Years ago, a friend stayed with us. A deeply spiritual man, he’d lived in devotional communities almost his whole life, and we had many lively discussions about what it meant to live a spiritual life.
 
At the time I was very busy trying to meditate and write and record, and I was also really busy trying to doeveryday family things like drive kids to dance rehearsal and music and oversee homework and pack lunches and make dinner and do the laundry and all the other bazillion things every person on the Householder path does all day long.
 
Our friend noticed all this, and suggested: "You know, you should become a guru, he said. "That way you’d have lots of people to help you."

"If you started an ashram," he continued, "you’d have people to do the yard work. You’d have people to cook. You’d have people to help you every moment of the day."
 
I looked at him, not sure if he was joking or not. Then I started laughing, because if there’s one thing I know, I'm not anybody's guru!
 
I’m not anti-guru: If it works for you to follow a teacher, to live in community, then go do that.
 
But for me to hold this role? For one thing, I’m not suited to the task.
 
For another, I believe we’re all gurus.

I believe, we each have the ability to create our own direct connection with the Divine, no middle man required.

If your spiritual practice has been lax, reaffirm it now. Connect to Light. Be led by nothing else. Direct connection: you in communion with the Universe, no middle man reuqired, is your master key. 

Every year, I write a forecast for the new year.

2017 is especially interesting, as we are not only entering a new year, but a new nine-year cycle.
 
As you remember, 2016 was a "nine" year, The Year of Completion. Hopefully, you spent 2016 tying up loose ends, letting go of what didn't work, cleaning up your act… all the ways we complete what is finished.
 
Take a moment now, and recall what you were doing from 2007 to 2016. Anything that is still left over from that time is now finished. Let it go. 
 
In 2017, we Begin Again. 2017 is numerologically  a "one" year, which brings us all of the qualities of the number "one" (the demanding "me" of the child, the need for individuation) that we are seeing in current politics.
 
2017 is the start of the next nine-year cycle. But we do not start from scratch. Instead, we do another pass through of what we've been working on: same lessons, at a more advanced level.
 
For example: when you transition from elementary school to high school, you don't just stop doing math and english. You keep studying math and english, but at a more advanced level. 

Thus, in this new nine-year cycle, the Universe is going to test us on each lesson and see if we've mastered it. For example, in the last nine years:
 
• Was your money stable or instable? 
• Were you working, not working? 
• Were you living in the same place, moving or relocating? 
• Were you in a relationship, starting one or ending one? 
• Were you in school, graduating? What were you studying?
• Did you travel? Where? What happened? 
• Was your health good, or did you have challenges? 
• Were there changes in yoru family? New additions or empty nest? 
• What were you afraid of our anxious about? 
• What were you angry or bitter about? 
• What else? 
 
Expect to a repeat of what we’ve aready been working on, both individually and collectively. The goal is learn fast and "test out" of a lesson!

Please note: There is no punishment or failure. This is what we're here for as souls: to learn and grow! 
 
As for world predictions? The writing is on the wall. There arehard lessons ahead with the new administration. In times like these:
 
• Listen to your meditation, instead of to the media. 
• Now more than ever, commit to your spiritual practice.
• Let go of fear. It might seem like the sky is falling. But things find balance quickly.
• Don’t underestimate the power of the Universe to correct man's mistakes. Corrective forces are already in motion. The Universe is still here.  Universal laws still apply.
• The lesson for 2017 is We are One. What affects one, affects all. The lesson for the nine-year cycle is: United we stand, divided we fall. Not just for America, but the whole world. 
• The small group that is trying to take us backwards? They don’t know it is only possible to go forward. What has been opened and expanded cannot be closed or shut.
 
Put your intention to peace, harmony and the happiness of all beings.
Work on your stuff. 
Live from your soul... and begin again. 

It is always interesting to look back at what you've learned in a time period. 

The year... it's 365 rotations of sunrise to sunset. 

And we are most defintely not the people we were, when we started on this journey back at the beginning of 2016. 

So.. how have you changed? HOw have you grown? How are you different? 

Here are some questions to ponder, especially effective if you work with a journal and/or meditation, to help you review and understand: 

1. What is the one thing you spend the most time doing? The second most? 

2. What worked best this year? Name everything you can think of

3. What made you happiest and gave you the most joy? 

4. What did not work at all? Do you know why or not? 

5. What life goals did you accomplish? Was it a "buidling" year or a "resting" year? 

6. What was left undone, or what do you still need to work on? 

7. What soul lessons did you learn? Name as many as you can think of. 

We move into the new year with hope, trepidation, uncertainty. 

It's going to be a year of more big change. It's okay. The Uinverse is in charge. We are eternal souls on an infinite journey. No need to worry. 

Soon it will be New Year’s, and our year will be tucked away in the memory box, a past that is complete.  
 
Consider at this end of the year, how you will inhabit next year. You get to choose, with your intention and your awareness, how you will inhabit this lifetime.
 
You get to choose how you will inhabit this new year.
 
As you celebrate and mark the passing of this year, tucked away into the past, never to be revisited or returned to, do so with heart brimming:
 
• For all that went well.
• For all that simply was.
• For all you learned.
• For who you have become.
 
The day after tomorrow is next year.
The sun will rise. 
And the Light will return again, to illuminate us all. 

There will come a magical moment this winter, when you will see something, or you will experience something, and your heart will quietly unfold.
 
Everything will become sacred, holy, still.
 
And in this moment, in which you are not doing anything in particular, not having any big experience, something will shift and you will understand yourself as soul in body, Divine being having human experience.
 
It might show up as part of your religious tradition.
It might be a secular moment.
It might happen with family.
It might happen in community.
You might be by yourself.
 
This is a moment between the moments: a time when you observe yourself being your true soul Self.
 
It doesn't matter how this moment between moments finds you.
It just matters that when it does, you stop, allow it, and let it open you.