In nature every winter, rows of trees stand bare without any apparent purpose, their old leaves crushed into the snow. But with the coming of spring, the very branches that were barren become lush with blossom. What once was in full bloom gives way to the rays of a summer sun and melts into a […]

All great transformations start from within. One of the most incredible is the caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly. Anyone who feels that a life change is impossible to make need only look to the chrysalis to see that nothing is impossible with vision, internal transformation, persistence, and collective action. Within the chrysalis, the caterpillar first […]

In broadest terms, greatness is a vague concept that is almost completely dependent on a person’s perspective and biases. Without an understanding of what greatness looks like for each of us, we can be assured never to reach it, much less catalyze someone else’s. I know that when I’m in my greatness I “ring true.” […]

In 1826, as soldiers marched across a bridge that spanned the River Irwell in England, the bridge began vibrating in time with their steps, ever more violently, until the bridge collapsed. From that point on, British soldiers were ordered to break step when marching across a bridge. What happened was a physics phenomenon called resonance. […]

It is an accepted myth that when people grow older, they fall apart and don’t do anything. I don’t think that is altogether true.  I think it is absolutely up to the individual. I mean, if you feel over the hill, you are over the hill. Each of us must do whatever we have a passion […]

City officials in Vienna, Austria, have been taking a novel approach to urban planning for nearly two decades: asking people how they use the city, and then redesigning public spaces and housing based on actual needs. The impetus for this is an official policy approach called “gender mainstreaming,” which the city uses to take gender […]

No matter where we choose to live, we do have to consider the reality that our bodies and minds will continue to age. The solution isn’t a community to take care of us. We need a community in which we all take care of one another. Some Leading-Edge Boomers have suggested a modern twist on […]

How does one keep from “growing old inside”? Surely only in community. The only way to make friends with time is to stay friends with people. Taking community seriously not only gives us the companionship we need, it also relieves us of the notion that we are indispensable. ~ Robert McAfee Brown Making big relocation […]

Check out last week’s post for Part 1 on this topic. You might be surprised by what people usually regret in the last weeks of their lives, according to palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware, author of The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing. The top two regrets are […]

“From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life. For in the secret hour of life’s midday, the parabola is reversed, death is born.” ~ C.G. Jung, “The Soul and Death” Most of us don’t want to think about our own death. Dying is this distant, […]