As we enter the final stages of the old world epoch, the world is changing quickly. The polarisation between the ‘me’ and the ‘we’ perspectives is becoming more and more distinct. One side wants what it wants, regardless of who gets hurt. The other side sees everyone as belonging to the same ecosystem and that means that we need to take care of everyone and the planet itself because all of our wellness depends upon it. Only one of these perspectives will take hold in, and direct, the new epoch.

Because the old patterns and structures are falling away, and the new world is emerging, now is a good time to begin talking about some ideas for what the new world structures and mindset might look like. We are the people who will create the vision for this new world and how can we help to build it, if we cannot imagine it and believe that it can be true?

There are many areas where changes in this new world will occur. Let’s look at a few of them.

Fair Governance

The old world was about ‘power over’, controlling people and inequality. Since the 1960’s, there has been a calling for change for greater social freedoms, equality, transparency in governments and an end to war. As consciousness rises, people have been calling for and expecting change. As this change fails to show up from elected representatives, people become more agitated and animated, calling for change. Eventually, change will come from the bottom-up and grassroots models will come to have more and more power, because of public criticism and people looking to new systems to create change. The rise in the internet, social media, AI, methods whereby we can interconnect across the world in real time will all contribute to this new way of governing.

The goal in the new world is for people to have control over their own lives again, having an ongoing say in matters that impact them, and not just at election time. The new consciousness pushing this new world order will seek out systemic justice and equality, not just in theory, but in effective terms, and not issue-led issues, but across the board. The disconnect between governments and their peoples will end as governance no longer comes from the upper echelons of hierarchies, but instead from grassroots levels in weblike structures. Instead of the systems being designed for inequality, as before, they will be designed and tested for inclusivity, interconnectivity and equality.

Authentic Power

The old world taught us to be ‘machines’ within systems that serve powers more powerful than us, enticing us with ‘wealth’ by trading our time for money. It taught us that ‘power over’ and ‘might makes right’ were powerful, to be feared and obeyed. These forms of power are inauthentic, built upon the strengths of things or people outside of themselves and they can collapse easily. Empires, slavery and wars were all built upon these beliefs. Before, inauthentically powerful people, dictators, were revered and feared. As that old epoch collapses, the new consciousness that is emerging sees that form of power for what it is, inauthentic, and does not fear it or revere it. Instead, the new consciousness that is emerging values authentic power that has no need to ‘prove’ itself outside of itself, it just is.

Authentic power does not need to be ‘showy’ or push against anything or anyone to be powerful. It is inherently, innately, powerful in and of itself. We all hold this innate power within ourselves and we are being asked to step into this innate power now. Doing so requires of us to ask ourselves who we truly are, what is our true worth, what are our truly held beliefs and what is our purpose, on this planet, at this time? Knowing these truths and owning them (stepping into them in a non-egoic way) helps us to speak from that place and to fully own our authentic power. The new world will value the move from inauthentically-held power to authentically-owned power and that means we are supported in being reintroduced to our power within ourselves, to our inherent worth without the validation of outside resources. Turning inward in this way not only helps us to know more about our gifts and purpose, but it reconnects us with and ignites our creativity, our desire to be in service and our ‘spontaneity in flow’ all of which are ours by right.

Right Relationship with the Earth

The old world removed us from an indigenous understanding of our place in nature, and taught us to think of the planet as a resource, not a friend. The old world taught us to be disconnected from each other, even to be separated from our own personal innate power, and to place our worth outside of ourselves and to become reliant upon a system and materialism for belonging.

The new world will invite us to restore our right relationship with this beautiful planet, with us as caretakers of the beings who live here, and of the life-force of the earth itself. ‘Rewilding’ isn’t just about working with nature to reawaken our interconnectivity with it, but it is the opening of our hearts to reawaken our connection with nature, ourselves and each other. The new world can help us to remember that we are all part of the same ecosystem, inter-connected and in relationship with each other, and that to forget that is to forget our humanity and our compassion. These things, above all, make us truly human and we must preserve them with resolve.

Post-Gender

The Indigenous Epoch was a time when we revered the feminine, the earth and her systems, respected the intuitive and healing arts and honoured the Goddess. Then the Romans came across Europe with their emperor-head stamped silver coins and capitalism was born. The Romans desecrated the (indigenous) druidic communities as they came across Europe, seeing them as a threat, and later the witch trials burned alive the ‘wise women’ (the witches of their time) in their thousands, and Christianity took hold. And many hundreds of years later, we are now leaving that epoch that the Romans spawned and could rightly be called the ‘Patriarchal Epoch’, or the ‘Dark Side Epoch’.

That epoch condemned the feminine, objectified it and reduced it to body parts. It revered the left brain of logic and reason, and demoted creativity, intuition and the arts. It idealised misogyny and racism, ablism and sectarianism, and preferred ‘modernity’ in place of a ‘primitive’ world. After thousands and thousands of years of living in league with the land, this new patriarchal epoch came that ennobled the left brain, the masculine sense of reason and logic and dogged determinism.

In his book, ‘The Master and His Emissary, The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World’, Iain McGilchrist points out that the left and right hemispheres of the brain have differing insights, values and priorities. The right hemisphere sees itself as connected to the world, whereas the left hemisphere stands aloof from it. McGilchrist argues that the “left hemisphere has become so far dominant that we’re in danger of forgetting everything that makes us human.”

As we transcend both epochs, that is masculine or feminine dominant perspectives, we will move into an epoch where neither hemisphere of the brain is dominant and neither hold sway but we are all, and neither, together. If both perspectives are included and respected, McGilchrist argues, they can work in tandem and that is when both will thrive.

This is what we are seeing in the world now. The empowerment of people with gender dysmorphia, feeling safe enough to step into the world in a way that enables them to feel more true to who they are, is growing. Awareness about the ‘spectrum of gender’ has become more pronounced in recent years and people are becoming more educated about LGBTQ+ issues. As we move our awareness away from traditional male-female identities and sexual orientation, we realise that there is a spectrum of gender identities, not just two. And as we continue along this journey of awareness, we will come to see that we can transcend gender altogether and it is possible to not identify with any of them, and just ‘be’. I see this as a ‘post-gender’ state and I expect it to become more and more prominent as the new epoch unfolds.

What Do the New Systems Look Like?

All these ideas, ethics and perspectives that are emerging as this new epoch takes hold must have structures to facilitate them. So, what could those look like?

Years ago, I worked for Birmingham City Council, in England, and part of my job was to apply a test of ‘risk assessment’ to policies within the department. It meant that projects, assessments for hiring, policies in the office, etc., were examined for whether or not they prevented or exposed a threat or vulnerability for the Council or the people it served. An example of a risk assessment might be to examine whether or not a new office policy was ‘in compliance’ with domestic or EU regulations, thereby avoiding litigation.

It was a simple test, because of its clarity, but effective too in that it gave a semblance of ‘risk-proofing’. But the beauty of the test was that, when applied equally across the board, it exposed issues even when there was human ‘blindspot bias’, which is a cognitive bias that we all tend to have. Blindspot bias means that we think that we are not biased, even when we are. It’s because when asked why we did something, we internally check to see how we feel about our behaviour and we rationalise it. However, our biased behaviour isn’t usually conducted by our reflective conscious self, but instead by our subconscious, so it’s harder for us to even know that the bias is there, and, therefore, to prevent it. Ultimately, the risk assessment test works so well because it doesn’t suffer from this blindspot bias and can, therefore, remove the bias even when humans cannot.

It occurs to me that we can easily use this same test, but instead of testing for risk, use it to test for equality standards across a range of societal structures. Presuming that a fair and equal society is something that a society in the new epoch wants, this test can, effectively, ’Equality-Proof’ any proposed new systems in a societal structure, and assess if any current societal structure requires an overhaul. Meaning, we can keep the current structures in place if they pass the ‘equality proofing’ test, and overhaul them if they do not.

Equality Proofing the Legal System

For instance, the western legal system prides itself upon the ‘Rule of Law’, meaning that all persons are subject to the same laws, and ‘equality before the law’, meaning that all people are treated equally, regardless of race, gender, wealth, or status, etc. However, if you were to ‘Equality Proof’ the outcomes for victims seeking redress within the legal system using this test, and ask if all types of victims won more or less equal outcomes, the answer would be no.

The average felony conviction rate for burglary, murder, breaking and entering, auto theft and drug trafficking is 70 percent. The average conviction rate for all known cases of child sexual abuse (where the victim feels comfortable enough to come forward and the case is known) is 0.8 percent, that is, fewer than 1 percent.

The glaring disparity between 70 and 1 percent can be understood, in part, by the torturous process victims must go through to identify and help prosecute an abuser most likely known and trusted by that child (or later, adult). But surely the system should take account of those issues so that fairness and justice is possible for those victims? To have such an incommensurate disparity means that the system is failing those victims of childhood sexual violence who need justice and cannot get it. Therefore, under this ‘Equality Proofing’ test, the legal system would require an overhaul to rectify this wrong, that not only sends the wrong message to the victims that they are not deserving of equal protection under the law, but it also sends the wrong message to the perpetrators that the likelihood of their conviction is so small as to be rendered insignificant, and therefore, their crimes effectively legal.

Conclusion

The new world of inclusivity, respect for difference and inclusion is already underway and the old world of power-over, fascism, patriarchy and hate for ‘other’ is ending. How do we help this new consciousness come into the world quicker and with more effect? By being the change that we wish to see. We are the surge in desire for change. Our energy is what is driving the difference between then and now. Our outrage is what is making us wake up, making us pay attention. Let us keep going.