as i continued to plumb the depths of “the age advantage” article in positive.news i was happy to read the unnamed author’s findings about the idea of anti-ageing. she/he tells us that the editor in chief of the US women’s magazine, allure, has resolved to stop using that term and has asked the beauty industry to do the same. editor michelle lee says, “when we use the term anti-ageing, whether we know it or not, we’re subtly reinforcing the message that ageing is a condition we need to battle”.the anti-ageing sector of the cosmetic industry generates billions as women and men frantically attempt to have un-lined and un-sagging skin, un-grey hair, un-flabby muscles and all the other physical changes that happen on the continuum of ageing.
i find this all deeply disturbing. while it certainly behooves us to stay as healthy in bodymindheartspirit as we are able, i want my age to show. i want every wrinkle, grey hair and arthritic joint to be on display. to have elderhood honoured and respected we must honour and respect it ourselves. by attempting to erase all the signs of ageing, we participate in our own diminishment. we participate in supporting the notion that only the young have contributions to offer to our society and that we, the olders, are a burdensome, useless demographic. (interesting to me is the fact that most youngers who complain about us as a group don’t realise they are complaining about their own grandparents and great-grandparents!)what would our world be like if we gave up the idea that “ageing is a condition we need to battle”? what would our world be like if every time we noticed a new wrinkle or experienced a new discomfort, we said to ourselves, “wow. this is interesting. i wonder where it will take me, what it can teach me.”we would be living in a very different world, one filled with compassion and grace, love and caring...and joy!
positive.news 1
positive.news is an antidote to the poison of the daily television/radio/internet barrage we receive. the focus is on what’s working, who’s doing it and how it effects our lives and the planet. positive.news is a well-researched, well-written and beautifully put together quarterly magazine...a joy in a world filled with suffering.issue 91/fourth quarter 2017 has a cover “girl”...89-year old professional model daphne selfe. the cover story is called “the age advantage”. needless to say, i had to buy it!
there are the usual unusuals sited in the article, daphne being one of them. also honoured is the oldest person to scale everest, britain’s oldest professional ballet dancer and a man who started school at 84, among others.as inspiring as these role models are, they are unusual. what had a greater impact were some of the statistics. did you know that...65-79 is the happiest age group of adultswomen in their 80s have more enjoyable sex than those up to 30 years younger75% of 50,000 the people aged 50+ interviewed (by the insurer sunlife) are less concerned about what people think of them than when they were younger61% of them enjoy life now more than when they were younger59% live ‘for today instead of tomorrow’42% say their life is more exciting nowit is this last number that interests me. more than 20,000 of the people interviewed are more excited by the way they live than they were in the past. this certainly puts paid to the common notion that olders are bored, spend all day watching telly, and are not engaged in their communities. it is the ‘common notion’ that needs to be challenged.certainly there are challenges to society that the olders present. how and where will we live? how will we remain active in our work, should we choose to continue to work, as many of us are? if we choose to leave work (i really don’t like the word ‘retire’!) what will we do with our days and where will we do it?and what of those olders who live in poverty, social isolation, with declining health, and malnutrition? these too are part of the total picture of olders in the UK.conscious ageing asks us to consider these questions not just from a practical perspective. we need also to see them in light of our spiritual lives. sadly, this is an area that the positive.news writer did not consider. i’m not surprised! most writing about ageing focuses on inspiring stories or worries about health care or illness.to age with awareness we honour our experience, examine our lives and begin to see how everything we have lived through has created the being that we are. it offers us the opportunity to not only give back to our communities, but to live with a deep sense of fulfillment and gratitude. and to provide support for those who need it...on every level.
illness
illness comes to us all. it is an experience shared by all humans...the body’s immunity fails, an organ grows weary or clogged, the bones become brittle and the skin thins.
as with all experiences, the deepest question is how to relate to it? how do i hold this challenge in my heartmind? will i tell myself a decades-old story about what it means, bringing myself back to a time that is no longer present? will i engage in endless “what-ifs”?or will i hold this experience in a vision of this moment? what is actually happening, right now?which part of me will rise up and guide my way through this experience?there is a deep desire to rest, to simply curl up into a foetal position, returning to the process of birth and slipping into sleep.
and there is a deep desire to awaken to this moment, regardless of what it holds, to come to awareness of each breath and embrace it in its splendour.
feeling the pain, feeling the disappointment of no longer being as i was, feeling the anger at a new challenge to my body, to surrender to the truth of this moment are all essential to the process of awakening. without this authenticity all the years of spiritual practice and other inner work would be for nought.gratefully, though i hear the old stories, it is possible to no longer believe them. the voices that tell the stories are audible. now they exist in the background. there is another truth to replace them. it is the truth of the now. this is not then.this experience is simply this one, this now.could this be a piece of the wisdom of elderhood?
older/elder
in her brilliant book, this chair rocks: a manifesto against ageism, ashton applewhite differentiates between olders and elders. she also uses the term youngers rather than youngsters. she claims that not all olders are elders.
in her mind, an elder is a wise person who guides the community/family/tribe, much as they have in former times, and may still do. an elder is deemed worthy of respect simply by virtue of advanced years. (granted, not all olders are worthy of respect...witness the sexual harassment scandals. they are clearly situations where an older is demeaning a younger and not worthy of my respect.)an older is someone who is older than a younger. we are always older than some people and younger than others. it is value-neutral, unlike “the elderly” or “senior citizen”. i’ve adopted the term.contrary to ashton’s view i believe that every older has the potential to be an elder. olders can be elders-in-training, potential elders. we all have an elder within. making that energy conscious is essential to the paradigm shift that will allow all olders to be treated with dignity. as olders allow their elderhood to emerge the culture will change.just as the paradigm shifted in the 60s and 70s, it can shift again. ageism is the only prejudice that is still socially acceptable. just look at the birthday card rack in you local shop. the cards that claim to celebrate 60, 70 or 80 are often actually demeaning and degrading. they provoke laughter because olders are still open to ridicule. it’s only embarrassing to be called ‘older’ as long as i’m embarrassed. the phrase “you look good for your age” is supposed to be a compliment...but only because our culture equates good looks with youth. my recent response to that comment from a younger was, “wow, you look good for your age too.”to become conscious of our life experience and its value, to honour the decades, is to become an elder. every older has a remarkable story to tell, one that holds a legacy for a younger. that younger may be a blood relative or not, may be the same skin colour or not, may have the same sexual or gender identity or not.
the only difference is how long one has lived on the planet.
resolutions? again?
i resolve to live in the moment, to be present.
i resolve to refrain from ageist language.
“i’m so glad you’re still up and around!”
"you’re still so agile! how’s your health?”
“senior moment”
“wow! she’s 78 and still takes online classes.”
i resolve to stand in my power and authority, with kindness and compassion.
i resolve to bring conscious ageing and spiritual eldering into the public conversation in order to create a paradigm shift.
i resolve to regard each older as an elder-in-training.
i resolve to open my heart to the places that hold fear.
i resolve to love ever more deeply.
identity part 2
who are we now?who have we been?what remains constant?what changes?what is identity? how is it that i experience my self as me? what bit of me is that experiencer?
often, as we age, we comment “i don’t feel 70. inside if feel like i’m 20”...or some such thing. only when we hurt do we complain about our age. in good health, feeling well, i experience myself as some constant, something that doesn’t change in spite of the increasing number of wrinkles and the decreasing number of stairs i can climb.in yoga philosophy there is an aspect of mind called ahamkara, “I-maker”. this is our ability to make things “me” or “mine, the ability to take on identities. it is the ahamkara that labels and colours the input of our senses with a tag of “i like” or “i don’t like”, attraction and aversion. this tells us who we are...a woman or a man or not, a person of colour or not, LGBT or not... ahamkara builds the identity of each of us as an apparent individual, a being separate from all else that is “me”. all those labels and colours together make up what i experience as me.and what happens to “me” when “i” change? if i come out or go straight, am i still me? if i move house, am i still me? if i break my leg, have a heart attack, live with dementia, grow a tumour, paint my toe nails, am i still me? if i bleach my hair, am i still me?
is there a constant that doesn’t change regardless of the outer or inner fluctuations of mind and body? is there something deeper, more profound than my reactions to sensory input, something that remains the same? and where is that something? is it in my heart? my brain? no one has ever found this ‘thing’ and yet we know there is something that goes beyond the daily, beyond the ordinary doings of life.for some, this ‘thing’ is called God, or Allah, or Divine Mother, or Spirit, or Mother Earth. there are thousands of names for this aspect of ourselves. some find it outside the experience of self...something separate to whom they pray or speak. others find it deep within, in an indefinable place inside. these are, of course, two sides of the same coin...inside/outside.and this thing, this connection, doesn’t change. it is the constant. it goes beyond ahamkara, beyond the aspect of ourselves that is ever changing and shifting. in yogic philosophy this ultimate, unchanging reality is called brahman. somehow an abstract name alone doesn’t do much. so the yogis also identified the subjective experience of this reality. it is called satchitananda.this word is actually three words combined. ‘sat’ is what we call existence. it can also signify truth. ‘chit’ signifies consciousness and ‘ananda’ means bliss. so altogether, our experience of this unchanging reality is an awareness of truth and bliss. how could that be bad?
as the years pass we have the opportunity to come closer to the realisation of this blissful, fully awake consciousness. as daily life simplifies, becomes more truthful, we can focus on this aspect of existence. we have the time and space to devote to the deepening of our awakening. we have the time and space to choose this work.as i wrote those words, i realised that i am speaking to those of us who actually have the time and space. many olders are homeless, destitute, struggling with ill health, caring for grandchildren in impoverished circumstances. are my words are only meaningful to those who live privileged lives?if there is something that is truly unchanging, it is there for all, regardless of the seeming differences.may all beings become aware.may all beings live in this truth.