This is a Year to Celebrate!

This is an anniversary year... a time to celebrate and dance!

What are we celebrating you ask?

Two hundred years ago this very year, in 1807, a law was passed in the British Empire to end slavery, The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act.*

This is most certainly an event in which to rejoice!

To be clear, for two hundred years, prior to this monumental act, slavery had been outlawed by various other progressive Countries and Colonies including Japan, Lithuania, Russia, Portugal, Denmark, Scotland, Vermont and Massachusetts, and Canada.

However Great Britain was a wealthy trader of literally millions of men, women, and child slaves, and a powerful military and economic force during the eighteenth century. Outlawing the slave trade in this wealthy country was a monumental moment in human history!

Here is what we celebrate....

After four thousand years a consciousness began to emerge such that humans found a new compassion for others, where there had been none. What was considered normal, moral and even Godly for some, for the previous four millennia, relatively overnight felt cruel, despicable and unconscionable!

A new awareness literally burst into our human hearts!

This is truly astounding!

To get a feel for this transformation, lets go back in history for a minute.

The institution of slavery predates recorded history. Our earliest written documents, the Mesopotamian law, The Code of Hammurabi dated, 1800 BCE, discusses slavery as an institution already well established and accepted. The practice has continued throughout the world for virtually all of human history... until just a few hundred years ago.

What made the change? How did this transformation take place? Could a change of this magnitude happen again?

Not only do I believe a change of this magnitude can happen again, I think it will... this example of slavery seems a remarkably beautiful demonstration of how our consciousness expands, how compassion deepens, and how our individual lives can bring forth a more intimate, caring, and loving world.

So, what happened?

Did the powerful elite rulers impose new laws? Was there a new religious guru? Did some monumental event happen on our planet?

No... nothing like that.

The change took place in individual hearts. One soul, then another, then another began to feel something stir within them. Their intuition, or light bubbled up inside their hearts giving a glimpse of what is possible, a taste for a new way of life... a world where human beings are free.

Somewhere inside of men and women, there came a knowing that this practice of owning other humans was hurtful, cruel, and degrading. What was the norm became horrific. What was ignored became apparent. What was unseen became clear.

I reflect on the difficulties and challenges we currently face... a world largely unconcerned with the harm we are causing our planet and its inhabitants. I think of the poor job we are doing feeding the children of this Earth, the killing we do in the name of goodness, and the ubiquitous objectification of women, among many other struggles.

Can it change? Yes! No question about it?

What will it take?

It will take each of us living our truth. It will take each individual with a heightened sense of goodness or care to bring her or his light forth in whatever way is possible. It will take the energy, the beauty, and the heart of every single person touched by goodness to hold to a more loving, caring, and compassionate way of experiencing existence.

In each moment we can choose to live a more holy or healthy life. We can choose to not support those aspects of our society or culture that promote harm or degradation of the human. We can remove violence from our lives, from our homes, from our associations. We can donate, share, volunteer. We can care for the earth and each other. We can make our individual lives a conduit for the highest light and peace possible!

Today, I'm reminded of what is possible, and I honor and celebrate those whose consciousness sparked a new world! And I bow in gratitude to those many souls who are in fact bringing forth a new awareness into our human consciousness. Women and men who are making a difference, living their truth, honoring life in their unique and glorious ways!

We can indeed create a new world.

It has happened before!



For those who would appreciate an inspiring, uplifting true story, Amazing Grace is a fabulous, touching movie sharing the events of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in Great Britain. I highly recommend it!

*What was begun a few hundred years ago is not yet finished. While slavery is diminishing on our planet, it is estimated there are still 27,000,000 slaves in our world. May our prayers and actions eliminate this horror from our Earth.