Every year after dieting in the traditional way for a month ahead of time my family goes on our annual pilgrimage to the sacred Peyote gardens of the Huichol Indians of Mexico.

My husband Aaron and I were driving up to Denver on our way to a family wedding. We were chatting about this and that and listening to music, and I was behind the wheel. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw a large bird, obvious road kill, on the shoulder.

Have you ever been speaking to someone and listened incredulously as they told you something that revealed how seriously they were deluding themselves? Perhaps it is a parent whose child is in a lot of trouble abusing drugs or has severe learning disabilities and you hear them talking glowingly about how their child is going to go to Harvard.

The cool reddish brown water swirled all around me as I looked up at a peerless blue sky, white billowy storm clouds rising in the heat of the Amazon basin all around.

Stubbornness is one of the two main dragons or obstacles for 2008 (along with self-destructiveness) and therefore it is good to understand how it operates in our current times. Stubbornness is both personal and global and influences almost everything, being a favorite strategy of the false personality to maintain control.

Must we get old and decrepit? Is getting old and grey honorable or is it just a drag? Is youth all its cracked up to be? Where are we headed?