As Winter Solstice descends upon us and the end of 2018 nears I am in a divinely contemplative state. The end of one thing and the beginning of another allows us to take stock in our current stage on our journey through life. Solstice is a beautiful time of year, a time when old chapters close and new glorious chapters arise like a phoenix rising from the ashes of our past experiences. The fertile soil of possibility awaits the planting of the seeds that will sprout the dreams of new tomorrow.
For the first time in my life, I have shifted my focus from what I would like to receive for myself in the 
coming year and instead I am thinking about what I hope to give the world as my gift to humanity. As I contemplate what I would give to each human being if I were given the power to bequeath the world with one gift, one prevalent hope comes to mind: if I could give the world one thing I would choose the most glorious gift anyone could ever receive—inner peace.
Isn’t this what we all long for? Isn’t this the purpose of all the “striving?” We strive for ourselves, our family, our dearest love ones and even for our community at large so that we can feel a sense of security, a sense of peace and tranquility or generally a feeling that everything is going to be alright. We all—every single one of us to the person—want only to belong. Even those that appear to be the most hostile and aggressive want nothing more than to be part of the group collective. Our hope, everyone’s hope, is to belong and contribute.
We have the erroneous notion that money will bring us peace, or fame, or stature in our community and the saddest amongst us feel that acquiring “power” might be the answer. Unfortunately for everyone striving for these things, they are never the answer because what we learn is that the only way to achieve inner peace is to give it to ourselves. This is our domain.
We are the peace that we seek, yet we search for it outside of ourselves. We seek for peace in all of the 
places where it doesn’t reside. We seek through romantic relationships, a job, a friend, religious institutions, political power structures, or our communities yet we never, not even once, find any true sense of peace in any of these things. What we all will eventually discover is that this elusive treasure that we all seek is really not as elusive as we all think—every morsel of goodness that makes up inner peace resides beautifully in our own hearts.
Peace reside in the recognition of the beauty of a flower, peace lies in the tranquility of the setting sun, peace rests in each heartbeat that we so long ago quit listening to, but most importantly peace happens simply when we acknowledge ourselves. When we take the briefest of moments to recognize that we are nothing short of a miracle that was created by a God that loves us more than we could ever love ourselves and that Divine Source would do anything in Her majestic power to get us to understand just how perfect we all are. For how couldn’t we be? We are a piece of God. We were all created in Her image and when She was done with the final brushstroke on the masterpiece that She called “My Perfect Child”, She stepped away and exalted Herself for Her own brilliance. The Heavens lit up each time another of Her masterpieces was created, a choir of Angels sang, the Earth expanded welcoming each of us to Her playground and the Universe exalted each and every one of the children that the Divine Source created, celebrating the very fact that another child of God had the opportunity to understand inherently what it felt like to be a “God” in their own right.
This is what the Divine Source intended for each of us. She wanted only for each of us to understand how incredibly powerful we all are. She wanted nothing more than to say, “Go Child and be my prodigy—light up the world with your own special majesty. You are Me, I am You, and We are the Universe.”
This is how we remember once again what inner peace feels like. Inner peace comes from the knowledge that God has created us perfectly and there is absolutely nothing that we have to “achieve” because what can be achieved when we are already in a state of perfection? We are in perfect harmony with a Universe that is aligned to bring us whatever we want, whenever we want it and with whomever best serves our spiritual evolution. We are a masterpiece in the making on a constantly evolving canvas called “life.” We are complete and incomplete at the same time. Complete because there is nothing to achieve for we are perfect as we are—incomplete because we are always evolving, just like our ever-expanding Universe. Each day we continue to expand into our own perfection with each new brushstroke that gives texture to our lives in the shades of light and darkness, for each is necessary. We need shadows in our lives in order to show perspective because a painting with no shadows appears two-dimensional. It’s the shadows, the darkness, that makes life come alive in this 3D reality and knowing this allows us to understand that everything is necessary—and from this understanding we can come to a place of peace.
This is where inner peace lies. Every morsel of your life was necessary to bring you to the place you are now. Every detail was Divinely created by you in conjunction with the Source of All Love. Every brushstroke on your canvas was necessary to create the painting that is the masterpiece of your life. When we come to realize that we have chosen every bit of it, every trial and tribulation, every joy, every failure, every triumph—each of these we co-created with God in order to evolve our consciousness and to one day remember we are One with God. We always will be. Nothing separates us. I am you. You are me. We are love. Love is us.
And from these realizations come the most important gift we can ever receive; it is the Divine Gift of the Universe, the ultimate present on this Winter Solstice—inner peace. To each of you on this Winter Solstice I offer you the greatest gift I could ever give to anyone. I offer you remembrance. I offer you the remembrance that WE ARE ALL ONE. We chose this. We chose to come here together and remember that each and every one of us in One With God. And once remembered, we will all reside in a state of inner peace and this is how we heal the world. This is how the struggle ends and harmony is restored.
Through the grace of inner peace, we can heal the world. We can’t buy it, we can’t join a group to obtain it, we can’t achieve it, we can’t wield power in order to take it from another person—we must only give it to ourselves. So, after all is said and done, inner peace is not a gift that I can give the world, it is a gift 
that each of us must give to ourselves and by doing so we show others the way towards living a life in grace. My gift then becomes illustrating inner peace in action—to show inner peace. This is the legacy we must show to those closest to us. We live in peace so that our friends and loved ones can see what peace looks like and then they can find their own way to peace. We show our children how to live in peace, our spouse, our friends, the people we work with, neighbors or the strangers we pass on the street and from our example peace spreads throughout the world.
We are the peace the world seeks. We are the love that the world seeks. We are the Teacher that was sent to show the world there is a better way to live. You are love. You are light. You are the Savior that you have been seeking. And once remembered, we all harmonize once again with the Source of All Love.
On this Winter Solstice I send each of you love and light today. Thank you for taking this journey with me. Without you, the ride would not be the same. Without you, my canvas would be missing the necessary brushstrokes that make up my masterpiece called “David Daniel, A Life Well Lived.” God bless each of you. I give thanks for you. Sat Nam and have a very blessed Winter Solstice Season.