In all true beginnings, there is no knowledge of what will follow. And in the beginning, we have no real understanding of what it means to walk the spiritual path, for our lives have yet to be tested against the stark reality of the enormous changes and challenges that life will present to us.

Yet we discover along the way that there is a constant dialogue between the physical and non-physical worlds and this can be both frightening and illuminating, even thrilling. This is because the direct experience of interdimensional communication presents us with possible levels of guidance that are advanced both in scope as well as intention.

Once we step onto the spiritual path, we come to realize, sooner or later, that we are meant to work with a dimension of life that is far greater than just that which can be seen or appreciated in physical form. We come to understand that humankind is a collective body that’s responsible not only for the quality of life on Papahanaumoku (Earth) but equally responsible to the universe for the quality of our thoughts and actions affecting the Life Force (Te Mauri Ora). And it is through this collective planetary interaction that we all discover how important and precious each of us is to the greater spectrum of life.

The knowledge of our indissoluble connectedness to all life is the true beginning. While our lives have been filled with many opportunities and challenges before meeting each other, our real learning began with our first encounter with the passage of Time, through which we came to deeply appreciate the nature and power of choice as well as the inevitability of change. The Law of Evolution reveals that nothing ever remains the way it was—that everything changes. We change, our work changes, our friends change, and every aspect of our lives changes, and all the time.

This is why, like it or not, evolution is not a theory; it is a law.

With the time shift from 2012 into 2013, life in all its beautiful and challenging aspects is changing into a new pattern, a new cycle. Our life lessons will continue at the personal level, with or without guidance from the expanded realms, often touching us deeply where we are most vulnerable. We continue to be exposed to the multidimensional worlds of other peoples’ fears, desires, needs, and conscious and unconscious attitudes. Our responses to their belief systems and emotional states can bring us moments of inner turmoil as well as opportunities to both change and heal.

In response to such life lessons, we discover that there is no substitute for such direct experiences. We also find out that we are rarely asked to handle more than that from which we can immediately learn. Our lessons and the lessons of others seem to be offered to us in direct relation to the issues we need to see most clearly. In response, we are progressively led into the inner realms of our lives that are spiritual in nature. These inner recesses are calm, peaceful, and filled with a soothing energy in contrast to the constant crises, demands, and agitations of daily life.

These inner dimensions, though very private and very tender, can also be amazingly persistent in drawing our attention back to our own true selves and to the special qualities that are ours and ours alone. These inner worlds offer the solace and the healing energy necessary for us to grow into our personal empowerment so that we understand who we really are as well as where we are in our long walkabout across eternity.

In response, we are drawn into connection with our inner sources of wisdom and power, those transpersonal forces that encourage us to continually re-evaluate our lives and urge us through our inner stirrings to move in strange and unfamiliar directions. And these directives, in turn, give us the opportunity to grow, to increase, to become more than we are. This seems to be what the whole game of embodied life is all about: a co-creative relationship between our higher spiritual self and our embodied self, between Heaven and Earth.

As we move beyond those seemingly safe places and faith-based belief systems that can and do sustain us in the short term, we enter unknown territories where we may encounter other worlds and other ways that include universal wisdom and understanding as well as the energy of love that will carry us through our most vigorous and painful of journeys across Time and into the Sea of Light.

Often the best way to measure how far we have come or how much we have learned is to look back at where we began. We must look back to our beginnings to assess the significance and magnitude of our development and our progress. So it is with each of our educational and spiritual journeys.

This is what 2012 is really all about. With the shift into the next cycle of ages, there is now a general agreement among the mystics that the beginning of a great healing has become possible for humanity, individually and collectively. And this is so for our planet as well. In this time, there is once again hope for a different outcome—hope for a future filled with direction, intention, and harmony, hope for a rebirth of love, hope for personal health and feelings of inward satisfaction. Consciously or subconsciously, we are all participating in this rebirthing of hope.

In this way and in this time, our collective spiritual essence has the potential to weave together a new foundation for the human experience, transcending any and all limitations, inspiring us and encouraging us to rediscover our deepest levels of inspiration for living. This is the inner message of 2012, but we must choose it, for our lessons are always and forever about choice.

We are all involved in the conscious teaching that comes from our mother planet, the Earth. This means that in receiving this teaching, we interact with the Whole. The Whole from the Hawaiian elder Makua’s perspective is what he knew as Papahanaumoku (literally Papa, the goddess, hanau, who gives birth to the islands moku). And this planetary Whole that we call Earth is conscious and sentient.

The Earth, in turn, is taught by the collective energetic streaming of the Life Force, just as we are. The Earth has a physical presence (planetary body), a means of processing information (planetary mind), and a commitment to a divine path (planetary soul). It has a purpose and a process of transition as well as issues of delusion versus truth, just as we do.

Change, as we all know, is the texture of the universe that is in no way punitive or disciplinary, but rather growth producing and creative. The state of change is permanent and continually directs our attention toward that on which we can depend—toward that which is true versus that which is transient. Nature is the collective mosaic powered by the Life Force that is always true. Through connection with Nature, all forms of life come to appreciate their primary relationship to the greater universe.

In this manner we human beings also come to value our experience of the physical plane of existence and our ability to see it for what it is—transient and ever changing. When we consciously form our thoughts into intentions devoted to goodness and our intentions into appropriate actions, this allows us to live life to our fullest capacity, existing for our own greatest good as well as for the greatest good of the Whole. And it is then that we may turn toward the spirit teachers, toward those Higher Organizing Intelligences who live in the expanded realms of consciousness in order to help us grow into our full and complete magnificence.

It is in this way that we can experience the joy of being in service to each other and to the World Soul; it is in this way that we may become navigators of light.

This is the path upon which we chose to walk when we came into this life—the same path upon which we may choose to continue into the next cycle of ages and out toward the distant, dusty horizons of the unknown.

And it is there, just there, that we often find ourselves in very good company indeed.

Happy trails…