We are a collective. It is interesting because often we are told or sold that we are individual. I would suggest we are part of a collective consciousness and a better word would be an individuation of the consciousness rather than an individual.

Why is this distinction important? Because if we do not remember and act as if we are an individuation of the collective we can lose the context of life and surely that will not enable us to make choices and decisions to achieve our highest potential. We arrive at our understanding of the collective by dialogue and discourse.

So this is my theory (among many others) and here is how I see it at work in my own life. I thought I would share it for two reasons. The act of sharing reminds me I am part of the collective and I also believe others in the collective may choose to learn from my experience the same as I often choose to learn from others.

This morning I had a wonderful discussion with my husband about the current fiscal situation in Europe. The question under review was should the EU help Greece? My point was that in fact there is little choice. The original choice to form together under the Euro means the collective has already been clearly formed. Now the only issue is how the collective responds to crisis. The same is true for us in our various collectives.

It is ultra important we understand and participate well in the collective which is our family. Our families represent our closest link to others. How we treat our families is an indication of how we will treat society at large. Family values have been co-opted to an extent in North America by fundamentalists as a way of dividing the collective. This works against a common good. We need to unite not divide. The real value of our families is tolerance, acceptance, unconditional love and support. These are the values we need not just embrace but also extol to others and build into our collective actions and certainly in Canada we are doing a good job of it at a societal level. But in order for it to work each individuation must participate and feed into the collective as well. We are the sum of our parts.

So today I will remember to act with tolerance, acceptance, unconditional love and support to all others I encounter. As I act so shall I receive. And so it  is.