Itineraries 2013 | Orange County, NC (2024)

From the Editor, Bolton Anthony…

For this issue of Itineraries, ODYSSEYS FOR THE SOUL: TRAVEL AND TRANSFORMATION, writer, weaver, sculptor, and teacherPenelope Bourkhas lovingly assembled “writings from travelers who have encountered spiritual emergence — and spiritual emergencies — in later life travel and who bring home some deeper understanding of where they have been, what they have become as a result of their travel, what it means, and how it matters.” Below she introduces the themes of the issue and the 17 “travelers” who have contributed articles and poems.

Additionally, scattered throughout are original drawings and photographs and a generous selection of sculptures taken from Penelope’s extraordinary “meditations” on the events portrayed in Homer’s Odyssey. (Place your cursor over my photo, and you’ll see a sample. Many of the images in this issue — like the travel we embark upon mindfully — hold hidden treasures!)

— Bolton Anthony, Founder Second Journey

From the Guest Editor, Penelope Bourk…

Travel, like love, invites the mystery of the other. To encounter the world beyond the familiar. To take account of difference. To recognize the amazing diversity of place, life forms, livelihood, limits, initiatives, possibilities. To carve out a more spacious and inclusive interior. To reintroduce ourselves to the larger community of all living beings, and to acknowledge the spectacular vistas, gifts, costs, and quality of being human — of being human here, now, in a world moving ever closer and, because of our collective attention, becoming ever dearer. Whether journeying far afield, rambling nearer to home, or as an armchair pilgrim, entranced by an exotic page-turner, at this crucial time in the history of the human and the more-than-human world, the elder traveler has a unique opportunity for discovery, contribution, profound integration, and the knitting of a truly global community.

In contrast to the previous issue of Itineraries, which looked at — and celebrated — an explosion of new options for how and where we grow old, ODYSSEYS FOR THE SOUL: TRAVEL AND TRANSFORMATION features stories and poems about the experience of travel. Travel as a change agent, a medium of exploration, even a mirror for self-reflection —in the later stages of life.

You’ll find within no review of packing lists, no display of nifty luggage innovations, no insider tips on bargain vacation spots. All we offer are thoughtful, sensitive writers who open their hearts, share their inner conversations, intentions, controversies, skill sacks, and the miracles of their travels. Their hope is that you too will “unpack” the meaning of your own explorations — the disappointments, necessary accommodations, and the celebration of life emergent in your own advancing lives, in your own experiences and conversations, and in tales of your own journeys. Whether on a pilgrimage to conscious aging, on the trip of a lifetime, or traveling in search of home, what does it mean to venture on this Earth, what does it take to abide, who is benevolent host, who welcomed as guest, of what land, of what people?

The juxtaposition of elder travel, transformation, quest, and spirit — all of these implicit in the title we have given the issue — provides such rich ground! Any one of these topics, all on its own, could fill volumes! Yet it is the overlap of all four and their relation to a recurring fifth theme, the journey home, that plays across almost all of the selections, which I have loosely grouped into three sections —Farther Afield,Nearing Home, andSkills and Trills for the Elder Rucksack(see below).

Bon Voyage!

— Penelope Stuart Bourk
February 1, 2013

Re-Entry by Margaret Bendet

At 21, with a new journalism degree and a hundred dollars in my pocket, I flew to Hawaii to be in a former roommate’s wedding. My plan was to start a new life, as far as possible from Evanston, Illinois, where I’d gone to school, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I’d spent my formative years and where my parents were then living. In Hawaii I faced survival challenges, joined the working press, embarked on romantic adventures, learned to snorkel, drank wine on the beach, married, bought a cottage, gardened, took in two cats . . . After eight years, even though my life seemed to be exactly what I’d set out to find, I came to the understanding that it wasn’t working for me. Why?

Let me tell you a little story. It comes from the Yoga Vasishtha, which, like other Indian scriptures, is full of tales describing the human condition. This one is called “The Story of the Great Forest.” In it a celestial being, walking in a vast wooded expanse, encounters a restless creature with a thousand arms and legs. Though there is no one else around, the creature is clearly frightened. He’s armed with a mace, and he’s hitting himself with it. The creature bellows and weeps and runs to hide — from himself!

Seeing this endless cycle of pain, the celestial takes compassion on the creature. With the strength of his will, he restrains the creature long enough to ask, “Who are you?” At this, the creature becomes frantic with terror. He turns his abuse on the celestial, calls him vile names, sneers at him. Left on his own again, the creature continues his self-destructive behavior.

Occasionally, in this forest the celestial encounters a creature who responds to the question and contemplates his own bleak condition. Such a one, the scripture says, can find freedom.

As with all parables, everything in the story is a symbol: The forest is the circumstance of our lives, and the creature is our own mind, the nervous trickster that creates enmity and strife for us where none need exist. That’s what my mind was doing to me.

I didn’t know this parable at the time, but I, by age 29, had come to understand that I was a primary cause of my own discontent. So, when I did an interview for the newspaper with a visiting master of meditation, I was ready to hear his wisdom, put down my mace (so to speak), and follow him. That journey, which became its own great forest — which became the new circumstance of my life — lasted for about 35 years. To still my mind, I meditated, chanted God’s name, read sacred texts, but I also edited a monthly magazine and later a Web site; I worked on course scripts and the sorts of written communications a nonprofit sends its various supporters.

Then at age 63, I embarked on a journey of re-entry. I left my teacher’s ashram and went to an island — not Hawaii this time but another island, in the Pacific Northwest — to begin yet another new life. This was an unexpected journey. There were a number of us in the ashram who had hoped to serve as pillars for the work, to give the whole of our lives for its support. Some are still in the ashram doing just that; others, like myself, found we needed to move on.

My departure from the ashram was even more of a pilgrimage than moving into it had been — I think because I now knew so much more about how to be on a journey of discovery, what to do so that I might better learn from it.

Listen

For me the most crucial step was realizing I would embark on a journey at all. This was a matter of listening. Leaving the ashram wasn’t a new topic for me. Over the years I’d had hundreds of conversations about leaving the ashram — about the possibility that I might leave and the fact that various other people were leaving. An ashram is a place of refuge, a place of spiritual practice and study, a place of service, but generally it isn’t a place where anyone other than a monk spends the rest of their life. At one point or another, most of my colleagues and closest friends had left the ashram to start new careers, care for parents, raise children, explore the arts, and so on. I sent them off with gifts and kisses and well wishes; in many cases I kept in touch, but my basic attitude was there but for the grace of God . . . I thought if I could be strong enough, I’d be able to stay.

One day before the noon chant I heard something else. My teacher — the successor to the first teacher I had followed — came to the chant and, walking to her seat, paused to question a four-year-old boy. The child’s best friend, a six-year-old, had recently left with her parents to return home to France. Did the boy miss his friend? Had he written to her? Oh, so he had called her. Was it fun to talk with her on the phone? Was it like being with her?

In this back-and-forth, I observed that my teacher was speaking about people who had just left the ashram. Then I heard, as a thought, It’s time for you to go.

This message was as clear as any oral or written instruction I have ever received. The inner direction may have come before, but this was the first time I’d heard it. If I hadn’t heard it on that day, I’m certain it would have come again . . . and again . . . each time more strongly until, finally, the message would be given in some way that I had to hear it.

In my observation, it’s easier to follow instructions that come from inside myself than it is those delivered aloud by virtually anyone else. It’s as if, for me, spoken words are a kind of bludgeon. I don’t know why that is. It isn’t that I thought I had any real choice about this inner message. I saw It’s time for you to go not as an invitation but as a command, a call to action.

At the same time, that’s all it was. With years of practice in meditation — practice in watching my own mind — I was able to take in this instruction without the emotional freight I might once have attached to it. It’s time for you to go didn’t mean I had failed or was less worthy than those who were staying; it didn’t raise in me a fear about what would happen to me next or flood me with questions about what I would do to support myself. And It’s time for you to go didn’t mean in this very minute!

Actually, that I was able to hear this instruction as I did, coming from inside, may have meant that I had a more gracious length of time to plan my journey. I spoke to my supervisor that afternoon and the human resources department the next morning, but it was fully a year before I drove away from the ashram in my capriciously overstuffed car. By then I’d had plenty of time to prepare — to decide, for instance, where I might go. For that I had to do a bit of looking.

Look

Many of my friends who’ve made a big move in their sixties have done so in order to be with family: parents, children, grandchildren. In other words, there was no question where they’d be going. This was not true for me. My own parents were gone; I had no children; I was fond of my only brother but not close to him. For years I’d thought of the ashram as home, and what I needed now was a new home. I needed to be able to support myself as well, but finding a place to live was my main task. The question was what to look for?

A New York couple I know tried the esoteric field of astrocartography, hiring someone to cast their astrological chart in reference to geography. They asked the astrologer, Where is the most auspicious place for us to live?

The answer was Brazil.

But if they moved to Brazil, my friends said, they wouldn’t know the language and, besides, they would never be able to see their grandchildren again.

“In that case,” they were told, “you could live in Nova Scotia.”

They scrapped astrocartography and opted for upstate New York, where they have lived happily for the last 15 years.

As I considered what was most important for me, I saw I wasn’t going to become someone else on this journey. What had mattered to me for the last 35 years was still going to matter: I needed a place where I’d be supported in my meditation. That meant the place should be beautiful but not so beautiful that hordes of people live there. It should be quiet but close to culture and not so small it’s provincial. And the local people should be friendly to others who aren’t exactly like themselves — to those, say, who’ve lived for three and a half decades in an ashram. They should be willing to think of such people as family.

In two trips, I looked at four places. By looking I mean that I stayed with friends, did some work, negotiated highways, went for walks, ate out, visited meditation centers, and asked everyone I met how they felt about living there. So, actually I looked and listened. When I told a young man behind an airport coffee counter I was thinking about moving to that city, he said, “Why would you want to do that?” He meant it.

In the last place I went — Whidbey Island in Washington State — I was just planning to visit a friend. I hadn’t seriously considered Whidbey. This forested island is exquisite but too small, too rural; I’d never be able to support myself there. And yet, ultimately, that was where I wanted to live. What clinched it was when my friend, a retired professor, told me, “If I were moving to a city today, I have no idea how I’d make new friends. On Whidbey you see someone at the post office, you see them at the market, you talk to them at a meeting — and suddenly you know that person. It’s organic.” That’s what I was looking for: organic.

Move

I was driving from New York to Washington by the northernmost U.S. route. I had driven cross-country before, several times and alone, but never in a car that groaned under its load; never with a backseat piled so high the rear-view mirror was useless for anything but putting on lipstick; never with a trunk full of electronics I didn’t yet know how to operate; never with a just-potted cutting from a night-blooming cereus; and never, never, never had I traveled with a cat.

That’s right: a cat. This was Softy, a stray who had been so named by her first ashram owner, a seven-year-old girl, and who had then adopted two successive patrons. Softy was a beauty: a long-haired, black-and-white “tuxedo” cat with a wide face and a regal manner. I was Softy’s last patron, and the ashram managers were eager that the cat leave when I did. I was delighted to take her along. We’d been together about two years, and I was bonded.

I got a wire carrier for her to travel in and left it out the week before our trip. Softy showed no interest. I arranged the carrier in a cozy spot in the backseat, wedged between decorative pillows and a blue and white vase with yellow silk forsythia. Softy was unimpressed. When I forcibly put her into the carrier — as I felt I had to do — it occurred to me that this was not in the agreement the cat and I’d had about living together. Never before had I shut her into a cage.

Softy was a vocal cat, and right away she let me know she didn’t share my sense of adventure about our road trip. For a while I tried holding her in my lap as I drove, but that turned out to be dangerous. We didn’t get far that first day; it was hard to drive with the wail from the backseat.

On the second morning, I pulled into a wooded rest stop in Pennsylvania with the idea that this was something Softy would enjoy. As soon as we stepped out of the car, a dog’s bark came from about ten yards away. In a split second, I was holding the new cat leash, the new cat halter hanging limply from the end. Softy was gone.

The rest stop was set in a forest and, except for the highway itself, all I could see were trees: Softy could be anywhere. At one end of the parking area was a phalanx of construction trucks with a roaring, rig-mounted jackhammer: no enticement for a frightened cat. Softy wasn’t going to come to me; so I looked for Softy. I raked the woods, peered behind bushes and up into branches; crooned, “Softy, here Softy” (as if she had ever come when called); reminded myself to breathe; attempted pacts with divine powers . . . It was my own version of “The Story of the Great Forest.” All the while there was an ache in the pit of my belly, as if a part of me had gone missing. Still, there came a point after about three hours when I knew I had to go on. Without Softy.

I don’t want to downplay my role in this drama. I had not taken adequate care of an animal for which I had responsibility, and, despite my anguish, it was the animal that would pay the greatest price. This aging housecat, tough and bright though she was, would not survive long in the forest. And yet I also knew I, myself, might not survive in the great forest. This was August 2008, and I was driving into what looked like the brink of a national economic meltdown. My resources were limited; I couldn’t afford to stay for days looking for Softy. If I was going to move, I had to do just that: I had to move on.

And I had to move on internally as well. Of course I’d made a mistake. I’d made several. But isn’t it our mistakes we’re most likely to beat ourselves up about? Mistakes are no reason to get out our mace. Mourning is one thing, self-castigation altogether another.

I spent a bleak second night on the road, by now in Ohio. The next morning I saw that I’d be ending that day’s drive in Chicago — where, with luck, I could stop and see a friend. I called her from the road. Yes, she would love to have me stay. That night I had the luxury of a warm, supportive shoulder as I recharged, replenished stores, and repacked the car. The following day, I was able to start my journey afresh.

Reach Out

I found that life on the road requires a precision with objects that I, a wordsmith, had never developed. I found that, to adapt a phrase, stuff happened. Stuff like losing my car keys in Ohio, dropping a credit card at a Starbucks in Minnesota, leaving my purse (with all my identification and money) on a picnic table in the badlands of North Dakota. With each mishap, my stomach would clench — and then, as one in the forest must, I did what was needed. Courtesy of AAA, I got the car towed to a dealer who could make new keys; I canceled the missing credit card and was glad I carried another; and the badlands didn’t turn out to be so bad after all. A woman who noticed me looking for my purse told me, “The park ranger has it; I turned it in at the office.”

After I’d been on Whidbey Island a couple of months, I fell and broke my arm, which, because I was living alone, I found to be a particular trial. About this time, I had a dream in which I was looking for a button to push. I needed to push a certain button, and I simply had to find this button. As I was coming out of sleep, I realized that I was looking for the button that would make everything all right. I woke up laughing — because, of course, there is no such button.

There was never a guarantee that my adventure would turn out “all right” — meaning, the way I wanted it to. But I’ve noticed that every time something goes “wrong,” I have an opportunity to become more conscious and — just as significant — to have a new kind of interaction with the people around me, sometimes with total strangers. When I broke my arm, members of the meditation group on Whidbey, several of whom I had just met, brought me meals; others went with me to my medical appointments. “This is what friends do,” one woman said to me, and she’s had occasion to say it several times since, because over the last few years she’s been an enormous help to me. Hopefully, from time to time, I have been for her as well.

So, my most significant strategy on this journey of discovery has been to reach out. To this end I took a part-time job in the local library; joined a community choir; moved to a village where I can walk to many of the things I like doing; and adopted a gregarious dog who takes me out for daily walks. These are choices I didn’t know to make in my twenties when I moved to that other island. This time I am finding what’s right for me. It’s a gift that is, I think, not uncommon for those who have sought, as we all must one day, a way to calm the creature in the great forest.

Years ago my meditation master said that each of us had come to the ashram in order to receive something — “something to take with you when you leave,” he said, “something you can eat along the way.” This is what we all want for our journeys.

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Margaret Bendet, an award-winning writer and editor, who also teaches classes in memoir. For nine years the chief interviewer for an international oral history collection, she specializes in drawing out people’s best stories, helping them present those stories effectively and contemplate what the stories mean to them. Margaret has a degree in journalism from Northwestern University. For ten years she was a member of the working press, and in the past 30 years she has edited a monthly yoga magazine and a number of books. She can be contacted at MargaretBendet@gmail.com. Her Web site is at MargaretBendet.com.

Pursuing the Classics: A Personal Journey and Beyond by Ann Kirkland

I am, no doubt, like many St. John’s parents — adults who nudge their children towards the education they wish they had had. I went to a large Ivy League university where I sat at the back of cavernous lecture halls, sometimes scribbling down what the professor was saying and sometimes doodling and daydreaming. It is not an educational path I would encourage any young person to follow. By the time my own first-born was in her last years of high school in Toronto, I was a member of a Great Books group and had heard about St. John’s College. Both her teachers and I encouraged her to consider leaving her friends who were all gravitating to the University of Toronto or McGill to opt for a very different experience south of the border. She interviewed at the Annapolis campus but chose the Santa Fe campus. Her experience was tremendous, but it is mine I want to write about here.

At my first parents’ weekend in the fall of 1994, both students and parents were assigned to small seminars to discuss Sophocles’ Antigone. I was hooked. That one guided discussion made me sad about what might have been back when, but thrilled that this opportunity was open to me through Summer Classics. I became a devotée. Each year I eagerly awaited the arrival of the catalog and then for summer to roll around. My time at Summer Classics renewed and sharpened my curiosity and my ability to listen to others with an open mind. I fell in love — with literature, with learning, and with really good conversation.

Alas, years of unfavorable exchange rate between U.S. and Canadian dollars curtailed my annual trips to Santa Fe. I missed the experience. Was there some other way I could fill this gap? In a flash of blind inspiration, I got the idea of bringing the concept to Toronto. And that is how I began to turn this avocation, for which I never had enough time, into my vocation. I use the word “vocation” in both of its meanings, the more pedestrian “employment” and the more lofty “call” or as Fredrick Beuchner says, “where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.”

Classical Pursuits

I abandoned a 30-year career in health administration to create opportunities for others to experience what I had come to cherish — reading difficult books on my own and then discussing them with others. Based on my own many happy experiences at Summer Classics and with the support of the Great Books Foundation in Chicago, I have created a program at University of Toronto’s St. Michael’s College called Classical Pursuits. My aim is to bring together adults from across North America in an atmosphere of relaxation and camaraderie to read, discuss, and reflect on the enduring ideas in great works of literature, music, and art. The program started with four seminar options in 1999 — Plato’s Republic, Dante’s Inferno, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Since then, it has expanded to attract over 150 people to participate in one of 12 seminar options. Classical Pursuits now also includes a week-long program each spring (this year on The Dignity of Man) and evening programs for Toronto locals.

Travel Pursuits

In 2002, I launched Travel Pursuits with a group traveling to Italy to discuss Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose and to explore aspects of medieval Italian life, arts, and thought. One of the discussion leaders on that trip was Jim Carey, from the Santa Fe campus, who was on sabbatical in Italy that year. The travel program was so successful that it has grown to a dozen annual trips, ranging from The Classical Moment in Greece (Homer, Sophocles, and Plato), to Flannery O’Connor’s short stories and prose in Savannah.

Convivium

In addition to organizing for others, I sometimes join the groups myself or take a journey on my own as preparation for some new group itinerary. A few years ago I began a blog, both to inform others and to support my own ongoing process of reflection about my own “pursuits.” My blog, “Convivium: A guide to adventures for the mind, travel for the soul” is accessible through the Travel Pursuits Web site.

From Question to Quest

It seems fitting to link this tale of my decades-long continuing quest in response to my own “how to” question years before with the theme of so much great and not so great literature — the pilgrimage or quest story.

Whether it is Odysseus trying to get home to his high-roofed house in Ithaca; Aeneas dutifully pursuing a quest that was not initially his own; Parsifal seeking the Holy Grail; the pilgrim Dante trying to save himself; or Faust in search of eternity — one of the pulls of literature is that it recognizes that we are creatures whose natures cause us to long, to seek. Like many others setting out on a quest, I was no youth but in the second half of life, and like the archetype, I had become disenchanted with earlier successes, conscious of failures, and increasingly aware of the finiteness of life. I am writing this article as a status report from “midway along the journey.”

If I must pick a single core text that closely describes my own quest, I think it might be T.S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi”:

“A cold coming we had of it…A hard time we had of it…Such a long journey.”

What seemed to me at first a straightforward and fail-safe plan turned out to be fraught with all kinds of unanticipated obstacles. Most difficult at the outset was finding the right leaders. I knew, from my experience at St. John’s, that I was not seeking professors to profess; I had been the beneficiary of guided conversation based on genuine questioning and probing. I selected four local academics who seemed keen to try what I described. Still, most teachers know how to impart their knowledge to students, rather than helping students to discover for themselves. After that inaugural year, I initiated a partnership with the Great Books Foundation in Chicago that has proved of great value. The foundation provides leaders and regularly offers training in the Shared Inquiry method for others. I have now developed a growing collegium of these leaders who have learned well.

“There were times we regretted, … That this was all folly.”

There still are times like that. Without wanting to sound melodramatic, there have been moments when I have been tempted to abandon this mission, and more than a few dark nights of fear. Especially after I burned all my previous professional bridges in the healthcare field and realized I could not turn back.

“Then at dawn we came down into a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation…”

There have been many encouragements along the way, all from eager supporters, hungry and grateful. These often come just when I have felt ready to throw in the towel. But also this,

“Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different . . . ”

The birth has been the creation of a growing enterprise that is enriching those associated with it, enhancing the public visibility and reputation of St. Michael’s College way beyond the Catholic community in Canada, and feeling the personal satisfaction of using my skills and interests to make a small contribution to public discourse. Death is really too strong a word to use here, but there has been a price for my chosen path. I knew it would involve a significant cut in personal income, but I had no idea how difficult it would be to make this enterprise economically viable. And I did not anticipate that, instead of having more time to read deeply and leisurely, I have less. I have become a marginal entrepreneur, sometimes more absorbed in serving hot coffee on time, where people will park, which credit cards we will accept, and all the time the bottom line — great literature and ideas. Somehow my own quest to find myself in books has been subordinated to being of service to others who will find themselves in books.

“Set down this set down this,…I would do it again. … And I would do it again…”

Without doubt I would do it again. I don’t think that I have ever enjoyed my work so much. Having previously worked in management and policy, I had little evidence that anything I did made a difference to anybody. My greatest satisfaction now comes from the times I am able to disinhibit the curious who have never been serious readers and who fear embarrassing themselves. They are often professionals, like accountants, dentists, or engineers, who are used to excelling at what they do but are not at home in the world of literature or philosophy. As others retire, I retain the zeal of the missionary — believing that what I am doing is contributing in a small way to improving the quality of reflective thinking and public discourse — essential ingredients for both meaningful lives and a civilized society.

Since most quest stories are ultimately circular, beginning and ending with home, albeit transformed, I would like to end with an early childhood memory. My grandfather was a Classicist and Lucretius scholar. He lived with us when I was very young. I remember him as a very old and formidable man, sitting on our front porch swing in his three-piece suit, instructing my brother, sister, and me to recite a lot of nonsense syllables — “hic, haec, hoc, huius, huius, huius” “Veni, vedi, vici.” I was afraid of him and never even considered studying Latin later at school. But how I would love to be back on that porch swing beside him now. What conversations we would have, as we rocked back and forth, about our pursuit of wisdom and pleasure found in the classics.

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Ann Kirkland is the founder of Classical Pursuits. Visit the Web site at classicalpursuits.com/.

The Dogs of Bhutan by Dianne Shiner

The millions of us who are searching for a more balanced inner life and who hunger for a vibrant connection with the natural world need Bhutan to prosper. There may be no place on earth that can better teach us wiser ways to live.

— Carpenter, The Blessings of Bhutan

No matter how well-prepared, brilliant, and guided a traveler may be, it is foolish to believe that one can come to really know a place in a brief sojourn. In my initiating culture shock in India more than 40 years ago, I found that the longer I stayed, the less I knew about India, and the more I learned about myself. The British essayist, Alain de Botton, in The Art of Travel, has said that travel agents ask the wrong question when they ask, “Where would you like to go?” but rather should say, “What is it that you would like to change about your life?” Though we may anticipate, we do not really know what changes will befall us on the road; in fact, most travel rarely goes according to plan, and it is often the spontaneous and incidental that will have the most impact. The dogs of Bhutan surely fall into this category.

In 1961, I “discovered” Bhutan in a National Geographic article in my college library. A desire to visit was planted deep in my heart, even though this Himalayan kingdom was closed to the outside world. As part of my second journey, I am reawakening and exploring those nascent intentions, the spiritual bucket list. So, a year ago, after two weeks of travel in Bhutan, I found myself in a closing circle near Paro with three guides, two drivers, and 13 guests (never once referred to as tourists).(1) Having just returned from an arduous trek to Taktshang Goemba (the Tigers Nest Monastery), we gathered, weary and reflective, for an intimate tea. As we shared our gratitude and highlights of the trip, four people commented that the dogs were most remarkable. Now, in a spectacular country once known as the Forbidden Kingdom, the last Shangri-La, the Land of Gross National Happiness, it is surprising, to say the least, that Bhutanese dogs would emerge as singularly cherished in our memories. What about them spoke so deeply to us?

My comments on Bhutan come from limited, but liminal, experience. I must acknowledge that somewhere in Bhutan, perhaps in the capital city of Thimphu, there exist mangy stray dogs who are shooed away as dangerous, flea-bitten rascals. I only know we never saw any. We never heard a dog bark. Never followed a chase. Never saw a territorial fight. Never had a dog beg, even when they sat amiably among us while we picnicked by a river or snacked on a trail. They certainly noticed the food, but were never aggressive or pitiful in obtaining it. They sometimes volunteered as companions up steep hikes to monasteries, waiting patiently to bring us back or simply ignoring us. Guardians, perhaps, but hardly guard dogs.

Well-cared-for pets? Not really. There appeared to be only a few pet owners; in fact, I think the very idea of “owning” a dog is alien to most Bhutanese, and the pet obsessiveness of my culture funny indeed. Yet these dogs were healthy, calm, and everywhere. More than man’s best friend, dogs embody religious symbolism in Tibetan Buddhism. Bhutanese believe that, from among sentient beings, dogs have the best opportunity to be reborn as humans. In Garth Stein’s wonderful novel, The Art of Racing in the Rain, the storytelling dog Enzo says in his dying: “Not all dogs return as men, they say; only those who are ready. I am ready.”

Dogs are also said to be helpful in the afterlife, leading us through the darkness with a light glowing on their tails to a better place. In ancient Bhutanese folklore with which Buddhism is intertwined, dogs interceded with the gods who were displeased with human greed and decided to withhold the natural bounty of the earth. Because of their pleading, the food left behind for the dogs is what we survive on today. Many Himalayan Buddhist saints had close dog companions, and monks integrate the care of dogs into their daily spiritual practice. No wonder that the novice pilgrim in Bhutan finds the dogs awesome.

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In the opening tea circle, our leader Karma Dorji welcomed us to Bhutan by saying that “Buddhism is the air we breathe.” Every day, we experienced the freshness of a culture still immersed in a lively and shared sense of the holy. The sheer lightheartedness of the Bhutanese people, manifested in easy smiles and twinkling eyes, is ever the “most infallible sign of the presence of God” (Teilhard de Chardin). Early in the trip, I witnessed our hotel clerk being berated by a dissatisfied guest. Never have I seen a young man with such gracious boundaries; he was neither stressed nor defensive nor obeisant. I came to find that this odd combination of amusement and respect was indeed the cultural norm, whether with children or with the wizened.

At the other end of the scale, even government policy is deeply informed by an authentic religious view. For example, their spectacular Himalayan peaks will never be scaled, and perhaps trashed, by mountain climbing expeditions, because villagers asked the government to protect the sanctity of the peaks, the home of the deities, from intrusion. National parks and biological corridors comprise over 40 percent of the country, preserving Bhutan’s amazing biodiversity. Economic development is intended to be slow, sustainable, and balanced by priorities in art, education, health care, and ecology (some of the measurable goals of concrete Gross National Happiness). The Dzongs (magnificent fortresses) equally house each district’s monastic body AND government offices. Prayer and devotion punctuate the day whether in golden rice fields, domestic temples, numerous monasteries, or casual businesses. Even the one and only golf course asks that you circle and apologize to a tree if your ball should strike it!

Bhutan is certainly not perfect; and indeed this very cohesiveness is at risk from modernization, however carefully and intelligently it is managed. To some, this homogeneity is naïve, even dangerous. For others, there is conflict between piety and progress. Yet I found myself more than just nostalgic for the cultural Catholicism of my childhood. As early as 1904, Max Weber (in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) was writing about the disenchantment of a secularized world, as opposed to traditional society where, for Weber, “the world remains a great enchanted garden.” For a brief 18 days, we were invited to reenter that garden of everyday mysticism, and to return changed by its vigor and delight.

What does all this have to do with dogs? Indeed, they are different in Bhutan. Like the canary in the mineshaft, they manifest the quality of “the air we breathe.” In entering another culture, it is easier to see the pattern and influence of the “atmosphere” on individual lives and values. If I live in a world of fear, I am more likely to be afraid. If I live in a world of kindness, I am more likely to be kind, or trusting, or compassionate. If I live in an enchanted or re-enchanted world, I am more likely to “see visions and dream dreams” (Joel 2:28). As I age, these simple truths become more profound….and urgent.

In my journal, I noted an irony: The Buddhist understanding of karma seems to place huge responsibility on the individual, yet its practice of interdependence is imbued with a communal identity with all living beings. In a Christian milieu as I have known it, the doctrine itself is definitively corporeal (the Incarnation, Corpus Christ, the Body of Christ), but its practice has often been very individualistic with an emphasis on my soul being saved. My favorite Bible scholar, Dan Erlander (in Manna and Mercy), says that the message of Exodus is clear: We do not go to God as individuals, but as a people. For me, this vision was transparent and embodied in my brief time in Bhutan.

Doctrinal differences of the many spiritual paths are no longer that important to me, but the sharing of the path is essential. In Bhutan, for all its isolation, communal spiritual consciousness is a given. I returned to cherish our church community, my women’s circle, our couples’ group, and the other anam cara of my life with new appreciation for the way we inspire, challenge, and cocreate the quality of our lives. For me, these are mutual lifelines to the holy, even, and particularly when there is no single word to describe the “air we breathe.”

As a college freshman, I did not realize that I was about to lose my religious naïveté and walk the foggy path of disenchantment, never able to go “home again.” But Bhutan was planted then as a way back, so to speak, to my first language, beyond words, where my dog and I understood each other perfectly. “ The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” (T.S. Eliot)

I do not live in such a cohesive nation as Bhutan; here, dogs are both abused and pampered in the same city. We do not have a milieu of common values and practices, let alone devotion. I both long for and fear such unity of spirit; wanting to hold both diversity and single-heartedness in my hands. I only know that the experience of a deeply spiritual culture is transforming for all beings, including, and perhaps especially, the dogs.

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Notes

1 The excellent tour company I used in Bhutan is Skykingdom Adventures

//

Dianne Shiner, M.A., M.S.W, lives on Whidbey Island, WA, with her husband, David Sellers. During her formative years, experience in a Benedictine community imbedded the integration of contemplation and action deep in her heart. Now retired, she was formerly the Executive Director of Lutheran Social Services, Holden Village, and the Whidbey Institute at Chinook. She has been blessed by travel with purpose and is regularly committed to volunteering at Escuela de la Calle, a school for street children in Guatemala.

Each Life, A Journey, Each Journey, A Way to Deepen Life by John G. Sullivan

I see my life as a journey. I pass from stage to stage on my way from birth to death. In the ancient pattern of India, I go from Spring Student to Summer Householder on the arc of ascent, and from Autumn Forest Dweller to Winter Sage on the arc of descent. (1)

And I see the importance of how I relate to whatever comes. Whatever arrives at my doorway — whether appearing as gift or wound — still can be treated as a guest. (2) Yet, to do so means I must be prepared, again and again, to let go of — to die to — one way of being and rise to another way of being. The choice I have is how to release from old stories, old emotional patterns, old expectations, and to choose afresh in each moment. Releasing and responding — that is the rhythm of the spiritual path. Receiving and giving — that is the rhythm of the spiritual path. Stillness and silence encourage receiving; awareness of our shared life opens the way to giving — from sufficiency — with a cheerful heart.

Attentiveness takes root as conscious, committed practice. Practice combines doing and deepening, service and stillness. I am drawn to this way of living; I see each day as itself a journey (embedded in a larger journey). I see each journey as a way to deepen my life. What can the spiritual path bring to my life and the larger life in which I dwell? I suggest four qualities: love, compassion, joy, and peace.(3)When I frame it thus and commit to such a way of living, I am already choosing to live a spiritual life.

The religions of the book — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — all include the notion of pilgrimage. Next year in Jerusalem. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land. Or, closer to home for Europeans, pilgrimages to Canterbury in England, to St. James of Compostela in Spain, to Lourdes in France, or to Rome itself. In Islam, the key pilgrimage is the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, recommended to all who can do so at least once in a lifetime.

To speak of pilgrimage in these traditions is already to evoke a worldview where God is present, where life is seen as holy. Life, it is said, is a journey, not a destination. Yet I believe it is both journey and destination. The destination is somehow to merge into the greater Wholeness. Saint Iraneaus tells us that God became human so we could become God. Eastern Orthodox Christianity names the goal as theosis, becoming divine by participation in the life of the Holy One. Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi speaks of our life as theotropic. As the sunflower seeks the sun and is called heliotropic, so Reb Zalman sees humans as designed to seek God (Theos), thus being theotropic.(4)

But suppose that the trip is not explicitly a pilgrimage, but simply a trip we take. Can that also become a journey open to the great mystery and attentive to the uniqueness that is all around and about us? Having been asked to reflect on such matters, I decided to make an upcoming trip a kind of experiment. My wife Gregg and I had decided to take a coach tour of the New England states in early October of 2012, an autumn tour with emphasis on the turning leaves. Could such a “secular” adventure also be a way of nourishing the soul? How might I bring to it such an added dimension?

As prelude, I must reveal that, like my mother and father, I was born and grew up in Newport, Rhode Island. I count myself a Newporter. My attachment to place is strong. And so it was that I had visited the six New England states before — often multiple times over the years.(5)This trip would be a homecoming of sorts and that — on a deeper level — is what pilgrimages are.

In preparing, I brought a journal, a book with poems of the spirit, and a few other books for spiritual readings.(6)I was not sure whether I would have much occasion for spiritual reading, but because such reading is part of my regular daily practice, I could not leave home without it.

Each morning I would begin with a prayerful intention: “May I rise with and in the Great Life. May I increase my love and compassion, my gratitude and deep joy. May I return often to stillness, to meditative mind where equanimity can flourish. May I welcome whatever arrives this day with patience and a cheerful heart.”

Each evening, in my journaling, I would note some things that had touched me. More precisely, I would notice people, places, or events that became a prompt to choose life, increase my love, deepen my compassion, awaken my gratitude, and increase my joy. I also wished in a contentious time of presidential campaigns to go beyond labels and see my fellow travelers as unique humans, deeper than any labels, worthy of full respect and usually in need of a little help from their friends.

I remembered a quote from a spiritual teacher in North Carolina, Bo Lozoff:

Love people [and other creatures] and love your own life.
Take it easy on God’s creation and help out whenever you can. (7)

Good words to travel with!

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Boston and its environs — the city plus Lexington and Concord (8)

A history-drenched city, Boston reminds us of the beginnings of our Republic, of our Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War. Leaving the city itself, we travel to nearby Lexington and Concord. We are still in the spirit of 1776. In Concord we are reminded of early authors — Emerson, Thoreau, the Alcotts. Nature and art dwell here, as well as the love of freedom with its courage, suffering, and sacrifices.

Cape Cod — Plymouth, Hyannis, Martha’s Vineyard

To arrive in Plymouth on Cape Cod Bay is to recall a still earlier time. Plymouth Rock bears the date 1620, the landing of the Mayflower. I think of Pilgrims and later the colony at Boston with a Puritan stamp. Religious freedom was often sought for one’s own but not for others. I remember how long it has taken to see tolerance as rooted in freedom of conscience and thus, as a true good, whoever may be in power.

Newport, Rhode Island

Rhode Island, founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, would offer tolerance. Newport, founded three years later, boasts the second oldest Jewish congregation and the oldest standing synagogue, Touro Synagogue — with its prized letter on religious freedom from George Washington. Newport also has the oldest Quaker meeting house in Rhode Island as well as the magnificent Trinity Episcopal Church (after a design by Christopher Wren), with its stunning triple-level pulpit in the center aisle.

For me, the coastline and the sea draw me still. Only in the names are there echoes of what came before — the island of Aquidneck where Newport, Middletown, and Portsmouth lie, is an American Indian name, as is Narragansett Bay.

On this trip, the tour does not focus on colonial Newport but goes directly to Cornelius Vanderbilt’s so-called “summer cottage”! Here we are in the 1890s and reminded of the titans of industry with their taste for conspicuous consumption.

As we travel around the Twelve Mile Ocean Drive, I am filled with memories from many seasons of my life. All too soon, we leave Rhode Island behind to drive on into Connecticut.

Connecticut and Western Massachusetts

We travel from Mystic seaport through western Massachusetts to the Norman Rockwell Museum near lovely Stockbridge. Rockwell is pure Americana, seeing us as we wished to be seen, and hoped we were. Through World War II all the way to the struggle for civil rights, he shows both the basic goodness in people while at the same time glimpsing the darkness that also dwells therein.

Vermont and New Hampshire

In these states the fall foliage was king. History too. The Green Mountain boys. The home place of Calvin Coolidge. The lovely Vermont town of Woodstock. The famous Vermont Store. And just a touch of New Hampshire at the end of a long day.

Maine — Portland and Kennebunkport

In Portland, Maine, we are again on the coast. So too at Kennebunkport, the principal residence of President George H. W. Bush and his family. Indeed we are very close to York Harbor, Maine, where my best friend from high school lives. Alas, because of our schedule, I can only visit him in spirit. (9)

Return to Carolina, and some lessons learned

We fly home again from Boston. After regaining some normalcy, I think of lessons learned. Here are a few:

We live our life in circles, as the poet Rilke says. (10) I have circled the sun 75 times. And I have known these places (or many of them) at different ages. They change and I change. I reflect on what changes and what remains (to some extent) constant. Surely all my ages live in me still.

I am struck by how often, as I travel now, I practice returning to stillness, to meditative mind. I also practice reopening my senses and encountering the natural world with gratefulness (great fullness). . .

//

I return — perhaps with a touch of Norman Rockwell — to a sense of our solidarity as human beings in the great family of life. I learn to see my fellow passengers in their unique humanity and refrain from political (or other kinds of) labeling. At moments unbidden, great compassion rises.

I think of spirituality as living mindfully and being open to mystery. The mystery is in the great beauty of nature — the tree-covered mountains, the vastness of the sea, the companionship of rivers. The mystery also resides in the beauty of things made by human hands. And, finally, in those movements of the human spirit that elevate, liberate, and inspire us all.

In the 1960s Simon and Garfunkel sang: “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.”(11)Perhaps the words of the prophets are also written on the Edgartown Deli on Martha’s Vineyard, whose sign reads: “We wish you true joys — nature, the arts, and human love.”

As you make each day a journey and each journey a way of deepening, I echo that sentiment:

I wish you true joys — nature, the arts and human love.
May it be so for all of us and all our kin

//

Notes

¹ For more on the four stages of life in the ancient pattern of India, see my book, The Spiral of the Seasons: Welcoming the Gifts of Later Life (Chapel Hill, NC: Second Journey Publications, 2009).

² See Rumi’s poem “The Guest House” in The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, A.J. Arberry, and Reynold Nicholson (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), p. 109.

³ For more on these virtues or modes of divine dwelling, see my The Fourfold Path to Wholeness: A Compass for the Heart — Cultivating Love, Compassion, Joy, and Peace for All Our Kin. (Chapel Hill, NC: Second Journey Publications, 2010.)

⁴ See Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi with Joel Segel, Jewish With Feeling (New York: Riverhead Books, 2005), p. 30.

⁵ The only place I had not visited before was Martha’s Vineyard off Cape Cod.

⁶ Specifically, I brought along Roger Housden’s For Lovers of God Everywhere: Poems of the Christian Mystics (New York: Hay House, Inc., 2009), Father Thomas Keating’s Invitation to Love: The Way of Christian Contemplation (New York: Continuum, 2002), plus a small copy of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Chingand a small copy of the New Testament.

⁷ See Bo Lozoff, It’s a Meaningful Life — It Just Takes Practice (New York: Penguin Viking Arkana, 2000), p. 264. The addition of “and other creatures” is mine.

⁸ The tour ran from October 2, 2012 through October 9, 2012 and was offered by Caravan Tours. Our skilled driver was Gary Forcier, and our exemplary tour guide was Barbara Weis.

⁹ Since circumstances prevented our getting together, I want to acknowledge here my longtime friend, Don Russell.

¹⁰ I am thinking of Rilke’s poem:”I live my life in widening circles.” See Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996), p. 48.

¹¹ See the song “The Sound of Silence” on the album: Sounds of Silence, released in 1966.

The Art of Pilgrimage: Meeting Ancient Wisdom in Copper Canyon by Ron Pevny

As the Giver of Life touched the eastern horizon above Barranca del Cobre and began to pierce the darkness and winter chill with its light and warmth, the drumbeats sounded in the rugged canyons below. The ancient inhabitants of Copper Canyon, the Raramuri (Tarahumara), were greeting the sun, as they have done during late winter since time immemorial, in anticipation of Spring Equinox and the renewal of life for the earth and all of her beings.

High above on the canyon rim, other drums were sounding their prayers of gratitude as the promise of a new day touched the 16 pilgrims from all across the United States who were seated there among the boulders, yucca, and ponderosa pine. The drumbeats from below and above pulsed through one corner of Copper Canyon, Mexico, as those visitors from the U.S. imagined the heartbeats of two very different cultures, separated by distance, world view, and pain-tinged history, beating as one.

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The Raramuri, whom many authorities consider to be relatives of the Anasazi (Ancestral Puebloans) of the southwestern U.S., experienced their first contact with Europeans when Spanish expeditions came to north-central Mexico in the 16th century in search of gold. Having difficulty pronouncing “Raramuri,” which roughly translates as “people of light feet,” the Spanish called them “Tarahumara,” and this corruption of their preferred name is how the Raramuri are commonly known today. The ensuing 200 years of Spanish influence were painful for the Raramuri, who at times were brutally persecuted as the Spaniards attempted to impose European values. Jesuits and Franciscans brought Christianity to the Raramuri around 1600. The Jesuits were removed from Mexico by the Spanish king 150 years later, and then they returned in 125 years to find a people who had integrated various Christian symbols and beliefs into their rich indigenous nature-based spirituality.

Today the Raramuri number between 50,000 and 70,000, approximately the same as their estimated numbers 300 years ago. Probably the most unmixed of any of the North American Indians (more than 95 percent have pure Raramuri blood), they are among the least changed by modern civilization of the indigenous peoples of this continent. They are best known to the outside world as long-distance runners for whom running up and down the steep canyons, for sport as well as transportation and communication, is integral to life. Most live in small wood or stone houses or large caves in isolated family units or small settlements. Thirty-two Raramuri dialects are spoken throughout the Sierra Madre and its magnificent Copper Canyon complex.

The Copper Canyon area — Barranca del Cobre — is a complex of several majestic canyons, most deeper and larger than the Grand Canyon, with each continuing to be sculpted by wild rivers that eventually join and empty into the Gulf of California. It is estimated that the volume of these canyons is ten times that of the Grand Canyon. Over the years the mining of silver and gold has played an important role in the history of these canyons and their inhabitants, whereas copper mining has been relatively insignificant. The canyon system gets its name not from the metal, but from the brilliant copper color that frequently suffuses canyon walls and sky above as sunset gives way to twilight.

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As the colors of dawn gave way to bright sunlight, and the drums and rattles from above and below went silent on that February morning, we drummers descended from the canyon rim to our awaiting vans and proceeded on the next leg of what for us was a journey undertaken in the spirit of pilgrimage. Ever since we committed to “Meeting Ancient Wisdom, Growing Into Elderhood” months before, we 16 Americans, ranging in age from 50 to 76, had prepared to come to the magnificent homeland of the Raramuri as pilgrims rather than tourists. Our guides to Copper Canyon and the Raramuri were Jan and Mireya Milburn, who through their Milburn Foundation have devoted decades of their lives to the preservation of Raramuri culture.

The difference between a tour and a pilgrimage is huge. A tour is a trip to an exotic locale to see beautiful natural or human-made features and to learn about the culture and history of the place. The focus is on doing this and that with each step planned and the experiences and learnings mostly predictable. The tour leaders strive to offer a “controlled” experience where little is left to chance.

In contrast, a pilgrimage is a journey to touch and be touched by the sacred; as such, it is deeply grounded not in doing, but in being. The known must be left behind, and Mystery surrendered to and embraced. It is journeying with the intention of being fully alive and present to the guidance, mystery, magic, and transformative potential of each moment and each experience. One must let go of expectations and welcome the unexpected. One must trust that a greater Wisdom travels with us and opens us to experiences that — with acceptance, reflection, and intention — will further our psychological and spiritual growth.

Coming from widely diverse professional and spiritual backgrounds, what our group of pilgrims held in common was a sense of calling to claim and live the role of elder in our senior years. We all believed that becoming an elder is not the same as becoming older. How to understand and honor this calling to elderhood can be very difficult in a modern world where the importance of elders is forgotten and their role denigrated.

In stark contrast, until the Industrial Revolution, in most societies the role of elder was a critical one held in high esteem. Elders have been the nurturers of community, the spiritual leaders, the guardians of the traditions, the teachers, initiators, and mentors of the young. They have been the storytellers who have helped their people remember the enduring wisdom and deeper meanings that persist through life’s changes. They have been the ones who, over long lives, have transformed experience into wisdom and whose revered role is to model this wisdom.

Among indigenous peoples this ancient tradition is still vital, playing a critical role in their survival and health. The Raramuri respect all people with gray hair and honor their experience and contribution to their community, but they reserve the designation of Mayori, the fullest expression of elderhood, for those who have undergone years of intense training, spiritual practice, and deep commitment to their own personal growth. Mayori must know everything about the tribe and the way of life that have long made survival possible. They know the songs, legends, dances, ceremonies, and healing practices. They serve as counselors and teachers. They teach their people how to receive and understand spiritual guidance and to use heightened awareness to court the synchronicities and miracles that are central to the spiritual lives of their people.

It is the Mayori who hold the cultural fabric of the Raramuri together, a fabric that has as its source an ongoing experience of relationship with the living earth and the Mystery that created and sustains it and them. We pilgrims from the “modern” world believe also that the wisdom of true elders is necessary in our world, if our civilization is to successfully face the momentous challenges that lie before us.

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The “Meeting Ancient Wisdom, Growing Into Elderhood” pilgrimage wove together four strands as we sought to move forward on our quests to define and live the role of elder in the modern world. We spent time in solitude on the heights above Barranca del Cobre and in the depths of one of its canyons to strengthen our experience of the sacredness of our relationship to the earth. We explored sites of historical and cultural interest. We engaged in practices, such as sharing councils, drumming circles, guided imagery, dreamwork, and give-away ceremonies, to share the joys and struggles of our quests to become elders, to open ourselves to our own creativity and intuition, and to deepen our bonding as a community. And we spent time with Raramuri and their elders, trusting that the impact of being in the presence of indigenous people for whom the archetypal role of elder is alive and strong would serve as a catalyst in our own journeys toward full elderhood.

Many Raramuri still experience their lives through an expanded consciousness (what some scholars call “indigenous soul”) in which they are able to be present for, and creative in, worlds other than the material. When choosing how, or even if, to relate to outsiders, they read the energy of the group even before meeting them. We knew that, if we approached them full of expectations, projections, and judgments, they might well not interact with us at all, or if they did, their interactions would be superficial. On the other hand, if we went to Copper Canyon with true humility and a beginner’s mind — if we allowed ourselves to bein each moment without expectation — we would come with an energy they could resonate with. And in befriending them in this way, we hoped to befriend a basic part of our own human nature — a state of consciousness that enables us, like them, to have living experience of our relationship to all of creation and its Creator and to know our unique roles as elders in supporting the health of earth and the human community.

We began to recognize this shift of consciousness early in our pilgrimage as we experienced our first striking example of synchronicity, or meaningful coincidence. When we left El Paso for the five-hour drive to Chihuahua, a major storm was passing through the area, with the weather forecasters predicting strong, dangerous winds that could very well cover the highway with sand and close it for hours. We offered our prayers for protection, visualized a safe journey, and began the drive in our caravan of two vans and one truck. Five hours later we arrived at the Westin Hotel in the city of Chihuahua, having passed through miles of barren, sand dune landscape with little wind.

Several days after our drumming session on the canyon rim, another wonderful “coincidence” resulted in an unexpected, powerful experience for our group. We had the rare opportunity to spend the morning with an 83-year-old Raramuri shaman named Lorenzo and his wife Conchita, who is a healer talented in the medicinal use of plants and herbs. Mireya Milburn, who is Raramuri, spent much time in her childhood with her family’s neighbors, Lorenzo and Conchita. She introduced them to Jan 30 years ago, but Jan and Mireya had not seen these friends in 15 years. One morning Jan learned that Lorenzo, who is often away from his home doing his healing work, would be at home that day and eager to offer his blessings to our group. All it took was a brief handshake with each of us to enable this lifelong shaman to gather information about imbalances in our physical and spiritual selves and to prescribe for several of us practices or herbal remedies that would help restore balance. Then, using both Christian prayer and sage incense, he performed a cleansing ceremony to remove the energies of fear that so many people carry these days, so that we could more fully embrace the trust that is a critical doorway to indigenous soul.

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Later, for some of us, trust was a valuable resource on the seven-hour drive from Cusarare at 7,500 feet down to the former silver- and gold-mining town of Batopilas at 1,200 feet. We envisioned this descent as both a journey into the depths of Copper Canyon and into the depths of ourselves. The dirt road down into Batopilas Canyon is a one-lane ribbon of rock and dirt, full of switchbacks, awe-inspiring and for some, frightening. Burros and goats roamed the hillsides and meandered along the road. We passed Raramuri families, dressed in their multicolored traditional dress which lent brilliant color to a starkly beautiful landscape of gray and brown volcanic rock. With spring and summer rains, a riot of greens, reds, and yellows would brighten the landscape, but not so during February as we descended into the canyon.

We spent three days basking in the 75-degree warmth of the canyon bottom and the quaint town of Batopilas. In the early 1900s, Batopilas was the largest silver producer in the world. Now a town of 1,100 residents, mostly of Indian–Mexican (Mestizo) heritage, Batopilas boasts a charming hotel, the Riverside Lodge, that was a magnificent hacienda during the silver boom. With every room different and having its own small courtyard, this hotel provided us with elegant yet simple comfort and an inspiring place to meet as a group for sharing circles. Our excellent traditional Mexican meals were enjoyed on the front porch of the home of a Milburn friend named Maria, who cooked for us on a small stove in her kitchen.

On our first morning in the canyon, a four-mile hike along the Batopilas River led us to the Lost Cathedral of Satevo, a large church formerly of red brick but now in the process of being renovated and covered with cream-colored stucco. The history of the church remains a mystery lost in the mists of time. It is commonly believed that this cathedral was already in a state of decay when the Jesuits arrived around 1600. Its architecture is unlike that seen in mission churches built by the Jesuits and Franciscans throughout Mexico and the southwestern U.S. Rather, it contains prominent characteristics associated with churches and monasteries found in Austria and Bavaria, leading to Jan’s theory that Austrian monks from one of Columbus’s expeditions had settled here a century before the Spanish missionaries.

Our focus shifted from exploration back to inner work the next day as each of us spent a morning in solitude and silence along the Batopilas River. This watercourse was a small, placid stream at this time, in contrast to its rainy season face as a raging, rock-rolling torrent. Our individual and communal prayer was to use this time to more deeply open ourselves to indigenous soul and its guidance for our lives.

My own most powerful personal experience of the pilgrimage occurred during this time. As I waded a small channel, reflecting on events of the past few years, I came to understand my dream of the previous night in which the key symbol was a boy being baptized. I suddenly “knew” that I needed, with Jan’s participation, to create a personal ceremony to mark the end of one chapter in my life and baptize myself, with the waters of the Batopilas River, into full commitment to the next stage. I related to my dream as the Raramuri do to theirs, as an important vehicle through which indigenous soul makes itself known. Such a relationship with their dreams is integral to the psychological and spiritual lives of the Raramuri and other indigenous people, and it is one that all of us can cultivate. To honor this relationship, Raramuri believe it is essential to tell one’s dreams upon awakening, and, in certain cases, to translate dream images into personal ceremonies or commitments.

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We felt that our experiences in the canyon were instrumental in preparing us for our ascent out of the canyon to Cusarare and what for most was the defining moment of our pilgrimage, the opportunity to spend time with Raramuri elders. Throughout the journey, we knew this meeting, though a possibility, was not guaranteed. Months earlier, Jan Milburn had invited several of the elders, including Mayori, to spend an afternoon with our group. These are leaders with whom he had close relationships during those years when he lived and worked with the Raramuri building schools and health clinics, creating work opportunities, and winning back the millions of acres that had been stolen from them by timber and hotel interests. He had not seen most of them for several years and did not know if they would choose to join us. His two closest mentors had died in the previous year. He told us that the others whom he invited were, like most Raramuri, naturally shy and also not eager to spend their time with whites.

It was not until the morning of the scheduled day that Jan learned that 16 of the elders had accepted his invitation to join us for an afternoon meal in the cave home of friends of the Milburns. It seemed fitting that we begin that day with the future of the Raramuri, their children, by visiting the local school, hearing them recite their lessons, delighting in their laughter and smiles, sharing their nervousness, and presenting them with markers, pens and pencils, and notebooks. Then we drove on to the cave home.

The elders who greeted us at the cave home — governors of communal lands called ejidos, two Mayoris, a healer, and several others — all had dark, weathered faces lined with age. The men dressed in western clothing — jeans, shirts, and hats, with several wearing handmade sandals. The women were dressed in brilliantly colored ruffled skirts, blouses, and head scarves, and wore sandals. Curious children whose school day had just ended shyly watched us from behind large boulders above the cave. We suspected that the Raramuri shared our nervousness, like us not knowing what to expect. Jan advised us to become comfortable being with the elders in silence, sharing all those many elements of communication that are nonverbal. He told us that a slight brushing of their fingers against ours would be the appropriate form of greeting. To be offered a firmer handshake at some point would be a special gift. Try to feel their energy, he told us, as surely they would be feeling ours — let Raramuri indigenous soul touch ours, and trust that to be enough.

In the spacious, smoky cave home, we and these elders and children shared a large meal of tamales and blue corn tortillas, prepared by Mireya’s mother and relatives the night before (probably all night!). As some of us played with the children, their smiles and laughter began to relieve the mutual nervousness. Then we went outside to a circular grassy area bordered by large boulders, where we sat alternating Raramuri with white visitors. Using Jan as their translator, several of the elders made short welcoming speeches and extended their blessings toward us. As is customary when meeting elders of all indigenous cultures, we offered gifts that they value: beautiful cloth and sewing materials for the women, flashlights and Leatherman tools for the men. Each of us gave our gifts to an elder with whom we felt connection, evidenced by a smile shared or one of those subtle yet tangible feelings of being in relationship. And then Jan asked if the elders would accept a blessing from our group.

The pulse of our drums and rattling of our shakers carried our prayers for the well-being of the Raramuri. With the drumming, we were bringing healing to the old, pain-tinged relationship between these humble people and the often-not-humble white man. It touched us deeply to have several of these elders offer us full handshakes as we were leaving. When the elder who best knew Jan asked if we would/could come back, our feelings were confirmed that our unique overture to Raramuri elders was also valued by them and seen as an important beginning. Unlike tourists, we had not come just to get something for ourselves. We had done our best to meet and honor them without judgment or projection. Our innate goodness had met theirs — the indigenous soul that is the essence of our shared humanity had shone forth and was felt by and enriched all.

As I write this account in mid-March, it is now the beginning of the season of renewal in the northern hemisphere. The Life-Giver rises and sets each day to the sound of Raramuri drums beating deep in the canyons. The starkness of the winter landscape is giving way to the lush colors of spring. The spiritual practices and beliefs that are the life of Raramuri culture live on, grounded in both Christianity and an indigenous tradition of deep reverence for the earth.

Out of the canyon and many miles to the north, the heartbeats of a group of 16 aspiring elders continue to beat in resonance with those of our Raramuri brothers and sisters. We still have much to learn of the fullness of our potential to serve as true elders in our communities. But we have made a beginning. We and others like us are on the leading edge of a necessary paradigm shift in how aging is viewed in America. As we learned from the Raramuri, aging need not be defined by decline, loss, and withdrawal from active contribution to the community. Aging done consciously, with intention and inner work, can be a time when, like finely aged wine, we are at our best, giving our gifts and sharing our wisdom as we fulfill a role that since time immemorial has been vital in the lives of communities — that of the elder.

Our pilgrimage to Barranca del Cobre was a practice in the art of pilgrimage, demonstrating to us our potential for honoring and living each day as another day on our pilgrimages through life. We now can journey through our days carrying trust that a greater Wisdom, and its gift of indigenous soul, is traveling with us. The Giver of Life rises each day to remind us, as it does the Raramuri, that all life is sacred and interdependent.

//

Ron Pevny, M.A., has for forty years been dedicated to assisting people in negotiating life transitions as they create lives of purpose and passion. He is Founding Director of the Center for Conscious Eldering, based in Durango, Colorado. He is also a Certified Sage-ing® Leader, was the creator and administrator of the twelve-organization Conscious Aging Alliance, and has served as the host/interviewer for the 2015, 2016 and 2017 Transforming Aging Summits presented by The Shift Network. He is author of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging: embrace and savor your next chapter, published in 2014 by Beyond Words/Atria Books. Ron has presented many conscious eldering programs at Ghost Ranch and other retreat centers around North America over the past fifteen years.

Solo Journey in a Coupled World by Molly Brewer

Thirty-four years of marriage — over — in the blink of an eye, “I’m leaving” rolling off the tongue, connected to the increasing discontent that had left only this option. Despite the rightness of the decision, shock and grief become my new companions as I gather my resources and begin to let go, to heal, to move on. Four years later, moving on has taken on a look I could never have imagined.

What does a life evolve into after so many years of partnership, after imagining into the elder years with your life companion, sharing decisions together and caring for each other as the body ages? Can loneliness transform into essential aloneness, and can this be embraced? And where and how does a solo life fit into a coupled world? All new territory, for sure.

To begin with, I have realized there is no such thing as “starting over.” Perhaps the most fundamental and healing opportunity that has emerged is a gathering of all parts of myself, especially the parts I unknowingly gave away in the process of holding onto a marriage that no longer served either of us. As I have discovered this soul loss, I have invited and welcomed back those lost parts, and now, as I turn 65, I am experiencing a “coming home to myself,” a sense of wholeness that fills my very being. When thoughts or feelings of lack surface, I can remind myself I have everything I need, which has actually always been true but so easily forgotten, and I come back home to myself once again. I know that the universe, or spirit, or God, or whatever you call the life force, provides all I need, allowing me to more easily open to the unfolding of life as it presents itself.

It is in this spirit that T@DA showed up last Thanksgiving Day — a shiny bright red retro-looking little travel trailer on the side of the road with a For Sale sign on her. I asked my son to stop the car as I said: “That’s it!” — an instant knowing that this was my new traveling companion. About a year before, I began considering the idea of a little travel trailer but I had not begun an active search, though the idea was percolating. I also had learned about a group called “Sisters on the Fly,”(1)a growing gathering of women who have refurbished old trailers and come together to share and support each other in the fun, sisterhood, and independence of owning and caring for their own trailers. Spunky women! So am I, with just enough wildness left in me to live into that part of myself that yearns for more adventure. Yes! Yes! Yes!

And so the adventures with T@DA have begun. The first time out with her this spring, feeling both excited and quite intimidated, I thought, “I have no clue what I am doing.” This one-night maiden voyage, though, went well, and I was even able to back her into a parking space with little difficulty. Whew! First hurdle conquered. Second time out was at the Washington coast for a rally with other small-trailer owners, which proved to be a huge resource of information and collective experience, wisdom, and know-how. The third time out was to a small national forest campground on a raging river at the foot of Mt. Baker. It rained and didn’t matter, as I had a dry, cozy shelter and time to write this reflection. A solo hike, romping at the river’s edge with my Australian shepherd Brodie, and a deep sense of well-being all filled my heart.

I can have a rich, solo journey in a partnered world and not feel outside of things, but rather feel deeply connected to myself. Oddly enough, T@DA and I seem to be a magnet wherever we go, and I am connecting with people in the most unexpected ways. I am learning that I am enough, life is enough, there is plenty of joy to go around, and I truly do have everything I need. I am adding to the basket that holds all of my life experiences and, ironically, that basket feels a lot lighter than it ever did before. I am thriving in this new adventure and, as Robert Frost said, “I have miles to go before I sleep.”(2)

//

Notes

¹ To find out more about “Sisters on the Fly,” go to www.sistersonthefly.com.

² From Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

//

Molly Brewer lives on Whidbey Island near Seattle, Washington, where she tends her woodland garden, hikes, works as a physical therapist specializing in craniosacral therapy, and travels as much as possible in her T@DA. She is currently exploring and becoming a “Mama sin dolo,” one of a global group of older women dedicated to nurturing “beyond pain” toward healing and wholeness.

One Man’s Search for Joy… or at Least a Guinness by Tom Trimbath

Excerpts from Walking, Thinking, Drinking Across Scotland by Tom Trimbath

September 21

Sunny beaches? Ha! I was headed to misty Scotland for my autumn vacation. What was I thinking? My friends wondered about that too. So did I, but I trust my intuition. I knew I needed a change of scenery and a different routine.

We build ruts. We build them out of habits and for a purpose, even if we don’t realize it. Our ruts keep us in the vicinity of what we think we need and aim us towards a goal we expect to reach. A rut is a person’s self-built one-dimensional maze that includes walls and a picture of cheese. If it is a deep enough rut, the horizon becomes the top of the trench that we can’t see over. The world shrinks to something that seems controllable where everything except the end is within reach. We humans are very good at putting ourselves into silly situations.

I knew I was in a rut, and that my horizons to either side had become a bit too near. I’d been there before, and I’d found a way out of it. I had to do something completely different. My desire to walk across Scotland was a desire to see my rut from another perspective, even if it meant creating a new rut.

I did something similar ten years earlier, but that time I was just trying to lose weight. For eight weeks in September and October of 2000 I bicycled from Washington State to Florida: a corner-to-corner bicycle ride partly intended as weight reduction, partly to get out of the house, partly to see if I could.

September 28

As I closed the garden gate, I looked down the lane. The morning light made it look like less of a dead-end. The path diving into the dark tunnel of the underpass was not very encouraging. It looked like an opportunity for Joseph Campbell to begin a lecture on the hero’s journey. What lay within and beyond the darkness?

From light, to dark, and back to light as I crossed over to the other side was like a Wizard of Oz moment. The sky was lightly overcast. The contrast was bright and welcome. A regular road roughly paralleled the heavy traffic and steered away from the highway. Soon the road noise drifted away. As a bonus, instead of a sidewalk, shoulder, or bit of paint defining a lane there was a wide concrete median guarding a paved path wide enough for bicycles to ride abreast. I had a mini-road all to myself and a bigger barrier to traffic than I imagined. Fenwick was luxurious.

I also had a lot of country to myself. Instead of finding more density closer to the metropolis of Glasgow, I chose to walk through more farmland. Only 17 miles from downtown Glasgow is a big emptiness. The motorway speeds everyone through the terrain with little effect except noise and exhausts. Credit goes to car companies that the exhausts weren’t bad. Thirty years earlier the air was probably much fouler. My route was far enough away that I was more likely to smell the cow fumes than the car fumes. They both came from tailpipes, but I had a preference.

Congratulations, Scots! One farm crop was odor-free: wind. Individual houses had turbines. Forests of titans gathered on the ridges slicing energy from the air. Unlike America, where the wind and the cities can be far apart, in Scotland the turbines were within a 20-minute drive of downtown. The energy didn’t have far to go.

The lands rolled up and down. I saw more trout farms than people. A bicyclist startled me, which made me laugh at myself. How inattentive, how relaxed must I be to jump when a person rides by? Maybe he cursed the pedestrian that took up the entire bike lane. Maybe he cheered my obviously long walk. Probably he forgot about me within a mile. I passed through a land without making a mark.

I laughed because I was embarrassed. I’d finally relaxed enough to not worry about what others would think when they saw me. Hours spent surrounded by no one were an opportunity to have those conversations I was rarely brave enough to have in person. They were one-sided conversations, but I talked to people who’d died, people I hadn’t seen in years, friends who were also always too busy to sit and talk.

Emotions had a chance to arise without someone telling me how I should feel or having to worry about how I should respond. Manners, politeness, diplomacy could all be ignored. I said thank-yous to people who usually have to be convinced to take a compliment, or I talked about something that bugged me without having to defend or justify my emotion. They never answered back, I wasn’t that tired (and if they started talking back either I was more exhausted than I knew or had mentally gone somewhere I shouldn’t), but I could pretend that they were listening. The cattle didn’t seem to care, and I was less likely to scare the sheep because they had a chance to hear me coming. When the cyclist rolled by I was so deep in my own world that I didn’t know if I had been talking out loud. Oh well, rather than worry about my image I decided I could always claim to just be a crazy Yank tourist.

Somewhere in there something else happened. There was a moment that wouldn’t show up in a video. I was walking one moment, and was walking the next. Yet between those moments was a flash of a powerful emotion. I glimpsed joy.

For the infinitesimal time between two moments, I somehow opened myself up and met an emotion I thought I knew. After being properly introduced, I was humbled by how little I knew about it. Amidst the arguments and expressive outbursts, I realized why I was walking across Scotland. Yes, I should take a vacation for my health. Yes, I wanted to get away from my chores for a while. But I suddenly realized that I was walking across Scotland because I could enjoy it. Such a simple thing as walking could be described as mobile meditation or low-impact aerobics or many other multisyllabic rationalizations — but the real reason I was walking across Scotland was because I enjoyed walking, and travel, and unstructured time, and having a straightforward goal. I was enjoying myself.

I saw joy and recognized it in a real sense, and realized that I’d only known it in an ideal sense until then. I recognized that joy was in every moment, and that it was always waiting for me. I simply had to choose it. For over 50 years I’d never witnessed the purity of that feeling nor learned that simple truth. I’d done well in school, behaved myself, graduated from college with a respectable degree, got a good job, got a better degree, got a better job, saved my money, managed the suburban lifestyle, and ended up single again because I should. Nowhere in there did I spend much time learning to enjoy. I acted responsibly and learned to do the things that people said were enjoyable, and believed that what I experienced was joy. But I was wrong. For one moment, without a break in the clouds, or finding money at my feet, or seeing a beautiful smile, I felt full of joy. I was walking across Scotland because I enjoyed walking across Scotland. There was no need for any further discussion.

The next moment arrived and the feeling was gone. Yet, a tendril remained. An emotional thread tied me to the awareness that I could have that feeling and the memory of the real instead of the ideal emotion. I tried snapping back into joy, but could tell it didn’t work that way. I’d spent so little time experiencing real joy that I would require practice to get that feeling back. Slipping back into familiar feelings was inevitable. Chastising myself for it wouldn’t help. I decided to keep a tender mental hold on that emotional thread and slowly reel in that treasure. Within a few minutes I was back to my conversations, but there was a lightness to my face. My jaw and forehead relaxed. I’d turned a corner into a long and eagerly anticipated journey and the promising prospect of an ongoing education in deep delight.

//

Tom Trimbath is the author of the nature essay series “Twelve Months at Barclay Lake, Lake Valhalla, and Merritt Lake”; the cultural essay “Just Keep Pedaling”; Dream. Invest. Live., a book about frugal personal finance; and now, Walking, Thinking, Drinking Across Scotland.

“My walk across Scotland commemorated the tenth year anniversary of my corner-to-corner bicycle ride across America, Just Keep Pedaling. That ride changed my life, even though I didn’t know it at the time. Ten years later I needed a vacation and wanted a nice, long walk, not a life-altering experience. What I got was both.”

For more, visit http://walkthinkdrinkscotland.wordpress.com/photos/.

Change by the Way by Jan Phillips

Every transformation in my life so far has something to do with travel. Every journey has led to the uprooting of some ideas and the seeding of some others. It happens predictably, whether I’m staying within the confines of my own country or venturing out where visas and passports are required. It seems to be the rule of movement: If I leave behind the known for a jaunt into the unknown — and keep my eyes and ears opened — again and again I am changed by the act of moving through the mystery.

A few years ago, I headed off to Nigeria at the request of Sister Rita, a Dominican sister who wanted me to facilitate a weekend retreat in visionary leadership for 40 African sisters from her congregation. In return, I would get to visit some of the villages that Sr. Rita’s non-governmental organization (NGO) serves in the state of Kaduna.

I arranged to go for three weeks to give myself plenty of time for visits to the villages. One day, at one of those villages, something happened that changed the course of my life. We arrived by Jeep in the parking lot of a schoolyard where children of every age stood lined up in rows. It was early afternoon, and when we emerged from the vehicle dozens of children ran up to me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me toward their classroom. “Please be our teacher! Please be our teacher!” they pleaded all the way.

The children quickly filled the classroom. They set me at the front of the room and settled quietly on the dusty floor. I had never taught in a classroom full of kids. I had no idea what to do. I looked around. There were no chairs, no desks, no books, no blackboard, no paper, pens or pencils — only an irresistible eagerness to learn exuding from every pore of the faces of the children sitting in crooked rows before me.

“What’s two plus two?” I asked.

“Four! they shouted back.

“What’s eight plus seven?”

“Fifteen!” they proudly responded.

“Where is your teacher?” I asked.

The children shrugged their shoulders. They had no idea why their teachers had stopped coming, but I was determined to find out.

I asked the staff from the NGO why there were no teachers at the school. An ongoing problem, they responded. Corruption in the government. Transportation problems. Housing issues. Low salaries. Few resources. No accountability. Teachers were hired because of who they knew or were related to, and they were paid whether they showed up or not. Because it was such a long and difficult journey to the rural villages, along often impassable roads, with no local housing to ameliorate the burden of long daily travel, there simply was not incentive enough to get the teachers up to the village schools with any regularity.

When I went to bed that night, I cried. My heart broke for those children. How could it be that we have created a world where the education of our children is not yet a global priority? I felt like the problem was mine — as much mine as it was the children’s — and I vowed to make a difference. I met with Sr. Rita to explore options. She would have to meet with the chief of the village, but we came up with a proposal to bring to him.

We would work together to build a home for four teachers next to the buildings that housed four classrooms in that village. We would raise funds for iPads with educational programs and create partnerships with solar energy innovators to bring electrical power to the school. We would increase the chances of teachers being there every day by eliminating their need to commute, AND we would have a backup plan for the students to learn even if the teachers were not present.

After three weeks I came home and started a charitable foundation based on the notion of small contributions from grassroots contributors to build homes for teachers in 20 villages in the state of Kaduna. We would appeal to artists, activists, and cultural creators who are excited about the idea of every child getting an education, and we would raise money through our creative endeavors. The organization, called the Livingkindness Foundation, has raised more than half of the money we need to build the teachers’ housing unit in that first village. We have identified a solar power company that we want to work with and are making connections with educators who are using the iPads in their classrooms.

That one day, that one image of so many children waiting in line for teachers who would never show up, was enough to turn my life upside down. For the first time in my life, I did not think, “They have a problem. Too bad!” I thought, “WE have a problem,” and I set about creating a system where we could work together to solve that problem.

As a result of that trip, hundreds of people are looking into their own lives to see how they can be of use. They have visited the Web site (livingkindness.org), donated money, purchased photos, spread the word on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. In a tiny village thousands of miles from my home, I looked at a scene that broke my heart open.

I can never unsee that image. I can never pretend it doesn’t matter. My life was altered irrevocably by that one trip, that one day, that one village.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I travel not to get places, but to climb down off the featherbed of civilization.” I feel that’s what happened on my journey to Africa. I experienced the unfairness of a civilization in trouble, and it changed my life. Like the Nigerian chief said, “If you do not share your wealth with us, we will share our poverty with you.” The poverty of that village spilled over my life and covered me like a blanket. I fell off the featherbed of a privileged civilization onto the dirt floor of a dirt-poor community. And I thank my lucky stars for that day of awakening, for that stark and stirring reminder that we are all in this together. I may be choosing the road less traveled, but I know it is leading me home.

//

Jan Phillips is a writer and retreat director who connects the dots between creativity, spirituality, and social action. Her most recent books include No Ordinary Time — The Rise of Spiritual Intelligence and Evolutionary Creativity; The Art of Original Thinking — The Making of a Thought Leader; Divining the Body; God Is at Eye Level — Photography as a Healing Art; and Marry Your Muse — Making a Lasting Commitment to Your Creativity. She has taught in over 25 countries, and her work appears in many newspapers and journals. You can sign up for her monthly newsletter and see her books, CDs, videos, and learn more about her Livingkindness Foundation at www.janphillips.com.

The Mirror of Travel: Seeing Myself in The Face of Morocco by Kendall Dudley

We travel to lose ourselves and find ourselves again.(1)

— Pico Iyer

If we’re lucky, we get to take advantage of times of change and uncertainty to make course corrections. Travel — whether in the outer world by foot, bus, or plane, or through an inner process of journal writing using travel metaphors — provides a creative lens to see our changes.

What follows is my record of taking a group of eight to Morocco in 2012. Everyone was over 50, employed in a variety of occupations including law, mental health, the arts, community service, and medicine. What they had in common was a desire to look below the trappings of culture and established roles and see what ticked. Our goal was to see what the land and people might evoke in us and how, through mindful attention and creating a journal record, we might live more fully. Here is my experience of those 12 days.

//

My first night in Fes, I’m standing at the head of a dark alleyway staring at an illegible sign that may say Riad Dar Tamo, site of my room for the night. It is late, maybe 9 p.m., and weak street lamps give the stucco walls a shadowy B-movie look while I fight back urban instincts to use my cell phone for some kind of bailout. I push forward down the dark path. I’m in Fes, after all, to do this exact thing, to push the edges, to see and do what I don’t do at home and to learn from whatever I encounter. The alleyway is not wider than a donkey and a half, and it weaves, with wires and the juttings-out of the upper stories of houses above. I don’t feel in danger, just on unfamiliar, stony ground.

I knock on the heavy wood door marked #89 and a man (I guess, age 50) in a grey shirt looks at me, white guy (he guesses, 60?) in a blue vest. I confess, “My name is Dudley. I have a reservation.” For a moment I think I’ve disoriented him, but he ad libs, “Dudley, yes, the Internet. Come.” He leads me along the tiled vestibule to the three-story atrium, where a French woman is dragging herself from the TV and says, “Welcome. You are Dudley.” “Yes,” though suddenly I’m not sure I want to be Dudley at this minute. “Would you sign here?” she asks. I scan my options: flee, chill, trust fate . . . I go with trust fate. She peers at my words. “You are Kendall, not Dudley?” she says not unkindly. “I am both. I have two names.” “Just so,” she says.

She has nailed it directly. I do have two names, one I know well (the Kendall), but the other is still less familiar to me (Dudley) for it’s the name of my father who I know too little about. Already I’m alerted to a task I hadn’t realized lay before me, to fill in the missing parts of my father’s life. She hands me the key to the room at the top. “My husband, he will help you with the bag, and breakfast is anytime. Just come down.”

As I follow husband up the steep irregular steps of this tenth-century house, I realize I am climbing steps that people have been climbing for 1100 years! I am astounded, and with each step, I think of the children who grew old in this house and passed on, yet the steps remain. I am but one more step climber, one more traveler wooed, one more pilgrim who has found his way to Fes not knowing fully why he has come . . . and that is the point. To have just enough intention to make the trip but not so much knowledge as to create “spoilers” that dampen surprise.

So why have I come, and why in this manner? There are many reasons I know about. My deep interest in Islamic architecture and Middle East culture nurtured from my Peace Corps years in Iran . . . my interest in the life cycle and the voyages implicit with each life stage . . . my belief in the vivid language of color and form to convey meaning . . . and my professional yakking to life-design clients and program participants about the advantages of intentional travel. For these “known” reasons I have come to Morocco while suspecting that others lie out of reach. Perhaps there lies my real motivation: to see beneath the surface of my known intentions.

Pico Iyer says, “We search not so much for answers but better questions.” (2) Indeed, living the questions, as Rilke suggests, (3) is a form of the high ideal. Better to set in motion that next life chapter with good questions, or at least some that may take you to the right ones. For me, “Why am I really here?” is a good enough question.

The next morning, I go up more of those same steep steps to the roof, where I am breathtakingly surrounded by the 10th through 21st centuries — soft distant mountains, minarets, grey-brown houses, and alleyways, roof gardens, plane trees, telephone poles, hundreds of satellite dishes, and the insistent drone of Egyptian soap operas. This is the oldest part of Fes . . . . time has burnished it with additions woven in throughout the years: a house renovation in Andalusian style, an Ottoman influence here, a choice of colors from a French colonial palette there. Like the houses, we bear the markings of our journey even if we’ve forgotten their origins.

Some part of me is aware that it’s raining and I’m getting really wet! I take a quick last look knowing that I will not see this specific sight again. The image saturates my eyes, and as I head carefully down the steps, each one requiring a strategy of its own, I hear Frost(4)and Hallmark Cards saying “I may not go this way again.” Hey, it’s also true I may never get to Zabar’s on Broadway again . . . but I haven’t heard this internal voice before. Hmm, for all my dismissive banter about birthdays being a cultural phenomenon hyped by the card industry, my body has its own wisdom and has been keeping track — there will be just so many Fesian moments to record on my life passport!

As I make my way with my roller bag and overweight backpack through the tenth, fourteenth, and more “modern” centuries of Fes to our rendezvous at the Dar Batha Hotel, I feel the vibrancy of the city and its many arresting sights. Is it traveler’s eyes that let me find fascination in the way the rain stains the earthen walls and flows quietly along the stone walking paths? A bicyclist slaloms by me. I note the way that fiber optic and electric cables are pinned to available wooden structures and electric meters like large watches are fitted into the carvable walls. Here centuries are colliding. Men in bright blue suits pick up discrete amounts of garbage from houses, while others in yellow are making repairs to the twisty walkways. No signs saying Danger! Cuidado! or Men Working Above! No, everyone watches where they’re going — they have Fesian eyes that tell them to pay attention to the moment. At home, they have to contemplate each step, whereas in Boston, codes and the anticipation of lawsuits have lessened the need for “paying attention.”

I land at our hotel meeting place and find out that two of our members are stuck in the Rome airport, the result of djinns in the form of labor strikes and cancelled flights somewhere along the line. A nice event to show the irony of careful planning, but I quickly catch myself. When people are upset and losing a day at Fes is not the time to enter the on ramp of philosophical musings. Already, even getting to Fes is providing us friction for defining our edges and recalibrating our tolerances.

I am having to switch from being the traveler through personal space to the leader of a group of eight through a maze of schedules, hotel arrivals, long van rides, weather changes, grumbles and exasperations, mis-timings, the disappointing of some to maximize what I hope is the group’s benefit. We see much, perhaps too much, and while most of us are gluttons for this kind of thing, each of us has our limits for ups and downs, and our own individual capacity for delight. When we are in sync, it is marvelous. When not, we take our council and learn from many sources: pleasure and disappointment, physical comfort and irritation, the sweetness of the tea and the risks inherent in food experimentation, as we each stretch our own zones of routine, comfort, and curiosity.

I am both watching and participating, trying to monitor the shape of each person’s experience and judging when to say what. I am up late reviewing each day and what has spilled out of people’s mouths, trying to discern what needs attention and intervention and what is part of the natural, if complex, unrolling of experience. I discover a distressing need to please everyone and take it hard when someone runs aground. This takes me back 40 years to times I was my mother’s mainstay and guardian, a memory that keeps me up late in Morocco all these years later. The past is not really past, it is merely lying low for the moment.

Our guide Mark Gordon — an ex-pat American who lives in Morocco and runs tours on his own and for a travel company — is a font of knowledge of the facts and the bizarre. He is bright and knows his way around the people and monuments we encounter. He is also a lightning rod for anxieties and countertransference. This guy (age maybe 55?) is more accustomed to saving adventure travelers from the jaws of hypothermia and bravado than he is to divining the needs of a quirky group of 50–70 somethings who poke their heads into journals and talk about process and meaning. Some of whom want miracles! “It is now raining, will it rain tomorrow when we are in the desert riding camels?” one woman asks. He responds, “Yahoo says there is a 60 percent chance of rain near there. But it rarely rains in the desert.” She counters, “But are you sure it won’t rain while we’re riding — if it does rain I don’t want to go!” I remind people they are asking for a degree of prediction that is impossible to offer even in Kansas.

What is really happening here, at this moment? We are midway through our trip. It has rained more than we expected, it’s been colder than we thought . . . people are resilient, but a little disappointed in the weather. Then there is the desert. We have talked about it as one of the lures of the trip, a highlight, but it has many elements to it. For most of us, it represents the unknown. It is literal, storied, iconic, psychological. We are all embarking on this voyage with awareness that we are, to varying degrees, going to an edge. It will be fun, but the shape of that fun cannot be known without our having done it. Discussions of weather and requests for guarantees are largely a sign of a collective anxiety. In polling a few people, it seems clear that the group as a whole feels more anxious than the individuals in it do.

Nonetheless, rain or not, we are heading to the desert, and though it is hard to see it yet from our van, we know it is coming. The land is thinning and, interestingly, we start to talk as if no one will remember what we say. “Are you happy?” turns out to be a provocative question as we pass the roadside farms and villages of the Saharan rim. We take turns listening and speaking of the hopes we had and have for love, the present station of those feelings, and the shifts we’ve made to hold these realities.

At times the thrum of the engine acts as our drone instrument, signaling the passage of time and the eternal aspects of our questions. For some, we are telling one another what we have come to Morocco to hear ourselves say. And in the very saying, perhaps we make that real and manageable and changeable if need be. That I am recently divorced rings louder here in me than it does in the U.S. and the word ripples in me as I flash through the vast history of divorces in my family . . . and the reasons why I know so little about my father.

During a lull, I suggest we ride in silence and make notes in our journals. I draw a picture of my father. In my imagined re-creation of his leaving when I was five, I give him a bent back. Perhaps it is the movement of the van that produces that exaggerated line and this wounded interpretation of his departure, but my drawing radiates through me and I feel immensely sad at the loss to him and to me of our decades of separation.

And then the desert. We are mounting our padded saddles and holding onto the pommel as we wait for all of us to similarly be seated before “standing up” — camels take cues from one another, and if one gets up, its neighbor may get the same idea, whether the rider is ready or not. I am starting the odd three-stage standing-up process when I hear Anna moan in terror as her camel starts its ascent. “Hold on tight, you’ll be fine!” our guide calls out. He knows adventure after all. She wails and hugs the saddle. Her camel is paying little attention to her anxiety, but we are all concerned. “You can walk,” I say, “others are choosing to walk.” “No, no. I have to do this,” she manages to say.

This is the desert. The slow endless turning of dunes, pushed by the wind, reconfiguring themselves every day. There is nothing to say. I am in the thrall of the moment, aware of time being measured in eons. I sense a letting go . . . and I experience what it is to be totally present. Every sense is alive. My mind flickers to T. E. Lawrence, the Camel Corps, Rommel, Nilotic slaves, and the trade in dyes, salt, and metals. After my cavalcade of nonsense, I come back to the reality of the chafing sound of camel pads on sands and the steady beat of my heart.

It is night and we are in our Bedouin tent being served couscous with goat, chickpeas, and carrots and drinking wine we have sacredly carried with us. “I need to tell you something,” Anna says. “I came on this trip…to ride that camel.” Her voice rises. “When I was a child, I was trampled by wild horses and have been terrified of large animals ever since. I had to get on that camel.” Her story chills me. What immense courage it took for her to do this. The air is alive as it was in the bus. I say, “This makes me want to tackle my own fear of water — I feel imprisoned by it . . .” Another says, “I have been anxious this whole trip. It is what I do. But I am not anxious about a thing right now. Just being here is all that matters. And I wouldn’t have known that it could be so, without coming.”

I sleep in the presence of the wind and the awareness of stars covering me.(5)I get up around 4 a.m. to pee and watch myself in moonlight standing in the dunes. It is chilly, and gusts of wind blow through me. I take a handful of sand and hold it. I have the idea of taking some home and being buried with it. It is only when I am out of the wind that I realize tears have formed in my eyes.

We see ruined fortresses and sleep one night in a hotel carved out of rock at the base of a vertical gorge. We see immense long valleys of fig, almond, and palm trees with towns scattered in their midst. And then we arrive at the fantastic hill village of Ait Ben Haddou, site of movie backdrops and UNESCO’s protection.(6)

It is mid afternoon. The sun plays on the adobe houses and tapering towers carved with enigmatic signs and symbols. As we walk towards the village, the towers appear to shoot up from thick walls that hug the hillside. Like the desert, this village evokes iconic forms taken from an alternate mindset. Tracing its architectural roots to sub-Saharan and Malian architecture only fuels my thinking that West Africa has links to knowledge systems that the West has lost or perhaps has yet to encounter.(7)

We come upon men and women outfitted in North Face, filming Jesus and Mary for Moroccan TV. As I watch these storied roles being played out, I wonder how I would tell my own story. How would I divide my chapters, and which ones would I have to rewrite before they yielded fresh insight? I realize I get invested in interpreting events in certain ways. And as long as I do that, I can’t see into the nuances of my life, overshadowed as they are by fixed ideas.

The next day we spend moments in silence as we time-travel over the Atlas Mountains past stone villages, flocks of sheep, cell towers, and women’s rural co-ops. It is on these longish bus rides we collect our thoughts that we may later share during the collective journal writing we do each evening. In this way, we see what others saw and learn from the differences in how we’re wired and how our wiring may be shifting. My own wires seem to be scanning for the meaning that lies behind what I see . . . I am looking more for signs than at the color and surface of things.

We hit Marrakech, drop our bags at Riad Dar Saad on the outskirts of the bazaar, and head for the Djemaa-al-Fna. We are in high gear. This is the finale of our trip and the Assembly of the Dead is calling us, or at least that’s one Arabic translation for the place we are about to see! Electrical and plumbing stalls flash by us as do butchers, hanging meat, and vegetable stalls, each with its own sounds and pungency. The market for painted drums and stringed instruments pulls at us and then come the spice, cloth, and souvenir merchants.

Finally, we are released into the wide sea of space and people that forms the Djemaa-al-Fna! School’s out and many people are milling and roaming, scanning the juice wagons and food stalls. Circles form around palmists and storytellers, snake charmers and acrobats. Japanese in facemasks consider land snails and broth. An animal trainer is almost clipped by a biker, whose black veil balloons out behind her. Actors, some in drag, lure us into being their audience, while drummers, horn, and string players vie for our attention by drawing us away with their rapid twisting beat. Women in black sequin veils sit by pillows with cards that see into the future. This is theater on a grand scale, full of history, ritual, invention, reality, and suggestions of the occult. But which is which, and what does all that mean?

Our last hours together, we meet to write of what we will remember of this trip. We discuss moments we stepped out of ourselves or took on unfamiliar roles. We look at emerging skills and tastes and dreams and pause to capture flickers of the future. We start to say “Goodbye” but change it to, “Be seeing you.” Much is in flux as we make our way towards more familiar shores.

I head back to the Djemaa-al-Fna and seek out the amulet maker. Seeing the low facades of the shops, restaurants, hotels, and parking areas that define the edges of the Djemaa, I’m aware of the “planning” behind all this. During twentieth-century colonial rule, the French decided that Morocco would become a culture park and Marrakech its tourist home. This meant old Marrakech had to retain its antique qualities so that it appeared “oriental” to travelers. What’s more, writers say that Morocco partially came to define itself through the images foreigners created of it.(8)

At first appalled to think of these manipulations of culture, I realize they provide a segue to seeing the effects of my own culture on me. Culture is often invisible from the inside. It is by traveling, in part, by getting on the outside, that I see the system of beliefs that defines me and keeps me bound to feeling “at home” in my culture.(9)And though I know why there are few palmists, card readers, and bibliomancers in America , it doesn’t stop me from believing that there is something of imperturbable value here. My task as a traveler and seeker is to see through the cultural distortions to what may still exist at the heart of things.

This impulse has me talking to the amulet maker who sits on a stool near the used clothing sellers. In his yellow robes, he looks like a shaman as he asks me what protection I desire. I tell him I want health for myself and my loved ones and peace for this troubled world. He pauses and then takes a small brass object the shape of an amphora and sets about breaking and selecting bits of bird wing, ginger, and myrrh, along with pinches of what appear to be herbs, mineral powders, and silver dust. He pauses and the Square falls silent. I watch him open a small blue box. He takes out a pinch of red earth and inserts it into the capsule. He then carefully twists closed the top with a brass stopper and presents it to me in his palm.

While culture strongly determines what it is we value, it is ultimately up to me to sift through the forces shaping belief to see what may be true for me. In the work of the amulet maker, I’m choosing to find great value and to see — in the choices he made — links to belief systems and a cultural heritage I may never understand. But he is teaching me to imagine a larger, more multisourced palette from which to frame my life. Coming to Morocco is not enough! I will have to travel further by reading, reflecting, writing, and conversation. All along I’ll be trying to name those life tasks, the sacred and sublime, that I have yet to undertake. I see them forming a kind of map into the future that shapes my choices, time, and resources. This trip helps me see my unfinished “work” with my father. It sensitizes me to wider spheres of knowledge. Above all, it is helping me pay attention to my life and surroundings in such a way that every day can be a travel day if I’m willing to look at life with those eyes.

One thing I’ve learned is that travel provides a necessary friction that helps me encounter myself in unanticipated ways. It clarifies my interests, fears, values, and desires. Even to make the trip in my armchair and not on the road, I need ways to introduce friction. I use the imagery of travel to describe the inner journey I am to make. I want to be able to identify the “stops” along the way before the train reaches its final destination. (Engage with my father’s memory, explore Islamic folk beliefs and architecture, draw freely every day, experiment with alternative forms of knowing such as tarot and I Ch’ing, etc.) This may mean confronting the border guards that don’t want me snooping around my past or looking foolish. It may mean emptying from the suitcase of the heart a host of outgrown roles, responsibilities, and identities, creating a packing list of “mysteries to explore,” denying visas to sacred cows, and safekeeping insights gleaned from roads already traveled. By whatever means I and others may undertake our journeys, recording it not only in words, but also including questions and images, reveals what we know and gives shape to it. If we are ultimately travelers seeking our right road, let us renew the search with creativity and courage!

//

Notes

¹ Pico Iyer, Why We Travel, Salon.com; March 18, 2000.

² Ibid.

³ See Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (1903), Modern Library, 2001.

⁴ See Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Latham. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

⁵ See Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, Harcourt, 2002.

⁶ Ait Ben Haddou has appeared in Lawrence of Arabia and Gladiator among other movies and is a recognized World Heritage site by UNESCO.

⁷ See René Gardi, Indigenous African Architecture, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1973.

⁸ See Assia Lamzeh, The Impact of the French Protectorate on Cultural Heritage Management in Morocco: The Case of Marrakech, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011.

⁹ See Albert Camus, The Stranger (L’Étranger), Everyman Library, 1993, and Michel Foucault and Paul Rabinow, The Foucault Reader, Pantheon, 1984.

//

After Penn (BS), Columbia (MA), and the Peace Corps in Iran, I became forever fascinated by Islam and Islamic architecture. My work, however, took me into the field of career and life design, that grew to include teaching, life story writing, painting, leading programs in life direction using writing and art, stinting at Harvard for 15 years, presenting at national conferences, winning grants for my public art and social justice projects, and leading life-direction programs to Morocco. I run Lifeworks Career & Life Design in Belmont, MA where I have a private practice while also consulting to myriad organizations. And because I trade in new ideas, I’m drawn to adventures that lead me to them. — Kendall Dudley

Embarkation by Tony Whedon

He was a very big kid, and black, blue black, and quite smart, but he struggled to make himself understood. He was from the Georgia sea islands, and spoke a Geechee/Gullah dialect; he said he was a Salt-water Geechee, whatever that was; and he was fond of a painting by Antoine Watteau, “The Embarkation to the Isle of Cythera.” Was there a connection between his fascination with eighteenth-century French art and his home place? How had he learned about art before college? After class one afternoon, he came to my dungeon of an office at Morehouse College where I’d been teaching only a couple of months.

“I won’t stay in Atlanta — the students, they don’t get me, and I don’t get them.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

“We go other ways — we’re different, me and them.”

I recall the story he told of the island he’d come from. Until college he’d rarely gone to the mainland, but despite his isolation, the high school he attended had been a good one. Sapelo was a small farming and fishing community. Those living there were descendants of the island’s original slaves. They kept to themselves. They retained a dialect that had much in common with West African languages. I was intrigued by his background, and he was eager to show me his work. He wanted to do more than I expected of him. But — why Watteau and this painting? Nothing was more removed from the problems he’d confronted since he came from his island, and he had no answer except that he really loved the dramatic sweep of it, the suggestion of luminous vistas, of yet-to-be-explored horizons. Watteau was innocent the way my student was innocent, and dreamy like he was. He mooned over the painting, couldn’t get enough of it. My ignorance and my indifference concerning the young man’s background — the island he was from and who lived there — wouldn’t be clear to me ‘til years later.

That student played but a small part in my memory of my first teaching job. There was getting to know my colleagues and the nightly news of Vietnam; there was the burgeoning Black Power movement and its effect on my students. Many of the issues I addressed in the classroom were with me then: how responsible was I to the past? How difficult was it for a young man from an out-of-the-way island on the Georgia coast to adjust to this new life? To come to Atlanta and Morehouse was to assume a responsibility, to be thrust into a present he might not have been ready for. His peers would assume positions as doctors and lawyers, mayors and civic leaders — while others, like him, would go back home as teachers and preachers. In the recent past, the successful blacks, the up-and-coming (the “uppity” who “deserved to learn a lesson”) became lynching targets — they were the ones in whom a fear of violence was especially strong.

//

I hadn’t puzzled out these things ‘til I saw James Allen’s book Without Sanctuary, a collection of ancient postcards and news pictures assembled by Allen and recently published by Twin Palms Press — a book that spotlights the lurid fascination whites in the early twentieth century, both south and north, took in lynching photos.

My wife Suzanne and I ran into Allen at the antique shop he runs in Darien near Sapelo Island, where my student had come from and where we intended to spend a short vacation. Allen calls himself a “picker,” a word that denotes a collector of odd or antique things; and he’s dedicated much of his life to collecting lynching photographs.

The first photograph to catch my attention was of —the bludgeoned body of an African American male, propped in rocking chair, blood-splattered clothes, white and dark paint applied to face, circular disks glued to cheeks, cotton glued to face and head, shadow of man using rod to prop up the victim’s head. Circa 1900, location unknown. Gelatin silver print. Real photo postcard. 5-3/8 X 2-7/8.

There’s a grotesque formality to the man’s attire: In a long-sleeved white shirt, vest, and trousers, he’s in church-going clothes — his painted face looks minstrel-like. The wrenching part is that he’s been arranged, composed, turned into a work of art. The devastation evoked by this photo is brutally final. And it’s all done in obscene slapstick. That’s what this collection communicates — a reveling in shame, a brazen mocking of human life.

//

Sapelo Island, the third largest of Georgia’s barrier islands, is estuarial and mysterious: a world that looks to be half-water, half-land, an oozy admixture of sea green and dirt brown. The story goes that when the first slave ship arrived, the African cargo had a collective vision of what lay ahead — a hundred years of slavery, another hundred of Jim Crow — and waded into the Atlantic Ocean and drowned swimming back to Africa. Others arrived and stayed. Because they lived on an island, they weren’t apt to flee, and they were given small plots where they grew their own food. They fished the tidal marshes and hunted the island. And they remained as families and practiced their religion — Christian, Moslem, and a little of both — and kept their language which remained with them until yesterday. After the Civil War they were given a measure of prosperity and freedom; then came post-Reconstruction and draconian laws that enticed white plantation owners to reclaim their land and their former slaves they now called “tenant farmers.”

The burial grounds and graveyards of Sapelo would provide the islanders a vague tracery back to the first arrivals. Collective memory would do the rest.

//

Sapelo is ten miles long, three miles wide, and flanked by little Sapelo and Blackbeard Islands (named after the pirate whose treasure is said to be buried there). It is defined by salt marshes, upland maritime forests, beach and dune systems, and the Atlantic Ocean. Like other Georgia sea islands, it rides low in the water and is vulnerable to ocean storms. Save for the village of Hog Hammock, most of it is unpopulated. Until you come on it, all you see is a widening channel and waist-high spartina grass, a shrimp boat in the distance — a marginal world of 8-foot tides, land that’s slowly becoming water, and a wide horizon.

We disembark at a splintery dock at Marsh Landing where a half-dozen pickups are off-loading beer and soda. We’re met by the brother-in-law of Cornelia Bailey, the lady renting us our cottage. On our way to Hog Hammock, the last remaining island settlement, he tells us his son Allen Bailey has just been drafted by the NFL (after graduating from the University of Miami). The island’s in a state of excitement over that news and the upcoming 150th anniversary celebration of the African Baptist Church.

We’ve made the trip once before — last fall for the yearly Island Homecoming for hundreds of former islanders and a few tourists. We were moved by the celebration and through the Vermont winter talked about a return. This late April day the village feels African; the houses are haphazardly arranged and are all painted blue: My impression is of plainness, neatness, and a spare dignity. There’s a spiffy looking Sapelo Community Center, a new and apparently well-funded library, two churches, a poorly stocked convenience store run by our landlady, and a B and B she runs, too. Cornelia’s been written about by historians and anthropologists and is the author of a beautiful Sapelo memoir: She has traveled to Sierra Leone to visit her ancestral village. The corn in her back garden is knee-high; there are collards and turnip greens for picking, and a screened chicken house, a grape arbor, already leafed-out, and a pecan tree, just past flowering. We sit for a while on lawn chairs beneath the pecan tree. A garter snake idles along in the short grass. You can hear surf a mile away to our east and a woodpecker banging himself senseless on a dead oak nearby.

Plate 78. Corpse of black male slumped to his knees, tied to trunk of pine tree by leather strap around neck. Bicycle with coat neatly folded leans against fence post. Covered hack with two well-dressed white men in the background. Pre-1915 southern United States. Gelatin silver print. Real photo-postcard. 5-½ x 3-½.

According to the text in Without Sanctuary, “The victim was shot in the eyes, ears, mouth and torso. He was shot in the groin, at very close range, as he attempted to protect his genitals with his bound hands. Palmetto scrub, a lack of mature trees and the growth of Spanish moss suggest a coastal region, possibly an abandoned plantation.”

No painting or photo terrifies and disgusts me as much as this. The trees are spindly-tall, ghostly and eviscerated, and straggly Spanish bayonets poke around the man like daggers. All the lynching photographs in Without Sanctuary come with a harrowing narrative; this one (plate 78) is thick with it: The waiting hack (or buckboard) at right suggests its passenger is eager to be on his way; the bicycle with neatly folded jacket on its handlebars is emblematic of an ordinary life interrupted. Unlike others in the Allen collection, the photo projects an air of desertion; and there’s the ghastly pornography of turning the man’s death into a postcard. Are photographer and executioner the same? Both understood the image would become a print (lynching photo-postcards were a tradition in the South), and clearly the photographer and onlookers experienced no shame. It wasn’t enough for the black man to be killed once. He had to be shot over and over.

And he had to know he was being photographed.

//

Cornelia Bailey drove us to our one-room “cottage.” It had a wide screened porch with an unspectacular view of an overgrown lawn and pine woods. Hummingbirds flitted around. Behind us in a ramshackle trailer beneath towering live oaks lived Stanley, Cornelia’s son, and Stanley’s wife and a terrified little mutt cowering on the porch when we came to visit. It was a quiet place, not particularly beautiful like other parts of the island. The African Baptist Church and a lovely campground were a half-mile down the road. North of us was the great mass of island owned by the University of Georgia, off limits without a permit to go there.

Cornelia said she worried about one of her foster kids who had disciplinary problems, and we talked about how kids grow up, the good and bad points of raising them on islands. Until a short time ago there weren’t many single mom families. “Mostly we are pretty tight knit,” she said. “Meaning, we take care of our own. Everyone knows everybody else’s business.” I said I had no kids. “You mean you have no one to follow you?” she asked. I said no — it was just as well — and she laughed. That’s how the afternoon passed. We sat there a long while, the sun setting behind us, everything still and quiet.

//

Over the next few days, I studied Allen’s compilation of lynching photographs. As far as I knew, no such violence had been visited on Sapelo. But how was I to know? My fascination with the place will always be linked by memory association with Without Sanctuary. Until three decades ago, there’d been several small communities on the island: Bel Marsh, Raccoon Bluff, Chocolat, and Hog Hammock, but they’re gone now save for the Hammock. Islanders tend think they’re sufficient unto themselves and they conceal things; their affairs are left for the “outside” to figure out. On Sapelo their insularity is enhanced by them being black, and mistrustful.

Every island frets over land issues: On Sapelo these go back three-quarters of a century to when tobacco king R.J. Reynolds bought the estate of Hudson Auto manufacturer Howard Coffin and took over a mansion built on the foundations of Thomas Spalding’s original 1803 plantation house. (The stock market crash of 1929 and The Great Depression resulted in the financial and emotional ruin of Coffin, who sold Sapelo to tobacco king R.J. Reynolds in 1934, in order to keep his Sea Island Company solvent. Coffin died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1937.) When Reynolds moved in, there were four black communities, and after he was done offering a pittance to buy out the islanders (and forcing others to move by closing roads he claimed to own) only Hog Hammock was left north of Reynolds’ estate on the south side of the island.

Today Reynolds’ Mediterranean-style villa is managed by the University of Georgia, sold to them by Reynolds’ widow. It is rented on weekends to tourist groups; the outbuildings are occupied by U. of Georgia marine biologists. Outside the mansion, placed around crumbling fountains and abutments, are a half dozen statues of pubescent girls, a bizarre pair of turkey statues — Reynolds’ last wife, his fourth, was fond of them — and mossy live oaks, their serpentine limbs over-arching winding gravel paths.

“Yes, Reynolds gave us jobs and now the Institute gives us jobs,” Cornelia said in a defeated tone. “One thing we can say about us, and that is we survived, we may not have prospered — some of us did — but we did all right for ourselves.”

She didn’t say that the islanders were paid just minimum wage, as I learned later, and that they were still treated like “hired help.” The folks I’d met at the October homecoming, many teachers, social workers, and business people, were success stories by anyone’s standards. We talked about church — the two in Hog Hammock, St. Luke’s and the African Baptist Church, were the island’s social hubs — but while she took part in their gatherings she wasn’t a staunch believer.

“No, never was,” Cornelia said. “You know I died once — was brought back to life, and everyone thought I should be able to see things. But I was just an ordinary kid.”

The story, as she tells it in her beautiful memoir God, Dr. Buzzard and the Bolito Man, is that when she was around five, after she and her older brother Asberry ate some green pears at their home in Bel Marsh, she got deathly ill: “Mama and Papa tried every remedy they could and nothing worked. There’s a plant here called the fever bush because you could make a tea out of it to lower your temperature, but that bush isn’t ready to pick until late summer, so they had to try something else.”

Cornelia’s mother bathed her in tepid water but that had no effect, so her father went out and picked some leaves from the beauty berry bush, another plant growing on the island. “In the fall of the year the beauty berry bush has clusters of bright purple berries and that’s why it’s called the beauty berry bush, but it’s the leaves that you use and they’re out in the spring. Mama crushed the leaves, mixed them with vinegar and slathered it all over my body to make the fever go down. But that didn’t work either.”

Too scared to sleep, her parents stayed up all night. Her mother watched and prayed, acknowledging Cornelia’s fate was in the Lord’s hands. Then, as she says, “A little before daybreak, I died.” Her story continues with her father measuring her for a casket and her mother plaiting her hair and placing her limp body into a Sunday dress. It was the only dress she had that wasn’t handmade. “It was a little frilly dress with ruffles and lace. Then Mama laid me out on the double bed in the living room that Papa and she slept in, a brown-colored iron bed.

“I was dead and Mama was crying.”

No one believed the little girl was dead, and they checked for a heartbeat, couldn’t find a pulse, and even did the “mirror test,” holding a mirror over her mouth to see if it fogged up, and there was no sign that she was breathing. No sign of breath. She was dead.

I was struck reading Cornelia’s book by the rich details throughout. I loved her digressions — she had an indelible memory, a brilliant imagination, and an artful way of weaving together her story. Rather than move to its anticipated climax, that she lived to tell the tale, she shows how just before she “died” her father went off to her uncle’s house to have a drink. When he and Uncle Nero returned, they were told she’d died. Both the uncle and her father were there and Uncle Nero kept saying, “Bury the chile, whatcha y’all waitin’ for? Bury the chile.”

“So it was time for the cemetery,” Cornelia tells us.

She was saved by a Cousin Dorothy who instructed her mother to insert garlic poultices in her nose and mouth, and that brought her back to life. From then on she was expected by the village to have visions. While she insists she was just an “ordinary” child, the expectation has stayed with her: Her vivid storytelling connects us not only to her childhood but to the island’s past.

//

As more and more folks leave the island, the past is reclaimed, memory is enhanced by desertion, a paradox that obtains in all abandoned places. We speak of spots reclaimed by nature, but less often of them being reinhabited by the past. There are spots on the island whose deep-forested isolation defies description. A walk down Dog Patch Road has a kind of haunting monotony: The deeper you go, the dreamier the landscape becomes. Live oaks bearded with Spanish moss, a mist rising from the drainage ditches, and a rhapsodic silence. On island walks I’ve seen the scat of wild Sapelo island boar, the shit of wild cows. Century-old accounts mention hosts of poisonous snakes — coral snakes, water moccasins — and flocks of pestering mosquitoes. Freshwater sloughs are scattered about the island containing bottomland hardwoods like maple and sweet gum. There are gators too, I’ve seen one behind our cottage, and armadillos; I literally bumped into one on a wooded path where it was shoveling its snoot into the earth for grubs. Birds are the main attraction. Shore birds and semitropical species in stands of slash, loblolly, longleaf, and pond pine and of course in the live oak climax forest. The legendary Ivory Billed Woodpecker is rumored to survive in the hardwood swamps of the barrier islands — I’ve seen its pileated cousin hammeringaway across from our cabin; and of course, there’s pelicans on dock pilings where the ferry puts in; and the occasional soaring eagle and hordes of wattle-necked buzzards and wild turkeys.

The second day on Sapelo I took a long walk up to Cabretta beach, an expanse of dunes and spartina grass with no one on it but me. A shallow lagoon with minnows lay in front of the beach, and more than a quarter mile off there were low breakers. I walked the beach, picking shells, and came on carcasses of jellyfish and horseshoe crabs. The gentle slope to the ocean meant that there was a long way for the tide to come in.

//

That evening a storm blew through, one of a violent line raking the southeast this spring. The sky went black, the power cut off, and lightning struck several times a bit too close. After the storm we walked down to the African Baptist Church where an anniversary service was underway. I was surprised how few people were attending, but there was a good-sized choir and a guest minister from the mainland. I learned that Reverend Ronnie Legget was a part-time actor and had appeared in a Hollywood movie. His sermon on Matthew III was admonitory.

“Would God be proud of you, his son?” Legget asked.

He was a robust-looking man not much over 40, but he had a grandson he hoped to be proud of one day.

“But it works both ways,” he said. “He needs to be proud of me, understand, to see in me something he might one day become!”

After the service we wandered into the church’s rectory, a small kitchen/dining area (we were invited by one of the women parishioners), surprised to find ourselves almost alone. Outside the churchgoers were climbing into a school bus; actually they were from off-island and were heading to the ferry back to the mainland. If church attendance is a symptom of a community’s health, Hog Hammock didn’t pass the exam.

A guy named Bill Grovener introduced himself and it was just him — a good-sized man in a well-pressed suit with a military style haircut and a pushed-in no-nonsense face — and us. He’d been away from the island several decades, had worked in security at Boston’s Mass General Hospital and then moved to DC where he’d been a cop for more than ten years. A descendant of the island’s slaves now back here and living alone, he said he felt lonely. Later I heard from Cornelia that Grovener hadn’t “fit in” — didn’t get together and drink Saturday nights with the men but was here to find something, maybe in himself, maybe in the island, who knows which?

59. The charred torso of an African American male hung in a coastal Georgia swamp, onlookers. 1902 Gelatin silver print 2-1/4 x 1-7/8.

60. Reverse of photograph (plate 59) depicting warning note on pine tree. Inscription: “Warning, The answer of the Anglo Saxon race to black brutes who would attack the womanhood of the south.”

Unlike other lynching photos where the photographer makes the victim an identifiable person by placing him front and center and memorializing his vulnerability, plates 59 and 60 show a corpse charred beyond recognition. Slung on a rope some 20 feet above the mob, nothing’s recognizable about him, he’s a ragged torso; his limbs are half burnt off, and wrenched from his humanity he becomes every victim of mob violence while the men below — their stupidity is breathtaking.

Allen tells us these snapshots bought “by a flea market trader” [Allen himself?] had been stored in the trunk of a prominent family during the dispersal of an estate.” As memorabilia of what whites in the south still call a simpler life and time, they expose The Mind of the South in complete debasement. Did a family member watch the burning and the lynching? What sort of emotion (shame, remorse?) was attached to the pictures? According to the Chicago Record Herald, “A bright bonfire was seen in the swamp in the direction the posse went Friday night and the members of the posse returned stating that they were satisfied with the night’s work. It now develops, however, that their victim may not have been Richard Young, for whom the officers of the law are still searching. The remains of the burned negro were brought before the mother of Richard Young who says that they resemble her son in no particular.”

Jimmy Allen tells us lynching in the southeast wasn’t as frequent as elsewhere because blacks were relatively well off: They had their own property and political power; and with lots of middle-class blacks in a region, it would’ve been hard for whites to stir up trouble. But even in relatively benign black settlements the inhabitants were slow to return after the Civil War — they didn’t want to be reminded of slavery. It might be argued that in a black middle-class environment, where denial runs deep, folks don’t want to be reminded of lynching and their Jim Crow past either.

//

African–Americans have been on Sapelo since the eighteenth century. At one point, they exceeded 1,000: the ancestors of those now living in Hog Hammock and others scattered across the lowlands were brought by Georgia planter Thomas Spalding. Before him there was a Spanish mission, Mission San Joseph de Sapala (ca. 1605–1684), on the island. Afterward and before the Revolution two private owners from English families grew crops there. At the close of the 18th century, a French aristocrat and pirate, Christophe Poulain DuBignon, and four French countrymen settled on the island, bringing slaves and cattle and intending to sell slaves. The name of his boat — The Sapelo. But their involvement on Sapelo was ill-fated: In 1795, not long after they’d settled in, the six-man partnership ended with a duel between two of the Frenchmen in which one of them was killed; another died that same year from yellow fever.

Barrier islands are more open to change than others — history happens there because they hug the mainland and are open to the sea. Marginal places where land and water merge, because of the tides, they’re immersed in change — their populations are often spicy gumbos of history and culture. We see this on Sapelo with its French, English, and West African dialects and in its layered history. The first known practicing Muslim in America, a Bilali (or Ben Allah), was Thomas Spalding’s right-hand man acting as boss man and a sort of deputy-governor of slaves. He’s thought to have studied at a West African Islamic University before his capture in his teens when he was brought to America. After his death, a seven-page manuscript detailing rules of prayer, dress, and ablution were found among his belongings. Because of the condition of Bilali’s papers, it’s hard to know the extent of his literacy, but he’s honored by many American Muslims as Islam’s father in America. Most islanders consider themselves his descendants. At the Sapelo Homecoming, I saw a replica of the “Bilali papers,” tattered and brown, the Arabic script barely legible.

Thomas Spalding, like the island world he’d lived in his entire life (he was born the son of a cotton planter from Scotland on St. Simon Island), was full of political and philosophical contradictions. He was a slave owner and a freethinker, an innovator (he reintroduced adobe-like tabby construction to the island) and a banker in the town of Darien; a Georgia State Representative, he was enlightened by science and contributed to farm journals of his day. Oddly — he was a Union advocate and espoused “liberal and humane” ideas about slavery and utilized the task system of labor, giving slaves free time to do what they wished. (Actually, they had no choice but to stay put. They’d have starved in the malarial marshes bordering the island if they escaped.)

Spalding imported his slaves — rice and indigo cultivators — from today’s Sierra Leone. It’s thought that after a U.S. embargo was put on slave trading in the early 19th century, he continued importing slaves illegally from the Spanish in northern Florida. After his death, his son Randolph led a dissolute southern gentleman’s life, throwing wild parties in the mansion and letting his holdings go to seed. He was disgraced as a Confederate colonel in the Civil War by failing to lead his regiment in the defense of Port Royal in South Carolina — being too drunk to do so.

After Reconstruction, what remained of his family went into steep decline. (Randolph’s daughter ended up being the island’s postmistress.)

71. Badly beaten corpse of William Brooks, his clothes ripped and torn, a branch fastened to his left leg. July 22, 1901, Elkins, West Virginia. Card-mounted gelatin silver print. 4-1/4 x 5-3/4. Printed on mount: “William Brooks, Who was lynched at Elkins, July 22, 190, For the Murder of Chief-of-Police Robert Lily. While Attempting to Arrest him. PHOTO BY VON ALLMEN.”

According to a short news item in the Elkins Record Herald, Brooks was “lynched . . . by a maddened mob of 500” not long after he shot and killed the chief of police who tried to arrest him for making a disturbance. The Record Herald goes on to report: “Brooks then jumped from a window and was instantly pursued by the crowd which had been attracted by the fight. He was captured after a chase of half a mile and carried to a park, where his body was soon swinging from a tree.”

I’m struck by the upbeat — if not jubilant — tone of that last sentence. Contrast it to the formally bordered, sepia-toned photograph of Brooks “swinging from a tree.” His face is a mask of suffering, his clothes are partially torn from his body, and there’s the hangman’s rope, the leafy trees behind him . . . a white fence and woods in Elkins, West Virginia, where 500 townspeople gathered to hang someone they probably knew.

The postcard follows the tradition of a well-recognized genre, but unless one was from that era and from the south, it’s hard to understand the pleasure gained from it.

//

In 1861 the Spaldings had moved most slaves north to near Macon where they stayed until the war was over. The South vanquished and the land and crops burned through Georgia to the coast, black islanders made the harrowing trek back to Sapelo. Their 300-mile walk is a Biblical narrative of suffering and deliverance: With no one to guide them and the land and crops decimated by Sherman’s “march to the sea,” they wandered for months through a post-apocalyptic landscape. Some died, others made their home in towns along the way. As Sherman’s army gave them little assistance, they fended for themselves. On their return, they abandoned their former slave quarters and established new homesteads.

No longer owned, they were owners themselves.

Historian William S. McFeely in Sapelo’s People writes:

In a cruel reworking of [Robert] Frost’s sense of his own forbears’ first hold on the land, the Sapelo people first came to their island as possessions themselves — they were the Spaldings’ before they were the island’s, but they shifted the possessive. Places have a way of defying being property; ownership, in fact, is not as secure a concept as owners’ think. The Spaldings may have thought they owned those thousand human beings whom they called their people — they had legal title to them — but they were wrong. By working the island’s land, by laughing, weeping, praying on it, the former slaves traded possessors and became the island, and it became theirs.

As McFeely shows, the years after 1871 were ones of betrayal for the ex-slaves. During Reconstruction, schools had been built, blacks were enfranchised, 40-acre land parcels were apportioned, but the lot of it would be stolen back when Andrew Johnson rescinded the reforms established by Congress after the Civil War.

//

Behavior Cemetery

When Suzanne and I visited the place the gate was padlocked and spooky; even as cemeteries go, it was spooky. The graves weren’t lined up in rows, but looked disorganized, scattered. But you could see a pattern. As in the helter-skelter of houses in Hog Hammock, the graves of Behavior communed silently with each other beneath the live oaks.

Cornelia’s own great grandmother is buried there:

REBECCA BAILEY: 8/13/1874 — 12/29/1938
NO ONE KNOWS HOW MUCH
WE MISS YOU NO ONE KNOWS THE
BITTER PAIN WE HAVE SUFFERED
SINCE WE LOST YOU LIFE HAS NEVER BEEN THE SAME.

brushed cement, hard to read, dark colored, writing tilted up slightly, handwritten; blank footstone.

It’s not a stretch to compare the organization of the Behavior graveyard with that of black church services — the call-and-response in the African Baptist Church is non-hierarchical; preacher and congregation, God and man, engage in a rapturous conversation and are on equal footing. In Behavior Cemetery no obelisk towers over a tombstone; I was struck by the democracy of the place. Burial records don’t go back before the Civil War, but interviews and careful digging indicate slave burials went on before Behavior became an official cemetery. Those without the money to buy gravestones placed the beloved’s belongings at the gravesite — a toy, a small farm implement, a tea kettle.

You can tell a lot about a town by the order or disorder of its cemetery.

No one’s a stauncher unbeliever than Cornelia Bailey.

But she did see The Dog — she mentioned it to me and has written about the black dog “big as a cow” that haunts Behavior Cemetery: She says she saw it more than once — it chased her down the path from the graveyard.

“And when I looked back a second time, he was gone.”

There were other places, she said, haunted woods and beaches, but Behavior Cemetery, that’s where the giant dog could be found.

“But it has to be twilight, near dark, to see him.”

Hellhounds are the ghosts of giant black dogs who guard the entrances to the world of the dead. In Old English myths, seeing one or hearing one howl was an omen of death. In Dante’s Inferno, Canto VI, the hound Cerberus is found in the Third Circle of Hell where he rends to pieces those who’ve succumbed to gluttony. In Latin America a big black dog with burning coal-like eye is a satanic shapeshifter. Sometimes the dog is a well-meaning spirit which accompanies a woman home acting as her protector. But in African–American culture, the Hellhound is plainly evil.

Mississippi drifter-blues singer of the 1930’s Robert Johnson, who sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads for musical immortality, sings:

I got to keep movinnnn’, I got to keep movinnnn’,
Blues fallin’ down like hail, blues fallin’ down like hail,
Mmmmm-mm-mm-mm, blues fallin’ down like hail, blues fallin’ down like hail,
And the day keeps on worrin’ me, there’s a hell-hound on my trail,
Hell-hound on my trail, hell-hound on my trail.

//

86. The lynching of Bunk Richardson, his body suspended over the Coosa River, stripped to long johns. February 11, 1906. Gadsen Alabama. Card-mounted gelatin silver print. 2-½ x 3-7/8. Pencil Inscription on border: “Bunk Richardson 1/06.”

87. The corpse of Bunk Richardson, propped up for photographer on plank walk of bridge spanning the Coosa River, severely beaten, stripped to long johns. Onlookers hold handkerchiefs to cover nose and mouths. February 11, Gadsen, Alabama. Card-mountain gelatin silver print, 2-1/2 X 3-7/8.

I can’t help but connect Johnson’s blues with the twin postcards of Bunk Richardson who’s portrayed like a piece of bad meat. (Two river pictures, no less, the Coosa River flowing on.) He’s not just hunted, but hunted to his grave. One photo depicts a lynching, the other the lynched man’s rotting corpse. Each picture affects us through the stink of the lynchers themselves — in plate 87, it’s their own stink that they turn away from. As Prof. Leon F. Litwack says in his introduction to the Allen collection, these are both depictions of unimaginable brutality and portraits of abject cowardice.

Are these suffering black folk saints? There’s no such thing as a saint without a sinner. Likewise there’s no hagiography without a hagiographer — in this case it’s the photographer.

Here’s Jimmy Allen again:

“I believe the photographer was more than a spectator at lynchings. Too often they compulsively composed silvery tableaux (natures mortes) positioning and lighting corpses as if they were game birds shot on the wing. Indeed, the photographic art played as significant a role in the ritual as torturer or souvenir-grabbing — creating a sort of two-dimensional biblical swine, a receptacle for the collective sinful self. Lust propelled the commercial reproduction and distribution of the images, facilitating the endless replay of anguish. Even dead, the victims were without sanctuary.”

//

The island after a rain: the trees ring with birds, an air of freshness infuses everything.

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Down at the Hog Hammock Library, Michelle Johnson is working on a new computerized catalog system: no more cards. Before we’d come to the island, I’d read her book Sapelo Island’s Hog Hammock,a narrative about the island presented through Sapelo Island photographs dating back to the 19th century. The book gave me a sense of life on Sapelo and complemented Cornelia’s memoir, highlighting leisure and work on the island. Michelle came here five years ago after marrying the island’s ferryboat captain. Before Sapelo, she’d worked as a journalist and artist in South Carolina. Now she lives in Johnson Hammock south of Hog Hammock. She’s not just a librarian. As an archivist, she helps keep the past alive. I caught a sadness in her as there is in anyone salvaging the past. A large, lovely woman in her early forties with an infectious smile, she’s deeply connected with her husband’s family and to the families — the Halls, Groveners, Baileys, and Johnsons — and to the old ways she brings to life in her book.

A few hours later on Nanny Goat Beach we again ran into Michelle Johnson with her 12-year-old visiting nephew. We sat on a dune, looking down at the ocean. I asked if there were conflicts on the island (any island secrets?) and she said no — but there were problems with zoning laws, she remarked drily. The integrity of the Hammock’s modest homes will be compromised if rich white folks have their way and build houses larger than those allotted by law. Presently a suit by Reginal Hogg/Hall is threatened involving Georgia Governor Perdue and the Hog Hammock community. (The name Hog was given to an island slave family who cared for hogs — an appellation changed to Hall by Reginal’s great-grandfather.) The lavish new houses have identical designs: Built on stilts several feet off the ground with oversized wrap-around screened porches, they aspire to being modest plantation villas.

According to a letter to the Georgia governor — paraphrased by Craig Considine of wordpress.com — Perdue has been responsible for the illegal transfer of land, all of it pricey, to off-island developers. The standoff with the State of Georgia arises from decades-long resentments against University of Georgia Marine Institute (UGMI), which has been operating on the island since 1959. All this despite a campaign of relentless self-promotion by the State of Georgia and the UGMI. (To UGMI’s credit, it’s the first eco-study project of its kind, dating back to when R.J. Reynolds bequeathed much of his holdings to the university.)

“In its 52 years of activities,” says Considine,

The UGMI has unfortunately never once hosted an educational open house for the community in which it thrives . . . Not only are the Saltwater Geechee people not invited into the academic realm of the institution, but they are hired as menial labour work force at minimum wage rates. Furthermore, as Hall adds, the UGMI has not supplied any economic development of the Saltwater Geechee community or the people. The University of Georgia has exhausted over $600 million dollars in gifts and donations in 2009.” Hall asks: “ . . . is the effort of bridging the gap with the community of the Saltwater Geechee people on Sapelo not important to UGMI or the University of Georgia?”

According to Hall, the community of Hog Hammock lacks decent roads, potable drinking water, and workable irrigation systems. It has no medical facility. By far, the biggest threat to island life is a rise in land values leveraged by investors who are skirting zoning regulations. To date, the islanders have lost nearly 2,700 acres which translates into nearly $810,000,000. The way they and the UGMI interact (or don’t) is not untypical — but you’d expect the latter to acknowledge people they share the island with.

Marine biologists catalog meadows of wax myrtle, Spanish bayonet, morning glory, and butterfly peas, to “manage” them, while locals see a system that has sustained them for centuries: These two approaches should complement each. But both the islanders and UGMI are threatened by land investors who feed off a beauty that’s cursed by a history of displacement.

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Conversation between two middle-aged black women overheard on the ferry from Sapelo to the mainland:

“Well, now that Obama’s shown us his birth certificate, they’ll find something else.”

“Always do.”

Then laughter.

“They’ll look up his grades.”

“But he was a good student!”

“Never mind, they’ll find something.”

More laughter.

Photograph of a woman using a wooden pestle to pound rice as a child stays close by. The woman, Rachel Dunham, was the wife of Reverend John Dunham (c. 1858–1946) who performed many of the island weddings during this time as a preacher. Reverend Dunham, also known as “Sawney,” was also an accomplished chef and was known for his beautiful wedding cakes. Women often sang as they did their chores. There were work songs for practically every task. When the rice was being threshed on the floor, the women might sing, “Peas an’ rice, peas a’ rice, peas an’ the rice done done done. “ (Sapelo Island’s Hog Hammock)

I look back on my own Morehouse experience and my student’s take on Watteau’s painting (and he was just two or three years younger than I ) as a cautionary lesson. But what’s the lesson? That we ought to moderate our expectations — or that in the end we are islands unto ourselves? After the Civil War and until Jim Crow, there were no limits to the islanders’ dream. What strikes me about their struggle is the five-year sliver of time between the war’s end and their rising hopes and despair. No art — neither Robert Johnson’s dark blues chords or Antoine Watteau’s sweeping vistas — can capture this.

On the ferry to the mainland, seabirds follow our wake. At eleven a.m. it’s already hot. I assume from their dusty rucksacks and wind-burnt faces that the white passengers heading with us to the mainland are marine biologists. The black folks are islanders. Though they live and work on the same marsh and swampland, there seems to be no relationship between the two. Flanked by the brown waters of Dolboy Sound and the murky green of Sapelo, it’s too easy to say they’re separated by race and history. I try to link the postcards in Allen’s Without Sanctuarywith the photos in Michelle Johnson’s book, with little but the memory of a student I taught many decades ago connecting them: He must have heard many lynching stories from parents and grandparents. Stories that crossed the Sound to their island.

We stop off at Jimmy Allen’s antique shop in a Darien shopping mall on our way back to Jacksonville. He’s just come back from a “picking” trip to Texas and is worn out. He’s bearded, a little paunchy, hard-bitten and aristocratic; something of a talker, he’s angry with the South but can’t imagine leaving the area for any reason, can’t imagine living anywhere there aren’t black people.

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Tony Whedon’s essays and poetry have appeared in Agni, American Poetry Review, Harper’s, Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, and over one hundred other literary magazines. He is the author of A Language Dark Enough: Essays on Exileand the recently published poetry collection Things to Pray to in Vermont, both from Mid-List Press. Tony is co-founder of Green Mountains Review out of Vermont’s Johnson State College.

The Long Journey Home: The Odyssey as a Parable of Male Aging by John C. Robinson

Come, my friends. ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world . . .
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are —
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

— Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”(1)

Atrial fibrillation — rapid and irregular heart rhythm — brought me into the Emergency Room. The doc said I needed cardioversion — you know, those electric paddles you see on TV dramas. I don’t have time for this. I’m a psychologist, husband, father, and breadwinner. I need to get back to work. After the procedure, I assume all is well and resume my busy life. But something now leaks in this tightly woven fabric, a dark stain spreading from an unknown source. I feel terror, anguish, and foreboding. I feel like I’m being taken down into a dark and horrific underworld. This descent will end my world as I know it.

This issue of Itineraries makes reference to Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, as a metaphor for soulful travels in the outer world. We may also be called to take a soul journey within. “The Long Journey Home” follows Odysseus’ return from the Trojan War as an allegory for my own unexpected retirement and for aging men in general. If you are male, it is an invitation to explore your own interior journey home; if you are female, take a peek at the struggles facing the men in your life. Sometimes the most profound “odysseys for the soul” are the ones we take within.

The Odyssey

As you may recall from high school, The Odyssey is a book-length poem purportedly transcribed by Homer some 2700 years ago. It tells the story of a famous Greek warrior returning home from the Trojan War. The war began when Paris kidnapped the beautiful Helen and brought her back to Troy, inciting her Greek husband and his countrymen to lay siege to the city. After a decade of violent warfare, the Greeks finally win, and Odysseus begins a ten-year voyage home to his long-suffering wife Penelope and their son Telemachus. During his absence, Odysseus’ kingdom has been invaded by hoards of greedy suitors hoping to marry Penelope to acquire his wealth. His son has grown into manhood without a father’s guidance. It is a desperate and deteriorating situation.

Odysseus’ travels take him to many lands and peoples. He battles men and monsters, makes many foolish decisions, finds and surrenders paradise several times, and eventually loses everything — his ships, crew, belongings, clothes, and nearly his life before the gods ordain that he is ready to reach home. All along his harrowing voyage, however, Odysseus is guided by the whispered instructions and shape-shifting intercessions of the goddess Athena.

Whether you read the book, watched the made-for-TV Emmy Award-winning movie, or simply remember hearing the tales of Odysseus’ battle with the giant Cyclops, his confrontation with Circe the witch who turns men into pigs, or his escape from the dangerously alluring Sirens, you may still wonder what this story has to do with our theme “travel and transformation.” We certainly don’t meet such fantastic characters in the outer world! And yet that is the point — they exist inside, in the fertile land of the mythic imagination, there to inspire new voyages of transformation. The Odyssey is not only a wonderfully entertaining story, it is a psychological map for men of the inner journey home from the wars of adult life — to family, love, and a new place in the world as a wise elder.

Men and the War of Life

Men go off to war in every generation. Not necessarily wars with guns, bombs, and armies, but the wars of adult life. At first, using our imagination, we play war as children, but our warfare begins in earnest in school as we navigate the biologically driven “alpha male” pecking order. This competition for power, status, sex, and love cuts as sharply and dangerously as a sword and continues on into the world of work, where we quest for other spoils — sex, relationships, jobs, income, advancement, and power. These battles continue for decades.

Ask almost any man to talk about his experience in the war of adult life, and he will eventually spin out tales of his own warrior years. I remember good friends in elementary school abruptly moving onto new cliques of athletes, high achievers, and popular in-crowds while I coughed in the dust of their abandonment. I remember wondering where I fit in these new hierarchies and resenting the requirement to fit at all. The competitive pressure kept building — looks, clothes, grades, SAT scores, college, more grades, graduate school, and employment applications — all the hurdles I jumped to secure a place in the world. The bugle called me ever onward, ever upward, at times exhilarating and at times bitter. There were also times when its shrill notes echoed with the shame I felt at my pleasure in surpassing others. Without realizing it, I traded innocence for ego. Years passed — marriage, children, college funds, family vacations, increasing income, increasing debt.

By the fifties and sixties, many men weary of this war. They dream vaguely of laying down their swords and shields and retiring to a happily-ever-after vacation of reading, fishing, golf, travel, hobbies, projects, and grandkids. My heart was tired of running a practice, caring for people, dealing with crises, but I saw no way out of my responsibilities. Like Odysseus, I wanted to come home to love, renewal, perhaps even new horizons, but like Odysseus, I had no idea how to get there, and I would never have believed the journey I eventually took.

Coming Home from the War

Odysseus’ voyage home covers ten long and hard years! Along the way, he encounters numerous dramatic and often bizarre adventures. As I began to examine his struggles from the perspective of depth psychology — the psychology of dream symbols and unconscious archetypes — and my own experience of retirement and aging, I suddenly understood the reason his journey took so long: Each adventure symbolizes a psychological task we men need to work through to drop our warrior armor, awaken our underdeveloped capacity to love, reconcile with long-ignored spouse and family, and find a spiritual path forward. Despite the ubiquitous boomer fantasy of stress-free retirement, it is rarely easy coming home.

By the time I finished rereading The Odyssey,(2)I had identified 18 challenges men face in the journey of aging. Four sequential categories emerged: Early Mistakes, Transformational Experiences, Homecoming, and Final Challenges. As space limitations preclude a full retelling of the story here, I will present very condensed versions of four adventures, one from each category, and I will illustrate this inner journey with examples from my own life.

Early Mistakes

Raid on the Cicones — The Trojan War has ended, and Odysseus and his crew depart for home. The wind takes them first to Thrace, north of present-day Greece, to a land populated by the Cicones. Odysseus raids a seaport, slaying most of the men, taking women as slaves, and acquiring considerable plunder. Rather than leaving quickly as Odysseus advises, his crew elects to hang around drinking and slaughtering animals, thereby giving the Cicones time to send for help. A fierce fighting force soon arrives, greatly outnumbering Odysseus’ men. In the ensuing battle, Odysseus loses six men from each of his 12 ships. The surviving crews set sail frantically, barely escaping alive.

In this beginning adventure, Odysseus resumes the same old pattern of pillage, plunder, and sexual objectification that marked his time at war. A personification of the compulsive warrior, he has not learned anything new and simply continues his warrior ways. Though he seems to know when to leave, his men do not, symbolizing an early conflict within the male psyche between moving on from the warrior life and getting drunk on more conquests and victories. The men who die may symbolize the possibilities lost by foolishly delaying maturity.

Most of us aging men initially behave like Odysseus’ crew. Never questioning our lifelong warrior ways, we continue pushing ahead in our accustomed warrior mode, because it is all we know. Trying to reinvent myself too quickly after retiring from psychology, I resumed all my compulsive habits of achievement and productivity with workshops, writing, and classes. However, changing the content didn’t change the pattern. I was scheduling myself as if I still had a schedule to keep. Worse, I felt moody and restless, my work rarely felt right or satisfying, my head just wasn’t on this path. But most importantly, I was resisting the growing undertow of that darkness within.

Transformational Experiences

Visiting Hades — Directed by Circe the witch, Odysseus travels to Hades, the underworld of Greek mythology populated by the deceased.He pours offerings of milk, wine, honey, and water to the dead and cuts the throats of a ram and a black ewe to pour in a blood offering. Immediately the souls of the dead swarm upward in a frenzy. He meets the blind prophet Teiresias, who gives him a mysterious prophesy of a “second journey” he will undertake after he arrives at home. Odysseus then converses with his deceased mother, asking about his wife, son, and father. Hearing of their dire circumstances and how desperately they miss him, Odysseus’ sorrow intensifies greatly. His mother also confides that she died of a broken heart caused by his long absence. Wounded by this crushing announcement, Odysseus tries to embrace his mother but fails because, as a ghost, she is completely insubstantial.

Odysseus then visits a seemingly endless series of deceased heroes and their wives, including Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek army in the Trojan War, who was murdered by his wife’s lover; Achilles, no longer the fearless seeker of glory who now laments his own death; and several other famous heroes and heroines suffering their own unique punishments, like Oedipus’ mother who committed suicide for the monstrous act of mistakenly sleeping with her son, and Sisyphus, punished with the task of forever pushing a boulder up a hill. As hordes of dead spirits clamor desperately around him, Odysseus flees in terror to his ship, commanding his crew to sail quickly away.

My own visit to Hades came as I began a terrifying descent into that inky stain growing across my soul and a memory of my death. At 14, I had undergone open-heart surgery. During that surgery I woke up from the anesthesia to experience hands working inside my heart: Think living autopsy in an utterly unprepared boy. Forty years to the month later, the whole repressed nightmare returned, triggered by that atrial defibrillation in the emergency room. I was descending back to the horror of “anesthesia awareness.”(3)I know the horror Odysseus felt looking down into that terrifying swarm of demons.

Few of us choose to revisit the Hades within, the dark unconscious that holds so many unfinished emotional memories. Sometimes, prompted by a funeral, some vague melancholy, or frank psychological distress, we recall past relationships, wrong turns, losses, and failures. Hades is the painful and sobering process of exploring our own story, its wounds and mistakes, and listening for its deeper meanings, implications, and emotions. Taking stock so profoundly, we grow genuine maturity and wisdom. Hades also represents the reality of personal death. With death approaching, our values and goals change radically. In sum, at one time or another in the aging process, men need to “go deep,” to tell and feel their story, and return transformed — the ultimate meaning of initiation.(4

Homecoming

Leaving Calypso — After losing his ships, his crew, and nearly his life on this difficult voyagehome, Odysseus drifts alone and desperate for days, clinging to a small raft he constructed by twining together the ship’s rudder and mast. He washes ashore on Calypso’s island where he remains for seven years. This beautiful goddess falls in love with him, promising immortality if he will stay and be her husband. Although the relationship works for a while, Odysseus grows increasingly homesick instead. He misses his wife, his son, and his father, desperately wants to come home, but has neither vessel nor crew to resume his journey.

Motivated by concern and compassion, the goddess Athena pleads with her father to intercede for Odysseus. Zeus relents and sends the messenger god Hermes to Calypso’s island to arrange for his release. Hermes finds Odysseus sitting on the beach weeping, his heart breaking in sorrow. Odysseus finally tells Calypso that while Penelope could never equal her beauty nor promise immortality, he wants to go home to his mortal wife. Though bitter at first, Calypso grows sympathetic, releases her hold on Odysseus, and helps him build and provision another sturdier raft to carry him home.

I, too, lost much on this journey — my identity, career, income, colleagues, schedule, even my home. Apart from my family, the journey progressively stole nearly everything that mattered to me. I thought moving to an incredibly beautiful island in Washington would somehow replace the anesthesia awareness nightmare I was living in Sacramento. Instead, I brought the demons with me. In my anguish, I was Odysseus crying on the shores of paradise.

The goddess Calypso rescues, heals, and renews Odysseus. She falls in love with him offering both immortality and paradise. She is the embodiment of the goddess archetype, the feminine face of God, the divine feminine. But Calypso herself cannot replace the human feminine. As long as we are mortal and still working out this life, we must find love with a real person and complete the journey home. Calypso may be “perfect” but she is not Odysseus’ wife; her island may be “paradise” but it is not his paradise nor is it his home. Though my new island home was idyllic and my wife supportive, I was not done with my inner journey. Like Athena, Calypso is the goddess men find within their psyches, offering a new capacity for tenderness, compassion, and love. She is not meant to be real, and so Odysseus moves on.

As we age, we sometimes believe we’ve found paradise in gated villas, expensive cars, second homes, fancy restaurants, ocean cruises, or transient romances. But such “solutions” can only last so long before we pine for real relationships and a real home in the mended heart. There is no short cut to personal growth.

Final Challenges

Visit with Laertes — At this point in the story, Odysseus has defeated the suitors controlling his kingdomon the island of Ithaca, and he has reconciled with Penelope. Then, accompanied by his son, Odysseus seeks out his father, Laertes. Traveling to his father’s home on the periphery of his large estate, Odysseus marvels at the well-maintained and abundant orchards. At first glance, he assumes that his father must be the poor servant of another because he is dressed in rags and works at labor.

Coming upon his father, Odysseus pretends to be an old friend of his long-lost son. Laertes immediately breaks down in grief-filled tears, pouring dirt over his own face and head in a display of terrible sorrow, which provokes Odysseus to reveal his true identity. Laertes asks for proof of his identity, and Odysseus reveals a scar sustained from a childhood wild boar attack. More poignantly, he recalls happy times shared with his father as they worked together in the orchard, even naming the trees they planted together. A weeping reunion takes place, and Telemachus joins them in Laertes’ home to celebrate. They bathe and dress, and Athena renders Laertes handsome again. Another old and devoted servant and his sons are warmly received as well. All share a festive and happy dinner.

With our joints increasingly affected by traditional exercise, my wife and I recently joined a water aerobics class at the “Y” attended by very nice “old” people with sagging bodies. I used to chuckle at these geriatrics doing easy pool therapy — until I became one of them. Hey, those exercises are not so easy! But I also see something else now. I see people like myself coping with health problems, the loss of careers, even the deaths of loved ones but who still thrive in the warm company of others and the goodness of life as it is. This is aging. We laugh with these new friends, update our “organ recitals,” and share pictures of the grandchildren. In this old folks’ class, my wife and I are bouncing around like everyone else; we welcome this time and enjoy making new friends. As he settles into old age, Odysseus needs this lesson, too.

Once he finds his father, Odysseus mistakes the dirty clothes of a devoted gardener for a state of destitution. Though he may look impoverished, and surely misses his son, Laertes is actually doing very well. He cares lovingly for his thriving orchards, supporting life, beauty, and the future. This orchard metaphor refers to the way a man gathers the fruits of his life in its final season. He discovers which seeds have blossomed and which have not — a harvest that no man can really predict. Laertes also cares for the divine Orchard, the holy ground of human existence, which the awakened elder finds in old age as the imminence of death heightens his awareness of the Earth’s beauty and abundant grace. He has returned to the Garden of Eden witnessing divinity everywhere. Implicitly, he shares this new consciousness with his son and grandson in a new and multigenerational friendship. Laertes has made a healthy adjustment to old age, reminding us that aging is not about money or clothes but the connection to life, meaningful work, and love of family — though dared by circumstance, he too can return, in the blink of an eye, to his outgrown but deeply internalized warrior stance. Though rocked by ambivalence in a few instances, this part of the story also finds the male lineage healing — grandfather, son, and grandson — restoring an archetypal order in the psyche previously torn apart by war.

Aging is not what we think it is. What appears on the outside — old bodies, old faces, and old clothes — hides a natural but profoundly meaningful process taking us along a transformational inner path. This inner journey will bring a deep understanding of life, prepare us for death, and awaken intuitions of what comes next — if we pursue this unfolding process with interest, awareness, and compassion. I feel myself changing as I age — slowing down, ripening into love, and grateful for so much.

The Role of Athena

Supported by her father, the great and powerful Zeus, the goddess Athena accompanies Odysseus on every step of his journey. A symbol of Odysseus’ inner feminine, she guides him with whispered intuitions, transformative experiences, and direct instruction. With her tacit approval, Odysseus consorts with various strong and divine women, like Circe and Calypso, learning much from these inner experiences. As his understanding of the feminine grows, so grows his capacity to love, respect, and appreciate Penelope, his real and mortal wife.

I have learned much from my wife, Mallow. Watching the way she remembers birthdays, sends thoughtful gifts, stays in touch with the children and friends, plans family vacations — I see how love works at the practical level. I love just as deeply, but I’m still more of a single-track-one-sided warrior kind of guy. Yet I have found new male-like avenues of love that open my heart spontaneously — like playing “train tracks” for hours with my six-year-old grandson, snooping for bugs in the garden with my two-year-old granddaughter, listening to music with my two-year-old grandson, writing love songs to my wife and family, and attending my eight-year-old granddaughter’s hip-hop dance class. I have learned that I don’t love in the same way as my wife, but I love nonetheless, though perhaps more like a man. I believe Athena has taught me to draw on my own strengths as I tend my garden of age.

With her skillful guidance, Athena also draws Odysseus into the sacred marriage of the mortal masculine and divine feminine, a merging that not only awakens his capacity to love but may, in time, also divinize his perception of the world. The symbols of the divine marriage can be found in all mythologies — the union of spirit and matter, Samsara and Nirvana, Shiva and Shakti, head and heart, sacred and profane, particle and wave, consciousness and contents. Put differently, our spiritual task in aging may be to support this divinization of the world, bringing Heaven down to Earth, and healing the split between humanity and divinity.(5) What better task for an aging population!

Conclusions

While this paper visits only four of Odysseus’ many profound and growth-promoting adventures, I hope it illustrates the way a myth can bring meaning to our personal journeys and, in this particular instance, how it illuminates the path we take as aging men on the voyage home to love. Indeed, I believe that The Odyssey represents the Iron John(6)of male aging, a myth to guide men home from the long war of life.(7)

Likely, few will begin the journey of age with an event as dramatic as a four-decade-delayed surgical PTSD, yet whatever shocks you into realizing that things have changed is your initiation. It could be retirement, joint pain, senior discounts, illness, new prescriptions, or your image in photographs, but suddenly you understand that everything has changed, that you have left the old world of middle-aged goals and values for a completely new and unknown land. You have begun an unexpected adventure in consciousness. While aging may represent the end of our old life, it is also the beginning of a new one

My journey? I eventually healed the pain of my anesthesia awareness trauma and went back to school for a second doctorate in interfaith spirituality, ordination as an interfaith minister, and finally a new life as a writer (and occasional celebrant for family weddings and funerals — a wonderful role for an elder!). The kids have grown up, grandchildren keep arriving, and the body’s still changing. My passage from busy mental health professional to author and minister took ten years, just like Odysseus — I know what he went through! This journey has taken away so much, and yet I feel so full. And, of course, it continues onward. For the island is as much a state of mind as a final destination.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

— C. P. Cavafy, “Ithaka”(8)

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Notes

¹ Tennyson, Alfred Lord. “Ulysses”. Accessed June 20, 2012, from http://www.portablepoetry.com/poems/alfredlord_tennyson/ulysses.html.

² The version of The Odyssey I used for this study was the 1999 translation by Richmond Lattimore, The Odyssey of Homer. New York: HarperPerennial, 1999.

³ “Anesthesia awareness” occurs when anesthesia levels drop too low to prevent awareness, but other neuromuscular blocking agents hold the surgical patient in a chemical paralysis, preventing him from communicating his distress. The effects can range from mild distress to unbearable terror. In the latter instances, the patient either awakens in acute emotional distress resulting in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or blocks the trauma with psychological defenses that may later be triggered as a delayed Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. You can learn more about my experience in The Three Secrets of Aging and Bedtime Stories for Elders found atwww.johnrobinson.org.

⁴ Initiation rituals are rites of passage symbolizing and ritualizing the movement from one life stage to another. They always involve the archetype of death and rebirth — death of the old life and rebirth in a new one. While life itself initiates men, it is an incomplete initiation for it lacks ritual, community, and new identity. While men in our culture lack effective elder initiation rituals, aging men’s groups can create them. I provide a template for a male elder ritual in the appendix of The Three Secrets of Aging.

⁵ Mystics from every religion and era have described the return of the divine creating a new and sacred world. To hear their many voices and consider ways you might begin to awaken this vision, see Finding Heaven Here found at www.johnrobinson.org.

⁶ The poet Robert Bly based his bestselling book Iron John (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1990) on a story of the same name taken from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. He used this simple tale as a parable of midlife men struggling to find the authentic masculine in the depths of their personality. It touched a whole generation of men, including me.

⁷ My complete psychological interpretation of The Odyssey will be published in 2013 with John Hunt Publishing titled What Aging Men Want.

⁸ Cavafy, C. P. “Ithaka”. Accessed June 20, 2012, from http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=204&cat=1

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John Robinson, Ph.D., D.Min., is a clinical psychologist with a second doctorate in ministry, an ordained interfaith minister, and the author of seven books on the interface of psychology and spirituality. His recent works include The Three Secrets of Aging; Bedtime Stories for Elders: What Fairy Tales Can Teach Us About the New Aging; and the forthcoming What Aging Men Want: Homer’s Odyssey as a Parable of Male Aging. You can learn more about John at www.johnrobinson.org.

We Are the Ones — Working Together by Jan Hively and Moira Allan

Jan’s Story

I progress in life from one “Aha!” to another as I read or hear wise words that speak to my experience and generate a new way of looking at the world. Thirty years ago, in my fifties, as a community planner, I felt deeply moved when I read these words from aHopi Elder: “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” I wrote them on a scrap of paper that I’d pull out at often sparsely attended workshops. I’d read the quote, and say, “However many of us are here, we are the ones we have been waiting for.” The words framed a challenge for the session and boosted collaboration.

Later, in my sixties, for my PhD dissertation, I decided to look at how older adults in rural communities were coping with the fact that young people had moved to the cities, leaving them behind to care for themselves in old age. If and when they needed help, who was taking care of them? State officials talked about rapid aging as the biggest problem facing rural America.

Vital Aging

My survey findings were amazing. Up into their 80s, three-fourths of the older adults in rural areas reported being healthy and active, and over 90 percent said that they were self-sufficient, in control of their lives, and feeling positive about life. In comparison with older adults in the cities and suburbs, those in rural areas were staying on the job longer, volunteering more, spending more time caring for their grandchildren, and doing more caregiving for the sick and disabled. These productive elders in rural communities were sharing their strengths to help themselves, each other, and their communities. They were the only ones there to do the job. They were the ones they had been waiting for! What a contrast to the scene of elderhood in Thomas Cole’s nineteenth-century series of paintings, “The Voyage of Life,” where the image of the fourth stage of life is represented as a lonely old man, becalmed in a battered boat, eyes directed only toward the afterlife in the Kingdom of Heaven — as if life on Earth no longer had anything to offer!

Armed with the survey results and a PhD, I started a statewide Vital Aging Network in 2001 to work with older adults and promote what was most important to them: self-determination, self-sufficiency, and community participation. Fortunately, leaders of the needs-based senior services system saw that our efforts to build on the strengths of older adults were complementary to theirs. Generated by older adult leadership, energy flowed through an expanding network of programs supporting and advocating productive aging.

Travel to Paris

In July 2009, in my new-found career as a gerontologist, I traveled to Paris along with 6,000 others attending the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (IAGG) conference. One big reason for my attending was to spend time with a friend and colleague, Moira Allan, in her totally charming rooftop flat looking out at the Eiffel Tower on one side and at Les Invalides on the other. Another was to find like-minded colleagues who shared my interest in engaging older adult leadership for positive aging.

For four days, I trudged up and down stairs and in and out of Metro trains to attend conference sessions in the huge Palais de Congrès. Although full-time employment kept her from attending the conference, Moira is an eager advocate for positive aging as a life planning coach and coordinator for the European 2Young2Retire Network. Each evening, Moira listened to me rant about the absence of conference presentations about the assets and productivity of older adults. I mentioned that a few older adults had stood up in workshops and asked for information about programs building on older adult strengths and/or encouraging older adult leadership. The panelists appeared to be surprised by these requests and distanced from collaboration with older adults.

“We Are the Ones” Network

Moira responded to my complaints by saying that she wasn’t surprised by my conference experience. “Ageism is even more stifling in Europe than in the U.S. What are we going to do about it?”

Moira went on to say that she had been struck by the Hopi Elder statement, “We are the ones we have been waiting for,” that I’d quoted at the Positive Aging Conference in Florida in 2007, where the two of us had met. Then age 63, she said, “We are the ones! Let’s invite older adults throughout the world to join us in a global network that transforms expectations for aging!”

And so we spent the next few days brainstorming ideas and then clarifying our answers to these questions:

• Who are “we”?
• What are our values?
• What do we expect?
• What resources do we need to support an international network?
• What is the program?
• What will be the products and outcomes for participants?

The answers that I took back to the U.S. are shown on the table at the end of this article. They fit with our mission statement for the We Are the Ones Network:

We are an international network of people in midlife and beyond who are willing to step forward as life-affirming leaders to work on team projects that strengthen local communities and raise expectations for generativity in later life.

Lots of blanks needed to be filled in. Both Moira and I worked on a proposal for a network that would collect information about best practices related to our mission, and then disseminate replication guides via a Web site and a liaison in each country. As a flat, peer-to-peer network, relationships and information should flow freely based on the energy and commitment of participants. A Leadership Group would link key connectors in a number of starter locations. The operating language would be English.

European Voices for Active Aging (EVAA)

Moira and I circulated a “We Are the Ones Network” proposal for Europe early in 2010 for review and comment. Based on our interest in hosting conversations about positive aging with older adults and community leaders throughout Europe, we added a partner, Patricia Munro, Munich resident and founding board member of World Café Europe. Working through World Café Europe, we submitted a proposal to the European Commission for organizing World Cafés in six European countries during 2012, the Year of Active Aging and Intergenerational Solidarity as designated by the European Union.

Titled “European Voices for Active Aging,” the project was one of seven proposals funded by the European Commission. Working with partner organizations in each country, using both English and the home language in each location, World Café Europe collected perspectives on six topics foundational to Active Aging:

• Bilbao, Spain: Social Innovation
• Bonn, Germany: Civic Engagement
• Prague, Czechoslovakia: Age-Friendly Communities
• London, UK: Ageism
• Bologna, Italy: Work/Productivity
• Strasbourg, France: Exercise, Creativity, and Wellness

Representatives from the six countries reviewed the ideas that were generated by the World Cafés. At a summary session, they discussed what steps they wanted to take toward formation of a European active aging network. As Pat Munro put it, looking into the future the EVAA project is just the beginning of a wave of change that we hope to help occur in Europe developing the ideas, projects, and visions that have emerged from the six World Cafés.

What’s next?

Moira and I have talked about other overtures that would fit with the mission of the We Are the Ones Network. We would like to create an innovations toolbox of free program replication guides, in collaboration with the directors of programs that are proven to be successful in promoting self-determination, civic engagement, and personal enrichment for and with older adults age 55+. The guides would be posted on a Web site with translations available in several languages. So far, we’ve identified a half dozen community-based projects and a few curricula for experiential learning for the online toolkit. Another proposed initiative is a worldwide inquiry into changing expectations for later life involving videotaped interviews that would be repeated at three-year intervals between now and 2030.

Lessons along the Way

Before traveling to Paris in 2009, I never would have dreamed about creating a global network. “Who? Me? Isn’t that grandiose?” I’ve thought about what led to my taking on that huge challenge. Here are some reasons I’ve thought of:

• I was challenged. “So what can we do about it?”
• I had someone with complementary ideas to talk over the details . . . . The conversation flowed!
• We put it on paper and sent it to other people for review, thus declaring a commitment.
• Technology has made global communication easy. Moira has an international phone line with all the phone time she wants for one monthly fee. We can Skype and set up conference calls with network liaisons around the world. And e-mail makes communication between countries as easy as between the coasts.
• I am very, very fortunate to speak English. What a luxury it is to have everyone else do the translating!
• Paris sets the scene for doing something exciting!

I want to emphasize the basic message of “We are the ones.” It’s all about trusting that what we have to offer is enough — which is not to say we couldn’t use a few allies — but it’s important to know ourselves and trust who we are. If we older adults work together, sharing our strengths, we can dramatically improve expectations for aging worldwide.

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Hopi Elder Speaks

You have been telling the people that this is the eleventh hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the hour
And there are things to be considered…

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.

It is time to speak your truth,
To create your communities,
To be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for a leader.

Then he clasped his hands together and laughed and said,
This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift, that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.

The elders say we must let go of the shore—
push off into the middle of the river,
keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.
See who is in there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all, ourselves.
For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves;
Banish the word “struggle” from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for!

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Moira’s Story

I’d love to add a few words on the magic of traveling with purpose — both virtually and actually — and the amazing connectivity this can bring you.

Let’s begin with my adventure: When I hit 60 I started looking for a new direction. A South African living and working in Paris for 30 years, classic retirement looming up and knowing that I would need to keep on a “lifelong learning, lifelong earning” path, I surfed the net and soon found myself in telephone conversation with Howard Stone, founder with his wife, Marika, of 2Young2Retire, pioneers in the field of relooking at retirement and rebuilding it with a cement of purpose, meaning, and contribution.

He invited me to follow a very affordable 6-week facilitators’ course by telephone. I joined and made 12 new virtual friends, including my own special buddy, Jean Gilhead, who was phoning in from Spain. Toward the end, Howard announced he had arranged to piggy-back the first ever positive aging conference to be held at Eckerd College, Saint Petersburg, Florida, in December 2007. My hair was just growing back after a bout of chemo and I decided to go. It was the best decision I have ever made.

That trip to the Florida crystallized the growing excitement I was feeling about positive aging and changed the course of my life. I met the 2Young2Retire founders Howard and Marika Stone and my “virtual buddies” and felt as though I had come home, the bonding was so strong. I was introduced to the Life Planning Network, AARP, Civic Ventures and the people from OLLI; I met Meg Newhouse, Marc Freedman, the late Dr. Gene Cohen, Judy Goggin, Jan Fulwiler, Rick Moody, Helen Dennis, Karen Greer, Judy Lipp, Pat Samples, and Jan Hively. There was an incredible sense of purpose, generosity, sharing, and community. My “Aha” moment came listening to Jan Hively’s presentation on “The Role of Meaningful Work in Third Age Planning.” I went up to her and left her my card as director of GIMAC Santé an Travail, member of a professional federation representing 250+ occupational health doctors who are responsible for 3+ million workers within the Paris metropolitan area. I invited Jan to look me up when she was in Europe, and she did.

I walked out of that meeting room and into the beautiful Eckerd campus gardens with two key ideas mulling in my mind: “meaningful work paid or unpaid through to the last breath” and “we are the ones.”

We’ve moved a long way since then. Jan’s been to Paris three times, and I’ve had the opportunity of visiting Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain, England, and Italy within the framework of the EVAA project that Jan talks about, as well as traveling to South Africa several times. Each trip yields a harvest of new contacts, new ideas, and synergies. When there’s a common interest, the bonding is very strong and enables you to penetrate other communities in a way that straightforward tourism could never allow.

I started my career as a journalist. I love spreading stories and, with Jan, my association “Le Cercle des Seniors Actifs” in Paris, and our 2Young 2Retire European network, that is exactly what I am doing now, in this my fifth career: discovering and passing on stories of sustainable, workable, replicable projects in positive aging and multiplying their impact wherever they may be found, whether it be in the Unites States through Jan Hively, or in Europe, with our many partners including World Café Europe and Old-Up in France; or in my home country South Africa with Lynda Smith, founder of the Refirement Network; or in Russia, where, through Jan, we have a special relationship with Dr. Gulnara Minnigaleeva, founder of “Wisdom Ripening,” an organization of retired people in Bashkortostan, Russian Federation, and a research fellow at the Centre for Studies of Civil Society and the Nonprofit Sector at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

Longevity is a totally unprecedented worldwide phenomenon; there is an urgency to find out what’s working and pass it on. The other aspect is that every single adult, whether we are older or younger adults, has a total responsibility, both to self and to community, to be involved and to make a contribution.

It is all about the magic of connectivity and moving from “me” to “we.” When we are in community, meeting people and interacting, something greater than me by myself and others by themselves is generated, and when two or three people are gathered the exponential factor comes into play and draws potential into a positive spiral.

You’re Invited

Please step forward and become one of the “we.” We are asking you and other readers of this story to get involved and contribute your ideas about next steps to pursue the mission of the We Are the Ones Network that is described below. If you’d like to join us on this adventure, please contact Jan Hively or Moira Allan.

We also invite you to check out the following Web sites:

We are the ones we have been waiting for, all of us, working together!

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Jan Hively lives up to her personal credo of maximizing productivity and assuring “meaningful work, paid or unpaid, through the last breath.” After playing leadership roles in government and education for more than two decades, Hively received her PhD in Education for Work and Community from the University of Minnesota in 2001 at age 69. During the last decade, she has co-founded three organizations dedicated to empowering older adults: the Vital Aging Network that promotes self-determination, community participation, and personal enrichment through education and advocacy; the Minnesota Creative Arts and Aging Network, now called Artsage, dedicated to expanding opportunities for creative expression by older adults; and the SHiFT network empowering midlife transitions in life and work. Now living on Cape Cod, Jan has recently focused on engaging older adult leadership through global networking, as described in her story.

Moira Allan, the founder of 2Young2Retire Europe (Cercle des Seniors Actifs), is currently winding up a 10-year spell as director of an occupational health organization located in Paris. Previously she worked as a journalist and public relations consultant with a client base in France and in South Africa. She holds a degree in professional coaching from the Paris 8 University, is a member of the Association European de Coaching and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council.

How Far Must We Go? by Frances Wood

National Geographic had recently declared the 150-mile road from La Paz in Bolivia, up and over the Andes to Rurrenabaque, as the world’s most dangerous, a fact that my husband Bill and I took seriously. On average, 220 people are killed yearly in vehicle accidents along that winding mountain road with its blind curves and gaping drop-offs. To avoid that deathtrap, we booked seats on an hour-long flight to Rurrenabaque, the first leg of a bird-watching adventure to Madidi National Park in the lowlands of the Amazon River in eastern Bolivia. The park bragged that it hosted 20 percent of all the bird species in the world. I couldn’t wait.

Years earlier during a college ornithology course, I became utterly and hopelessly enamored with wild birds. When I met Bill in 1990, he embraced bird watching enthusiastically. As we became empty nesters, we also became avid birders. We scampered around several continents watching with pride as our life list of identified bird species grew. Some might have called us obsessed with, or even addicted to, our birding, but at the time I was carried away with the adventure, not thinking of the repercussions and unaware of the potential dangers of our actions.

On the morning of our departure from La Paz, the cobalt blue sky sparked with energy as thunderheads hovered over the glacier-clad monolith of the Andes. Forty-five minutes into our flight, the pilot of the small, ten-passenger plane turned in his seat and shouted in Spanish that the Rurrenabaque airport was closed due to heavy rain. We would instead land at a town farther south called San Borja. Bill and I sensed no alarm in the statement, nor did the other five passengers, although the loud drone of the engines prevented conversation. We banked to the right, sliced through valleys between towering clouds, and then dropped toward the foothills.

Half an hour later we approached a grassy airfield and landed without incident. As I climbed out of the plane a blanket of hotter-than-hot humid air engulfed me. A smoky scent from a pile of burning rubbish mingled with the heavy, sweetly rich fragrance of lowland jungle. Inside the one-room airport, Bill and I gathered with our fellow waylaid passengers to figure out how we would continue to Rurrenabaque. Besides Bill and me, the group included an Irish backpacker, two Brits on their honeymoon, another young British adventure seeker, and one Argentinean businessman. We shed jackets, rolled up sleeves, and wiped sweat from our foreheads. The pilot, now acting as a representative of the airlines, joined us, and Bill translated our two options. Either wait for the Rurrenabaque airport to open, which no one expected would happen for at least a day or two (the town had been deluged with rain and a plane was stuck in the mud, closing down the runway). Or accept the airline’s offer to hire a bus for the five-hour drive.

The moment Bill translated the word “bus,” the rest of us winced. We all had heard horror stories about the dangerous Andean roads. Bill continued to translate that we would be traveling on a completely different road between San Borja and Rurrenabaque. This road, the pilot insisted, was level. “No es peligroso.” It isn’t dangerous.

At five that afternoon, we boarded a worn-out, Japanese-made mini bus and headed north. As promised, the dirt road extended ahead, flat and straight as a railroad bed. Out the window to the right, the vast, thickly vegetated Amazon basin stretched east to a low horizon. On the left, gentle foothills, the final toeholds of the Andes, appeared benign. Huge dark and pregnant clouds obscured the Andes’ peaks, a reminder of the power the weather holds over our best-laid plans. We bumped, jerked, and lunged along into the darkness. The engine lugged as we lumbered up a low hill, then the road leveled.

Suddenly, the bus jerked to the right, as if to avoid an unexpected obstacle. I gasped. Then I froze as the bus plunged off the road. It hung in mid air. Then banged, side over side down a cliff. I grabbed for Bill in the blackness, but felt only empty space. Bodies and luggage flew into the air and thudded against the bus frame. Windows smashed. A sharp smell of broken vegetation pierced my senses. I pleaded, “Dear God, save us!” My shoulder banged against something hard — probably the bus ceiling — and I instinctively raised my hand to protect my face. For a split second I thought of Phoebe Snetzinger, the first bird watcher ever to see over 8,000 different species. Phoebe survived cancer only to die 15 years later in a Madagascar bus accident.

With no tremendous impact, the bus eased to a halt on its side. Time stopped. An eerie silence flooded the darkness as countless years of dust which had accumulated in the bus’s nooks and crannies infiltrated my nostrils.

I was alive. I tried moving. Nothing seemed broken. I pushed my torso upright, still nothing hurt. I shouted, “Bill, are you all right?”

After an interminably long pause, I heard a muffled response from somewhere under the seats. “I’m okay, but I can’t move.” I remembered my headlamp and switched it on. The beacon of light revealed Bill’s long legs inverted in front of me, running shoes in the air, the rest of him head down between two seats. The British woman who had been sitting in the seat behind had landed on top of him. I grabbed the woman’s hands and pulled her up. Somehow we turned Bill’s tall, lanky frame upright.

The bus teetered with activity. “Get out quick!” mixed into a barrage of Spanish. The younger, stronger passengers rapidly hoisted themselves up and out the broken windows directly above us. Would the scrambling dislodge the bus and send it back into a tumble? Bill climbed out a window while the British woman and I, too short to follow his lead, scrambled over seats to escape through the driver’s open door.

The last to leave the bus, I jumped out into thick brush. A line of fellow passengers offered their hands to assist me up the steep incline to the road. The last hands were Bill’s. We hugged tightly. When we eased apart, I gasped. The light from my headlamp spotlighted streams of blood dripping down his face from one cut above his right eye and two more on his balding scalp. The British honeymooner pulled some sanitized towelettes from her fanny pack and we mopped up the blood. In the dark we found and accounted for our group of seven, the driver, and his young son. Everyone was alive and Bill’s injury the worst.

Relieved that there were no fatalities or serious injuries, I sank to a rock on the side of the road. I looked down at my trembling hands and found that my whole body was shaking uncontrollably. I really needed to pee, but didn’t think I could stand. Bill knelt down and engulfed me in his long arms. “We’re alive. We’re alive,” he repeated over and over. He sensed my shaking body and offered me a sip from his rum flask. “Baby, this will calm you.”

“First I have to pee!”

He pulled me up. I staggered down the road a few yards into the deep shadows and squatted. I returned to Bill, relieved but still shaking. The Argentinean businessman, whom I’d not even spoken to, gave me a big bear hug.

“No funciona, no funciona,” the bus driver motioned that the steering wheel had stopped working, insisting it was mechanical failure, not his error, that caused the accident.

Everyone spoke at once: “A miracle!” Flashlights were pulled from backpacks, and the men returned to the bus to retrieve the group’s gear. We held our cameras high and used the flashes to illuminate the view down the ravine to the bus. It rested on one side, a gray, windowless, dead hulk, stopped by a lone, skinny tree. The light from the flashes couldn’t penetrate any farther into the dark void.

About an hour later, a flotaappeared from the direction we had come. We flagged down the large first-class bus, staggered aboard, and found empty seats at the back. Our band of seven survivors huddled together.

When we arrived in Rurrenabaque, Bill and I settled into our simple but comfortable 1950s-era Hotel Safari and I tended to Bill’s cuts, carefully cleaning, then closing, the gashes with butterfly Band Aids. Before crawling into bed, I downed two pain pills and a sleeping dram to dull the pain in my hand and shoulder and help me sleep. Still, my dreams churned and tumbled.

The next morning, chattering black and white swallows outside our screened window awakened us to a still, calm day, a welcome contrast to the prior evening. A message taped to our door the night before indicated that Alejandro, the birding guide from Chalalan Lodge, would meet us at breakfast to escort us on the five-hour boat ride, plus one-mile walk to the lodge.

Bill and I dressed, assembled our gear, and found our breakfast waiting outside under a palm-frond-covered palapa. We silently sipped strong local coffee. I picked at my black beans and scrambled eggs; Bill wolfed his down. I looked beyond Bill to the simple hotel gardens where lavender and orange flowers had taken on a surreal brilliance; even the green foliage shone unnaturally. It appeared to be some optical trick, reminding me of times when I’d done watercolor painting. After several hours focused on the nuances of color and shading, my vision would play that same trick. Everything my eyes beheld became supersaturated like a TV screen with the color setting out of whack. Not only was my vision keenly ramped up but also the birds sang louder, and the perfume of summer flowers wafted through my senses like the smell of vanilla sugar cookies straight from the oven.

I felt so keenly aware of life. I’d been spared and I dearly wanted to continue living. More than any other time in my life, I felt there was an undiscovered purpose awaiting me. Although my journal indicated November, today felt like Easter morning and I’d been resurrected.

“You’d better eat something.” Bill’s voice at first seemed miles away, but immediately pulled me back to our breakfast table. Our close call with death had crystallized what was important in my life. I yearned to call my sons to tell them I loved them. I reached for Bill’s hand, held it tightly.

“I want to cancel the rest of this trip. I want to go home,” I said soberly, thinking of Phoebe Snetzinger again. “I don’t want to die looking for birds. It doesn’t matter how many birds are at Madidi National Park — it isn’t worth the risk.”

Just then Alejandro, a black-haired, dark-skinned indigenous man in his midtwenties, arrived at our table and greeted us with a warm smile. Bill stood up to shake hands and I sat still, not wanting anything to do with this foreign angel of death.

Bill chatted with Alejandro, telling him about our horrendous accident. I barely heard Alejandro admit that the previous day’s rainstorm was the worst he could remember. Then he added, “The boat is waiting — are you ready?”

I madly searched my mind for a way to escape. I wished that I could beam myself back to my safe, familiar country. Soon their eyes rested on me, and Bill explained that I was fearful of continuing our trip.

“But now you are here,” encouraged Alejandro. “And Chalalan Lodge is very nice and very safe.” I looked up into Bill’s hopeful eyes and I knew he wanted to continue. A long pause hovered in the morning air while I gazed off toward the river, considering my options. Did I want to hole up at the Hotel Safari until the airport opened and allowed me a chance to escape back to La Paz, or continue to Chalalan Lodge? I hated to ask Bill to give up this long-planned and well-earned birding adventure.

As if on cue, bird song flooded the silence. The innocent melody sank deep into my consciousness and I began to relax, diluting the fear and flooding me with fresh energy. I looked again at Bill, forced a smile, then heaved my pack onto my back, wincing from my bruised shoulder. I reluctantly marched down the dirt road trailing ten steps behind like a traditional wife.

I’ll always remember that 20-minute walk down the dusty Rurrenabaque road. Like reaching the crest of a mountain range and looking out over a completely new watershed, I began to think differently about bird watching. I craved an answer to my questions: What was I really chasing? Where was my life headed? That short walk framed the beginning of my journey to discover a new way of relating to wild birds.

//

From the outside, the second half of our South American birding adventure didn’t look very different. Bill and I continued birding in Bolivia and traveled through Ecuador. I awoke to birdsong in remote lodges and tallied up new species with glee. But inside, my life had taken a 180-degree turn. I had no idea what could substitute for the adventure and exhilaration of seeking new bird species, but I knew I could never chase birds in the same compulsive way again.

Shortly after returning from our South American trip, I discovered that the island where we lived in Puget Sound was prime breeding territory for a playful, endlessly entertaining species of seabird called the Pigeon Guillemot. Over 1,000 of these chunky, black-and-white birds with fire-engine-red legs gather into colonies to nest in burrows in the steep bluffs along our shores. They consume small fish and are considered an indicator species. Like a canary in the mineshaft, their success signals the health of the waters around Whidbey Island. Scientific studies of these birds had been conducted in California, British Columbia, and Alaska, but the Puget Sound populations had never been researched.

One day while finishing up a yearlong study of the breeding birds of Island County, I took my lunch to a beach to watch a group of 60 guillemots frolic in the waves, circle over the water, and disappear into high burrows. What was going on inside those burrows? What food was delivered to the newly hatched young? How did they manage to fledge from so high up on the cliff? Did the babies survive? Was the population viable? No one had any answers.

A month later I stood up at the local Audubon meeting and asked if anyone wanted to help me survey the guillemots. I gathered a team, trained volunteers, and we began an ongoing study of these seabirds. Each summer for two and one-half months, 50 dedicated volunteers create a community of citizen scientists who not only study the birds but also help educate the Whidbey community about “our birds.” Before this project began, few people on our island could identify this species. Now the guillemot is identified in community brochures and highlighted on outdoor signage. The Whidbey Audubon Society has changed their logo to include a pair of guillemots. A local winery features the bird on the label of one of their red blends. We’ve presented findings at international seabird conferences and contributed substantial data on this bird population. We now have answers to many of my questions about the birds.

And my personal questions? I’ve learned that researching the birds in my local community fulfills my search for finding meaning within my birding passion. Watching the guillemots return each spring brings a fresh vigor to the year. Anticipating the fledging of young keeps me walking the beaches and scanning the bluffs, and when we crunch the data at the end of the season I jump with joy when I learn that the population is still strong. Not all of Island County’s 75,000 residents know the significance and the importance of the guillemots, but making sure that happens will be a big part of the second stage of my birding journey.

Bill and I still go birding and we still travel. When we see a new species we high five and later toast the species at happy hour. But we’ve stopped what I call “self-indulgent birding.” We’ve even stopped keeping our life lists. Counting the guillemots and monitoring their lives offer up the kinds of adventure I now relish.

//

Writer, painter, and naturalist Frances Wood has published four books including Brushed by Feathers: A Year of Birdwatching in the West. Her most recent book, Langley, was published by Arcadia Publishing in December 2012. Frances helped originate the radio series called BirdNote, which airs daily throughout the United States, and she has written over 100 on-air scripts. She recently began a series of watercolor paintings of the 150 common birds in the western United States. An avid naturalist, Frances coordinates a seabird research project of the 1,000 guillemots that breed on Whidbey Island, where she lives and enjoys nature.

Writing Exercises to Engage the Spirit of Travel by Ellen B. Ryan

May you travel in an awakened way,
gathered wisely into your inner ground;
that you may not waste the invitations
which wait along the way to transform you.

— John O’Donohue(1)

Journaling about a trip — before, during, and after — can contribute to the impact of travel upon your growing self. Setting intentions beforehand can expand possibilities. Then, jotting down brief images and impressions during travel can sharpen attention and enhance perception. Despite our best intentions, recall for travel events and personal responses fades quickly without memory aids. Afterwards, savoring the meanings of diverse experiences and observations through reflective or creative writing can foster imagination, generate insights into your way of being in the world, uncover lessons learned, and raise questions for further exploration.

Journaling can include different styles of writing — lists, questions, memory-based reflections, imagination, poems, and creative writing. Many people also sketch images or incorporate quotes and reactions to ongoing reading. Fast writing, keeping your pen on the page, fosters depth and creativity. Journaling has become part of my experience of the world and of my daily spiritual practice — even when I travel!

People often use different formats to match varying circumstances. As a writer myself, and as a leader of writing groups, I have divided my regular journal into three sections — diary of day-by-day activities, solitary reflections, and exercises completed during writing group sessions. I also keep a separate “to-do” list nearby while journaling — an action page to take away. As well, I carry paper and pen wherever I go, including frequent walks. From time to time, I harvest my journals — first with colored markers, then typing key sections into computer files for use in personal, work-related, or creative writing.

Below I set out ten writing exercises that can support journaling during the three stages of travel. Drawing examples from a recent journey, I also illustrate howI used some of the exercises for our intergenerational trip to Stockholm this past summer. In August my husband and I traveled to Sweden with our daughter and her baby to visit my son, Swedish daughter-in-law, and grandchildren aged 3 and 5 years. The trip was busy and demanding, yet my practice of journaling supported my intentions — and my sanity!

Set Out Curious

Journaling can help you sort out the usual details of planning and packing for your trip. More importantly, you can free yourself for a deeper travel experience by writing about your hopes and uncertainties. Seeing these in black and white can help you set intentions.

Exercise 1 — Sometimes travel can be disorienting or overwhelming. In the week before you are to leave, set intentions for how you want to be during the journey (e.g., be open to surprise, treat the inevitable disruptions as opportunities, move lightly through new lands).

Travel Mindfully

Carry a small notebook. Write out your intentions on the first page. Frequent reminding can help you stay grounded as you move from place to place, experience to experience.

Exercise 2 — Use in-between moments to record impressions of sights and people in brief phrases, or try to write a haiku poem. Focus on the small (e.g., preschooler reaching out to pat baby cousin’s cheek) and on the big (e.g., Stockholm’s city hall gleaming at sunset with Nobel pride).

Exercise 3 — Collect postcards for describing your experiences. Write on the back of a postcard in the evening after you saw whatever is on it, or when you know you will not see it.

Exercise 4 — Look at a scene as though you are a camera and record the details. Embellish with the other senses. The scents of travel — how seductively the cinnamon assails you as you trundle sweaty and frayed from the wrong terminal in the airport to the right one. Or the sensual: the wild massage of the sea breeze in your hair on the ferry.

Exercise 5 — What surprised you today? For example, conversation with the café waiter, silvery stream found by following its trickling sound, other side of the story you learned in history class, or even what the baby did.
You might write the facts of your trip on the left-side pages of your notebook, with the surprises, moments of wonder, disappointments on the right-side pages. The right sides will be especially useful for sharing your trip with others.

Return Inspired!

These exercises can be used to focus on your most recent trip, or a significant trip from long ago.

Exercise 6 — Draw on metaphors of similarity (or difference). You can try describing your travel experiences in terms of colors — not only the many hues of green in a particular forest, but how the range of colors is so different from home; the pearl grey of skyscrapers, but also the shades of your feelings. For example: the fall-in-the-ocean blue of your grandbaby’s eyes, flaming flag in your mind’s eye when you realize the tourist agent made a big mistake about which terminal, the burst of primary colors when you finally spot your family waiting at the gate, and shades of sepia for the ache of saying goodbye.

Exercise 7 — The impact of a story or poem often depends on the power of the verbs. List 20 action or feeling verbs to describe your trip. Then include as many as possible in a story about the trip.

Exercise 8 — Select 10 photographs from your trip, then work into your story the names, places, and activities displayed in the photos.

Exercise 9 — Juxtapose imaginatively! Describe how your trip was like a day in a new school, reading the newspaper, visiting a toy store, walking in the woods, or some other part of your real or fantasy life.

Exercise 10 — Share your journey! For example, write a letter to grandchildren after joint travels or traveling to visit them. These can be wonderful keepsakes for both young and old (and the middle generation). Put a copy into the scrapbook you keep for that child.

Finally, you can journal about the spirit of travel using quotations such as these, selected from The Tao of Travel(2):

Being invisible — the usual condition of the older traveler —
is much more useful than being obvious.
—  Paul Theroux

All good trips are, like love, about being carried out of yourself
and deposited in the midst of terror and wonder.
—  Pico Iyer

Perhaps, then, this was what traveling was, an exploration of the deserts of my mind rather than those surrounding me.
—  Claude Levi-Strauss

The more attentive we are as we travel and the more reflective afterwards, the more likely our travel experiences enhance our sense of self and purpose. We contribute to the upward spiral of living and growing, returning home inspired each time.

We shall not cease from exploring,
And the end of our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time . . .

— T. S. Eliot(3)

//

Notes

¹ O’Donohue, John (2008). “For the Traveler” in To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings. New York: Doubleday.

² Theroux, Paul (2011). The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

³ Eliot, T. S. (1972). “Little Gidding” in Four Quartets. London: Faber.

//

Ellen B. Ryan is Professor Emeritus at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Her psychological research demonstrates how empowering communication fosters personhood and successful aging. She has created the Writing Down Our Years Series of publications to highlight the many ways in which writing life stories can benefit older adults and those with whom they share their stories and poems. She is co-editor of the anthology Celebrating Poets Over 70, a frequent writing workshop leader, and Web host of www.writingdownouryears.ca.

The Circumference of Home by Kurt Hoelting

Excerpted from book, The Circumference of Home: One Man’s Quest for a Radically Local Life by Kurt Hoelting, by arrangement with Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2010

When I looked more closely at the details of my energy consumption, I discovered that three-quarters of my carbon footprint is a result of frequent jet travel, more than swamping all my other efforts at energy conservation combined. I’d been turning a blind eye to my biggest source of personal carbon emissions, while obsessing on small efforts to rein in energy use in other parts of my life. Yet with family and friends spread to the four winds and a livelihood dependent on frequent travel, I could see no way out of my personal enmeshment in this global crisis. It was a moment of truth that offered no easy solutions.

I’d almost given up finding any answers at all, when the genesis of a creative response ambushed me one morning while I was having breakfast with a friend. I’d watched the dramatic changes happening in my own local climate — the rapidly receding Cascade glaciers and diminishing summer snowpack, the increased rainfall and flooding in the rivers, the obviously warming temperatures. It was written in plain sight, yet still I felt stuck. Tired of feeling powerless, and weary of this treadmill of travel, I overheard myself musing to my friend. “What would it be like if l didn’t get into a car for a year? What would it be like to spend an entire year within walking distance of home?’’

Just the thought alone brought a wave of relief. The very audacity of this prospect echoed all the way down to my bones. Rarely has a passing notion taken such complete hold of my imagination. In the days and weeks that followed, I could not let it go. I spent hours poring over local maps with a growing excitement about the places I’ve always wanted to explore close to home. The prospect of doing so under my own power added an aura of adventure that fired my spirit. Using my home as a center point, I drew circles of varying sizes on the map, to see what each contained. The image of “circling home” inscribed itself on my mind as a scope for the adventure. I chose the duration of one year for the project to include a full cycle of seasons, and one full circle around the sun. And I chose the winter solstice as a time to begin because of its symbolism of darkness turning back toward the light.

What really closed the deal, though, was the discovery I made when I drew a circle one hundred kilometers (or sixty-two miles) in radius from my home. The arc of this circle passed directly over the summit of Mount Olympus to the west, the highest point in the Olympic Mountains. It swung north to just include the San Juan Islands, before passing directly over the summit of Mount Baker, the highest point in the North Cascades. From there it passed directly over the summit of Glacier Peak in the east, the highest point in the Central Cascades, crossed Stevens Pass and Snoqualmie Pass on the Cascade crest, then swung around to just touch the southern tip of Puget Sound. To my astonishment, I discovered that my home on Whidbey Island lies at a perfect symbolic epicenter of the Puget Sound basin. With a home circle like this, there was no turning back.

For the coming year, I will travel exclusively by foot, bicycle, kayak, and public transportation inside this circle, with a portion of each month devoted to explorations under my own power. I still have no idea what I’ve gotten myself into or how I’m going to make this work. What I know for sure is that I’ve already set off on one of the grandest adventures of my life.

My goal is straightforward. I want to turn the necessity for change into an opportunity for adventure.

//

Six weeks into my year of local living, I can begin to feel the pace of my body slowing down. The inner residue of hurry and restlessness is gradually seeping out of my nervous system. It is a subtle shift, and it has taken this long to begin registering in my conscious mind. I am able to sit still for longer periods, not because I am more determined to do so, but because I just want to. My mind is more available to what I am seeing. With less wanting of things to be different, less pursuit of external stimulation, I simply see more of what is right in front of me.

One of the most obvious manifestations of this shift is the way I can literally feel the geography around me growing in scale and stature. A circle I drew on the map that felt small to begin with, and potentially confining, seems huge now, since it takes an entire day on foot to cover a small portion of it. Fifteen miles of walking is about what I am good for, yet such a day is filled with far more sensory input than a comparable day of driving that could take me halfway to San Francisco. I end my days physically tired, but emotionally full, with a sense of having transited a whole world of hard terrain. Curiously enough, I can end an equally long day of driving or flying almost as tired physically, but emotionally exhausted at the same time, not sure that I have connected with anything real beyond my desire to cover as much ground as fast as possible.

The landscape around me falls upon my senses differently now, working its way down through my perceptions and into my bones at a rate that my whole being can participate in, every step of the way. Already, I look out on a very different Puget Sound and a very different map of the region hanging on the wall of my office. I see nuances of landscape, identifiable landmarks, cultural niches, and relationships between them that were invisible to me before, and I am only just getting under way. Where there are blank spots remaining on the map, I have a new urge to explore them. My prevailing experience of a shrinking and flattening world has reversed course, and the geography around me has begun to expand again, right before my very eyes.

Gary Snyder touches on this dynamic in his story of riding in a pickup truck through the Australian outback west of Alice Springs with a Pintubi elder named Jimmy Tjungurrayi. As they speed along the road through his ancestral territory, Jimmy begins telling stories at a very rapid pace about what had happened in the dream time in each of the places that are flying by. Puzzled by this staccato accounting, Snyder later recalls, “I realized after about half an hour of this that these were tales to be told while walking, and that I was experiencing a speeded-up version of what might be leisurely told over several days of foot travel.” The writer David Abram, in reflecting later on this same story, points to the inseparable bond between landscape and language within oral cultures: “We might say that the land, for indigenous, oral cultures, is the very matrix of linguistic meaning. So, to force a traditionally oral people off of their ancestral lands . . . is, effectively, to shove them out of their mind.” It is worth wondering what kind of mind we can hope to sustain — what level of sanity — when the landscape upon which we dwell has been separated from its stories, when we must piece together our meaning from generic sprawl, usually transiting the landscape at a pace far faster than our stories can get a purchase on.

//

Kurt Hoelting is an Alaskan wilderness guide, meditation teacher, and climate activist with a passion for adventure and a lifelong commitment to the restoration of our planet home. He lives on an island in Puget Sound and is the author of The Circumference of Home: One Man’s Yearlong Quest for a Radically Local Life.

This article is excerpted from book, The Circumference of Home: One Man’s Quest for a Radically Local Life by Kurt Hoelting, by arrangement with Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2010

from The Captain’s Table by Colin Stuart

Contemporaries
His Story
The Drawing Room
The wind in the curtains —

How can I tell the story of
the wind — the end is
the beginning — the
wind of the mind unwinds
the scent of the
North Star —
Send me
a sentence.

They tell me you learned
your knots.

Yea — I was tiller boy
in Heishker — I could bind
her cord to a pinnace
to windward and learned to
find her a memling of old
cast — and anchor her deep
down drawn deeper.
So when the tide drew her
outward the cords would shriek
and catch at the Amist by
the volcano barnacles on
the downward draft of a
gromlech or a pinnacle —
the draw of the ebb
could not uncurl the golden
serpent from her kill —
ever.

Could the wind talk you out
of it?

So say what is the oldenest knot we know?
May it be the granny, sir?
The way she lies loose
Ties the noose?
Maybe at sea — but say you
were me — Captain —
and we were knotted nowhere
in slumber — Where the fish
fly and seabirds think to
scuttle us?

They say — god sleight
— give me then
my sword — say the warning — then unsheathe
the lily of light from
dawn’s jeweled scabbard.
Young Kit, you will pray
like a virgin as I play the
perfect hand and ply this
ancient trade of mine to steal
the heart of the heartless
Gordian knot — – …
plunge into the diamond
cascade of the sea-foam —
the eldest knot of olde is the not of yesterday —
but older I bet
the knot of the not-yet
you must know the plan
and pray you keep the reef knot to your self!

The sea has its plenitude, its
dark nights of the soul, its
backwaters, its emerald
mountains and the frolic
of a festival, dolphin
flights to distract almost
all of us. Time is
sand in the hand of a stranger —
‘round capes and curves,
have a hand in midnight
alchemy — “Wind — now you see
it now you don’t” —
So there! In a spell —
may dawn’s fingers
uncover for this hidden hand whatever
depths, disasters
and plunders, — slip like
dust through my fingers —
we reach to take back
with us the pearl
o’ great prices.

Think simple! What’s to you
anyway if I lie beside
you — beside, say it — a
lily-paven lake in
azure mist, as we take in
our nostrils quintessential
essences of medieval
fortresses, castles of
drunkenness and then —
sentences of flowers come
like pressing tastes
to our famished lips — .
What can shape invisible
kisses — why a wet wind —
silk furls and furloughs —
brush like light spray
on the eyelids —
to loosen necklaced
intersections of convergent
mind-beams of sapphire
from sleep?
In the hollow of the hold in the
hold of the hollow take
two for one or one for
two mixed matched
doubled or paired, —

spells and
parallels,

Now you know what happens
when you take to the mysteries —
now you know the what-if-
I-try-to-touch —

fall off the apple cart
you did well as you did
yourself in — to tease
the tongue back into
the mouth of the serpent —
nothing left to find
in the landscape of your
hands
tempted me

to this fear over here —
you think they guide you

to words — on a page —
something to say for your

curses — now
how can you pay for

your way — so long —
at seaside —

What notes when you took
to your mouth the magic

horn of the unicorn?
Have you heard the universe

escape from your lips —
the rush of a thousand visions
the power of the night
the veins of light …

July 24, 2012

Selected Poems by Linda L. Beeman

Accumulation of Days

We age, we bemoan
slippery memory
broken sleep
chronic pain

We reach for grace
iced forsythia on a February morning
the shape of an owl’s wing in slow flight
wood smoke smells in old textiles
acceptance that what’s undone will wait

Accumulated insights layer one upon another
knowledge sifted through humility
justice measured with compassion
beauty sculpted by imperfection
love honed with patience
hope balancing wisdom

Our voyages out
eventually bring us home
where we acknowledge
the unknowns we sought
were coded

deep within us
all along

//

Give and Take

you know how
you pray to rain
to its downward fall

asking that it take you
soak the earth
grow green shards
exhale oxygen

send it up again
one long ongoing chant
for redemption

//

Lurching Toward Wholeness

turning the hundredth corner
of that coastline road
pelicans balanced in mid-air
stationary on their current
took my breath

when we are fleeing pain
trying to reconcile mean loss
these are the moments that
etch themselves glass sharp
yet comfort like wind over grass

when anguish tugs us
like a sweat-soaked sheet
despair floods us again
in the minute after waking
these jolts of beauty

as I hold divinity’s glance
without blinking
feel strength’s first surge
bring me back to myself
lurching toward wholeness

//

Travel Tip

Wherever you go
there you’re not

Travel is all about
seeing through other eyes
making yourself unobtrusive
gaping at small wonders
finding courage to ask

Wherever you go
pack humbly

//

Linda Beeman is an award-winning non-fiction writer and poet living on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. She is the author of Wallace, Idaho — a chapbook of poems celebrating the history of her gritty silver-mining hometown. Her poems have been published in Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place, Colorado Mesa University’s Pinyon, and online at Adanna and the University of Chicago’s Euphony Journal.

Her exploratory travel articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Foreign Service Journal.

She researches and writes extensively about antique textiles from South and Southeast Asia and believes that curiosity extends the cat’s life.

“Romance and New Relationships in Later Life” by Connie Goldman

I recently asked some people between the ages of 20 and 45 what they thought about 70-year-old people hugging, touching, having sexual relations, living together. Some laughed, some just smiled. One person responded, “Aren’t people over 65 beyond all that?”

Well… No.

Love, intimacy, sex, and building meaningful relationships are not the exclusive domain of the young. Older couples who have found new life partners in their later years have generously told me their stories. There’s an independence of spirit that comes with aging that surprises younger people. A woman in her 70s confirmed this for many when she told me, “We make our own plans on how we live together. Why at my age would I give a hoot about what people think?”

And sex?

Alive and well according to the 22 couples I interviewed for my book, Late Life Love — Romance and New Relationships in Later Years. Human needs for closeness, touch, and intimacy remain with us until our last breath. Older people embrace, kiss, and make love. Sexuality is alive and thriving in folks with big bellies and gray hair. Touching, caressing, enjoying each other’s bodies offer intimacy and pleasure. For some, the physical relationship isn’t what it was in their younger days, yet many have told me that both their lovemaking and emotional lives get richer and deeper in late-life relationships.

Here are just a few brief quotes extracted from my interviews:

It was apparent when we first met that we had a physical attraction for one another and that has never left us. We can’t keep our hands off each other even when we’re watching television. You can be mature and still be romantic, you know!

The common joke is that children of any age don’t want to think of their parents knowing about sex or doing anything sexual, but we enjoy exploring our physical relationship in a lot of ways.

I don’t have any inhibitions, and I enjoy sex more now than when I was younger. I do like to have sex in the dark because if I catch sight of my arm with all the skin hanging down, it’s distracting. When I see it I think, “Who is this old lady?” Anyway, we continue to have a very romantic relationship, and I love that.

We may not have sex the same way as when we were younger, but we have good physical relations that are satisfying and enjoyable, with tender intimacy. We enjoy each other’s body a great deal. We sleep nude, and a night rarely goes by without touching and cuddling.

Until fairly recently one would have been hard pressed to corroborate this reality with films. The film Innocence (2000), by Australian filmmaker Paul Cox, is perhaps the first to break an unspoken taboo with its sensitive portrayal of late-life intimacy. Its two main characters — Andreas (Charles Tingwell) who is recently widowed, and Claire (Julia Blake), who is still married to her first husband John — reconnect after more than 40 years apart. They discover that the intense passion they shared when they were young is still there, and they soon become involved in a rekindled love affair.

The film offers us ruminations on love which are both poignant and perceptive. “Each stage of life has its own kind of love,” Andreas observes. “Now it’s deeper, pared down to the essentials. We spend years destroying that part of love that gives us pain. I love you a lot less selfishly now.”

//

Andreas and Claire also find that this time around, there are more complications. Indeed, the joys and pleasures of re-mating in the later years come with what I call leftovers from other lives — adult children, grandchildren, health concerns, previous living situation, sexual expectations, financial situations, divorce, caregiving experience, grief and loss. Every couple, with eyes wide open, with maturity and wisdom, must make adjustments and compromises in dealing with these “leftovers” and arrive at their own individual arrangement.

Some marry, others live together and don’t plan to marry, many have a committed relationship but live in their own houses, some live in different cities and plan regular times each month to be together. Some have adult children who don’t approve of the new relationship and won’t acknowledge it. Others have joyfully integrated the two families.

“We’ve been together three years. A few months ago we had a spiritual commitment ceremony. Our lawyer advised us not to get legally married and the financial advisor told me the same thing. So we decided not to officially marry, but we both felt a deep commitment about the relationship. Neither of us considered that it was a temporary thing that could be dissolved any time, so James approached a retired Episcopal minister to bless us in a ceremony. We know that one of us will most probably be taking care of the other at some point. But we have today and we bless and enjoy each day we have together.”

“When my wife died we had been married 48 years. About ten years before she died she was already ill with diabetes, Parkinson’s, heart problems, the whole works. One day she wrote a letter and told me it was to be opened when she died. I opened the letter after she passed away and found she had made two requests. The first thing she asked in the letter was that when our three children came over we were all to go and have a Chinese meal and she specified the restaurant. We had long before given up Chinese restaurants because the sodium in the food was bad for her health. The second request was that I was to mourn her for a week and then go out and find somebody to be my partner. The message was simple — I’m dead, you’re alive, live.”

“Was I looking for a husband? Absolutely not! I was still grieving for my husband. We had been married for so many years and we understood each other’s rhythms, likes, and dislikes. And I have my work, my small business, and that keeps me busy and active all day. It took quite a while before I realized I was lonely. You can’t work all the time. Oh yes, I have lots of friends, but I was starting to want a companion, a friend with whom to share things, experiences, meals, the day-to-day stuff.

“I don’t think we’ll marry but whether or not he was my husband, I’d take care of Mike if he was ill. It wouldn’t depend on us being married. We never know what the future holds. Mike could be taking care of me. Our relationship gives me more than money ever could give me. I’d rather have Mike next to me in bed than a pile of money!”

//

We do indeed “never know what the future holds.” The prospect of losing one’s beloved — through death or, perhaps worst, through a mental deterioration that obliterates the “person” we loved — is no longer remote as it seemed in our youth. Marge’s story will resonate with someone you know or possibly live with. She’s 83 years old, her partner Ed is 87. Marge had been divorced for over three decades; Ed was the primary caregiver for his wife who died 16 years ago.

“Our families knew each other years ago when we both had young children. One day we reconnected unexpectedly in a super market. ‘Let’s have lunch,’ he said and five hours later the conversation was still going strong.”

Marge and Ed now have a committed relationship, live together, and share their lives and families. They are also sharing Ed’s quickly deteriorating memory. It all began with confusion about driving, and Ed was forced to give up his car keys. Then he began forgetting what day it was, who was coming over to visit, whether it was dinnertime, or if they had already had their meal. Yes, it was early Alzheimer’s; and yes; everyone’s relationship with Ed is quickly changing. The home he’ll be moving into shortly is being checked out thoroughly by the family. And Ed, and Marge as well, soon will be living a different life.

But, even at this extremity, there may be lessons for love to teach us. In the film, Away from Her, by Canadian director Sarah Polley, Fiona (Julie Christie) and Grant (Gordon Pinsent) have been married for 44 years. They live in an isolated farmhouse in Ontario, Canada, where they enjoy cross-country skiing and sex. Then one evening Fiona puts the frying pan away in the refrigerator. At a dinner with friends, she reaches for a bottle but can’t remember the word wine. Later, she says, ”I think I’m beginning to disappear.” She has too much respect for herself, and too much pity for Grant, to subject him to what seems her certain decay. She makes a decision on her own to enter Meadowlake, a residence facility for Alzheimer patients. As the disease consumes her and her memory and attachment to her husband fades, the couple faces a transition from lovers to strangers. The film is honest, brilliantly acted, and speaks with honesty of the sacrifices that often come with love.

//

I want to round out my two “viewing suggestions” with a third film. My Afternoons With Margueritte— by French director Jean Becker — is a “love story,” but one very different from the other love stories I’ve been discussing. In a chance encounter, Germain (Gérard Depardieu), a man in his 50s who is looked on as the village idiot, meets Margueritte (Gisèle Casadesus), an articulate, highly intelligent and very frail woman. Between Germain and Margueritte, there are 40 years and 200 pounds difference. Margueritte is sitting on the park bench, reading aloud excerpts from a novel. Germain is lured by her passion for life and the magic of literature from which he has always felt excluded. Over time, their afternoons together transform both their lives and start them on a new journey.

The deep friendship in the movie is a story of a deep human love — what it could be and probably should be, if we reach out beyond ourselves. Of course it isn’t the same love story as couples re-mating, but it’s one example of our need to care about someone special and to have them care about us. It is reassuring to realize that the particular gift of late-life love is a gift that may await any of us.

//

Each interview I’ve collected, each couple’s experience, each story is individual and unique. Couples have their own adjustments and compromises in dealing with finances, adult children, and living situations, deteriorating health and growing dependence. Late- life love — along with the challenges, joys, and pleasures of re-mating in the later years — continue to enrich the lives of so many. A colleague once told me that those of us in the winter of our lives can still find summer. I knew there was truth in that statement when, in my presence, a woman in her 70s said to her 80-year-old partner, “Love me. Hold me in your arms and hold me in your heart.”

//

Formerly on the staff of National Public Radio, Connie Goldman is an award-winning radio producer and reporter. For almost 30 years her public radio programs, books, and speaking have been exclusively concerned with the changes and challenges of aging. Grounded in the art of personal stories collected from hundreds of interviews, Connie”s presentations are designed to inform, empower, and inspire. Her message on public radio, in print, and in person is clear — make any time of life an opportunity for new learning, exploring creative pursuits, self-discovery, spiritual deepening, and continued growth. Her books include The Ageless Spirit, Secrets of Becoming a Late Bloomer, The Gifts of Caregiving: Stories of Hardship, Hope and Healing, Late Life Love: Romance and New Relationships in Late Years, and Tending the Earth, Mending the Spirit: The Healing Gifts of Gardening. Visit her Web site at congoldman.org.

“Knowing When to Resist, When to Accept” by Jim Vanden Bosch

“I think of age as an abstraction, not a straightjacket.” This line from Still Mine, a recent feature film, invites us to ponder whether perceptions of aging and elderhood are shifting in American culture and society, and to take note of how images and perceptions of aging and elderhood are being presented today in mainline feature films. There have certainly been more films recently that deal with aging characters and aging-related themes. Aging, we could say, has “come of age” in our society — at least in terms of our awareness of it. A society’s attitudes and concerns are often reflected in its feature films. With baby boomers now crossing over into the land of elderhood at the rate of 8,000 to 10,000 a day, many popular films are trying to story-tell what those travelers are experiencing as they navigate that uneven, uncertain terrain. As Paula Span, columnist for the New York Times said this month in her blog, The New Old Age, “Not long ago, I could name the really excellent recent movies about aging on one hand. Now I am running out of fingers.”

To age successfully requires knowing when to resist and overcome, and when to gracefully accept, the changes brought on by life’s aging course. This is often a difficult endeavor. This struggle is what makes films about aging, if they are honest and well-produced, so fascinating to watch. We get to have an extended “conversation” with someone else’s experience and story. We can be challenged by that story, or we can simply sit back and enjoy the narrative. A good film, unless we simply want to be shocked or titillated, converses with us at an honest and emotive level. It invites us to see ourselves, our experience (or our imaginable experience) reflected in the story being played out on the screen. If we have any curiosity at all about how our lives might play out, these films provide rich opportunities for us to see, feel, and reflect on that.

For reasons I have not yet figured out, most of us are attracted to drama in the stories we seek out. Filmmakers, therefore, present us with stories that contain a dramatic arc, usually involving a conflict and then a resolution of some kind. (Sometimes the story effectively stops short of a resolution, and we are left to ponder the outcome.) One of the “dramas” that often accompanies growing older is health related. An illness becomes the invasive “enemy” against which the characters in the story struggle. The resolution comes either in overcoming the threat or in “making peace” with it.

Two recent films that give us rich stories about how elders handle this threat are Amourand Still Mine. The films are similar in the arc of the stories they present, but are extremely different in how their characters handle the threat. In both films a couple struggles with the cognitive decline of one of the partners. In Still Mine, Craig (James Cromwell) and Irene (Genevieve Bujold) Morrison, married for 61 years, still live in their well-worn two-story farm house in New Brunswick. Near the beginning of the film we see evidences of Irene’s short-term memory slipping. One of Craig’s responses to this (at 87 years of age) is to use his long-honed carpentry skills to single-handedly build them a new smaller single-story house that will better accommodate Irene’s deteriorating condition. Visually, the film is open and bright, with many of its scenes shot outside. The characters are also open-hearted and honest — even when they are in disagreement with each other. (Both Cromwell and Bujold do a fine job of portraying an older rural Canadian couple.)

In the process of building the house Craig runs afoul of a Provincial building inspector by not always adhering to the minutia of the building codes. This conflict builds throughout the film and threatens the finishing of the house, even as Irene’s condition worsens. Craig and Irene’s grown children also weigh in with their concerns over what is happening, and they worry together over whether to try to convince Craig to follow a different course in meeting Irene’s needs. The film is refreshingly multidimensional in how it shows this couple facing the challenges of memory loss. In so many mainstream films, dementia is misunderstood and portrayed as a condition that destroys one’s personhood. In Still Mine the focus is on the more gradual decline that initially only affects Irene’s short-term memory, not her personhood. But neither is the reality of the decline glossed over. In one scene Craig and Irene are lying in bed together and Irene says “What if I forget everything?” Craig responds, after a few seconds to take in this potential reality, “You’ll still be my Irene.”

The recent film, Amour, by acclaimed Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke, shows a couple dealing with a more immediately severe health issue. The tone of Amour is radically opposite that of Still Mine.¹ With the exception of two scenes at the beginning of the film, the entire story unfolds within the apartment of Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), an older French couple. Early in the film, Anne develops stroke-like symptoms. An attempt to deal with them in the hospital fails; the symptoms get progressively worse. At first, just her left side is affected. She can talk but needs help with walking and getting in and out of bed. After returning from the hospital, Anne extracts a promise from Georges that he will not place her back in the hospital. A second stroke soon follows and leaves her incontinent, unable to talk without great effort, and mentally confused. Georges provides loving and steadfast care for her, but is eventually worn down by the effort.

Haneke’s previous films have often focused on the violence that humans can do to each other, or on the threat of that violence. In Amour, a different kind of threat is imposed not by another person but by an increasingly debilitating illness. Rarely has a narrative feature film tracked with such single-minded focus the deterioration that a stroke can bring to an aging body and the emotional effects this deterioration has. One should not be misled, however, as many reviewers seem to have been, with “love” in the title. Amour is at its core a film about one couple’s descent into a self-isolating cavern of caregiving, and a shocking conclusion to that descent.

From a technical standpoint, the film is masterfully done. The acting is superb. The scenes are allowed to play out in long takes within steady and beautifully composed camera frames. There is no external music track to help “guide” the viewer’s emotional response to the story. There is no complicated or tricky story line to appeal to our attention-deficit culture — but my attention was held irrevocably throughout the entire film.

Amour also diverges radically and refreshingly from the vast number of films that present a sentimentalized or sugary vision of growing older. The protagonists in these sugar films either “overcome” the threat of aging’s reality with youth-like revitalization, or they become the object of pity or comedy. The vision presented in Amour has none of that. Instead, it takes us to the extreme in the other direction. The film is severe in its relentless portrayal of the toll taken by Anne’s deteriorating condition, insensitive in its absence of any kind of social support for Anne and Georges as they bear the unrelenting burden, and brutal in its ending. My biggest criticism of the film is that its story line seems to lack any cultural awareness of palliative care options that would have been widely available to a middle-class Parisian couple like Anne and Georges. In later scenes of the film, Anne is often crying out in pain. Why Georges does not seek out hospice care to help Anne with pain management at this point is the huge unanswered question in this film. Perhaps this simply would have been too much of a diversion from the dark ending that is more in character with Haneke’s filmmaking. Finding another way to resolve the pain and isolation for Anne and Georges would have subverted the enduring interest Haneke seems to have with the human experience of pain, isolation, and violence (as seen in many of his other films: The Seventh Continent; Benny’s Video; Cache; The Piano Teacher; Funny Games; The White Ribbon).

The film, therefore, also lacks any sense of grace in the story’s resolution. In the early part of the film, before Anne’s second stroke, there is a sense of grace. Throughout much of the film Georges conveys loving and respectful feelings for Anne — the kind that are garnered in a long and rich marital relationship. There are also momentary interludes of wonderful music (both Anne and Georges are musicians) and some occasional playful banter between Anne and Georges. But these are always cut short or followed swiftly by a scene of decline, as if to drive home the point that music and joy will not persist. They will be cut down. After Anne’s disability increases and takes away her sense of dignity, the film becomes steeped in a cheerless plodding towards the exit. The overall tone of the film becomes one of feeling-lessness, especially on the part of Georges. He becomes stoic, numb, and self-isolating as a caregiver in the later stages of Anne’s deteriorating condition.

This is where Still Mine presents a wonderful counterpoint to Amour. Craig and Irene are not isolated as they face the loss of Irene’s cognitive abilities. While Craig is an independent and resourceful person, he also has a supportive family and community to help him take on the increased work load when Irene’s health is faltering. After Irene has a serious fall, for example, one of the couple’s friends insists on bringing a prepared meal for Craig and Irene once a week. Two of Craig and Irene’s adult children are also at hand, and provide help — when Craig will accept it. In this way the film is infused with a sense of grace that is missing from Amour. Craig, however, is not portrayed without his faults. He is often brusque and prone to angry outbursts. Yet, he also recognizes these lapses and seeks forgiveness for them. In a climactic scene, Irene resists going into the house at night to go to bed. Craig, after repeatedly cajoling her, finally physically drags her up the steps and into the house, while she screams in protest. Later that night she gets up out of bed, trips on a shoe and breaks her hip. In retelling the event to his children, Craig is remorseful. “You don’t just drag somebody,” he says.

The health issues faced by Irene are initially not as severe and limiting as those affecting Anne in Amour, but after breaking her hip she does end up in the hospital and then has an extended stay in a rehab facility. This lengthy separation is painful for both Irene and Craig, especially for Irene, because she often forgets why she needs to be there. Craig accepts the news of the need for Irene to be in the facility for two months with stoic grace. “Irene and I have been married for 61 years and have never been apart for more than a few days at a time. But if this is what is necessary, well then, that’s just the way it will have to be.”

Eventually, Craig finishes the new house, and Irene comes home. Still Mine is based on a true story. There was a real life Craig Morrison who was harassed and brought to court many times during a two–year period by the Provincial building inspectors. In 2010 they ultimately demanded that the court forcibly remove Craig and Irene from their new house, that the house be bulldozed, and that Mr. Morrison be found in contempt of court and imprisoned. Fortunately the presiding Justice disagreed, saying that he was not going to send a 91-year-old man to jail and his wife to a nursing home.

Both Amour and Still Mine are powerful films and will undoubtedly engage you in self-reflection and discussion on the issues they so contrastingly portray. These two films also stand in sharp contrast to many of the other recent entertaining but rather fluffy films depicting various aspects of elderhood. Films like Quartetand The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or Clint Eastwood’s Trouble with the Curve are fun to watch, but really provide very little in terms of deeper reflections and conversations about the meanings and challenges of life’s aging/changing course.

//

Notes

1 The comments on Amour that follow are elaborated from the review I did of the film in the June, 2013 issue of The Gerontologist: Volume 53, Number 3.

//

Jim Vanden Bosch is a filmmaker and the founder and Executive Director of Terra Nova Films, a not-for-profit company specializing in producing and distributing films and videos on a wide variety of aging-related issues. He has produced several award- winning videos, including a recent series on elder abuse and a series on geriatric healthcare for the American Journal of Nursing. Vanden Bosch is also an associate editor in the arts and humanities section of The Gerontologist, the main academic journal of the Gerontological Society of America. In this position he writes reviews of mainstream feature films that deal with aging themes. He also presents frequently at conferences, using a multimedia approach that incorporates relevant video stories into a thematic PowerPoint presentation. He holds an MA degree in Film and Television from the University of Iowa.

“Films as Guidance for Positive Aging” by Harry R. Moody

Films can offer powerful images of positive aging,(1) and, by examining them closely, we can find a counter-narrative to the negative images of age so prevalent in our culture.(2) In this discussion, we consider four films, Wild Strawberries, Groundhog Day, It’s a Wonderful Life, and A Christmas Carol.

The 1957 film Wild Strawberries has been called the masterpiece of Swedish Director Ingmar Bergman.(3) It is repeatedly cited on critics’ lists of the 10 greatest films ever made. Wild Strawberries is also the greatest film about aging ever made and the most profound statement of life-review in the medium of film. The film’s message and meaning are conveyed by powerful dreams experienced by the hero of the film, Prof. Isaak Borg, played by silent film director Victor Sjöström. In the film, Prof. Borg is an academic physician who experiences a profound life-review through a series of dreams during a single day’s drive with his daughter-in-law as they travel to the city of Lund where the doctor is to receive an honorary degree, celebrating his 50 years of medical practice.

Dr. Borg’s day begins as he awakens from a dream, a dream that has been called the most famous dream in film history. It is a scene dense with symbols of coffins, clocks, and empty streets, an atmosphere Bergman himself has called an homage to German expressionist films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922), and Metropolis (1927). This dream features a runaway carriage, conveying an ominous message of impending death and inescapable fate. This first dream recalls Dr. Robert Butler’s original account of life-review as a process of encountering the past triggered by a sense of imminent death. Later dreams in the film explicitly display a pattern of life-review in which Dr. Borg encounters unresolved guilt and conflicts from the past. The explicit life-review sequence begins with a nostalgic dream set in a summer cottage from his childhood. Prof. Borg awakens from the dream sometimes confused between past and present, a point emphasized by Bergman since the very same actress portrays the girl from his youth in the past as well as a passenger in the car he’s driving in the present. The dream evokes feelings of loss and regret for a life unlived and the “road not taken.”

Perhaps the most disturbing dream in the sequence is one where Borg is brought into a lecture hall, scene of his adult triumphs and mastery as an academic physician. In this lecture hall he is asked devastating questions that evoke his helplessness, guilt, and vulnerability in the face of the past and his empty life at present. In this dream he must face his own emotional isolation in devastating terms. The last dream vision, if we may call it that, no longer reflects the guilt and anguish of Borg’s past. The dream comes after Borg has attempted to reconcile his son Evald with Evald’s wife Marianne. As Borg sinks into sleep, his mind wanders into the past again. In this final dream, Borg is back in childhood, at a family picnic at a lake. The mood is nostalgic and affirmative of Borg’s life and memories, a fitting conclusion and a moving note of redemption and reconciliation between past and present. The journey of life-review through dreams has achieved what Erikson would call ego-integrity, moving beyond the despair evoked by the opening nightmare that begins the sequence.(4)

Wild Strawberries is a deep exercise in life-review, unfolding through dreams, fantasy, and reminiscence.(5) In a single day, Dr. Borg relives an entire lifetime. For this elder hero, the past remains unfinished. Despite his worldly honors, he experiences through deep subjectivity the poverty of his own existence. Despite past failings, he encounters the possibility of growth and redemption. The film itself is a profound message about hope for the last stage of life.

Bergman directed Wild Strawberries in 1957, when he himself was far from old age but had entered a midlife transition. About the aged Dr. Isak Borg, Bergman would later say, “I had created a figure who, on the outside, looked like my father but was me, through and through….I was then 37, cut off from all human emotions.” Bergman’s work continued throughout his life to explore the darker sides of human life. But, of all his films, Wild Strawberries remains his most life-affirming work.

A film very relevant to aging and lifespan development happens to be a movie with no older characters at all. That film is Groundhog Day, which stars Bill Murray as a cynical television weatherman named Phil Connors who mysteriously is compelled to relive again and again a single day of his life: namely, February 2, Groundhog Day.

Despite being a comedy, the film has been widely seen as having a profound existential or even spiritual message and it has become something of a cult favorite. Harold Ramis, director of the film, is quoted as saying that he has heard from Jesuit priests, rabbis, Buddhists, and people all over the world who find a deep meaning in the film. “At first I would get mail saying, ‘Oh, you must be a Christian, because the movie so beautifully expresses Christian belief… ’ Then rabbis started calling from all over, saying they were preaching the film as their next sermon. And the Buddhists! Well, I knew they loved it,” evidently because the film depicts the endless cycle of rebirth for which Buddhism offers salvation.

Yet the film does have significance for aging and lifespan development once we recognize that, just like the beloved film It’s a Wonderful Life, the hero is a middle- aged man who has found himself repeating himself endlessly, trapped in his own ego. In the film there is a great dialogue in a bar between the hero, Phil Connors, and a local character named Ralph which sums up the existential dilemma of the film: “Phil: What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered? Ralph: That about sums it up for me.”

But Groundhog Day is ultimately not a film about “midlife crisis” but is rather a classical redemptive narrative, akin to It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol, both significantly holiday season favorites. Ryan Gilbey describes Groundhog Day as a supremely intelligent comedy which commands broad appeal precisely because it does not push any specific “deep” agenda.(6) For example, the film never explains how it is that Phil is trapped into living the same day over and over again. The redemption it promises comes about through genuine love between the two leading characters in the film, Weatherman Phil, and his producer, played by Andie MacDowell.

I have mentioned It’s a Wonderful Life as a “redemptive narrative,” but it also has a kinship with Groundhog Day because the hero, played by James Stewart, is a middle-aged man caught in a life he didn’t plan or expect.(7) Like Phil Conners, George Bailey hoped for something more out of life. But he stayed at home in Bedford Falls while his brother went off to fight in World War II and became a hero. George Bailey has abandoned his youthful hopes and dreams and now runs the town’s Building and Loan bank, which helps the local townspeople but ends up nearly bankrupt on Christmas eve. In despair, George Bailey tries to commit suicide by leaping off a bridge, but he is saved by his guardian angel, Clarence.

At the point of this near-death experience, the hero is in such despair that he bitterly expresses the wish that he had never been born. For the rest of the film he engages in a compelling counterfactual life-review in which he is shown what the world would have been like if he had never been born. In that case, he would not have married his sweetheart Mary (played by Donna Reed) and life in Bedford Falls would have been worse. In this counterfactual narrative, it also turns out that the town of Bedford Falls would have become Pottersville, under the control of the ominous power of banker Henry Potter (played by Lionel Barrymore). The result of this imaginary life-review is that by the end of the film, George Bailey runs back to the bridge and now wants to live again. Clarence’s exercise, fostering an imaginary life-review, has done its intended work. At the end, George is reunited with Mary and his children, and the financial problems are resolved when the whole community comes together to contribute money to make it whole. In the final scene, all the leading characters come together to sing “Auld Lang Syne.”

Along with It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol is also a redemptive narrative, and we can now approach that cherished classic with new eyes. The novel by Charles Dickens has been interpreted in many ways, including, for example, as a case study in clinical depression and its resolution, as Gene Cohen has done. I approach the novel and the film as an illustration of what I have described as the five stages of the soul: namely, Call, Search, Struggle, Breakthrough, and Return.(8)

The film, like Dickens’ novel, begins with elder Ebeneezer Scrooge going to bed and being awakened by the ghost of his deceased partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge initially rejects this Call, which is, at one level, a dream, but, more deeply, a reminder of mortality to the elderly Scrooge, a reminder that he dismisses. In due course, he is persuaded of the reality of this supernatural visitation and so he embarks on a process of self-interrogation, a Search for guidance, which for Scrooge comes about through life-review of Christmas past and present. In this Search he lets himself be guided by the ghosts who enable him to see his life as it really was. Thus, Scrooge revisits the scenes of his youth and confronts the failures of his life and eventually, under the guidance of the ghost of Christmas present, he is able to see Christmas present as it is experienced by his clerk Bob Cratchit. The contrast between Christmas past and Christmas present, between the young and the old Scrooge, is the heart of his Struggle, which reaches its peak when he is guided by the ghost of Christmas future. At that point, witnessing his own gravestone, Scrooge has his Breakthrough when Scrooge imagines his own future, his own death. His cry of the heart, “Must these things be?” is the point where his dream ends and he wakes up, now back in his own bed on Christmas morning.

Having gone through these stages of the soul, Scrooge is no longer the man he used to be. But one more stage remains, the Return. In the heartwarming end of the film, we see Scrooge back at his office, pretending to be his old, nasty self, when Bob Cratchit comes into work, a bit fearful of the old man, even on Christmas morning. In the stage of the Return, Scrooge takes the insights from the Breakthrough, and from all the prior stages of the soul, to bring spiritual growth back into ordinary life. As the Zen masters say, after Enlightenment, we “chop wood and carry water.” And so it is in the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, a redemptive narrative that holds out hope for everyone in the last stage of life.

The final scenes of Wild Strawberries, Groundhog Day, It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol all share a fundamental life-affirming stance, and this is undoubtedly a reason for their enduring popularity. But I have tried to argue that these films are much more than simply “sentimental favorites.” Groundhog Day and It’s a Wonderful Life use hypothetical and counterfactual narratives that offer a different, and more positive perspective on finitude and aging. Instead of “midlife crisis” they offer a promise of transcendence that grows out of giving up illusion and fantasy. Wild Strawberries and A Christmas Carol both have elder heroes who struggle with what Erik Erikson called the polarity of ego-integrity versus despair. This perspective is the fundamental challenge that Jungians call individuation: becoming the person I was meant to be. All four of these films offer guidance on overcoming despair and give promise of the “gero-transcendence”(9) much needed as we look for new directions for positive aging.

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Notes

¹ Amir Cohen-Shalev, Visions of Aging: Images of the Elderly in Film, Sussex Academic Press, 2012.

² Margaret Gullette, Margaret, Aged by Culture, University of Chicago Press, 2004.

³ For the screen play of “Wild Strawberries” itself, see Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman, trans. Lars Malmstrom and David Kushner, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960. See Philip French and Kersie, French, Wild Strawberries, British Film Institute, 1995. For critical essays on the film see also Peter Cowie’s thoughtful commentary, part of the Criterion Collection, available at: criterion.com/current/posts/186-wild-strawberries.

⁴ See Erik Erikson “A Life History: Revisitation and Reinvolvement,” available at: haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/erikson.strawberries.html.

⁵ For more on dreams and aging, see H.R. Moody, “Dreams and the Coming of Age,” Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, (43:2), July, 2011.

⁶ Ryan Gilbey, Groundhog Day, London: British Film Institute, 2004, and Ryan Gilbey, , “Groundhog Day: The Perfect Comedy, For Ever,” The Guardian ( Feb. 7, 2013), at: guardian.co.uk/film/2013/feb/07/groundhog-day-perfect-comedy-for-ever. See also Alex Kuzcynski, Alex, “Groundhog Almighty” New York Times (December 7, 2003).

⁷ Jeanine Basinger, The It’s a Wonderful Life Book, Knopf, 1986.

⁸ Harry R. Moody and David Carroll, The Five Stages of the Soul: Charting the Spiritual Passages that Shape Our Lives, Anchor, 1998.

⁹ Lars Tornstam, Gerotranscendence: A Developmental Theory of Positive Aging, Springer, 2005.

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Harry R. Moody, Ph.D., recently retired as Vice President and Director of Academic Affairs for AARP in Washington, DC. He previously served as Executive Director of the Brookdale Center on Aging at Hunter College and Chairman of the Board of Elderhostel (now Road Scholar). Dr. Moody is the author of over 100 scholarly articles, as well as a number of books including: Abundance of Life: Human Development Policies for an Aging Society, Ethics in an Aging Society, and Aging: Concepts and Controversies, a gerontology textbook now in its 7th edition. His most recent book,The Five Stages of the Soul, was published by Doubleday Anchor Books and has been translated into seven languages worldwide. In 2011 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society on Aging; in 2010, the Robert Kahn Award for Successful Aging, from Masterpiece Living, and in 2008 he was named by Utne Reader Magazine as one of “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World.”

“Keeping the Little Things Little…” by John Sullivan

Prologue: A View of Elders

A first sketch of elders is to look at grandparents at their best. I see such grandparents having three tasks relative to the younger people: (1) To keep the little things little and the big things big, (2) to encourage creativity, and (3) to bless the young. Let’s look at each in turn.

Keep the little things little and the big things big

Grandparents can hold in mind what youth does not know: “This too shall pass.” Think of your first rejection, first betrayal, first suffering of injustice. You thought that the world was coming to an end.. But grandparents have a longer view. Though they cannot say so immediately, they know that life will continue and love will reappear. Additionally, by letting go of small and petty actions or incidents, the grandparents allow what is significant to appear.

Encourage creativity

Grandparents do this by encouraging youth not to be fearful, to take risks, to live their own lives, to follow their hearts. Aiding the young to let go of obstacles, the grandparents help the young rediscover their hearts’ desires.

Bless the young

Grandparents let each grandchild know that she or he is unique in all the world, of inestimable worth, most lovable, and beautiful beyond measure. Thus, the young are released from social or cultural definitions that are too small to live in. Young people often see such vital elders as allies, if not co-conspirators.

I am not saying that every grandparent exhibits these virtues. I am not saying that one has to be biologically a grandparent to manifest these traits. Indeed, those who reach a certain age, whether having children or not, can stand toward the next generation in a grandparently way, if they choose. They can see themselves as elders and perform toward the children the three functions I describe. And whether we speak about grandparents at their best or speak about elders, such folk are as unique and surprising as any of us at any age. We can gain a fuller and more textured view by exploring three marvelous films: Monsieur Ibrahim,Central Station, and Captain Abu Raed.

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Monsieur Ibrahim is a 2003 French film with Omar Sharif playing Ibrahim and the young Pierre Boulanger playing the Jewish boy Ibrahim calls “Momo.” Set in Paris during the 1960s, Moses or Moïse Schmdt is a young Jewish boy in the Blue Road suburb of Paris. Ibrahim calls him Momo. At first we see his coming of age, especially with the prostitutes, for whom he struggles to gain money to pay them and give them small gifts. Ibrahim Demirji, “the Arab,” is a small grocery store owner/operator. He says he is from the Golden Crescent; he is Turkish speaking Arabic as well. He reads the Qu’ran, and later we learn he is a Sufi, a member of the mystical strand of Islam. Momo steals from him but Ibrahim tells him: “You owe me nothing. If you must steal, I prefer you steal from me.”

Ibrahim also tells him he prefers Momo 100 times to Momo’s brother, Paulie. (In contrast, Momo’s father had often compared Momo disparagingly to Paulie.) Ibrahim also visits prostitutes: “Heaven is for all of us, he says, “not just for minors.” He teaches Momo to smile, saying “A smile causes happiness.” Walking beside the Seine on Sunday, they encounter dancers. He tells Momo he is a Sufi, “religion interior” says a dictionary that Momo refers to.

Momo’s father is fired. Ibrahim asks Momo, “What does being Jewish mean to you?” “To be depressed all day like my father,” Momo answers. His father leaves and later kills himself. His mother shows up, but Momo does not reveal his identity to his mother.

Momo falls for the Jewish girl Myriam who lives across the way. Her family does not approve and she breaks it off. When he sees her with another boyfriend, Momo throws a record he had bought for her out the window.

Ibrahim is with the boy in the bathhouse, and Momo learns that Ibrahim is circumcised too. Ibrahim buys a car and learns to drive. They are off to Switzerland, Albania, Greece, Istanbul. “Slowness is the key to happiness,” Ibrahim says. Then smells: they go to an Orthodox Church (incense), Catholic Church (candles), Mosque (smell of shoes). On to Anatolia to a sema, a sacred dance of the Whirling Dervish branch of Sufism. “When you dance your heart opens,” says Ibrahim. “The dervishes spin around their hearts like torches.” Also Ibrahim — in the spirit of the Sufi teacher Rumi — tells Momo that our movement is from dust to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to human, and from human to angel.

Ibrahim goes ahead to his village, not sure of what he will find. He finds his wife had died long ago. Ibrahim dies in a car crash and leaves his shop to Momo, who follows Ibrahim’s example, e.g., with shoplifters. We see him at the shop when he is in perhaps his later 20s. When he opens Ibrahim’s Koran he finds two blue flowers. (“I know what is in my Koran,” Ibrahim has said several times.)The French title of the film is Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Qu’ran.

Ibrahim is a grandfatherly figure and a mentor in many ways. His Sufi devotion is a religion of the heart — he is free from rules yet acts compassionately throughout. He leaves Momo far more than the shop.

Central Station is a 1998 Brazilian-French film that is set in Rio de Janeiro’s Central Station, with Fernanda Montenegro as Dora and Vinícius de Olivera as the 10-year-old Josué. Dora is an older woman whom we might see as grandmotherly. She is not married and has no children. There is both spunk and sadness in her. She writes letters for the illiterates in Rio’s Central station, and often she does not even mail them. Her friend Irene helps her to decide which letters to mail.

A woman (Ana) — the mother of a young boy Josué — comes to Dora to write a letter to the boy’s father Jesus. Shortly thereafter, the boy’s mother is run over by a bus. At some point Dora invites the boy home, and he finds her unsent letters. Dora first decides to sell the boy to a colleague who claims to arrange adoptions with wealthy families. She receives $1000 and buys a TV. Irene discovers this and berates Dora for crossing a line, and Dora steals Josué back. Taking the original letter with the address, the boy goes in search of his father (Jesus) — Dora puts him on a bus and then decides to go with him. During the journey, the boy runs away and Dora searches. The boy finds her. In one scene, she is lying with her head in his lap while he strokes her hair. They make money by writing letters to a local saint, Dora posts the letters she wrote for the people, and Josué spends some of their money to buy Dora a dress. After a first false track, they finally find, not Jesus but Josué’s brothers Moses and Isaac. Dora puts on her new dress and leaves while the three brothers are sleeping in the same bed. On the bus back to Rio, Dora writes a letter to Josué — she is afraid that he will forget her.

The film is infused with a populist religious spirit. The brothers are Joshua, Moses, and Isaac. There is a quest for Jesus who has gone away but promised to return — or has he returned in the self-realization of Dora?

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Captain Abu Raed¹ is a 2007 Jordanian film, with the lead, Abu Raed, played by Nadim Sawalha, and Nour, a female pilot, played by Rana Sultan. As the film opens, we see Abu Raed working as a janitor at the Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan. He is taken home on a shuttle with flight crews. He goes to his apartment and glances at a picture of his wife who, we learn, is dead. He reads; he is a literate man who later will boast of having 2000 books. We shall subsequently learn that after losing his son, and then his wife, he lost all motivation and finally became a janitor. At the airport he finds a pilot’s hat discarded in a trash bin. He puts it on as he heads up the long stone stairway to his house. Children see him and ask if he is a pilot. No, he tells them — but they insist. So he begins to tell the children stories of adventures, of flying to great cities: “Once upon a time there was a man, Captain Abu Raed.”

One of the boys, Murad, is unconvinced he is a real pilot and finds a way later to take some children by cab to the airport where they see Abu Raed on hands and knees washing the floor. Meanwhile, a beautiful young female pilot from a wealthy family, Nour, comes to befriend Abu Raed and bring back for him small souvenir trinkets from her travels. Her father is constantly trying to arrange a marriage for her, toward which she is dismissive.

Murad , the boy who in a sense betrayed the children, has an abusive father — abusive to Murad and to Murad’s mother. Abu Raed first reports him, but Murad’s father employs trickery to slip free. Abu Raed persists and bandages Murad’s hand where his father had burned him. As the abuse worsens, Abu Raed, with Nour’s help, takes Murad and the family to her house for shelter. Abu Raed waits for the abusive father in the father’s now empty apartment. The father reaches for a baseball bat, and that is the last we see of Abu Raed.

At the end of the film — time having passed — we see a fairly young man in an airline pilot’s uniform gazing out a window in the airport. A colleague says to him, “Time to go, Captain Murad.”

This film — worthy of watching again and again— has lessons of great humanity.

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Notes

1 Captain Abu Raed has an Elon University connection. Laith Al-Majai was the first recipient of the Queen Noor scholarship to bring a Jordanian student to study at Elon. Laith went on to study film and to graduate. He edited the film Captain Abu Raed. And if the viewer is alert, there is a time in the film where one of the youngsters has an Elon cap on. Laith tells the story that he had dropped the cap while they were filming and one of the boys had picked it up and put it on. In the editing, Laith left the Elon cap in the film, a gesture of sorts to his alma mater.

“How to Watch a Movie” by Bolton Anthony

When investigators debrief the witnesses of a bank robbery, they get wildly divergent accounts of what took place. The explanation seems to be some limit to our mind’s ability to process the unfamiliar — to take in accurately those experiences to which we bring no template, no filter or organizing structure derived from previous experience.

On the other hand, where the mind does have previous experience — and, therefore, expectations — it sees what it expects to see. This problem fascinated the Southern writer, Walker Percy. “Why is it almost impossible to gaze directly at the Grand Canyon… and see it for what it is?” he asks in his wry essay, “Loss of the Creature”:

… because the Grand Canyon, the thing as it is, has been appropriated by the symbolic complex which has already been formed in the sightseer’s mind… [N]o longer the thing as it confronted the [first Spaniard to see it]; it is rather that which has already been formulated by picture postcard, geography book, tourist folders, and the words Grand Canyon… [and] now the sightseer measures his satisfaction by the degree to which the canyon conforms to the preformed complex. If it does so, if it looks just like the postcard, he is pleased; he might even say, “Why it is every bit as beautiful as a picture postcard!”

I found these matters particularly compelling during the early 1980s when I was completing a doctorate in education. One’s theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge — one’s epistemology — animates whatever educational system you construct. During that same period, I was also experimenting a bit with the mind-altering properties of marijuana and — under the influence — watched Ryan’s Daughterby the great British director, David Lean. Though his preceding films, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962), had won Lean Academy Awards, Ryan’s Daughter (1970) was a flawed effort — “Lean’s red-headed stepson,” as one critic phrased it.

In the movie, set in 1916 in an isolated village in Ireland, Robert Mitchum plays the local schoolmaster and Sarah Mills, his precocious student. When she falls in love with him, Mitchum warns her: She loves Dickens and Tolstoy and Beethoven and the dazzling world he has opened to her — not him. He is nothing like them; he is (the truth be known) boring. I watched the movie expecting a reversal. Mitchum always played the anti-hero, not some milksop. After 45 minutes it dawned on me that no reversal was coming. I had been watching a movie that didn’t exist, a movie shaped entirely by my expectations.

Experimenting further (this time without benefit of cannabis, I allowed my former wife to lead me — blindfolded — into a theater, plop me down in a seat, and remove the blindfold only after the movie titles had ended. I then proceeded to have one of the most memorable movie experiences of my life, watching Tender Mercies. Since my blindfolded experiment, I assiduously avoid reading reviews before seeing a movie. I also suspect that my often intense enjoyment of foreign language films derives from the lack of expectations that get created if you’ve seen the actor in another role.

Late bloomer that I was, I had begun my foray in consciousness expansion more than a decade after most of my peers. They had “turned on, tuned in, and dropped out” during the turbulent 1960s. What we were all seeking was access to experiences that engaged us at a level deeper than the mind — deeper than the play of ideas, for example, that opened this article. We somehow knew that “the heart had its reasons of which reason knew nothing.” That was what we wanted to get at.

Well, for all us aging boomers, myself included, there’s good news. We can resume the search and dabble again in altered states of consciousness: “Aging changes consciousness more surely than any narcotic,” Theodore Roszak, the social critic who chronicled the coming of age of the boomers and coined the word “counterculture,” assures us:

[T]he greatest consciousness-transforming agent of all, in fact, comes to us from within our own experience and as naturally as breathing. It is the experience of aging, which brings with it new values and visions, none of them grounded in competition and careerism, none of them beholden to the marketplace.

Roszak writes of “a driving desire to find meaning in our existence that grows stronger as we approach death.” The questions which engage our passion are those which speak directly to our hearts. In Tender Mercies, Max Sledge, the alcoholic country music singer played by Robert Duvall, is offered a chance at redemption when a young widow and her son, Sonny, take him in. Near the end of the movie, after his own daughter has been killed in an automobile accident, he ponders the awful action of grace in his life:

I was almost killed once in a car accident. I was drunk and I ran off the side of the road and I turned over four times. And they took me out of that car for dead, but I lived. I prayed last night to know why I lived and she died, but I got no answer to my prayers. I still don’t know why she died and I lived. I don’t know the answer to nothin’; not a blessed thing. I don’t know why I wandered out to this part of Texas drunk, and you took me in and pitied me and helped me to straighten out, married me. Why? Why did that happen? Is there a reason that happened? And Sonny’s daddy died in the war. My daughter killed in an automobile accident. Why?

These are questions which cannot be answered. They are questions which must be lived. It seems to me that is the task of later life.

“The Gunfighter Grows Old” by Steve Taylor

John Wayne’s last film, The Shootist, opened in late August of 1976. It was widely seen at the time as John Wayne’s epitaph. Working with one lung, coughing and wheezing, frequently absent from the set with one ailment or another, Wayne nevertheless delivered the sort of performance that cemented his status not just as one of the preeminent movie stars of his day, but one of its finest actors as well.

Opening with clips from earlier Wayne westerns, mostly directed by Howard Hawks and John Ford, the film marches with almost biblical solemnity through the final eight days of the life of J. B. Books, a legendary gunfighter. Books has returned to Carson City, Nevada, on January 1, 1901, the day of Queen Victoria’s death, to seek a second opinion from his old friend Doc Hostetler (James Stewart). Hostetler confirms the diagnosis: advanced cancer.

Books has returned to a town that offers him precious little hospitality, a bustling place that is too busy striving for modernity and respectability. It has electricity and paved streets and a trolley car. The horse that pulls the trolley is, in fact, soon to go the way of Books himself, an anachronism of the Old West for which the new century has little use.

Books’ determination to live out his final days in peace and quiet is continually frustrated by the equally fierce determination of the town’s various opportunists to cash in on his newsworthy demise. A sinuous journalist wants the last in-depth interview. An unctious undertaker (John Carradine) promises a glorious sendoff until Books reveals that he’s wise to the scam. A former love (Sheree North) drops in with an offer of marriage — and a book contract from the aforementioned journalist who proposes to ghost-write an authorized biography “by the widow.” When Books points out that she knows nothing about his life, she says it doesn’t matter, they’ll just make up a bunch of exciting lies. Books’ disgust is palpable.

Hostetler has steered Books to the boarding house of the recently widowed Mrs. Rogers (Lauren Bacall), who is initially uneasy about having a person of Books’ notoriety under her roof. But their frosty relationship develops into an easy friendship during a bucolic buggy ride. Ron Howard plays her impressionable adolescent son, for whom Books ultimately becomes a surrogate father figure and redeemer.

I’ll not lay a spoiler on you. Suffice it to say that Books’ decision to avoid the painful demise that Doc Hostetler has drawn for him, and the means he chooses to accomplish it, raise moral and ethical questions for many, but it has been a proper subject for serious debate since the time of Socrates.

Don Siegel directed The Shootist from a background of action movies like Dirty Harryand Invasion of the Body Snatchers. His background was as an editor, not a writer, and it shows in the meticulous, yet curiously bloodless, approach to what could have been a real masterpiece. But the film’s combination of cast and script, which was nominated for several awards for its screenplay (adapted from a roman a clef about real-life gunfighter John Wesley Hardin’s last days) make it a minor classic, and a valued part of my personal video library.

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Most folks over the age of 50 may recall Wayne’s politics, which he himself described as being to the right of Ronald Reagan, but it would be a mistake to take, as the sum of the man, the stereotype drawn from his politics and the flag-waving Vietnam-era war movies. Consider the portrayals of the xenophobic Indian-hater of The Searchers, the arrogant and obtuse cattle drive foreman of Red River, the prudish male chauvinist of The Quiet Man, the fanatical Naval commander of The Wings of Eagles, the hard-drinking but uncompromising protector of True Grit, and the gruff surrogate father to The Cowboys. These are subtle and complex performances that elevate Wayne’s oeuvre into the realm of the cinematic pantheon.

For most of his career, Wayne’s most memorable characters seemed to share a set of values that, while essentially conservative, were thoroughly part of the American mythology: personal honor and integrity, individualism, devotion to family, commitment, and responsibility. In his westerns, the West he represented was an imaginary land, a place of hope, compromised by death, but undiluted by vulgarity. He gave us myths built out of contradictory urges — the urge to settle down and the urge to move on; the need to be alone and the need to find community; the love of woman and the fraternity of men; strength and vulnerability. And through it all, it is John Wayne who stands astride all borders, at the veritable crossroads of our mythic universe, reconciling, in perhaps a dozen glorious performances, these conflicting ambiguities of which his political persona was but a crude distortion.

For me, one of the loveliest aspects of The Shootist is the affectionate and respectful friendship with Bacall’s Mrs. Rogers, which is never allowed to descend into a cloying Hollywood romance. Not that he never had on-screen romances. Look at Rooster Cogburn, the thinly veiled remake of The African Queen, in which his crusty retired U.S. Marshall was paired with Katherine Hepburn, or his work with Patricia Neal in In Harm’s Way. But how many maturing male stars will, even today, allow themselves to be paired with actresses who are roughly their contemporaries, rather than dropping down a generation or two? Does Woody Allen spring to mind?

From the vantage point of his own conservative Puritanism, he might look askance at these women, like the worldly-wise brothel operator played by Angie Dickenson in Rio Bravo, or the proud and outspoken Irish spinster played by Maureen O’Hara in The Quiet Man, but he would eventually learn the lessons of moral compromise through their instruction, and ultimately accept these self-defining women on their own terms.

In his later films, Wayne allowed himself to look old, and he even allowed himself to be killed. But he would never allow his characters to go down in disgrace and without purpose. As legacies go, it may not be timeless, but a man could do far worse.

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Retired lawyer and magistrate, Steve Taylor reviewed films for WHQR-FM, Wilmington, NC’s public radio station, from 1995 through 2007 as a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association. He now makes his homes in Philadelphia. PA and Walnut Creek, CA.

“The Skinny on Cooperative Householding” Review by Marilyn Hartman

My House, Our House: Living Far Better for Far Less in a Cooperative Household
by Karen M. Bush, Louise S. Machinist, and Jean McQuillin
St. Lynn’s Press (2013)

In 2004 three energetic, independent-minded women in their fifties pooled their financial resources to buy a house and form a cooperative household. Nine years later, they pooled their creative energies to write this engaging testament to the success of their endeavor. Beginning with an invitation to vicariously visit the home they call Shadowlawn, the three women let us into their lives and take us behind the scenes. As the book unfolds, they relate the events that brought them together, the steps they took to co-create a shared household, and their adventures in living together.

Woven into their tale is a guide to “cooperative householding” and a template that others can follow to establish their own shared living situation. The book details the issues that are important to address ahead of time and provides guidance on creating a legal partnership, on joint decision-making, and on laying down rules and guidelines for day-to-day living. The authors describe potential pitfalls to consider, as well as some of the conflicts that arose for them and how they resolved them. They candidly discuss the process they put in place to establish healthy personal boundaries and create a comfortable balance between independence and interdependence.

My House Our House additionally places their personal story into a larger social context. Since creating their cooperative household, the three women have educated themselves about the range of possible shared living arrangements and become active in the Cohouseholding Project. Their own website provides a list of resources where one can learn more about cooperative householding, cohousing, and other types of intentional community.

The success of Shadowlawn is evident. Karen, Louise, and Jean are not reticent about the challenges of living together, but the overwhelming themes are enthusiasm and a deep sense of contentment and appreciation for one another. It is a delightful story and a remarkable one. So much has been easy for them to work out. They have never had to assign household tasks, and their arrangements for sharing food and living expenses seem to work seamlessly. One has the feeling that the trust they developed early on enabled them to tackle the hard stuff with clear heads. The depth of their friendship has allowed them to accept with grace the compromises that have sometimes been necessary, while motivating them to work hard to find consensus on issues that matter deeply.

Of particular interest to me are the ways that the authors write about some of the larger questions: What are the benefits of forming a cooperative household? What does it mean to be simultaneously independent and interdependent? How much of cohouseholding is relevant to elders seeking ways to age in community? It is interesting to read what they say — and what they don’t say — about these questions.

The women describe their initial motivations for creating Shadowlawn as primarily economic and practical. It was obvious after doing some initial calculations that, compared to living alone, a cooperative household offered the possibility of living in a nicer house at a lower cost with the added advantage of sharing the burdens of home ownership and day-do-day household management. Indeed, living at Shadowlawn has allowed them to achieve a higher standard of living than otherwise would have been possible and to save more towards retirement.

There were also hints early on of other needs that would be met at Shadowlawn, as the women had come to acknowledge that their separate lives were sometimes lonely. Karen says it the best, writing that, “I had constructed a solitary world for myself, one where I was happy enough, but one that lacked the warmth and spontaneity of people living together.” These were three women who had careers that they loved and who were connected with friends and family, and yet they also experienced loneliness. It is hard to judge how much their desire for community factored into bringing them together, but it is fair to say that they did not fully anticipate the emotional and social benefits they would come to enjoy and value. Louise declares that she is a happier person now. “I love where, how, and with whom I’m living. In this special house, the spirit of shared adventure makes every day feel new and fresh.” Or in Jean’s words: “We have become sisters of the heart, completely trusting one another and accepting one another as we are, imperfect as that may be.”

In addition to communicating the joy of living together, these self-aware women reflect on how the need to accommodate their differences has helped them grow. There are amusing anecdotes of how they deal with aesthetic disagreements or incompatible views on dishrags versus sponges, and there is an especially long discussion of the lessons learned from downsizing. “Letting go of excess possessions, and sharing most of what remains, has actually felt liberating,” they write. And in describing her own journey, Karen says, “I’ve learned how to better fulfill my own value of helping other people. I’ve learned to be more attentive to and respectful of the views of other people.”

The relationship between the three women also seems to pivot around the meaning of the words “independent” and “interdependent.” They are critically important words, perhaps even the defining features of cooperative householding, and yet they are also difficult to pin down. From the first page, and in every chapter, these women declare they are independent, and they warn of the dangers of trying to create a shared living arrangement with “someone who needs your help.” They proclaim loudly that they do not need one another: “We do not expect to meet one another’s personal needs for happiness or companionship. We do not expect to be dependent on one another, although we can totally depend on one another.” What exactly does this mean?

A partial explanation emerges in the attitudes they express towards the idea of “dependency.” They admit they depend on one another but insist they are not “dependent.” They depend on one another to keep their cost of living low and to create a household that is easier to manage. They depend on one another for assistance in solving the problems that arise as homeowners, for deep camaraderie, and for a sense of community. And, despite their claims of independence, when one of them underwent surgery, the others provided nurturing care and practical caregiving assistance. There was no hesitation, no holding back. It’s not always clear in reading their book how to distinguish between interdependence and dependency. Nevertheless, the three women sometimes drew the line very sharply to protect their independence; there were multiple instances when help was offered and refused. “Sometimes it was annoying to be helped, because feeling capable and in control is very important to each of us.”

The book unfortunately does not delve more deeply, but it leaves the reader with the impression that for the authors, being “dependent” is a negative to be avoided at all costs. At its core, dependency seems to create the potential for being asked to do more than one is willing or able to do, and it arouses fear of not having a choice about whether to help. Here is an interesting statement they make about their current circumstances: “Because no one asks for too much help, it balances out perfectly.” It seems that dependency could potentially breed resentment, in contrast to interdependence, which supports “each person’s independence and competence.” But what would happen if one of the three women became unable to hold up their end of this bargain? There are many things in life that are not under our control, and despite our independent natures, we can become dependent on others. As we get older, the likelihood of this happening increases each year. What then?

For me this is the greatest disappointment of My House Our House, that the authors do not address the future and never fully consider the implications of aging for the cooperative householding model. At the writing of this book they are in their sixties, with at least one of them approaching 70. If they are lucky, they may have 10 or even 25 years of good health ahead of them, but they have not presented a vision of living together under circumstances when their capacity to be independent erodes, and their interdependence — or is it dependency? — grows. One can infer that these women would not accept help that is not freely given, and this is healthy, but they also do not offer a model of shared living that can accommodate situations of legitimate need.

And this is where the book ends, with the three women happy about their years together so far and enthusiastic about cooperative householding. When they look forward, they imagine continuing to live in a shared living situation, but so far Karen is the only one who has the beginning of a plan. She has purchased a condo in a location with easy access to activities of interest, and she expects to alter the house design to accommodate assistive technologies. She hopes that her current housemates will make the move with her. Yet there is no discussion of what it would be like to live together when their needs for assistance are greater, nor what kind of arrangements they would make when they need more help than they can provide one another.

So for the moment, Jean, Karen, and Louise have modeled for us how to create the strong bonds of community in a shared house, but we will need a sequel to answer the question, “What next?” It would be wonderful if these women were able to transform their model into an effective place to age in place, but it may fall to others to write that sequel. For now their adventure at Shadowlawn is inspiring and lovely, but it is not yet a blueprint for “happily ever after.”

//

Notes

¹ See “The Roseto effect: a 50-year comparison of mortality rates” at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1695733/.

//

Marilyn Hartman has worked in the field of aging for many years, first as a faculty member in the Psychology Department at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and more recently as a consultant to several nonprofits that provide support to caregivers and the people they care for. She lives in Durham, NC and is interested in the intersecting threads of community-building, spiritual practice, service, and aging in place.

“A Village Far Outside Shanghai” A poem by Earl Cooper

they say you can get drunk here
simply from the air

this high in mountains
the geese never stop
you can hear them pass
all honk and appointment
during early light
the sounds their wings make
lifting and lifting

within the village
a woman begins to sweep stones
bathing them with dippersful of water
while on the roof of our hotel
an old man is gently
filling the sky with calligraphy

come, I say
let us walk out this morning
among the leaping green ridges of tea
and be like the air
that never ends

immortal as light
empty as this cup

50 Films for the Second Half of Life by Bolton Anthony

About Schmidt (2002) ♦ A man embarks on a post-retirement journey to his estranged daughter’s wedding only to discover more about himself and life than he ever expected. (U.S.) 125 minutes Directed by Alexander Payne Featuring Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates BA

Amour (2012) ♦ (French with subtitles) 127 minutes Directed by Michael Haneke Featuring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva

Antonia’s Line (1995) ♦ A Dutch matron establishes and, for several generations, oversees a close-knit, matriarchal community where feminism and liberalism thrive. (Dutch with subtitles) 102 minutes Directed by Marleen Gorris Featuring Willeke van Ammelrooy, Jan Decleir, Veerle van Overloop BA

As It Is in Heaven (2004) ♦ A successful international conductor suddenly interrupts his career and returns alone to his childhood village in the far north of Sweden. (Swedish with subtitles) 132 minutes Directed by Kay Pollak Featuring Michael Nyqvist, Frida Hallgren, Helen Sjöholm BA

Atlantic City (1980) ♦ An aging low-level wise-guy and a young dreamer who needs his help to realize her dreams. (U.S.) 104 minutes Directed by Louis Malle Featuring Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon ST

Autumn Spring (2001) ♦ Terminal prankster Frantisek Hána refuses to grow up and take certain responsibilities, despite his wife Emilie’s constant badgering to do so. (Czech with subtitles) 95 minutes Directed by Vladimír Michálek Featuring Vlastimil Brodský, Stella Zázvorková BA

Away from Her (2006) ♦ (Canadian with subtitles) 110 minutes Directed by Sarah Polley Featuring Julie Christie, Michael Murphy, Gordon Pinsent, Olympia Dukakis

Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) ♦ A group of older adults take up new lives in India, playing off one another’s pessimisms and optimisms.  (British) 124 minutes Directed by John Madden Featuring Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson JVB

Captain Abu Raed (2007) ♦ (Jordanian with subtitles) 102 minutes Directed by Amin Matalqa Featuring Nadim Sawalha, Rana Sultan

Central Station (1998) ♦ (Brazilian with subtitles) 113 minutes Directed by Walter Salles Featuring Fernanda Montenegro, Vinícius de Oliveira, Marília Pêra

Cherry Blossoms (2008) ♦ After Rudi’s wife Trudi suddenly dies, he travels to Japan to fulfill her dream of being a Butoh dancer.  (German with subtitles) 127 minutes Directed by Doris Dörrie Featuring Elmar Wepper, Hannelore Elsner, Aya Irizuki BA

Cinema Paradiso (1988) ♦ Oscar winner about the boy who is befriended by an aging projectionist and acquires a lifelong love of movies. (Italian with subtitles) 155 minutes Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore ST

Departures (2008) ♦ A newly unemployed cellist takes a job preparing the dead for funerals. (Japanese with subtitles) 130 minutes Directed by Yôjirô Takita Featuring Masahiro Motoki, Ryôko Hirosue, Tsutomu Yamazaki  BA

Driving Miss Daisy (1989) ♦ An old Jewish woman and her African-American chauffeur in the American South have a relationship that grows and improves over the years. (U.S.) 115 minutes Directed by Bruce Beresford Featuring Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy, Dan Aykroyd BA

Enchanted April (1992) ♦ The civilizing influence of Italy on beleaguered Londoners, both male and female. (British) 95 minutes Directed by Mike Newell Featuring Alfred Molina, Joan Plowright, Miranda Richardson BA

Feast of Love (2007) ♦ A meditation on love and its various incarnations, set within a community of friends in Oregon. (U.S.) 101 minutes Directed by Robert Benton Featuring Morgan Freeman, Radha Mitchell, Greg Kinnear BA

The First Grader (2010) ♦ An 84 year-old Kenyan villager and ex-Mau Mau freedom insurgent fights for his right to go to school. (British) 103 minutes Directed by Justin Chadwick Featuring Oliver Litondo, Emily Njoki, Hannah Wacera BA

Footnote (2011) ♦ The moral confrontation between two Talmudic scholars: a son addictively dependent on academic acceptance, and his father, a stubborn purist. (Hebrew with subtitles) 103 minutes Directed by Joseph Cedar ST

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) ♦ Sentimental drama about two women growing up in the South in the 1920s who forge a life-long friendship. (U.S.) 130 minutes Directed by Jon Avnet Featuring Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson ST

Get Low (2009) ♦ Veteran actor Robert Duval’s backwoods Tennessee character purposefully redeems himself in the eyes of the community he has shunned for most of his life. (U.S.) 103 minutes Directed by Aaron Schneider Featuring Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek JVB

Ginger and Fred (1986) ♦ A pair of aging second-tier vaudevillians are urged out of retirement to perform their Astaire-and-Rogers-inspired act one last time. (Italian with subtitles) 125 minutes Directed by Federico Fellini Featuring Marcello Mastroianni, Giulietta Masina ST

Gran Torino (2008) ♦ Clint Eastwood plays a crotchety elder thrown into a begrudging relationship with a vulnerable Hmong teenaged neighbor.  (U.S.) 116 minutes Directed by Clint Eastwood JVB

Ground Hog Day (1993) ♦ (U.S.) 101 minutes Directed by Harold Ramis Featuring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell

Hope Springs (2012) ♦ An older couple spars over whether to resurrect lost intimacy in their relationship. (U.S.) 100 minutes Directed by David Frankel Featuring Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones JVB

Innocence (2000) ♦ (Australian) 94 minutes Directed by Paul Cox Featuring Julia Blake, Charles Tingwell

Is Anybody There? (2008) ♦ A charming look at the importance of an older man’s friendship with a young boy adrift in the throes of his parent’s rocky relationship.  (British) 94 minutes Directed by John Crowley Featuring Michael Caine, Bill Milner JVB

Kolya (1996) ♦ The trials and tribulations — and loves — of a concert cellist in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia. (Czech with subtitles) 105 minutes Directed by Jan Sverák BA

Last Orders (2001) ♦ A half-century in the lives of a group of South London buddies. (British) 109 minutes Directed by Fred Schepisi Featuring Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins, Tom Courtenay BA

Monsieur Ibrahim (2003) ♦ (French with subtitles) 95 minutes Directed by François Dupeyron Featuring Omar Sharif, Pierre Boulanger

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005) ♦ All but abandoned by her family in a London retirement hotel, an elderly woman strikes up a curious friendship with a young writer. (British) 108 minutes Directed by Dan Ireland Featuring Joan Plowright, Rupert Friend, Zoë Tapper BA

My Afternoons with Margueritte (2010) ♦ (French with subtitles) 83 minutes Directed by Jean Becker Featuring Gérard Depardieu, Gisèle Casadesus

Nobody’s Fool (1994) ♦ A rascally small-town ne’er-do-well approaching retirement age realizes, when his long-lost son moves back to town, that he has accomplished little in his life. (U.S.) 110 minutes Directed by Robert Benton Featuring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy ST

On Golden Pond (1981) ♦ Two Fondas and a Hepburn. Ten Oscar nominations. What’s not to like? (U.S.) 109 minutes Directed by Mark Rydell Featuring Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda ST

Quartet (2012) ♦ A retirement house full of older adults making music and at times resolving senior-sandbox behaviors.  (U.S.) 98 minutes Directed by Dustin Hoffman Featuring Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Michael Gambon, Billy Connolly JVB

Ran (1985) ♦ In this reimagining of King Lear, an elderly Japanese lord abdicates to his three sons, and the two corrupt ones turn against him.  (Japanese with subtitles) 162 minutes Directed by Akira Kurosawa BA

Rhapsody in August (1991) ♦ An elderly woman living in Nagasaki tells her grandchildren about her husband’s death in the atomic bomb blast in August of 1945. (Japanese with subtitles) 98 minutes Directed by Akira Kurosawa ST

The Savages (2007) ♦ How two estranged siblings reconnect when they need to provide care for a father with dementia.  (U.S.) 113 minutes Directed by Tamara Jenkins Featuring Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman JVB

Schultze Gets the Blues (2003) ♦ An accordion player newly without work has his taste in music unexpectedly changed. (German with subtitles) 114 minutes Directed by Michael Schorr Featuring Horst Krause, Harald Warmbrunn BA

A Separation (2011) ♦ Weaves together the complexities of cultural and class values when an Iranian family needs to provide care for a father with Alzheimer’s.  (Iranian with subtitles) 123 minutes Directed by Asghar Farhadi JVB

Shadowlands (1993) ♦ C.S. Lewis finds himself “surprised by Joy.” (British) 131 minutes Directed by Richard Attenborough Featuring Anthony Hopkins, Debra Winger, Julian Fellowes BA

The Shootist (1976) ♦ (U.S.) 100 minutes Directed by Don Siegel Featuring John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard

Still Mine (2012) ♦ (Canadian with subtitles) 102 minutes Directed by Michael McGowan Featuring James Cromwell, Ronan Rees, Geneviève Bujold

The Straight Story (1999) ♦ An old man makes a long journey by tractor to mend his relationship with an ill brother. (U.S.) 112 minutes Directed by David Lynch Featuring Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek BA

Strangers in Good Company (1990) ♦ A busload of women become stranded in an isolated part of the Canadian countryside. (Canadian with subtitles) 101 minutes Directed by Cynthia Scott Featuring Alice Diabo, Constance Garneau, Winifred Holden BA

Tender Mercies (1983) ♦ (U.S.) 100 minutes Directed by Bruce Beresford Featuring Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Betty Buckley

Trouble with the Curve (2012) ♦ A baseball scout, disgruntled with his own aging, is dogged by unfinished business with his adult daughter.  (U.S.) 111 minutes Directed by Robert Lorenz Featuring Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams JVB

Whales of August (1989) ♦ Two aging sisters who have vacationed together at a summer house on the coast of Maine for 50 years face an uncertain future. (U.S.) 100 minutes Directed by Lindsay Anderson Featuring Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, Vincent Price ST

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960) ♦ A middle-aged bar hostess must choose to either get married or buy a bar of her own. (Japanese with subtitles) 111 minutes Directed by Mikio Naruse ST

Wild Strawberries (1957) ♦ (Swedish with subtitles) 91 minutes Directed by Ingmar Bergman Featuring Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin

Young@Heart (2007) ♦ A wonderfully engaging feature-length documentary about an older adult chorus that sings vibrant Rock songs, dispelling the myth that old age equals staid. (U.S.) 107 minutes Directed by Stephen Walker, Sally George JVB

Itineraries Takes Its Final Bow by Bolton Anthony

For a decade now Itineraries has been a “regular” publication — an increasingly hefty digital tome which appeared quarterly with a measure of predictability and which over the years has featured articles by over 150 contributors.

In recent years many talented, generous colleagues stepped forward to serve as guest editor for an issue with a particular thematic focus. Writer, weaver, sculptor, and teacherPenelope Bourk, who edited the 2013 issue on TRAVEL AND TRANSFORMATION, is the most recent example.

Sometimes a “theme” held our attention for an entire year. In 2011, with help from four guest editors, we focused on THE SPIRITUALITY OF LATER LIFE. We first explored AGING IN COMMUNITY in 2010 withGaya Erlandsonediting all four issues, then revisited the topic in 2012 with an issue edited byJanice Blanchard.

Readers of Itineraries have also enjoyed the many book reviews which Barbara Kammerlohr contributed over the years and the regular contributions of Second Journey’s “philosopher-in-residence,” John Sullivan, whose thoughtful essays have accumulated in John’s Corner and spawn children of their own.

This current issue — thelast“regular” issue — revisits the theme of spirituality, focusing on PRACTICES FOR WAKEFULNESS; it includes essays by two new contributors and by three of the four 2011 guest editors.

Itineraries now becomes an “irregular” publication — or in library parlance, an occasionalpublication — dependent for its continued appearance on the initiative of colleagues and the “gathering to a greatness” of unsolicited essays.

Why? Three reasons.

First, I will be 70 on Valentine’s Day. I have steadfastly tended Second Journey for 14 years — one-fifth of my life and twice as long as I have ever done any one thing. The academic world has something called “phased retirement.” I need to devise an equivalent to that. More importantly, I need to be about what Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi calls “winter work.” (If you don’t know what that phrase means, perhaps some colleague will demystify it in some future, unsolicited essay!)

Secondly, the online quarterly has “spawned children” of the print variety. Three books — 200–300 pages each — during 2013 alone, with a fourth due out in February. It seems overnight we have become a publishing house. But a publishing house WITHOUT A BUSINESS PLAN. A bit like discovering you are pregnant in the eighth month. Click on the image to the right to see what I mean. The books are all beautifully designed; the writers who contributed the excellent essays that fill them deserve a wide audience. We need to stop producing new books and figure out how to market those we have.

Finally, my own interests have in the past couple of years become increasingly local. Though Second Journey has made its home in Chapel Hill since the winter solstice of 1999, we have done so almost as if we were in a witness protection program, daring only rarely to conduct programs in our own backyard. That began to change when we partnered locally with the Seymour Center on THE HEART’S DESIRE, a series of “films for later life”; now in its third season, that series continues in the spring. Then came last fall’s citywide series of public forums on Aging in Community — again with local partners;that series also continues in the spring. Finally, I realized it was in my own self-interest to walk my talk: if Lisa and I wished ourselves to “age in community,” it behooved us to give some energy to making our own neighborhood “aging friendly.” So we have both become involved in this effort; and, depending on your interest, you may read occasional dispatches from the field in The Heronbridge Chronicles: Imagining What Might Be.

So, the long and the short of it is, even letting go of Itineraries, my plate remains quite full. I may not yet have gotten the hang of this phrased retirement thing!

This has been a lot of information (more than you are ever likely to read, Lisa warns me), but — so far — no ASK, as fundraisers would say. Well, there isn’t going to be one. I’ve come to believe that systems are self-organizing; and if Itineraries is meant to continue in one form or another, that will happen.

I had a conversation 10 years ago with Reb Zalman. I had just turned 60; he was approaching 80 and intending to “retire.” I knew he had begun his work with “Sage-ing” when he was 60, and I expressed the hope that I also would have 20 years to complete my work. He told me, “I will give you a blessing — a blessing which carries all the good will of all the ancestors who have made me who I am. May you complete your work in 10 years and have 10 years to enjoy it!”

About that same time, I had written about my work with Second Journey:

A number of people have thanked me for “holding the space.” It’s as if I’d arrived early for the picnic, staked out a lush spot by the river and put dibs on the place by scattering blankets and chairs all about. I do not have THE VISION; no one person does. It is scattered in pieces among us, and we will find our way into the future only by coming together in community and delighting in the different treats we each bring to the celebration.

So it is for you I have been holding this place. What would you like to bring to our potluck? What are your thoughts about where Second Journey should go, and what role do you wish to play, what contribution do you wish to make? What kind of organization or container do we need to create TOGETHER, to hold and direct this energy?

Yes, I have been holding this wonderful space beside the river for YOU! It’s now time for you to take your place there, time for Lisa and me to welcome greater spaciousness into our lives, and time for all of us to enjoy the feast of life.

//

Bolton Anthony, who founded Second Journey in 1999, has worked as a teacher of English and creative writing to undergraduates, a public librarian, a university administrator, and a social change activist. In 1998, he was privileged to lead a year-long community effort to solemnly commemorate the Wilmington (NC) coup and racial violence of 1898. He is the editor of Second Journeys: The Dance of Spirit in Later Life and the host of THE HEART’S DESIRE, a local film series now in its third season. He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife, Lisa.

Fierce With Age by Carol Orsborn

I’ve got an invitation for you that you won’t be able to refuse. It’s a multiyear, in-depth course that is designed to strip away your ego, confront you with ultimate questions about meaning and purpose, and give you the opportunity to come to terms with mortality while learning to appreciate the present moment.

It’s called aging.

If you are fortunate to live long enough, you won’t have a choice about whether or not you will be confronted with losses, challenges, and diminishments that accompany growing older. You will have the opportunity to choose whether you will become a victim of age or, alternately, transform aging into a spiritual path that at last offers the promise of fulfilling your true human potential.

When I refer to aging as a spiritual path, let me be clear. I’m not just talking about peace and serenity here. On the contrary, conscious elderhood demands a level of commitment that often seems to require more of us than we think we have to give. For starters, we need to fight the ageist images of growing older that we, ourselves, have internalized. We need to confront, grapple with, and ultimately transcend the dread and even revulsion that has sadly become the hallmark of the mainstream attitude about aging. Coupled with this, we must simultaneously resist the urge to romanticize or whitewash aging, defying an antiaging society’s denial of both the realities and promise that is the truth about growing old.

Central to this is questioning the myth of “serenity” as the chief characteristic and goal of what is known in the gerontology field as “successful aging.” To place serenity in its contemporary context, we need only trace its modern-day origins to the years following World War II. During the war, the young men went to battlefields around the world, leaving women and the elderly behind to keep the home front functioning. Older people and women worked the fields, ran the factories, and stepped up into leadership roles in every industry. At war’s end, it became their patriotic duty to step aside to make room for the returning warriors. In its place, Madison Avenue offered older folks the promise of romanticized suburbs, gated communities, and retirements of leisure — on the golf course or in a rocking chair. The “geezers” who resisted marginalization were portrayed as “eccentric” or “disloyal.” Serenity, in other words, was a way of marginalizing and dismissing older people. Serene people, after all, “make no trouble” and slip graciously out of sight and mind.

Of course, there is a place for serenity in our lives. But the mystics of many traditions have a much broader understanding of what it means to walk that spiritual path. While I have been a lifelong student of mystical and spiritual literature from a broad range of traditions, it wasn’t until I was personally confronted with my own aging and mortality that I transcended both the dread of growing older as well as romanticized fantasies of the future and replaced them with a more prophetic relationship to the divine. There are still times, of course, when I am quiet and peaceful. But I have learned that with six decades behind me, I am rabble-rousing more than ever. I am not above standing on the mountain top and shaking my fist at God, nor do I think there’s something wrong with me when I have sunk into the dark night of the soul. I have come to realize that as long as we keep growing, there will be anxious moments, regrets, and self-doubt. But there will be transiting, transforming, and overcoming, too. As a result, I have put being at peace farther down on the list of aspirations as I age. At the top is to be fully alive, no matter the consequences. This is the essence of what I refer to when I describe my current orientation towards life as having become “fierce with age.”

This knowledge was hard won for me. In my recent memoir, Fierce with Age: Chasing God and Squirrels in Brooklyn,¹ I recorded the ups and downs of a tumultuous year spent facing, busting, and ultimately triumphing over the stereotypes of aging. Having landed a yearlong project in New York too good to refuse, my husband Dan had enticed me away from my beloved cottage in a Los Angeles canyon to move to a high-rise apartment in Brooklyn. As the year unfolded, I nurtured a love-starved friend through a doomed affair with a younger man, dealt with my own physical and social changes, and sought to regain my passion for life at the side of my squirrel-crazed dog, Lucky. One of the most disconcerting challenges I faced was that in the process of transiting out of my comfort zone and into the wild space beyond midlife, I’d somehow forgotten who I was and how to restore my faith in life.

One moment, I’d been a smart, high-achieving spiritual woman at the peak of her game. The next moment, it was as if I had forgotten everything I’d learned over the course of my life. Shockingly out of control, I could not get things to go back the way they were, complete a grieving process, or martial my internal and external resources to greet a life-threatening diagnosis. Apparently, I had entered a new, prolonged life stage: one that our entire society — in an effort to trivialize the stage — either denies, reviles, or sentimentalizes. In short, I had become old.

I learned a lot about myself, aging, and life over the course of the year. And as our year in New York was coming to an end, once again surrounded by packing boxes, I found myself with my faith renewed. Because of everything I endured, I began this new phase of my life journey no longer ashamed or depleted about aging — curious and excited instead. While the contours of this wild terrain beyond midlife have not yet fully revealed themselves to me, I am clear that rather than experiencing myself at an ending, I have most definitively embarked upon something profoundly and unexpectedly new.

Happily, I am not alone. We have role models who hail from a broad range of religious and spiritual communities who are pointing the way. Here’s a wonderful quote from Henri Nouwen: “Aging is the gradual fulfillment of the life cycle in which receiving matures in giving and living makes dying worthwhile. Aging does not need to be hidden or denied, but can be understood, affirmed, and experienced as a process of growth by which the mystery of life is slowly revealed to us…The elderly are our prophets, they remind us that what we see so clearly in them is a process in which we all share.”²

John C. Robinson, in his illuminating The Three Secrets of Aging: A Radical Guide, asks, “What if people began to experience age-related changes in consciousness as essentially mystical in nature?”³ Harry R. Moody writes, “In the most profound mystical tradition, the way of transcendence entails at its highest point the ‘loss of the self.’”⁴ You will find prophetic assertions equating aging with fulfillment in writings of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Sister Joan Chittister, Buddhist priest Lewis Richmond, and many more.

I leaned heavily on these and many other pioneers of the conscious aging movement while I was in the heat of my own transition to the wild side of midlife. And in the months following, I felt called to draw upon all my skills as a scholar (with a doctorate in religion and masters of theological studies), teacher, spiritual counselor, and retreat leader to help others utilize their own psychological and spiritual resources to more fully re-vision what this age and stage of our lives can mean for us.

Central to the spiritual practice of aging is a common theme: letting go of the illusion of control. Of course, most of us prefer the notion that we are calling the shots in our lives, applying ourselves to making things turn out the way we want, and feeling that we have mastery over our circumstances. But, the daunting part about aging is this: Some and eventually all of our old tricks no longer work. We realize how much of our sense of mastery over our fates has always been limited, at best.

As it turns out, when viewed through the lens of psychological and spiritual maturity, this is a good thing, Virtually every spiritual and religious philosophy centers on the shattering of illusions — be it the Hebrews tearing down false idols or the Buddhists seeing through the maya of surface manifestation. When we strip away the impositions, the fantasies, and the denial, we begin to view aging as holding the potential for activation of new, unprecedented levels of self-affirmation, meaning, and spiritual growth.

As I said earlier, this psychologically and spiritually healthy vision of aging does not feel like serenity. The truth is, as long as we keep growing through life, there will be anxious moments, regrets, and self-doubt. But there will be transiting, transforming, and overcoming, too.

In place of the stereotypes of aging, this prophetic vision of aging beckons us to take into account both the light and the shadow side of growing old, neither romanticizing nor reviling the years beyond midlife. This is no small order. In fact, waking up to ultimate concerns while maintaining both a hopeful and realistic vision of the aging process requires a level of spiritual maturity that is a challenge to the best of us. But it is also the stripping away of illusion and a thinning of the veil between our ordinary lives and the divine. This is the essence of the mystical path: the promise of aging as the fulfillment of our true human potential. In fact, rather than dreading age, we have the opportunity to become fierce with age.

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The Opening Exercise

In answering the call to help others confront, face, and transcend the stereotypes of aging, I developed a retreat that I now take into churches, the aging community, and healthcare organizations. The retreat, which is also available in an online version, begins with a “wake-up” exercise. In this opening exercise, I begin by asking participants to consider their judgments of individuals their age and older. Here’s the exercise, for you to follow along.

So who do you think is an example of someone who is aging well — and someone who is aging badly? What I’d like you to do is make a separate list of characteristics for each of your examples. What adjectives, qualities, and characteristics best describe the essence of the individual you chose as someone who is aging well? On a separate list, what adjectives, qualities, and characteristics best describe the essence of the individual you chose who is aging badly?

The essence of this first lesson is this: The lists you came up with say as much about you as they do about the person you selected. The list that describes someone who is aging well gives you a vivid, concrete profile of the aspirations you hold in regards to aging. Not every adjective you put on the list may apply to you, but the list — as a whole — will provide you with interesting insights about yourself. The list that described someone who is aging badly also provides you with insight, but in this case you are provided a portal into what it is you most fear about aging: your concerns and your issues.

For the purposes of this exercise as an illustration of what it means to become fierce with age, we are going to be concentrating on mining the wisdom from your list of attributes for the individual who is aging well. So begin by taking a look at the list of adjectives, qualities, and characteristics you used to describe the individual who is aging well. To mine the lesson from this assignment, go ahead and circle every item on the list that is NOT necessarily dependent on one’s circumstances. As you circle the items that are not dependent on circumstances, keep in mind that the items you choose to circle will often require a judgment call on your part. For instance, we can probably agree that a person can have a great sense of humor more or less regardless of whatever else is going on in their lives. If you agree, you would go ahead and circle “great sense of humor.” Items like “resilient” and “has an optimistic attitude” would fall into this category.

Now let’s take another example: “Has a great job.” Having a great job is not always a matter of personal control. People get laid off or retire, companies merge, individuals develop a disability. Yes, we can do whatever we can to keep our jobs or make ourselves as employable as possible, but we cannot guarantee that we will have great jobs for the rest of our lives. I would suggest that you not circle this item.

How about “healthy” or “athletic”? Yes, we can influence our health and level of physical fitness — but we cannot guarantee that we will never develop an ailment or face some manner of physical challenge down the road. I would suggest that you NOT circle “healthy” or any of its variations. If you are confused or conflicted about any particular item, don’t circle it.

What you are left with is two buckets. In the first bucket are all the circled items: items that you admire and that you are clear are under your control to cultivate in yourself, regardless of the circumstances of your life now and down the road. In the second bucket are all the uncircled items that are certainly or potentially dependent on circumstances beyond your control.

Knowledge is power. Your original list provides you with a vivid and concrete picture of your aspirations for the future. Chances are you will have the good fortune of aging as graciously as the individual whom you have identified as aging well. You are way ahead of the game, knowing what it is you would like for yourself and using this as a spur to do whatever you can to make this vision your reality. But here’s something important to think about. The more uncircled items there are on your list, the more likely you are to be feeling unsettled about the future. If this is the case, it is because on some level you already suspect that you are placing faith in that which is ultimately undependable. Of course we should do whatever we can within our power to influence the circumstances of our lives, but there is a cost to denying that our power is limited. The good news is that once we break denial, we gain immediate access to the entire range of our abundant internal as well as external resources, to begin to build a spiritually and psychologically healthy vision of aging that can be counted upon to go the distance.

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Key Take-Away Message

A key take-away from this first exercise — and the foundation of the discipline of viewing aging as a spiritual practice — is that those of us who can grow large enough to embrace rather than deny the shadow side of aging can organically have what the eastern traditions call an “awakening.” We don’t need books to help us understand the transitory nature of life. We are living it.

If this were all there were to it, however, we’d all be mystics basking on the river bank of old age. We all know, however, that getting older does not necessarily guarantee spiritual attainment, wisdom, or even peace. Who hasn’t encountered bitter, cynical, or resigned individuals who see aging only in terms of what is being taken away from them? As I said earlier, the truth is that the aging process requires a level of ongoing spiritual commitment that is a challenge to the best of us.

By continuing to immerse myself in the conscious aging literature, practice, ritual, and conversation, most if not all the negative connotations of being old have dropped away for me. I have stopped seeing age as illness and imposition, and have begun seeing it as increased freedom and activation of new, unprecedented levels of self-affirmation and spiritual growth. So now, when I say “I’m old,” this represents the overthrowing of the stereotypes and the reclamation of the integrity of the fullness of life I now see as my God-given right. In fact, I am excited about exploring this new stage of life. This initiation of a fresh life stage bears with it the hallmarks of all the previous life stages combined: the high anticipation, the celebration, and the bold, outright terror. In other words, aging has become transformed into a spiritual path, not only a continuation but an acceleration of the journey towards fulfillment of the true human potential.

As I conclude in my memoir: “Plummet into aging, stare mortality in the eye, surrender everything and what else is there left to fear? The way is perilous, danger on all sides. But we can be part of a generation no longer afraid of age. We are becoming, instead, a generation fierce with age.”

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18 Spiritual Truths About Aging

1. Others’ rejection is your freedom.
2. You don’t always get to take a leap of faith. Sometimes, you are pushed.
3. You don’t have to be a victim of your circumstances. You can, instead, become a witness.
4. The more willing you are to tell the truth, the stronger foundation upon which to build.
5. The greatest gift you can give your adult children is to get on with living your own full life.
6. Ultimately, hope is more important than peace.
7. You can learn to dance with, rather than struggle against, the essence of who you are.
8. The past influences but does not determine the future.
9. When you are truly doing God’s work, you are not the judge of your success.
10. The breaking of denial, even when it initiates a period of pain, is the only path for which you yearn.
11. To be fully successful, you must first be fully alive.
12. The gift of longevity provides ample opportunity to not only grow old, but to grow whole.
13. Regret is God calling you to forgive more and love with fewer conditions.
14. Fulfilling the greater human potential includes taking risks.
15. The less of whom you think you used to be, the more room there is for God.
16. When confronted with ultimate concerns, it helps to be more curious than afraid.
17. You have never been better equipped than you are now to face life as it arises.
18. You can’t always stop the bad things from happening, but you can’t stop the good things, either.

Excerpt fromFierce with Age: Chasing God and Squirrels in Brooklyn.

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Notes

¹ Mettacenter.org.1 Carol Orsborn, Fierce with Age: Chasing God and Squirrels in Brooklyn (Turner Publishing Company, 2013).

² Henri J.M. Nouwen and Walter J. Gaffney, Aging: The Fulfillment of Life(Image, 1976).

³ John C. Robinson, The Three Secrets of Aging: A Radical Guide (John Hunt Publishing, 2012).

⁴ Harry R. Moody, “Conscious Aging: A New Level of Growth in Later Life.”

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Carol Orsborn, Ph.D., is Founder of FierceWithAge, the free monthly Digest of Boomer Wisdom, Inspiration and Spirituality. Carol, who earned her doctorate in religion from Vanderbilt University, is the best-selling author of 30 books, including The Spirituality of Age: A Seeker’s Guide to Growing Older (co-author Dr. Robert L. Weber), winner of gold in the category of Consciously Aging, Nautilus Book Awards 2015. Carol’s blog — Older, Wiser, Fiercer — is available at CarolOrsborn.com.

Plunging Inward for the Giving Words by Ellen B. Ryan

Old age brings change, more losses than gains, and an increasing awareness of death. Older adults can follow a path of growth in wisdom and compassion, or we can stagnate in isolation and despair.

One spiritual call in later life is to review our lives, seeking wisdom and a sense of wholeness. Another is to contribute to our world, especially to younger and future generations.

Writing can help us to clarify and meet these challenges. Writing is a spiritual practice through which we can contemplate, listen for quiet insights, be drawn to a sense of purpose, and engage in mindful service.

Current models of vital aging focus on healthy eating, physical exercise, mental exercise, adapting to losses, incorporating gains related to life experience, and engaging with life. The inner work of spirituality deepens our motivation to take on these responsibilities. Studies of centenarians highlight characteristics such as faith, hard work, family values, resilience, sidestepping adversity, and a sense of humor. We can develop motivation to live all the days of our lives by creating meaning at various life stages from active post-retirement to frailty and finally to dying.

Journaling, writing for ourselves, can be central to spiritual practice in later life, a vehicle for reflection and prayer. In addition, some men and women may choose to write as part of their service to others. Here I will tell my own story to illustrate the importance of writing in later life, both for personal development and for contributing to society. The possibilities are endless, unique for each person responding to the invitation to write regularly.

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It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper understanding.

—  Vincent Van Gogh

You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours.

—   Florida Scott-Maxwell

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Writing and Inner Work

I began keeping a journal while recovering from a car accident some years ago. Double vision and vertigo limited my ability to work and left me adrift. I could read for only brief periods, usually with enlarged font and text-to-speech computer adaptations. For pleasure reading I learned to listen to talking books. I felt especially cut off because I found myself physically uncomfortable in church for liturgy and could not do my accustomed spiritual reading.

My academic writing projects stalled. I was plagued by a recurring nightmare in which I searched madly for words while getting lost in a huge field of sunflowers. I could no longer spread papers out to consult while I wrote. Now I had to delegate reading and writing tasks to colleagues and students.

A friend introduced me to Julia Cameron’s morning pages from The Artist’s Way — write three pages each morning on any topic, just keep the pen moving. At first I wrote with big colored markers on every other line. Later my eyes allowed me to write more normally with a fine-tip marker in a spiral notebook. Soon writing and thinking with the journal became my way of organizing each day as well as contemplating my life.

At first the pages filled with all sorts of complaints. Gradually, some perspective emerged. I began to write about how my situation could be worse, about all the supports I enjoyed, and the potential for learning valuable lessons through these experiences. Unable to pray much at the time, I began to listen during my writing sessions for spiritual insights — and the more I listened the calmer and more trusting I became. My enforced solitude and quiet non-reading life became a gift of time for my journal — paying more and more attention to the moment, nature, myself, and other people.

After a while I could read a couple of pages a day. These were selected from books increasingly well-chosen for their readable fonts and stimulus for contemplation. I scribbled away, reflecting on the few printed words I had managed to absorb and their applications to my current life, to my life as part of humanity, to all life on earth. I learned later that reading in small doses followed by reflection has a long spiritual tradition — “lectio divina.” Through this process, I faced my feelings, counted my blessings daily, and asked myself more and more fundamental questions. As Doris Gumbach wrote in her late-life memoir, “Keeping a journal thins my skin. I feel open to everything, aware, charged by the acquisition of intensity.”

Since then, journaling about other spiritual practices after each episode — prayer, liturgy, long walks, physical exercise, church groups, meditation, volunteer work — has deepened and supported these disciplines over the long term.

Life review is central to personal growth in later life. Writing regularly about the highs and lows of our lives — past, present, and possible futures — can lead us through the inner work needed to claim that life, that evolving self. Looking at ourselves in this manner gives us a foundation for reaching out to others. As I continued to dig for memory treasure in my life story, I became more aware of the Author of life.

Through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, I discovered that writing exercises would take me repeatedly into life review. Stirring my imagination and heart, these starters move my pen ahead of my thinking mind. I started to incorporate sensory details, metaphor, and word play. Kathleen Adams’ Journal to the Self offered enticing suggestions about making lists (e.g., where I would like to travel, my favorite celebrations), writing letters (to be sent or not), and composing dialogues between myself and another (e.g., mentor/parent, God, nature, a specific author or an inanimate object).

After months of journaling and using writing exercises, a half-waking dream made clear to me that I should learn to write poetry. During the dream I realized how well poetry would fit with my ongoing reading and writing impairments — just a few words, with plenty of white space. I awoke from the dream calmly confident that I would be able to say what I needed to say through this unfamiliar medium.

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The Road Now

Retiring from paid work
I stop to see where I am

follow the echoes
of projects heralded
for grit and wit

touch the ribbed weave
of disciplines colourful
in their crossing

sniff the ricochet
of novel thoughts
tearing through
tough peels
of assumptions

taste the chocolate cherry joy
of collaborations where
three minds surpass
possibility

What road now
worth the pilgrimage

— Ellen B. Ryan

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Not knowing how to proceed, I wrote about the dream in my journal, and realized it would be wise to take a course. Ironically, the course I chose did not involve the anticipated lectures. Participants were expected to bring 15 copies of their poem to a workshop for critiques by group members and by the leader/poet. Instead of learning about iambic pentameter and poetry of the ages, I was soon writing for the group’s gentle critique. My entry into creative expression with the mutual support of a writing group was exhilarating.

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The Day Dad Died

Someone making coffee, lists,
phone calls.

Yesterday’s completed crossword puzzle
beside library books marked in progress;
jars of crab apple jelly on the counter,
varied hues of first-time experimenting.

Garden grey in November bleak,
plants shrunken into earth, yet
on the anniversary rosebush, barren all summer,
two yellow blooms.

— Ellen B. Ryan

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My experience of writing poetry has been spiritual. I write in my journal, participate in a writing group, use writing exercises, pay close attention to nature and people, make lists of images and startling words, and listen for the muse. Creating a small database of colorful verbs (e.g., juxtapose, catapult, scrounge, trumpet) has been a special delight. Yet, when a poem begins to emerge, it comes as a gift of words from God. For me, creativity is both listening prayer and expressive prayer. Once I have the initial skeleton of a poem, I am learning strategies to craft ever better final versions. Stretching myself in this new creativity is nourishing. Some of my poems appear in this book.

Writing is an act of discovery. The regular discipline of journaling stret­ches the spirit and opens my mind, reduces my fears to mere words, and highlights my blessings. Through journaling, I return repeatedly to basic questions of identity and to basic values, especially awe, gratitude, and love.

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I wanted to choose words that even you would have to be changed by.

—   Adrienne Rich

  Words lead to deeds … They prepare the soul, make it ready, and move it to tenderness.

—   St. Teresa of Avila

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Writing as Service

Writing can become a calling, central to how we choose to age with spirit. Journaling usually combines inner reflection with decisions for action — in the domain of writing and beyond.

Once the inner work progresses, we may wish to express our social voices. This can start with more thoughtful letters to family and friends, may extend to letters to the editor or newsletter/Web site contributions. Personal writing can progress into memoir, history, essay, poetry, and fiction to share with friends and relatives or to publish in magazines, Web sites, and books.

When I took early retirement, I deliberated at length in the journal about my post-retirement calling. Over time, I developed the goal to learn new kinds of writing. I had already begun to address storytelling and storywriting of elders in my academic research, partly because I could no longer focus on my usual complex analyses. Partly, however, this was a natural late-career shift from the theory underlying problematic communication with frail elders to application: how to facilitate mutually rewarding communication.

Eventually, I identified my passion for these years: “writing to learn, teach, and inspire others.” I am committed to improving my poetic skills and to submitting poems regularly, if sparingly, for publication. I edit the Writing Down Our Years series of inexpensive publications highlighting the writing of older adults, especially memoirs, grandparent–grandchild stories, caregiving stories, and poetry. I offer writing workshops and initiate writing groups.

With colleagues and students, I continue to explore creative ways to elicit and write down the stories and poems of elders who are physically and/or cognitively frail. My writing for professionals fosters enthusiasm for hearing, reading, and eliciting such stories. Finally, I host a Web site on Writing, Aging and Spirit for a broad audience of older adults and aging professionals to foster hope and connections through story.

When we write as service, we can be entertainer, chronicler, historian, social commentator, educator, advocate, and/or activist.

In conclusion, writing is working as a spiritual practice when it enriches our sense of self in community and invigorates our service to others.

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Now I Notice Sea Shells

Age ten I charge surf at high tide
leap with thunder and roll
hours in swarming-cousins heat
Set aglide by curl of longed-for wave
I yearn for next year stronger, faster
Conch shell calls, horizon beckons

Age sixty I wade along low-tide beach
pants rolled up, jacketed for off-season cool
Seagulls and sandpipers scurry ahead
Pelicans swoop, sunset shadows stretch
colours shifting as sky reflections ebb
Conch shell woos me deep inside

— Ellen B. Ryan

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Ellen B. Ryan is Professor Emeritus at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Her psychological research demonstrates how empowering communication fosters personhood and aging with spirit. She has created the Writing Down Our Years Series of publications to highlight the many ways in which writing life stories can benefit older adults and those with whom they share their stories and poems. She is co-editor of the anthology Celebrating Poets Over 70 and webhost of the blog/website on Writing Aging and Spirit: www.writingdownouryears.ca.

Releasing the Past by Ron Pevny

The journey into a conscious elderhood is one that very much involves recognizing and dealing with both dying and living, ending and beginning. In the journey we recognize that these powerful dynamics are intimately woven together, as we concurrently prepare for two endings and two beginnings. Both physical death and the passage into conscious elderhood are, for the psyche, a death to an old way of being. And they are both doorways into new chapters in life’s journey of growth.

One of the core tenets of conscious or spiritual eldering (two names for the same transformative inner work) is that the work that prepares us to be at peace as we leave this life is the same work that prepares us to become conscious elders. It involves healing our past and leaving behind our self-identification with our previous life stage. Once done, we can move without encumbrance into the mysterious next chapter that awaits us.

Whenever we reflect on our mortality, death, and what may follow, most everyone hopes to die in peace. We want to be able to feel that our lives have been well lived, that we have done our best to use our gifts, that we have loved and been loved, and that we can let go of this life with grace and without regret. In her poem, “When Death Comes,” the poet Mary Oliver, captures this desire exquisitely:

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.1

Yet, many people do not die “frightened or full of argument.” Colleagues, friends, and participants in our Choosing Conscious Elderhood retreats who work with hospice all say that those who die the most peaceful deaths are those who come to their deathbeds unburdened by a lifetime’s accumulation of resentments, regrets, dysfunctional relationships, unhealed grief, and closed hearts. Besides manifesting as emotional turmoil, such unfinished business often results in prolonged physical agony while the dying person clings to a life that feels incomplete and unfulfilled. Often the greatest gift that hospice spiritual directors give to those in their charge is help dealing with unfinished business so that the patients can let go of this life with hearts that are more open to love and peace.

A practice called The Death Lodge draws upon powerful imagery to bring together various aspects of the inner work of healing the past. Because the work of this practice feels so very freeing and enlivening, some of our retreat participants prefer to also call it The Life Lodge. Choose whatever name you prefer.

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The Death Lodge Tradition

I first learned about the Death Lodge many years ago from my teachers Steven Foster and Meredith Little, the pioneers in the modern rite-of-passage movement. Their book on vision questing, The Roaring of the Sacred River, describes the Death Lodge as “a little house away from the village where people go when they want to tell everyone they are ready to die.”¹ Foster and Little attribute the Death Lodge concept to the Cheyenne tribe of the Native Americans of the Plains. To begin to understand the power of this practice, imagine you are an indigenous person who has grown old and weary of this life and knows your death is near. You attend to those practical matters that need to be done at the end of your life such as passing on your belongings. Then you leave village life behind to enter a special place, the Death Lodge, where you will focus on reviewing your life, repairing or completing your relationships, and preparing to move from this life into the mystery beyond.

In the Death Lodge you remember the important events, dynamics, and people of your life. Situations may look very different from the perspective of your approaching death than they did at the time they happened. You reflect on how you have used your gifts. You acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses, and forgive yourself for the harm you have done to others. You explore your relationship with the Great Spirit, throughout your life and now particularly at this point of nearing your passage into the great unknown. Then, when the time feels right, you invite those in your village who have played important roles in your life to come visit you, one at a time. This is the time for bringing your relationships to completion. You and each of your visitors do whatever needs to be done so that your relationship feels complete, with no unfinished business. Now, with death approaching, the dynamics of these relationships may appear quite different than previously. You thank and honor each other for the role you have played in each other’s lives, and you say goodbye. Once this work is complete, you are at peace with your life, your community, and your God and are ready to move into the world of spirit.

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The Death Lodge Practice as a Rite of Passage

We obviously live in a very different world than the indigenous societies where the death that happens at life’s major passages is acknowledged and honored as part of the cycle of life and is consciously prepared for. Our modern world has few, if any, true rites of passage that require a conscious death to our old sense of self as a prerequisite for moving into life’s next stage. However, deep inside each of us is an indigenous self that remembers that nature’s cycles of life and death, with death being necessary for new life, are also the cycles of our lives. Conscious eldering is very much a process of becoming conscious of these rhythms as they operate in us, making way for the birth of new possibility when we begin to leave midlife adulthood. I believe that one reason the Death Lodge practice resonates so deeply with our retreat participants is that its imagery taps into that wisdom in us that knows about how to align ourselves with the cycle of life and death.

The following is my recommendation for how you can employ the Death Lodge as work to support your passage into a conscious elderhood. By doing so, you will also keep your inner work up to date as you draw ever nearer to life’s final passage. First, be aware that Death Lodge work is not something you do one time and then it’s complete. It is best viewed as a practice that you periodically revisit as part of your commitment to your inner growth. I encourage you to view Death Lodge work as a sacred ritual done with care and intention. If possible, do it outside in a natural place that will help align you with nature’s cycles. Give yourself enough time to do focused inner work without distraction. Ideally, find a small area that has the feel of an enclosed little house or lodge, such as a spot in a grove of trees or a cave-like space amid rocks or under overhanging bushes.

Before you enter, offer a prayer or state an intention that the sacred, however you name it, be with you supporting and guiding your work. You might bless and purify your Lodge with incense or bring in some flowers. Be sure to bring along your journal and perhaps an object that you consider sacred. This work is most profound if you approach it imagining, as best you can, that you have only a few weeks left to live and that you are indeed preparing to die. You never know. That may indeed be the case.

Once inside your Death Lodge, be quiet and wait to see what type of life-completion/life-healing work feels most alive for you. Are you aware of a painful experience that needs to be examined, felt more deeply, and reframed so you can understand how it contributed previously, or can now contribute, to your growth? Are there regrets that disempower you and diminish your sense of self-worth and the worth of your life? If so, how can you change the way you relate to these regrets? Are there experiences of joy or accomplishment you want to spend time reliving — and perhaps reviewing as a way to remember your strengths and gifts? What is the state of your relationship with the Spirit (however you name it) that is your source and essence? You might want to spend time focused on gratitude for all of the incredible journey that is your life.

For many people, the most important work of the Death Lodge involves bringing healing and completion to relationships. In your Lodge you have the opportunity to spend time, in spirit, with people who have been significant in your life. What needs to be said to bring completion and, if needed, healing to each particular relationship? What need is there to forgive, and are you willing to do so? What contribution has the other made to your life and growth that needs to be acknowledged? How can you best honor the other before you say goodbye?

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Who to Invite for Relationship Completion

There are several different possibilities for who you can invite into your Death Lodge (and sometimes you may find someone knocking at the door without an invitation — a clear indication that they belong there).

• You can become aware of others who are alive, with whom healing needs to happen, and with whom a face-to-face conversation is possible if you make the effort. You can use the Death Lodge to practice what you will say to them and to make the commitment to try your best to meet with them in person.

• You can invite others who are alive but with whom a face-to-face meeting is an impossibility for whatever reasons. Picture them in your Lodge with you and imagine yourself talking to their spirits — to the best in them — saying what you need to say and hearing their response. Using your journal for such conversations can help make this process more tangible. The Gestalt process of moving back and forth from one seat to another is also helpful for some people.

• You can invite people who have died with whom you have never had or you missed the opportunity to share what’s in your heart. Does grief need to be expressed? Anger? Gratitude? Forgiveness? A request for forgiveness? Again, speak to their spirit and imagine what that wise, loving essence in them has to say to you. If you cannot connect with a sense of what their spirit has to say, only remembering their personality selves which may have been hurtful to you, that’s OK. Speak the truth of your heart, doing your best to recognize and honor their role in your growth while acknowledging the pain they may have caused you.

• For many people, the most important and difficult Death Lodge work is the work of forgiving and honoring themselves — or, to be more precise, those parts of themselves that have made errors and poor decisions, have hurt others, are weak, are imperfect. Nothing is more disempowering — closing our hearts and filling us with conflict — than self-loathing. Here we have the opportunity to forgive these parts of ourselves for their weakness and to thank them for what they have taught us about our shadows and our values. From the perspective of our conscious and aware selves we can dialogue with and extend love to these parts of us (using our journal can be very helpful) with the goal of reintegrating disowned aspects of ourselves. The more we do so, the more whole we become.

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A Retreat Participant’s Healing Experience

I have been privileged to hear from retreat participants many stories about their use of the Death Lodge, on retreat and as a regular practice in their lives. I’d like to close by sharing the deeply transformative Death Lodge experience of Annette, as related in her own words.

There was a moment in time that excruciatingly split my life into the “before” and “after” — a recalibration of time that set that moment as the moment relative to which all prior and subsequent events are now remembered. The zero on my X-axis of time: June 17, 1999.

The phone rang. A voice said, “Molly has shot herself.” She had been at her father’s house. In a blur of events I found myself at the emergency room hearing a physician say the words. She is dead. She was 15. My daughter was brilliant, beautiful, happy, precious, and so very loved by so many people. So loved by me. A moment of drama over a boy, an argument with her father, an available loaded pistol, and she gave up every sweetly anticipated experience of growing into adulthood on this earth.

My son, my living daughter, and I lived in a stunned and painful silence, patient and tolerant of each other’s process in grief, absorbing our new reality. A woman from the funeral home brought me a small velvet bag with Molly’s jewelry: a watch that I had bought her, a silver butterfly pendant on a chain (the symbol of her closest girlfriends), and silver earrings. She had worn these when she died. The velvet bag held these precious objects. I held it for many months.

Four years later, around Thanksgiving, I began to feel human, and my son and I remarked that we were smiling.

Twelve years later, a colleague sent me a link to a retreat on conscious eldering, to be held at a small retreat center near Mt. Shasta. I was put off by the rude suggestion that I might be aging and that I might need to deal with it in a thoughtful way — a clear sign that I needed to go. We were to bring to the retreat significant objects from our lives to create an altar, objects that we felt identified us in some way. The thought of Molly, ever present, kept a lump in my throat and the sorrow just slightly beneath the surface. Suicide is different from any other death. There is a stigma. It is impossible to explain, but only other parents of children who have taken their own lives seem to understand the complexity. I took a photo of Molly.

My conscious eldering cohorts were loving, gentle, and experienced in a variety of ways, each bringing a rich perspective to life and life’s cycle. I was prepared for my day of solitude and fasting on the mountain, and content as I approached my little sanctuary of solitude. The snow had melted enough to leave patches of dry earth, on which grew burgeoning wild grasses and plants pushing their way to the sun. I sprawled on my back to watch the clouds and feel the mountain. It felt safe. It was beautiful. I spoke to a bee. I explored. I came across a circle of stones that had been laid around a small pit, an indention in the earth as if scooped out to form a bowl. This place, previously created for some sacred moment in another’s life, became my Death Lodge. Shasta offered the perfect blending of death and renewal. Felled trees, rotting where they landed, created swells in the landscape, changing the flow of runoff, adjusting the topography, forever changing the landscape by their death. How perfect. The beauty and symmetry of life amidst decomposition prepared me for my Death Lodge work.

It felt odd, speaking aloud to my deceased family members — grandparents, aunts and uncles, and friends who were so dear. There were many with whom I shared this moment, saving Molly for last. I spoke to my friend, Ann, who had promised as she lay dying that she would find Molly and let me know, if there was any way possible, that she was okay. In my Death Lodge I loved talking to Ann about what she had meant to me in life and in death.

Then came my friend Bob, who had shared his death from pancreatic cancer with me just nine months before. His friendship was transforming. A few months before his death, I had been seated next to him in a pew at 18-year-old Brian’s memorial service, with the strange understanding that his service would be next. Bob’s remarks had been profound: “How perfect. Brian was in a perfect place in his life. Why do we get hung up in the idea that more is better?”

Bob’s death a few months later was intimate and tender, filled with grace and love, as he denied fear with the words, “Why would I be afraid when I get to fall asleep, relieved of pain, and awaken staring into the eyes of my God?” I spoke to Bob in my Death Lodge. I thanked him for taking me with him down that path of transforming fear, as far as I could go. He gave me, in his death, the ability to see life more clearly. All those who were present for me in my Death Lodge had all felt receptive to my gratitude and amends. Now I was ready to speak to Molly.

For the first time in 12 years, I felt her presence. I spoke to her, and then with her, about my love for her, my horror at her death, and my struggle with the permanence of her choice. I wanted, yearned, for her to have lived out her life — to have survived that painful moment and to experience all that life has to offer — and to find the peace and joy that come from maturity and self-acceptance. I wanted just once more to hear the sound of her voice. I wanted her as the receptacle for immense love and devotion that had welled in my heart with no place to go for so many years. I asked forgiveness, for what I do not know. I told her that if I had hurt her, I no longer remembered having done so and wanted her to know that I had to quit trying to figure it out. She understood. I then heard Bob’s words: “Why do we dwell on the thought that more is better?” Indeed. I had lived for 15 years with this precious, clever, beautiful, spontaneous, loving child in delight and yet spent almost all of the following 12 years in pain over her death rather than in awe of her life and the gift of her creation in my body and birth into my family. I felt the weight lift in an instant. Tears rolling down my cheek, I pledged to honor her by living in gratitude for her life rather than in misery over her death.

Then, a butterfly appeared from the trees and fluttered through the death lodge, encircling my head and gracing me with its beauty. As she flew away, I said, “No, come back!” and then caught myself in a smile, chuckling at my own compulsion to want more. From that day, I have loved Molly in joy more than sorrow. My tears are now of gratitude. I miss her terribly. I am so fortunate to have had her in my life.

//

Notes

¹ Steven Foster and Meredith Little, The Roaring of the Sacred River(New York: Prentice Hall, 1989), p.34.

//

Ron Pevny, M.A., has for forty years been dedicated to assisting people in negotiating life transitions as they create lives of purpose and passion. He is Founding Director of the Center for Conscious Eldering, based in Durango, Colorado. He is also a Certified Sage-ing® Leader, was the creator and administrator of the twelve-organization Conscious Aging Alliance, and has served as the host/interviewer for the 2015, 2016 and 2017 Transforming Aging Summits presented by The Shift Network. He is author of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging: embrace and savor your next chapter,published in 2014 by Beyond Words/Atria Books. Ron has presented many conscious eldering programs at Ghost Ranch and other retreat centers around North America over the past fifteen years.

Earth Elder Initiation by Randy Morris

with Frost Freeman

The time is ripe for elders to reclaim their rightful role of speaking for Earth and future generations.

— Fred Lanphear

A revolution of elders is taking place. Older people are accepting the responsibility to gather together in council and community to consider new visions for the role of elder in our culture. As conscious elders, some are choosing to step into this role by preparing themselves psychologically and spiritually through a rite of passage ceremony into elderhood. Of course, in past ages, elder initiation ceremonies were woven into the fabric of the culture, but in our current mainstream culture, we have lost the thread of these ceremonies. How can we revive the tradition of elder initiation in a culture that has forgotten its roots?

In past ages, new elders were chosen by initiated elders to undergo a rite of passage. But in a culture with few initiated elders, how does one get chosen? According to the principles of conscious eldering, a person of a certain age must choose to “heed the call” to eldership. This call is archetypal in nature; it springs from the instinctual, animal body of a human being who is in touch with themselves and with a “sacred other.” It can be discerned in dreams, visions, strong emotions of grief and joy, synchronicities, epiphanies, and other manifestations of the unconscious, what the great ecotheologian Thomas Berry called the “spontaneities” of the earth. To be able to perceive this call and respond to it requires that one be conscious of the very possibility of a “sacred other” and attentive to the voices of the more-than-human world. To be conscious in this way is to be spiritual, because it requires the ability to perceive, through heart-based capacities of intuition and feeling, the will of “unseen powers” at work both within the human psyche and the earth itself. This is one reason that conscious aging encourages encounters with the natural world where silence, solitude, and reflection open one’s soul to the voices of the earth. In principle, the ability to perceive the call to elderhood is the birthright of every human being who is consciously engaging the life cycle with integrity and meaning.

To become a conscious elder requires that one experience a calling. But then what? How does one answer the call? Here is where the importance of modern elder initiation ceremonies becomes apparent. Initiation ceremonies are transformative rituals that have the power to reorient the individual will around a new set of values. While there are many different sets of values around which any elder initiation may be organized, an Earth Elder initiation espouses three specific values.

First, an Earth Elder recognizes that we are living in the time of a “Great Turning” when the future of the planet is in peril and human beings are called to serve the life-affirming powers of the earth. As Thomas Berry said, “The glory of the human has become the desolation of the earth; the desolation of the earth has become the destiny of the human.” An Earth Elder is able to recognize the role that his or her own destiny is to play in the larger destiny of the human species.

Second, Earth Elders are aware of the “Universe Story” that tells of a new cosmological origin myth, beginning with the great “flaring forth” and evolving through the eons of life on earth to produce the unique gift of human consciousness. One implication of this new story is that human beings are now cocreators in the ongoing development of life on this planet. Without the cooperation of human beings, the trajectory of life on this planet will be tragically altered.

A third value of Earth Elders is a profound awareness of the “partnership of generations” that exists among the spirits of ancestors who have come before us, human beings who are alive in the present and the spirits of those generations yet to be born, generations who are counting on those of us who are alive today to make their lives possible. The capacity to experience the yearning of future generations requires a sensitivity to what the Gaian teacher Joanna Macy calls “deep time.” These three values — the Great Turning, the Universe Story, and the Partnership of Generations — provide the core images around which an Earth Elder initiation is organized.

So what does an Earth Elder initiation look like? I am reminded of a principle of ritual spoken to me many years ago by another mentor, Stan Crow. He said, “ We’re going to do this ritual the same way they’ve been doing it for ten thousand years: We’re going to make it up as we go along!” Of course, there are certain principles of ritual design that exist in every ceremony. There is the moment of separation in which we depart from the everyday world and step into another world characterized by imagination and longing. In this liminal space, various ritual gestures are made to assist the initiate in their encounter with sacred powers. And then the initiate returns to the everyday world with an elixir or gift to share with their community, thus encouraging the community to embrace new life. Having witnessed several Earth Elder initiations, and in the interests of encouraging many, many more, I would like to describe one such initiation ritual that took place recently in my community.

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An Earth Elder Initiation

Separation¹ — Frost is a 65-year-old woman who has lived a rich life of service in her community. Among her many activities, she serves as an elder for youth participants who return from a vision quest. She listens attentively to their stories and mirrors to them the rich messages contained in their experience. Last year she experienced a “call” to undergo an Earth Elder initiation. At first, she resisted this call. It was just too much attention to call to herself. Who was she to declare herself an Earth Elder? In this early stage of her initiatory process, she experienced a great deal of “ritual tension,” a sure sign that she was on the right path. She writes in her journal:

Mid-June: For 12 hours I’ve been looking out at the bay and where it meets the inlet, sitting in a driftwood-and-old-curtain sun shelter. I could say I am preparing for my coming elderhood initiation/ celebration, but I could also say I don’t know what I’m doing. I brought things to write and draw, and a couple fruit jars of water. I thought I’d do a lot of uninterrupted thinking and writing. It’s been more like uninterrupted not-thinking. I’m amazed I can not-think for so long, and hope it’s a positive sign. I was here at first light, watched the shadows turn, as if I’m sitting in a sundial, and now the sun and the western mountains are getting closer together. Suddenly the shelter falls apart around me. Well, I guess that’s a sign! I pack up and go home. Next day I am full of energy.

Late June: Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. I keep alternating my gladness and excitement about this coming event with dread and anxiety. Fear seems to have a full closet of guises. These are the two that keep coming up so hard. My heart beats harder, my eyes close with dread. Will this be too “out there”? Will some old friends never … Should I be doing this in front of virtually everybody I know and love? Sometimes it doubles me over. Later, another aspect surfaces: I am dying to who I have been, and am becoming not someone else, but another version of my true self. Oddly enough, knowing that leaves me calmer than the other fears. Still, the ego who rents out part of my mind is freaking out about it, “reasoning” with me while fanning the flames of the dread and anxiety. Back and forth, back and forth…

But after a deep conversation with a friend who reminded her that she was not doing this ceremony for herself alone, but for the sake of her whole community and the earth, she felt encouraged. Just after that talk, she took a walk in a nearby city park during which she encountered two owls in a cedar tree in the middle of the day, a very rare natural event that made her feel that her calling to become an Earth Elder was being blessed by the more-than-human world. She called together a group of friends to form a “wisdom circle” to help her design her ceremony, and she committed to a date in August for her Earth Elder Initiation. She writes:

Late July: I have been going through every photograph I own, and there are thousands. Some are for the 20-minute slide presentation of the path my life has gone; the rest will be for displaying in a special place for the celebration: other lifetime photos, ancestor pictures, teachers who have been important to me. Velda has offered to make me a garment to wear for it. I don’t know what it will be like. The circle of friends who are putting their time and hearts into bringing all this about let me know that I’m not in charge of it now, and that I will not know everything that’s going to happen. Randy and I have lunch and spend a lot of time talking about all this: fears, practicalities, being between two worlds, what being an elder might mean, how this event will affect other people besides myself… We walk in the park and find two owls, in full daylight, sitting about 6 feet above us. They spend quite a long time with us. You can only feel grateful for that, and things that go beyond words.

Early August: My “wisdom circle” meets. They give me tasks to do for the coming day. One is to be able to state my intentions for the rest of my life; in a few words, not goals, but guiding intentions. Second, to decide on three things that I would be willing to let go of once I cross the threshold of elderhood, and to make some artistic representation of each one that can then be burnt, buried, torn, etc. and to recognize what could emerge in their stead. Third, once I have crossed the threshold and been accepted into the elder circle, to have some words to say — wisdom that I’d like to share from my new place. It feels good to have some direction.

Day Before, August 24: I have everything ready. When I look out the window in the 6 a.m. fog, a coyote scents the air. Oh man! What does this mean? It turns and goes the way it has come and slips into the woods. Several of us are at the Garden Club early, to start decorating. Sara and Zhalee work long, hard, and sincerely, and Roseanna helps with the baby and more ideas. I am again so touched by what all are putting into this. Velda brings my dress. It’s beautiful! Full of greens, silk and cotton, with hand-beaded neck and moonstones sewn along a crocheted cord “path” in front. My son arrives from Minnesota, bringing his cousins from Seattle, Raksha and Sarah. Raksha draws out a henna design she has made for me, onto my arms and hands. I love having them overnight.

Morning of: The youngers go to help decorate some more, and will stay there. I am alone. Suddenly all the fear comes up again in a slightly different guise; the dread has been mostly gone for a couple weeks; this is sheer physical fear, fizzy bloodstream, dizzy legs, breathing not matching heartbeat any more. I do what I can. Velda returns, and helps. We go.

//

Initiation² — Frost’s initiation ceremony took place in a beautiful rustic setting: a garden club meeting room that had been decorated with flowers and filled with pictures and artifacts of her life. She invited about 40 friends and family members, most of whom had no idea what an elder initiation was. The “wisdom circle” that helped Frost design the ceremony made sure that there was an element of surprise in the ritual. Frost knew that the program would begin with an invocation of the spirits of the seven directions and various blessings by her community members. She knew she would tell her life story in a 20-minute slide show, describing how the key turning points in her life could be re-mythologized as preparation for her elderhood. And she knew that after a closing song, she and all of the guests would retire outside, while the wisdom circle members would rearrange the room for the heart of the initiation ceremony. Frost was asked to prepare in advance three ritual gestures. First, she was asked to be able to state in concise terms her intentions for becoming an elder. Second, she was asked to create symbols for three things she was prepared to lay down and sacrifice before she entered the elder circle. Furthermore, she was asked to be able to name the new gift she would be able to pick up in the vacuum created by her sacrifice. And third, she was asked to prepare an “elder speech” that she would address to her community upon her recognition as an Earth Elder. The rest of the ceremony was meant to be a mystery to her, so that the spontaneities of her mythic consciousness could be invoked.

When members of the community were called back to the room, it had been arranged as a spiral leading to an archway. On the other side of the arch were six chairs for six elders — three women and three men. Each member of the community was asked to write down the date of their first encounter with Frost and to arrange themselves in chronological order along the spiral. Once this spiral was complete, the ritual began with the six elders speaking out loud amongst themselves, wondering who they would need to call from the spirit world to assist in the initiation of this Earth Elder. They decided that they would need Crone, the third member of the sacred manifestation of the Great Mother — Maiden, Mother, and Crone. And so they called for Crone to enter, and there she was, dressed in diaphanous blue robes, ready to be of service. The elders consulted themselves again and agreed that they would need to call on the spirit of Death itself to be present, since the awareness of death is so integral to the wisdom of an Earth Elder. So they called on Death, and out of an adjoining room swept a dark figure in black robes, rhythmically swaying and ready to join the ritual. With the scene set, the elders called out to Frost, and through the windows we could see her striding up to the door, resplendent in her ritual clothes and ready to enter the room. In Frost’s own words:

Zhalee comes outside to conduct me to the doorway. This is what I see. Heavy rope forms a spiral path to the center, where a threshold stands, on the other side of which are seated six elders. The room is dim, lit by candles and twilight. All guests are seated along this path, in the order in which they met me in my life. The Crone meets me at the door, and by this time, I’m not thinking, remembering, or relating. Death is crouched on the other side of the door. They say things. We are all in Someplace Else now, a place between two worlds. If I answer, or move, it’s from a much older or more timeless aspect of me. My day-to-day self is not there. I am asked my intentions, and speak them: aliveness; to increase my skills of mind, heart, and spirit; to make myself more visible as a mentor, teacher, counselor; and to invest in my curiosity. I have a basket and am invited to move along the spiral path toward the threshold of elderhood. As I go past my loved ones, they put into the basket notes of encouragement, thanks, blessing. Finally, at the threshold, I am asked what three things I am willing to leave behind.

For the past few months, ever since she was given this assignment by her wisdom circle, Frost had been thinking about what three things she would lay down, and what she would pick up. For each sacrifice, she created a handmade artistic representation. Here is what she said:

1. I let go of leftover SELF CRITICISM, even to condemnation. I know ways to do this, and as I do, the container that held the destructive is transformed to a container that holds the constructive: a power, a medicine bag that I now have the right to wear, for a lighter, more effective energy.

2. I let go of the belief that visible is vulnerable, INVISIBLE is invulnerable. This notion works well as a tool in the bag, but not as a way of being. I’m willing to be visible more often, and in contact with the world.

3. I let go of too much ALONENESS. I can offer great friendship and still maintain healthy boundaries, uncover seeds of new growth.

Once she lay down these three encumbrances and picked up their medicine, Death stepped forward and blessed them. Death was then asked to take her rightful place among the order of things. She went to the other side of the elders, opposite the threshold, and sat in an honored chair. Frost approached the edge of the threshold. Crone invited her, of her own free will, to step across. Frost paused, considered, and stepped across. She was greeted by Crone and gifted with Crone’s own shawl. At that point, three women elders came forward and gifted her with a “universe story” necklace that they had made for her. Each bead and shell represented some aspect of the universe story, something that could inspire Frost, and draw her into balance and wisdom. Then the male elders stepped forward to present Frost with a decorated “beaver-hewed” wooden staff that had been blessed with waters from the healing springs of Lourdes, France. She was then invited to sit in a sacred chair, and the whole community of guests and elders gathered around her, touching her shoulders, head, arms, and knees. Those who could not reach her were invited to touch someone who was touching her until a web of interlocking hands and hearts were formed. Together, they chanted four long OM’s as the elder blessings of her community were spiritually transmitted into Frost’s soul. When it was over, Frost stood up as an initiated elder, and spoke to us from that place. In a firm voice, she said:

I encourage you to do two things: honor your own life, and value happiness. I didn’t say indulge your ego; think about all it took to come together and bring you here, now. How do you mean to spend that? How much time do you think you have? Make it good!

And cultivate happiness. For centuries, we’ve been taught to put it last. Yet if you cultivate real happiness, you’re healthier, with stronger immunities, more contentment and gratitude, true friends, you work better, and get led into finer adventures.

But what about all the world problems? You’ll be far stronger if you have what I just described. The world will never be saved by fear and starvation of the heart and soul. Honor your own life. And cultivate happiness.

With this climactic elder speech, the ceremony was nearly complete. Another elder led the group in a sound of joy, the directions were released, and instructions were given to prepare the potluck that was to follow. The ceremony was done.

//

Return³ — One of the most difficult aspects of any earth-centered ritual is the reincorporation phase. Without an intact culture to mirror the transformations that individuals undergo, it is hard to maintain the changes, and many initiates are tempted to regress into old patterns. Fortunately, Frost’s wisdom circle was so energized by the work of preparing her ceremony, they wanted to keep meeting on a regular basis to consider further aspects of elder initiations and to serve as a support for other elders in the community. This was a good reminder that we don’t consciously choose to be an Earth Elder for ourselves alone. The whole community benefits as the ties that bind are strengthened through heartfelt and intentional communal actions.

Two weeks after the initiation, Frost writes:

The first day I only rested, alone. The next day I was moved to speak to a friend about a concern I had, and spoke AS an Earth Elder — a surprise to me, since I wasn’t used to thinking in that term. I felt confident, and also aware that what I was saying wasn’t “done” yet. I needed to get to a more useful place with my feelings and thoughts. Other days: I rest a lot! I try to think through what I’d like, and get stuck. What’s up?? We (the circle) have a meeting scheduled to debrief, talk about how it was for us all. I find myself saying I seem to get stuck in what I want to “get done,” and am no longer sure what I WANT to do. There is a difference between the two, and I’m becoming aware of it. What a mystery! Something is trying to arise in me that’s in line with my intentions and shared wisdom of that day: it has to do with curiosity, aliveness, cultivating happiness, etc. and, I have a feeling, doing things without knowing entirely why I’m doing them. “If you build it, they will come.” That covers a lot deeper and wider ground than setting goals. Meanwhile, the rest of the circle has been so deep into the whole process that when it’s suggested that we might keep meeting as a wisdom circle for each other, there’s a lot of agreement. The Youngers wonder whether it would be an elder circle they wouldn’t be part of, but we quickly decide that we want these Youngers in it. It will help keep the elders with “fresh water” coming in to our thinking, and it will help “raise” the Youngers as they become elders.

Frost finally came to understand the significance of consciously choosing the role of Earth Elder:

This was intended to be more far-reaching than one person’s celebration of life. We hoped to make clear to people that they had choices about how they lived and aged, many more choices than they realized. It has even gone beyond that, and we’re truly on a continuing journey now!

We know that an initiation ceremony does not automatically transform the initiate into the full wisdom of an Earth Elder. There are many stages of learning yet to come. But it does serve to orient the initiate in their lifespan and set them on a path to wisdom that is recognized and blessed by their community. By all accounts, Frost’s Earth Elder initiation ceremony was a great success. Of course, it was only one way of designing it. As we experiment with a revival of elder recognition ceremonies in a diverse and pluralistic culture, there is no single “right way.” Much of the joy of the revival is in the design process itself, as the initiate and their beloved community talk and plan and play together. In this way, meaning is generated within the community itself and radiates out from there. If you were to call together your “wisdom circle” and plan your own Earth Elder initiation ceremony, how would you do it? As we pave the way for a “Revolution of Earth Elders,” it is good to remember Fred Lanphear’s call: “The time is ripe for elders to reclaim their rightful role of speaking for Earth and future generations.”

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Notes

¹  The three abstract illustration in this articles are paintings from the RITES OF PASSAGE Series by visual artist Jamy Kahn, whose Web site URL is http://www.jamykahn.com/. The title of this painting is “You Tell Me,” (Acrylic mixed media on canvas, 37″ x 82″).

² “Forest Unseen,” Rites of Passage Series (Acrylic mixed media on canvas, 22″ x 66.5″) From the Web site description: “Mirroring the eruptions and ravines that characterize geographical terrain, Forest Unseen metaphorically magnifies the often overlooked crevices of human emotion. The frames move from dark to light and from cold to warm, sensually approximating the experience of venturing into unknown territory.”

³ “Voix,” Rites of Passage Series (Acrylic mixed media on canvas, 20.675″ x 82.5″) From the Web site description: “French for voice, the word Voix has a visual simplicity that belies its complete connotations. Here, Kahn explores the explicit and implicit meanings of voice – to voice something is literally to articulate, and each frame in this painting articulates one letter. Yet voices also release internal, complex thoughts into the world, and the vigorous, fluid texture of Voix embodies that release.”

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Randy Morris, Ph.D., is a core faculty member at Antioch University Seattle where he supervises a Spiritual Studies program and teaches classes on depth psychology, the history of ideas, and liberal arts. He is a vision quest guide and President of the Board of Rite of Passage Journeys.

The Dance of Spirit in Later Life by Bolton Anthony

The task of life’s first journey is to construct a competent ego that allows us to survive and succeed in the world: to find work — ideally, work that speaks to our deep passion and contributes to the greater good; to build mutually sustaining relationships with others and open ourselves to intimacy; and to nurture those in our care. The task of life’s second journey is to deconstruct the ego we have assembled with such care or — perhaps, more accurately — to slough it off. This sort of letting go is possible, because the ego is merely the creation of the mind; it “has no existence by itself,” as D.H. Lawrence writes, “It is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters.”¹

Vision quest guide Bill Plotkin has called the first task our survival dance; and the second, our sacred dance.² Though we, of course, begin constructing our ego in earliest childhood, only at that first great transition point in life — when we move from adolescence to adulthood or, in the four Hindu stages of life, from Student to Householder — are we truly ready to learn our survival dance. When the student is ready, the dance instructor will appear. In traditional societies, the elders of the tribe always served as guides and teachers for this rite of passage that launches our first journey.

There is, of course, a second great transition point in life — when we are moving from midlife into elderhood (or from Householder to Forest Dweller). Now we are again ready to learn a new dance, our sacred dance. Here too, elders, in the guise of Sage, have served as guides for this rite of passage that launches our second journey.

Here are two famous literary examples of guides for this rite of passage:

Virgil appears in the first canto of The Inferno to guide Dante, a midlife pilgrim who has wandered into “dark woods, the right road lost.” Like most entering therapy, he wants help now! “See this beast driving me backward — help me resist,” he begs.3 But, again, the second journey is never about resistance — it’s always about letting go, sloughing off. And because “the way up is the way down”⁴ (more about this later), the path Virgil and Dante follow must first descend into hell.

It was in this same borderland — after another descent — that Odysseus, the long-suffering hero of Homer’s Odyssey, encounters his guide, the blind seer Tiresias. After accurately prophesying the many trials and years of wandering that will precede Odysseus’ return home, Tiresias lets him in on a secret: there’s more. The encounter with Tiresias occurs in Book 11 of the Odyssey’s 24 books; Odysseus remembers and recounts the seer’s prophesy to his wife Penelope in Book 23. At this point in the epic, he has come home to Ithaca, driven the suitors out, and been reunited with his wife, son, and father. This is the “happy ever after” ending of his first journey. The secret Tiresias shares is that a second, different journey awaits Odysseus at the end of his life.⁵

So, there is this pattern: the survival dance, then the sacred dance. Learning our survival dance is the task of our first journey in life; learning our sacred dance, of our second. You cannot begin the second task — or, to use mystical language, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven⁶ — until you have done the first.

But there is also this paradox: Though our survival dance is about constructing an ego that allows us to “succeed in the world,” if we wish to “graduate” and move on to our sacred dance, we almost always need to fail at the task.

That’s because, as Richard Rohr writes, “The way up is the way down. Or, if you prefer, the way down is the way up.”⁷ There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, about a patient that Carl Jung had been treating who would invariably show up for his sessions in the best of moods, everything going well, no complaints. This continued for some time, with the patient — in Jung’s eyes — making only minimal progress. Then finally, one day he shows up not doing well at all, a disastrous week, the world falling apart around him. Ah, Jung says to himself, Now we can get something done!

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One of the [soul’s] best-kept secrets, and yet one hidden in plain sight, is that the way up is the way down. Or, if you prefer, the way down is the way up… [It is] a secret, probably because we do not want to see it. We do not want to embark on a further journey if it feels like going down, especially after we have put so much sound and fury into going up.

—Richard Rohr

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The film Zorba The Greek(1964) provides another wonderfully apt illustration. Basil, a young writer of Greek/English descent, arrives in Crete, having recently inherited a small cottage and a long-defunct lignite mine. Zorba — the figure of the sage guide in the film — attaches himself to the younger man, impressing him with his repertoire of indispensable skills, which he points out includes considerable mining expertise.

The Englishman is, of course, stuck — lost in midlife’s “dark woods.” His writer’s block, which he hopes the solitude of Crete will help him break, is the symbol of a much larger emotional paralysis. A series of unmitigated disasters follow — all of them building to this final cathartic scene:

Zorba has constructed a cable line to transport timbers, logged from the stand of trees on the mountain above, down to the entrance to the mineshaft; these will be used to replace the rotting timbers which support timbers in the mine. The whole village gathers, including the abbot and priests from the nearby monastery who provide the necessary rituals of blessing. At Zorba’s signal, the men at the top launch the first log, which gains speed as it travels down and breaks apart. But since it does make it to where Zorba stands at the head of the mine, he tells Basil, “Don’t worry,” and fires the rifle a second time. A second, larger log careens down the singing cable. People scramble out of the way, some of them diving into the sea where the log finally lands. Again (though with tempered bravado) Zorba reassures Basil, “It’s nothing,” and fires the rifle again. With the onslaught of this last log, each brace in turn gives way; everyone scatters, and the entire structure collapses in a dusty explosion.

Here is a litany of what has happened to Basil: The widow who invited him to her bed has died, stoned to death by the jealous villagers; his patrimony, the mine, has proved worthless; his small inheritance has been used up. All has collapsed in a magnificent, “splendiferous crash.” (Now we can get something done!) It is only at this moment — only when everything lies in shambles — that Basil can say to Zorba: “Teach me to dance” — not my survival dance, my sacred dance. “Did you say…‘dance’?” Zorba answers. “Come on, my boy!”⁸

“And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.”⁹

//

This article is excerpted from a much longer essay included in the anthology, Second Journeys: The Dance of Spirit in Later Life.

//

Notes

¹  D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse (Penguin Books, 1974), p. 125.

²  Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (New World Library, 2010), pp. 84–85. “Each of us has a survival dance and a sacred dance, but the survival dance must come first. Our survival dance, a foundational component of self-reliance, is what we do for a living — our way of supporting ourselves physically and economically. For most people, this means a paid job… Everybody has to have a survival dance. Finding and creating one is our first task upon leaving our parents’ or guardians’ home.

 “Once you have your survival dance established, you can wander, inwardly and outwardly, searching for clues to your sacred dance… Your sacred dance sparks your greatest fulfillment and extends your truest service to others. You know you’ve found it when there’s little else you’d rather be doing. Getting paid for it is superfluous.”

³  Dante Alighieri, The Inferno of Dante, translated by Robert Pinsky (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994), Canto I, lines 1–2 and 68.

⁴  Richard Rohr, Falling Upwards: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey-Bass, 2011), p. xviii.

⁵  Homer, The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles (Penguin Books, 1996), Book 11, lines 100–156 and Book 23, lines 282–325. Homer does not recount this “second journey” in the Odyssey, and Richard Rohr offers these reflections on why that might be: “The fullness and inner freedom of the second half of life is what Homer seemed unable to describe. Perhaps he was not there himself yet, perhaps too young, yet he intuited its call and necessity. It was too ‘dark’ for him perhaps, but he did point toward the further journey, and only then a truly final journey home.” See also, my essay “Second Journeys.”

⁶  In these matters, paradox abounds: The “heaven” is always and already here and now. And as we see will see in the story we examine next, the same can be said about “hell.” John C. Robinson, in his enlightening book on this topic, Finding Heaven Here (John Hunt Publishing, 2009) points to a further paradox: Though it is by way of the first dance that we lose the Kingdom of Heaven that we knew in early childhood, it is by way of the second dance that we find it again — a revelation that must be wisely managed in a spirituality matured by time and experience.

⁷  Rohr, p. xvii.

⁸  Click here to view the YouTube film clip of Zorba’s dance.

⁹  Lyrics from the song, “I Hope You Dance,” sung by Lee Ann Womack.

Peace Through Peaceful Means by Betsy Crites

Compassion and love are not mere luxuries. As the source both of inner and external peace, they are fundamental to the continued survival of our species.

— The Dalai Lama

I dimly remember that day in late August, 1963, when my parents and I walked across Memorial Bridge to join the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. We had just moved to the Northern Virginia suburbs the year before. I was 12 and still homesick for the farm in Colorado where I’d grown up, so more than anything I remember the crowds — I’d never seen so many people together. I later learned, neither had anyone else.

Now in my 60s, I look back and marvel at how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement set the direction for my life. Not only did they bring together 250,000 people — the largest peaceful gathering the country had seen up to that time — but more importantly, their nonviolent methods and example allowed all of us working for a more just and peaceful society to expand what we thought possible. We know now that large-scale social progress can be accomplished through peaceful means. In fact, it is the only way to achieve such progress.

As I plumb the depths of nonviolence, I’ve also learned that its power goes beyond effective strategy for social movements. It can also effect profound changes at the individual level. The discoveries of Dr. King, Mohandas Gandhi, and many others going back to the Buddha and Jesus have shaped my journey as a peace activist and guided my aspirations to be a person of peace.

The seeds of my activism planted that day on the Washington Mall grew in the direction of U.S. international relations, peace, and nonviolence. I was a student in Peru in 1970 and later joined the Peace Corps in Honduras. A few years later my husband and I returned to Guatemala where I worked as a health educator. These were particularly volatile times in Central America. Witnessing the impact of U.S. economic and military intervention became the frame for my understanding of the violence that consumed the region for the next decade and beyond.

We returned to the U.S. in 1981 so that I could pursue my Master’s in public health. As soon as I finished my degree, however, my attention turned back to Central America.

The rising tide of violence during the 1980s that swept the very countries where we’d lived tore at my heart. President Reagan thought he saw the specter of communism spreading from Central America all the way to Texas. His response was to direct the CIA to arm and train the Nicaraguan contras and to send military aid to the brutal military regimes of El Salvador and Guatemala.

There was some truth in the CIA’s intelligence. Many of the revolutionaries in Central America were influenced by Marx; some believed in a collective economy, some were armed, and some went to Cuba for training. But most people fighting in Central America, with or without guns, were responding to the extreme disparities in wealth, the oppression of poverty, and worst of all, the violent repression of military dictatorships. For the vast majority, the poles of communism and capitalism were meaningless abstractions.

Unfortunately, the President greatly oversimplified the problems and exaggerated the threat to the U.S. Consequently, U.S. military and economic policies caused immense unnecessary suffering and death.

As with most public discourse in America, this conflict in Central America became polarized. I know that I avoided ever mentioning the presence of Marxist revolutionaries, so as not to trigger the fears and distortions that were endemic to the Cold War period. Some discourse was just too emotionally charged to touch.

In hindsight, I know I might have approached this challenge with a spirit of truth seeking, spoken out of my own experience, and acknowledged dispassionately whatever piece of the truth emerged from the opposition. This is no easy task; our media thrives on controversy, and the system is set up as a competition between adversaries. As a society we value winning above truth and perception above reality. Our painful divisions leave us immersed in a battle of wills and all too often, in the international arena, in a battle of militaries.

One of the most difficult things seems to be to hold one’s point of view lightly, remain open to new information and to all points of view, and be rigorous in the search for truth. My contribution in the 80s would have been much more valuable had I fully appreciated this aspect of nonviolence.

//

When possible, nonviolent movements employ traditional methods with patience and persuasion. For most successful movements, however, there eventually comes a moment, a tide when “taken at the flood” leads to a major shift in collective perception. It may be that historical conditions create the moment or the nonviolent actors may stimulate the conditions or a combination of both. Ideally, those actors will recognize the moment and step up their game.

In a highly charged and sometimes dangerous situation, nonviolent activists have an opportunity to draw upon their inner resources to call up voluntary sacrifices in hopes of pulling the parties into another level of “conversation.” Gandhi described it this way: “Things of fundamental importance to the people are not secured by reason alone but have to be purchased with their suffering… if you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also.”

The risk comes because there is usually no way to predict the full range of the consequences. It is the willingness to expose oneself to harm — rather than inflict harm — that can change hearts. Many remember videoed scenes of police attacking Civil Rights activists with fire hoses and dogs. People were beaten and jailed, and the sight of this abuse shook the national conscience.

The effort which I became deeply involved in — Witness for Peace — was an experiment in this same tradition; personal risk and sacrifice were a way to awaken the awareness of wrongdoing.

In 1983, three dozen people of faith from North Carolina traveled to the Honduran/Nicaraguan border to witness personally the impact of U.S. policy. Within weeks of their return they organized a second, larger group of 150 people from 32 states, to return to that border and continue providing a peaceful presence as a deterrent to violence. A few months later, Witness for Peace (WFP) was launched as a continuous presence that stood in defiance of the violence funded by our government.

For the next decade, I dedicated myself to that effort, coordinating the delegation program from the States, leading many delegations to Nicaragua and (after 1987) to Guatemala, and later serving as director of the national organization.

Over the next few years, thousands of U.S. citizens traveled to war-torn countries with all the dangers that entailed. The possibility of encountering violence or being subject to kidnapping was added to the challenges of the unfamiliar language, food, and culture. They returned with personal stories of the Nicaraguans and Guatemalans they had met and the destruction they saw being wrought with our tax dollars. They provided a powerful “witness” to their communities and to their Congressional representatives back home.

Was there a change in policy? Though the Reagan Administration lobbied intensely against our efforts, the pressure from returning WFP delegates and others prompted Congress in 1988 to prohibit future contra aid. By this point, however, the situation had become so polarized that the Administra­tion went outside the law to continue funding the contras. Nevertheless, this is one of the rare occasions when the Congress did not give a President what he wanted in a time of foreign conflict. The strategy to provide a nonviolent presence and to convey the stories and testimonies of those people on the other end of U.S. policies won a significant advance.

//

Why did so many people volunteer to travel to a poverty-stricken region that had been ignored by the U.S. government and travel agents alike? Why I was doing it was clear. I had lived in Central America, had friends in danger, had a better than average understanding of the history and culture of the region, and had very deep sympathy for the people who were suffering extreme violence as a result of U.S. military and CIA interventions. I spoke Spanish and knew my way around these countries. Going into war zones added some risk, and I did have to face my fears about the uncertainties; but I knew I had competencies for managing potential problems.

For most people, however, the 2-week “delegation” required genuine courage. The trips to Nicaragua and Guatemala meant entering an unknown hostile environment at considerable expense and risk. WFP made clear in its two-day orientation that this would not be a vacation. We were going into zones of military conflict. In spite of that, people choose to “stand with” the Nicaraguan people suffering the effects of U.S. intervention. It somehow captured the imagination. Many people were outraged by the rhetoric they heard from the White House and inspired by the idealistic goals that the new government of Nicaragua seemed committed to. With this outrage came energy; we provided a constructive channel for that energy — a way for many people to act on their conscience.

In order to create a shift, the nonviolent activists may voluntarily endure hardships, injury, and even death to reopen a path to positive change. The Civil Rights movement, Witness for Peace, and many other organized efforts in nonviolence have broken unjust laws or otherwise exposed themselves to the fury of the opponent. They do this as a way to awaken the conscience of the adversary and interrupt the cycle of violence and/or awaken the public’s awareness of problems.

Nonviolence does not promise quick and easy results; but it usually involves less injury, destruction, and loss of life, and it generally preserves space for constructive solutions.

//

A commitment to truth, a willingness to sacrifice, and many other insights and strategies have emerged from the history of nonviolent social change. Activists and scholars have learned some core principles which may overlap and interlock but are worth examining separately for the wisdom each brings forth. As more and more we integrate the principles of nonviolence into our thinking and our lives, the more we can open to the creative possibilities beyond force, and the more successful we activists will become in effecting long-term change.

The student of nonviolence could begin with these:

• We all have a piece of the truth, but no one has all the truth. As clear cut as things appear from our perspective, our opponents also believe they are right. Genuinely seeking the truth in the opponents’ perspective helps us find some common ground and understand their worldview. This understanding can help us appeal to their higher nature or at least their particular interests.

• Respect everyone. The principle here is to avoid ever humiliating anyone oraccepting humiliation from others. People sometimes change their minds, especially when given the space to do so. When harassed or disrespected, people defend and justify themselves to save face. Gandhi maintained friendly communications with the British Raj throughout his campaign to free India.

• Never be against persons, be against problems. This is related to the above principle and opens a way to respect the humanity of everyone without endorsing their behavior. We can oppose ideas, policies, and actions. We can deal at the level of problem solving, not name-calling. “The real success in nonviolence, which violence can never achieve, is to heal relationships. Even in a case of extreme violence, Gandhi felt it was possible to ‘hate the sin, not the sinner.’”¹

• Set constructive strategic goals, but do not cling to the outcomes. The vast web of cause and effect is constantly in flux, and it’s impossible to know the full range of outcomes from any action. Dr. King wrote, “The beauty of nonviolence is that in its own way and in its own time it seeks to break the chain reaction of evil.”²Through nonviolence we are better able to achieve some positive ends though it may not be what we originally envisioned. Our task is to stay grounded in our principles and flexible on nonessential details.

• Recognize that means are ends in the making. Showing respect, standing firm with the truth as we see it, and at times accepting adverse consequences or abuse without retaliation will stop and even reverse the cycle of violence. The purity of our motives and the skill of our actions are critical and will have unforeseen positive spin-offs. The focus for any encounter is as much on the means as the ends.

• Be prepared to sacrifice, but never intend to inflict harm. When the adversary is unmoved and an unjust or violent situation persists, the activists need to, as Gandhi said, “not only speak to the head but move the heart also.” The specter of civil rights protesters being attacked with fire hoses and dogs shook the conscience of the nation and, I believe, the attackers themselves.

//

As my understanding of these principles of nonviolence has grown, they have provided a measure I’ve used to gauge the efforts I want to support. A recent example is the current Forward Together (Moral Mondays) movement in North Carolina.

Moral Mondays emerged in the summer of 2013 in response to extreme measures taken by the N.C. state legislature, which had passed laws refusing federal funding for Medicaid and unemployment insurance; cut public school funding while at the same time expanding private schools; and increased obstacles to voting by the young, elderly, poor, and African American. These and many other policies seemed designed to favor wealthy, white constituents and reduce government by and for the people.

The leadership of the state’s NAACP seized this moment to lead a nonviolent response. Like many of my cohort who came of age in the sixties, I felt compelled to join this effort despite some personal risk and expense. I attended numerous rallies on the grassy mall outside the legislative building where gray heads peppered the crowd, and ultimately I joined those who risked arrest in order to make their voices heard.

As I’ve watched and participated in the Moral Monday process, I’ve been impressed with the leaders’ faithfulness to the principles of nonviolence. They have carefully avoided personal attacks on the governor or legislators, keeping their focus on the harshness of the policies and the hardships they create. They emphasize respect for the police who arrested us. They set constructive goals such as registering voters.

For many who are taking part, whether it’s through civil disobedience or volunteering in other ways, it is an act and leap of faith. We cannot know the outcomes of our efforts. Our faith is in the nonviolent means, which are developed and supported in a community of fellow activists.

In the strong tradition of the Civil Rights movement and Witness for Peace, Rev. William Barber and the other leaders of the Forward Together include prayer, reflection, and singing as a regular part of their gatherings. These are intentionally ecumenical. Though to some they might appear merely religious, they are deep practices that sew optimism and unity.

Time for reflection also tends to draw people back to the wisdom traditions that can inspire our highest motivations and purest intentions. The cultivation of peaceful attitudes such as gratitude, forgiveness, and compassion build the foundation for what Dr. King called the “beloved community,” which can model the very ends it seeks to bring into being.

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Invitation to Practice

Nonviolence as a means of societal transformation can be far more effective when the practitioners have also undertaken a discipline of personal transformation. By attending to our own mental and emotional states, such as anger, hatred, and aggression, and by working to create peaceful realms in our immediate circles, we simultaneously contribute to a world that supports nonviolence.

Nonviolence scholar, Michael Nagler notes that “Nonviolence begins in inner struggle — specifically, the struggle to keep anger, fear, and greed from having sway over us.”³And Dr. King reminds us: “Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence, but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.”⁴

To follow this maxim requires cultivating a spiritual discipline, which ideally includes regular time for reflection and meditation. Reflection on the wisdom of great spiritual leaders who aligned their actions with their high ideals expands our sense of what is possible. Meditation and prayer take us to that place of refuge where we can deepen our insight and strengthen our resolve.

A personal discipline of self-reflection can help us overcome the conditioning that keeps us thinking inside the box and acting reflexively. We are all subject to strong biases from within our culture and modern society. We are taught to think in terms of “we” against “them,” and put our faith in zero-sum contests where the winner takes all. This model permeates our political, economic, and criminal justice systems.

Since we are shown violence at every turn — on TV and in movies, books, or other media — we tend to accept it as the norm. This is a misperception Gandhi frequently addressed:

The fact that there are so many men still alive in the world shows that it is based not on force of arms but on the force of truth or love… Little quarrels of millions of families in their daily lives disappear before the exercise of this force. Hundreds of nations live in peace. History does not and cannot take note of this fact. History is really a record of the interruption of the even working of the force of love.⁵

Gandhi was trained as a lawyer. Through his painful experiences of discrimination in South Africa and his profound introspection and reflection, he managed to decondition himself from the elements of this training that picks winners against losers. He wrote about his “experiments in truth,” which were in essence a long process of retraining himself and discovering the principles of nonviolence. It was not about learning the wisdom of others or acquiring intellectual understanding, though he certainly did that as well. What really shifted him and empowered him was the wisdom that arose out of his experience. S.N. Goenka, a Buddhist teacher from India, describes this as “the wisdom that one lives, real wisdom that will bring about a change in one’s life by changing the very nature of the mind.”⁶

When we peek outside the box of our competitive, violence-prone society, we might discover what Gandhi called, “the most powerful force the world has known,” nonviolence.

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Notes

¹ Mettacenter.org.

² Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here, Chaos or Community? (Beacon Press, 1968), p. 65.

³ Michael Nagler, Search for a Nonviolent Future(New World Library, 2004) p. 83. Dr. Nagler is a scholar, educator, and writer on nonviolence and the founder of the Metta Center for Nonviolence in Petaluma, CA.

⁴ Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream: The Quotations of Martin Luther King, Jr., compiled and edited by Lotte Koskin (Grosset and Dunlap, 1968).

⁵ Nagler, p. 55.

⁶ William Hart, The Art of Living, Vipassana Meditation as Taught by S.N. Goenka(HarperSanFrancisco, 1982), p. 89.

//

Betsy Crites, MPH, co-founded and served as Director of Witness for Peace, a nationwide, faith-based organization committed to nonviolence in support of just U.S. policies in Latin America. She also served with Nonviolent Peaceforce accompanying human rights defenders in Guatemala, with Metta Center on Nonviolence as interim director, and as Director of N.C. Peace Action. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Two Halves Becoming Whole by John G. Sullivan

Here is a fragment of a story shared by a storyteller, Michael Meade:

Once upon a time in a village in Borneo, a half-boy is born, a boy with only the right half of his body. He becomes a source of irritation, embarrassment, and confusion to himself, his family, and the entire village. Nonetheless, he grows and eventually reaches the age of adolescence. His halfness and incompleteness become unbearable to him and all around him. One day he leaves the village dragging himself along until he reaches a place where the road crosses a river. At that crossroad, he meets another youth who exists as only the left side, the other half of a person. They move towards each other as if destined to join. Surprisingly, when they meet, they begin to fight and roll in the dust. Then they fall into the river. After a time, from the river there arises an entire youth with sides put together. The new youth walks to the nearest village. Seeing an old man, he asks, “Can you tell me where I am? I have been struggling and don’t know my place.” The old man says: “You have arrived home. You are back in the village where you were born. Now that you have returned whole, everyone can begin to dance and celebrate.” And so it was and so it is. ¹

Perhaps today, two groups find themselves as Half-people. Springtime youth are entering the Arc of Ascent, seeking passage into the stage of adult Householder. Those facing retirement are entering the Arc of Descent, seeking passage into elderhood (Autumn Forest Dweller and Winter Sage).

As in the story, these two half-people—youth and elder—seem destined for one another. How can youth be initiated if there are no elders to instruct them, if there are no elders to welcome their gifts for the wider tribe? How can the young be seen and appreciated if there are no elders to dance with them and celebrate them? And what of those entering the second half of their lives (or final third)? ² How are they to develop and give their gifts if they are set apart and exiled from the next generation? Is it any wonder that the uninitiated old fight with the uninitiated young?

Perhaps there is even more. Think of one of the half persons as “First-Half-of-Life Person” (Youth–Householder). Think of the other half person as “Second-Half-of-Life Person” (Forest Dweller–Sage). First and second half of life meet and engage in a struggle. They fall into a river and emerge whole. Now there is healing of four stages and a new image emerges from the water: an integral person, not fixed in any age but having access to all ages, access to all four capacities of life:

1. 1. The creative learning of the Spring Student, attraction awakened;

   2. The love and work that mark the care of the Summer Householder;
   3. The reintegration into the natural world of the Autumn Forest Dweller; and
   4. The surrender to the Great Mystery that marks the Winter Sage, winter forgiveness accepting all that makes us unique reflections of all that is.

When we have access to this fourfold, we are whole, we are home in an integral way. All the ages and seasons of our life are in us, simultaneously. Sometimes a prompt comes from within us, perhaps something belonging to features in our life “showing up as missing.” ³

• An angry moment appears and we sense springtime energy thwarted.
• An ache for summer warmth arrives and we sense our partnership / family as empty or incomplete.
• A touch of autumn arrives and, with it, a mood of grief and loss.
• A winter fear emerges, a fear of surrendering who we think we are into the unknown mystery.

Sometimes the prompt comes from outside us. We see a young student and remember we are that too. We encounter a family at some stage in its unfolding. We are that too.⁴We see an elder in the autumn years finding delight in the earth community and in earthiness, in humus, humor, humility. We are that, too. We encounter a sagely moment of kindness, compassion, joy, or peace. We smile. We are that, too.

As each stage awakens, we have first contact. Yet our lifetime remains ever incomplete, ever unfinished until death. So long as we live, we revisit each age and stage over and over. Each turn of the spiral of the seasons reminds us we are learning and harvesting still.

Always we are turning and returning. Always we can revisit. We can recast our stories and shift our likes and dislikes. It is never too late to have a happy childhood or adolescence or householder phase. It is never too late to embrace autumn anew, never too late to find the gifts of winter wonder, the vastness that appears everywhere in every particular, ever vast, ever near. First encounters, yes, and revisiting often—in creative ways. More and more, we see ourselves in the other and the other in us. More and more we are invited to grow in compassion.

So take the plunge. Bring the capacities of all stages to bear in each present moment. Join the upward striving of spring and summer with the letting go and letting be of autumn and winter. Surely then we will come to live more fully, prizing every gift that life offers.

The gentle Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh points to a balance of doing and being in his Happiness song:

Happiness is here and now
I have dropped my worries
Nowhere to go, nothing to do
No longer in a hurry.

Happiness is here and now
I have dropped my worries
Somewhere to go, something to do
But I don’t need to hurry. 5

The fourteenth-century English mystic, Lady Julian of Norwich, harmonizes the two halves of life in this lovely advice:

Our souls must perform two duties.
The one is we must reverently wonder
and be surprised;
The other is we must gently let go and let be
always taking pleasure in God. 6

May it be so for all of us in each moment.

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Notes

¹ Michael Meade tells this story in his introduction to Crossroads: The Quest for Contemporary Rites of Passage, Louise Carus Mahdi, Nancy Geyer Christopher, and Michael Meade, eds. (Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1996), p. xxi. I have invoked the storyteller’s license to tell the story in my own way.

² For certain purposes, it is useful to see life in two halves. And yet where the arc of descent is most easily felt is upon retirement, upon entering what the British call The Third Age, roughly the last 20 or so years of life. Here we might think of the Student stage lasting some 20 years, the Householder stage lasting perhaps some 40 years or more, and the stage of Elderhood (Autumn Forest Dweller and Winter Sage) lasting some 20 years or more.

³ I take this lovely phrase from one of my teaching colleagues, Dianne Connelly. She would say that the quality is not truly missing. It remains in us at a deep level, yet it is “showing up as missing.”

⁴ I have been approached after presentations by people who have never married nor had children of their own. How can they find all the ages and stages in themselves? I suggest that in a real sense all the children are our children and that we can bring the caring of a householder and the grandparently gifts to all the “youngers.” Surely, this is a fuller framework where all are called to honor the ancestors and to serve the children – all the children, the human ones and the other creatures who are part of the Great Family of all beings.

⁵ I learned this song at one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s retreats. The monastics passed out 13 Songs of Practice. This song titled “Happiness” is number 7 on the list we received.

⁶ Brendan Doyle, “Introductions and Versions,” Meditations with Julian of Norwich (Santa Fe, NM : Bear & Company Publishing,1983), p. 78.

Accumulation of Days – A Poem by Linda Beeman

We age, we bemoan

slippery memory

broken sleep

chronic pain

We reach for grace

iced forsythia on a February morning

the shape of an owl’s win in slow flight

wood smoke smells in old textiles

acceptance that what’s undone will wait

Accumulated insights layer one upon another

knowledge sifted through humility

justice measured with compassion

beauty sculpted by imperfection

love honed with patience

hope balancing wisdom

Our voyages out

eventually bring us home

where we acknowledge

the unknowns we sought

were coded

deep within us

all along