 Self and world are actually not separate. That is part of the new story, the new and ancient story. So of course, if there is to be a change on this planet, a significant change, it has to accompany a personal change. It cannot be otherwise. And by the same token, any significant change that you make personally, that is made to you, that you accept and then carry forth, will inevitably correspond to a change in the world. That anxiety, what if I change, what if I do all my work and what if I am kind and generous and I'm inhabiting my highest potential, etc., etc., but nobody else does? All those other people don't do it. Then isn't it kind of wasted? What good does it do? This dread that our efforts will be in vain, that we are the helpless victims of other people's choices, that we are not actually creators. That anxiety is a vestige of an old story. Understanding that our personal choices are powerful, that they have planetary significance, that they have cosmic significance is very hard to translate into the vocabulary of the modern mind. It just generates paradox right away. Because, well, okay, I'm powerful and you're powerful too and I choose alignment with this future and you choose alignment with that future, which is it going to be? It doesn't make sense. The rational mind cannot grapple with this. You can only make sense of it rationally if you operate in a completely different vocabulary that isn't so hung up on linear time and objective reality. And I'm not going to actually try too hard to play out those metaphysics because I'd rather speak to the truth that is known in the body and in the blood and in the heart that for each of us, no action is wasted. Every choice changes creation. And so, change in the world, a change within. And on every level, it's not just the two levels, the planetary and the cosmic and the personal. It's also the relational level. It's a change in your family. It's a change in your place, in your community. And that kind of change, when it's significant, it is a kind of a death. What has been is no longer. And in that emptying, something new is born. I'd love to quote Ursula K. Le Guin, only in silence the word, only in darkness, a light, only in dying life. So there's a letting go here. It's not an effort to letting go. Yet it is also not passive. Do you know what it is? It's a yes. When that moment comes and the choice is offered, when the time has come, you have to say yes, yes. That creates the empty space for something new. And life moves forward. We tend to make things harder than they need to be, thinking that nothing happens if we don't control it and make it happen. And maybe you've been in rituals where you write down the things that you're ready to let go of. And it can turn into this, OK, I've got to let go of this. I've got to, here's my to-do list of things to let go of. It's not that hard, though. When the moment comes, there is an offering. And you say yes or you say no. And if that thing is really ready to be let go of, the offering will repeat itself. And when you let go, then you step into the space between. It's usually not a direct transition from the old to the new. That's why it takes a bit of courage to let go.