As a species, says author, teacher, and healer Anne Wilson Schaef, we humans aren’t functioning very well. In fact, the societies we’ve created are actively destructive, not only to themselves but to all life on this planet and even to the planet itself. Clearly it’s time for a change. We need a new paradigm, and we need a way to live it.

This new paradigm isn’t something we can outline clearly and implement programmatically. To arrive at a new way of living with ourselves, one another, and the planet is a journey that requires faith, because we can’t see exactly where it will lead. Quite frankly, where it will lead is, at this point, beyond our imagination.

However, we do have some resources to bring to the table. Schaef, whose classic and beloved works include Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much and Meditations for Living in Balance, explains that deep within ourselves —in our cells, in our blood, in our souls —we have the ancient knowledge we need to find our way. We simply need to be reminded of what we already know —and this book is written to help us remember. Schaef takes thirty themes, one for each day of the month (months with 31 days get a “wild card” day), and offers a cycle of reflections on each theme that expands and deepens over the course of the year. Through insightful reflections on Beliefs and Assumptions, Honesty, Entitlement, Accepting Our Humanness, and Walking in Beauty, we enter a process that broadens our perspective and opens our minds so we can live fully into a new future.