Aging - with Joy, Dignity and Grace

“Wholly unprepared, we embark upon the second half of life. Or are there perhaps colleges for forty-year-olds which prepare them for their coming life and its demands as the ordinary colleges introduce our young people to a knowledge of the world? No, thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.”

~C.G. Jung

The years beyond sixty, the years of our second maturity, may be evolution’s greatest  gift to humanity. No longer needing to compete and to be acceptable, likeable, and all those other things considered respectable in society, people who have been doing their inner work become “uncaged” in their elder years, free to release energies and capacities that the culture restrained in them when they were younger. They balance the inwardness of the ascetic inner reflectiveness with the outwardness of reflected caring deeply for the planet and all beings. They express their spiritual realization in the everyday world. Viewing the world as sacred, they honor the planet and its multitude of species as a single living entity.  As “uncaged” individuals they flourish and replenish the earth with their true creative gifts of spirit and realization.

~Jean Houston

So , this is to wish you many years of being one of humanities greatest gifts, free of needing anything from others, but able to give out of freedom, uncaged from ego, filled with beauty, creativity and rich experience.  May each of you continue to unfold in every increasing golden spirals of light opening to the infinite nature of yourSelf, just like the nautilus. And on the way - don’t forget the chocolate!

~Lyndall Johnson

“The second half of life is about a marriage. It is about the union of opposites within us. It is about becoming whole, becoming one. It calls for the final acceptance and integration of diverse parts of oneself. This is an inner wedding and an outer one.”

~Anne Brennan and Janice Brewi: Passion for Life: Lifelong Psychological and Spiritual Growth.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/caitlin-flanagan-aging-60/620679/

Consider the changes you have seen in your lifetime in the world. Try to get a big picture of your life within a social context

Week 2: Archetype of the Queen

This is a complicated and deep teaching, but I encourage you to read it many times and see if you can find what I am talking about within yourself. Can you take the abstract teaching and really see how it is about your own inner experience and psyche? Try to do the exercises over time, coming back to them often and keep mulling it around within, until you reach deeper and deeper insights.

The first task of adult life is to develop into being successful in the external world - get an education, build a career, build resources, earn money and save for old age, build a house, be a model citizen who conforms to the expectations of society, be moral and good, raise children, be good grandparents, get them educated, and on and on. The focus is on success and achievement in the external world. This is largely driven by fears around survival, and the shame you would feel if you did not achieve all of this and look good on the outside and to others.

For more … Read here

 Consider this image of the Queen of Heaven as a depiction of the inner self, the child Jesus being the young soul developing an ego, that will have to be sacrificed in order to live in the resurrection body (Soul) of his own being. We are both fully human and fully divine as is depicted in this image - that is showing part of the journey, not the completion of the journey.

Taking into account your experiences, mining the depth and breadth of the Queen is all about relationship building, gestating and birthing the new and claiming what is offered to you. The queen invites you to cultivate purpose, creating a centered calm and growing your capacity. The queen insists that you feed your self what it is that you most need. The Queen energy activates empowerment, direction and voice, broadening your leadership abilities and experiencing sovereignty in ways that serves the whole self.

~Cat Caracelo in Archetypes, Expressive Arts, Personal Myth

Highly Recommended CD Listening in your car as you work through this course:

Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ series on old age:

How to Be an Elder

The Late Bloomer and

The Power of the Crone

“Each of us, at mid-life, has to find the way back to wonder. The alternative seems to be that we become jaded. By this time we have been around. We have seen it all, done it all, heard it all. There is little new under the sun for us …We have been hurt many times and our defensive crusts have grown thick. We are at great risk of becoming cynical. Cynicism and bitterness are real possibilities. Real temptations, when one has come face to face with the disillusionment that is at the heart of the mid-life crisis. To be in crisis means that one can go either way. Mid-life is, after all, the end of naïveté.”

~Anne Brennan and Janice Brewi. Mid-Life Spirituality and Jungian Archetypes

Week 3: What Relationship do you have to your own Physical Needs

If you look at the list of fears in Lesson 1, you will see that most of them relate to the fear of being dependent on others or losing independence in some way.

 Understanding our fears of dependency and having to have our needs met by someone else is an important part of the work of old age. Our fears around needs and having them met or not met by others is a developmental task of childhood and if our needs are not correctly met in an age and stage appropriate way, the fear and shame around this lingers on into old age, and the fear of feeling shame will reassert itself as function diminishes.

For more … Read here

Recommended Movie: Dying with Dignity and Grace as Physical Function Diminishes

(Tuesdays with) Morrie Schwartz: Lessons on Living, Ted ...

“Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air-until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore. "My God, this is terrible," the wave says. "Look what's going to happen to me!"
Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, "Why do you look so sad?"
The first wave says, "You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?"
The second wave says, "No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean.” ~ Morrie

“There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties, what they want and what they need, what they can do and what their life is like. In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you’re too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.”
~Morrie Schwartz

Week 4: What Relationship do you have with your Wrinkles, Sagging Body and Flabby Underarms?

I am not old.. she said

I am rare.

I am the standing ovation

At the end of the play.

I am the retrospective

Of my life as art

I am the hours

Connected like dots

Into good sense

I am the fullness

Of existing.

You think I am waiting to die..

But I am waiting to be found

I am a treasure.

I am a map.

And these wrinkles are

Imprints of my journey

Ask me anything.

~ Samantha Reynolds

“Wisdom puts one in touch with the “deep down things” in one’s own psyche and the psyche of others. Wisdom puts one in contact with “the underground stream” in oneself that connects and relates one to god, to all humanity, and to the ages past, present, and yet to come. Wisdom is the heart of all healing, forgiveness, conversion, good relationships, right order, wholistic styles of life, praying and playing. Wisdom allows one to deal with ambiguity and live with paradox. Wisdom brings the child out of the adult and the adult out of the child. Wisdom allows one to bring good out of evil and discern life in death.

The Wisdom archetype is manifested in all the wisdom literature of the great religions. Wisdom is a quest inherent in the life journey of each individual. It allows one to find meaning and interpret one’s own life journey. Wisdom puts one in contact with the unique significance of one’s life story.”

~Janice Brewi and Anne Brennan. Mid-Life Spirituality and Jungian Archetypes

Beneath the Sweater and the Skin

How many years of beauty do I have left?

she asks me.

How many more do you want?

Here. Here is 34. Here is 50.

When you are 80 years old

and your beauty rises in ways

your cells cannot even imagine now

and your wild bones grow luminous and

ripe, having carried the weight

of a passionate life.

When your hair is aflame

with winter

and you have decades of

learning and leaving and loving

sewn into

the corners of your eyes

and your children come home

to find their own history

in your face.

When you know what it feels like to fail

ferociously

and have gained the

capacity

to rise and rise and rise again.

When you can make your tea

on a quiet and ridiculously lonely afternoon

and still have a song in your heart

Queen owl wings beating

beneath the cotton of your sweater.

Because your beauty began there

beneath the sweater and the skin,

remember?

This is when I will take you

into my arms and coo

YOU BRAVE AND GLORIOUS THING

you've come so far.

I see you.

Your beauty is breathtaking. © Jeanette Encinias

Week 5: What is your Relationship to “Loss of Control?”

The first half of life was all about controlling one’s body to function and do what you wanted it to do. You learned to crawl and then walk, to think and understand the world, to accomplish with your hands and strength, to “get things done,” and now you find you cannot control your body to open the child proof container of your own medication.

Consider a simple example like trying to open something that used to be easy for you. What is your immediate reaction? What do you say? How do you feel? How are you relating to your body that cannot any longer control aspects of the external world? Do you hate, shame and rage at your body? Do you hate, rage and shame at the external thing (the pill bottle) that you cannot control with your body? Are you aware of your feelings? Do you have humor? Do you deny? Think very carefully about your part in your relationship to your body.

For more … Read here

“Suffering whispers, shouts, and screams the story no-one wants to remember:

we are not in control, and we are all going to die.” (as we were as children)

~K.J. Ramsey, This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers

Mom’s Purse –  Catherine Wilson ©

from the upcoming book A Trail of Breadcrumbs 

by Catherine Wilson and Lyndall Johnson

I went through all the pockets

of my mother’s tan purse

the day after she died,

feeling curious, yet somehow guilty.

I kept tissue packs, a bit of cash,

and a card I gave her

with affirmations about her value in the world.

I threw away toothpicks and mints

collected from favorite restaurants,

placed her ID in a file,

and shredded checks from a closed account.

I found her safety deposit box key

which we had searched for in vain

and paid to have replaced.

I recycled keys to unknown locks

along with one to her house

sold sixteen years ago.

I remember her recurring nightmares

of losing her purse.

Something in me still wanted to keep it safe for her.

I thought for a moment about using it myself

but no,

this tan purse will be donated 

for someone else to watch over

as I continue to release the caretaker job

I held for so long.

I placed the purse in a pile

bound for the homeless shelter

and wondered when I would be able to bring myself

to delete her name from my phone.

Exercise:

As you age you will find yourself in the Caregiver Role more often as parents, friends and colleagues die. Consider your role - do you give care or do you take care? The one is a giving from the heart. They other is a giving in order to get ego needs for power and goodness met. As with everything in life, this is a both/and. Try to tease apart the motives, feelings, thoughts, needs and actions you engage in as you caretake and caregiver those older than you and those dying. What are you learning in the process? What does this poem about the aftermath of death evoke in you?

“Now is a time for, dare I say it, kindness. I thought being extremely smart would take care of it. But I see I have been found out.” ~Margaret Edson, Wit

Week 8: The issue of Hearing Loss (and other Losses of the Senses)“

Age-related hearing loss (presbycusis) is the loss of hearing that gradually occurs in most of us as we grow older. It is one of the most common conditions affecting older and elderly adults.

Approximately one in three people in the United States between the ages of 65 and 74 has hearing loss, and nearly half of those older than 75 have difficulty hearing. Having trouble hearing can make it hard to understand and follow a doctor's advice, respond to warnings, and hear phones, doorbells, and smoke alarms. Hearing loss can also make it hard to enjoy talking with family and friends, leading to feelings of isolation.”

https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/age-related-hearing-loss

How many of you were shamed or punished as children for “not listening? When we did not obey our parents, it was assumed we did not hear, or did not listen. They might even have shouted at us with words like, “Are you deaf?” “How many times do I have to tell you to….”   

For more … Read here

“Few folk claim to enjoy having trouble hearing. But let’s explore the effects of hearing loss on our life.

First: we are not alone. Most people begin to lose some hearing ability in their sixties. They may not notice but those around them do. Sudden hearing loss is rare and most loss of hearing is gradual. By the time we reach 80, seventy five percent of folk have significant hearing loss. And, less than 25% of them ask for professional help.

Second: most hearing loss is for higher pitches: consonant sounds become softer and speech sounds muffled.

Sounds rather gloomy and not too lovable. But think about this: you have more lovely quiet moments. And because the way to offset the effects of hearing loss is to become more intimate: more one on one and closer, relationships can naturally become richer.True, you won’t function as well in large gatherings, but you can create less acoustically complicated ones.One grandchild at a time, one friend at a time. Also, create quieter communication environments. Mute the TV, choose quieter restaurants. The gifts of aging are wisdom and time. What better way to enjoy our wisdom than with a good friend, in a quiet place.” ~ Anne Seltz/Audiologist

“Soon after I sent out my last "Letters from an Open Heart" my mom called to tell me she had cancer. Unlike the indomitable spirited woman I knew, she sounded small and scared. I felt grateful as she began to cry because it kept my heart from clamping shut against the image of her dying. Instead, the shared grief created a tender meeting place between our breaking-open hearts. And then she said, "Your dad needs to talk to you."

I expected to hear from him some helpful direction on how to best support my mom, but instead I heard: "Sorry for the double-whammy but I have cancer too." My healthy all-life-is-impermanent perspective fell away. Tears flowed until we said our good-byes; I hung up the phone and curled into my partner's arms.

A simple idea occurred to me as I cried: cancer or not, my parents will die or maybe I will die first. The news of cancer was therefore just a clanging alarm, calling on us to take inventory of our loves and lives. Have we appreciated each other enough? Have we said all we wanted to say? Have we lived in service of something bigger?

I drove to see them the next day. They were annoyed that the medical procedures would cut into their fishing season and they remarked, not for the first time, that aging wasn't for sissies, but to my surprise they seemed remarkably at ease. And I instantly knew why. They have very little unfinished business. They have lived and loved and served well. There was no need to mend bridges, write and fulfill a bucket list, or make peace with God. I have always admired my parents, but for the first time I was able to really understand how remarkable they are.

If I were to find out tomorrow that I had less than a month to live, would I panic and scramble to right my life, or would I feel instead a sense of contentment? If the answer is the former, what can I do today to begin the process of changing that?”

Blessings and love to you, Annie O’Shaughnessy.

P.S. Both my parents' cancers have been detected early and their prognoses are good.

Annie O’Shaughnessy.  Living Well, Dying Well.

Week 9: Living in an Age of Denial of Aging, Illness and Death

For more … Read here

Week 10: It is all about Relationship

“In this very being of yours, 

you do not perceive the True; 

but there in fact it is. 


In that which is the subtle essence 

of your own being, 

all that exists has it’s Self. 

An invisible and subtle essence is the Spirit of the whole universe.

 That is the True, 
that is the Self, and thou art That.” 

~Upanishads

             When I was in the hospital, the one person whose presence I welcomed was a woman who came to sweep the floors with a large push broom. She was the only one who didn’t stick things in, take things out, or ask stupid questions. For a few minutes each night, this immense Jamaican woman rested her broom against the wall and sank her body into the turquoise plastic chair in my room. All I heard was the sound of her breath in and out, in and out. It was comforting in a strange and simple way. My own breathing calmed. Of the fifty or so people that made contact with me in any given day, she was the only one who wasn’t trying to change me.

            One night she reached out and put her hand on the top of my shoulder. I’m not usually comfortable with casual touch, but her hand felt so natural being there. It happened to be one of the few places in my body that didn’t hurt. I could have sworn she was saying two words with each breath, one on the inhale, one on the exhale:  “As … Is … As … Is …”

            On her next visit, she looked at me. No evaluation, no trying to figure me out. She just looked and saw me. Then she said simply, “You’re more than the sickness in that body.” I was pretty doped up, so I wasn’t sure I understood her; but my mind was just too thick to ask questions.

            I kept mumbling those words to myself throughout the following day, “I’m more than the sickness in this body. I’m more than the suffering in this body.”  I remember her voice clearly. It was rich, deep, full, like maple syrup in the spring …

            I reached out for hand. It was cool and dry. I knew she wouldn’t let go. She continued, “You’re not the fear in that body. You’re more than that fear. Float on it. Float above it. You’re more than that pain.” I began to breathe a little deeper as I did when I wanted to float on a lake. I remembered floating in Lake George when I was five, floating in the Atlantic Ocean at Coney Island when I was seven, floating in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa when I was twenty eight. Without any instruction from me, this Jamaican guide had led me to a source of comfort that was wider and deeper than pain or fear.                                                                                      Dawna Markova. No Enemies Within

Week 11: I’m Retired, Now What? - The Meaning of Life

As a white candle

In a holy place

So is the beauty

Of an aged face. 

~Joseph Campbell

Did your job give meaning to your life? What was the meaning in the work you have done all your life? Was it creative and from your soul, or a means to an end and soul destroying? Why did you do the work you did? Was it a combination of being meaningful and not meaningful. What split does this represent within yourself.? Every thing is meaningful when it comes from a heart of love and truth. What got in the way of it being deeply creative, meaningful and an outpouring of passion from your soul?

For more … Read here

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/arts/adult-cello-lessons.html - watch this for a beautiful interview about a 93 year old playing cello and picking up a childhood passion after retirement

To Be When I Die

I want to die when I feel

Conscious with the clarity of the air 

On a cool, crisp, clear autumn day,

So crystalline clean

that the deep heavens beyond the sun are visible,

When my mind is mirror smooth, 

Still and serene, 

Like the deep water of a lake,

Reflecting the glorious colors of creation,

Scarlet, ochre, indigo, rich dark green,

Holding on to the tree of life, tenuously,

but golden in the light of sapphire blue space

And then, surrendering,

slowly,

drifting gently down to the moist, loamy earth, 

generous and wide,

open to receiving the dying of this season of life,

my soul melting into the warmth 

of the dancing, sparkling sunlit space,

of such a day in autumn.

© Lyndall Johnson

Dancing in the Light  –  Catherine Wilson ©

from the upcoming book A Trail of Breadcrumbs 

by Catherine Wilson and Lyndall Johnson

I glided through the clear, warm water

of the pool, delighted

by the silky all-over caress

and the shimmer of sunlight reflecting

off the blue tiles on the bottom.

I had music in my ears

through my waterproof player

and as I entered a patch of sun,

momentarily blinded by its intensity,

the music invited,

“Dance into the light.”

I thought, if I died right here and now

I would dance into The Light

grateful for this day

that has endowed me with

health, invigorating pursuits,

opportunities to serve,

and the privilege of telling those I love

that I love them.

A rich, whole, complete day

dancing in The Light

blessed beyond measure.

Exercise: Consider how this poem both reflects and is also an expression of the 5 things Mary Pipher talks about in her book. Do a daily inventory of how you day was both a reflection of and expression of the 5 things.