The Dawning

It’s New Year’s Day 2007 and half of my household is still asleep from last night’s festivities. The skies are gray as I look out my window trying to tie a rope around some wayward thought that haunts my mind and begs to be put down on paper as this morning’s feature article. The birds seem to be coming back – huge noisy black crows this time and they create such a distraction as I try to concentrate on not thinking so that I can let go and allow this to flow as it is meant to and not as I might force it to. And the word comes through and it calls to me like an old childhood memory from somewhere in the back of my cluttered unorganized mind – integrity. This is the year that “integrity” stood tall. That’s what they’ll say about 2007.

A couple of years ago, a group of like-minded friends and I agreed we would pray for “truth.” We prayed that the truth would be told to the American people by the media. We prayed that the truth would be shown to them on their televisions while they watched their nightly news programs. We agreed that until it’s on “the news” nobody would believe that it’s “real.” And so, we prayed for “truth” without asking for a specific flavor of truth, just simple easy to understand, unaltered, basic truth. Tell them the truth and let them do with it as they please. And so maybe it was our prayers and maybe it wasn’t, but the truth came out and we reacted to that truth and so changes began to be set into place.

This year, I am asking on a larger scale… pray for “integrity.” Let’s bring integrity to the forefront of everyone’s mind. Why integrity? Why not compassion, or love, or justice, or peace, or enlightenment, or some other perfectly lovely concept? Because it is time for integrity. Everything has its time and its season – and this is the season of integrity.

What is integrity? Morals, ethics, honesty, a predefined right from wrong? Yes and no. Integrity does not need a religious figure to threaten eternal retribution. Integrity does not need a moral majority to define itself. Integrity does not stand rigidly labeling things black or white. Integrity is an energy that flows through us. When I get an add for subliminal advertising telling me that I could hypnotize my readers into buying whatever product or service I tell them to buy…. and without the fear of a god’s anger, without a government telling me it is illegal, without my children looking over my shoulder waiting to see which path I take… I decide instantly and alone that I will not be using that method of advertising. Integrity is saying, “No, if I am to lead them somewhere, then I want them to have their eyes, their hearts, and their minds wide open and aware. I don’t want to trick them into following me down some path that they may not even recognize or need.”

Maybe it’s the Capricorn in my birth chart. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m over forty years old now. Maybe it’s because I have teenagers watching me and making me walk my talk. Maybe it’s because my words find their way into desktops all over the world. Maybe it’s because unity, harmony, and music are theme words that I wish were more prevalent. Whatever the reason, to me the definition of integrity is “doing the right thing, because it’s the right thing to do” not because someone told you “It’s The Law and therefore you MUST do the right thing whether you like it or not.” Integrity is simply self-governing, self-discipline, self-monitoring, and of course self-awareness.

You cannot self-govern if you are lying to yourself about who and what you are. If your life sucks and you need to make major changes then the thing to do is to make those changes, not suck down a handful of pills, drown yourself in booze, or pull out the pipe and start drifting away into never never land so that you don’t have to face yourself in the mirror. Integrity means that if you have made choices to let someone else run your life and they’ve done a lousy job of it that you admit it and take back control of your own life. If you yourself have screwed things up, then you admit that too and don’t blame others or sit around whining and complaining about how things didn’t go blissfully cosmically well for you. Integrity is looking yourself in the mirror and saying, “Buck up! We’ve got work to do” and then doing it.

Integrity is those decisions we make when nobody is around to see us. Integrity is the choices you make when you forget to be afraid of an angry god. Integrity is how you conduct yourself when you are absolutely certain you won’t get caught. Integrity is the authentic real you. Integrity is your real code of ethics that you pick and chose minute by minute of each and every day. It has nothing to do with religion or politics or fidelity or leadership – but when it’s missing from these areas of our lives, then everything falls apart. We cannot live to achieve our highest good, if we are not keenly aware of integrity and the truth of who and what we are.

As individuals, as families, as businesses, as governments, as countries… I challenge each of you, all of us… to look at integrity and what it means to us as a people on this planet. Without integrity there can be no real trust, no real harmony, no real unity. In astrology, Aquarius rules over networking and connectivity. The Age of Aquarius is all about having an “all for one and one for all” mentality. Without integrity, that cannot happen. So this year, I pray for “integrity” to reveal itself and to stand tall.

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