What is it that you belong to? I mean really, really, deep in your bones belonging? With whom, or what, or where do your truest inclinations reside? What ancient pulse do the roots and rivers of your heart respond to? What is the truth inside your rooted mind? It seems to me that the darkest parts of our collective selves are coming to the surface where we can see them. All of our hatred, and our bigotry, our racism, our sexism, our greed, our intolerance, our fear, our apathy, and our anger are coming right out into the bright light of day from where they have long been lingering in the shadows. And it appears that these parts of ourselves have all of the power. These qualities of the human collective are not new to us. And they don’t surprise us. We are as familiar with them and as weary of them as the refrains of an old ongoing argument with our best friend. We are so ready as a whole to move past them. But they are not disappearing from our consciousness quietly and without a fight as we had hoped. They are rising up and pointing to themselves. They are practically shouting. And what they are saying is, “I am NOT love!” That’s all. That’s the truth they need us to hear. They need us to know that they are not love. So they are presenting themselves to us in their full embodiment of the worst of ourselves. And we get to choose what we belong to. We get to finally, once and for all, claim that which we care most about. Kindness. Compassion. Tolerance. Stewardship. Service. And most of all, Love. We get to claim this in our own hearts. We get to step away from the shadows of our own souls and we get to be who it is we really want to be. We get to change the collective. We get to bring the new consciousness fully into the world through our own choices and our own commitments. There is no question about it. We have a long history of intolerance and our darkness has participated in the rampant suffering of the world around us. Those of us who want to create a loving, and just, and sustainable world have long hoped that that part of our collective imprint could be transformed naturally, and without much fuss. But that is not the case. Instead, we are each being called to be our own answer. We are each being called to look at our own shadows. We are each being called to come home to what we belong to.  It might seem like the way to respond to the shouting of the collective shadow is to go into our own darkness, our own fear, our own anger. But that is not what we belong to. We belong to love. And love is what saves us now. You are an instrument of love. And you belong to all of the best of the what we as a species are capable of. It’s time for each of us to play our most beautiful song. It’s time to step into the symphony of the healing of the planet in our right place. The darkness is shouting as loudly as it can. It’s pointing itself out to us not because it has the power, but so that we can transform it. And the way we do that is by coming home to where we belong. And where we belong is and always has been love.