Awe-kward Falls

 I fell yesterday. It wasn’t a bad fall, no part of me was broken, but something familiar and debilitating happened. I want to explore the sensations that accompany such a loss. A fall, no matter how bad, carries with it a great vulnerability, a humiliation, that puts our humanity in a perspective that cannot be forgotten. Falling is a kind of human birthright that no one talks about, and most everyone experiences. It is a most awesome loss, which underscores the gravity-defying nature of our kind, and the brittleness of that nature. All in all — it is a recipe for a moment of deep circumspection.

 

Falling is the sixth leading cause of death. It is often the precursor of even worse conditions, such as MS, brain tumors, aging or other forms of major course changes. In my case, it is the left-over sign of a brain syndrome which took away my balance, amongst many other things. It is a constant uncertainty I have to live with. Falling has become a punctuation mark in my life.

 

The essence of this experience is that it restores awareness of how fragile everything is, and how quickly everything is passing. There is no reminder of impermanence quite like this one. Falling not only underscores the existential situation we are all in, but it makes clear that no one is beyond it. The way such a fall brings home the personal and makes it clear is incredibly powerful. Suddenly the grave and gravity become linked, vivid and omnipresent. Falling is sobering — a chilling shadow of one’s mortality passes through.

 

I thought it interesting to put awe-kward together with the fragility of falling. Awe is something nearly everyone wants to experience, yet this kind of awe, which reminds us of how large and mighty the world is, and how small and vulnerable we are, is not the experience of awe that we all are seeking. Awe lifts us up, so does falling, but not in the straight-line way most people think. Falling lifts one up, as it knocks one down. Suddenly, perspective clears from the fog of everyday life, revealing the awesome gift that has been bestowed on each of us.  Lucidity breaks through.

 

The heart is broken open with a good fall. When that happens, connection prevails. Falling is a great tenderizer.  It underscores the great tenderness of Life. The family of mankind becomes perceptible. Brokenness is wholeness in some paradoxical way, and the light shines through. Ward is an old English word, it used to mean protect. I was taken with its presence here. Falling restores balance, and reveals the form of protection that endures. One must go down, in order to discover what really leads one up. 

 

In the stream of today’s consciousness, a fall is tragic, it can lead to injury, or death. In our isolated world it is a very fearsome thing. Mostly, it’s something to be avoided. But, in a more unenculturated way, it can be a form of spiritual medicine, a fall into a zone of reality that restores perspective, and provides a hard-won lesson. 

 

Falling can be good luck. The attitude of the one falling is what determines. I’m not talking about rigid positivity, it is the will to learn, to let uncertainty deliver you where it may. Falling and flying are really related. Did you know that a baby bird has to fall to learn to fly?  So, do we.

 

 

 

Monks & Forest Dwellers

 

“We have more possibilities available in each moment

 than we realize.”

                                                                                     Thich Nhat Hahn

 

Preparing for the last phase of my life has been an extraordinary process. I’m not talking about getting my worldly affairs in order. Rather, I’m trying to think about what I want to do with the time left to me. It could only be a moment, a few years, a decade, or longer. But, it is getting close to the end — becoming more palpable everyday — and is growing more important, as I feel my love of this broken place growing too. How I am with what is here, calls me deeper, begging me to notice and respond. I know less than I did before, and it makes preparing, a particularly poignant problem, and a stupefying opportunity.

 

I want to find a good way to honor the whole of this existence. I don’t really know how to do that, but I know I want to try. I don’t even know what I am doing here. Still, I feel some kind of obligation to be here even more fully than I have been in the past. I guess I have Death to thank for my burgeoning desire to live my final days intentionally. I feel like Jesus in the garden — I want this cup to be full, as it passes. Looking around, I know other humans have felt this way, so I am turning to them to get a sense of how to respond to Mystery’s call.

 

I am in a period of discernment. That is what prospective monks go through as they try to determine whether becoming a person of the cloth is appropriate for them. I am feeling a calling, just not toward becoming a traditional monk. I can feel the urge toward service, and toward slowing down, and living more intentionally. I can even feel the pull toward renouncing the world. But instead of a religious, or ideological affiliation, I am drawn to serving, and learning from, the living community. I want to be Life’s advocate, perhaps a monk-like plain clothes lay person intent upon living fully for spiritual reasons.

 

The monk has a simplifying presence, having left worldliness behind.  I, on the other hand, feel my calling to be to serve, by staying in the midst of this world, and relating with what is here. It is a twisting path — toward chaos, and human frailty — that calls me. I perceive the miraculous in daily contact, in the turmoil of relationship, in the heartbroken. Hopes that are dashed are wondrous things, they create an openness to what is. And that, is where I want to be. I want to grow, and serve like a monk, by paying attention to the medicine of the moment.

 

In the Hindu tradition they have a notion of life-cycle development. It has four phases, the third of which suggests that with retirement comes a period of renouncing the world, leaving home, and living in the forest. The forest dweller is somewhat equivalent to an elder. Old people have generally left behind who they used to be, and now live at the fringe of society. They are headed into the unknown, dwelling in the wild. The oldest religion in the world sees this period of life as a time for securing one’s relationship with the Divine. It is the moment in life when all remaining adjustments occur. This time of life is compelling; living within a magnetic uncertainty.

 

I feel the gravitational pull of the unknown mystery that is shaping, what I have called, my life. It is clear to me, that I am not solely my own. Something is living through me. I don’t know what, but I feel it. This something, has me becoming more interested in living, as if I am being called. I want to live like never before, and I know, I want to die serving what is growing within me. Such intensity is now my lot, and for that I am grateful. I am some combination of a monk serving mystery, and a forest dweller living out his days adjusting to the Divine. I guess that means I am some kind of undercover agent, a quasi-monk forest dweller.

 

How about you?

 

 

 

 

Sober Joy

I’m not really qualified to write these words.  I‘m kind of a dour person. I know joy, but it is always diluted with other things. So, what I write here, will probably say more about me, than it might about anyone else. That’s the problem — I can never escape my complicity in everything I am concerned about. Anyway, what concerns me now is what I call, “rigid joy.”

You probably know what I’m talking about. There are people who really get on my nerves with their insistence that everything is just right. They seem to me, to be manically happy. It is as if, the weight of the world has magically turned to cotton candy.  There is no room for uncertainty, no room for anything but a kind of Nazi-fied joy. Strangely, living in this present age, I’m used to, and not upset by, the standard rigidity of certain political positions. But, there is something about the knowing look of the joyhead that gets me.

This is a kind of fundamentalism that threatens to obscure, what to me, is true joy. I like joy, think it really is an appropriate reaction to this miraculous world, but have found that it comes in a rather paradoxical package. I haven’t really been able to separate joy from the heartache that seems to prevail everywhere. Pain and joy seem linked like sunshine and rain. It doesn’t seem like one can have one without the other.

Suffering and joy are related in my experience. This makes me restless when I’m around people who seem to only value joy. I want to run for the hills when someone goes on a joy-rant. I don’t condone such reactivity (mine), but neither do I seem to be able to contain it. I feel like a latter-day Puritan when I think that joy comes with a dark cloud.

I am trying to protect something that needs no protection. Joy is what it is, and can be distinguished from pseudo-joy. I know that. A more mature me should be able to rest with that realization. Unfortunately, I haven’t acquired that much maturity, so I still get bent out of shape. My joy goes south because I get too involved with other peoples’.

Joy, to me, is also a kind of effervescent thing — it seems to move quickly from place to place. Maybe, this is just another one of my limitations, but if someone is on a steady diet of joy, I tend not to believe them.

Joy, to me, is the experience one has when the storm clears, or when cancer is in remission. It seems to come as a balm for the suffering. I know that my medical trial, my near-death experience, set me up for a sense of joy. I had lost a lot, but there were things that remained. They have given me joy ever since.

Clearly, my own experience of joy taints my attitude. Maybe, life is enough to set off this deeply knowing satisfaction. I hope so. But, I still think that we owe it to each other not to substitute pseudo-joy for the real thing. The world around is too dark.  The signals we send each other, can be life-defining, and are just too important.

May you know the joy that makes your life a true walk on the Earth!

 

 

 

 

 

Patterns

“If you don't know the kind of person I am

and I don't know the kind of person you are

 

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world”

                                                                                  from A Ritual to be Read to Each Other by William Stafford 

 

Once in a while, one finds something so meaningful that it is inspiring. The quote above was part of a larger poem that has been meaningful to me for such a long-time. Each encounter with another is a microcosm, a little moment, that has monumental consequences. The world we humans know, teeters on an edge, composed of our regard for each other. The poet sagely reminds us that each of us matters, and that how we show up, determines so much.

 

Reality trembles unfixed and unkind when we don’t really meet each other. The tension inherent when beings like us come together is palpable, because so much is at stake. More important than us liking each other, is that we reveal ourselves, and the portion of the world that shines through our eyes.

 

We humans drift when no one reaches out to us. The world also gets darker, less humane, and more dangerous.  Touching is a multi-dimensional thing, and essential. It involves disclosure, vulnerability, and a deep regard for how mystery comes through us. When we begin to know each other, a sigh goes out into the cosmos, renewing faith in all gravity.

 

Some say it takes a while to truly get to know someone. That is true. In the paradoxical world we inhabit, it can take a long time, and it can happen in a micro-second. If one is willing, and open, something deeper than words is translated into the atmosphere between, and knowing becomes a form of breathing. Souls are so airy and lithe, they travel faster than light, and have a sticking power we cannot account for. The world forms around them.

 

Many of us have swallowed the kool-aid. Believing that we don’t matter, we forget Creation coming to pass, and settle for merely existing. The world longs for the airy sigh that starts it all again. It is in us, has been from the beginning, and finds its way into the lungs of Creation, when the unleashing moment comes. Sometimes it does take time, to peel off old betrayals, but happily Creation unfolds in both fast and slow ways. Break open what longs to fly in you. Listen to the other’s heartbeat. Let the games be elevated!

 

There is a reason we all breath. It isn’t just respiration. The Universe longs for news of itself. Cosmic navigation cannot happen without our parts. You are wrapped up in the news. Before, during, and after. The other, is a bridge, designed to help the news go further. Shine forth, and ignite. No pattern can withstand the gravity of true messages. 

 

We live in the midst of mystery. And, we play our parts, dimly knowing how crucial we are. Poems occasionally remind us, that we are weaving a great tapestry, and that we are the pattern-making component. It is our opportunity to participate in Creation. What we share with each other, the signals we send each other,  are  the weight of destiny unfolding through us.

 

 

 

 

 

Santa Claus Beliefs

(for, and from, Spyder)

 

“Let’s stop pretending we don’t know the deal here.”

                                                                                            From The Dakini Speaks by Jenifer Wellwood

 

The words of a friend have ballooned into a perception that keeps on throwing light on the quality of social reality. There is so much pretense, such a great tendency to believe in the unbelievable. My friend had the sense to call this tendency, “Santa Claus beliefs.” He was referring to the way we prepare our young for life by indulging their magical thinking, and how much we rely on the same kind of magical thinking as we get older. Life suffers the indignity of the fantasies we indulge, in our efforts to not grow up.

 

A pattern of prevarication prevails in our lives. We have been practicing the ‘big lie” all along, insisting the world conform to our fantasies so we don’t have to grow up.  This pattern, believing the unbelievable, and holding on to that believe, even though it isn’t true, is a survival skill that threatens our survival. It is a seemingly benign game we play with our young, and a way we cling to our youth rather than face the music of reality.

 

What is “the big lie?” From childhood, it is whatever belief we hold to put off becoming more mature. It isn’t as naïve and innocent as believing in a giving and magically happy, fat, jolly elf. It is the way we shrink ourselves, others, and the moment. It can look like racism, ageism, or some similar effort to change someone (or something) else, to avoid the uncertainty and overwhelm that always accompanies growth. Santa Clause beliefs are things we imagine to reassure ourselves — that we don’t have to change, and especially don’t have to handle any discomfort. 

 

I have a developmental view of the human journey. That means that I see we humans going through stages of growth (like our kids) that slowly add to our intricacy, until we become as fully complex as we humans can be. Each stage along the way makes us more human and more aware. Unless our development stops. From an early belief in Santa — to later beliefs — such as romantic projections, the search for safety, or the belief one’s well-being lies in the hands of others — postpone growth and deny reality.  Immaturity, especially of the fantasizing kind, is disempowering. Believing in chimera can be deadly.

 

Being savvy enough about the stage-development of humans, I can see that every stage has its own form of magical thinking, its own Santa Claus (SC) belief that prevents more growth. That awareness has led me to become aware that right now I, like everybody alive, is harboring a belief (maybe several) that prevents me from being all I can be. That thought is irritating, and more than a little undermining. I want to ignore it, but find myself wondering about how I might be deluding myself.

 

After a while, I came across a SC belief that I have been keeping. I disable myself, believing that each moment isn’t really holy. I am also keeping my perception of the world on the leash of my limited belief. It is quite likely, that I am refusing to perceive the actual holiness of the world because I don’t want to grow up and face what the world is really asking of a more mature me. I can deal with the pedestrian experiences of a day-to-day life — that isn’t too enchanted with holiness — but can I face living in a really holy way. I’m not that large yet.

 

Anyway, consider the SC beliefs you are harboring. As you do, realize you are playing with your own chain, your self-selected protection, the safety belt that keeps you small. SC beliefs are important tools that reflect our deep ambivalence — it isn’t really to be or not to be — but to grow or not to grow. 

 

 

 

 

 

Disillusioned

It’s a “good news, bad news” kind of situation. Full of paradoxical torment/freedom. There is no substitute for the way that disillusionment spins one’s head around. What was, isn’t really. In a moment one is in another reality that isn’t adhering to any of the assumptions one is carrying. My first reaction tends to be some combination of disappointment, anger and confusion. All of that fails to deal with it. Then, if I’m willing, I start learning about what is more accurate about reality than I recognized.

 

Disillusionment introduces me to what I don’t really want to see. It is like some kind of consciousness cataract removal. All of a sudden, I have a clarified mind’s eye: I can see things that didn’t exist for me before. 

 

I don’t like it, and I depend on it. The view from a collapsing reality is much clearer, and accurate, then the one I’d been investing in. While, it is true that this is a much more likely occurrence in an old person’s life, as they look back, it’s an aggravating favor that comes to us at any time.

 

Disillusionment is a moment of jailbreak. The mind, we have captured — our own — gets to reset. In the interim, reality morphs into another, more accurate, shape. One finds one’s footing on a different ground. This is the kind of disorienting

shape-shifting that convinces one that one has really been living in a wild place. Tremors are welcome after a shake of this size. Vigilance suddenly becomes a lifeline.

 

And, all of a sudden, a newly updated reality arrives. After all the anguish, and the charges of betrayal, one finally gets to look around. Things are not like one hoped, but instead things are clearer. A certain dismal fog has lifted. Things shine, more clearly defined, and somehow more real. The good news that has followed the Richter-scale event, is that it took a jolt like this to get closer to the bedrock one has been seeking.

 

Disillusionment turns out to be an unexpected gift, guidance from some mysterious place, re-directing one, leading towards a new sense of the flow. Someone, a stranger, just shouldered their big body in, disrupting everything, seemingly promising discomfort to come, but instead delivering an unknown gift of grace. Medicine arrives, despite ourselves.

 

 

 

 

 

Some Troublous Birth

 

Some seed in me,

Some troublous birth,

Like an awkward awakening,

Stirs into life.

 

Terrible and instinctive

It touches my guts.

 

I fear and resist it.

 

I don't know its nature.

I have no term for it.

I cannot see its shape.

 

But, there, inscrutable,

Just underground,

Is the long-avoided latency.

 

What I fear and desire

Pokes up its head.

                             Seed by William Everson

 

For many a year I’ve been trying to identify something I’ve had an intuition about. But, I’ve failed, until now. 

 

I had the feeling there was something unique and special about old age. I just couldn’t identify it. Then, this morning, it came to me. I’ve carried the poem that opens this piece since 1985, and didn’t realize, it carried my answer. Later life involves a kind of experience like none other, an inside-out development that is largely unknown, yet wildly persistent. Out of within comes a troublous birth.

 

I first gained a whiff of this experience in the aftermath of my stroke. I was torn physically apart, losing physical functioning, and the life I’d known up until then. With marriage, family, home, career, and health gone, I was reduced to a trembling mass of uncertainty. I survived, in part, because I turned to what remained. Unbeknownst to me, I turned toward the long-avoided latency within me. In a desire to live beyond the stripping, I turned to the only life that remained, the inner dimension of my being. 

 

It is there from which this troublous birth emanates.

 

Being disabled isn’t easy. There are a lot of misconceptions, prejudices, and insensitivities. Living through all of this strange love opens one up. If the bitterness doesn’t get one, then there is a possibility of coming to appreciate the rare ability that disability brings. For me, it was the recognition of the gifts of loss. Aging, I found out later, is a time when these gifts render we humans particularly available for the troublous birth. The poet refers to it, and now I recognize the unique, and special aspect, of later human life. My intuition has taken a surprising turn.

 

There is a birth that accompanies, and sometimes precedes, death. It is a miracle of Nature’s — the evolution of a species — and the fulfillment of a creative spark in the Universe. I think of it as troublesome for several reasons. Birth with death is so unexpected, fraught with societal baggage, superstition, and spiritual apprehension. What is laden with so much potential, frequently causes the old ones to choke. Of course, Nature proceeds anyway.

 

There is some kind of new life coming through our elder years. Getting old looks bad — birth pangs are not pretty — but a new potency is being unleashed. Old people reel under the weight of this confusing unexpected pregnancy. Sometimes they shine with radiant potency. Society is typically cruel, judgmental and aloof, when it comes to the unexpected. It provides no midwife. 

Evolving isn’t easy. Especially when the future is coming from within.  

 

Old age contains a new form of pregnancy. It’s time for a new form of celebration to go with it. A joyful and troublesome shower.

 

 

 

 

 

Ring, Ring

I am sitting all alone on a Sunday. Ruminating with my computer, wondering what I will be writing about. Feeling my humanity, grasping for some kind of awareness — one that is freeing, that liberates my compassion, and confirms the incredible and hugely challenging nature of being human. It is a moment of poignant beauty and wonder. I am so Lucky, and so prone to illuminating uncertainty.

 

I find myself recalling a story a friend told me recently. It was about her elderly parents. It took place in the years before they both died. Her father, I believe he was 94 at the time, had just had a massive stroke, and was recovered enough so he could be at home. The story features her mother who, 90 at the time, had to help take care of him. She was tired, irritated, and old herself. She found it particularly difficult to clean-up the food crumbs he always left on the floor when he ate. One day, while complaining about this with her daughter, her off-spring (the woman telling me the story) suggested to her mother, that she consider each fallen crumb like an angel ringing a bell.

 

To make a long story short, this seemingly preposterous suggestion resulted in a total change in the mother’s attitude. After a while she was grateful for the experience with her husband. This story moved me so much for multiple reasons. My own disability means that I often make a mess on the floor when I eat. I am frequently embarrassed by the crumbs on the floor, and often angry with myself. I have no mercy for the poor disabled man who can’t help being messy. But, as the story suggests, I could. 

 

Do I need an angel, to be kind? Maybe, maybe not. But, certainly I needed the story to remind me, I have a choice about how I see, and respond to, the essence of my own humanity. I’ve been in this condition long enough, that I have had to learn, to love my own broken imperfect self. What I am discovering now, thanks in part to this story, is that another challenging aspect of self-loving is that it is a continuous process that is never accomplished once and forever. I need to keep re-discovering, and re-asserting love for myself as I go on living.

 

Just as the old woman found, with her daughter’s help, that she could re-discover the motivation to keep on loving — not as a chore, but as an opportunity. I, and all of us, could find within our own experiences, the motive to love our own, or another’s ever-changing humanity. To me, in my condition (entirely human), knowing this, is essential to my well-being. In my mind, it is essential to us all.

 

Remembering, or in this case, being reminded, that changes of proficiency and functioning require us to update our loving — making being human so much more complex and poignant.  It makes failing so much more plausible too. I can see how I can treat myself so much better, but will I? Will I overcome the many years of bad cultural advice, and more readily turn toward myself, or anyone, with a more compassionate gaze? I don’t really know now. Perhaps, I will see it coming from me in some future. If so, I hope I recognize it.

 

There is one other feature of this story that is heartening for me. Age. The old are seen as the most set in their ways, the least likely to change. But, as the story reveals, she (the mother) was able, at 90, to readily change how she behaved based upon a new take on things. That shows a rare kind of maturity, that isn’t considered available in old people. This story highlights another kind of aging, whereby, a greater flexibility is exposed. This too, is worth remembering. Getting older might mean a greater capacity to be flexible.

 

All in all, I most want to live in a world where I remember, and have the good friends that remind me, that love must grow with the complexity of the situation I’m part of. Maybe, I’ll get to age into it, ripening, like a seasoned wine, or a great cheese. 

 

In any case, that is the way my imagination runs today. I hope yours gets to run free for a little while, too.

 

 

 

Rapture and Suffering

There are wonders to be discovered about the potentials of aging. They are hard to talk about. This is because aging is so weighed down by years of fearful prejudice, and the truth is, that later life has so much more to offer than anyone expects. I’m going to try to give voice to one of the unexpected gifts of aging, that almost no one believes is likely. Surprising potential resides in our later years; paradoxical awareness is one of those unknown things.

 

Aging does entail a rather brutal breakdown of bodily well-being.  That has been, for too long, the main thing that has defined perceptions of getting old. Thankfully, we have a more complete picture now. In addition to the known ravages of time, there is emerging a new sense that something, is going on inside. Loss is accompanied by gain. While we are growing a brittle and vulnerable husk, a being of another sort is taking shape within. This one is privy to unexpected sensitivities; it sees the world differently.

 

One of the attributes of this new being, which is not evenly distributed amongst old people yet, is a new, more complex and simpler way of perceiving the world. Some old folks are discovering capabilities they have never sought, and that now are altering their consciousness. They live in a world where hitherto the capabilities coming from within, were found only in mystics, shamans, and the spiritual masters. Paradoxically, the old are being reduced, and coming into an utterly new phase of life. One, that is numinous with the unexpected.

 

To give you, the reader, a hint of your own possible future, let me illustrate how this development changes everything. Common knowledge contains the grievous notion of impermanence. Buddhists have tried to shape it into a kind of daily awareness, to aid the growth of compassion. Whereas, paradoxical awareness links loss and gain, coupling impermanence with emergence, rapture with suffering, death with birth, and the new with the old. Not just putting the experiences side by side, but asserting they are different aspects of the same thing. What ails us also heals us. What befalls us, crippling the life we have known, also introduces us, to a new freshly enabled way of being. Twists are the way of life; renewal emerges from accumulating dust.

 

This is something of the form of wisdom that courses through the mixed-up thoughts of the elderly. It is mostly inside, manifesting as love of life. It is confusing, compelling, anxiety-producing, and deeply liberating. Life gets better, in unexpected ways.

 

There is little to do about this development. No one deserves it, and yet, it happens. No one can intend it into being, thus rapture and suffering take place, and yet, it happens. It is an unexpected gift of aging, a flowering of potential, a wild profusion, and yet, a simple expression of the miracle of life.

 

Go ahead and ripen, don’t delude yourself, you have no choice, you are going to flower anyway. And maybe, the richly fragrant and unique quality of Creation you embody, will be something paradoxical too.

 

Finally, this element of some old persons lives, allows another most unexpected thing. The onset of paradoxical awareness arouses wakefulness of the enchantment in the world. When all is connected, then natural miracles become normal. The world is saturated with meaning from on high; connecting each of our lives with a living cosmos. 

 

 

 

 

Slowing

I promised myself when I started writing the Slow Lane (in 2005) that I would write at least one piece about slowing down each year. This is that piece for this year. 

 

After my stroke, and its long aftermath, I learned about how much of life I missed, because I was speeding through everything. Being slowed by my ailments, and disabilities, showed me things that I had not experienced before. I didn’t know it, but this perception marked the beginning of my re-perceiving, and becoming more aware of the miracle of life. Slowing down, a natural result of my stroke, enabled me, by catalyzing a new consciousness. It could do the same for you.

 

I never knew impermanence as thoroughly as I did, until it became evident, that I could easily, and quickly, pass from the scene. Suddenly, the many beauties I took for granted, became precious. Other wonders caught my attention. And, then I grasped, how quickly everything (including me) was passing, and that I was missing most of it, because I was speeding through life. My concerns about making money, fulfilling my dreams, and meeting other’s expectations, all distracted me, and kept me from grasping the fundamental beautiful vulnerability of life.

 

I slowed down because I was forced too. The gift of slowness came to me unbidden. It took a while for me to receive it. I was so identified with the value of being able to keep up, doing things efficiently, and continuously showing my stuff, that I felt handicapped by this newly imposed slowness. Disability chafed on me. 

 

Then, I realized that slowing was allowing a completely new awareness. I was mesmerized by what I could sense.  The empty aching that seemed to define my (speedy) life, became apparent to me, and a new happier, slower existence showed through. Since then, I have come to see how the pace of life, determines so much of what one perceives, and what one is capable of. 

 

I’m a lot older now. Aging brings its own slowness. Some people perceive it as a curse, and are embarrassed by it. Others feel defective. Not being able to keep up in the rat race, is a sure sign, for some, of obsolescence. But, the truth is, that Life has finally prevailed, and that its miracles, and enchantment, are now more available than ever.  Slowing alters awareness. It makes

 the subtle more perceptible, and the world more complex and beautiful.

The aging are in for a treat, an advantage that wasn’t much available during[DG1]  the machine-speed world of acquisition. Now, simpler beauties manifest. And, altered perceptions of self, and of what is important, show up. The curse of slowness becomes one of the gifts of aging.

 

The funny thing is, that it (slowing) is available to everyone right now. The pace of life is up to each one of us — no matter what age we are. Slowing is one of the hallmarks of a very rare form of maturity. It is the result of an acute perception about how violent speed is. You’ve probably heard the saying, “speed kills,” but probably you haven’t realized that speed kills perception, depth, and connection.  Humanity suffers— our’s, and everyone’s — when any of us go too fast!

 

Speeding through life is part of the violence of our times. It is a sure sign that one has been captured by the de-humanizing elements of modern life. The most effective protest of injustice is slowing down. There are more than roses waiting to be smelled.

 

 

 

---

 [DG1] 

Both/And

“Take your well-disciplined strengths 

 and stretch them between opposite poles.

Because inside human beings,

Is where God learns.”     Rilke

There is no bible that describes any of the gifts of old age. In a weird twist of human fate, the latter part of human life has been ignored. Thus, it languishes unseen and severely unrecognized. One could consider that to be a tragedy, another victim of myopia, prejudice, and selfish limitation. But, I don’t. Sure, old people bear a lot of weight, by virtue of being misperceived, yet there remains a lot of unexplored opportunity too. This Slow Lane addresses one of the most dramatic areas of old age, that reveals untapped human potential, and suggests that human awareness has important spiritual significance.

 

Some humans, not all, are capable of paradoxical awareness. In old age typically, the factors are present for this noteworthy and substantial development to take place. It is something that happens organically. Since paradoxical awareness is an unanticipated occurrence, it isn’t a product of any kind of willful intention. There is a latency, an instinctive artifact of long life, that alters experience, and adds depth and perspective to human perception. As a species, innate in our being, is the means to grasp experientially how connected we all are. Paradoxical awareness offers our species the chance to perceive more fully our place in the Universe.

 

Why does this matter? We may not be around much longer. Geological time, or deep time if you prefer, is going to swallow us up. We will be just another extinct species. There is likely to be no one, no ancestor, or similarly endowed whatever, to mourn for our disappearance. So, what significance can this form of perception have?

 

The Universe isn’t going to be altered by human awareness. But we, could be.

 

There is a possibility that we humans, at least some of us, may actually find a kind of fulfillment and existential justice, through re-perceiving ourselves as integral parts of the whole of Creation.  Paradoxical awareness may be Life’s way of informing its offspring of its larger being, and of their role in the life of the whole. How dignifying and re-assuring.

 

Humans have, at least in our own minds, been around for a long time. This has led to the saying that there “is nothing new under the sun.” And, who knows, this kind of awareness may not be new. Look at the writings of Lao-tzu, or Socrates, two oldsters, who in their later years, gave new meaning to the experience of paradox. Still, my guess is that evolution continues, and that paradoxical awareness is part of the Universe becoming more fully aware of itself.

 

If you are one of those people who doesn’t believe that their lives could serve any larger purpose, that is convinced that life is just a random process, an accident of eternity, then think about what a sense of paradox can do for you. This strange mystery that we have come into, is more enchanting, filled with more connected possibility, than previously imagined.

 

Paradoxical awareness is a part of being old that presents one with the chance to experience everything again for the first time. It is old and new. I believe that as we, as a species, experience demise — the end of our self-deluded and hubristic ride — we can take solace from the paradoxical awareness that the end is just the beginning, the birth pain that accompanies finality.

  

The Uplifting Exit

“It furthers one to have someplace to go.”   I Ching

When I was in my late 20’s and early 30’s I used to consult the I Ching. I would sometimes get this message during a reading, but I could never really figure out what it meant, in the context of my questions at that time. Now, the memory of it seems to haunt me. I am a lot older. I no longer consult the I Ching. But, somehow, I remember this line. I don’t know why. Perhaps this writing meditation will make it clear, perhaps it will veer another direction, revealing some other aspect of my being that needs attention. Anyway, here goes.

Why now? I wonder what is it about this stage of my existence, which warrants this kind of reminder? I am waiting for the train of death to pull up to the station. My life isn’t over, by any means. But, I can feel the proximity of the end of this story.  The one place I have to go is inexorable — it is my final resting place. I am not exactly waiting, yet, I am. Somehow, the knowledge of my impending death, the conclusion, that is in store for me, changes my remaining time, charging it with expectancy and preciousness. I am more vividly lost than ever, more wisely confused, more uncertainly alive. The clouds inside, now have a tint of mystery to them.

I know I am going away. That there will not be much that will remain for long. My friends face their own lives, their attention will go where it belongs. I will disappear into the frenetic rhythms of life. My own absence, makes my heart grow fonder. I want to touch what I cannot, to grasp what eluded me, to resonate for a moment with someone’s heart, to quietly hold to awareness my own essence. Being is too much, and not enough. Going away, surprisingly, means arriving like never before.

I am thrown by what I think I know. I can’t get over my own weak-kneed insistency. It seems, I can be found, wandering near the abyss. Yet, I go on, hearing the whistle of the train approaching, and feeling some strange combination of amnesia and hallucinogenic awakening. This era of my life holds some recombination of things I thought I knew, with things that have always had a life of their own. I am uplifted by my own mystification. Not-knowing, has become a way back into the garden.

Maybe I have put too much emphasis on the going, disappearing, and not enough on the fading. Some shimmering presence is tucked into this moment. It seems that I have more chance of perceiving it, when I am nearing skinlessness.  As the emptying of my hull takes place, the moment blazes as never before, and the mystery that has befuddled me so, becomes incandescent. I am somehow implicated, the light shines right through me, and the landscape of living, no matter how brief, is fraught with miracles.

 It furthers one to have someplace to go. I am being transported, some magic conveyor belt is taking me, toward an edge, that is stirring up some kind of storm of delight. Aging, wrinkling into nothingness, becoming broken, no longer existing as I have been, is seizing me, and delivering me into another world, one that exists with this one. I am unable to remember so much, but you know what, compared to what is emerging, it doesn’t matter. Graying has introduced me to colors beyond my imagination.

 

 

 

 

Compassion and Unknowing

There are many lessons for me in this life. Sometimes I’m up to it, sometimes I’m not. Ultimately, I’ve noticed, mostly I’m the one who suffers. In this case, I’m learning something new about compassion. 

First, it has taken me a long time to get that compassion is multi-valenced. It works in multiple directions. When I am able to feel it for myself, I’m more able to feel it for another. I’ve been starved of compassion, because I have not been compassionate enough. Some strange paradox, inner and outer, rules this process. Anyway, life is growing me by sensitizing me to a new awareness. I have some compassion for myself as I am learning more about compassion.

 

It was a big surprise for me, when I began to realize that not-knowing was a key to becoming more compassionate. I have spent most of my life trying to accumulate knowledge. It was, in some ways, a passport to a kind of prestige, a certain way of being somebody. Giving that presumed benefit up, has not been high on my priority list; it was tantamount to a form of self-immolation. I haven’t been game for letting that much mystery into my life.

 

On the other hand, I have worn a lot of other people’s projections.  Over the years, I have experienced the acidic wear and tear of the ways I have been thought about, and reacted to. Too much of the pain in the world has come into my life through the misdirected ways others have held me. I have felt incensed, aggrieved, and dismayed by the injustice of this part of being human.  I developed the capacity to not take it personally, and to see that projections often told me, a lot about the projectors. Still accepting that component of life hasn’t been much fun.

 

What I have come to see is that I project too. Not just because I am unconscious, but because I am alive. I am always imagining the world I’m in, what I’m about to do, and alas, the people I am involved with. These projections, they can be for better or worse, run my relationships, and often determine my false sense of the world. I am constantly painting reality, and particularly my relationships, with the brush of my limited knowing. What I rarely notice is how much damage I do. Because, while I am busy projecting all over others, I’m focused upon, how much others are misperceiving me.

I’ve known about this hole in my ability to perceive accurately for some time. But, it has only been recently that I made the connection between my own emotional reactions and my failure to be compassionately available. When I allow myself to get too stirred up by the unfairness I perceive, then I focus even more intently on the other with my own brand of thoughts. That is, projections mostly.

 

Now, I’ve come to think I know too much. Or, perhaps more accurately, I think I know, too much. It is obvious I project all the time. So, I misperceive people, reality, and myself regularly, naturally. There is no compassion to that. My desire now is to experience reality and others, as they are. To let my emotional reactions inform me, about myself, and to let that form of thinking I know, go.

 

I am a more compassionate being, that is one of the benefits of getting older. Another, is that I can see more clearly. My desire for sex has waned, and over the years, my desire for connection has grown. Learning how unknowing frees me, to practice a more compassionate form of connection, is a major by-product of learning. I know enough, to know I don’t know much of anything. And not-knowing allows me to have more of an experience of the moment, and to be more compassionate while I’m at it.

 

 

 

 

Mystery Unfolding

“Aging is a mystery and we are all detectives,

but there are no solutions just waiting out there to be discovered.

 The future is within us, within our ever evolving selves.

We have already outlived the centuries old social order

 that can no longer define who we are. 

We must now engage in sometimes chaotic creation

 of a whole new stage of life.

 We are truly up to us.”

                                                                             — Rabon Saip

 

“We are truly up to us.” We always have been, but now it is more obvious, and necessary. Uncertainty blankets the world. No one knows what’s going to happen. Fear, anxiety and hope run rampant in the minds of the people. It is both, what the Chinese curse calls for; an interesting time, and a medicine moment. The wheel is turning. Balance is a condition of the past, if ever.

 

This is a great moment for the old. Those of us who have been around the block a few times, recognize the twisting, turning path, and know to lean into the forces of push and pull. We have outlived expectations, prescriptions, conventions, and all manner of fantasies. There is nothing left of us, but our inner core. Essentially, we are leftovers, picked clean, new in a preposterous way. Innocent by means of reduction. Stripped of everything, but our potential.

 

There is a change spasm happening. Reality is questionable. Words like conspiritual are showing us the liquidity of everything. It is a time like no other, even the description ‘unprecedented’ is too tame. There is a touch of wild madness in the air. What is old is no more. Leaving only what has the wit to survive. 

 

Lies are another word for myth, manipulation for influence, and reality for perception. Who can be trusted? The social sphere is more fragmented than usual. Out of all of this chaos comes opportunity. The old, by years and experience, have no corner on the adaptive market, we have no super power, we are not sacred cows, but we have a lot of practice with letting go. And oh is this a time of letting go! The sands are sliding through our fingers. Obsolescence is a mean and exacting teacher.

To be old now is a virginal experience. People, shocked by what we have been forced to experience, have been brought to the living edge of creation, where we are getting to witness the messy process of coming into existence. In the chaos we are reconstituted.

 

Everyone gets to be ourselves — if we can stand the uncertainty. Many of the theories, conspiratorial or otherwise, rose out of a desire to reduce uncertainty, by trying to explain what cannot be explained. Especially, the best conspiritual beliefs! We, old folks, and young people alike, are now up to us, like never before. What is, is becoming!’

 

Everyone needs a dose of vitamen A — Awe, at this moment!

 

 

 

  

Farther Along

When you are getting older, there isn’t much you can rely on. Aging, despite the body changes, is such a mysterious process. It is hard to believe that some inexorable process, other than the breakdown of what was, is happening. I call it ripening. This piece is about the Mystery that goes on, mostly unnoticed, while we are bemoaning the new difficulties we are experiencing. There is something else happening, something so unknown, and beyond us, that it deserves some attention, some recognition. As I have just learned, it is good that we cannot make it happen.

 

Old age is a kind of special indignity. Besides wrinkles, loss of memory and balance, advancing ear hair and invisibility, there comes, the losses that propel one into a broader orbit. An overview looms. New perspective comes into sight. And suddenly, if you are not too mesmerized by what you’ve lost, escape velocity is near at-hand. For the first time, you can feel the possibility, of being yourself, of no longer being defined by the conventions of the consensus conspiracy theory. Ripening means you get to fall from the tree.

 

Some people are totally terrified at the prospect of that moment. Whereas, some old people are not. What’s going on? Ripening is taking everyone beyond control, beyond imagination, beyond themselves. It’s a free service that the Universe provides.

 

Anyway, getting there is a kind of foreplay, full of surprises, misdirection, and passionate anticipation. No one knows where the fruit goes, or what service it renders, but falling is much like flying, so exhilaration takes hold. The really interesting part occurs when one recognizes that one has always been falling, one  is just farther along.  Then joy settles in.

 

Some people already realize the Universe is diddling with them. They have anticipatory joy, pre-orgasmic elation. Getting older, for them, is non-rational, and highly suspect to the culture. 

 

Farther along is a Mystery, that turns us all in new directions, without our consent, and approval. This is equal parts terror and awe. It is the finest e-ticket ride the Universe has to offer.  Thrills, spills, and beguiling hills to climb. The body’s breakdown heralds the end of this ride, and the perspective that makes sense of the whole strange trip. It is the end and the beginning all at once. Imagine that!

 

Farther along, there waits a being of light. It is what you are becoming. A mystifying sensuous light, that is a product of a lifetime of befuddled learning. One can sense this unfolding presence, this lightness of being, in the way things keep evolving, becoming more complex as they become simpler. Farther along lies breakdown, the breakthrough, that we cannot make, which gratefully insures that we get there.

 

Yes, paradox rules.