brandon Peele. Though I have a short attention span and a long to-do list, it caused me to slow down, immerse myself in new ideas and think.

Personally, I believe we are living in an age of unreason. Like the Romans who went mad eating from plates tainted with lead, our societal toxins, technologies and pace have numbed much of our ability to reason. Thus, reason like truth, is easily manipulated these days, even if we reach for it. I wonder if we have been so damaged by our cultural conditionings that as a society we are incapable of knowing what reason is anymore.

In generations past, humans had to become adults earlier. Work, marriage, and children usually entered life during puberty. It’s been our blessed existence for the past fifty years that has allowed people to remain children—emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. (Even aspects of the current New Age movement reflect a spiritual naiveté born from life being relatively easy.)

I guess the definition of adulthood depends on our personal and shared journey and how it shapes our ability to reason. Reason seems grounded, somber, and sober. But, is there also room in reason for joy, spontaneity, fun? Our definition of adulthood is much different than what we thought it was as children. When we were kids, adulthood was our most desired destination, full of freedom and enjoyment. But as we age, adulthood increasingly brings responsibility, struggle, compromise, loss, and we yearn to be children again with all the unconscious bliss it represents. Of course, corporate brands, the media and government are more than happy to oblige the illusion.

Each era defines adulthood. And I believe it’s our era’s unwillingness to truly embrace change that holds us back from accepting adulthood. The precipice into adulthood is scary. We are usually forced through the door, unprepared. If we could forge a new definition of adulthood that transforms our childish follies through reason into a deeper joy of life, we’d have a lot more adults out there.

Brandon stated, “Without reason and the structure it can create, imagination is only escapism and can not become honest self-expression”.

I agree that imagination requires the structure of reason for it to meaningfully manifest in the world. As someone with a dynamic imagination, and maybe not enough reason as structure, I struggle with expressing my imaginative musings in a way that is honest in its clarity. But I am adult enough to realize that old emotional patterns have painted my reasoning abilities and I continue to search for solutions.

The 60’s birthed a new thought form, which unfortunately was not completely understood by its recipients. Like children with a new toy, it was played with, escaped through, but not fully utilized. There seemed to be no apparent reason behind its emergence beyond the moment. New knowledge and truth arose during the chaos of that time which could not be properly applied because we were not mature enough as a culture. Without reason, it became escapism.

We are experiencing a similar time now, where the potential for a major transformation is available to us, but many are merely escaping into technology, busyness and media instead of sex, drugs and rock and roll. If we could restore our reason and the wisdom within it, we could see the opportunity in our current experience. That would be our transcendence into adulthood.

Brandon concluded that, “Reason allows the observation and transcendence of a particular emotional state (e.g. sadness, madness, anxiety, fear, and shame) and the realization that one is experiencing that state and therefore cannot be that state”.

This is an important point. If you can observe yourself having a negative experience, then you cannot be that negative thought. It is simply an experience that is to be felt, reasoned through and learned from. Knowing you are more than an emotional state is critical to the rise of the adult within. And reason is a great tool to manage errant emotions.

By the time we reach what should be adulthood, our emotional patterns are set in place. What we have been taught to believe about ourselves, the emotional charge connected to these beliefs and their external triggers, are well established. Being an adult helps us recognize these patterns when they are occurring. And that’s important. But it is hard not to react, even if it’s only on an unconscious level. (Which many of our patterns have become by the time we are so-called grown-ups). Teaching people how to break out of these orbits once they are able to recognize them would be a tremendous boost to reason, adulthood and humanity.

Brandon’s treatise on emotions should be a book in itself. As a culture, we do not know how to experience or express our emotions, let alone use them as tools for our growth and happiness. We either engage them as feel good drugs, bury them deep within denial, or turn them into weapons. Gratitude might be our most powerful and neglected gift in cultivating a healthier relationship with our emotions.

Brandon argues, “Conditioning, repetition, and perception do not yield an objective reality, only one that is mutually agreed upon.”

But then doesn’t this mutually agreed upon reality become objective? Theoretically, I think he’s right. I want him to be right. Though, if we are the result of our conditionings and we respond accordingly, doesn’t that become our reality? And, if so many others share that same manufactured reality, what about the few who profess to see past it all? Are they seeing into a truer reality, or merely seeking to escape reason? Either way, those escapees often evolve humanity by living outside of it, so something must be going on there.

Language. I don’t think there’s a more important concept in his essay than language. We cannot become what we have no words for. Like a ship in the fog, we might feel something coming, and evolution via chaos will always generate new things to consider. But how can emerging thought become mass reality without proper languaging that resonates with the idea? Language reflects consciousness. The word computer didn’t exist (I don’t’ think) before computers did. The technology revolution arose from a bunch of strange people, living on the outskirts of reality and reason, using fledging languages, both verbal and digital, to create a new world. It wasn’t until the complete language arose which expressed these alien concepts that the masses were able to slowly understand and accept them. That’s when this new technological thought form hit its tipping point and transformed humanity.

The consciousness movement with its emerging “programming” of social responsibility, sustainability and wellness, among others, is analogous to that first wave of technology. But it is still seeking the right languaging for mass engagement. Much of the current vocabulary stems from the movement’s infancy, and is stale, mistrusted or no longer reflective of the current state of these trends. Once we discover the relevant language, communicate on a level all can understand, the consciousness movement, which in effect is the next generation of transformative technology, will have its tipping point and again the world will be changed forever.

Brandon says, “An adult will never fully believe what he says is true, only go forth the best way he knows”.

It took me a long time of thinking I knew it all before realizing I knew nothing and maybe never would. Being satisfied with that uncertain reality and understanding its power was probably the most adult moment I’ve had in my life. Everything you believe can change tomorrow. The adult in us knows this and is able to thrive within it. Now I move forward with my second set of eyes wide open, knowing what I know, accepting what I don’t.

Although I applaud Brandon’s Aids to Reason, I wonder how realistic they are. Most people are unwittingly addicted to each of his Barriers to Adulthood, (Media, Chemical Dependency, Emotional Dependency, Frenzy and Social Contract). So, the first and maybe most profound step towards Reasonhood would be the recognition of these unconscious addictions. External guidance and wisdom should then be available to people who truly want to become adults but need support in doing so. That’s where the government, media and corporate brands can make a difference. Most of us need help growing up.

I believe there are many closeted adults out there, waiting for the opportunity to come out when they aren’t so afraid. Along with his great suggestions to assist in this growth, experiences that force the illumination of our cultural programming, there are various other practices and tools that could serve to awaken the sleeping adult within us. We just need to make them acceptable, and available through multiple platforms.

Brandon’s essay was a guided mediation in its own right. I have been hovering around the edges of beginning a letter. I want to create a new corporate position that would engage and apply many of the principles he expressed to increase both company morale and productivity internally, and reputation and revenue externally. This position and its progressive concepts don’t currently exist in the corporate mind-set, so I have to take myself down that rabbit hole and search for the language that will lift people beyond what they believe to be true, a little further into their knowing adult who might have the wisdom to listen. Reasonhood helped bring my focus into that magical space between imagination and reason.

I’m interested in where it brings you.

You expect time to heal the wounds of someone's passing. And, that once you get through that first god-awful year, the ones that follow are more filled with love and warm memories than of pain. I think that is true with many people we lose. It has been that way with my father, who died thirteen years ago.

But with others, the loss only deepens. Three years ago today, one of my closest friends died unexpectedly, filling me with grief I never knew I could feel. Richard was part of my atmosphere, someone I could count on, and I knew he would always be there for me.

I sobbed for two weeks without stopping when I learned of his death so very far away. I would never see him again or hear his warm voice promising to visit. I would never hear him call me foolish, silly or crazy in that way that should have sparked anger but made me feel loved instead. This was a man whom all should have known. Richard was a passionate rain. I grew because of him. I became the strength he saw in me. And sometimes it feels like he took it with him when he left.

Life is a landscape. When we look outside our window, we see some people as beautiful flowering plants, others, thorny bushes. There are annuals and perennials and too many weeds. Most of these relationships wither with time, replaced by others. A special few continue to blossom, adding beauty to our days. If we’re lucky, two or three big trees punctuate this place, unwavering, constant, throwing their comforting shade across the years. When others leave. we grieve, but time eventually fills up the hole with soft moss or new sprouts and something wonderful eventually grows to heal what was lost. But when one of the big trees gets ripped from our world, nothing ever replaces it and our landscape is changed forever. Richard was one of those big trees, out at the corners my life, strong, powerful, protective.

One day I will join him, wherever he went, and knowing that diminishes my own fear of death. There’s something comforting about knowing someone you loved is waiting, ready to catch you when you fall from life. Maybe that’s why those we love so much sometimes leave too early. Could we have made a deal before birth that this time, he would leave first?

Richard died on this day and tonight I will go to the place we met many years ago and sit and share a martini with his memory. Richard died on this day and maybe if I keep telling myself that, somehow I will believe it and my heart will finally accept those ugly words.

I guess pain is a small price to pay for having him in my life for as long as I did. In some strange way, we are closer than ever before. He now belongs to the invisibles and is with me whenever my thoughts go to him. I feel him laugh at my worries, still share my schemes. And on some lucky nights, he comes to me in dreams and lives again.

For all of you who have lost one of your big trees, I send my blessings. And I send hope that you come to realize that what you lost was worth what you gained in loving them. It doesn’t take away the pain. Nothing ever will. But there are others who love us. We are alive. I can’t think of a better way to honor Richard than living my life fully, passionately, the way he would have.

We have just begun a fundamental shift in all of our established social structures and are embarking on very challenging times. Although much will be lost, there is an extraordinary opportunity to strengthen consumer relationships using brands as guides. And in doing so, provide people with the tools, information and wisdom to help care for their families…and themselves.

In addition to massive job loss moving well into 2009 and the credit crisis that will ensue, the most devastating phase of this cultural transformation will be the collapse of adequate healthcare. As families lose income and insurance, massive numbers of people will stagger into the faltering healthcare system. More than ever, it will be critical for consumers to invest in staying healthy through nutritional foods and innovative wellness programs. One way or another, consumers will be paying for their health. Educating them to the broader benefits of better health, wisdom and wellness practices, while incorporating brands into these practices will secure business bottom line and engage consumers in progressive ways. It will also create a profound relationship with the American mother who will bear the emotional brunt of these struggles.

This is sobering stuff. Consumers will be hard hit in the months ahead. They will need food for the soul, as well as the body. It’s important that companies authentically participate by cultivating innovative programs and creative solutions that add deep, psychic value to ongoing marketing platforms. These kinds of wisdom and wellness initiatives do not replace conventional marketing think. They add value to them, increasing both the consumer’s quality of life and brand revenue.

Intuitive initiatives supporting consumers should become part of the nature of marketing. Traditional strategic and creative processes need to be infused with the new level of consumer consciousness that is emerging. Consumers will be making more conscious choices. Content, community and brand wisdom, as much as pricing, will determine the brands that they choose to guide them through this pivotal era.

Wisdom is about to become the new Green.

Crenshaw melons were on sale. Christina’s bare feet slapped against the icy hardwood floor of the old house. Crenshaw’s were John’s favorite and she wanted to surprise him this birthday morning. So she set the alarm, rousing her before first light just as Mr. Handler would be opening the produce store around the corner from their home. She was sure to be back before John was up and out of Tallulah’s room where he had slept for her fear of the Wanderling, some imaginary playmate Tallulah wasn’t always so happy to see. Tallulah complained he wandered into her room at all times, uninvited, even interrupting important teas with Pooh and Tigge. Sometimes at night, he’d keep her from sleeping unless John or Christina kept watch. Seems the Wanderling wanted nothing to do with her disbelieving parents.

Winter was squeezing the house hard, sneaking slyly through the windows and doors that John had promised to fix before Thanksgiving but never did. Now it was January in Wiscasset. Snow would have been welcome. At least it would have been pretty, better than this grey death that saturated everything. Christina was careful as she climbed down the creaking staircase. Her littlest, toe-headed Cameron possessed the ears of some jungle animal and Christina had no intention of bringing him with her. She’d be back in 15 minutes. She put on a pot of coffee from the beans they had brought back from their trip to Costa Rica in September. It was a second honeymoon. They stayed in a tree house that dangled high above aquamarine water and indigo fish, while their kids stayed behind in New Mexico getting to know their cousins better. Christina’s sister had moved there three years ago, after Jim left her because he was feeling strangled by the marriage. He sent money every month as the courts demanded, but the girl he was seeing wanted to live on the beach, so they both moved to Florida. He hadn’t visited Jimmy Jr. or Beth since escaping to Pompano.

She pushed her dirty blond hair up into a hat and threw on the warmest coat she had even though it was also the oldest. She glanced at her image in the mirror before leaving and swore she wouldn’t be caught dead outside again looking like this if God only got her home without seeing anyone she knew, particularly Margie Kaplan and that big, disapproving mouth of hers. She threw on a ghastly red lipstick she found in the coat pocket. Even the car keys were cold, which she decided to use even though it was only a ten-minute walk. In this kind of weather, every minute mattered.

Mr. Handler had put aside five of the best Crenshaws for her, knowing she was coming. The sun was just piercing the horizon as she left the store. It wasn’t warm but it was bright and gold and hopeful. Christina stood happy at her open car door, arms full of melons as the blinding bliss of the day kissed her naked face good morning. She could see her breath, even in the car, and rushed down the road around the corner for home. The bag of melons didn’t quite make the turn with her as they tumbled over the front seat. Christina reached for the largest one, which had carelessly rolled onto the filthy floor. She knew it was a stupid decision, but that thought only occurred to her as she applied it, and next thing she knew she was greeting the Farrell’s historic maple, judged to be over 100 years old.

John woke suddenly, hearing only some shadow of sound. Tallulah was still asleep, so John slipped his arm from under her small body and went in search of his wife. By now Cameron’s ears had detected movement in the Clayor household and was gurgling from his prison crib. John smelled the coffee percolating downstairs and took the time to change Cam’s diaper. By the time he finished, sirens were spoiling the morning air. He called to Christina as he walked down the stairs. The kitchen was empty and for no reason, John got a sick feeling in his stomach. He could see the faint flashing of Deputy Collins’ car. It must be him on duty this early on a Saturday. He walked out to the porch with a warm cup of honeymoon coffee. The trouble was down the road, near the Farrell place, just barely out of sight. Christina’s car was gone and although he was sure nothing was wrong, he ran to where all those twinkling lights were competing with the rising sun.

Danny was the first to grab him, trying to slow his arrival to the inevitable truth, but it was Bing Collins who told him it was Christina and that it was bad. His mouth suddenly got dry, so dry he could barely ask what happened and where she was. The ambulance workers were pulling her from the wreck, covering her whole body with some big white sheet, and what the hell did that mean he thought to himself. He saw a part of him walk over to that sheet and pick it up and see it wasn’t Christina but instead, some unimportant stranger that somehow was in her car. But the rest of him, the truth of him, was being held back by Danny and Bing. It was only then he noticed he was crying, screaming Christina’s name as the ambulance drove away.

“She’s gone, John,” Bing warned, letting the future out with all its unknown certainty. John walked over to the car, to the smashed window and crumpled front seat. To the steam rising on that cold day, rising like Christina’s soul up towards heaven. To the melons, all five of them. With his bare hands he killed each one, throwing them hard against that historic tree that had nothing more than a small crack on its proud-ass trunk.

We are all stuck in prisons of our own making. From difficult relationships to financial struggles, to the mundane habits that create frustrating blocks, every energetic pattern is connected. And once we discover this natural law, we can disconnect those unhealthy patterns that are keeping us unconsciously circling through life. And this discovery leads to change.

You do not have to struggle to change the big things in your life. Stay in your dysfunctional relationship. Go work at the job where you’re unhappy. Remain overweight. Don’t try to change these things. You won’t have to. They will change by themselves.

The trick is to make small changes everyday…simple movements, decisions, alterations that will crack the back of the big beasts that are weighing you down. By sneaking up on your big bad patterns, by nibbling away, life will shift, you will shift, and everything will transform effortlessly and permanently.

Your benign small patterns and habits are the scaffolding holding up the bigger patterns and addictions. By changing the small things you do every day you create cracks in the bones of the big beasts. So that eventually, as the scaffolding collapses, the big beasts no longer have support and they begin to wither and die. All you will have to do is be willing to let go.

I do not ask you to climb a mountain. I ask that you just take a different path around that mountain and notice what you find there. Try exercises in joy. At first they will feel unusual, uncomfortable, unnatural. How much joy have you experienced in life? Your old patterns will question why something so simple feels so strange. Part of you will not want to make even the smallest change. But your mind will know that is a foolish thought. And your body will have the courage to take those small steps.

As someone who is also walking that path, I am here to guide you through these initial steps. To encourage even the smallest change. To show what you are capable of. To begin, think about your life, your disappointments, and of the decisions you made that no longer serve you. When was the last time you stepped beyond your previous conditionings? Regardless of what you want to believe, your life is the result of the choices you’ve made…and those you were unwilling to make.

So, you need to learn to make new choices. And hopefully to see how much power you have everyday to change anything you want in your life. You have the power to change everything you want in your life. YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE EVERYTHING YOU WANT IN YOUR LIFE. But it does not come from anyone or anywhere else. It comes from you, right now, if you are ready to begin.

To start, you must know that you are loved exactly the way you are. There is no other way you have to be unless the need to change is coming from deep within yourself. Let no one else own that power over you. You are perfect. You simply want to evolve. And that what is what I am here to help you do.

The first thing to ask yourself is why do you want to change. Not what…why? Are you unhappy? Scared? Sick? Do you not like the way you look? Or is it about how much money you have? Is it because your children did not turn out the way you had hoped? Is your marriage suffering? Ask yourself questions so that you can understand why you want to change. It’s important that you want change for the right reasons. For your own growth and happiness. Not for someone else and not to feed a selfish ego or societal quest. I want to first bring you back to your true self. Let you spend time with who you were before others changed you….before you allowed others to influence who you were always meant to be. Until you rediscover your essential self, you cannot change into anything else that will sustain itself.

If you’re ready, you’ve reached a certain level of pain, which is causing you to take action…to move towards change…however hesitantly. I feel compelled, because of my own life experience, and what I witness around me, to begin this process and see where it leads. I encourage you to share your experiences. I especially ask that you keep a journal of all you do during this time. What are the small changes you make, how do you feel, where did you find your hidden habits, and what new shifts do you experience.

I also ask that you disconnect from the outcome of change. For now, release of old patterns is all you should seek, knowing that what is best for you will be the highest expression of that release. Soon, you will fill what has been released with something brighter.

So are you ready to remember who you are and micro-shift into a new life?

Okay. I have this book I wrote. It's called soul seeds. Actually, it was channeled to me but my agent doesn't really want to tell people that. So, it's "literary fiction," a novel filled with spiritual messages and secrets. It works on different layers of consciousness. The first layer is simply to be read as a novel. It's the story of a young African-American woman in the South during the late 1930's, and what she learns about herself and life. (As you can see, I'm a white woman from New York). The second layer reveals the spiritual messages and life teachings intertwined throughout the story. Like finding the courage to become who you are and not who others want you to be. The third layer is secrets...though that's not quite the right word... that only those of a particular frequency will recognize. Maybe its more like resonances, instead of secrets.

I didn't plan it like that...I just listened to this unexpected voice one day and allowed her to take me on a journey. Her being Addie Mae Aubrey. I'm hoping my agent finds a publisher. They are a wonderful group of people who loved Addie Mae and her story as much as I did. But I have this nagging feeling that soul seeds won't find its way to readers in the usual way. Maybe you're where I begin. Chances are publishers will only see the story and won't embrace the other layers. So I thought I'd tell you something about me and Addie Mae and see where that takes us.

Since her first whispered words, Addie Mae has been my guide into truth. Not just the kind you tell other people when you’re feeling righteous. But the hardest truth—the kind you tell yourself when you know there’s been a lie festering inside for a long time.

We’ve been together quite a while, Addie Mae and me—longer than I expected. She’s held me captive, holding my heart with her surprising voice. But because of her, I now see magic where there was only coincidence. Faith has replaced fear. And time has become the most miraculous gift. There is always a choice, a chance for change. Eternity resides in every moment.

Addie Mae and I were joined by love, by a contract I suppose we made many lifetimes ago—or maybe merely in my imagination. We never know these things for sure until we join the invisibles. But if I created her, so has she created me. I am as transformed by her presence as anyone else who ever entered my life. Of course, it wasn’t all her. I had to be willing to listen, take the bold leaps, rise above the obstacles and insecurities and face fear and the darkness of uncertainty. Loneliness often flirted with me. Still, I was blessed. She was always there, reminding me that the best journeys take us through fog and fury as much as glory. And that loneliness is merely the birthplace of a new life.

We are here to share our journey together in hopes that yours may be made easier. Many are awakening to truths that for years have been silent. A vague uneasiness creeps through your days. New life scratches at your soul. Some will know Addie Mae, have heard her wise whispers. Maybe they came as other voices, or discarded thoughts, or small sparks of courage that had no space to burn.

soul seeds is also a call to those who love, to experience how this love connects us all, through time and geography, race, gender and age, beyond the small mindedness of cultural and societal conditionings. You are now part of the journey. By reading these simple words you are opening a window to a powerful place you can’t yet see. I think that for those who follow Addie Mae’s voice as I did, listen to the wisdom tucked within her words, you will witness magic, experience great awakenings and find your way home to the person you were always meant to be. In her strength, you will discover your own.

She may have been with me all my life, in the shadows, waiting for me to catch up with her. There have been dreams. Right from the start I wondered where Addie Mae was leading me. It took too long to realize she was giving me a gift. Never before had I surrendered so much trust to one person and accepted such struggle. Sometimes only by looking back on something can we see its grandeur, what it gave us. Moments become monuments that if we recognize, create new beginnings. I somehow sensed that this was my opportunity, my moment and regardless of the outcome, I had to follow her words wherever they led. Now I know that despite everywhere else she took me, all along the way, she was always leading me to you.

Often it seemed our lives ran side by side; hers as a memory, mine unfolding with each stuttered step. Even though we were strangers occupying a different time and space, we shared existence through the emotion of our experiences. But then something happened. Either by chance or fate, our worlds touched and Addie Mae, having gone before me and the wiser for it, saw me flailing in the distance and generously decided to share what she knew. But I was still asleep, too earth-bound to hear. So she silently guided me into experiences that brought me closer to her understanding, closer to her wisdom, to the wisdom of the invisibles. Close enough so that on one magical day, like two planets within each other’s orbit for the first time, we were close enough for me to hear her whispers. And I was finally ready to listen...