recently, as i sat at my meditation altar, i drew a card from a deck of quotations by the great persian poet, jalal ad-din muhammad rumi (1207-1273).
before death takes what has been given to you, you must give away everything you can give.
i sat in the stillness of early morning, with the cry of seagulls awakening the sky, each line finding a place in my heart.“before death takes....”will death take or give? certainly she will take what we know now to be ‘i’, and the life we are currently living. she will take this consciousness, the one we know now. will she give something in return? what could that be? or is this all there is?“...what has been given to you,...”much has been given. while living many years is certainly not always easy, or pleasant, or smooth, it can be full of deep values, rewarding relationships of all kinds, love, joy and spirit. the process of a life well-lived demands a great deal of effort. and yet, in retrospect, it all flows from one present moment to the next, given to us.“...you must give away...”spread the wealth! give it away! how can we give the essence of what we cherish, the love and the connection to spirit? by being love, by being the values we hold dear, by being that connection as best we can. it is in being that we can exemplify all that is important to us. we can aspire to be honest, loving, kind, courageous in all we do. sometimes we succeed; sometimes we don’t. it is in the effort of giving away that we find peace.“...everything you can give.”rumi doesn’t tell us to give everything away. only to give what we can give, what we are able to give at any moment. there are times when we are less able to give, when we need to hold ourselves close. there are times when we can give none of ourselves. there are times when we overflow with the gifts we have been given and it is easy to give them away.this could also be understood as rumi's idea of downsizing!
the voice in my head (i'll bet you have one too!) says i am supposed to be able to practice as i did at 45 when i attended my first yoga class. even then i couldn’t do what the 20-year olds could do, but that was okay then. this voice has told me repeatedly that how i am able to practice at 71 was not good enough...until today.today, curiosity became the watchword. isn’t this interesting!suddenly, my shoulders felt more open, my hips more supple. nothing changed...except my mind. curiosity led me to breathe into the discomfort, into the sensations, so that i could explore what was there. as i became more acutely aware of exactly what was happening, i could be with the moment and then make a choice. curiosity slowed my conditioned response to move away from discomfort.at that moment i could decide...shall i stay here with this discomfort and continue to inquire? shall i, with continued awareness and curiosity, adjust my body to lessen the discomfort and see what is there in that new place? shall i simply let go and lie down happily on my mat?
there is no “right” answer to these questions...they are all right.curiosity led to equanimity. 
to have a peaceful heart is a human desire, a human longing, a human being. to simply be, to sit in awareness of what is, takes a lifetime of conscious practice and, as the buddha called it, right effort. some may be blessed with this ability from an early age, though, for most of us, it takes decades of opening and closing, of remembering and forgetting.and this being in the heart in peace is what we can model for others, whether they are younger than we are or older.peace in the heart is not always tranquil. it can be painful, searingly painful. and there can be peace alongside the pain. peace in the heart is being with what is. we are conditioned to avoid pain and move toward pleasure. this too is human being. we know that pain is inevitable, and, as the saying goes, suffering is optional. it is the suffering that is set aside by a peaceful heart. that heart can hold the pain without suffering, without adding or subtracting even an iota of what is present in the moment.as we grow in years we experience losses, of course. and it is a peaceful heart that can hold these losses as they come. they are an essential part of life, of being. without the impermanence of things, experiences, objects, and people there would be no growth, no creation, no joy.cultivating a peaceful heart is the path we walk as conscious elders...we walk both for ourselves and for others. let us be with our being.
(with 79 years of life experience, gunilla norris is a spiritual teacher who flies under the radar. she is not well known and does not teach a specific tradition, rather encourages us to see the spirit in daily life, mundane activities and each breath.)
i was not close with my mother. we had conflict unspoken all my life. and yet, now that she has been dead for almost a decade, i often think of her fondly. i might see something...a piece of jewellery (she had some beauties!) in a shop window...or smell something...a freshly baked croissant (one of her indulgences)...or feel whipped cream (one of her favourites) on my tongue and there she is! she emerges complete in the memory of my mindheart in her most joyous self. and then i feel sorrow for the imagined past, for what might have been. and then the sorrow is replaced by the taste and smell and sight of my mother’s gladness.
a woman i knew, younger than i, died a few years ago. i did not know her well, but knew her in a rich, intense context. when she died i was filled with sorrow. i did not regret knowing her only a short time. i did not miss her as a friend. and yet, there was sorrow. i missed knowing she was on the planet, contributing her spritely energy, her smile, her insight. the world lost a unique being. and i lost a connection that can never be replaced...not even by a shadow, or a fragment, or a fraction.
this is how it is right now.this moment is exactly as it is...and so is this moment.this moment might contain joy, or grief, or pain, or realisation, or despair.and this moment might contain any of those states, or one of a myriad of others. surrender brings the awareness of change, of the transitory nature of life and all that life contains. surrender allows for open-heartedness, for compassion and for love.this form of surrender, a deep forward fold, is not passive. it is not a giving up. rather, it is an offering up of my conditioning, my image, my false self. it is an offering up of all the constructs that seem to be real in favour of what actually is real.i may never be able to practice that particular asana again..or i may be able to practice it the next time i stand on my mat.i fold my palms in gratitude for afgo!
only this time i couldn’t. my body simply wouldn’t move into that shape, wouldn’t create the space to live in that way, wouldn’t breathe itself into that form of bliss.my ego took over and, instead of into grace, i plunged into anger/shame/depression/frustration. “this is not supposed to happen to me. i was a yoga teacher for years. i’m supposed to be able to practice this asana until i’m 108 years old!”, my ego cried.wow, that voice was shouting at the top of its expanded lungs. i left the studio on the verge of tears. my heart ached with the loss of my former self, the self i had cultivated and the self in whom i found my identity. it all came crashing down in grief. and this is an afgo, for sure.“okay”, the more awakened part of me said, “what f---ing growth opportunities can arise from this grief?”can i grow to love this new body?can i grow to embrace what is?can i grow to release the image my ego had created?can i grow to let my spirit hold me in the present moment?can i grow to allow beauty to abound while i...all of me...changes each day?can i contemplate who “i” is really?