Now is the Time to Step Forward

Behind the house on the cul-de-sac, two children used to play on their swingset and run around in their fenced yard first with their beagle, and then with the new beagle pup. And then one day, the family and their pets were gone. No moving truck. No big farewell to their modest suburban home. They just packed up their car and drove away. And now the dandelions are dog high, just one more snapshot in a national album. Title this one, “The Great 21st Century Transformation, or “The Collapse of the American Dream.”

This is here in the suburbs, a scene I witness every day as I walk my dog at lunchtime. Look around your neighborhood, because the “change” is affecting all of us. My wife’s job was eliminated more than two years ago at a major corporation that decided to downsize and let employees go the day after they returned from Thanksgiving holiday. They’ve since eliminated large groups of other household providers who now scramble to put food on the table. A former colleague in Missouri, the top writer on the daily newspaper’s editorial staff, was suddenly axed from the payroll. And everywhere you look, mid- to high-level managers and executives are now sitting at home filling out job applications and reading craigslist daily for any new opportunity.

And don’t forget the Motor City. Detroit’s unemployment rate is triple the national average, and the crisis has spread like wildfire to outlying communities. Less than 90 miles away, Saginaw’s downtown is boarded up, its homeless population out of control, and those who live there say it reminds them of the Great Depression.

These difficult images are part of a growing national tapestry of despair. We’ve all been touched by the seemingly instantaneous transformation of corporate America. And if a doctor were to take our collective pulse, the diagnosis would be high anxiety; the prescription – pills to numb us and sedate us and help us escape the pain of reality.

That’s where the holistic community – typically a highly emphatic group of people who must be feeling an unusually high level of stress at this time – can make a difference. This is what we  have come to this planet to do. And you may not want to hear it but I must repeat this sentiment – uttered by the President of the United States, no less, perhaps originating from Hopi elders, or author Alice Walker, I cannot say for sure: We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

We are the ones who have been working on ourselves, seminar after seminar, workshop after workshop, transmuting and releasing, preparing our bodies to accept high levels of spiritual energy so that others who are in pain can be healed. We are the ones who have communed with angels and the fairy devas and other out-of-body entities – despite the general public’s perception of us as wacky or engaging in “woo-woo” stuff – and now have instant sources of information and guidance to share with those who need it. And we are the ones who have the ability to heal on an energetic level – an ability medical science is only beginning to acknowledge, albeit reluctantly – and assist those who may not be medically ill, but transformationally challenged.

Now is the time to step forward. Regardless of what your family or neighbors or community may think. Regardless of whether or not you perceive yourself as having any ability to help out when the going is tough. Now is the time for healing centers, metaphysical groups, spiritual healing circles and individuals to band together to provide volunteer care for those who need it most.

Cathy and I at The Edge have begun discussing ways in which we can help link volunteer healers and life coaches and psychics and the wide array of people who make up the holistic community with those who can benefit from the talents already in place. I urge your group to do the same. Together, we can make a difference in people’s lives.