Figure 2 (above). Subway scene, Philadelphia, Pa. Notice that most people are on their cell phones.

Over the next 2-3 months, I will be designing and creating an expanded blog that integrates the ideas from the Transforming the American Workplace blog, the Innerworld Press Shift in Consciousness Ezine, and a blog that I haven’t had a lot of time to keep up, Ascension, Resurrection, Shifts & Transformations.

The workplace blog started out as an extension of the book 16 Mondays, published in 2012. That book remains relevant to the U.S. workplace and job dissatisfaction, and is still of valuable assistance to anyone who abhors her work life. But I have become aware that the workplace and workplace misery cannot be understood in isolation or separate from the other institutions that make up our world. The belief in separation has infiltrated every aspect of planetary life.

The economic system that we’ve created is one that does not serve the global community; in fact, we are becoming aware of how many of our business practices under the present economic system are reaping untold suffering on people and the planet. In this edition, under Business Shift Thought, is an article that examines the production of chocolate. I cannot fathom how anyone could learn of the exploitation of children, the child-slave labor that chocolatiers rely on, and purchase anything but fair-trade chocolate.

In the past year I have had an eye-opening experience from looking more closely at the fast-fashion industry. Its impact on labor practices in China, Burma, Bangladesh, and Vietnam defies spiritual logic. The U.S. garment industry has been allowed to pollute the rivers, lakes and streams of those countries in the name of the bottom line.

The arms industry. What is there to say? I have talked to former employees of Boeing, and the stories are horrendous. I won’t even go into detail. But how can anyone be a part of the weapons industry and be at peace? We are functioning at an unsustainable, spiritually counter-intuitive level.

While I am on the subject of counter-intuitive, listen to this: HBS (Harvard Business School) received a $10 million dollar grant to study Black poverty in Boston; meanwhile, Harvard’s kitchen staff, mostly all African Americans, is on strike for decent wages.

How can anyone fail to see through these illusions? And if you can see through them, you are a part of the solution.

Then there’s Standing Rock, North Dakota, where Indigenous Americans are staging one of the largest protest in modern history.

The escalation of police brutality, which translates to the escalation of anger and fear.

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture. It is not the economic system, the workplace, the job market that needs transformation. These systems and institutions didn’t build themselves and are a reflection of the consciousness of those who did and those who operate them. We need nothing short of a transformation of consciousness on this planet.

I am not intending to bring about this transformation by creating a new blog. What I am doing here is expanding on the theme of misery and a way that we may live on this planet, without the fear of misery, conflict and discord rearing its ugly head again. I will continue to join the chorus of voices who are suggesting a way to live on this planet that does not entangle us in a vicious cycle of problem-making and problem-solving.  Now, this may seem like a pipe dream, and the crazy wonderings of an ACIM student gone awry, but we have no other direction in which to go. We are out of options. We’ve used all of our time-outs.

I appreciate tremendously the opportunity that I have had to share these ideas about ascension, transformation, shifting consciousness and the creation of a new earth. I will continue to do so, and I hope that you will continue to tune in.

Wishing you avalanches of joy for a beautiful, peaceful and wholly New Year, 2017.