For 5,000 years, human societies have been oriented around the belief systems of scarcity and unworthiness. Opposing that is a new rise in consciousness and a demand for positive change, which is as yet undirected. Our use of scarce and polluting fossil fuels, and our hierarchical political and economic systems reflect exactly what we believe about ourselves.

In the August 2008 issue of Discover Magazine, for example, an article called "What Fills the Emptiness?" stated that

"If some clever engineer were ever to extract energy from the vacuum ("free energy") it could set off a chain reaction that would spread at the speed of light and destroy the universe."

Oh really? Well, I guess, then, that we are forever doomed to use scarce fossil fuels for energy. It's a perfect example of a limiting belief that constrains action into narrow, status-quo channels. It reminds me of the belief that women should not be educated, because increased knowledge would interfere with childbirth. These limiting memes have been a part of the human race for millennia; but we can no longer afford them if we are to advance as a species.

It is said that a country always gets the government its citizens deserve. That's because you can't grow something in soil that will not support it. It's time that human beings realized the power and importance of our choices, and our thoughts, in determining how our societies and organizations are structured.

As David Bohm, the brilliant physicist said,

"there is a universal flux that cannot be defined explicitly, but which can be known only implicitly, as indicated by the explicitly definable forms and shapes, some stable and some unstable, that can be abstracted from the universal flux. In this flow, [which Bohm calls the holomovement] mind and matter are not separate substances. Rather, they are different aspects of one whole and unbroken movement."

This thought has been expressed in many different forms throughout history, and by every culture, and it essentially says that mind, matter, and consciousness are not separate, but united, and that each affects the other.

What is the result of a demand for abundance within a consciousness of scarcity? Precisely what we see manifested in the current financial crisis, which has resulted from an explosion of financial instruments that do not correspond with the goods and services they (supposedly) represent. When you really believe that you are unworthy, but demand prosperity, what happens? You run up big credit card bills! That is what has happened to the human race during the past 20 years: the there has been a tremendous demand for abundance without a corresponding shift in belief systems. The evil bankers and politicians, however, who supposedly caused the world financial crisis - without any help, of course, from honest and blameless citizens -- did not operate in a vacuum!

They felt the increased demand and acted upon it, precisely according to the parameters of acceptance in our collective belief systems. As my grandma used to say, "it takes two to tango!"

It is fitting that the old order has fastened itself firmly within the nation that also best represented the new order of freedom and prosperity for all: The United States. Today, the United States is the primary playing field in which the chaotic interaction between the old memes and the new consciousness is playing out, although it is unfolding in every country in the world. Other nations criticize the United States, with very good reason, but every person on earth is contributing their bit. The worldwide financial crisis has been created by each and every one of us, because we are all in this together. The actors on the financial and political stage are ALWAYS constrained by what the people will accept.

In the United States, Barack Obama is the representative of the new who is surrounded by those who wish to keep the old order in place. There is still a tremendous excitement that resonates around the world at the election of this man. He is a transitional figure who represents the hope of everyone in the world for positive change.

Monetarily, the United States has funded it's prosperity through the borrowing and the printing of money, and now it finds itself bankrupt, completely dependent upon the good wishes of the rest of the world. The worldwide explosion in derivatives contracts, the vast majority of which are denominated in dollars, has reached a nominal value of almost $700 trillion, but has an estimated market value of around $17 trillion. All of the world's major banks have balance sheets bloated with these derivatives products, and the question is, what to do with them? If these derivatives are valued properly, the banks collapse. Barclay's bank, for example, claims assets of almost 2 trillion pounds, while the Gross National Product of the entire nation of Great Britain is only 1.4 trillion pounds!

Because the United States was the leading country financially, and its currency the world standard, its practices represented the desire of all of humanity for greater prosperity. This is fitting, because the old and the new are uniting. On planet earth, in our culture of scarcity, the representation of prosperity is money. That is why the battle between the old and the new has focused in the arena of money and finance. It could have evolved in no other way.

Humanity right now is reaching for a new level of consciousness, which is just over the horizon. The human race is on the cusp of a new understanding. The only question is, will this new understanding come about smoothly, or will it involve a collapse of the current financial system?

We will decide. The actors on the stage are constrained in their actions by the decisions of the rest of humanity. Again, the people who we see as crooks, or as evil, are not! They are merely filling a vacuum of leadership and power that the rest of us are asking them to fill. And they are doing so precisely according to our vibrational direction, just as a movie actor will follow the instructions of the movie director. Would you blame the water for following the path of least resistance, as it moves down the hill and into the plain? Of course not!

We all know the growing pains of the adolescent, as he or she struggles with their growing body. This is precisely what is happening with the human race right now. We are growing, sometimes painfully, out of our old shell and metamorphosing into a bright, brand new creature. What will that new being look like? We will decide.

I believe that there is great, great, vast potential for a huge quantum leap in awareness. When that leap in awareness occurs, the face of our planet will literally change in a very short period of time, as the movement forward that has been blocked by our own self-limiting beliefs, dissolves. It is like a blind, deaf, and dumb person regaining the use of all of her senses. The horizons simply expand beyond what we thought was possible. That which is not known or even imagined at the old level now becomes possible!