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“In 2012 I said that the first days of 2013 would be filled with unique challenges, and this rings true for today as it did for yesterday. But we must all embrace change as our universal friend, rather than our common foe.”
— Mickie Kent
Life is about ringing in the changes, and although I'm mindful that a new year is celebrated at different times and months by different cultures and beliefs around the world, the essence of new starts is a universal one we can all understand. Philosopher Heraclitus is famous for his insistence on ever-present change in the universe - as stated in his famous doctrine defined by Plato that, "No one ever steps in the same river twice". We may not all share the same day universally, but we do all share the same universal truth that life is about change.
Change is not something we should fear. It's something we should prepare for, and be ready to face head on. Rather than simply wishing ourselves a year of happiness, we should wish for a year of great challenges as greater opportunities to shine bigger, better and brighter than the last. It's a chance to roll up our sleeves and get to work to steer those changes into the positive results that will benefit our lives, our community, and the world at large. But it's not merely about doing good with our passions, it's about making goodness and love THE passion of our lives.
However, thanks to the money-making gurus, "passion" has in recent times become overused and misappropriated - so much so that it now causes annoyance like certain other words we've seen trending in the past year. Talking about passion is not enough. If you do have a passion, the best way to illustrate that is to demonstrate it. Once planted into our everyday actions, such seeds will branch into all areas of our consciousness. Self-respect and respect for others, tolerance and awareness will flower and blossom in our minds. They will be a guiding intuitive light that shines on all crises as a chance for progressive change.
In doing so, we will have nurtured a loving co-existence with all living things, because the basic moral goodness we have guiding us will take us to love.
Where is the love?
Nevertheless, there are those of us that will feel anything but love when we look back on the year just gone. We'll have our own lists of the worst events and the notable deaths that so marked 2013, here in the United Kingdom and across the globe. But we must remember, too, the stories we shared en masse about people that have inspired or surprised us over what our species is capable of achieving.
Those prone to superstition would say that 2013 lived up to its "unlucky" numerical 13, while others believe in the other side of 13 - that it was a year which saw the harnessing of the powers of the goddess. The image of a goddess may conjure up in some of us the idea that women will finally be taking their rightful place as equal partners with men globally. And indeed, in some areas we are seeing just that.
Women who have worked diligently within their communities, in the arts, politics and industry are now gaining more recognition than their male counterparts, and becoming increasingly influential. A good example is the New Year honours system in the UK. The list recognises more women than men for first time in its history. Meanwhile, an analysis of thousands of shops and stores hints at a dramatic change in the character of Britain's commercial centres, with female traders now matching their male counterparts. But it feels like a different story across the Atlantic, especially in the Hollywood film industry.
Though 2013's crop of potential winners has been hailed for including several films with female producers, concerns remain that, in Hollywood's upper echelons, the business is an unreformed "boy's club". Touching on this, singer Beyoncé has said gender equality is a myth, and people need to "demand" women get the same opportunities as men. Criticised herself in times past for turning her back on feminism, she has a point. Discrimination - and violence - against women will always remain deeply entrenched in any staunchly patriarchal society, where any "weaker" groups seen as the minority are still very much marginalised. The radical emergence of the "new man" seems to have all but disappeared, and we seem stuck in a time warp. Even our most developed societies remain gender-specific, male dominated and, as a result, institutionally heterocentric.
Those that adhere to the energies of the goddess, however, will tell you it's more than just a gender issue. Women can be just as "blood-thirsty" as men, and there are men as gentle as any woman in tune with her femininity. Thus, some believe this burgeoning feminine energy is more about a growing awareness of ourselves than any deity.
This feminine form of corporeal energy in yogic philosophy is known as kundalini - described as a sleeping, dormant potential force in the human organism. It's not restricted to women, this energy is within us all, waiting to be awoken. As such this energy lies in all of us, and some have interpreted the last year as the start of a greater focus on breaking the restrictions stereotypic gender divides have placed upon us.
While as women - even in developed nations - we know all too well how difficult it is to find our voice, being a "man" or "woman" will mean something completely different to me (and maybe you, too) than what such a phrase implies. The terms "man up" or "be a man" is something all men will have heard at one time or another - even a few of the women reading this right now. But that in itself is just as stifling a straitjacket as the one women have been forced to wear throughout the centuries.
Speaking for my partner, I fell in love with his soul, before his gender, but I can't even begin to describe the toll that the concept of masculinity has taken on his life. He was constantly trying to "be the man", fearing I might love him less for his sensitivity, when in actuality I fell in love with his authentic self - whatever that may be - because it's twinned to my own. But this inadequacy of living up to stereotypes is felt everywhere, and it's time we make changes, starting from within ourselves.
True nobility, as Ernest Hemingway was once quoted to have said, is being superior to your former self, not to others, and yet for many of us a new year will mean getting a new look, rather than a new outlook. However, unless we do chime with the changes, we will never progress. If you want something you've never had, then you got to do something you've never done. If you want to better yourself, then you first have to know yourself. Where once we lived in an age wondering what others would think, now we live in an age where we must ask, "What do I think?"
New beginnings and challenges can spur us on to look at things differently, and on a wider and more personal scale, I'm sure we've all experienced challenges and read about issues that forced us to take another look at our prejudices and opinions - to evaluate if what we had known along was still true. A perfect example of this in recent years, which has taken up a lot of column space in the West, is the issue of allowing same-sex couples the rights to marriage.
The changes that challenge
Whatever you may personally feel about homosexuality, or what your religion says about it, it would be morally wrong for us to ignore a community in our society which has contributed greatly to our freedoms and the benefits which we enjoy today. Moreover, besides being morally reprehensible to marginalise anyone because of their genetics or lifestyle, such ignorance is causing the deaths of our young.
The suicide rates of gay teenagers, who feared they would be ostracised by their families and peers, is high. Instinctively as parents we want our children to respect their bodies, and be sexually responsible for many good reasons. But being gay isn't simply about sexual orientation, who you sleep with, or how many people you sleep with.
Some studies have reported that up to 46% of all men have had sex to the point of orgasm with another guy at some point in their lives. And that's ALL guys, straight and gay alike. It's well known that teenagers will experiment, and attraction and sexuality may change over time, but being attracted to your own sex at one point or another in your life isn't what makes you gay.
Being gay did not create the "cruising" subculture or its "hyper-masculinity" - the work of hormones and being marginalised did that. There are many conservative couples that happen to be gay as well, but shun that lifestyle opting for a more traditional one bound by their understanding of monogamy. Likewise, heterosexual couples have darker subcultures, too, such as swingers, dogging, those looking for one night stands - and neither one or the other is immune to sexually transmitted diseases. Sexual well-being is as important to an active gay guy as to a heterosexual one, and monogamy within a trusting relationship - or voluntarily choosing celibacy - will always be the golden standard to protect against STDs.
In fact, a lot of what we might think are "unnatural" human sexual traits are shared by animals. The sexual habits of penguins, for instance, are full of accounts of sexual coercion, sexual and physical abuse of chicks, partner-swapping, non-procreative sex and homosexual behaviour. Male dolphins practise anal intercourse, and even fellatio using their blowholes it's been said, while a BBC documentary called "Dolphins: Spy in the Pod" has revealed that these favourite sea-creatures like to get high on drugs, too. They are also said to resort to rape to get their way and are constantly unfaithful to their partners, having sex as casually as shaking hands.
But dolphins also see the world in the same way as us, form lifelong friendships and court their mate with gifts and presents, and along with whales are known for being capable of recognizing suffering in other animals and forming empathy. New science is showing us that being able to empathise with another living being is not particular to humans. We are discovering that other creatures in the animal kingdom, especially mammals, have the necessary neural mechanisms to experience emotions that we have come to think are exclusively human ones.
Nature has shown that animals can forge remarkable bonds - even between natural born enemies, beyond the normal boundaries of biology - and such interspecies friendships are not as rare as one might think. Although we see nature as fundamentally violent, it holds vital lessons of co-existence - with science finally catching up with ancient held beliefs that have told us we're not the only ones out there that care for other beings.
Unlikely friendships forged in the wild include whales and dolphins, dogs and dolphins, dogs and apes, monkeys and deer, rabbits and deer - creating extended families where the laws of nature seem to get turned on their head. There are examples of cats adopting hedgehogs, rabbits, squirrels and ducklings, where these felines have somehow managed to suppress their natural hunting instincts to care for another species. But whether it's dolphins finding new friends or cats adopting animals that should be dinner, it shows that humans don't have a monopoly on caring, and that we can be a slave to our hormones just as other animals are.
When an orphan duckling needs a mother, or a lonely dolphin needs social contact, nature has programmed them to face such challenges by forging bonds with others - even if it means making "unnatural" friendships. Co-existence, therefore, is paramount for survival - but what elevates co-existence for humans is when it has a moral purpose.
We co-exist not simply because we will end up destroying each other if we don't, but because it's the right thing to do - however challenging that might be or contrary to our set prejudices.
What should guide us?
It has been said that to explore the psyche of a people, do not look at what they do - look at what they do wrong. In today's society, we often get relationships wrong. We get sex wrong. Sex releases oxytocin as well, a hormone that has been touted as the moral hormone in humans, and yet we often see sex as something dirty rather than cleansing.
Some say that the practice of casual sex may have a hand in this image. Having sex with no strings attached might sound fun and exciting, fulfilling a basic need without obligations, but it may also ultimately leave you feeling so empty that you realise there is no such thing as "casual" sex.
All sex is in actuality causal, and every time we allow another person into our bodies there are internal repercussions. Quickie sex with a stranger may be exciting, especially for men, but what isn't lost in self-respect may be lost in the ability to work at a future long-term relationship - let alone running the risk of your sexual well-being impacting on your physical and mental health.
Experimentation in our formative years is important, but the essence of sensuality - the part of the sizzle that glues adults to one another - is in the pursuit and seduction of a person's mind, not just their body. A few "seedy" moments may titillate, but sex framed within a romantic, trusting relationship is what elevates it from the physical act. It makes it 3-dimensional. It gives it a purpose outside of procreation. It's a form of bonding that cements our need to exist, rather than simply being the act that continues it.
The challenge for us therefore in the coming years, some believe, will be to stop wasting time arguing over whether sex should only be allowed between opposite sexes, or only between a certain number of people subscribed to some institution (or marginalising those that don't adhere to such beliefs), and to educate people towards being sexually more aware and responsible instead. After experimentation with sexual identity, sex can be an aid to greater communication between responsible and consenting people who realise some form of monogamy not only allows time for greater trust to fortify the sexual experience, but that it's also currently the best protection for sexual health and well-being.
Sex is neither sinful nor something that requires censorship; it's an essential part of the human experience, but naturally if we are irresponsible repercussions will follow. Even with some sample studies touting the health benefits of multiple partners, these are quickly cancelled out by the very real problems linked to an irresponsible attitude towards promiscuity. And like wholesome food, regular exercise, and mindful meditation, the practice of good sex is also essential for our well-being. These are guiding principles that nurture respect for our bodies. These aren't luxuries. If we junk our food, our love-making, our daily physical activities, we will stagnate and become blocked.
Conversely stranger sex isn't a release at all in such instances, it cuts us off from what is real. This is true in all areas of life, as is the case that one of the conditions to be in a successful relationship is to first be happy with your authentic self. In other words, we cannot love others if we don't love ourselves for who we really are. This requires loving our true nature not with the ego, but from the seat in which the mind sits - the heart.
When we do this we are not letting our hormones or the physical need for sex guide us, we are following an intuitive inner voice - which if we listened to would intuitively tell us that we all want sex with the right person anyway. Monogamy may not be natural to our physical being, but it's aligned to our spiritual one. It gives our natural urges a moral foundation. Like the aesthetics of art, emotional sex smooths over the crudeness of reality, separates us from the beasts in a way, or in another returns us to our true primal selves - a soul yearning to be twinned with its flame.
Indeed when the sex is great, we cannot help but be reminded of the centrality of the body - that intellect and emotion must have its place, too. The mind and heart must take motion for the body to act beneficially. And it is only then, as they say in the Christian tradition, that words become flesh. In this context, many today are reinterpreting their religious beliefs that prohibit same-sexuality to actually promoting monogamy between trusting partners - whatever their gender, colour or creed.
Nevertheless, due to the dogma and inflexibility of many religions, and their refusal to change, we have seen our co-existence threatened as one belief vies for domination over another, training its adherents to treat the world as their own special dominion to do with what they will. The rigid interpretation of religious texts by powerful institutions have also played their part in the fractured state of humanity.
Religion has often seen us as evil or sinful, and that we needed to be moulded into what a certain church thinks we should be. The way we see our bodies, the way we view sex, the way we view our own and opposite sex has been distorted down the ages through the imposition of religious belief. We have used religion to smooth over the crudeness of our primate reality, too, but often instead of elevating us, it has separated us from our authentic self.
Changing our beliefs
In a healthy mind, beliefs should constantly be challenged and open to change depending on the evidence observed. What we know to be true today may not be tomorrow, so we need to be open hearted and open minded when we are faced with the contrary. Today we don't like to be told what to think, and those more aware among us won't allow any long held beliefs to do so, either.
As with the issues of same-sex couples, or sex in general, when faced with the choice between being theologically correct (as if this is even possible) and being morally responsible, many of us will go with being morally responsible every time. If shunning homosexuals - or their lifestyles as practices of Sodom and Lesbia - is causing the death of our young, then any religious basis for it is unjustified.
It's an irresponsible interpretation that serves no purpose other than to segregate and divide communities, families and loved ones and should be consigned to history. In previous centuries people who loved one another were forced to stay apart due to religious edict, but change is coming. One day it's hoped this will be a complete thing of the past.
Notwithstanding the problems religion has helped cause, however, having such purposeful beliefs are not bad on their own. Being religious can provide the guidance many seek outside of the temporal world. Often religion has given many of us a sense of moral purpose and guidance, and will continue to act as a compass for many in the future. Our beliefs and our moods are engineered in our brains and reflected in our actions, and there are even studies that have shown people who are religious or spiritual have "thicker" brains which could protect them against depression. Being religious in one sense, then, might be good for us.
I don't believe this gives precedence to any single religion, but rather highlights the benefit of moral - not merely religious - guidance. And for it to work for us in our lives we need to experience it for ourselves, because while religion is belief in someone else's experience, spirituality is having your own experience. Yet both "religion" and "spirituality" have become overused - like the word "passion" - to become a mouthpiece for mysticism and the esoteric, when the important thing is to respect all people and be tolerant of their beliefs even if they differ from ours. It is after all one planet; we are one people, and we practice one love.
Our beliefs shouldn't be used to judge others or condemn. They should be big enough to accept all faiths, and walks of life. All religions are true if they are true in the hearts of all those who believe in them. The world is large enough to incorporate heterosexuals and homosexuals, conservatives and liberals, for those that love and worship a myriad of beliefs. Our minds are large enough to encompass all that and more.
And if we are to allow religious beliefs to guide us, maybe we need to start changing the way we view religion. For many Protestant church traditions, the season of Epiphany extends from the 6th of January until Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent leading to Easter - and so maybe today is a good day to have our own symbolic "awakening" to the energies of change, especially as it coincides with "Blue Monday" this year, according to some sources.
Often when the festive season is over we get the January blues, and the time for guilt is nigh. But this year can be the year we start to turn religion into a TRUE guidance for love, instead of fear. In the past, churches have been harsh on those it deemed morally wrong or sinful. If we look at the different religions that exist today, most state that if you do not belong to their religion you will go to Hell, and since people do not belong to more than one, it seems that we are all hell bound going by that logic.
The logic that should guide us - and WILL guide us - towards greater co-existence with all living things is love. Love is universal when religion is not. Love is not only open to change, it is the impetus for it. It leads us to the real truth of the authentic self instead of forcing us to hide it. Love gives us a moral basis for our actions that supersedes any religious one, and when it is faced with challenging changes, love can bend with the blows to overcome all obstacles. The other choice is to be guided by the edict of others, and of fear.
What is the attraction to fear?
Beliefs have never been set in stone. They have always been changed, and replaced. Not all ancient beliefs are correct, or welcome in these more enlightened times, and the same is true of all the major religions today. Science may not have all the answers (it may never do) but it helps to ask the right questions, and keep an open mind for the answers. It helps sift through the accumulated wisdom to see what works and what doesn't. And rather than fearing what we don't understand, science helps us to come to grips with it.
In times gone by, when fear replaced understanding, we often interpreted things we didn't understand as portents of doom. For the doomsday believers in bygone times, there was a lot of story fodder in nature's weirdest events. In nature, fact is often weirder than fiction, incidents so extraordinary that they even appear to be somewhat supernatural or so unsettling they could be seen as omens foretelling the end of the days.
Trees oozing red blood, people reporting alien-like sounds from the sky, fish walking out of the water, or bees making shocking multi-coloured honey, these signs of the apocalypse to apocryphal tales can at first instance seem so alarming that it's easy to see why people might think that the end of the world is nigh.
But even if they look like portentous events, science can unlock the mysteries behind such bizarre and extraordinary happenings in nature. What these stories reveal is that events we might read as signs of the apocalypse are actually nature's survival strategies. Whether it's a fish adapting to new territory in search for food, healing sap pouring from trees or street wise bees on a sugar rush, far from signalling the end of the world we are seeing nature at work in its own perfect but rather peculiar way.
However, as challenging our limits is part of our nature, so, too, is the allure of mystery. We still like to frighten ourselves despite the information at our disposal. There are still those that believe the world will end in the coming years, or those that prefer to shun the science and stick to superstition. It often seems the case that when we have a choice between myth and reality, we prefer to believe the myth. Something in us seems attuned to turning what we don't understand into a religious experience to provide a greater sense of purpose.
Symbols of nature like trees, and celestial symbols like comets and stars, have always inspired myth and folklore. From the first, trees have marked sacred sites, while we have used the heavens as markers to foretell future events. With such a sense for the dramatic, it's easy to see why it's more entertaining to believe a tree that bleeds, rather than the cold scientific explanation of a red-coloured sap.
In the right setting trees can be haunting, even eerie. Some even believe that trees have a soul. And when people regularly report that yew trees - which can live for thousands of years and are seen as sacred - are found bleeding, even with all the science available there will be those ready to believe in the end of days, rather than a sign of the changing times.
Similarly, there are those that will always resist change - especially those that serve the status quo - but denying change is like denying the rising of the sun. The ineffectiveness of dragging our heels in the sand may cause hysteria among the more conservative among us, but it's a fact of our modern age that the lines of convention are being blurred all the time.
This isn't just particular to this century. Change has been with us since the start of times. Change will always be with us. It's what life is all about.
Continue on with love
In my post on the last day of 2012 I looked back in gratitude and forward with optimism to 2013. I said that we must start to co-exist with love. Now on the sixth day of 2014 - the date for Epiphany or "awakening" - I say that we must continue that mission with even greater hope and effort, for we stand at the horizon of golden opportunities, now more than ever.
Celebrating the new year should in one sense be a celebration of the coming spring. The ancient winter solstice feasts and festivals were a way of encouraging the sun to come back and to get the spring started - a vital part of any primitive culture, and itself symbolic of new beginnings. Yet, although we're in a hurry to get spring started, we're also worried about the great changes necessary to bring that about.
As millions across the UK see in the new year, we have our own worries about social integration and national identity, rising fears over climate change, a failing economy and the fractured cohesion of our communities. But feeding into the toxicity of events with toxic thoughts only keeps us locked in a poisonous cycle. What and how we think has a lot to do with how we exist, and co-exist with others.
This was most recently evidenced by a study performed by scientists in Wisconsin, Spain and France that found there are specific molecular changes in the body following a period of mindful meditation. According to these doctors, what really separates us from the other animals is that we can literally change the fate of our cells by altering our thoughts. The theory is that your mind can adjust the body's biology and behaviour to fit with your beliefs. If you've been told you'll die in six months and your mind believes it, you most likely will die in six months.
This doesn't mean you can think away your homosexuality, as though it were a handicap. That's as futile as trying to think your eye colour from brown to blue, or to attempt to change your skin colour with the power of thought. What we are really doing is reprogramming our subconscious to connect with our authentic self, where our deepest beliefs reside. These are not religious, or even mystical or spiritual experiences (or necessary to be grounded in such beliefs for it to take hold) - just a deeper connection to who we really are.
Arguably this is the greatest guidance we need to give us moral purpose, to know who we are, and to accept and love ourselves unconditionally. And if there is one thing to take away from this post it's that we should let our actions be guided by such love, because it's a love that will bind us together.
Today is the sixth blank page of a 365 page book. So why not write a good one? Make it your own personal epiphany. If people laugh at you for being different, then laugh at them for being all the same. Or when life is dragging you back with difficulties, use it to mean it's going to launch you into something great. An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward. So just focus and keep aiming with the knowledge that the best is yet to come. Be mindful that when things seem at that their most bleak is when we must strive even harder towards our goal. Dawn is just around the corner. Let darkness be the thing we always leave behind.
The cynics amongst us will say that this is all just "feel-good" nonsense, but when was it ever nonsensical to feel good? Or to do good? Remember that although such cynicism may slow us down, only we can distinguish our light. When we look back to the darkness of previous centuries, where the torch of enlightenment shone dimmer, people every year continued to hope and to strive, and it's their efforts that carried the fire which still burns with us today.
Of course we shall always have our fair share of critics, cynics and doom sayers. With the "end" of the Mayan calendar in December 2012 and the massive solar storms for 2013 gone as leading candidates for the end of the world, people will turn to the predictions of a meteor shower in 2014. And though we have no power to prevent natural disasters, we do have the power to create catastrophe.
Even if we do not actually destroy the planet by such actions, we will destroy much of humanity's strength, vitality, wisdom, knowledge, peace, and tranquillity. When we are driven by fear we engender calamity. In an attempt to ward off danger, we become violent and dangerous to ourselves. But by choosing co-existence over segregation, and compassion over fear, we can preserve the world for future generations, and pass on the fire of enlightenment.
There are also predictions that after two more years of global upheaval, peace will come for a while in 2016 setting up for great change in 2018. But the truth is that there will always be ups and downs. It's a part of living. The process of life is ever unfolding, guiding you, pushing you, preparing you for the next part of the process. Difficult challenges, bad days, upset feelings, moments of confusion are part of life's process.
Perhaps these things are there to keep us alert, to remind us that unexpected things happen, to love and appreciate every minute that we have with those who mean the most to us, to make us stronger, or to test our resolve to keep moving forward. And that come what may, if we let our light shine in 2014, then it will do so all the brighter in 2015.
Yours in love,
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