I’m a spiritual teacher, not a political nerd. I generally keep my politics separate from my spiritual teachings—until I see the two colliding so dramatically that I can’t help but comment. I’m also feeling compelled to speak out because of how many people in my spiritual circle, when asked their thoughts on political turns of events, respond that they don’t pay attention to politics. I understand it. For those of us intent on meditating into a peaceful state, politics is a rough and crude vibration. For those of us who have turned to spirituality as a balm for our heightened sensitivities to the world around us, politics can be the worst of allergens. And some of us have simply given up because we don’t see politics changing anything. For all of you who have tuned out of politics for one reason or another, THIS IS THE TIME TO TUNE BACK IN and here’s why.

People from radically different backgrounds and for different reasons seem to agree that something monumental is about to happen and perhaps is already happening. Many economists are predicting an extreme global economic crash this year—bigger than in 2008. Historian and political commentator, Thom Hartmann, wrote a whole book about this year: The Crash of 2016, putting together the pieces of why this kind of crash is very possible. Storms, droughts, fires and other environmental incidents are growing more extreme and environmentalists are becoming increasingly dire in their predictions for the very near future.

But not all predictions are dire. Wellknown economist and futurist, Jeremy Rifkin, speculates that the increasing availability of free stuff enabled by the internet is quickly leading to an era of nearly free goods and services that will eclipse capitalism, resulting in heightened quality of life for masses of people. (He explains in this fascinating talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5- iDUcETjvo.) Many metaphysical seers are calling this year a powerful turning point in humanity’s evolution, suggesting that we’ve collectively reached a tipping point where there are now enough of us aligned with a high vibration of love to tip the planet in a new, better direction.

We live in the midst of a paradigm change. The old order is made up of hierarchical power structures where small groups at the top control and often exploit everyone else. The emerging, new order is an egalitarian form of empowerment, made up of connected communities, both local and global, working cooperatively for the benefit of all. This is no futuristic utopian fantasy; it’s already happening in countless contexts as a result of the heightened connectivity afforded by the Internet and the sheer numbers of us who are now connected.

Think, for example, of the huge amounts of information available to us online. Organizing infrastructures such as Google and Wikipedia have put libraries full of knowledge literally in the palm of anyone with a smart phone. This instant access to information, that was impossible just short decades ago, is created by countless individuals contributing small bits of information into various organizing and delivery infrastructures.

There are now endless examples of this kind of resource sharing. It gutted established music and publishing industries as individuals became able to take their work directly to the public without any intermediary. Entrepreneur and best-selling author, Lisa Gansky, describes in her book, The Mesh—Why the Future of Business is Sharing, how cooperative resource sharing is the hot new business model.

This is the emerging new order. It’s one where individuals are empowered beyond anything we’ve previously known through small efforts contributed by masses of us into an organizing infrastructure. It’s win/win; it’s easy; it’s the virtually limitless power of all of us together. Thomas W. Malone of MIT, established the Center for Collective Intelligence to study this new phenomenon suggesting that the “hive mind” of millions of people and millions of computers all connected to one another just might be able to, “act more intelligently than any individual, group, or computer has ever done before” and solve such collective problems as climate change.

This new model of collective power is already replacing many hierarchical power structures that not so long ago seemed inevitable, and it’s already begun to change us. This brings us to the upcoming election. In spite of many fast, heady changes coming via our quickly evolving technology, the old, hierarchical power structures are still alive and well—perhaps stronger than ever in a last-gasp struggle for control. We see it playing out with a vengeance in our political system.

Please Read Part 2 here.

Lynn Woodland is an international teacher, author of Making Miracles—Create New Realities for Your Life and Our World, and creator of the online Miracles Course. Her particular expertise is in what gives rise to miracles and in teaching ordinary people to live extraordinary lives so that miracles become, not just possible, but natural. www.lynnwoodland.com.