I’ve admittedly led a sheltered, privileged life, so I’m aware that my perspective is skewed, but it’s still true that never in my 47 years of life have I felt so strongly the impact of the level of collective fear on this planet. Fear seems to be making headline news every day right now. Terrorist attacks are becoming a daily occurrence on every continent. Climate change that can lead to mass ecocide is escalating right when we’re swearing in powerful politicians who don’t believe in climate change. The Dakota pipeline is threatening not just the sacred, life-giving water, but the very essence of the seeds of planetary healing that the indigenous people of all nations have been holding through the horrors of colonialism for many centuries. The U.S. election has polarized our people against each other, not just in the U.S., but all the way in Bali, where I just spent two months. At this pivotal time in the evolution (and questionable survival) of our species, we are more divided than ever, right when we need to unify, to acknowledge the Oneness that links us, not just as humans, but the Oneness that links us to the mountains, the oceans, the rivers, the trees, the endangered and extinct animals, the Oneness that acknowledges that everything is sacred and conscious, that we cannot perceive mountains as dead rocks or rivers as unconscious water, that everything is spirit and everything is connected and everything is God/Goddess, so we cannot harm the water or judge our neighbor or even demonize the terrorists without inflicting harm upon ourselves. Just as an aspen tree appears to be separate but is connected at its roots to a community of aspen trees, we are inextricably linked to All That Is. We have forgotten (bless our innocent hearts). We have attached to the story of the separate self, and this forgetting has allowed us to commit atrocities against nature and one another. But we are remembering. Let us forgive ourselves for the forgetting and gently and humbly come back to the remembering.