For the past five days I’ve lived in a bubble. Members of my yoga and meditation group gathered in Malibu where we sang, danced, meditated, and learned from each other. Gazing at the ocean surrounded by so much beauty and love, it was easy to forget the real world. And then I flew home.

Re-entry startled and unnerved me, raw and sensitive as I am running on a few hours of sleep. On the drive home, I saw police officers tackling a man on the shoulder of the highway. It wasn’t me being chased, but my heart started pounding nonetheless. On the same ride, I saw hearts painted on the roof of a building. All of these things coexist.

The new dawn is on its way.

I don’t know what this year holds. I’m guessing it will be a mix of things, just like my ride home. There will be happy things and scary things and sad things and awesome things. For some of us there will be an unequal mix. But feeling my heart pound watching someone else’s life, reminds me we are all in this together. We all belong to each other and we are all responsible for each other. We are not as separate as we’d like to believe. On the same car ride home, the word “one” also caught my attention from a passing sign. It seemed to me a reminder of that fundamental truth.

As we start this new year, I want to quote my spiritual teacher because the message seems relevant. He said:

Just as the advent of the purple dawn is inevitable at the end of the cimmerian darkness of the interlunar night, exactly in the same way I know that a gloriously brilliant chapter will also come after the endless reproach and humiliation of the neglected humanity of today.

Those who love humanity and those who desire the welfare of living beings should be vigorously active from this very moment, after shaking off all lethargy and sloth, so that the most auspicious hour arrives at the earliest.

Let us all greet the new dawn. Let us all experience a gloriously brilliant chapter. And let us all work to bring that “auspicious hour” sooner rather than later.

I dream of a world where we remember we’re all connected. A world where we remember we all belong to each other. A world where we work together to create a glorious and brilliant life that we all wish to lead.

Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.