The eucalyptus trees in our backyard shed their bark once each year.  At this season of the year I am reminded of a familiar teaching of The Buddha which says, “Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again.  Other great thinkers and teachers have made the same observation.  Jesus said something that speaks to the same human possibility that far too many people never discover: “You must be born again.”  The writer of the Gospel of Mark has Jesus saying it another way... that it’s not a good idea to put new wine into old wineskins. The implication is the same.   We humans are creatures with what seems to be an ability unique among primates; we can reinvent ourselves.  From the “now” we can decide to move forward into the future out of the past and out of the now, refusing to be impaired by remorse. We are not required to crawfish always backward into the past.  We can learn from the past without being tied to it.