Aging gracefully requires a shift in the way we thought we always were. We take all the stuff of daily life, the rules, the roles, the chores, the daily interactions and convert all of it into the totality of who we are. Gandhi said, “My life as my message.” In order for that to be true for us, we must simplify our lives to the common denominator of each breath and step as a preparation to merge into the Oneness of being. We can prepare for the inevitability of our rebirth into the next life, as we drop all that has gone before.

This is my focus for 2021. The pandemic has jettisoned all of us out of a normal never to return again. We can lament the passing of the old, all the while ignoring the potential of the new. Aging gracefully especially opens the way to be in the world but not of the world. We can gaze into our neighbors eyes and secretly love her. Love your neighbor as yourself.

My gift to Tomaso in the new year is to take a year long spiritual retreat with mentor and teacher, Will Johnson, to continue writing this blog, and continue a course in miracles studies for the fourth year with my Facebook group. We originally started after an an Eckhart Tolle class we all took together. Tolle was once an avid student of the course.

In essence, 2021 will be a mind fast.

Marianne Williamson is leading A Course In Miracles group as well, and some of us will glean her wisdom as we apply the lessons to our own lives, in the coming year. I’ve been a student of the Course for 40 years. Dropping grievances and judgments and opting for forgiveness and love hasn’t always been easy, but why? Because I’ve been too much “of the world.“

Street Strider is a projectory into a year full of unseen surprises. Yesterday, friend Ed and I tried it out. As for me, I am “stiff and sore,” as Tomaso used to say. My Strider mentor is coming by today to have a few giggles when I get on it again.

Maybe I’ll surprise both of us. After that, Pearlie and I will take our customary five mile walk, together. OM