Greetings Beloved Friends and Family,

May this letter find you and your loved one’s safe, peaceful, happy, healthy, and surrounded by love.

Due to my poorly-understood health conditions, which disabled me in 2019, I am still unable to work or venture out into society without repercussions, leaving me more isolated than I would like. The best parts of 2023 have been getting together with friends, whether that be dancing, meditating, parties, camping, community heart shares, or going on meditation or social retreats.

2023 in Pictures and Videos

My dear friend and dance buddy Sebastian moved from St. Paul to California in May of 2022, but we still got together on most weeks throughout 2023 to practice dancing via Steezy Studio and/or Zoom. You can check out our sick dance moves here. Haha!

In January, we yurt camped for one night at Afton State Park.

Through 2023, I hosted monthly parties. This is the delightful crew who showed up for our February get-together.

In March, we yurt camped for another night.

That night, there was an amazing northern lights display. This picture does not do it justice. At times it was as if clouds were crossing the entire sky while morphing from shape to shape in mere seconds. This planet is so beautiful and miraculous and I hope humanity can do a better job taking care of her and all of her amazing species and life forms. Photo credit: Apollo.

Almost every Tuesday evening of 2023, the Boundless Love Project members got together to meditate online and practice mindfulness and universal love for all beings and life forms. Here is a picture of the surprise birthday party they threw for me at one of our meetings in April. You are welcome to join us. You can learn more at the Boundless Love Project’s events page, or message me for details on how to join the Zoom calls.

June’s Party Crew!

Here are my dear friends, gratitude partners, and Boundless-Love-Project-meditation-regulars from Ohio. Matt is on the left, Scott is on the right. They visited with their moms (Sherry on left, Monica on right) and we got this pic of each of us with our moms.

In July, we did a weekend camping trip at Willow River State Park. Thanks Diane (far right) and everyone else who helped organize it!

In July, my health and energy levels were really good. I hoped I was well enough to teach the twelve-class Mindfulness Fundamentals course. I planned to teach one class every two weeks. The first class happened in August, but after four classes, the body was not holding up under the strain of teaching.

If you want to live with more love, courage, and joy, you can take the full Mindfulness Fundamentals 2.0 course online or take the new, incomplete Mindfulness Fundamentals 3.0 course online here. I hope to complete the 3.0 version in 2024 as energy and health permit. Either way, these are free resources for you to take advantage of if they call to you in any way.

In August, we had a friend’s retreat at Starshine’s (second from right on top) delightful Lake House in northern Minnesota.

My dear friend Lisa visited regularly this year so we could practice dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller and create this video in time to share it with people for Halloween.

In November, Milana, who was our foreign-exchange student/my sister, and her husband Sergei, who live in Moscow, visited my parents and I. We had a wonderful time with them while they were here.

In November, my dear friend and gratitude partner, Matt, visited town and we went for a sweet hike at Murphy-Hanrehan Regional Park.

In December, we all rented Pine Stone Lodge near Sandstone, MN for a weekend and had a fun retreat connecting through conversations, sauna, polar plunges, dancing, and other activities. My dear friends Jinath (two-down from the top on the right) and Melissa (two-down from top on left) travelled from New York and Iowa respectively to attend. Thanks Angie (top left) and everyone else who helped co-create this delightful retreat.

My dear friend Kylo and I spent the last 3 days of 2023 doing a meditation retreat at my place. The theme was loving-kindness and it was so nourishing, rejuvenating, grueling, and delightful. Much love and gratitude for Kylo for his doing this with me. His passion for full realization strengthens and supports my own.

Diane (not pictured - See her above in the July camping at Willow River pic) and Phoenix (front and middle in tie-dye blue) threw a heart-warming New Year’s Eve party where we gathered in community to dance, sing, connect, and play. So much gratitude to Diane and my community for making accommodations for me so I could attend. It was a delightful way to end 2023.

I Appreciate You

Thank you to all of my friends and family not pictured or mentioned above who I also love dearly. Your picture is engraved on my heart. :)

Thank you to all my friends and family who made time to get together with me. Thank you to everyone for accommodating my health needs so I can spend time with you. Thanks also to all of my friends and family who have sent holiday cards, emails, and messages. It is so good to hear from you all.

And a huge, never-ending, thank you goes to my parents for all their love and support. It is often challenging and inconvenient to live with someone with special needs, and they make many sacrifices for my wellbeing.

To my friends and family, thank you for your kindness, care, compassion, humor, playfulness, joy, and all the other beautiful qualities that you share with me.

Feel the Love

Finally, I just want to say a few things that we often forget, but I find important to remember. First, you have inherent worth and value, so treat yourself with the same level of compassion and kindness that you treat your dear friends and loved ones.

Second, all beings and life forms have inherent worth and value, and we all want to be safe, peaceful, and happy, so let’s do our best to be kind, compassionate, skillful, and forgiving with each other and all life — even those who we find mean, annoying, or hard to like.

Finally, on the surface, we are all unique, different, individual, fallible, and mortal. At our core, we are all the same Life — which is eternal, boundlessly loving, infallible, and wise. May we live from our core, while honoring and respecting the surface of everyone and everything. May all of our actions help create peace, community, health, and wellbeing for all humans, animals, and ecosystems.

Thank you for being you. Have a delightful Holiday Season and a Happy New Year.

Wishing you and your loved ones boundless love, peace, and joy,

Freeman

P.S. Ideally, I would send these out every year to stay in touch with friends who are far away that I don’t see often, but in reality they are intermittent. The only other one I sent out was for 2021 — and I think I sent that pretty late into 2022. Anyways, my love is there for you, even though I am inconsistent with these aspects of relationship.

P.P.S. Never forget your inherent worth and value. Even when you don’t feel it, you are cherished and loved. <3