Just before our Creator said, Let there be light, there was chaos, the abyss. It's a terrifying and deeply moving place - this edge; the end of one thing, the next thing not yet begun. It's also a place of enormous power - pregnant with the possible.And what do we do when we find ourselves here, at this powerful edge?We go unconscious. We muck about. We comfort ourselves with the familiar - foods, addictions, habits and rationalizations: Maybe it's better to stick with what we know, we debate - internally and publicly) than to risk things not working out. What's the expression? Better an enemy that I know...This new year, the energy of change is especially strongThis year, we are surfing a wave that is sweeping the world and is, simultaneously, sweeping through our own lives. This wave, this new way of seeing, understanding, perceiving and making meaning has the potential to remake the world.How? Through our own choices. As we see the changes that are happening all around us, we sense the connections between them - and from them to our own lives - and seeing this, something new is born inside of us: Awareness.This awareness is another edge, another new beginning. When it comes, it brings its own kind of terror. Suddenly, we must admit that the choices we make in our own 'little' lives affect everything around us. This small awareness grows inside of us, transforming the choices we make - as we make different choices, our lives change.We can get stuck at thresholds.Sensing their power to transform, I feel afraid. This year is especially powerful for me. I have an ebook coming out in a couple of weeks; and my first product hovering in the 'almost born' place, will be birthed at any moment.Just as we are naturally afraid of edges, high places, and falling off cliffs - this almost there, not yet there, place is unsettling. I don't know what may come.This time in history is about getting us ready for that leap.Everything in our world is conditioning us for big change. From the quaking foundations of our financial and governmental institutions to the shifting currents in our own lives, we are being trained to use new skills - ingenuity, creativity, a new resourcefulness is emerging in our culture and our individual lives.Here are two handy skills you can cultivate to help you make the leap...

• Think symbolically:
• In your own life. Consider: Do the symptoms in your body represent (symbolically) other problems? Does that lower backache, perhaps, echo a feeling that you are carrying more than your share at work? Does that stomach ache, perhaps, indicate a gut feeling that it's time for a change? Could your skin condition echo something in a relationship or in the world, perhaps, that's gotten under your skin?
• In the world. Consider: What is the symbolic meaning of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers and other  'too big to fail' institutions? Could this be seen as a symbol emergence? The crumbling of one way of doing business as a new one - more collective, more shared, more interconnected - is born?

• Inquiry.
• Consider: How often do you give away authority over your life? What's your version of these examples: "How can I find a job in this economy?" "That person has it in for me." "Without a college degree, I'll never amount to anything."
• Consider: How do you resist change? Do you cling to the comfort of a boring job, an abusive relationship, an addiction to junk food, drugs or self destructive behavior? Even though you know these things are robbing your energy; your health, your very life?

Who cares? You may be asking right about now. I thought you were gonna tell me how to harness the power of a new year.I am.Here it is: Jump Paradigms. Be willing to consider that the world is not what you think it is. Shift from your current version of "the world is flat" to a new version of "the world may be round")

• Wake up. You are living a story that is bigger than you can possibly imagine. Expand your awareness to include this. Actively seek evidence of the unfolding cosmic story of which you are a part.
• Acknowledge your interdependenceAdmit (at least to yourself) that your survival is braided up with to the well-being and survival of everyone and everything else.
• Take Ownership, Authority, ResponsibilityWe are stewards, shepherds and farmers of the earth. Allow yourself to open to a higher, deeper meaning to the commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother," elevating them to the cosmic Father and the living "Mother" (the Earth) that sustains and supports our very existence.
• Make empowered choices that transcend your earthly parents - and by 'parents' I mean, the tribe, government, country, corporation in which you participate. Identify with a larger community - the community of the whole world, the whole universe - and consider letting that supersede the authority of those earthly institutions over your choices. There are higher values in play - life itself; the balance of the natural world, the water, the air, the survival of the plants and the animals (including human beings.)
• Accept a different kind of 'evolution'Seek evidence that you are an integral, precious part of an ongoing unfolding and expansion of all things; seek awareness of your unique position in that story. Through your "awareness of awareness" you are (as far as we know) a member of the only earthly species that is conscious of itself and curious about its place in the cosmos.
• Just as the Universe became aware of itself  one Cosmic Day - 'and there was light" -  so we, THIS COSMIC DAY, are emerging from the darkness of unknowing into awareness of our own part in the story of creation.
• Cultivate Awe, Humility, Gratitude - There's good reason to be awestruck by all of this; be amazed, be humbled, be drenched with gratitude.

Here's the key to harnessing the enormous power and potential of this and/or any new beginning: Awareness -

• Of who you really are and where you really stand
• Of the fact that you do not stand there alone
• That you are surrounded by - and are a part of -  a living sea of energy and miracles.
• That you have a part to play in a story that is bigger and wider than you can ever hope to conceive...
• ... and being okay with that, and doing your part.

 We are standing at the edge of something beautiful being born, a new beginning so vast, so wide, so magnificent that all we can do is what our Creator did on the day when s/he, having created light, opened her eyes...and there was light.happy new year