hello everyone,well, it finally happened...i clicked on the wrong button!afgo part 2 is, of course, meant to come after part 1, which will be published in january!!!so please ignore it and i'll try to publish it in the proper order!sigh...sometimes my fingers move faster than my brain!
a 45-year old shawl
On a coach, barrelling down the motorway to heathrow airport, i sat next to a woman who admired my copper-coloured silk shawl. this is my travelling shawl. it has accompanied me on many journeys, keeping me warm in overly air-conditioned planes, embracing me on long car trips into the countryside.
i responded to her words by telling her that i've had the shawl for at least 45 years. her career is as a quality manager. her eyes opened wide, amazed that anything could last 45 years! then i told her i had bought it in a charity shop, so, most likely it was older than 45 years. eyes opened even wider. this shawl is older than she is.her next comment left me stunned. she asked "what would you tell younger people to guide their lives?" i paused before answering, breathing into my heart. this was a profound question, and deserved a considered answer. this is a question for an elder."take excellent care of your inner life," i responded. "your body will change and deteriorate. your inner self can only grow."eyes opened even wider.she then told me she has asked this question of only one other elder. this elder responded, "i would have travelled more."we continued to chat as we near the airport. she said she would take my answer with her and share it with her hungarian family. as we parted she acknowledged, "in this country older people are not respected."how would you answer that question?
descendants
i am a woman who chose not to have children. i wonder what others might be feeling/doing/thinking at the eldering stage of life if they too have made that choice. certainly, there are advantages to having been childless, ones which i still cherish and for which i am deeply grateful. i am also aware that, in the usual course of events, children care for parents in their ageing process. i don’t have that luxury.if you do have descendants, can you imagine what your life would be like without children and grandchildren? great grandchildren? how would you fill your days without childcare, without worry about them, without the joy they provide? how would you find your way in the world without those anchors?
in our current global environment having these descendants doesn’t mean they live near enough to be in your daily life. we often depend on technology to keep us connected with people we love who live far away. so many elders, who have these descendants, don’t have the contact that seemed to be so ordinary even 20 years ago. they too, like me, don’t have immediate family to care for them as the years pass.where do we find the community that once took the shape of blood family? most of our friends are close to our own age and so not really able to take care of us when we might need it. there have been many projects and experiments in multi-generational connections. are they successful beyond the length of the experiment? how lasting are the relationships that were formed?how do we create the sense of belonging, the sense of being cared for? with whom do we make the connections that matter? how do we sustain them over the distance of space and time? what are we willing to do in order to have this vital contact in our lives?i have no answers. i am simply taking rilke’s advice.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
the hope
My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people... Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
when i read these words, written by the american poet, psychoanalyst and post-trauma specialist, clarissa pinkola estes, my heart leapt. her way with words is extraordinary, having been raised in the almost-vanished oral and ethnic, rural tradition. her insight reflects her training as a jungian analyst and her compassion seems boundless. she was born in 1945 and is a fierce, courageous, and sensitive woman encouraging us all to become elders in our tribe.
most moving to me is her encouragement to hope. hope is not a wishy-washy, namby-pamby new age concept. it is one of the driving forces in human existence. it is what mobilises us to grow, evolve and move forward. while we know, from decades of life experience, things might not unfold as we would like, hope is what allows us to focus on the best...the best in ourselves and others.hope is also a gift of spiritual practice. as we open more deeply to our connection to the universe and the immediate world around us, there is a space for hope to blossom. this connection to Spirit (or whatever you call that energy) can, if we allow it, to fill us with the ability to look forward with desire. spiritual practice, of whatever sort, opens the space of trust. this trust may lie in a higher power or in our own ability or in others. and practice can allow us to express that hope even when events around us fill us with astonishment and dismay and disillusion.estes also reminds us that we, those whose lives have been filled with the hope of self-expression and self-realisation, have been preparing for this time all along. it is in this vast “plain of engagement” that we can express our wisdom as elders. it is here, in the spiritual desert that we can create a garden. we, who grew up in the hopeful 60s, were “made for these times”. it is our strength and power that was revealed then. we need it now, just as we did then.we are the grey warriors, the spiritual warriors who can create within our close circle of friends and companions more love, more hope, more amazing events which counter-balance the degradations we see daily.
we have the power.we have the hope.
672,768,000
come back, again and again, to the breath.
this is a tried and tested meditation practice...as you sit meditating it is inevitable that your mind will wander. when it does, bring it back to focus on the breath.today, though, breath awareness had a different quality. as i inhaled and exhaled i was filled with gratitude. suddenly the miracle that we call breathing became real to me. and i was overcome with awe.on average, a person at rest takes about 16 breaths per minute. this means we breathe about 960 breaths an hour, 23,040 breaths a day, 8,409,600 a year. the person who lives to 80 will take about 672,768,000 breaths in a lifetime.breathing is a complex, integrated process involving muscles, bones, nerves, blood, gases. as long as we live it continues ceaselessly, with or without our conscious awareness.we are aware of breath in meditation as well as at other times. after climbing a flight of stairs the breath becomes deeper, more full-bodied. any exercise will place a greater demand on the breath. breath also changes from its resting state when we are afraid, or embarrassed, or joyful, or passionate.the breath is fine-tuned to our emotional state and to the state of our mind in addition to the needs of the body. when the mind is filled with a sense of equanimity and calm, the breath is even and regular. in an agitated state the breath is short and irregular. there is a great deal of research into the effect of mind on breath and breath on mind.until our last exhalation, we can always return our awareness to the breath. no special equipment is needed. no fancy clothing, no accessories are required. only lungs are needed. by focusing on the breath we have the capacity to calm the mind, become aware of our immediate surroundings and become fully present.as i reflect on my ageing, i notice the veins on the backs of my hands, the changes in skin and muscle, the changes in my capacities. i also notice the breath, unchanged, a stream reaching all the way back to my first inhalation.and i am grateful for this breath....and this breath...and this breath.
hopefully, i will continue to be grateful until my last exhalation.
a chance meeting
strange things happen on the bus.
being a frequent user of public transport i sometimes meet friends and acquaintances going in the same direction. i recently met someone i hadn’t seen in some time. i asked how she was doing and what she was doing, knowing that she’s very active politically. she told me she had recently been interviewed by a magazine about her history as a lesbian activist in london in the 70s.then she began to talk about her friends and comrades from that time who had died, and their funerals.she pondered aloud, “do we cry at funerals for our lost youth?”that gave me pause for thought, and much contemplation after i stepped off the bus.why do we cry at funerals?
i suppose there are as many reasons as there are people who shed the tears. for some it might be their lost youth, vitality, conviction that we could change the world. for others it might be the loss of the dead person in their life, the hole that cannot be filled by anyone except the person who has died. for yet others it might be the prospect of their own death and the fear that the thought engenders.facing our mortality is one of the sacred tasks of eldering. how do we hold our hardwiring to survive alongside the profound knowledge that we will die? ram dass, one of the greatest (and funniest) spiritual teachers of our generation, reminds us that “dying is absolutely safe. no one fails at it.” we will all go through the transitions from birth to life to death, no matter what the years of living have brought.the practice of surrender helps me to hold my certain death in my consciousness. carlos casteneda, another bright figure of the 60s and 70s, reminded us that death lives on our left shoulder. (while casteneda’s work has been questioned by anthropologists, the lesson here is worth learning regardless of whether it is a true yaqui teaching or not.)were we to live with that awareness, that continual knowledge, how would we live each day, each moment, each breath? were i able to actually sustain that awareness, i would breath with gratitude, act with love and speak with my highest intentions for all beings.in that way i would to go to my funeral undiminished, fulfilled and whole.