GETTING OLDER

It is warm for this time of year 36.8 F. It is grey out and it seems foreboding, although, if one doesn't know the forecast they may just see the grey. Our warm spell is about to be over. Rain and then snow is coming tonight and below zero temps on the weekend.

I like snow but I am not looking forward to more at this time. We have six to eight inches and that should be enough to protect the perennials and other plants that need snow cover. And we have that driveway, the length of a city block, one tenth of a mile to be exact. The cleaning lady is coming tomorrow at 9:30AM. Will the driveway need plowing? I know it will be fine. I have no business gazing into the future anyway.

My little sister, Sandy, had her 80^th birthday yesterday! Time sure flies when we are having fun! It reminds me, I will be 83 in two weeks. I actually enjoy growing old. I feel freer than I have ever felt. I think some people dread the specter of death. I don't. I know what that is like, I was there once, no more.

In the last couple years, my brother Bruce [eighteen months older] and my brother Garth [fourteen months younger] died. In the same time period Arlene, Bruce's wife and my former wife, Donna, died. I also learned of the death of two people I was close to.

I worked as a Social Worker in an old folks home once. I was relatively young then and I observed a wide range of attitudes towards the idea of death. Most of the folks were serene about it.

I don't feel death knocking on my door. So anything I write at this moment must be tempered with that understanding. However, I do not think I have any fear of death. As we get older we get used to the idea. The temporariness of everything becomes more obvious. We are taught by our spiritual teachers that we are not our bodies. That becomes easier and easier to see. When I am sitting in my chair, I am any age. I could feel like I am twenty five. When I get up and walk I am reminded that I am not young anymore.

I know that some folks can't get their minds around reincarnation, or for that matter, life after death of any kind. Perhaps, that means identification with the body. I think bodies are great. I love my body but it is a long time since I thought I was my body. I have thought of myself as an evolving soul for a long time. I think I keep coming back to this world in an attempt to get it right. By right, I mean, making all decisions with love. It seems that this world has both positive and negative energies and the choices we make shapes our lives. Each of us is on a mission to evolve towards the loving beings we are. How I see it is we are love, nothing else but love, we are born as pure love. We have things we want to learn so we choose situations to help us grow. The world as we experience it is polarized. Our goal is to choose positive energy in every instance. The choice between love and fear is constantly dangling in front of us. The world we make both individually and collectively is based on these choices.

Growing old helps one see that our essential nature is spirit [energy] and our bodies are made for this experience. A long time ago we got lost in separation. We have taken separation to the nth degree. We are tired of this experiment with separation and many of us have come into this world to solve this enigma for ourselves and help others with their struggle. When we are in this polarity can we choose love over fear?

We see what separation has done. Can we see what Oneness can do?

We help each other by seeing through, whatever crazy facade they are wearing at the moment, and seeing they are love. Even in the depth of our own crazy experiences [separation] we can remind ourselves we are really love.

I think for most of us age brings us closer to seeing Oneness. We struggle. But we don't take our craziness so seriously. We know that if people just loved each other we could live in paradise. It is not just a dream. It is not just a pie-in-the-sky idea. If one has 83 years of making iffy decisions, one begins to see the difference love makes.

What would happen if we invested as much energy in pursuing Oneness as we have separation? What would it be like if nobody tried to be better than anybody else? What would it be like if nobody tried to amass more wealth than anybody else? What would it be like, if instead of having power over others, we desired the strength to help those who needed elevation? I could go on and on, we get the idea.

Let us turn around individually and as a group and pursue Oneness. Let us turn our backs on separation. Haven't we learned all we need to?

I was intending to write about aging and I didn't mean to intertwine it with our search for Oneness. I will write more on both subjects.

Love and Peace, Gregg