Many of you may know many years ago, my first son Ryan, died at four months old, on my birthday. Ever since then, I had difficulty on my birthday, whether to be happy or sad on that anniversary. All during the years, I questioned why did he die? It was, in fact, what started me on my spiritual path, but the questions were never answered, until recently. I was puzzled about why did he die? What was his purpose in coming to earth? Why me? And this question comes up a lot with parents of SIDS, the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome parents. They ask, why me, what did I do? And I remember going through that whole guilt stage too, where you ask, did I feed the baby too much milk? Was it too hot or too cold? Did I keep him warm enough at night? Was it... the countless guilt questions that come up as you go back in time through your mind to find out what did I do wrong? What could I have done better, what could I have done to prevent this? And then, as the days move on into weeks, and the weeks move on into months, the question changes. For me, it changed to questions like, why did he choose me to have this impact on my life? And I had great difficulty arriving at any answers about that, because, I wasn't a drug addict, or an alcoholic, or a murderer, or ... I didn't believe there was any Karma there that might cause myself so much suffering at the loss of my first son. So, nothing was getting answered, and I was going around in circles. And then, the day came when I saw a sign in Dublin on the Royal Canal, and the sign was for a meditation center. It said, "Perfect Peace, Step Inside." And that attracted me because I was not having any peace. My life was on a path of self-destruction because nothing was making sense. There was no answers to anything, and I desperately needed that inner peace. Well, it provided it to a degree, in the sense that, once I allowed my mind to slow down, then things became clearer and lead to more understandings about what life is, and what life isn't, and what the purpose of life is, and why people are born and why people die. It answered why we age and why we suffer. All this came full circle today, when Aingeal Rose and I went out for a drive to a beautiful mountain town called Julian in California, about one hour northeast of San Diego. It is famous for its apple orchards, its cider, and for its apple pie. In fact, it's their big advertising campaign every year - the Julian, apple pie. While there, we relaxed, enjoying the beautiful sunshine before we headed back to the spring, still cold, snowy, frosty, weather of Oregon. Aingeal Rose asked me the strangest of questions. She asked me why do we age and die? Why do we age and die? And I went back through the experiences of the death of my son because that was what I used as a yard stick to understand why I was here. Why he was here. Who I was. Who am I, and why am I here? - This is the single biggest question we get from students and clients all over the world. We entered a discussion on being born, aging, and dying. We have tackled this before, but we never tackled it to the level, to the degree we're tackling it now. The reason is that it's such a vast subject, and it can be approached from so many angles and from so many planes of understanding. We find this is true when putting up a video on YouTube, for example, or a podcast, and we find some people will say, fantastic, wow, I really got that, that makes sense. Or, that opened doors for me, or that triggered light bulbs in my mind. You'll have other people who are so negative about it they are not willing to allow themselves to open a new door of understanding, or to enter another possibility of awareness or truth. Not that everything we say is absolute, or truth, by any means. We're portraying our growth of awareness as we, as we enter it. We report on it because we're aware of the necessity to understand our world, we're aware, and willing, to explore the possibilities. And this issue is huge in this w