On Tuesday, August 31st, 2010, I did finally feel like this was the beginning of the beginning. A new day, a new way of being, a new life. I had the most fabulous day…quiet, no major celebration. It started as a usual Tuesday. A run at 5 am at the track with the boys. The banter was its usual full on. Running with the boys you can be sure if you piss them off in any way, they will tell you immediately. No silent treatment, covert manipulation…just blunt, politically incorrect ‘sock it to me, baby’ truth. I love that. I don’t find the same level of raw truth so common in groups of women. Tiptoeing through land mines of sensitivity feels more like what happens in groups of women.  Maybe I am more of a guy. Heavens knows I have spent most of my life with groups of men.  I have not, to date, been very good at political correctness and heightened sensitivity, although I am working on becoming more so. (The sensitivity part….I will continue to give the whole PC deal a wide berth…I mean please…our opposition leader Tony Abbot being crucified for saying ‘no means no’, because apparently it has something to do with an anti-rape campaign. Here I was assuming that anyone has the right to say ‘no means no’.)

After the run, many calls, emails, and then surprise deliveries later, Natalie and I managed to leave the house and drive to the beach and the cafe for breakfast. A healthy breakfast, I might add. Then from here a ‘girls day out’, just the two of us, mother and daughter, window shopping, something we have not done together for a long time. The temptation to purchase was almost non-existent, something I am loving about becoming UN-addicted to shopping as a result of severe belt tightening.

We lunched on a healthy vegan hamburger with a Corona chaser. One beer in the middle of the day and I was quite tidily. Natalie thought it was very funny. So much so she posted a comment on Facebook, and many other people had a laugh at my expense.

Home to another delivery, this time a big box of “Roses Only”, a dozen long stemmed pink and yellow roses, from my beautiful daughter. (She also gave me an ipad, very spoilt am I.) We had some birthday cake, my mother joined us, and spent some time going through my solar return chart (birthday to birthday)…happily I can report that as long as I do my inner work, it will be a good year, a VERY good year…..a girlfriend delivered some champagne and a voucher for a pedicure, and my mother, my daughter and I left to go to see Burn the Floor, a fabulous and explosive live dance show. Home early, drank some champagne, watched some trash TV (something I rarely do) with Natalie and that was my day. Perfect in every way.

Getting to this point has been a big deal. Not the last 50 years, but the last few months. Long time readers will know I have been on quite a journey…which has included…

*Rekindling a relationship with my feminine. Still a work in progress…

*Releasing anger….this has been a big deal, brought to the surface by a breakdown with a team member in the Kokoda Challenge. After doing extensive inner work with the wonderful support of Cynthia, Laurent and my mother, I came to recognise that I had been born angry. It was as if I did not want to be here, did not want this life, this body, my situation. This at a very deep level, because I love life. How this manifest was not in depression, although I have had brushes with depression, but with a deep vein of anger. A toxic waste site buried somewhere in a hidden corner of my psyche, only bubbling to the surface when things outside got uncomfortable, out of my control, or not the way I wanted it. Looking your own anger square in the eye is quite a humbling exercise. In releasing it I do truly feel like this is the birth of a new me, choosing consciously to be in this life, in this body, in all the good and bad, the beautiful and ugly, the love and the pain. As part of this exercise I also looked  myself in the eye, accepting all of it. ALL OF IT. Phew!!! Three days after a releasing exercise I had a dream. I had been praying for a dream, for guidance, for a few days. I rarely remember my dreams. With an old dog Muffin, I am often up several times a night to tend to her, so I was aware that I was not dreaming at all. Silence. BIG silence. Zero. No dreams. Then exactly three days later (symbolic perhaps of the crucifixion and resurrection?) I dreamt I was shot dead. I woke the moment I died. It felt very real. My daughter and my dog, the two beings I am responsible for the care of, were safe before I died. It did feel like a part of me, an old and icky part of me, had died. It was quite a shocking experience.

*Evaluating my friendships and relationships. I have great and amazing friends. Long term friends…years and years of knowing each other, and some much newer. There are a few critical keys that I cherish about my friends. When there is an upset, we stay in the conversation until resolution. Not compromise…but resolution. I care enough about my friends that if there is an upset, I will speak to them about it, and they with me. We stay clean and clear. And we will go into the dark and murky places if needs be. No one will leave the room, or if they do, only for a short time before they come back. We don’t hold back. There is a deep and open channel of connection. Nothing hidden. As one of my friends of 20 years who I hadn’t seen for some time (she had been living in the UK) said to me…”Christine ever since I have known you I have known that to hang out with you I cannot get away with my shit..ever”(bless you Bronnie)……I like being around people who are the same with me. We don’t get away with our shit together. We do not collude with each other to stay small and safe. We go to the edge…and we are willing to be pushed. There are no guarantee’s of glory or fame, however I do get to look in the mirror and like who I see. Zero bullshit tolerance. And we resonate together…we do not always agree, but we come from the same set of principles, steeped in integrity. AND, we are constantly growing, learning, practicing, applying, seeking the edges. True positive deviants, all. No playing safe.

*As a result of this evaluation, I have recognised that I need to reach out more…to build more relationships with people like this. I can be very introverted, I like the internet, phone and skype, and I don’t do well at networking functions…so my task now is to reach out to more professional and entrepreneurial women in my local community. Men as well,  for at some point it may be nice to have an intimate partnership, and I am not going to meet him if I stay home. (No I am not going to do the internet dating thing…been there, done that, and my intuition says that is not it for me.) Reaching out will also help me from a business point of view, although that is secondary to the prime motivation of meeting like minded people.

A recognition of when I am in flow, connected, and feel the Universe rolling in ecstasy at my feet. This was a big deal, as I was feeling so disconnected and in scarcity. Cynthia helped me with this.  I feel deeply connected when I write…there is a knowing..even though I have no idea what I am going to write before I sit down, and I never know where it is going to go…it is such a wonderful mystery to me… yet I just know that it will be there, and so many times what is there surprises the heck out of me. There is no shortage, or scarcity, or lack…In coaching, same deal. I completely trust, again without having a clue what will happen, where it will go, what will come up, what needs to be said. When I am facilitating groups, without a structure, or agenda. Again, I am in present time, tapped into something else, and there I go..or where I go to find the words I have no idea, but they are there, and the more I trust and let go, the more miracles happen. This is one reason why I cannot do keynotes so well, because I am not so good at preparing…I want to do the Bucky thing, and stand, present, look to the ceiling, look down, open my mouth, and speak. But I a deeply attached to it being about the audience, about what they want..rather than delivering what I think they may want. Therefore, I must engage with them somehow…if anyone has ideas on how to do this and have it be a keynote, let me know…as I have not made the translation yet.

More is unfolding…and I feel deeply excited and peaceful about the future. My wonderful partners in The Constellation, the amazing friends, the incredible relationship with my daughter, my super health and vitality, these are all assets that are priceless. There are books to write, courses to lead, lessons to learn, mountains to climb, marathons to run, people to meet and fall in love with….all of this…

Thank you to you, my readers, for your endurance, interest, and loyalty. I love hearing from you, connecting with you, knowing you. Please write me, leave a comment, and tell me what I am doing well, what you would like more or..less of…etc…or just say hello.

As my daughter says…mum, since you plan to live to 140 healthy, then you are not even half way there. When you are 70 we will have a party, and we will rock the world. I am a late bloomer, it is the beginning of the beginning…

Blessings,

Christine

Following the threads of the last few blogs, in the search to understand and bring to life my feminine, I intuitively picked up one of my reference books, “Goddesses in Everywoman” by Jean Shinoda Bolen. First published in 1984, this book speaks of the deep archetypal patterns found in women. I am wondering where the similar book is for men? (I am a big fan of Dr. Warren Farrell, and his work with men…see The Myth of Male Power…and believe that the women’s movement has created pathways for women to have choice, but men have been left behind. This may be part of the reason why male suicides are so high.) If you want to listen to a great interview with Dr. Farrell and Marc Gafni, free, download it here. http://integrallife.com/FutureofLoveTeleseriesContent

However, male or female, I do believe we all must learn more about the feminine aspect, and I have no doubt that until the feminine is integrated into our systems in a balanced way, then we will continue to create the dysfunctional models that are source for most of our global issues, such as the economy, the environment, and our energy systems.

As we are all fractals of the whole, each of us must work on the balance of our yin and yang energy, men and women both.

In the Goddess In Everywoman, I read about Artemis. Oh dear. I thought I had more of Athena’s qualities. Funny how sometimes you can look at something and just not see the truth because we don’t want to. (I was attached to Athena) Artemis….”as  virgin goddess archetype represents a sense of intactness, a one-in-herselfness, an attitude of “I-can-take-care-of-myself” that allows the woman to function on her own with self-confidence and an independent spirit. This archetype enables a woman to feel whole without a man.” Hmmm…and then there is her contempt for vulnerability….”denies her own vulnerability and NEED for another.” (my capitals). Plus has the ability to go into a destructive rage. “She is more likely angry at man or men in general for depreciating her or failing to treat with respect something she values.” And then there is her inaccessibility. She can disappear, emotionally and physically. Or can be so focused on her task (arrow like precision) that she makes people in her world feel insignificant and excluded. And she can be merciless. I know all of these aspects of myself.

Working with Cynthia I have identified that I have a deep seated abhorrence of being needy. When I say the words, “I am needy” it makes my skin crawl. And speaking to my mother on the weekend, I asked her if I was born angry. My first words were not the usual lovely mummy, or even daddy. Apparently my first words as I rampaged down the corridor after my elder brother, were bugger bugger bugger, and then I was spitting in a continuous and directional sense. My intuition tells me that I was born angry. Pissed off at God. I am guessing that I wasn’t happy about this particular incarnation. I wanted to be someone else, or do something else…maybe hang with the angels, or something. But here I was. Not happy. And have felt this way ever since. Pissed at God. Not always, but its there deep down and does manifest as rage, from time to time…mostly when I feel useless or impotent. And I have often felt depreciated by men…it is part of our corporate culture, like it or not. It feels like I have to prove myself triple times over compared to men.

Jean Bolen then talks about the myth of Atalanta as a metaphor for psychological growth. This story really got my attention. Atalanta was a heroine whose courage and capabilities as a hunter and runner were equal to any man’s. She decided that she was going to choose the man she would marry by asking them to compete with her in a footrace. Any man who could beat her would become her husband. If he lost, he would forfeit his life. (High stakes, not unlike the perils of rejection men still go through to get a mate.) Many races were held, and Atalanta won them all. Finally, the unathletic Hippomenes, who truly loved her, decided to enter. The night before he prayed to the goddess of love, Aphrodite (Venus). She heard him and gave him three golden apples, which he was to throw down one by one, during the race.

Apple 1. The awareness of time passing.

When Atalanta stopped to pick up this apple, she saw herself reflected, distorted by the curves of the apple. She saw herself as old. This got her to thinking about the time that was passing, and her youth that was slipping away. Where was her life disappearing to? And what did the future hold for her?

Ok..so this is close to the bone. With my 50th Birthday in a few weeks, I am knee deep in time/age/speed of life/were am I? Plus I look back at these last 10 years, and the article I wrote when I turned 40, about how life doesn’t work out how we expect, and some of the disappointments I have had…and the joys….and I am aware that I am still angry at God. And I feel trapped in this life. I want it to look different, to feel different. I want to feel ease, and joy, and flow, and connection. Instead I mostly feel struggle, and hard, and like Sisyphis, pushing that eternal rock up hill. Ashtara, astrologer mother, tells me that this feeling is ‘normal’ for a chiron return that occurs at the 50 year mark. Normal or not, it is a muddy place.

Apple 2. Awareness of the importance of love.

As she stopped to retrieve the second apple, memories of her previous love, Meleagar, arose in her. When this combination of time passing and the awareness of the importance of love are awakened, an Artemis woman begins to question her solitary state.

Now this really caught my breath. After having done the work with Cynthia to uncover my skin-crawling dislike of being needy, to even contemplate that I may need a man in my life is very hard to do. Yet somewhere, buried deep under layers of self protection, I sense the truth of this. To be loved and held fondly. Also to admit that I have jealously for the couples I know who have an incredible partnership. And for those couples who have created together a life that allows them the ease of mutual support. This I miss the most…the true partnership of support. Life has felt hard as a single mother, single woman.

Apple 3. Creativity…either as procreation, or as giving birth to some form of personal expression.

The final apple cause Atalanta to lose the race to Hippomenes. This apple caused Atalanta to connect with her urge to create.

As an already deeply creative person, I had to sit with this one. Barbara Marx Hubbard talks about supra sex as the creative urge that lives above and beyond sex. The urge to co-join with another, or others, to give birth to something greater than self. I am doing this with my team in The Constellation.

And yet, there is also a personal expression of mine that is longing to be birthed. And that is to write the novel that lies within me. To have time to disappear from the world, to go somewhere and write for 4 months…this is a dream…and maybe even a need. (Dare I say it?)

According to Jean Shinoda Bolen, if the knowledge of Aphrodite is brought through the love of another person, then an Artemis woman’s one sidedness, however satisfying it has been, may give way to the possibility of wholeness.

Here I am, opening myself to the possibility that I need to open myself to….an intimate relationship…bugger….it comes down to this?

And then there is my long term friend Pauline who talks to me about stillness..and sitting and doing nothing. Now this theme has been a big theme this week. If God were sending me messages, stillness is one of them. There was a conversation about doing vipassana, and sitting in stillness for 10 days…you have to be kidding?…I would go mad…being still for 10 days….then followed by a conversation with Susan Taylor from Generon, about a 7 day Vision quest in the forest, where, wait for it…you sit still for 7 days…and then Pauline, “stop doing, doing doing, and be still”…and then to really put a spanner in the works, I am driving home from a swim session, and the car in front of me has a number plate that reads.. STILL! Ok, ok, I hear you. Be still.

How does one be still? Back to Warren Farrell. He is talking about Yoda, my most favourite animated film character (other than the scrat from Ice Age…the creature who is forever chasing the hazelnut.) Yoda, the Jedi master is teaching Luke to be a Jedi. You bring the force into you first and then you do. The force guides your sword. With the force you can be blindfolded, devoid of normal senses. The force of course, is the feminine. The receptive, open, intuitive, flow state. This metaphor I can get. It is beautiful, and represents everything I would like to become. A Jedi knight.

Presently I am more like the scrat….chasing, chasing chasing with complete focus, blocking all other things out, including the force, after the eternal and forever out-of-reach… hazelnut.

And my favourite quote from Yoda…

No…try not…  do or do not…there is no try…

In my vulnerability I become invulnerable…

These words are from A Course in Miracles, and they have been a guiding light for how I show up in the world, and in this blog.

When I have nothing to hide…no dark places…no deep shame…no place I do not want you to see, or anyone else…when I am completely vulnerable, I am no longer able to be attacked… or ridiculed… or humiliated.

I also am deeply inspired to write these blogs because I have a deep sense that the more I share of my true vulnerability and humanness (messy and flawed), the more I allow you, the reader, to be your messy flawed human self without so much self judgement. It is my hope that you are brought closer to your own beautiful imperfection and grace through the words I write.

I spent some time in dialogue this morning with the extraordinary and beautiful Cynthia McEwen. Cynthia and I met 12 months ago in Brazil. I liked her immediately we met. Since that time we have spent hours every week or so on skype, and the more time I spend with her the more I love her, like her, respect her. This week I put my hand up for support from Cynthia. I needed her wisdom, her grace and her skills to help me with an age old issue of mine that simply must be transmuted if I want the next decade of my life to be wildly and deliciously different than the last.

Long time readers will know me as someone who sees the world as the glass mostly full..I am positive, upbeat, able to laugh at myself and most things. Yet deep inside I have lived with some core stories about myself…like…I am not enough. There is not enough. Life is hard. It is hard. There is another thread of being alone, but this one I am more at peace with, as aloneness is something I enjoy. I rarely feel lonely.

Since I became a mum, nearly 20 years ago, I have felt a burden. A huge burden…the metaphor is Sisyphuss, symbolised in mythology as a man pushing a heavy rock up an eternal mountain, always falling back down every time he nearly made it to the top. Zeus was determined to keep Sisyphus in eternal frustration as a punishment for his hubris. (Yes, I admit to some hubris…centred around a behaviour that I am better than…very similar to the Sisyphus story.)

I am daily blessed for the gift of my daughter. She cracked opened my heart, and our relationship is one of deep love, respect, understanding, friendship and beauty. And yet I have felt this burden, this responsibility to be the provider, the stalwart, the mother, father. The soloist in this journey. Simultaneously, I have desired to build a career, and in so doing seek success.

It has not been an easy path, and for most of it I have felt like it has always been a struggle to make ends meet. In this next decade and beyond of my life I want the experience of plenty, flow, abundance, enough. I want deeply to be connected to source. I question if I am doing something wrong? Mostly I question if I am doing something wrong as I have a recognition of my value offering. What am I doing wrong? Or what is wrong with me?

Cynthia asked me to remember times when I have felt in the flow, connected deeply to source, where there was no effort, enough, plenty, abundance.

We found three places….

….in my writing…when I get out of my head and into my heart in my writing and do not edit, think about getting it right, or make it too intellectual.

…when I teach or facilitate in the moment…what I call group coaching…it is a very dynamic, purely emergent space, where all rules and structures are thrown away and I have to wing it…literally on the wing of a prayer…in total surrender…

…when I coach…listening truly to the other until I as “I” do not exist….

These are the places that I am fully connected, and..for those of you who responded to my post about finding the feminine...these are also the places I am fully in my feminine…

Hmmm…I had never connected the dot that I was in ease, flow, abundance and grace in these places…(the blinding flash of the obvious, or…God’s kosmic joke)

My task for this week is to be present to these states of flow as me being connected to source. To really recognise them, and integrate and embody the experience of connection.

The journey over the next few weeks and months is to bring this state into my life more and more. Not to discard the masculine strategist, planner, goal setter, achiever self for it is useful and necessary, but I have been living the majority of my life with this aspect dominating…but to delegate Sisyphus to the back room, eventually to let him rest in peace.   Really rest….what a joy that will be.

Here is where I would like your help. Just as I have Sisyphus as the image I am leaving behind, what is the image or metaphor I am moving towards? Who is she..what is her name…anyone got an archetypal image of this lady I am becoming? I can’t see her yet? I can feel her…she has been there all along, waiting.

And…I would love to hear from you about where you are connected to source the most…in the flow..surrounded by abundance and ease….

In deep blessing to you,

Christine

Imagine that we can have three wishes granted, on the one condition that they cannot benefit you directly. They have to be wished on behalf of someone else.

What would you wish for?

I sat with this question for quite some time. The answer could have been lazy. I wish for my daughter to have a fabulous and successful career land on her lap. This would benefit me indirectly. Of course I want this for her. But would I spend one of the three wishes on this? What about her journey, the one about uncovering her own truth, growing in wisdom, learning from her mistakes? Would I take this journey away from her?  I am not sure.

This then surfaced my beliefs that each of us are here for a unique purpose, and that within that we have our own gestation rate. Our own journey, which in its way is exquisite, even when it feels like shit.

How about wishing for the war’s to stop globally? Would this be permanent? What is the impulse that causes people to fight and kill each other? Would this impulse go away? Or how about wishing for the impulse to be created in all people to move only from love? Would this do it? Where would the passion be…passion that is inspired by anger? Or would we all be flatlining in bliss, with no shades of light and dark? Again, where would the journey be? Would this mean we would all be flapping around in the garden of bliss, like hippies high on air?

Hmmm..this question is harder than I thought. Every place I turned I found that life just as it is, its horror and its beauty, had some perfection to it, a natural process of emergence. And that in choosing our wishes we need to be mindful of the field effect of our wishes.

Maybe I would wish for all mothers to find peace in their heart if they lose a child. (Including mothers in the animal kingdom.) Why not father’s too? Mothers and fathers.

In my evening prayers I pray for angles to come to ease the pain of children and animals who suffer at the hands of others. The voiceless ones, too young or incapable of choice. Children and animals who have been abused, violated, are sick, hungry, cold, alone…this would be my wish.

I wish for wisdom and reverence in the world. That we leave aside our immature, self serving, entitlement ways, and embrace the truth that we are all one.

What would you wish for? Please share…

The Summer Day – Mary Oliver – 1992

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean—

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Writing anything after this seems almost arrogant. How could I possibly speak another word to break the trance of the beauty of this poem.

In my quest to remember the deep feminine part of myself, the ability to  be ‘idle in the fields’ for a whole day sounds so decadent, so alien to the work-a-holic self I have spent years cultivating. I am not sure I could allow myself this luxury. Yet we (in the world of the G20) have become so disconnected for the earth, from nature, from beauty. Always in a hurry, always so much to be done.  We have forgotten how to cultivate a garden, live off the earth, feel the sand/soil/grass beneath bare feet. To do nothing, and in the doing of nothing, be everything.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Back in 1986 I attended a personal development workshop called Money and You. The facilitator was Robert Kiyosaki. (Author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad series). The driving impulse to attend was a desire to make more money. I suspect I also wanted to understand the money system, as curiosity has been one of my main values. The experience was life changing, but not for the reasons I anticipated. For the next eight years I was involved with Excellerated Learning, the company behind Money and You. I attended all of their events, and volunteered as a logistics person for many more. It was a very large part of my life. I made some of my best friends through this experience, people I still connect with today. I was introduced to the work of Buckminster Fuller, who has become my number one mentor, a role he still holds 25 years later.

Each year I attended the Global Leaders Program, which was an annual event held in the first week in January on the big island of Hawaii. One of these seven day events was dedicated to studying Bucky, using the video recording made of him delivering 21 hours of his life’s work just before he died.

Most times I love Bucky and his dignity, courage and breadth of work. Sometimes his principles, principles I hold dear to my own life, drive me nuts. They challenge the heck out of me.

We ‘emerge through emergency’…honestly Bucky, sometimes I would like to emerge through luxury and abundance. I am over the seat of the pants stuff.

Or..

“We either make money or we make sense, because the two are mutually exclusive.” Boy have I sat with that one for years…still trying to figure it out…

And the cornerstone to my life…on integrity…to do what is spontaneously arousable from within you for the highest good for the highest number of people….

Interestingly, while I did learn how to ‘make money’ I chose not to. The methods of doing this never rocked my world. To make money for the sake of making money never made sense to me. Where was my passion in that, my life force energy? The score was not enough. While there was a part of me that yearned for the stuff..houses, clothes, travel, fine dining…the yearning was not as strong as the yearning to uncover/discover the way I was designed to express myself in the world and in doing so, add my unique value.

In October 2006 I was in the USA. In the space of one week two significant events occurred. I was introduced to Bernard Lietaer by my friend and colleague, Christopher Cooke. During this conversation Bernard, a world renowned economist and a Jungian Analyst, explained his concurrent currency, the terra. My jaw hit the floor when it became apparent that by introducing this currency people would shift their thinking and actions from short term to long term in a blink of an eye…and all based on greed. In other words, they would increase their ‘wealth’ by thinking long term. Why did my jaw hit the floor…in my world of work, I work with human behaviour change. I have trouble getting people to change the way they brush their teeth, yet alone make large scale changes such as switching to long term thinking! I left this conversation with my head spinning.

About a week later I was running in St Louis, listening to audio on my ipod. I listen to hours of audio, interviews, lectures etc. This day I heard from a guy by the name of David Martin, now a member of our team in The Constellation. David is a very powerful speaker and story teller. He described, not as a prediction, but as a series of events that were falling due, the entire global economic crisis. (Remember this was late 2006).

From these two events I left the USA realising my understanding of the global economic system was very poor. I was determined to become educated. For the past four years I have read books on the economy and articles on global events and the economy, with a great commitment to learning. I also went back to Bucky’s work on the global economy, work I had previously dismissed as being too much like conspiracy theories. Re-reading Bucky’s ‘Grunch Of Giants,’ and the other material, I came to the recognition that I was still very far from understanding the global economic system.

Here is how I describe it….If the global economic system was a language, like Mandarin, I am probably able to count to ten fluently. (My understanding of the system is enough for me to count to ten, even after all of these years of diligent study.) Most people in the world probably can count to one, two or three. The leader of Australia would be lucky to be able to count to ten, Obama may be able to count, but he cannot speak the whole language. Indeed, I gestimate that about 1% of the population speaks the language of the global economic system fluently. (As in they really understand it completely.) Of this 1%, the majority of these people have an invested interest in keeping the rest of the world in the dark.

The very scary aspect of this is that people are making decisions about the future of humanity  without understanding the very system that it is based upon. Also, many people are out there working at solutions without even beginning to understand the current reality. From a medical point of view, this would be like prescribing a medication, or surgery, without knowing the diagnosis.

Over the last year an idea has started to incubate. I have become aware that for the last 25 years one of the consistent threads in my life has been around understanding the global economic/value system. Further, I now know three people who do understand the system, while simultaneously also having the wisdom and integrity to want to bring light to this system for the good of all humanity, and not just a select few. Two of these people I have so far engaged in my idea.

In the last few months, my idea has begun to germinate. I sat down with a clean sheet of paper and asked myself what is the ONE thing that I would choose to do that animates me more than any other thing AND would meet the conditions Bucky set…to do the highest good for the highest number of people. There is no question that my ‘idea’ is that one thing.

Here is my seed idea. ( I identify it as a seed idea because great ideas are supposed to grow and emerge, and in the process change form. I am not attached to the form of the idea, but to the intention behind it.)

The Intention

First, to bring light to the current reality of the global economic system, and secondly, in so doing with exquisite care and wisdom, to support the crafting and co-creation of new models that honour the value and contribution of people, the environment, the future, communities, enterprise, and all the subsequent field effects, and for generations hence.

How?

Initially to bring a small group of people together for five days, including the three people I know who understand this system, plus a few other people such as a cell biologist, and a master game designer. This conversation will address the following questions.

What do we create, to be delivered to whom, how, and at what effect?

And then to create the first prototype.

Intrinsic in the design must be the awareness of the field effect of this offering. For example, if everyone in the USA/Australia understood the current economic system tomorrow, what would happen?

I believe we would have a revolution, blood on the streets, violence, mayhem, massive stock losses, etc. We would also have serious depression, denial, and a bunch of people focused entirely on capitalising on the situation through greed and blind opportunistic tendencies.

The question what we do create and delivered to whom is one requiring wisdom and deep consideration. How we manage the roll out and ongoing effects is also critical.

What I see, which is subject to evolve, is the creation of a three day experiential game. Specifically, what I mean by experiential, is that at the completion of the game, participants would leave with an embodied, not just an intellectual, understanding of the system.

I see a large space with a map of the world on the floor, and different forms of trading etc going on. People to people, country to country. However, I am very clear that I can only count to 10, so I am not the intelligence behind the game. I am clear that I am the engine room. I have the commitment, energy and passion to drive this project and hold the space for it to emerge.

I also see that we invite about 20 students from around the world to apply to participate in the first game, with the other invited participants. These students would participate at no charge, with the understanding they would return to other games as volunteer logistics support. By repeating the game, even as a logistics person, their learning would deepen.

I see that the initial participants would be thoughtfully selected and invited. Who are the people in the world who are critical acupuncture points for this kind of embodied knowledge? They must also have wisdom and deep respect for the integrity of this knowledge.

A Round Two game would be created for past participants to reconvene to now play for solutions. These solutions may be small in origin but large in effect, they may be concurrent to the current system, like Bernard’s Terra, or they may involve whole system change. We cannot know what will emerge until the wisdom is invited into the game.

Genius can arise from an environment where we start with Universe- when we know exactly what we are dealing with.

Why do I see this as the biggest game of all?

The world has some unquestionably serious issues to address. Climate change, peak oil, energy, population growth, food security, health, water, poverty, for example.

The connector in all of these is our value system. The global economic system. If we do not really understand this system, its shadow and light, then any change is not a real change…we are simply moving deck chairs around on the Titanic.

Why is it that masters of making money from money, without adding any true value to the world, get paid obscene fee’s, while the person teaching our children get paid next to nothing? Why are our measures so narrow? When will be start to include the all in cost of our actions. The cost to the environment, to communities, to the future? Plus the love economy…all the unpaid work that has not been considered ‘of value’. Is it acceptable that our superannuation funds grow because the companies making profit are exploiting both environment and communities in remote regions of the world, so we can have a happy retirement?

I have a sense that all of my years of work, exploration, heart ache, searching, kissing frogs…has lead to this point. This is what I am here to do.

What happens next?

Specifically I need a philanthropist or benefactor (or several) who is as inspired by this vision as I am and wants to see it get off the ground. I need funding to create the initial gathering, plus funding to keep my bills paid while I do this. I have never sort this kind of support before. Long term readers will know that my belief system has been built on supporting myself in entirety. The last few blogs have indicated the journey I am on. Invoking the feminine, allowing, working with co-creation, inviting support in the form of finances from others without having to ‘earn a living’. (Still based on bringing value, because I could no more not work as not breath.)

As my dear friend Pauline said, imagine how much I could do if I did not need to worry about earning a living, and could get on with creating these kinds of global artifacts that will add value to all. This is where my energy is. Circling back to Bucky, his principle was based on committing to do what was spontaneously arousable from within you for the highest good for all. I have recognised that I have not been doing this in full integrity. I have been working on earning a living. And even while I have loved my work, it has been animated from the need to earn a living as a prime motivator. This default need has kept me playing small. It has been, in its own strange way, my own security blanket. As I enter my fiftieth year it is time for me to play the biggest game I can find, to use all of my hard earned skills and talents, to bring my energy, passion and ‘can do’ attitude to this project and the other extraordinary projects The Constellation are working on.

I do actually see that the Game will be profitable. However, I am clear that I am the engine, and when we gather to bring this to life, we have to allow what needs to emerge to emerge. Therefore, the initial seed funding needs to be based on the possibility of zero financial return. Major social and world future return would have to be enough for the philanthropic investment.

In the mean time, I am continuing to animate this. I am working with my team from The Constellation, plus consulting with the people who have the knowledge to make this work. We are discussing who to invite to the first meeting to get this built. Who needs to be there?

Where there is clear intention, high commitment, super energy and intrinsic animation, water part.

Let me know your thoughts on any of this…and if you know of anyone, or can help, let me know.

Without question my journey has been one to ‘get’ that I am not alone. That the mysterious forces of the Universe are always present, able to offer me guidance, answer any question, sooth an aching soul. Sometimes those mysterious forces come wearing the face of a person. Sometimes it comes through a book, or a movie, or a word from a stranger on TV. Even the guy who cuts me off in the lane as I drive my car has the potential to be my ‘angel’ for today, if I were to stop long enough and see the connection. I do believe that in every moment we are presented with angels to direct and guide us. Some speak in the softest of whispers, others are more direct.

This last week my direct angel arrived in the form of a person. A friend of 17 years, recently returned from a 7 month pilgrimage around the world.

I was describing to Pauline what was going on in my life. I see that on the right hand side of my life I have all of these exciting and amazing projects. For example, following my trip to Brazil last year, a group of us formed The Constellation. The Constellation is committed to evolving the art, science and craft of leadership and enterprise. One of the projects we are working on is the Indigenous Prosperity project here in Australia. This is a large scale issue involving multiple stakeholders, lots of painful history, and various other competing factors. Then we have some other work that is forming, including working on greening the global textile industry. My own pet project is around bringing ‘light’ and an embodied understanding to the global economy. Specifically, to create an experiential workshop that takes place over a few days, with the result that participants leave with an embodied understanding of the global money system. After a quarter of a century of my life given to seek to understand this system myself, I have scarce scratched the surface. However, I now know people who do understand it. These people are rare indeed. Even more rare are the people who understand it and want to bring light to it. My sense if that there is a high investment by those elite few who do understand the global economy and want to keep it, and all of us, in the dark. My intention is to bring a small group of people together for five days, including the people I know who understand the current system from the light side, plus a few other people to bring diversity and perspective, like a cell biologist, etc; and have these people sit in the questions..what do we create, and for whom, and how do we deliver this so that we get a positive field effect? Then to create an experiential game that allows embodied learning and understanding, and a second game that allows the creation of something new. And then of course to deliver this to a select group of people to get the ball rolling.

Here I was, speaking of this right hand side of my life…this future pregnant with possibility and invoking everything I have always wanted to do. My energy was high. I am working with incredible people around the world creating world changing artifacts. It is the work I have dreamed of participating in all of my life, right from the first word out of my mouth.

Then I shifted, but not for long, to the left hand side of my work. The solo work of Christine. Christine and her clients. The experience I am having in this domain is one of being ‘ejected.’ My solo business is not falling away, I am being pushed out. It is remarkable to watch. Yet between that door on the left closing, and the door on the right opening, there is a space. And the space still needs to cover the payment of bills. Funny about that. It can be scary, and after years of living on the edge, very exhausting.

I have recognised at that same time that the very action I take that makes me a good long distance runner, is the action I have been avoiding in my working life. In my running I no longer listen to the resistance. If it is dark and cold, and the bed is warm, I still get up. Like clockwork. Why? Because I know the gain on the other side. Indeed, in the early days I created a little process to get me out of bed. I used to imagine I did get out of bed and go running, while I was still in bed, and at the end of the run, ask myself how I felt. If I felt great for the run, out of bed I would get. The short term pain of getting out of bed was smaller than the long term pleasure of running. I also asked myself how I would feel for the rest of the day if I did not get out of bed. Most of the time the answer to that question was that I would feel awful. Sludgy. Lazy.

In my work the resistance has been around two things predominantly…making calls to people to build business, and writing my book.

Back to Pauline. I had just started to explain to her that I needed to push through my resistance and make calls to people to seek work as the solo Christine.

She stopped me in my tracks. It was completely obvious to her that I was highly energised talking about the right hand side…the collaborative work. My words even got her excited. And, having known me for so long, she knew I was always up to a big game.

She said something of the likes of….you don’t need to make calls to get clients. You need to make calls to find a philanthropist to support your day to day expenses so you can go and do the work around the global economy game, and all of the other ventures. “Just imagine Christine, how much work you could get done if you had time to focus on this 100%?” And more…”Do I value myself enough to consider that this work is important and that someone would be only to happy to support me because they too see the value?”

Needless to say, she did stop me in my tracks. A sledge hammer would be an elegant description.

A little more context. As long time readers will know, my whole life has been quite a solo act. I have supported myself, provided for my daughter, and done it quite well. However, the measure I have had for myself is no less than…hmm..someone like Richard Branson! So from that perspective, I have been terrible. It has taken me years to reconcile that I am not a natural business person. My skill, which I do acknowledge I have, is elsewhere. Sadly we live in a society where a person’s worth is often measured by how successful they are at amassing money. The solo journey has been my journey. Indeed, the inner narrative I have had for myself is that “I need to make it on my own in order to be worthy (in my eyes).”

So I never took the hand of the man/ men who offered me a place in their castle, surrounded by glittering jewels. I didn’t want to be someone’s princess. I wasn’t looking for the knight. “If there was a mercedes in my drive way, it was because I put it there!” was the metaphor I used.

So on I have struggled….only to continually learn, in ever finer distinctions, that no one ever does anything on their own. Ever…

Of course the other side to this little story of my life is the struggle to find the balance of the feminine and the masculine. My energy has been so strongly masculine that it is no surprise that I push away any possibility of an intimate male/female partnership…a long term relationship with a man.

Today my natural choice is to work with people. I want to partner with. I love the feel of true synergy. I like the fun of it, and the challenge. And just the sheer wonder of what is possible.

Pauline suggests I ask for support..for someone, probably a man, to take care of my living costs while I go create.

She asks me if I would consider supporting myself if I was the person on the other side listening to me, and I had money. Yes, no question…in fact for the last few months I have declared as part of my future that the investments I would like to make with any spare cash I have, is not in the usual bricks and mortar, or shares, but in people just like me who are committed to adding value to the whole world.

Her suggestion of course presses all of my buttons…all of them…right down to the very cells under my toenails. This is a different type of support than the usual male/female support. This is allowing me to get on with what I know I am to do, and be supported to do it. Ouch…in my heart and soul I know she is speaking to some truth that goes clunk, the resonance is without question. Yet my mind spins, as I never, ever considered this. I don’t even begin to know what to do…and how…to ask..gasp…to be taken care of…gasp…while I get on with my work…!!

First thought is to actually allow myself to accept and receive that I am of worth to have this happen. That this would truly be a relationship based on value, for both parties. No unresolved male/female issues…power issues…

Next…well…my plans are to write up a bit more about what I am proposing…but in truth, I think I just need to start speaking to people about what I am spontaneously aroused to do..which is to create the experiential game around the global economy…and ask…simply ask, for support. (Now that is hard)

Finally, as I was about to post this, another angel called me. We discussed what I have written. Lindley then talked about me accessing the divine feminine, which goes back to my last blog post. As part of my daily practice, to sit and connect with the feminine within me. To invite her to speak through me, live through me. As you know, this is all very foreign territory to me…and…it really feels so very very right. I have denied the feminine in me for so very long.

Deep breath…and as Lindley reminded me, in the words of T.S. Elliot, costing no less than everything….I take a step…

Any thoughts…suggestions?

Last week I wrote about my rekindled relationship with the domains of the faerie. My mother, the wonderful spiritual astrologer, Ashtara, is usually the person I call when the Universe seems to be heckling my spirit.

Friday last week I woke feeling very trapped. For the last 16 years I have allowed myself to fall down the very icky rabbit hole of debt. In the last 4 years I have been cleaning up my relationship to money. I only pay cash, I only spend what I have, I pay my bills when they come in, and I spend very little on anything but the essentials. I keep a record of income, money owed to me, and my debt payments. I keep a relationship with my debtors. As I am self employed, my monthly income is not fixed. When there is little money, I don’t get paid. While I have been reforming my money habits on the exterior, I have also been working to learn the greater money system, which is a very complex subject.

Of late my income has dipped precipitously. Intuitively I feel like I am being pushed (shoved) into my next iteration. However I am in the corridor between the door that is closing and the one that hasn’t yet fully opened. It is at time, quite scary. I wobble between huge bursts of activity, the feeling of being trapped, and a sense that I must STOP. Stop? Stop? How can I stop. I have to work to emerge through emergency. I must do, and do and do some more.

When I called my favourite astrologer last week, I said to her …I feel trapped. I can’t move, I can’t breath.

We talked.  She said it was time for me to do the work on the balancing of my masculine and feminine. I have strong masculine energy. Doing, and action, and driving is my default pattern.

I need to find the feminine. Trouble is, I am not sure how to. A friend said bubble baths. Ughh!!! Or a pedicure. Another ughh!. Aware that taking the time for one of these events is not the long term answer, I am really at a loss. How do I cultivate the feminine as a full time way of being, instead of just a short term exercise?

After years of being on my own, building a career, managing parenting, I am completely out of touch with the feminine side. My idea of luxury is reading a Vogue magazine for 20 minutes in the evening over dinner while watching world news. Or a Sunday on the couch after a long run lost in a good book. Mind you, I do this rarely.

I need help. I need your advise? How do I bring the feminine into my life? Let me know your thoughts.

Love change, love change..I have been self employed for 25 years because I am unemployable, and I am unemployable because I love change. (and being the creative entrepreneur in control) I am not so good at changing my address, but everything else…

For the last 14 years my income source has been via my coaching – one-on-one and groups. This has been the most remarkable gift to me. To do work that makes your heart sing. I feel very blessed for everything coaching has brought me. Friends around the world I love, an amazing learning journey, a skill and craft that has taken me from being a very rough diamond to having a heart. Amazing clients. Incredible adventures. Each year of my coaching journey has been an evolving one, so the change has continued.

But the Universe is asking me to play a different game now. Transcending and including coaching. It is very exciting. I am not afraid of what I am moving towards, that is very energising. I do have some fears about the space between. How the transition will be resourced.

My life always comes down to the point of trust and surrender. For many years I have asked God/spirit to be my business partner. I have recently realised I have been a lousy partner, for my trust in my partner has been so low. The deal now is that whenever the fear grips me and I contract I have to breath and return to trust. Or as the Course in Miracles says, “There is no order of difficulty to miracles” Anything and everything is possible.

Interestingly, in my daily practice, I usually draw a Zen taro card. Something to contemplate for the day. Sometime last week it was clear to me that I needed to use a different card deck. Now I  can be way too practical and un-fussy for my own good. I have been inspired by my friend Lindley, who is an ex-corporate banker, current CEO of a very successful Australasian firm and who is a lover of the Celtic mythic entities. Faeries and such. Synchronistically, reading Caroline Myss’s blog a few weeks ago she asked her readers to consider where did enchantment live in their lives? Caroline, a big fan of Alice in Wonderland, has a house full of Alice characters. Me, my enchantment is in a box under lock and key, buried in the basement. It seems it is time for me to bring it out, and to eject some of my rigidity around fussiness and the magical and mystical.  So out came the faery card deck. And I love it. (Well that may be obvious to you, but not to me!)

Of course, I adored reading the Bitterbynde Trilogy, three novels by Australian author Cecelia Dart Thornton. All about the celtic mythological realm. And I am not alone in my love of Tolkien, and Harry Potter and the Twilight series. This is how I allow my expression of enchantment to live, secretly devoured under covers and between the pages of wonderful books. Snuck in somewhere between the intellectual, political and economics books!  Interesting isn’t it that the biggest best sellers of all time involve the mythic world?

To reinforce further any form of mistake in the scheme of things, one of my archetypal characters is the mischievous imp. A small sprightly faerie like character. This character rarely comes out, but my good friends know her well.  And…would you know it, my team for the Kokoda Challenge 2010, well, we are called the Victory Sports (our sponsors) Sprights! OK, you are now rolling around on the floor laughing!

Finally, the novel that is wanting to be written by me features angels! Not even I knew that until I put pen to paper. I have only written two pages, but I know the story lives and needs to be born.

So we have unleashed the enchantment box, and this blog is going in a very different direction to the one I thought it was going to. I suspect that these sprightly characters needed unleashing. And I need to give them due respect.

Circling back. I am in transition, in the space in between, and it seems obvious that I am supported by all sorts of mischief.

What am I up to…

Well, last year was birthed The Constellation. From this little seed that came together so remarkably well we are now working on some very incredible projects. Global projects that look at evolving whole systems. The people we are dancing with have amazing leverage and influence. It is like a giant tapestry is being woven, and the threads are all coming together in the most breathtaking way. I really can feel it.

On top of this, we are birthing from within The Constellation a new way of being in business together. One of my pet projects has been to unfold a new model of business. The one we have is 410 years old, created by Queen Elisabeth 1 to build the East India company, and is all about limited liability. Well, we are about 100% responsibility.

Crafting this new model of business in its own right is very exciting to me.

Within in this, my own little project is about creating an experiential game around the money system. This is a massive piece of work, with implications beyond this blog. If you want more details, let me know.

Plus…(There is more? Well it is a major transition, and I do like to play)….we are working on my rebranding. Its a subtle shift, but very aligned with who I am.

All my life and in most of my writing the continued theme is integrity. We are positioning me to be the authority on integrity. The Chief Integrity Steward. I will work with influential people, entrepreneurs, celebrities, rising stars, elite athletes, executive teams and boards, on their integrity. Building it, restoring it, maintaining it. My role will be mentor, advisor, confidant, and coach. It is actually what I have been doing for a while, but under the coaching banner.  Open any newspaper and there is no question that there is a need.

We are working on the business model around this…in the mean time, let me know your thoughts, suggestions, ideas.

So there you have it…major change, major transition, and all the while, off with the faeries…I love it…isn’t life delicious?

As a student of history (and I mean a home grown student, not a graduate of any school of history), it occurs to me that there have been many times in the history of Universe, and specifically in the history of human kind in Universe, when we have been faced with unprecedented crises that portended the end of life as we know it.

Currently we have the impending event of 2012.  Whatever this date holds, it correlates with  the other major issues such as the  converging crises of the economy, the environment and peak oil.

Yet I wonder what it felt like in 1941/42/43/44 for millions of people around the world? Did this not seem like the end of the world? Son’s and daughters dying in strange places, the threat of take over of nations by Germans or Japanese, (not to mention how life was experienced by the Japanese and Germans) rationing, bombing, fear 24/7. I cannot imagine it, but I could imagine that it was very scary.

Then the cold war, and the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Children trained at schools to ‘duck for cover!’

We can wind back the clock to many points in history and find apocalyptic events. How would life have been when the black plague was killing millions? Or when the inquisition was in full assault? Some estimate up to 6 million women and girls were killed over a period of history for being witches! (using intuition, herbs to heal, regular women’s stuff.. etc)

I am not saying we are in unprecedented times. Each crisis is unique. However, it seems to me that in each critical period there is an egoic response that owns the crisis as being the very biggest, most serious of all of histories crises.

If we truly believe we live in an evolving, emergent Universe, then expecting and experiencing change is the norm. The difference with our current era is that for the first time we are becoming conscious of our consciousness.

This is a good thing, a healthy next step. It offers more hope than ever before, not more fear.

If I were God, and if the role of Universe was to determine if humans could evolve to a level where there was 100 percent success for all in eternally regenerative Universe, then I would probably create a confluence of such events that demanded that we transcend our “I”, our individual survival oriented small egoic self, and discover that the only way we can actually rise above the potential impending disasters, is to collaborate.

Therefore I look upon this era as an exciting time. Pandora’s box has been open for a long time now. The contagion and pestilence has been running riot for thousands of years. And the whisper of hope is calling from the depths, stronger than ever before because it now brings with it consciousness.

Enough talk about the crisis in this and that. This is fear talking. And the perpetuation of fear. We do not need any more fear, unless it serves to motivate you.

Yes we have work to do. Its good work. It learning from our mistakes and building new models that render the old obsolete. Let’s focus on the opportunity and creativity that this time brings. It asks the best from us. We all have something to contribute that is of value at this time, whether it is raising healthy, resilient children, or finding a cure for malaria.

Instead of getting sucked into the noise of fear and impending doom, let us roll up our sleeves and get to work on creating the kind of systems, structures, tools, businesses, communities, families and relationships that support the whole.

And when we are done, and have grown lazy and complacent again, as sure as the sun rises, there will be another crisis. Hallelujah. Its called evolution!