Three decades ago, as a wide-eyed, grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-planet teenager, I cashed-in on my very first vehicle, took the money and flew as fast as I could to what I considered must be utopia: The Far East.

In my youthful desperation to touch upon the “Ineffable” (surely it existed in some shrine or temple or manicured moss garden laden with monks and small streams), I immersed my entire being in mysterious waters of the unfamiliar: new language, new society, new philosophy, new traditions, new art, new food, new handshakes and music and transportation – – brand new glasses to see and experience the world through. Exactly what I wanted.

Or so I thought.

What I found, what I cracked-open-to in those enigmatic days and nights of the unfamiliar, wasn’t exactly what I wanted so much as to what my soul was demanding Life to expose me to.

Without going into it all, suffice to say my novice ideology was crushed right alongside of gaining indelible experience, perspective, and insight: living from the inside-out in a completely alternate reality.

Then! When I returned back to the good-ole-USA, a remarkable unforeseen opening occurred in the midst of stinging culture shock rocking my world: everywhere I went – from Los Angeles back to my then home of Dallas, Texas – everywhere I looked, I found myself marveling at innumerable variant strains of Human palette: brown, pale, sepia, dark, rust, ginger, ochre, coal, mahogany… with uncountable shades of eye colors and shapes and heights and sounds! so many languages!

I had forgotten what it was like to swim in this veritable soup buffet of Humanity. After being immersed in an almost mono-chromatic culture in Japan, where everyone had pretty much the same color of eyes, hair, and skin; where everyone spoke the same language and operated from eons-old cultural influences, my being was overcome with an insatiable thirst for simply gazing, gazing at the unspeakable beauty of our Melting Pot here in the USA. I found myself planning my schedule around public events just so I could feast on the spectacular tapestry of humanity – all located in a country I called home, born and bred.

Here in the US, we recently celebrated our 240th birthday. That’s fairly youthful, considering most of the rest of humanity. And it’s pretty easy to verify by our collective consciousness what seems to be important to us as a whole. Just look at the magazine rack next to the grocery store check-out, glance up at the bill boards on any expressway in every city, turn on the radio dial, tv set, computer screen. Everyone knows we place the luster of Youth on a very pointed pedestal and have yet to mature and bow before the Wisdom of our Elders. And, this is worth noting. Again. Not as a place to get stuck; simply as a noticing of “O, yeah, this.”

The good news is that, by Law (Universal, immutable Law, not man-made law), all of us are on an evolutionary track of maturation, individually and collectively, and there’s nothing that can be done to stop it. Fortunately, humans are waking up to an understanding that we facilitate our life experiences, rather than simply showing up to life navigating circumstances and events. We are moving from what I call ’employee mentality’ to ‘artistic reality’. We actually get to pour-forth an inspired life!

So – what does this mean for you? For me? For us as a collective? Well, so much. It categorically means so much. To begin – it means we will mature in the microcosm of our everyday lives – emotionally, personality-wise, egoically, and all that that entails. It also means that we are called to mature as a collective. We will allow essential Truths to rise forth and flood our dialogue and behaviors regarding our fundamental interdependence. Out-dated opinions, modes of operating, judgments and positions will become so uncomfortable, so obviously not-right, that we must cast them to the compost. We’ve already seen this breaking open in consciousness and experience, and I know many of us feel it happening now.

This is where we step into the mystery and allow Love to run the moment. For truly, it requires a moment-to-moment presencing. I’m not speaking about romantic always-feel-good love. I’m talking about that power and grace which births universes – labor pains included. So we gotta breathe, and allow the Love that is encoded within to buoy us up as we step into the Unknown.

Granted, this is a large conversation which we will continue to explore – and… In light of what continues to be spotlighted with killings on US soil: It means we get to grow-up. Perhaps a little bit more, perhaps a lotta bit more; that’s up to you.

How does one go about this? There are countless paths, tools, and technologies for fertilizing and cracking open the Wisdom Seed encoded within each one of us. From meditation to spiritual study; from yoga to dance; from music to art; from spiritual comradeship to deep contemplation; from nestling in an open heart, to deeply listening as never before. The possibilities overflow…

And, a Wisdom Keeper listens.

If we want to stand up and responsibly usher-in our evolutionary growth with grace, we will learn and practice and become experts in listening. Think of that individual or those few folks in your life who actually listen to you. Not to your judgments or opinions – think of the ones who listen to your heart. There’s a difference. And there’s your bookmark.*

From the power and true creative intelligence that this way of livingness evokes and fortifies, we will create and establish new paradigms and new ways of operating so that our individual lives, as well as the collective, can reflect the fundamental truths of freedom, contribution, and right-relationship.

For the ones of us here in the US, we are gifted with an incredible sandbox of cross-cultural exploration to awaken in. We really are. We can prove a world that works for everyone. We can tap the fertile fount of cultural wisdom inherent in the fabric of all of humanity. With patience, an open-heart, a dynamic Yes, and by actually showing-up, we can move from reactionary youthful ways of positioning in separation to the fortifying creativity and brilliance of our collective ageless wisdom.

It’s already available. And so we begin.

Sandbox – 1) a shallow box or hollow in the ground partly filled with sand for children to play in. In computing – 2) a virtual space in which new or untested software can be run securely.

Let’s move from the shallow sandbox we’re familiar with and establish new avenues of relating. Let’s sit at the Round Table and craft the artistic rise of a culture in which the huge array of human expression flows freely and can be realized.

What say you?

I’m looking forward to playing in this sandbox with you.

*If you have no frame of reference for the profound experience of being listened to (and many in our still-maturing world have none), contact our admin and she’ll put your in touch with someone who is deeply trained in the sacred art of listening. Everyone deserves to know this experience, personally and intimately. And, if you’d like to tap-in to strengthening your personal listening muscles, she can guide you to supportive possibilities.