I've had more time on my hands than I would normally since March. I had time to think of things and the cyclical nature of change. There's a pattern I have noticed many decades ago, I'll be doing something for 5-10 years and then everything changes. Sometimes the change is welcome, sometimes its not what I expect or consciously chose. But in the end, always perfect.
I've been noticing some people I know who have returned to organized religion. At times I've found it odd, given what I knew of them only a few years ago. It's not a path for me. I am not going to fault anyone else's journey, most of them didn't grow in a church, some came from hippy and alternative family situations. They didn't live through seeing corruption, abuse, money laundering, and a host of anything but "Christ like" behavior that I saw. There is a train wreck coming for all the Abrahamic religions, when the truth comes out about their sacred texts. Questions of who edited them, and who conflated the identities of numerous personalities, who decided what books became part of the anthology and which ones did not.
I've had a Facebook account for a year or so. Didn't post or even have a photo on it for years. Last couple of weeks I was looking up old names of old friends, at least the ones I can remember.
The time I spent on Facebook has been interesting. How many of the people I knew, who either made my life a joy or a miserable hell, just are not there anymore. When you get to my age you expect some attrition to accidents and aging. That's not surprising. What is surprising is how I no longer relate very well to very few of those people that are still around. They're still the same, I am not.
I've had my share of medical scares to be sure but I am truly amazed when I see people who are same age as me and how much older they look now. I've not aged a whole lot since 2013. Perhaps that was because I was having the time of my life doing what I loved doing. I grew 1 1/2 inches in height in Morocco and my feet grew two shoe sizes at age 56.
Not that everything has been easy, I've gone through some very difficult moments to be sure. You've all had an inside seat to most of that. But I have to say that I am very thankful for everything, the good and the bad, the moments I had needle sharp clarity on what I'd been doing and the moments where it felt I was treading water until the rest of the world caught up. I've been through that before too. Sometimes you breathe out, sometimes you breathe in and sometimes you hold your breath in suspense.
People have said "create the world you want". That's a pretty big paint pallet. Especially when you are still trying to wrap your head around who you are, what you've done before and can't remember yet, and what is even possible in a human lifetime. And none of us knows how long we have here in this moment. This is where being kind to yourself comes in, love yourself, love your strengths, love your annoying faults, and work through your incompetence and turn them into wisdom and mastery. Otherwise you can get depressed and hopeless in a seemingly uncaring world (but it's not really that way - it's just neutral and waiting for your call).
Don't make your identity about what you are against whether people or dogma, because those things that are not coherent with the incoming energies will surely be swept away like a flash flood in Nepal. Stand your ground when you need to, this is not a call to inaction or apathy.