In a recurring dream I live in a city that refuses to adapt to an ever-changing world. Its past is prologue, dictating its present and future. Change? Never! Enraged, I scream, “Can’t you see the beautiful future in store for you if only you’d embrace the new and the bold? Glorifying your past is choking the life out of this city and its people. You profess your commitment to creativity, yet your obsession with your past is limiting your ability to adapt creatively to change. You seem to believe that your past and the new cannot co-exist. Either/or thinking only exacerbates your problems, dammit!”

Awaking agitated by one of these dreams, I wiped the sleep from my eyes and stretched long and hard. An “aha” moment arrived. I realized that this city in my dreams was reflecting my attachment to my own past, my resistance to change and my arrogant intractability. I also boasted about my commitment to the new and the bold, but I did not fully embrace it. And yet the winds of change were calling me. I needed a walk in the forest to clear my head.

After a short hike, I came upon a stream and found a smooth rock on which to perch. I observed the water flowing easily around and over obstacles. I thought: I don’t behave like this stream. I hang onto things. I’d like to be more like this flowing water. I began to see how I too was attached to my past identity. My attachment to being an architect was denying my creative energy to flow in new directions. It was inhibiting my mutable nature to adapt to change. I too, was unable to rise above my own either/or thinking. 

The nightmares about the city diminished soon after I observed that correlation. I began to feel freer from my own past. Now I do my best to follow Neruda’s words of wisdom: “Changing the world is an inside job.” The more I embrace this awareness, the more easily I can adapt to change. As I trust the constancy of change and the creative process my life flows more easily. I hear my soul calling me: “Contribute your visionary design and communication skills to support the emergence of New Earth.”

Autumn is now upon us in the Northern Hemisphere, and yet I feel like the longest winter’s night of my life is ending. Something inside me is ripe, about to bloom like the first crocuses of spring. I welcome this new life. I trust my creative impulses and the boldness of rebirth brought by spring. Mutability is required, during times of great change like ours. As this awareness re-emerges in the minds and hearts of more people, the world will reflect it. A bold beautiful New Earth will emerge, one in which humans cooperate and co-create with all life, seen and unseen. I am learning to embody and apply the art of mutability so that I am constantly re-energized and renewed!