In The Deep

“The dark is the light I most fear.”

Tis the season of darkness. The time when the light is brightest because of the growing darkness. Sometimes, the light is most illuminating, because its other half is equally present. It is my contention that darkness complements the light, and makes all of our seasonal rituals more powerful.  Thankfully, the diminution of the light reveals the true abundance, and grace, of the dark.

I am a creature spawned by the darkness. I am evidence, that what appears in the light like an unmitigated disaster — a tragedy of the first degree — can be a form of endarkenment. Pain, uncertainty, and hardship, can be grace-prone too. The darkness caresses too. The light is extolled during this season, for good reason, but the darkness does some of the heavy lifting too. What we often don’t want to see, is what transforms us the most. Anyway, tis the season when what is not celebrated, is boosting and empowering what is. Paradox is rampant, twisting us all into our real form.

I’ve heard it said that we humans only perceive about 10% of the Universe. The rest is called ‘dark matter.’  The theory that science prefers right now, is that the Universe is actually composed of 90% dark matter, which no one can perceive, even with the most sophisticated scientific instruments.  Darkness is almost everything. Who would have guessed?

Only the grotesque who have been blessed by the dark.

Darkness also seems to best portray the deep. It is the metaphor that best captures the unknown, uncertain, reaches of mystery. It is where all of our unactualized potential resides. The unknown benefactor has a dark, indistinguishable face, a complection feared by many.

I have a complex relationship with my parentage. If I had not been assailed by what appeared to be tragedy, I would not be what I am. No one warned me. No one told me such a thing was possible. The only discussion of dark angels I was privy to, was of evil. I can tell you now, there are dark angels doing providential work. Being born in the dark is perhaps the most accurate birth one can have. Happily, I can look at the face of darkness now, and see a lover. Light is, for me, a particularly brilliant part of the darkness. I float in a deep and wonderfully dark sea.

The turning of the year, the solstice, the birth of new hope, the family rituals and the religious and spiritual moments, all underscore the power that resides in Mystery. The darkness is Mystery made most evident. I welcome this season not because of what it portends, but because of what is already here, beguiling us with darkness. The deep is coming to our senses.

Deck the halls with deeply uncertain joy! It is the uncertainty, more than the certainty, that makes this such a wondrous, and joyful occasion.

May darkness, and depth, fill your cup this year!

 

 

 

  

The Initiating Wound

A life review

 is one of the most important 

developmental tasks of later life. 

 

These forays into the past

are a naturally occurring, 

universal mental process in older adults.

 

 Only in old age

 with the proximity of death 

can one truly experience

 a personal sense of the entire life cycle.

 

 That makes old age 

a unique stage of life

 and makes the review of life

 at that time equally unique.

Pulitzer-Prize winning gerontologist Dr. Robert Butler 

No one knows where they are headed. I didn’t. Maybe, I still don’t. To look back, and to see some of the trail that brought me here, is painfully beautiful. This is especially true when one beholds a part of the trail, that one has never seen before or, that one had assumed was something else. There is a kind of dizziness, or vertigo, that befalls one when the landscape of fate reveals itself. As one’s story changes, so does one’s sense of self. Recollection, or a life review, is a big deal. Aging begs me to better know myself. And, that can be an existential thrill ride.

In the summer of 1986 I was 38 years old, I had just completed my MA. and was living by myself. There were so many ways my life might go, and I had very little idea which way was best suited for the being I intended to be. I knew that I lacked a center of gravity, a place within, from which I could decide where my life might go. The decision was made, I much later discovered, by an unknown part of myself, someone I can now see at 74.

That long ago me, started spontaneously to write. Little did I know that writing was going to be important to me. Instead, I just wondered about what I was doing, and went ahead and did it. Without any real intention, mainly to pass the lonely time, I wrote a piece, which I called at the time ‘The Initiating Wound.’ I’ll spare you the details, except to say, that that piece carried the elements I was to discover later in the aftermath of my stroke. All the seeds were present, I just could not recognize them yet.

Unknowingly, I wrote of a painfully important initiation, that involved being broken and wounded, to become whole. I wrote about how initiating hardship and loss can be. 20 years later I experienced it. I may have survived, because some part of me knew what was possible. Seeing it now, is poignant, disturbing, and enormously gratifying. I don’t believe my life, or anybody’s for that matter, is preordained. Still, this recollection gives me pause. I call it now, pre-traumatic growth. Somehow, some part of me knew the impossible. You can believe the world looks really different, when it veers off into the other-worldly.

When one can see crossroads that were traversed by an unknown self, it is sobering. It makes one wonder to what degree of reality one is actually perceiving. It’s a good thing ‘not knowing’ grows on you as you get older. I probably have never been what, and who, I thought I was. For me, one of the benefits of life review is that I get a clearer picture, that I am not what I supposed. The mirror of the past belongs in a funhouse, because it is revealing a me I know, and a me I don’t know. How astonishing!

The uniqueness of life review reveals to me that I am a holy mystery. Time has helped me ripen into a unique form that somehow was predicted long ago. I can’t figure that one out, but I sure can be swept into awe by it.

I hope that is your experience too.

 

 

 

 

Disillusionment

 One of the attributes of old age which has had a positive impact upon me has been that I am outgrowing much of the cultural nonsense I have been subject to. Growing more mature has brought with it a more refined and perceptive viewpoint. I am no longer subject to ‘common knowledge,’— the most conventional of assumptions. That development has been really liberating, but full of betrayal and painful disillusionment. The crazy deception prevalent in the normal social world has led me to a lifetime of distortion.

It has been painful, disorienting, de-humanizing, disturbing and debilitating. Once I was small, young, and inexperienced-enough to believe the created world I was born into. That era passed long ago. And with it passed my child-like innocence.

I drank the kool-aid. I lived the big lie — swallowing separation — and reducing my native wit into the pablum of the era. I was the most faithful lemming, heading over the cliff of environmental disaster, with a smile on my face. I may have been more and more depressed, but I was living the good life.

Fortunately, I’m older than that now. Aging has revealed what I always knew, but had no way of saying, integrating or really affirming before. The world is suffering from a lack of human imagination. And, so am I.

Each step of the way. Each turn of my life, as I grew more aware, I found good reasons to no longer feel so sanguine about what had once been so important to me. I went from trying to be what would pass, to an effort to find something to save me outside myself — like a good job, relationship, or house. All along, I was soon disabused of the things that mattered to me. I grew, by leaving behind a trail of shattered illusions. I could have been cynical, but instead my disillusionment just grew.

Now, I have experienced a life of twists and turns. What used to matter — the circumstances that always floated my boat — have all passed over the horizon. I am    left with a lifetime of illusions of fulfillment. AKwakening to all of these false starts has been disheartening.  It is odd how bearing this lifetime of disappointments has somehow prepared me for this part of my life.

I have a new friend who says, “Disillusionment is a precursor to wisdom.” Rightly, I believe, as he is pointing out, that all of these necessary failures, have delivered me to a healthier realization of what really matters. The earlier illusions have been replaced by newer, more gratifying ones. But, now I can see an old pattern of broken promises and hypnotizing beliefs. I’m still prone to believe some of them, but now I’m savvy enough to know I’m fooling myself. I am a sad carrier of yesterday’s beliefs, of hope gone awry, of massive disillusionment, of a humble, if not humiliated, innocence.

Strangely, all of this is so normal. Getting older, has revealed to me just how much I have been wrong. It is a painful kind of liberation. Another twist, is that it is carrying me closer to home. I am old enough now, where I know my freedom depends upon freeing myself from the gravity of all these old assumptions. Disillusionment with the past serves one headed into an unfettered future.

Along the way I have come to distrust certainty. That has put me on a path of unknowing. This experience is harrowing, only slightly more desirable then the one that formerly looked so appealing. I travel more slowly now, weighed down by my accumulated illusions, but sensitized to a humbler way. 

 

 

  

Deep and Slow

 

It is the deep and slow
that survive,
the deep and slow that
hold up the land

It is why we are here,
together for a while:
to help each other slow
enough to hear the deep,
to feel the deep, to find
it in ourselves. 

                                                                  It is why we are here.

                                                                                from To Be An Elder by Mark Nepo

It is why we old people are here. To notice depth and to embody it. That means, in some way, to become it. The experience, sensitivity, and nearness to death, alter awareness, and promote a more layered perspective, that can give expression to what lies underneath us all. Depth is an antidote to the crisis of shallowness that debilitates our society. There is inherent in the elder experience of some folks, access to a penetrating awareness. The ecosystem of beliefs that defines the surface of our daily societal interactions suffers from lack of nuance — the many-layered depth — that some elders know.

This awareness is slow. It is composed of multiple layers, connections and potencies. The moment is an opening to all that can happen. It takes a while to become palpable, and even then, it is laden with probability. Slowness honors unknown enormity. Slowness salutes uncertainty and thusly pays homage. Beneath it all is the unknown, the face of providence, to which slowness is reverence.

Getting old is more than just aging. Old souls quicken awareness, and paradoxically slow it down. The deep is slow because essence unfolds according to laws of its own — the truth is always a multi-faceted thing. The humility that befalls the many humiliations of a long-life, prepares one for being partially alive to arising wholeness. What the deep delivers is always greater than what we expect, always more than we are prepared for.

Mystery and aging are tied together. The deep has a pact with slowness, and this pact governs the ripening process. One cannot get riper without deepening and slowing. It is this natural inclination that makes an elder such a timely host for the honoring of depth.  Perhaps some of the most poignant suffering the world knows comes because elder depth is not adequately recognized. The world is mired in the superfluous.

There isn’t a solution to this imbalance. The self-correcting elements of the larger system will eventually prevail. But, in the meantime, find the way to slow. Think of doing that as taking a retreat from the normal hub-bub of your life. Depth is after you — slowing down makes you a more inviting target. You want to be this kind of bulls-eye. If you are a slow hot mess, then Life is on its way.

Being depth is inherently slow. Feeling it inside takes a while, decades according to the author. This is one of the things we need each other for. The complexity we are to each other, supports the emergence of this kind of being. Slowly, we can be turned into a kind of human kaleidoscope, a multi-faceted sponge, aware of the many nuances, that make up the depths. Falling all over each other has a humanizing and deepening effect, that is good for releasing depth into the world. 

 

In, But Not, Of

There is a way, in the latter part of life, we humans are utterly transformed, and become more and less than we have ever been. I’m aware that what I’m about to describe doesn’t happen for everyone. This is only a human potential. That is, only some humans achieve this kind of experience.

Some folks combine the quintessential elder experience, that is, of not being who they used to be, with a sense that they are becoming more. They are somewhere in between, they are not who they were, and they are not yet who they will be. In my way of saying it, they are between the worlds. They go beyond themselves, but not entirely. They are a lot more than they used to be, but not entirely. For some reason, known only to The Great Mystery, they are suspended — not here and not there. They embody a very paradoxical status, not dead to who they were, and not yet fully alive to who they are becoming.

This phenomenon, of being in between, isn’t a new one. Many people have experienced a version of it at other times in life. I went through a period of not knowing myself when my first marriage ended. Things like accidents, moves, illnesses, joblessness, relationship changes, retirement, and near-death experiences trigger these occurrences. These events are often seen as tragic, and at least, disturbing. They all seem to be associated with changes of status.

At the later part of life, a variation of this experience is often the source of a lot of painful uncertainty. Old people have the experience of losing the status they once enjoyed. They are changing in a way that is semi-expected — the calendar doesn’t lie — but the how and when one goes beyond oneself, is almost always a surprise. Changing status, mainly enduring the loss of status, is a predictable challenge. Being constantly in this state is what is typical and unusual about the elder stage of life.

 A lot of folks bemoan this aspect of aging. Many try to avoid it, some lean into it. Later on in elderhood, a very few, that have adjusted to being without status, enter the realm of being in between. These folks are in the world, they have a life, are located within the parameters of normalcy, and as a result of their lost status, are living outside the realm of normalcy. They have a unique viewpoint, by virtue of being subject to a shifting perspective. They are in the world, but not of it.

Through the many years I have been exploring elderhood, I haven’t been able to pinpoint what I thought was unusual, or unique about this phase of human life. Many old people have suffered because there was nothing about this phase of life that was considered uplifting, inspiring, or otherwise good. One just got ill, lived a while with limitations, and died. There isn’t anything to look forward to.

Until now.

Instead, I think this aspect of human potential, which is entirely elder, has a lot to offer individuals, and human community. Elder wisdom doesn’t just come from experience, it also comes from perspective. Being between the worlds, not dead to this one, and not yet fully alive to the next one. There exists a view that isn’t defined by cultural consensus, and is instead influenced by a more natural and cosmic view. For a while some old people dwell there, and bring back to us, a clearer picture of our place in the great scheme of things.

Generally, it is people in their eighties, nineties and occasionally their seventies who provide the rest of us with a   different and broader take on human existence. They are here in the world, waiting for death to send them to some other orbit, feeling the proximity of what comes next, and altered by it, but still here. They provide us, if we pay attention to them, with a glimpse of the future, with a new, perhaps a fuller picture of human possibility. This is a natural phenomenon, a kind of rare human beauty, that is available now.

Tweeners, as I now think of them, have a rarefied sensitivity. They know what it means to be somebody, and then to become nobody — to have a view of the world, only to see it dissolve into something else. They know both the ardor of loss and the unexpected delight of gain. They have been hammered into shape by the exquisite hardships of a good life and then set lose in a more enchanted world. They provide us with precious insight, especially into what it really means to be human.

The challenges of being old in this world are great. It is no wonder there is so much fear and misperception. This social reality isn’t helped by the lack of supports, external, and especially internal, that make ageing look so bad. Fortunately, Life hasn’t waited around for us to grow up, and make the human condition more congruent with who we are. In the later phases of life, a natural force alters us, allowing more of our humanity to show through the conditioning that once defined us. And revealing the natural beauty of our kind.

Being in between, waiting to die, while being infused with a new way of being, makes the possibilities more evident, and offers all of us, the incentive to actualize ourselves while we still can. Being suspended is hard, it isn’t bad or defective, and it is a lonely experience, but it sheds light in all the important places. Being between the worlds is a gift that can grow on us, and that reveals what is truest about who we are. Being in between is a miraculous hardship composed of compassion and difficult beauty. It is Life’s way of transforming us naturally.

 

 

 

  

Service

There is a way to perform that isn’t about impressing. One can rise above the natural urge to fit in — the need to adhere to loved one’s expectations can become secondary. The project of making a name for yourself, or becoming somebody by virtue of what you do, can give way. With diligence one can free themselves of such selfish and immature impulses — as natural as they may be — by performing a real service. The act of placing someone else’s needs in front of your own is a sure way of discovering new and possible yous.

Service is overlooked as a real way to discover one’s self, and to mature into somebody. We have what are called the ‘armed services’ which are ostensibly about serving our country, but that form of service ignores the fact that maturity and presence are essential in all of our important relationships. Serving an other, particularly someone who isn’t easy to serve, does more to grow character than anything else. When service becomes something that is both an inside and outside activity, instead of just a way of focusing on another, then the benefit is universal – it helps everyone.

Service is often seen as heroic, like going out of one’s way to help someone. In this way it is optional. Instead, real service is a more complex story. In early life it is a way to show goodness and tame the desire to fit in, to be somebody. Later, toward middle age, it is a way of being masterful, and benefiting a loved one. But, late in life, it can become something far more precious, and beneficial to all. It reflects a general consciousness of connection — of being part of something larger. Service then is being armed with compassion and the sure knowledge of relatedness.

Service is one of those phenomena, like love, that grows as one ages. It becomes something else. Awareness and experience carry it into more nuanced realms. The love of self and the love of the other begin to merge. After decades, suddenly becoming fully human looks and feels different! Now the equation isn’t complete without boundaries becoming connections!

As a radically disabled person, I have been forced into an intimate relationship with service. I’ve known the bane of being thought of as a thing that needed attention, like a plant, and the ecstasy of serving by being myself. I don’t think I have to tell you which is preferable. However, the objectification of the needy is far more prevalent. Being served prejudicially, is like being treated to a de-humanizing bath. Ageing, and experience, have shown me that apologizing for being a wreck, and needing help, isn’t enough.

All of that humiliation, all of that being treated like a defect, brought out of me an awareness that I think is quite rare. I serve because I do ask for help, and I think it builds community. I serve by virtue of knowing that being broken is a valuable aspect of being human. I serve by being unexpected, by being proud of being educated by darkness, by not wanting anything different, by being of service to those who do not know the privilege of being disabled. I serve because I am.

There is a lot to be said about service. For instance, it is a sure way of learning about yourself. Service is a much bigger deal than we humans generally think it is. We, who are elders, who are broken down, have the capacity to let everybody in on this well-kept secret. All we have to do is ask — ourselves, and each other, for the help all of us need. In so doing, we are affirming one of our most human characteristics —the strength and beauty of our mutual dependency on each other.

 

 

 

  

Performing

One of the developmental achievements of old age is, what I refer to as, “escaping the gravitational pull of mass mind,” that is, getting away from being a cultural agent. A lot of energy goes into the effort to be genuine, to no longer be trapped by the values of convention. Old people in particular are motivated by a desire to be free, they don’t want to be captured by the conforming power of the system. The uniqueness of each of us, can be washed out of us, by our own desire to fit in. It is an especially human dilemma.

The effort to overcome conditioning is undermined by how good a repertoire of hiding one has developed. Or, how much your loved ones matter to you. To get by, one learns to perform. Getting good at knowing how to perform, how to respond to all situations with just the right way of being, that allows one to stay within the margins of acceptability.

 Behavior is one of the ways we show our identity papers. One is in the in-crowd if one can perform all the secret handshakes. After a lifetime of doing it, a mantle of normalcy hardens into place, and normalcy becomes routine.

Living outside the boundary of normalcy, out in the hinterlands of authenticity is hard, sometimes dangerous, and often painful. When humans get older, they are forced into the weeds at the margins. This is when the play between conformity and authenticity gets really interesting and dicey. Those who have not already developed a capacity for self-hood begin to feel trapped. And those who have —become avidly interested in tasting freedom before it’s too late — suffer ignominy.

Dying free and authentic is a deeply human value, that goes beyond the messages of comformity, that remain the pablum of the masses.

The struggle for the freedom to be oneself is rooted in the desire to be free of the constraints of passing, popularity, or marginality. As a human it is painful to be the subject of prejudice, invisibility, and misperception, and for some, it is equally painful, to live captive within social orthodoxy. Aging is hard, precisely because the urge to be free, runs one up against how unfree one has been. Throwing off the voluntary shackles one has assumed is challenging, enough so, that it can take a lifetime. Being old prompts that kind of awareness, necessitates change, and moves one dramatically into a minority position. The headwinds are greatest when the heart starts awakening.

Going beyond social conditioning requires an ardent drive. One that has to bear the humiliation that comes with failing repeatedly. Failing to be free happens a lot more than being authentic. Think about it, even the normal greeting, “How are     you?”  is laden with the challenge, are you one of us, or are you a wild unknown being? What passes for normal discourse can be loaded with stern messages about where the line is. The temptation is always pressing.

The urge to perform is always present. The better you have been at it — makes it all that more beguiling. Fitting in is so important to us humans, and being ourselves is becoming even more important. We don’t yet live in a world where both are acceptable, but if old people truly acquire freedom, the rest of us could. Meanwhile performing will go on, and authenticity will remain a desire that grows more pressing as we age.

Freedom isn’t free. Working on ourselves isn’t really work — it’s harder. And, growing more mature isn’t always welcome. Being human in a world of contradictions is a vulnerable opportunity. Performing in these circumstances is a hair-raising experience, one made for an exquisitely rare being.

 

 

 

  

Graceful Weirdness

The Cracked Water Pot: An Indian Story 

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hanging on one end of a pole, which he carried across his neck. One pot was perfect and delivered a full portion of water after the long walk from the stream to the master’s house. The other pot had a crack in it and leaked, so that it always arrived half full.

For two years the bearer delivered only one and a half pots of water to the master. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. The cracked pot was ashamed of its imperfection and miserable that it was able to accomplish only a half of what it had been made to do.

It spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I want to apologize to you.”

“Why?” The man said.

“I am only able to deliver half of my load because this crack in my side causes a leak. Because of my flaw, you do all of this work and don’t get the value of your effort.”

The water bearer responded, “As we return to the master’s house, notice the beautiful flowers along the road. Do you see that there are flowers only on your side of the path? Because I know your flaw, I took advantage of it and planted seeds on your side of the path. You’ve watered them every day. And I’ve been able to pick them to decorate the master’s table. Without you being just as you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.”                                                                                          

                                                                                                                                                                                      A West Asian Folk Tale

Perfection comes in many guises. We aren’t able to recognize them all. It’s just possible that what we consider our fatal flaw might just be perfection in disguise. Remember the cracked pot next time you are about to criticize yourself, or someone else. How many seedlings have we been nourishing unknowingly? It looks like Creation may be depending upon our broken ways. Beauty mangled is still beauty.

In fact, I think we might all be cracked pots. This life is weird enough that my flaws just might be my perfection. My crack pot ideas carry me into a host of situations that turn out in ways I would never expect. So, do my plans. Does the Universe chuckle, or am I imagining it?

There is no accounting for the way this life keeps twisting around and becoming something else. Usually something unexpected, that pulls out of us some hidden and unknown beauty. The water bearers creativity and compassion is a true model of our capacity.

Through some compassionate mystery we are perfect with all of our flaws. How’s that for a wacky full-paradoxical reality? Being human in such a world is just part of the graceful weirdness we get to be part of.\ 

 

 

  

Nature’s Call

 Hold on a second. I have to answer Nature’s call. After emptying my bowels and my bladder, I wonder about all the other ways Nature has been calling, or as I say, “knocking at the door.” Somehow, Nature called me into existence. I am here becau a natural sequence occurred which set me on the course of being human.

Despite wrong learning, and with misperception abounding, I have floundered around enough, to suffer from the dis-ease of not knowing what we humans are capable of. Nature keeps calling me into the bathroom, at the same time, it keeps calling me into the mysteries of aging.

There is a whole lot of being human that is organic, predestined by our animal nature. Unfortunately, somewhere back there in time, most ofour ancestors swallowed the kool-aid, or had the sense beat out of them. So badly, that a belief that we humans are not still part of Nature prevailed. Wrong. From the moment of conception, throughout the amazing uptake of additional complexity, to the wizened wrinkles and loss of memory that ripens us all, Nature is turning the evergreening wheel.  How could we have pretended otherwise?  Yet, we still do —some of us don’t realize that Life is having its way with us.

That belief, as incredulous as it is, still rebounds harshly on those of us who are aging. Its as if the laws of Nature don’t apply to us.  Graying isn’t natural, and Nature hasn’t any surprises left for those in the later stages of ripening. Nature’s call is confined to passing by-products, and has nothing to do with the latter years. Life eschews waste, and saves the best for the ripening times. The environmental crisis, and the neglect of the aging, share the same root. Each assumes that Nature is out there — and is there, for our use.

This isn’t an environmental scree, it is a plea that we humans enjoy the fact that the garden is within us, and that wildness and natural wily-ness is part of us, even as, and maybe especially as, we get older. Nature is each one of us. Nature’s call is coming right through each one of us, each as naturally original as a snowflake, or a monsoon.

Some old people are feeling the impetus of Life. It is stirring them to go further. The lucky ones, they suffer gladly, the vagaries of Life, becoming polished by the combination of hardship and glory. They bring the unknown to us, naturally and nutritiously. Life thrives when it gets to go on to complexify, while it is simplifying itself. Old age is an essential part of the whole! Ageism is the gravitational pull of the past, while aging is the gravitational pull of what is. Nature’s call.

There isn’t much more to say. Words fail anyway. As a human, an elderly one at that, I have learned that the only say I have, is how I respond to Nature’s call. The way I see it all now is like a dance. Nature leads, and I follow as creatively as I can. How I respond is who I am, and Nature’s call dreams me up.

 

 

 

  

Across A Lifetime

I tend to think differently. There are many reasons that is the case, but the most significant one is that I have a developmental perspective. That means that I see how Life moves through each of us over a lifetime. The most amazing thing about this view, is that it reveals the many stages of growth that are typical for our species. This viewpoint has contributed to my overall confidence about what nature is doing with us. So, despite our abuse of the natural beauty that has been bequeathed to us, I still can see the way Nature thrives when we grow and become more mature.

There is an organic quality to us, the animal nature of who we are, that has been forgotten in our rush to become civilized. This has had many dire consequences, not the least of which, has been our assumed dominion over the natural world. In the process, all kinds of hell have been set loose. Everything has suffered, and especially in societies where this blind adherence to the preeminence of our kind has dominated, the old have suffered. What Nature has designed as the point of most natural transition (death), has become a place of fear, ignorance, and superstition.  Captured within the hubris of so-called modern culture, humanity, and all of Nature, labors from the misperception that Nature and humans are separate.

This misperception obscures the biological magic that defines us, that shapes who we are, and the place we can occupy in the great circle of being. Life has a hold on us, even as we pretend we don’t have a hold on it. So, some of us, through maturity, luck, and unconscious instinctive desire, still manage to return to the headwaters, and fulfill the cycle of life. We are part of a drama that has universal implications. Souls cycle through life, and return to the source.

My luck has been that I was torn apart, so nothing made any sense, and what remained, was only what exists beyond nothing — the immaterial realm. Without the usual kind of sight, I could see my own blindness. It (my blindness) existed even when I thought I could see. Only then did I look more carefully.

I learned that Life itself lived through me. Then, I paid more attention. Later revelations showed that Life moves through all the stages of humankind. Old people are the latest stage of a larger rushing torrent, the final unleashing. Some of them, broken and wrinkled on the outside, experienced Life moving through inside them, and have become the embodiments of Life. They give an expression of our natural inheritance. They are the wild fruit of a cosmological Mystery.

The old today are not the old of yesterday. Life moves on. Paradoxically, what seems old is new. Elders are beginners with strange sensibilities. Life is arriving again, in a form that looks familiar, but isn’t.

I think differently. This is my song. The only one I am capable of singing. A developmental perspective has changed my viewpoint, and made visible the inside story. Don’t take my word for it, check out the old people around you. Some of them, will disclose the possibilities, that Life brings. 

That will be hearteningly obvious. Interact with them. Consider embodiment. Life is there, in its eternal passing-through. Now, interact some more. Add depth to the Mystery. There we are. The children of this place. Elders posing near the beginning, which is an ending. The origin waters. 

 

 

 

  

The Noise

Asking for help has been illuminating. Watching what happens, feeling the agitation it evokes, waiting for responses, hoping for the best, and learning how hard it is to penetrate the noise, distraction, and preoccupation of others, awakens one. Asking is anything but a straight-line experience. It exposes one’s humanity, while revealing the human condition. Somehow, the word “we” comes more alive, vivid, and poignant. Collective wholeness is such a rare bird.

I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have been, by how difficult it has been for me to get people’s attention. The plea for help does not have much resonance in the modern overactive world. Last time I wrote about how speed kills. These last few days, I’ve come to experience how easily we lose touch with ourselves, and each other, in the mesmerizing rush of this violent version of modern life. I go to pieces each time I answer the call of being a normal agent of this kaleidoscope of activity.

My disabled self relishes the slowness it has imposed upon me. I am Lucky, and I feel a certain compassion when something, like my request for help, reminds me that the price of normalcy in this world is so exacting.  Then I feel the tidal wave of grief that is extracted by this fragmented, speedy life most of us are living. I know I feel inadequate, like I have failed the test, and I should go home and crawl under the bed. Luckily, most the time, I’m off this treadmill.

The treadmill, that is such a good metaphor for the kind of constantly distracting effort that modern life insists upon. From the vantage point of this go-go life, one can easily see how difficult it is to have a semblance of an integrated self. The world of commerce, efficiency and actualization throws everything and everybody into the hopper. What’s left is truly gross national product. Effluvial quantity rather than humane quality.

My simple request for help is making me too aware of the brokenness of this social moment. I wanted to help marginalized old people, only to get a big dose of how marginalized most of us are. The suffering of the old — not-knowing what a miracle we are, and this life is — is a debilitation that is wide-spread in this world. It has become normal suffering.

There isn’t enough money, balm, medicine, or realization to staunch this flow. It is no wonder the Earth is reeling. The old are only the harbingers of what is to come, and of what is happening. Modern times is a misnomer.

There is time for adjustment! There are still neighbors, family, partners —and most importantly, the one within — who can experience the glow of recognition. The redemptive quality of life hasn’t gone away because our attention has been diverted. Life cares more than that for us. Now, we just need to care that much for each other.

Once upon a time, I read of an anthropologist, who claimed he had discovered the missing link between modern man and our animal past. He proclaimed, “it is us.”

We still have time on our hands. Maybe we can discover the missing link within ourselves.

 

 

 

 

Stop

“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence

 to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork.

 The rush and pressure of modern life are a form,

 perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.

 To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns,

 to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects,

 to want to help everyone in everything, 

is to succumb to violence.”

- Thomas Merton

 

This is a painful one. I have no expectation that anything is going to change. Writing about slowing down is a lost cause. I’ve been writing about the dangerous pace of life since 2005. The Slow Lane got its name from the perception that arose in me, because my stroke stopped me, and revealed a world that I had missed in my daily rush. If that hadn’t happened I might not have had a clue. Now I am impressed by how slippery, and easy to miss, this perception of cultural time is. It is more than the water we swim in, it is the blindness we extol.

I cannot believe that a form of violence this profound could be so invisible, so imperceptible to us. Worse yet, some of us, take pride in being so busy as to be totally oblivious of time.  Some of us even take pride in our harried lateness. There is a form of mass murder that is disguised by rushing. It isn’t necessarily of others, but of the spirit. “Speed kills” in so many ways, some gross and obvious, and others, so subtle and thorough. Being mangled is just part of doing business in this culture.

All of that, the disfigurement of our kind, the disregard of our souls, the neglect of our own higher sensibilities, is the price we pay, while all along we pretend to be evolving.  It would be a painful dance were we not so distracted. Getting more done in less time is a powerful brew. Smiling absently, we have too great a tendency to celebrate our own unconsciousness. The race to the finish line is exactly that.

Lamentably, this painful tract can go on and on. There is no limit to the effectiveness of speed. Happily, there is an antidote. It is called a breakdown.

In this twisted-up world what looks like breakdown is sometimes breakout. In those rare, painful and debilitating moments, through the alchemy of real life, little clearings reveal a less violent way of being. This is a world that moves in a more paradoxical way. The urgency of machine time gives way to the primacy of the eternal moment.

Strangely, old age, the bane of the crowd, provides as much of this lax freedom as most people can handle. For many it is confusing. There are no time stamps, deadlines, or appropriate seasons, no way to objectively measure progress, value, or productivity. Instead there is only the spacious unfolding of desire. The advance that occurs outside of time, without effort or intention. Aging takes one beyond the rush, to the heart of the matter. The clock ticks differently when urgency disappears.

One could even say hurrying debilitates, while slowing down illuminates. In this way, the old, who are pushed out of the way, and treated like they cannot arrive at what’s important, see better what matters, and are essential aspects of the meaningful journey. The old tend to dodder, thereby insuring the magnificence around us gets noticed.

Downshifting happens naturally to all of our benefit. It looks like old age, but it is really the return of good sense.

 

 

 

 

The Second Placenta

Only in old age with the proximity of death

 can one truly experience a personal sense of the entire life cycle. 

That makes old age a unique stage of life …...

                                                        Pulitzer-Prize winning gerontologist Dr. Robert Butler                                                                              

Death is a topic that many old people talk about. Unlike the general culture, older folks know the proximity of death is closer, and therefore consider it a part of their advancing years. Conventional knowledge, what passes for common knowledge, places death in a taboo zone where it is rarely talked about. Old people are not so bound by convention, and non-conventionally consider death part of a larger picture that is surprisingly unfolding as they age. Some say, something unheard of is coming into sight.

This leads to some pretty creative speculation. No one knows what is transpiring when we humans pass from this world, but there are nearly as many stories as there are people. Some are compelling because they convey compassion, justice and peace. Some render to the void all that passes. Some convey only a deep sense of mystery. All revolve around uncertainty.

For a long time now, I’ve had my own story. It started without my knowledge in the seventies when I was in my late twenties, working as a vector control technician for a local mosquito abatement district. I had to learn the biology of all the pests that can plague we humans. Rats, gophers, fleas, yellowjackets and especially mosquitos, were the objects of my day-to-day attentions. In order to combat mosquitos I had to learn about their complex three-stage life cycle. Two stages in water, as pupa and larva, then onto adulthood, in the air.

Later, I began to think of human life composed of stages. Our complexity unfolding along the way. Even later, as I was confronted more with the enigma of death, I began to think about a multi-stage life trajectory. It occurred to me, that like the mosquito, we might with maturity achieve a stage unlike any before. For me, non-material being is as plausible a shift as the mosquitos venturing, with greater maturity, into the air. I became enamored with the idea of death being just another stage of life.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve become less and less afraid of dying.  I think Life has delivered so many unexpected wonders that I basically trust what I know is coming. I know, not everyone can say that. I am Lucky, and I know it. Never-the-less, I am going to disappear, like everyone else. I know that too. So, it is helpful to me to maintain my illusion, and to think of being cradled in a natural form of progression.

Recently, another similar idea came over the horizon.  Suppose this body I rely on  that is breaking down, is really only a temporary vehicle, a placenta, designed biologically, to help sustain and convey what’s inside me, to another different stage of Life. The idea of my body being a second placenta appeals to me. Especially because it conveys the lived experience I’ve had, my current life being a kind of amniotic fluid that has held me and nurtured my development. Maybe I am just aging — slowly maturing — into a yet to be, ripened being.

Anyway, each of us carries an image of the transition we have to make. Each is extremely powerful, determinative, and speculative. I hope yours satisfies you, and contributes to you making the best of your time here. The second placenta does that for me. May something like it be true for you.

 

 

 

  

Exposure

 

Is being here— alive that is — anything else! At every moment — masked or unmasked, Ukrainian or not, air breathers, secret deniers, perpetual smilers — we are always at risk. The real challenge of being, is to live with the vulnerability of knowing that each moment everything could change. Everything teeters! Impermanence rules. Life evaporates, oh so quickly. Everything, each of us, our children, hopes, satisfactions, fears and delights — all go into an invisible black hole, never to be seen again. Our fate is to surely to not exist as thoroughly as we do exist.

 

Out of that reality — of the pure momentariness of our being — comes the feeling of being exposed. It isn’t just a fear of catching a lethal disease, or of being short of liquid assets, or not having enough to feed your family. It is one of the primary conditions of existing. Each of us has to face the fact, that we came to the party to discover this is it. Soon, it will be over.

 

I don’t know what that means. It is probable that you don’t either. All we know is that there is an inevitability to the trajectory we are on. We have no idea what form of exposure is going to do us in. We just know it will be something. All of us, to the maximum degree, are exposed, all of the time.

 

I’d like to think I can’t live with that awareness. Whereas, the truth is, I do live with it. I keep it dimly tucked-away in the deep recesses of my mind. I don’t let myself often dwell on this fact of my existence. I prefer to believe I haven’t really noticed. I am here for the course — whatever that is? In the meantime, I’ll just pretend I’m immune.

 

Sometimes, I have a breakdown. I feel vulnerable. I get scared. I realize that I live is a house of cards, that could come tumbling down at any moment. For a while, it gets pretty hard to breath, but then it occurs to me, that this isn’t that moment. But for some reason, far beyond my station in Life to know about, I feel more acutely than I would like, just how exposed I am. I’ve wandered into the place of no return.

 

Loneliness accompanies the realization of exposure. No one else can make being exposed any less. Each of us makes our own dead-end canyon. Unknowingly. The only way out is the way in. And, there is only room for one.

 

Today, I might wonder what this sets up, how does this serve the Universe, does it someway make me more human, compassionate, caring? I don’t know. I can’t even conjecture. But none of my reflections change anything. I still feel shaken by my sense of exposure. Somehow, it seems, as if I am meant to live with being exposed. Is that a privilege, or a curse? Or both?

 

All I really know for sure, is that my current state of panic looks like I look today. Sometimes flailing can look creative. I pretend to have something together, look somewhat calm, am semi-coherent, and pass, but the truth is, I am drowning here. Drowning seems to be what I am capable of. I can go down, into the depths, the obscure future, with the best of them.

 

There isn’t any end to this line of thought. The mystery of this existence is really impenetrable.  Conjecture isn’t really a waste of time — we each seem to go down in our own way — it helps me wriggle as I go down. This is my own form of overwhelmed dance. This, and then, my way of responding momentarily to the fact that I, and everything and everybody I know, are so quickly passing.

 

I’d say good-bye, but I’m not really sure I said hello. We just have this moment, when whizzing by each other, when we get to decide whether we are going to pretend we are not drowning, or going to greet each other, as unique snowflakes passing in a quiet snowstorm. Fall well, whatever that means.

 

 

 

 

Ridiculous Courage

One willing heart can’t stop a war.

One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.

And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,

I tell myself what’s the use of trying?

But today, the invitation is clear:

to be ridiculously courageous in love.

 

                                                                     Rosemerry Trommer

 

 

There is a little bit of this wild exuberance inside each of us. The issue is unleashing it. Letting it go, is like being willing to bleed. A heart sometimes has to weep. Tears and blood are artifacts of being open. They mark the territory of passion and healing. They express the nature of compassion, heartbreak, and wild unselfconscious love. Love that is blinded, by being crazed with connection. That kind of love grows, when it flows out into hurt places.

 

Rosemerry is a good poetess, I recommend her. In this case, she is addressing a heart ache I hear everywhere, but especially from the old. It comes in the form of a question. What can I do to minimize the damage being done by the war in Ukraine, the polarization taking place in our politics, the pandemic, inequality, and the warming of our planet? 

 

It is our fate to live in this dangerous and tumultuous time. How do we respond to it?

 

This is an unprecedented era. None of our ancestors ever faced this kind of existential uncertainty. Sure, there were animal powers to fear, and wars which defined our history, famines and droughts, but never before now, have our actions become so dangerous, that we ourselves are the greatest fear we face. In so many ways, we know we humans are culpable for great uncertainty. Can we survive ourselves?

 

This is an open question. The jury is still out. Some unforeseen development may give us more time. It may be too late. No one knows what is going to happen, or when. Living, now incorporates this profound uncertainty. We all live with an edginess that cuts deep into our well-being, and asks us to be human in unimaginable ways.

 

The Earth is in a spin. Human culture is at risk. Evolution is pressing. All of this is happening way beyond the reach of we individuals. We see it, we know it, we are affected by it — and it largely is beyond each of us. Rosemerry — bless her soul — suggests that we do what we can. In a world that has spun beyond caring, let us do the ridiculous, and open our hearts and care anyway. 

 

Opening the heart now won’t change the world, but it will change you. Running up against all the insensitive blockages that we humans are capable of, hones the heart, and rouses the soul, making it possible for one to love with abandon. That ridiculous courage comes from within, and affirms itself.  

 

Maybe, that is what we are here for. To find the bit of light that still prevails, inside, and to let it shine.

 

 

 

 

Doddergasm

 

My birthday is coming up in a few days. I’ll be 74. I decided to do something special for myself this year. So, I’m making a birthday wish. This one is just for me. I wish that when I’m old enough to be a doddering fool, I’ll still have some erotic impulses. I like being juicy. I want to stay that way. I have been Lucky enough to experience the joy of being immersed in the great Spasm of orgasm. It has introduced me, from early on, to the mysteries of Life. Each time, I am blessed to feel a full-bodied connection with the Divine. My wish is that I always feel that connection viscerally, and celebrate it all the way through my old age.

 

I cry when I come. At first, I was mystified by this occurrence. Embarrassed even. But that passed as it kept happening, and I came (so to speak) to know better what I was experiencing. At the moment when everything goes beyond my control, it feels like I fall into an ocean of grief. It is a strange kind of grief, painful like you would expect, but laced with a form of hilarity. Sometimes amongst the sobs, there are moments of great exultation, like I am getting away with something precious. The sobbing wracks my body, sometimes going on for as long as 15 minutes. My sweetie has enough sense to just hold me. When it is over, I am wrung out, relaxed, and always bewildered. I have no idea, other than the softening of my soul, of what is happening.

 

I want some version of it to continue. There is something humbling, and deeply blessing, about having such a moving experience, that one is not in control of. I know I’m headed toward the barn, and after that, to the graveyard. Maybe this experience will evolve with me. I hope so. In the meantime, my birthday wish is that I develop the erotic chops that will allow me to keep playing in this field.

 

I expect that aging is going to further change me. If I don’t die, before reaching really old age, I would love to be capable of being part of the erotic nature of the Universe. It keeps on creating! I am so impressed, and humbled, by the generativity of what made us. I’d like to participate in that amorousness. Maybe I already do! I don’t know.

 

All I do know is that I would like to keep myself in the flow, aroused by the incredible, and dazed by life springing forth. Getting old is getting closer to the source. Some kind of dizzying delight is hopefully on my path.

I’ve always been a little bit shy about my erotic preoccupation. But, just like the book about aging and wearing purple, I’ve come to not be so sensitive about what others may think. That has freed me to be as exactly as horny for Mystery as I am. What a relief. I can now talk about my sense, that sexual desire lies on the same continuum as spiritual longing. Sometimes, I would submit, they coincide. Happy

is the day that happens!

 

Anyway, what I am wishing for myself this year is that I discover that the fountain of youth lies inside me, in the most devoted of places. A doddergasm may take a long time, may only come once, or be totally decimating, but it will move me a little closer to the Mystery that animates us all. At least, that is what I’m wishing for myself.

 

Happy Birthday Lucky one!

 

 

 

 

Friendship

Isolation is everyone’s problem. It makes believing in a made-up reality deriguer. Conspiracy theories about others are easy to believe, when you don’t know any others. Humans fail to thrive when they are not touched enough, when they lack meaningful and loving connections. When loneliness prevails, then a whole society can fail to thrive. The lonely stories of neglected old people are our stories, they drive us deeper into believing each of us is unimportant. I’ve heard many such stories, and have come to see the art of friendship as being essential to life in today’s social madness. It is an art form that has been too much neglected and insufficiently talked about. Connecting with another, makes feeling connected an important, life-saving reality.

Friendship is one of the true things, it cannot be bought. Everyone can do something to respond to the uncertainty of these times. Uniting with another is one form of self-preservation. It goes against the cultural grain, letting another be as important to you as you are to yourself. Lay yourself on the altar of your friendships, because that is the place where you are going to discover who you truly are.

Friendship is elusive in this busy commercial world where most people are on the move being wage slaves, having little, or no time, for personal moments. The ties that bind can be very loose, when they depend on shared work, commutes, and workout clubs. Bars provide a distorted form of social club. Retirement throws people out of the social-commercial rat race leaving them unsupported, beyond others, and drifting into the hands of social entrepreneurs. True friendship doesn’t follow all the commercial currents, it only concerns itself with the tide of connection. Social love provides an antidote to the isolated loneliness that is so characteristic of our times.

Friendship is an art form that has almost gone away. Few have the quality and quantity of friends to make it through the gauntlet of challenges that face us today. It is as if the importance of being human has gone the way of Dodo birds. We all suffer when that is true. The light dims. People wander, feeling unknown, and like they don’t matter.

Fortunately, this is something we can do something about. It doesn’t even take that much courage. All we have to do is listen, admire, and recognize. Also, making some time to hang out. The ability to be a friend is hardwired into we social animals — it is like falling off a log. No matter how our training for the economy has proceeded, no matter how shy we are, no matter how old we are, the bonds of friendship are available. All we have to do is reach out. All we have to do is let another know that the desire for connection is present.

Good friendship relies upon periodic moments of intimacy. These moments, when one goes beyond oneself, are like food.  They feed connection, meaning, and trust. They have the effect of nourishing the soul.  But, they require a little more. Friendship then becomes a practice field where new aspects of oneself can be tried out. Conversations that one has never had, revealing something new about oneself or our shared humanity, bring us closer to each other. Friends can provide solace. There is no more comforting feeling than knowing a friend has your back. Physical safety and emotional support are parts of the art of friendship.

There is something ineffable about certain friendships. Some form of synergy arises that makes an invisible relationship more. It becomes something magical, possessing and turning distance, time, and memory into a lasting unity, a special miracle of love. Siamese twins are not closer. That which cannot be named dances in the between, illuminating possibilities.  

It is relatively easy to find words that extoll friendship. They positively drip with warmth, contact and compassionate loving. Harder, is the effort that brings on the kind of affiliation that touches us with reassurance. The outside validation that friendship brings is precious. It isn’t part of what is available in our normal exchanges. We have to make it through life mostly by ourselves, so the honest feedback that friends can offer is a marker buoy, helping and revealing the unique path each of us is unfolding. Friendship makes the Universe warmer, companionable and hospitable.  The relational engagement that characterizes a friendship models the expectant attitude that best prepares us to meet the unknown.

Old friends are the best, and the most necessary. Reminiscences have power, but not like the shared power of combined memories.  There is something so gratifying about the welcome of someone you have known for a while. Calmness can set-in, and belonging melts anticipation, relaxing one.  Knowing the love of a friend translates into well-being.  The Universe, through this other, loves you.

So, why is it so hard to make time for friends? Besides the fact that genuine friendship is not commercially valuable and takes time, there is the fact that friends don’t grow on trees. Befriending someone is an iffy proposition. It takes a certain amount of self-revelation — a desire to be known. Most of us are prone to eschew friendship because of that possibility. We humans are also prone to be judgmental. We would rather fight with another, than with ourselves. Friendship rests on a paradox— it is the relationship where one gets to know oneself, as you are letting yourself be known.  If one doesn’t have time for oneself, then one seldom has time for a friend. It is very possible to find someone who shields themselves, and thus you, from reality. They, however, are not really a friend. They are the way one maintains pretense. That’s all.

Friendship is an exacting art form. The more of you that you put into it, the more you get out of it. Even more paradoxically, the more you try to get out of it, the more you miss what’s really there. You only have this moment; there is a special kind of grace, that comes with sharing it.