There’s so much confusion and confrontation happening in the US and the world today that people are asking me, “What’s going on? What can we learn from history?”

Well, the first thing is, this has happened before. This pattern of blustering, angry men raging at the rest of the world because the economic and political power they want isn’t easy to get any more is part of the pattern called “the breakdown of an empire.” The Western Europeans and Americans no longer control the world, economically or politically, and those who’ve benefited from that control are hurting. The US economy is tied to its overseas interests but the US no longer controls those so what was easy a decade or so ago is harder and harder to achieve today. And those men who were accustomed to, or planning on, taking advantage of how things were are angry and upset because their plans no longer work. We can see this in the history of Rome during the 300s, when Constantine vacated Rome and created the Christian church to hold things together for him. We can see this in Cleopatra’s Egypt, when she turned over her once-great country to Caesar rather than have it continue to dissolve into an economic and political backwater.

The second thing to be aware of is, whenever a culture shifts from one form to another, there’s a period in which some people flourish and many people suffer – and then the sufferers react against those who are doing well as if they’d somehow caused the problem. We’ve shifted from a culture based on production in heavy industry and 40-hour/week jobs with good benefits to one based on consumption in small, flexible, creative organizations with flexible work schedules and minimum benefits – over only a couple decades. In a mature culture there are ways to address this process – but ours is not at all mature, so we’re seeing pre-adolescent temper tantrums everywhere we look.

The third is, actually, something new. We are living in a time period where, for the first time in history, there are more adults than children, more educated than uneducated, and instant access to information for even the most isolated people around the world. This is leading to a new kind of world culture – one in which the outer world serves the inner life, rather than the other way around; one in which ignorance is no longer the norm, and in which human creativity can soar. This worldwide shift is leading to a new kind of global culture, based on sharing information, creative problem-solving, and maximizing potential.

So, not only is the empire breaking down – with all the issues that go with that; not only is a great shift in culture happening – with all the fabulous opportunities and great suffering that go with that; but a whole new level of human functioning is emerging across the planet, with all the angst that goes with anticipating anything unknown and unfamiliar.

So, what do we do?

Now is a great opportunity to organize our lives in a way that what goes on around us has the least possible impact. Now is a fabulous time to reflect, meditate, contemplate, and study whatever ideas and processes we find deeply satisfying to our hearts, minds, and souls, so that we no longer look outside us for that satisfaction. Now is the perfect time to imagine, visualize, and begin to choose in the direction of a life that is filled with joy and love and satisfaction for all beings on this planet – because that’s what all this chaotic transformation process is leading up to!

Letting go of what no longer serves us to make room for a wonderful new life is the most powerful thing any of us can do today – and one thing that no longer serves us is accepting what the commercial, drama-driven media is trying to convince us is real. Let it go. Trust your own ability to find out what you need to know, and what will move you toward the life you’ve longed for all your years on this planet. For every ugly story they focus on there's hundreds of beautiful unfoldings in peoples' lives and hearts and homes. For every time the media twists a number to convince people things are not okay, there's more evidence that things are improving and fabulous possibilities are opening up for us. For every second of paid advertising time trying to convince us there's more stuff we need to have to be okay, there's hours of loving wisdom being made available to the listening mind. Choose that. Open up to it; allow it; feel the New Heaven and New Earth merge together in your life and world.

That’s what’s happening. Isn't it awesome?