Where are the new role models we can look up to?

In a rapidly shape-shifting world, we all can wonder where the inspirational exemplars are – the people who make us feel better about ourselves and who we can become.

Where are these paragons who are forging new frontiers to guide us and navigate our communities through storms to peaceful and prospering harbors? Who are the leaders of this time?

Postmodernity has irrevocably shaken the foundations of our traditional ideals about leadership. Along with dismantling all that historically was placed on a pedestal, we’ve been invited to discover and re-imagine we may be the people we are looking for. But then how do we integrate our own greater potential in the face of challenge?

Recently, the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, after 70 years on the throne of the U.K., offered us a reflection into this archetypal transition. The unprecedented spontaneous international wave of grief represented an end of an era. We could all feel and know the singular devotion and embodiment she represented we are not likely to see again.

This awareness begs the question, who then are the new role models? What unique configuration do they embody? In what ways will they integrate being themselves in the authentic way we crave, and represent a genuine response to a cause we want to believe in?

This conversation between Aviv Shahar and Jeff Vander Clute was recorded on October 3rd, 2023, just a few days after the passing of the Queen. It is part of a series of conversations conducted during the last three years, following up the Epoch Journey weekends with an international virtual community and builds on the Home Universalis Activates conversation. Early in the conversation, Aviv and Jeff pause to appreciate and reflect on that iconic moment, where we have the passing of a person who, very early in life, completely dedicated herself to the full embodiment of her role and duty. With this context they open an inquiry exploration into the many faces of the Universalis Human now beginning to appear.

In the Portals Article “The Three Journeys: The Escape – The Ensoulment – The Spiritualization” we explore the insight that one of the promises of our times is for all people to unlock the noble and royal potential that is latent in each human life. We suggested that the archetypal transition underway for humanity is to discover how to ensoul ourselves with a new operating system, a new way of being and doing that will enable us to not destroy life but support it.

Sapient Sapiens represented a great step in the enfolding of the evolutionary story. We contemplate and feel that we are now facing a new stage of prospective evolution, one where we can unlock our universal potential. We know quite a bit about our ancestors. We cannot assume however we truly know the generations to follow us in the future - our “forecestors.”

What capacities, configurations, and capabilities will they give rise to?

What will they care about and love?

What will be natural for them? How will they experience beauty?

In The 1000 Faces of Homo Universalis Aviv and Jeff embark on these inquiries and allow themselves to imagine and intuit some of these potential faces, revealing a fascinating multi-dimensional portrait of what could be a future human model.

These pathways of emerging consciousness invite us to resonate with our deepest sense of knowing about who we truly are, and a way of living where the personal contains the universal and the universal offers revelatory properties to the personal.

Among their perceptions:

• Humanity’s biggest challenge is how to source and activate a new operating system, new ways of being and doing, with new global institutions, that enable us to support, not destroy life.
• Binary and polarity points of view cannot offer resolution — they’re not in conversation or exploration; there's no new ecology, or relief, or pathway, or absolution.
• To redeem a blockage or stop situation and offer easement and healing, we take in and metabolize the shadow and the light of all perspectives.
• There are perception openers, connectors, and integrators; people that help the discovery of purpose by weaving and connecting perceptions and showing the patterns in and between us.
• We become artists of self-regulation, self-care and self-compassion to handle different natures of energy and become stable, intact vessels for ourselves and the people we serve.

This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.