I arrived in 2012 on a wild mustang, bucking tradition.  Now this may not sound like an easy thing to do, but let me tell you, it is much easier than how I’d entered previous years: holding on tightly to the reins of life.

It was when I tried to control life that I got it all wrong.  In my effort to just get it right, I lost my wild and organic self.  That’s how I woke up one day wondering whose life this is anyway.  After all, doesn’t life cease to exist without spontaneous leaps and the liquid genius of life evolving?  All I have to do is look at nature to understand my own self.

Halfway through this prophetic year, I finally see with great clarity that this is not just my story.  This is our story.  This is the universal story of our times — we are awakening to our whole nature. We are getting tossed around by the wild mustang, through things like financial hardship, depression, isolation, disruption, depletion of energy, so that we might finally loosen the mind’s grip and surrender.  If we surrender to the chaos, the mustang will settle, proving once and for all that we are more than what we think — we are connected to everything and everyone on this living intelligent planet.

Looking at the crises in the world as an opportunity to jump into this higher knowing helps us to view the chaos in our own lives as a force for positive growth and vice versa.  As a humanity, we have come to the realization that we cannot continue to live the way we currently do.  We want a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world for everyone.  We are propelled toward that future as each individual awakens to their own true nature.  With more and more people waking up, we will begin to see new innovations, new possibilities and new creations arise.  Take for example what is happening right now in Rio de Janeiro.

Nicknamed Rio+20, but what I like to think of as the wild mustang entering the collective consciousness, it’s the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.  In what is proclaimed to be the largest event in the history of the United Nations, world leaders, NGOs and thousands from the private sector gather to address and agree on smart measures toward meeting our greatest challenges, such as eradicating world poverty and creating sustainable development and peace for everyone.

Why do I think this conference is any different from what we’ve seen in the past?  Because I can hear the galloping rhythm of the mustang drawing near in statements like this from the UN’s Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

“Rio+20 should inspire new thinking and action…should be about people…should give voice to those we hear from least often: women and young people…should issue a clarion call to action: waste not.  Mother Earth has been kind to us.  Let humanity reciprocate by respecting her natural boundaries.” 

Further, the Secretary-General and Rio+20 Secretary-General Sha Zukang introduced a new campaign to promote Rio+20 called “The Future We Want,” which provides an online platform for sharing our positive visions for tomorrow.  This feels like real change in the right direction: using technology to connect with one another, to share our ideas, our visions and our stories of what is working. Rio + Social is yet another way to join the global conversation by harnessing the power of social media to gather and foster positive solutions to our biggest problems.  And through World Pulse’s community platform, I was able to write a letter outlining my experience and recommendation (which is to put women at the center of birthing, both literally and figuratively as we birth this new co-creative world) to be compiled and presented at Rio+20.

The wild mustang has taken us to a foreign land- we’ve arrived in the new place of radical receptivity, where we are open to receiving.  Both in our individual life, as we listen to the whispers of life and connect with who we really are, and in our collective life, as we begin to invite all voices to the conversation.

How will you bring your voice?

Or maybe the question should be, as my dear friend Kassie asked, are you willing to ride a wild mustang?