Posts Tagged ‘change’

I have had the delight recently of being reminded of my connection to the All That Is through the visitations of several of the two and four legged family.  (Wow, when was the last time I said I was DELIGHTED about something?  It has been a long time!)  These visitations are nothing short of miraculous to me, and a wonderful 3-D reminder that I am part of the fabric of All Creation, and that that fabric supports me….all that falls to me is to pay attention.

I have been a devotee of symbolism ever since I learned in my AP English classes in high school that there was a name for “something having deeper meaning than what was apparent”.  I have been having conversation with the energy of …everything… ever since I can remember, and could feel that there was wisdom to be gained from listening and acknowledging universal intelligence in its many faces.  But it’s called symbolism?  Wow, what a lark that this was a recognized phenomenon!  I have subsequently studied symbolism for years, delighting (there’s that word again!) in Jungian psychology, mythology, Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ works, and the medicine of animals, plants and all of nature.  I now see everything as a symbol, as a message from the All That Is, as a connection to a deeper meaning that can be interpreted particular to me and my situation.

It was with delight (okay I have said it 3 times) that I recently stumbled upon Avia Venefica, a woman after my own heart.  Fiercely devoted to symbolism and an accomplished writer, she publishes 3 lovely blogs that are practical and grounded yet deeply honoring of the spiritual and symbolic connections of All Creation.  Her presence in the world gives me joy and strength; a sister from across the pond, my world has grown and become more “right” because of her clear-eyed wisdom (dare I say she’s delightful?)  I have found some helpful answers lately in her work; I highly recommend her symbolism blog.

More to follow about the animals that have come to offer their messages to me in the last weeks.

Well, more changes to report in the never-ending stream of it our family has seen in the past year!

Since the ankle break forcibly sat me down, I have become a person who is more still and who is becoming more quiet.  I learned LOTS of amazing things during the whole ankle incident (and am still learning, although it seems the insights are slowing down a bit to a steady, manageable flow rather than a torrent).  But what is interesting to me right now is the change that has happened in my family as a result of me not taking energetic center stage.

Each of my fellow Berrys-in-the-patch is stepping up in a new way into their own power.  They all got to see how much I do and how much I manage (read: control) in our lives, even subconsciously.  This shifting of power has been a positive change for all of us.  The burden for me of carrying such a load has been too much, and I have paid the price in some ways in my own creative life.  Peter has stepped up in new ways as a man and caretaker of his family, and that is a miracle and a delight to witness and be part of.  And my two boys are stepping into their own power and knowing, as well.

Part of the miracle of this change is that my family of peacemakers (read: people who don’t always speak up about what they want in the name of not making waves) is now being more real about their feelings.  Honesty has always been a core value for me, but sometimes I don’t say what I feel for fear of creating conflict, getting hurt, or fearing I won’t be believed anyway.  I also bought in to that crazy “spiritual” myth that if I am an evolved person, I should not feel angry, sad, frustrated, miffed or otherwise less than blissful, and that if I did, that meant there was something wrong with ME, not that a boundary had been crossed that was my job to defend…that’s another story for later. 

My family is like this, too, but fortunately are relearning this pattern.  In the name of this occurring, my Beloved husband shared a deep truth that he had been withholding for fear of the very things I’ve mentioned above.  It all happened one Friday when he got home from a brutal work week (he is working extra hard in his business to make our income and having a rough go in this economy); he was just exhausted and beaten.  We had been trying to figure out how we were going to manifest a move to California with the financial difficulties we are having, as well as California going through a really crazy time right now.  I offered to massage his neck and shoulders, where he holds tension.  As I worked on him, he softened under my touch, and then, out f the blue, he said in a small voice, “If it were just me, I would live on the gulf coast.” 

Something opened up in the energy field between us…and I felt a sensation of being “breathed” (channeling sometimes feels this way), and heard come out of MY mouth, “If you deal with your issues about X, I will follow you to TALLAHASSEE.”  As soon as I said it, my eyes got big, and Peter turned around, and his eyes were big, too.  We looked at each other and felt our energy expanding from the inside and getting bigger.  It felt GOOD. 

We sat with this, talking amongst the two of us for weeks, not wanting to say anything to the kids (or anyone else) due to the number of times we have changed course with this whole moving thing.  We finally felt sure enough that we were on to something because of how genuinely good we felt, and we told the kids,  To our great surprise, they were ecstatic, and shared that they had wanted to go to Florida to live, but thought we would never go there again.  Ah.  The truth finally outs.   

So, we went for two weeks, staying at no cost in a friend’s house.  We fell in love with Tally; it has all the things we are looking for in a place to live, is even better for us as a family than the lovely central coast of California, is half the cost to live…the list goes on.  We plan to move in August in time to get the kids in school.

No, we haven’t sold either of our properties in Colorado yet (see here to check them out  http://www.berrytrip.us/Sanctuary.htm and http://www.670grande.com/)

No, it is not logical, especially at this time of old systems break-down, to move across the country and take on more expense.  But it is a mental health issue at this point.  As much as we have loved the land and some of the people where we have lived the last three years, we MUST move on.  There is no other option. 

So, I ask for your prayers and cheers and encouragement….at the hardest and most uncertain of times, we are choosing to do what is right for our family regardless of what it looks like to others (this is getting to be a familiar pattern!)  We are running into the arms of a new life, new community, new soul family, and a new opportunity for goodness in our lives. 

Starburst 1 by Peter Berry www.peterberry.us

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.  –Charles Dubois

With all that is going on in the world these days, it seems the one constant is change.  Of course, change has been happening since the beginning of…well, All That Is.  But it seems to be more intense now, with change happening on top of change happening on top of change.  People are afraid, sad, angry, anxious.  As a family that feels energy patterns and cycles deeply, we can feel the waves of movement that are occurring, even when it appears that nothing is going on….it is movement under the surface, in the depths of the collective psyche.

Change is in inherent in Nature…and we are part of nature.  All we need do is remember playing outdoors as children and feeling that first hint of fall in the air after a long, leisurely summer.  Was it a certain smell, or the way the light seemed to be sharper?  Was it the first leaf turning a slightly duller shade of green into yellow on the favorite tree?  Or was it a sense of inner knowing that the age old dance of cycles was at its work again?  We knew that something was changing, even before we had all of the science knowledge or the words in our heads…we could just feel it.

Change is the way nature works…and since everything is part of Nature (I challenge you to show me one thing that is outside of Nature, just as I would challenge you to show me one thing that is outside of God), everything changes.  We watch the seasons and come to expect those changes, even to look forward to them.  We watch as animals and land forms and weather patterns and plant life evolves over time on our planet, and expect that, too.  In the human realm, our minds change, our bodies change, our beliefs and emotions change, our circumstances change.   But these we don’t allow so gracefully as when we observe the changing of the leaves.  We somehow expect that we humans should be exempt from change, unless of course we consciously choose it.

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.  –Anais Nin

Since we are part of something much larger than ourselves (and thank goodness for that, I say), we are also part and parcel of the larger energy cycles that move through our universe, keeping the balance of order and chaos that invokes creation.  Since we are not separate from the molecules that make up the matter, and the intelligent energy that holds everything together, we are also not separate from the waves and tides that lap at the shores of all existence.  And since the universe is infinite and constantly expanding, the changing will never stop.  This means we are ALIVE.

Many of us are struggling with the changes that the last months have brought us; as a fellow human, I understand and empathize.  Our family has certainly been through its share of changes, too, and many of them quite challenging to deal with.   Perhaps I am fooling myself, but I believe that things change in order to bring a better order.  In other words, that what begs to be released from our lives is something that we no longer need, even perhaps is unsupportive for our soul-filled life.  Keeping this perspective helps me have a better attitude about changes; I feel that I am surfing the wave instead of being clobbered by it, being subsumed by it, a victim of it. 

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.  ~Author unknown, commonly misattributed to Charles Darwin

One of my favorite native teachings is of the Cheyenne way.  It’s said that if you have a cup of water, but the water is no good to drink, pour it out on the ground.  Seems pretty straight-forward, doesn’t it?  But many of us keep carrying that cup of dirty water around with us, whether it be a relationship that is hurting us, a job that is toxic, emotions that are unexpressed, beliefs that are limiting our life to a small fraction of what it could be.  The Cheyenne way is to unapologetically pour the bad water out on the ground.  There is no guilt in releasing what is not nourishing you anymore.  It’s bad water.  Just pour it out.

In the end, change is what runs through us like threads run through a tapestry….there is no escape from it.  I do believe change is the one constant.  And since there is no reprieve, we must choose how we will relate to change.  Will we resist and suffer, railing against the tidal wave, trying to hold it back?  Or will we let the cleansing storm take all the loose and unneeded cargo, and bravely lash ourselves to the helm and steer the best we can through the rushing waters, being our most alert and discerning selves, keeping our eye to the horizon line when we lose our faith?

In the end we can only keep moving forward, honoring all experience, blessing what we must let go of in our lives, and keep living. 

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.  –Alan Cohen

 “He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”   Friedrich Nietzsche  

Like most babies, I learned how to walk the first time by the age of 11 months.  I crawled successfully at 8 months (seems a little late, but I’ve always been on my own timing), pulled up to standing at 8 ½ months, then the world was my oyster before one year old.

I say that I learned to walk the first time by 11 months because I am learning to walk a second time at the age of 44 years.  Yep, you read right; after 44 years on this earth, this girl is learning how to walk again.

Due to a violent and (pretty gross) compound fracture and severe dislocation of my right ankle in February, I experienced surgery, metal plates and screws, and 8 weeks of weightlessness; for me, a new meaning to the word “stillness”, and the sudden and complete absence of forward motion in my life.

Well, not entirely; the movement that I have been experiencing since my injury has been on the inside, and lots of it.  What I’m noticing is that the movement on the outer world can sometimes be a distraction from the movement in the inner world.  I discovered that I sometimes used physical movement to help me run from feelings that I didn’t want to feel.  Feeling powerless or afraid?  Go for a run or a bike ride.  Feeling angry?  Go clean something.  Feeling anything uncomfortable?  Go MOVE, do anything, but don’t sit still or else it might catch up with me.

I’m exaggerating a bit here; for the last 10 years, I have been working consciously on myself to wake up, and much of that has been about getting more still and paying attention to my feelings.  In my house, I am the one who is most vocal about her feelings, and the one who is most actively reflecting on what I am feeling.  But I live with three guys (one husband and two sons) and a cat.  Well, okay….maybe the cat wins the most vocal about how she feels award…

But all the work I’ve done had taken me only so far; then my ankle met with a series of metal stairs on a rainy day in California, and my knowing of being still so I could feel my feelings got a whole lot deeper.  That’s how it works in process, doesn’t it?  We go so far with something, then find stasis and equilibrium, then a new expansion experience is introduced and we get to grow again (oh goody!)

I am happy to say that I chose to go for it with this experience; I know that when things happen, there is the opportunity to relate to it as a victim or as a choice maker.  I wanted to harvest all of the AHAs and lessons and insights that I could from this experience.  I sure never want it to happen again!  And I haven’t been disappointed; the amazing healing and awarenesses have been profound and bountiful during my weeks of convalescence.  I can look back on it with just a little perspective now, and it feels like a precious gift to be allowed to be so vulnerable. 

I was given the okay to bear weight on April 27, “letting pain be my guide”.  I took off my “Darth Boot” (my affectionate name for my big, black, kick-ass removable cast) and started learning to walk with the aid of my crutches.  Within a couple of days, I noticed that I started to forget where I left them; that’s a good sign!  By the end of that week, I was hobbling around without any help from my rickety metal friends.

But the hobbling is a little troublesome; I look like Frankenstein, arms flailing out in my attempt to keep balance.  All that’s missing is the metal bolts in my neck and the mantra, “FIRE BAD!”  The scars are not pretty, my ankle gets swollen quickly when I am up on it, and it does hurt a bit when I come down on it.  But it’s a good pain, or so I think.  It is the pain of learning to use something in a new way.

Amongst my reflections and ruminations during this time of forced stillness, I have wondered if I was walking in a way that was not good for me.  Maybe not the physical way I walked, but from a symbolic standpoint, where was I leading myself?  How was I getting there?  Was I being forceful or was I being discerning?  Was I afraid of moving forward, or was I walking in balance and ease? 

And now that I have the opportunity to walk again, I also have the opportunity to learn to walk in a different way, perhaps a way that serves me and the world community better.  How do I want to walk in this world?  Confidently, in balance, knowing that I am supported…at ease in my own power, looking forward to my future, knowing I am part of this world and that I have something to offer…with grace, strength, discernment, wisdom, and love. 

I can’t help but reflect on what it must have been like to learn to walk the first time; I can’t remember, although I wish I could.  What would it feel like to feel the inner impulse to move, to get up on one’s feet and take a first step forward?  What kind of innate trust is there in all children as they fly through their developmental stages?  What kind of crazy motor drives the impulse to get off your knees and start walking?!  How amazing is it that we go from being born helpless to moving around at light speed in under a year’s time?  I seriously doubt that we could handle that kind of rapid growth as adults…if I picture me trying to assimilate so many changes in one year as a new baby does, I think I would explode!

I say this because I am a grown woman, in her mid forties, and I have learned to be afraid.  Life has taught me about people and things and events that hurt, and that I must be protective and watchful and wary, lest something bad happen to me.  Even when I am all of those things, sometimes bad things still happen.  That innate trust we are born with can slowly erode over time, to the point that it seems quite unbelievable we ever possessed this gift.

However, I am hopeful.  When I put my injured foot to the floor, I am in essence saying, “I trust that this leg will hold me up”.  When I choose to engage my body with the earth by walking, I am saying I WANT to trust again.  I WANT to be part of the earth walk again, I WANT to move and run and dance and play.   

As I learn to put my foot down and do the careful dance of rolling my heel and pushing off with my toes, I wonder what kind of a little girl I was when I took that first step.  Was it a joyful and exciting adventure?  Was it a feeling of complete trust and knowing that I was supported?  Can I harness that level of trust again as I learn to walk this time?  I pray that I can.   

About two weeks ago, the sun shone through after several days of rain.  The soft sea air buoyed us as we left the RV for a bike ride, the first in several days.  The boys and I had been stir crazy with the weather, and the RV gets tight in the best of times.  Our bike ride took us to the Pismo State Park, right on the coast; as we rode the monarch butterflies, which winter over here due to the mild climate, flitted across our paths, their wings infused with the light of the sun. 

I will remember this joyous bike ride with my boys for a long time, as it will be my last for several months. 

We returned to the RV to get more school work done, and as the boys worked, Peter said he was going on a ride.  I asked if I could go, too….more rather than less exercise is a good rule for me.  He welcomed me; I threw my shoes on and, a smile on my face, stepped out the door, placing my left foot on the top outer step of the RV.

Apparently, I put my heel down on the edge of what turned out to be a sandy step…before I knew what happened, I was flying.  I felt pain, but more shock of having fallen down the stairs, as I am not one who hurts myself much.  When I got to the bottom, I felt that something was wrong; besides the heart pounding from the surprise, I looked down and saw that my right foot was turned the wrong way, and the end of my tibia, the strong inner leg bone that we see as our shin, poking unnaturally through the left side of my ankle. 

I will spare you the details of my strange calm as I gave orders to my family members, the transfer to the hospital ER, the relocation of the ankle and the immediate surgery, all of which I am in the process of writing in great detail as therapeutic work.  More of note is the inner process that has been accelerated due to the whirlwind destruction of my bodily innocence and the surrender required to allow other people to help you when you are accustomed to surviving on your own. 

I have always been a very strong and healthy person, having very few accidental injuries in my life, relegated to the occasional burn or cut. Even in my rash of car accidents in my barely-present early twenties, I walked away without even a bruise.  Never having broken a bone or been to the hospital except for birthing Jess and a small cut that required stitches when I was 11, this accident ‘broke’ my vision of myself as invulnerable.  The healing at physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels that is unfolding inside me through this event is profound.  To me, that’s the juicy stuff; to me, this is where the magic is.

My rigidity in my life has held me up when there was no one else to do it; my parents were actively abusive alcoholics, and there was no safe place for me to be vulnerable.  I had to get tough to make it through my childhood, and I took that toughness with me into my growing life, perceiving through my filters of experience that the world was not a safe place.  Of course, as a result of that filter being in place, I helped create more of that belief, which reinforced my toughness.  Over time, my heart has closed except to those who have proven that I can trust them.  My tests, although unconscious, are rigorous and thorough…my tests weed out those who might make a passing grade from the die-hards.  Only those who truly and passionately love me unconditionally make it through my inner gauntlet.  I am civil to the others, but they will never know the real me, as I don’t trust them to treat me with respect and safety.

And I put myself on the line in these tests; I share myself and make myself vulnerable, then watch what they do with what I have given to them.  Some show me their trustworthiness right away by not being able to hear what I am sharing, or rejecting it outright.  Others are a little “craftier”…they listen and appear to treat my sharing with tenderness and care, but later use it against me.  I give the gift of myself to those who do not deserve my trust to prove to myself that they aren’t trustworthy.  It is a back-asswards pattern of behavior learned when a child cannot trust the two people she depends on to keep her safe in the world.  This event has brought this pattern into clear light, for which I am grateful. 

I now have a bionic ankle, complete with “golden” plate and six “golden” screws (the golden is in my mental picture so that I can accept and make friends with the foreign objects in my body).  I must remain “no weight bearing” for 8 weeks, at which point I will begin to learn to walk again.  In the mean time, I hobble around on crutches and spend a lot of time with my foot up on the couch.  Well, I was complaining about not finding the time to write…now I am writing more than ever.  The insights are coming so thick and fast I can scarcely write them all down. 

And so, in moments of extreme grace and clarity, I am actually grateful that this has happened.  Oh, I have my moments of feeling like a victim, feeling sorry for myself, feeling angry and sad….but all of those are indications of a deeper healing in myself that can occur, if I am just willing to follow the pointers to the place inside where acceptance and insight abound.   

Thank you, my right ankle, for making this sacrifice in service to the whole of me, my inner and outer community.  Like our indigenous ancestors did in holy ceremony, you offered flesh to show how willing you were to put yourself on the line in order for healing to occur on the larger level.  I humbly choose to make the most of this offering! 

“First, the greater portion of our energy must be directed toward cohering the newly emerging butterfly organism, as the caterpillar seems to be doing just fine in deconstructing itself. Secondly, if we are going to have a look at the darkness, the most helpful thing we can do is to shine the light of love and laughter on it.”

-Swami Beyondananda/Steve Baerman

I know so many of us that are getting caught in the fear of the transformation that is occurring in our world right now…people who have been training in consciousness for years and who KNOW better than to let themselves be pulled under the wave, rather than to ride on it, are struggling to keep their heads above water! 

I want to appeal to you all….those of you who knew that this transformation was coming….we have been readying ourselves for it forever!  It may not look like the way we thought it would, but it is HERE and the time is NOW to put our skills into play.  There is no time to entertain fear….it is time to be the master, the good inner grown-up, the Wise One Inside, and to say NO to the media and fear diet. 

I am not suggesting that we put our heads in the sand; it is important to acknowledge what is true and see it with neutral eyes.  But we cannot afford to let it carry us away; our focus must be on what we want to create in this world.

THE TIME IS NOW

a new beginning

One of the consequences of change is that we are invited to relate to the world in a different way than we did before, whether slightly or in a very drastic move to become a different person.  I like the degrees of change when I am morphing, myself;  a little refinement here, and little shave there.  Sure, we’ve made some drastic life changes in terms of our location, and certainly when we left Asheville in 2003 for our 2-year spiritual journey, we made some huge changes in who we were.  But now, the changes seem to be more subtle. 

I am watching us four as we settle into the idea of living in California; the town we have chosen has a definite healing quality about it, making it feel safe and relatively easy to let go of the outdated energies.  I am also watching how different we each are in the ways we process change and the way we create what is coming next.

My husband Peter is the “Great Manifestor”.  I have always been in awe of his ability to line up all the parts of himself with an idea, then POOF, the idea comes into being.  Where he gets stymied is when not all parts of himself are in alignment with the idea.  But when they are, watch out; it’s gonna happen for sure.   I am watching him now bring himself into alignment with yet another fabulous creation that will reflect his passions and spirit, and literally seeing the outdated parts of himself dropping off.

On the other hand, I seem to be more of a emergence person….what I mean by that is that I am in the process of discovery all of the time, and so rather than having a clear idea of what I want to do and going out to create it, I seem to be constantly uncovering bits and pieces of what I am becoming.  It’s kind of like finding little bits of buried treasure every few yards!  I like this process; it is fun for me, that is, until I want an answer NOW about what it is I am headed towards!

Jess and Aidan are similarly different (?) in their process.  Jess is super clear about where he is going and manifests quickly what he wants.  Aidan also seems to be a discoverer; he has to come to find things out for himself to incorporate new things into his life. 

So here I am in the midst of a change; my location is changing, my community is changing, the way I walk in the world is changing, and my work is changing.  But by degrees…..I have been pretty close to the core of who I am most of my life in terms of what I do in the world.  I have always been a catalyst, teacher and inspirer, but it seems that my work has taken on different depth the more I mature in my knowing of myself and the more I am comfortable with my personal power.  I am super excited because I can feel a new me coming, but I don’t know exactly what it looks like yet.  I am impatient!  I want to know what I will be doing!

The sensation I have had lately is that I have all of this wisdom and knowledge and experience and energy and passion and enthusiasm…and nowhere to plug it in.  Pure potential…and nowhere to put it.  I don’t know the avenues that I will be going down, the various modes of expressing myself.  I wonder if a tree feels like this in the winter as their energy builds up for the big Springing forth.  Or if it is like being pregnant in your late 9th month, and you feel that you can’t possibly get any bigger and that you are gonna pop if you don’t get that baby out.   I’m gonna burst if I don’t find the right plug!

I am told when I dial in to the universal field that it is a timing issue…that the energy is building in the world and within me, and that I am refining who I am and what I wll be expressing in the world, and that I am releasing outdated parts of myself that now longer serve me.  Like a new plant readying to be transplanted into the ground, it is not time for me to take off and GROW yet. 

So I am being reminded to TRUST the process and not try to hurry it along.  Hmmmmph!   OKAY, I will try…………

The Source Emerges....photo by Peter Berry, Jr. 2004

I am a process-oriented person, so I don’t see things happening all at once…when it comes to change, there is always a build-up of energy, there is always a tearing-down energy, and there is always a rebuilding energy.  In nature, this cycle is seamless.  For us humans, though, we get so upset when changes are happening!  But if we can just feel where the energy is going, we can choose to flow with and anticipate the changes so we aren’t so flustered with the inevitability of change.     

Last year our little family saw the end of a lot…the end of our love affair with our little town in Colorado, the end of some relationships, and the end of limited ways of seeing ourselves.  I got to know the sacred energy of the Goddess Kali very intimately!  The process of destruction and dissolution of these things was hard and painful at times, but it definitely felt right for it to happen.  What it felt like to me was that I had outgrown my skin…a restless and itchy feeling, and every time I tried to make my old skin comfortable, I felt like I was going to die.  It was as if by my trying to sustain the old reality that was dying away, I was saying no to life and yes to soul death.  It became very palpable and easy to identify by the end of the summer for us…we had to let go or we would not become who we were meant to be.  

So the crashing down of old thoughts, beliefs, relationships, systems, geographical locations, jobs, bodily health, etc. and the simultaneous release of outdated emotional energies was the norm for us as well as a lot of folks by the end of the year.  I am grateful to have the knowing and the tools to deal with these shifts in a conscious way so I don’t panic or feel that I am going crazy! 

The four of us as a family also know how to ride these waves of change…we have been consciously doing this as a family since we left for our first trip in 2003.  When we all had the strong feeling that we had to leave Colorado in October, we did it…and have escaped a very snowy winter thus far.  When we felt the guidance to come to San Luis Obispo, CA and acted upon that, we found the place we want to live.  When we cooperate with the natural universal energy flow (which I experience as deeper than the surface “going with the flow”), we are so taken care of; it is magic.

And now more changes are coming for us.  We are excited as we awaken early every morning and listen to the guidance that comes in the quiet hours…let go of this thing, begin to build this thing, turn here, pause here, dream and vision of your brilliant future…it is so very precious to feel how the universe loves us and is willing to guide us if we but choose to listen.  We are becoming, more than ever, who we know we are.

My good friend Terry Musch coined the phrase “2009 is the year of Emergence.”  I think he is exactly right.