Spring is about to spring! Yahoo! I'm so glad to see more of the lengthening Light and the new green shoots and flowers. How beautiful. I have such a sense of excitement and anticipation about the new opportunities coming and the blessings already present and received. The hits on my website are exploding and I'm so very grateful. I know that I'm putting so much Joy and excitement into what I'm doing I know that's part of the reason things are flowing so much. Lao Tzu said, "If you would take, you must first give; this is the beginning of intelligence." I love this quote. How perfect as we enter full swing into the growing season as the first shoots of Spring are visible above ground. First, we had to give. We had to plant something in order to see the fruits of our labor. It works the same way in everything. I love the surety of this Principle. It truly is how Principle always works. It speaks to the Truth that we are already and always Fullness Personified. Giving from that sense ensures blessings upon blessings to be made visible. We cannot fail!!!!

I can't help but think of where we are today and how it was shaped by some very key decisions of the past. There are several issues interwoven here. We are just two months into an overwhelmingly re-elected black president and yet the major media kept representing it as a very close race. I don't call winning by over 100 electoral votes a close race. I call that a very clear message. That's why NPR, commondreams.org and Mother Jones, all independent progressive media outlets, are so very important. I also wonder where we would be without Lincoln's incomparable bravery to abolish slavery. I also can't help but marvel at a fact I just learned that made it possible. Lincoln reportedly knew that he had to get the 13th amendment passed before the Civil War ended so that the southern states that had seceded from the Union couldn't vote on the amendment. Amazing!!!

As we enter the agricultural growing season I also admire Ronnie Cummins of Organic Bytes. Prop 37 was narrowly defeated in California. The fact that the major companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, Ben & Jerry's, had to spend $25 million+ to defeat the bill asking that GMO foods be labeled tells me for sure we will succeed soon in getting this bill passed into law. As consumers we certainly have the right to know what is in the food we're eating. What shocks me out of my wits is that Ben & Jerry's is on this list. The original owners are no longer the owners so that tells me very clearly what I will no longer buy. Other labels I will not buy are Odwalla, Naked Juice, Bear Naked, Tropicana Organic, Tostitos Organic, Kashi, Honest Tea, Muir Glen, Back to Nature, "O" Organics, Boca Burgers, Horizon, Morningstar Farms. All these brands are fake organics sold by the major companies working to keep GMOs from being properly labeled.

In marked contrast, Eden Farms is so far above the minimum standards they refuse to be FDA certified because being FDA certified means they meet minimum standards. The way we do business is what my dad used to say, "You have to laugh to keep from crying." The irony in all these circumstances is the public outcry is so massive change is most definitely in process. People are standing up, speaking up and making it very clear we want what is for our very highest good. We don't want lies. We don't want cover ups. We want the Truth. We want honesty. We want compassion. It's coming!!!!

I also have to playfully marvel that we're still here. We made it past the supposed end of the world. Here again another bunch of misinformation enflamed by fear and ignorance. The Mayans never said a word about December 21, 2012 being the end of the world. The Mayans were speaking of the coming of a new age, the end of a cycle, the beginning of a new one. Yet again the importance of education! Don't be misled and enflamed by emotional rhetoric. Be involved in a beloved community. Know you make a difference and be willing and committed to making a difference in someone else's life. I'm not pretending that it's simple. In one way I know it is. Just do it. In another way I know it isn't. People have to build their own beloved community within themselves and many people have to overcome enormous odds to make that possibility real. I'm always amazed at the ways they accomplish reinventing their lives. It is a most sacred journey!!!

Echoing what I've said recently about not settling for the status quo here's a quote from the 2012 Winter edition of the UU World, the magazine of Unitarian Universalism, that gets right to the heart of the matter: "Every time we choose convenience over principle, we strengthen the status quo and reinforce the existing power structure… All that oppressors ask from the rest of us is to mind our own business." Tim DeChristopher spoke those words. He went to prison in 2011 rather than allow drilling near the National parks in Utah. He energized environmental activists across the nation and is on his way to becoming a UU minister. I commend him for his bravery and social conscience. His article paints a beautiful picture of what is needed as we all move from a wrongheaded focus on individualism toward a deliberate effort to build beloved community.

Unitarian Universalism touts the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His 1848 Harvard Divinity School address that spoke of humanity as Spirit Personified, a reality I so greatly know as the Truth of who we are, so enraged the faculty he lost his Unitarian ministry and was set forth on his way to being the amazing essayist and leading edge speaker he is for all of us still!!! Two Emerson contemporaries I greatly admire as heretic~heroes are Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as they valiantly tried to get the right to vote for women. It took 80 years but their successors were successful. These are just a few examples of what was going on in that time period and what continues today as we move forward in what many call establishing the beloved community. With all that is happening around the world could the need possibly be more visible? I also can't help but wonder what all these issues had to do with propelling us forward into the Civil War. I truly believe the Civil War was about human rights in general, not just racism and economic disparities but sexism and all the abuses of our humanity. All of this is still going on in so many ways. I look forward to the day when girls are encouraged to go into math and engineering and all the sciences. I know that more than 60% of today's enrollees in medicine and law are women so that's a huge change in the direction of equality, same pay for same work and education, not 70% of what a man is paid.

Another person I greatly admire leading the charge to change the status quo is Zach Wahls, a 21 year old gay Eagle Scout working to change the Boy Scouts' policy of not allowing gays to serve. Zach wants to change the organization from within because he loves being a Scout. He just wants to change their policy. Kudos to you, Zach, and to all the other change agents working so bravely to bring needed change into the Light. Peace!