The service was held at a relatively conservative synagogue where the men and women are still kept separate during the service. In this case, the men were downstairs and the women upstairs.

Draped in their prayer shawls and sporting the traditional yarmulke, the men paid close attention to the prayers, exhortations and ceremony conducted by the rabbi and various male congregants. They actively participated in the service, only periodically glancing up at their women above.

For the women this was a perfect opportunity for a good catch up. Multiple generations of several family groups who have been closely associated – by blood and otherwise – seemed to delight in the opportunity to add another happy event in their long shared history together. Older women absolutely revelled in seeing the little ones and poured a shower of affection over them all.

I sat and observed this wonderful community as they celebrated the happy union of two of their own. It reminded me that this sort of intense experience of a community that embraces more than just ones’ family is almost totally absent in my life and I momentarily became slightly regretful. Community is a major casualty of the fast-paced, geographically disparate life I, and so many people these days, lead.

I’m convinced community is one of the relics of our past that needs to be resuscitated, and reinvented. The time is rapidly fading for social groups that exclude on the basis of insufficient connectivity – blood, race, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender or socioeconomic class. The time has come for new and expansive forms where everyone who desires to participate is welcome.

A society where everyone feels unconnected to those around them, where anonymity and emotional distance divide and separate us, is not a society to be aspired to. There needs to be some care for the needs of the group, not just for those of the individual.

I’m not sure what the answers are, but I think it’s about time we wrench the debate that currently excludes all voices other than the large corporations, who have a deeply vested interest in a large and densely-populated metropolis, and the politicians who are in their grasp.

In his novel Her Infinite Variety, Louis Auchencloss writes:

“Before the Renaissance, men looked for God in the sky. Since the Renaissance, they’ve looked for God in other men: Napolean, Lincoln, Hitler, Stalin…But in the Renaissance, men looked for God in themselves. Consider this wonderful young [protagonist]…He doesn’t trouble himself with visions of heaven and hell or dream up ideal societies to make the miserable creatures around him more miserable than they already are. He will settle for the one life he has and make it a beautiful thing.”

The predominant, if not the sole, concern of most people is survival. But life has to be more than just survival. How to make life a ‘beautiful thing’ is something we need to ponder.

We all pretty much know what we need for a healthy body, and we even have a good handle on what we need for a healthy mind. But a healthy soul needs connection and a sense of oneness, an appreciation of the ‘God’ in all of us, which community helps to foster.

What has not been realized, till relatively recently, is that the defense against others’ power and control is not even greater power. That’s how wars start. The true defense is authentic power, rooted in Divine Love, which provides us with the inner strength, awareness, knowledge and guidance to preserve our autonomy and to remain free, safe and in harmony with all life.

What is does authentic power look like? What is it and how does it manifest as a life worth living? There are so few models of it around us it can be difficult to conceptualize, let alone embody. In his new book Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power, Gary Zukav brilliantly describes the hallmarks of life lived in authentic power, so much so that I think it is worth this rather extensive quote. I couldn’t articulate it better.

Zukav says:

“The more you cultivate loving parts of your personality and challenge frightened parts the more your personality becomes aligned with your soul. Eventually, the frightened parts of your personality lose their control over you and the loving parts create without limitation. Fear disappears. Your experiences become meaningful. Your attention is in the never-ending miracle of the eternal present moment. Your relationships transform. You are not “connected” to others any more than you are “connected” to your arm, hand or heart. You are part of them, and they are part of you. When they hurt, you feel them. When they are healthy, you are healthy.

Humbleness, clarity, forgiveness, and love replace fear. The world becomes a friendly place. You see the struggles and spiritual potential of others and the complexity and richness of their lives, even if they are not aware of them. Superiority gives way to appreciation. Inferiority disappears. The energy of your soul flows effortlessly through you in to the Earth school like the breath of a musician through a flute. Neither you nor others can tell where your personality ends and your soul begins. Gratitude, joy, meaning, and bliss fill your days. The seasons of your life come and go, carrying you forward like a river returning to the sea.

You consult intuition, choose your intentions consciously, move forward with an empowered heart, and act without attachment to the outcome. You do not presume to know how the Universe works or question the wisdom and compassion that shape your experiences according to the choices that you have made. You do your part and trust your nonphysical guides and Teachers to do theirs, take responsibility for your choices, and strive to contribute compassionately and wisely to Life. Each moment is full and complete. You think in terms of causes (intentions) and effects (experiences) instead of right and wrong, good and bad, fortunate and unfortunate. You know that a factor of karma is involved in your experiences, and so you do not take them personally. You give without expectation and receive without reservation. All that you need is given to you. This is authentic power.”

I’ve spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley over the last couple of years and I can say that  this area is the Hollywood for ’smart’ people. Not only is it the home of giants like Google and Apple, but is filled with small hi-tech start-ups whose founders’ dreams are almost uniformly to become as successful as the two giants or, failing that, to be bought out by them.

Last week William Poundstone published a book called Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? which lists all the tests, puzzles, and trick questions that Google uses to sift the so-called super smart from the mere smart.

Interestingly, I lived for 20 years with a guy who could have slammed those tests. After obtaining a scholarship to Cambridge University he co-authored two papers with his Genetics professor which were published in professional journals before he’d finished his undergraduate degree. He measured in 1.0 percentile of the population on intelligence tests. He was almost always the smartest guy in the room. And yes, that led to above average remuneration throughout his working life.

But was he smart enough to live a good life? Was he smart enough to know that the matters of the heart trump the life of the brain when it comes to making good relationship, health and financial decisions? But more importantly, in a world where he was continually being told how smart he was, and with the knowledge of all the things this could bring him, was he smart enough to know what he didn’t know?

My experience over two decades of living with someone of his intellectual calibre was that yes, he was brilliant at solving all problems that had no emotional component. But when things got tough, when things seemed to crash and fall apart, he needed, and relied on, my right brain approach to life – an approach that is calm in the face of disaster, flexible in a time of flux, and has enduring confidence that all works for the best for all involved, no matter what, if only we can stay the path and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

There are so many ways of knowing something. This world is only just beginning to see the possibilities of right brain ‘knowing.’ It might not make sense to the left brain, but as stroke survivor and Harvard trained brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor says, the left hemisphere has no role in our perception of forces and powers unseen. In her memoir My Stroke of Insight, in which she describes the effects of the stroke that temporarily incapacitated her left brain, she says:

“Based upon my experience with losing my left mind, I whole-heartedly believe that the feeling of deep inner peace is neurological circuitry located in our right brain…The first thing I do to experience my inner peace is to remember that I am part of a greater structure  – an eternal flow of energy and molecules from which I cannot be separated…Knowing that I am part of the cosmic flow makes me feel innately safe and experience my life as heaven on earth. How can I feel vulnerable when I cannot be separated from the greater whole? My left mind thinks of me as a fragile individual capable of losing my life. My right mind realizes that the essence of my being has eternal life. Although I may lose these cells and my ability to perceive this three-dimensional world, my energy will merely absorb back into the tranquil sea of euphoria. Knowing this leaves me grateful for the time I have here...”

True inner peace cannot be rationally or logically measured, calculated or created. It can’t be seen, only felt. It is the thought/feeling that rises up only when the left brain, the rational measurer and calculator, is silenced. IQ has nothing to do with it.

If you work outside the home there are bosses who can tell you what a good job you are doing, bonuses and promotions that give concrete affirmation and reward for your efforts, and then there is that fondly cherished accessory, the business card, that proclaims to the world your status and achievements.

Not so for the full-time parent. And when you are in the thick of it – whether as mother or father – you can sometimes wonder if all the interrupted nights, the interrupted days (when they forget their lunch or they are unwell) all the worrying, anticipating of needs, and generally doing whatever it takes to make for a well balanced and healthy child are actually achieving that end goal.

My friend got her report card over Christmas. Her son gave her no present, just this letter:

Dear Mum

I love every minute we spend together…We have a lot of fun.

But really, I love and admire you with every fibre I have, and thanks to those burgers, that’s more fibres than ever! You are, in a sense, my soul mate, you are my best friend… I appreciate everything you do for me, which is a lot. And I absolutely love our family, and you are the key. You are the foundation of everything I am, and you keep my [other side] in check, whilst still somehow encouraging it.

I love you mum, I couldn’t be happier, and it’s mostly because of you. You succeeded. Merry Christmas.

If my friend thought she had sacrificed anything for her children, given up parts of herself, delayed her desires and gratifications, then she suddenly she got the affirmation she always intuitively knew she would receive for a job well done. It was worth it!

What might not be realized is how little gratitude we need to feel in order to have a significant effect. Andrew Weil, MD, who has written extensively on health and wellness, says that studies have scientifically proven that only seven days of being aware during the day of the things for which we are grateful, and then jotting them down at night before going to sleep, can improve our mood for up to six months!

The trick to this, though,is finding the time in our fast paced and complex lives to put our attention to such things. We are so deeply involved in, and distracted by, things external that the effort to pay attention to our interior life can be initially very difficult.

Anthropologist and academic Angeles Arrien says a reflective life, where we take time to acknowledge and feel the joy of our blessings, requires a slower pace of life than most of us live. She goes even further to observe, after studying different cultures around the world that, in fact, the natural rhythm of life is medium to slow. It is only in modern western democracies where we have allowed the pace of normal life to spin faster and faster to such an extent that time for reflection and introspection has been almost completely eliminated.

Arrien cautions that we need time to be able to integrate our life experiences to make sense of them, and to use them to deepen our character through emotional and spiritual regeneration and renewal.

Slowing our pace to create a more reflective life requires more than just a change of attitude. It necessitates a complete transformation of our view of life. Fortunately, the examined life (as Plato calls it) pays great dividends, making any effort we make more than worth it.

I find the American’s dedication to ritual both fun and reassuring. It’s a stake in the ground used to tether our affections, reminding us of who and what we really value and love in our fast-paced life, and to nudge us to devote our time and attention accordingly.

It seems to me, though, that the trick is not to be too attached to what the ritual celebration actually looks like in the end. This is where many a family relationship seems to falter. Relationships built on decades of loving care crash on the rock of inflexible and intransigent expectation, splintering into the lesser states of duty and obligation.

We all love our family and want to spend time with them when we know it will be a happy and peaceful experience. The most common obstacle to this is expectations based on past experience. Some people are so attached to the past they want to see it played on re-runs over and over.

But we all change and we all want and need different things as we change. Ritual celebrations like Thanksgiving, and Christmas, would be so much more fun – and more in the spirit of their purpose – if families could adjust and expand their notions of what these holidays can look like.

After all, the pumpkin which would sit alongside the turkey in Australia is customarily baked  in a pie with sugar and pecans. Even more bizarre to the antipodean taste, sweet potato is sometimes combined with marshmallows (I kid you not!) or baked, instead of apple, with a crumble topping.

Family members might come late, with their tattooed and/or gay partner, or not at all.

Whatever the details of the celebration look like, they are irrelevant. It’s all about the love that binds us which, like the turkey, just never changes.

It mainly happens at night. As the sunlight disappears, its absence leaves a space for all things dark. I have developed strategies for dispelling the shadows of my mind: exercise, music, the company of good friends. Today it was this video a friend sent me:

I just read a couple of days ago that our eyes are our camera to the soul.  What we perceive with our eyes leaves an eternal record on that intangible part of ourselves that never dies. That which we perceive becomes part of us because it is the lens through which we see and interpret everything ‘out there’; it creates the space in which we operate in the world.

But it also reminded me the importance of looking others in the eyes when we communicate with them.

A few years ago I participated in a self-development group in India. One of the first exercises they had us do was to pair up with someone who was a complete stranger.  They told us to sit cross-legged facing each other and for five minutes just look, in silence, into each others’ eyes.

I teamed up with a young German fellow. We knew nothing of each other on a human level. As I stared into the depths of his eyes a deep sense of connection, affection and peace came over me. I felt like I knew him thoroughly, on a soul level.

I know he felt the same way, and we were both transformed by the connection. We had a special bond that existed for the duration of the course, and which I still feel today, six years later.

I realized that the human elements of our selves and our lives are merely a distraction. They are the mechanism that operate to keep us separate and isolated. When my partner and I by-passed the human forms of contact and communication – those that utilize the five senses – our souls took over and made an irrevocable and everlasting connection.

This video reminded me today to look everyone I meet in the eyes. Our eyes are a portal into the infinite divine, where we are all safe, beautiful and eternally connected. There is no room for the blues there.

Try it.

Clinton does things her way. And the emphasis is on her!

Her strategy centers around what she calls “smart power.” Although her goal is the same as the old militarist warriors – to aid the people in search of their own freedom from dictators and tyrants – it’s just that she does it without the mayhem.

Clinton exploits a variety of means. She facilitated her staff to setting up 192 Twitter feeds and 288 Facebook accounts for mass communication. She also arranged for cash to be channelled to Libyan rebels to reinstate fiber-optic-cables for internet access. And this is just the start of it.

Conventional masculine power involves guns, death, destruction, pain, fear, and lots and lots of ego. It has no concept of connection or oneness, thriving on competition and force. It pits man against man, country against country. Its philosophy is summed up in that bumper sticker of the 90’s: he who has the most (and biggest) toys wins. But if Afghanistan and Iraq have taught us anything, it is that traditional masculine power isn’t going to work for America and take her successfully into the new age that is upon us.

This sort of winning isn’t really ‘winning’ anymore. We have a new definition for the life we want. It is no longer enough just to have physical  control of others so we look big, powerful and important.

The old masculine forms of power and control are giving way to the waves of feminine rising, causing a growing desire, and demand, for governance based on collaboration, communication, consensus, and equal participation.

Now we want that control of our own lives and destiny that affords us the peace and freedom to be who we want to be. And we want that for all, not just for ourselves, because we now understand that for one to have lasting peace, all must have peace.

Clinton says: “…we are trying to influence the direction, with full recognition that we don’t have ownership and we don’t have control.”

Who would have thought that we would ever hear those words come out of the mouth of an American leader! But Clinton is one of the rare breed who understands we can’t force peace; we can only foster it. We cannot impose it on another, we can only help them to see the wisdom in choosing peace.

When we all value, and choose, peace, we are all winners.

The only problem was we rarely had time to sit and shoot the breeze; I had to snatch precious moments with her in the few minutes she stopped running – usually when she was picking up her three boys from school or attending a function together.

I remember vividly the one occasion when she had time to actually sit down and have a coffee with me. I felt privileged that she took this time with me. Ironically, it wasn’t long before I was ready to leave.

Although this was before the mobile phone had conquered the social world, my friend spent the whole time looking at her watch, distracted and restless. I quickly felt like I was keeping her from being where she really wanted to be. After a very short while I was happy to release her to that elusive destination in her head.

What occurred to me as I sat there, feeling like I just wasn’t worth her time, was an intense sadness that this sort of manic busyness probably created the same response in her boys. Although always physically present for them, it came to me that they probably felt her emotional absence deeply. I only had one morning coffee with her, and that was enough for me. They had to deal with it every day.

Now as the distractions of smart phones – providing 24/7 access to phone calls, texts, the internet, tv, games, twitter, Facebook – pose a new challenge for parents, it is a good time to ponder John Lennon’s insight: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”

The only way we can create the life we want is if we actually create it, rather than just allow life to happen to us. A requisite element of creating this life is presence.

This is an interesting intellectual exercise as the contemplation of death cuts to the core of how we really feel about our life.

In the movie 50/50 Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character is diagnosed with cancer with a 50/50 chance of surviving. His immediate response to this grim prognosis was to worry about being denied the chance of doing all the things he hadn’t yet done.

So much of our fear of death is about not having lived the life we desire. We get stuck in the myriad fears that plague us in daily life. Ironically, most of those fears arise out of a fear of non-survival.

Does anyone see the crazy situation we have got ourselves in? We don’t live according to our deep desires because of an even deeper fear of non-survival. Then we fear death because we haven’t lived the life of our true desire.

Mere survival is not enough. What’s the point of this life if all we do is survive it? It would be like enduring 13 years of school learning nothing, accumulating no knowledge about the world and obtaining no skills to create a good and rewarding adult life. Merely ’surviving’ school just isn’t enough and most of us get this.

But when it comes to the school of life we somehow allow our fears to distort our vision. We know in our hearts the life we want to live, but we cannot silence the voices in our head that tell us it’s not possible, it doesn’t make sense, or we don’t deserve it.

But to create a life that transcends the fear of death requires us to question every deep-seated belief we have about who we are, why we are here, and the meaning of this life.

This is not easy. Our beliefs create our reality. As Wayne Dyer says, we see what we believe.

To change our beliefs requires an excavation of years, even decades, of belief systems that are so entrenched it is difficult to know who we are without them. World renowned Toltec writer and teacher Don Miguel Ruiz, with his son Don Jose Ruiz, in their book The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery, says that being able to separate ourselves from our beliefs reclaims the very power – that we gave away to fit a particular belief system – to construct a life of freedom:

“If we have this awareness, I think we can recover the power over everything that we believe and never lose control over our own creation. Once we can see that we are the one who creates the structure of our beliefs, this helps us to recover faith in ourselves. When we have faith in ourselves instead of the belief system, we have no doubt where that power comes from, and we start to dismantle the structure.”

We can only really begin to live when we have conquered our fear of death. It lies at the core of everything that holds us back from living our dreams.

The fear of death can only be achieved with the death of fear.