Trying to post this while bleary with tears . . . BUT!

November 12, 2021

Thank you, as ever, Fred Burks, of wanttoknow.info, for your inspiration. To his email list, today:

Dear friends,

The profound video below is the most inspiring video clip I have ever seen. This 15-minute clip presents key excerpts from an Emmy-award-winning documentary which features the amazing Challenge Day story. Challenge Day has profoundly transformed the lives of countless teenagers and even entire schools around the world. Thousands of testimonials every year describe in glowing words how this one-day program dramatically changes lives for the better.

Challenge Day so inspired me that shortly after I learned about it, I volunteered for one of their day-long programs. I was astounded at how deeply I was affected and how I personally witnessed the lives of so many teenagers being transformed in front of my eyes.

Challenge Day is a one-day program offered in hundreds of high schools every year which opens students to seeing their common humanity in a way that is simply miraculous. It is not uncommon by the end of the day to find rival gang members hugging each other and saying I’m sorry, even with tears in their eyes. Watch the powerful clip of this profound video at the link below and see if you aren’t moved and inspired by this life-changing program.

www.personalgrowthcourses.net/video/challenge_day

If you feel like you really don’t have 15 minutes, a four-minute version of this profound video will give you a good taste. And if you find the 15-minute clip to be anywhere near as inspiring as I do, you will likely want to watch the full, Emmy-award-winning documentary, which is available in links just below the 15-minute version. It rocked my world!

For more on this empowering work which continues to spread inspiration and transformation every day, explore the engaging Challenge Day website. This is a shining example of the many thousands of exciting movements now working to transform our world in wonderful ways. Take care, and may the inspiration of Challenge Day encourage us all to open more to the beauty in every one of us.

With very best wishes for profound transformation,
Fred Burks for the PEERS empowerment websites

P.S. For a highly praised, free online course which features Challenge Day in lesson one, click here.

_____

I’ve only watched half of the first, four minute clip. What will happen inside me with the 15-minute clip? How about the full documentary? Do I dare?

I especially appreciate their vision:

Notice: the Challenge Day focus is on both individuality and community, both freedom and responsibility, not just one or the other. When we focus only on individualism, we end up with anarchy, predatory capitalism. When we focus only on community, we end up in socialism/communism, with the individual subsumed to the state.

Any polarity in the 3D world can be analyzed the same way. We simply must learn to integrate seeming opposites, to recognize and embrace the paradox that attends any deep understanding, if we wish to recognize ourselves as Sovereign Souls, at One with All.

“The opposite of one great truth is another great truth”: Neils Bohr.

BUT: When I went to the Challenge Day website —

Personal Growth Courses: CHALLENGE DAY for teens

— I was immediately confronted with the words Social Emotional Learning, which I learned a short while ago, is the way CRT (Critical Race Theory) has been rebranded to disguise its racist intent. Hmmm . . . does this mean that Challenge Day is not what it seems, or has been somehow corrupted? NO. Searching deeper, I came across this, from parentsforaamerica.com.

How and When CRT infected SEL and Culturally Responsive Teaching

The image accompanying this article is extremely instructive; pay attention especially to the bottom right corner paragraph.

 

 

As I approach my 79th birthday . . .

November 11, 2021

I find myself entertaining a brand new challenge, one not usually embarked upon at my “advanced” age. More on that later.

Meanwhile, I can’t help but notice these days, especially on fb (thank you all my crone and cronette friends!), various amazing photos of “old people” not only who are not afraid to “show their age,” but who “do their thing,” no matter what.

This “do my thing” motto is a signature of the Pluto in Leo generation, (1938-58), otherwise known as the “Me Generation.” Amazingly enough, despite our generational narcissism, the millennials who I’m surprised don’t hate us for still taking up most of the psychic space on the planet, also love our music! In fact, they gravitate to our music just as much as we do and did.

So it’s not surprising that the Rolling Stones No Filter Tour, postponed due to the plandemic, is rolling out again in 2021, this time in North America. With, of course, my favorite, Keith Richards, who claims to have quit smoking!

“After learning it causes premature aging.” Hilarious! He also says that he found it harder to quit smoking than to quit heroin. I too, found it extremely difficult to quit smoking, and finally did so. I date the beginning of my real life to that inflection point.

My generational narcissism also includes female performers, of course, and some of them are still on stage as well. I especially love this wonderfully vulnerable photo of Patti Smith (born 1946) and Joan Baez (born 1941), taken in Germany a few weeks ago.

Then there are those of  “advanced” age who are still tackling physical challenges. For example:

I wanted to only include those still alive in this compendium, but two photos with stories stick out as wanting to be included. The first, a woman, who set out at age 63 to do what most people would never do at any age.

YEAH, CRONE!

The other is Oliver Sacks, who’s gratitude is, I feel echoed, in the photo with Patti Smith and Joan Baez above. Truly, gratitude, for all of life’s offerings, the highs and the lows, may be the most treasured gift of the aging process.

Okay. Now I will spill a bit about what I’m working on, to be unveiled at my 79th birthday party — the beginning, remember, of my 80th year! Luckily, I have long known that “the body is primary.” In my case, this means that I walk (with puppy Shadow) three to four miles every morning, and that I do another hour that includes yoga, chi kung and tai chi every afternoon. Two hours of “physical culture” per day. Because truly . . .

So, because I am still in relatively good health, I can ignite new projects, new initiatives, and even have a reasonable goal of achieving them. As to this new project (which I add to the current priorities of one blog post per day, and a bit of work on my archival Recapitulation Project per day as well), let me just say, involves a performance, and that I am practicing secretly, on my daily walks. Will make a video of the performance on my birthday, December 19, and share it here.