The shift is neither a new dance craze nor a new fashion style, but rather something far more significant than that. Rosalind Stone takes a look at what's looming on our collective horizon and what's already happening in our collective consciousness.

Trend, fad, fashion, virus of the mind – regardless of the label – it is all about collective consciousness, a term which itself is ambiguous. Does it mean purely the consciousness of the collective, or refer to the fact that consciousness collects substance for itself, or both? The Russian scientist Vernadsky has studied this phenomenon in depth and calls it the Noosphere (pronounced 'no-oh-sphere'). For the rest of us mere mortals it would indeed be an interesting late night debate after too many glasses of wine. The shift (of 2012) is yet another paradigm jump along the path of human evolution – though a very important one. Looking back through history it becomes clear that humans have, for the most part, not been an especially evolved bunch of folks – engaging until recently (and in some places still) in horrific practices such as public beheadings, throwing people into dungeons to share their filth with rats, sending six-year-old children down coal mines and keeping grown men and women in virtual captivity so that others didn't have to toil, sweat or get their hands dirty. Any attempt to abolish these practices was met with enormous resistance in any era or place where they were accepted as 'common practice', as with any attempt to change the presiding beliefs of any time. Be that as it may, some version of the truth prevailed and today the vast majority of humans accept that the Earth is spherical and that it travels around the Sun. Likewise, people have begun to see through more compassionate eyes, and the scales have been tipped (in most places, though still not all) in favour of somewhat less barbaric ways of interacting with our fellow humans and other sentient beings. That didn't happen overnight; in fact, the transition is still happening now and won't be complete for a long time yet.
The shift into what has variously been described as 'the Age of Aquarius', or 'the Fourth Dimension', will not come about in a spectacular display of fireworks; it will not result in a shortage of baked beans or jumbo jets falling out of the sky; nor will any of the more sensationalist and silly predictions that have been circulated come about. It will take place in the quiet peace of your own inner world and be reflected into the outer world, in accordance with the eternal universal laws. Mahatma Ghandi said it best: 'Be the change you wish to see.' That's how things actually work – from inside out, not the other way around.

As with any paradigm shift, the realisation of a new way of being creeps rather surreptitiously into our awareness until we, as individuals, are awakened to the possibility of a new truth replacing the old. The evolution itself is as inevitable as water flowing down-stream; our freewill extending only as far as to whether we go willingly or be dragged along kicking and screaming, clinging to our old way of being for fear of having our ego damaged or diminished in the process. If you have ever been swimming in a fast-moving river, you will have discovered that swimming against the current is hard work, resisting moving at all will get you scraped knees and broken finger nails, and could cost you the bottom half of your bikini, whereas going with the natural flow is truly exhilarating.
Now I am not for one nanosecond suggesting that you blindly follow the thinking of others – that is precisely what got us into two world wars and global warming in just the last century. No, I am suggesting that you allow yourself to feel what's good, and to go with that flow. It is only the ego that needs convincing – the larger part of you, which is non-physical, automatically takes the path of righteousness and least (cosmic) resistance. A key to what's coming is that you get to decide whether you want to be blinded by the plethora of conflicting sensory and other information that is being aimed at you, or follow your own inner wisdom and go peacefully into the 'next age', which is dominated by the heart chakra and the sacred truth of 'love is divine power', and is the bridge between the worlds of physical perception and spiritual reality.

Every thought, word and action is not only a demonstration of who you are in this moment, but also has a reciprocal action, reinforcing your own idea of yourself. If your thoughts, words and actions are angry and unkind, you will know yourself, and the rest of the world, to be angry and unkind. If your thoughts, words and actions are generous and caring, you will know yourself to be that. The idea of what you believe yourself to be will not only be projected out into your daily reality, but also into the collective consciousness in which we are all always submerged. We cannot be uninfluenced by the collective consciousness, nor can we not contribute to it.
The shift of 2012, predicted by shamans, astrologers and the ancient Mayan calendar, among numerous other sources, is the next natural progression in the evolution of mankind and civilisation as we know it. It is also the next step in the evolution of Mother Earth, or Gaia, and since we are passengers on this planet we can either comply with the new regulations, or get flung rather unceremoniously into oblivion. As they say in the classics – adapt or die. If we do not adjust our thinking and our behaviour to embrace the more subtle and kindly energies conducive to what we can call in shorthand 'the Aquarian Age', Earth and her other inhabitants will have to get rid of us and continue the journey sans homo sapiens. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the various physical changes that our solar system is already being exposed to, but suffice it to say that the resistance created by the paradigms of our current collective consciousness is already causing havoc within the Earth's biosphere, manifested as what we politely, though rather inaccurately, term 'natural disasters'.

Alexey Dmitriev, a geophysicist specialising in extreme climatology, and his mentor Vernadsky, both fully acknowledge the Earth's biosphere, as well as what they have termed the Noosphere, which is a mental layer that encases the planet and is the sum total of all our thoughts and memories. While both of these Russian scientists have been hailed by European scientists in recent years, there is still a tendency to overlook their hypotheses as examining them too closely would require radical change, and no-one likes change.

Be that as it may, change is not only inevitable it is also constant, and 'the shift' is simply yet another milestone in the ever-changing landscape along our journey of self-discovery. From the perspective of those within this dimension, 'the shift' will appear to occur gradually, since we measure time in small increments, like the individual frames of a movie. For anyone outside our system with a greater perspective, it will be dramatic – and could perhaps be characterised as something like 'a display of joyful light and heavenly music radiating from Earth and resounding throughout the eternity of the cosmos'. That's if all goes well. Alternatively, it will be a calamity as predicted in the Book of Revelations and other traditions, and the human race will once again become no more than an archaeological mystery like so many lost civilisations before us, who failed to respond to the promptings of their inner wisdom.

Certainly such a termination would affect our physical bodies more directly than our souls, which I believe are eternal and indestructible, but do not be lulled into complacency by this fact – if this understanding is true, your soul will carry this karmic burden and have to stand in the metaphysical queue for the next several millennia, until such time as the human race gets another chance to overcome the ignorance and stubbornness that characterise its current challenge. Surely it is better to adopt an attitude of 'above all do no harm'. For no matter in what small manner you create resistance in the flow of goodness, you simultaneously add to the stream of its opposite. And to the very degree that we oppose what is for the highest good of all, to that same degree will we, as a species, be opposed.

So, ready or not, there's a great shift coming and you may well be feeling it already. If so, you may as well accept that fact and learn the right steps in order to get out there and dance to the new tune that's being played, instead of hiding away and hoping it will all just stop.

For as long as she can remember, the overriding desire in Rosalind Stone's life was to know God, and she has found answers in churches, in the garden, in her children and in the eyes of a beloved pet, but,  above all, she has come to know God through truly knowing herself. She says the quest for enlightenment is to be found through the simple practice of being who you truly are. www.cosmicwisdom.co.za