I was walking into work this morning. I was mulling over the magazine Spirit of Change when, mid-step, I had a minor epiphany of sorts. I realized that hidden in plain view, right in the very title of the magazine, was the answer that so many people are seeking they ask, "What can I do to make the world a better and safer place?" Become a spirit of change! 

I smiled as this realization passed through me because I understood that I, myself, had become such a spirit of change and, for the most part, the transformation had come about in such a way as to be mostly unnoticed by myself. It is only every now and then, when my mind pauses for a moment, that such a realization becomes evident. Perhaps you, too, are also a spirit of change without even knowing it. 

For example, my momentary epiphany was due not only to the fact that I was thinking of Spirit of Change magazine as I was walking to work, but also because my work is located at The New England Center for Children (www.necc.org), a private, non-profit school for children with autism and other disabilities. Part of our mission statement reads as follows: "We maintain a steadfast dedication to helping individuals reach their potential and live productively; to minimizing dependence and maximizing independence; and to eliminating isolation and increasing social, educational and employment opportunities through integration into all averts of community life." Isn't this really what a spirit of change does in the world? 

And more importantly, this underlying principle not only applies to the way our school cares for the children, but also to the way that our school treats the staff, both teachers and administrators alike. Indeed, just this past December we received a national award from the U.S. Dept. of Education for our excellent programs which promote the professional development of our staff. It was a distinction that was all the more noteworthy because we are the first private special education program to ever receive this award. I am often aware of being very fortunate to be working at the school because I am in the company of 700+ spirits of change — in the form of all of my fellow co-workers, and the students whom we are there to serve. 

How I came to be at this school is an entire story in itself but the short of it is that after spending a few years acquainting myself with a spiritually-minded path, I realized that working for companies whose sole motive was profit was debilitating to my physical, mental, and spiritual health. So I made the conscious decision to seek out an alternative style of work that would be more compatible with my growing desire to be a spirit of change. I realized that non-profit organizations are often focused more on helping people than making money and that was ultimately what led me to The New England Center for Children. 

Of course, everyone does not need to follow this specific path in seeking to create positive change in the world. As I have traveled along my journey I have been very fortunate to meet many examples of spirits of change. One that comes immediately to mind is a woman named Carmeen Klausner who runs a non-profit organization based in Fort Collins, Colorado, called Pathways to Spirit (www.pathways-to-spirit.necaweb.com). She began the organization back in 1996 as an act of compassion, born out of her understanding and acknowledgement that we must give back into the web of life. In her case, she has chosen, or been chosen, to help some of the poorest people in our country — the Lakota people of the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations in South Dakota, along with American Indian people living on the Front Range of Colorado. 

One might ask oneself what relevance there is to helping people who are far removed from our daily lives. After all, for us out here on the East coast, South Dakota is far away. However, the Lakota people themselves have a saying, "Mitakuye Oyasin," which can be translated to mean "we are all related," or "all my relations." When we understand and accept that we are all connected to the web of life, then anything that we can do to help any of our relations, no matter how far removed they are from our daily lives, also helps ourselves. By raising up others, we raise up ourselves, and in that respect, the idea of being a spirit of change not only works to improve the lives of others, but also works to improve our own lives. 

That is what being a spirit of change is all about — being the change you want to see in the world. It may sound trite, but if you do that, then pretty soon you start to have an impact on those around you and the effects will move outward like the ripples on a lake when a stone is tossed into it. It might help to remember that we are all spirits, and that our lives are always changing, so being a spirit of change is inherent to our very nature. We simply need to acknowledge this aspect of our existence and move towards affecting positive changes in our own lives, and in the world around us.

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John Austin is an administrator in the Business Office of The New England Center For Children, which is a private school for autistic children, located in Southborough, MA. In his spare time he is a freelance writer, a devout fitness enthusiast, a practitioner of Zen meditation under the Chozen-Ji lineage of rinzai Zen, and pursues a spiritual path of inquiry, discovery, and understanding, as expressed in the lifeways and wisdom of the indigenous peoples of North America. He currently resides in Holliston, MA. He can be reached via e-mail at: Baltasar@aol.com, and is always open to exchanging ideas and information as a way of promoting individual and global spiritual growth. His personal website URL is: http://members.aol.com/baltasar/johnspage.html