Don Ayre

Aging Mindfully, Soulfully and Peacefully in the New Post-Pandemic Era Don Ayre

Due to the fact that COVID-19 has laid bare our vulnerability as a global community and indeed our continued survival as a species if we don't mend our ways at every level of existence - physicals, intellectual, emotional and spiritual, I am going to offer what I call 4D Awareness papers. They are the best that I can do using my past training and experience as a researcher and practitioners in the field of child and family therapy and community development to sort the steady flow of information that is coming our way. They are more intended as sketches than works of art or in any sense of completion. And so they are at best are glimpses of our cosmic reality given the limitations of the place and time that defines my present perspective...but they open the way to dialogue. The 4D awareness papers are used in this book as chapters. The research requirement as we turn the corner to navigate the future is enormous but so is our ability to respond to the demand. But it will take the informed 4D awareness of each one of us as members of the global community. It's up to us to be both SELF and WORLD aware and to assure ourselves that our growth and development both personally and politically is aligned with a cosmic reality. Hence, the term "4D awareness papers."Thus 4D Awareness Papers gathered here were originally position papers developed as an extension of some of my earlier writings BEYOND MINDFULNESS AND SOULFULNESS. I posted them over the past few months but having rewritten and revised them several times, I have found that they have evolved to the point that a reader should be able to see the COVID-19 in a different and more positive light aimed at personal and political recovery. Otherwise, we won't be able to unravel the present situation being left in the wake of COVID-19 and gather ourselves together to make the transition to a post COVID-19 era. This is most important post COVID-19 to get BEYOND MINDFULNESS AND SOULFULNESS to PEACEFULNESS as a new platform for building a global community that is consistent with cosmic reality. Otherwise, we will miss what's just around the corner of our future. In hindsight, we could have seen COVID-19 coming had we been open to its possibility.