Wonder

Like Mystery, everything seems to be shot through with wonder! The spaciousness that flows from these places, within all parts of reality, leaves me breathless. I am disturbed, by living within so much magnificent mystery. Because this is so, I’m finding it harder and harder to think and comment about anything. Probability seems to dictate that no matter how I look, or which way my attention is drawn, I behold a certain amount of wondrous uncertainty. Its all so much, so mysteriously undetermined, while being solid, that I wonder if I can even sensibly write about it.

Reflecting, as I am, on this aspect of my experience, and trying to find words for it, is, no doubt, part of the foolishness I was born with. Somehow, without any intention on my part, I’ve become aware of something so thoroughly palpable because it isn’t there. I mean, rather crazily I’m sure, that what isn’t there is what seems to accompany what is. And, even more strangely, gives it shape, dimension and meaning.

I was never prepared for this kind of perception. And it seems, that uttering anything about it is hopeless. Still, I keep thinking that there should be someway to talk about it. There seems to be something about reality that contains a probabilistic something that keeps everything connected and free. How is that possible! I don’t know, but I have noticed. The perception thrills me, and it leaves me befuddled. I can’t adequately articulate this aspect of my reality, yet it is so awesome I can’t ignore it either. I feel compelled to share it, and at the same time, I am aware that I am not really able to describe it.

So, what am I talking about? I can’t really say. I am trying not to use, over and over again, the words mystery, uncertainty, wonder and unknown. They need a rest, and only dimly refer to what vibrates in the background. I want to convey, and hear other’s perceptions about, this quick-silver facet of each moment, because somehow sharing such befuddlement is deeply reassuring. Maybe that’s what I’m doing here, noticing the wonder that keeps my heart beating.

Anyway, it seems like, in my dottage, this awareness has come on stronger than any past point of my life. I have a mixed reaction to this awareness. I love it. It seems so freeing. I have been released from all assumptions about what is going on here. Simultaneously, I feel a sense of foreboding. It is making me a more eccentric old man. I am being herded by Life into a smaller and smaller corral. Becoming more unique, is hard on a social animal, like me.

All I can say, honestly, is that I am growing more and more impressed by the sense of wonder growing in me.  My life is changing. I can feel it. Maybe this is death setting in, or maybe, I’m finally coming to Life. I no longer can say. Whatever is happening, is unbidden, I know that, or do I, maybe in my childhood, I called in this late-life sense of wonder. All I seem to know now, is that the flow is carrying me, through this canyon, where the walls are made up of a kaleidoscopic experience that bedazzles and befuddles me.

I could say Life is wondrous. That seems true. Putting that awareness alongside of my awareness of how cruel, destructive, hateful and arbitrary Life can be, leaves me on-edge. I teeter between hope and hopelessness. I don’t know why I can see all of this, but I do. Some days it hurts, some days I feel so lucky. All I can really say, and think, is, isn’t it a wonder!?

Violence

“Violence is the language of the inarticulate.”

Recently I heard this quote. An African-American man who was in Martin Luther King’s inner circle spoke it. He was explaining that he was charged with the task, by Dr. King, just hours before he was assassinated, with institutionalizing non-violence. And, over the years he had taught many non-violence methods to others. In that time, he reported that he had learned what is said above. People who do not have the capacity to express themselves in a better way, often resort to violence. Awareness of this limitation, I think, is extremely important. Not just in terms of limiting violence, but also in terms of empowering speech.

I spent years as a couples therapist, and I saw first hand how much violence there was in primary relationships. Now I understand, that that violence was frequently due to a particular kind of inarticulateness. Like all couples therapists, I stressed the importance of good communication. But, unlike many, I focused on a particular challenge of relationship. That was, when communication is good enough, so, that partners realized they didn’t like the messages they were getting from their partners.

Typically, and often mistakenly, partners try to change each other. Sometimes they assume, wrongly, that their partner is just failing to communicate clearly. The problem that couples often have is not that they are failing to communicate clearly; it is that they are unable, and often unwilling, to deal with what is being communicated. They don’t know how to handle (read, take care of themselves in the midst of) so much differing. 

What does this have to do with the amount of violence in the world? People who don’t have the necessary means to take care of themselves in situations, where there is significant differing going on, like in relationships, groups, and communities, lack the ability to communicate well, and end up resorting to a host of violent actions that convey their inabilities. This hurts — not only others — but the one who is so limited, and most of all, it hurts the bond of connection that is always present. It makes that bond seem invisible and non-existent.

As a community and environmental activist, as well as a psychotherapist, this bothers me. The personal nature of violence is well documented, and that is what most people think about when they give it thought, but I would like to see equal consideration given to the costs to the surround. We live in a culture where it is considered right to think we are not connected, where people commonly assert that we suffer because we are separated. For that reason, the belief we are already separated, much of the violence against our environment and our experience of social connection, is overlooked.

It is hard to maintain a solid sense of self in a world that isn’t what one is imagining it to be. Differing, introduces one to this reality, to the discrepancy between the reality one imagines and the reality that is. There is a great big challenge that comes with any social engagement that contains any differing. It is dis-heartening how many people are unprepared for, and unable to cope with this dimension of social reality. People are unable to take care of themselves, and therefore unable to really meet, and be articulate with, others.  When this kind of inarticulateness manifests, it creates violent rifts in our social and environmental fabric.

This is one of the reasons I am so enamored with old folks, especially elders. It seems that elders are more solid, less reactive, and more interested in differences. They have some capacity to be articulate in situations that many others find impossible, and thereby others act in ways that are oblivious of social or environmental bonds. In fact, elders seem more intrigued by differences, and because they go into them, they see the world more accurately than most. This is a service that is anti-violent. It accepts a more complex world.

I am probably as against violence as anyone, but I find that the kind of inarticulateness that gives rise to violence is not limited to individuals; it is also an expression of the inability to meet and greet a world of differences. Most of the wars that have made up human history were fought because of an inability to tolerate differing. Now, thanks to the development of some old people, I can see the possibility that we can outgrow that form of inarticulateness.

I am finding that the old like to interact. I’ve noticed that this desire is about more than just overcoming isolation; it is as much about a hunger for a more accurate take on reality. Elder curiosity, about differing, takes on the fundamentals of our being. If that perception is true, then within human reach, as part of our species’ being, is the capacity to put violence behind us. Elder interaction is a form of speech, an important form, which is rarely heard in this culture. A form of speech that can remind us that non-violence is a part of our nature. 

The Other

The other is a whole lot more than the desirable stranger, the consistently troublesome, triggering one, the errant relative, or the one who turns us into manic puddles of desire. He, or she, drives us mad, arouses violent impulses, and brings craziness to life right before us. Others, populate our crippled world, and frustrate our efforts at living freely. They make us forget ourselves in a host of ways. And, they serve, by always providing us, with someone else to blame. They seem to be a perfect foil, an unerring mirror, which reflects back to us our true relationship with ourselves.

The difficult truth is that the other is inside. Few of us really know ourselves that well. Inside is where stranger becomes strangeness, and discomfort graduates to intolerance. The other is the gift that keeps on giving, in ways that are vastly under appreciated.

This different one seems to be hanging around everywhere. Sometimes, he, or she, morphs from friend into irritation. The other is always there doing the dirty job of being projected trouble, or relief. If only the other would grow up, be less deluded, or enlightened. I mean, whoa, I’m so cool, I’m just waiting for all of you others to notice! Hurry up, and don’t be so insensitive! I am somebody else’s other, and you know what, I can’t even be me, when they are about. Not without effort anyway.

The world is populated with this irritating, and sometimes intriguing, other. Everywhere one goes — even within — there is this alien getting in the way. One would think, there is some kind of conspiracy going on. Others are everywhere. Humanity is worth saving, if it only didn’t come, with others —those who look human, but obviously are not.

Somehow, part of the task of the time, is to find a way to live with all these differences. That is obvious, and un-obvious, all at once. Here’s what I mean. Staring into the world helps identify all of the weirdness about, and generally raises alarm, and generates a host of strategies for limiting contact and trying to manage one’s exposure. This is the usual social dance that leads us into a balkanized, ghetto-strewn, isolated, prejudiced and marginalizing world. This is a result of the obvious.

The un-obvious part is that the one holds the key within. Depth is being called for. Not the depth promoted by a spiritual or psychological practice (although these sometimes help), but the depth of putting down roots deep into the mystery of the self. This is a strange land all its own. The deeper you go, the less one knows. In fact it is at the point of growing a familiarity with indeterminancy (a healthy “not knowing” of one’s self) where the relationship with all other things opens up. The un-obvious part is what is not-known poorly. Getting savvy enough to enjoy “othering” means abandoning believing there is a right way to be.

Of course that is easier said then done. Even if one stumbles upon the un-obvious, and recognizes it, there is still the matter of growing comfortable within one’s own skin. This takes time, and lots of raggedy, sometimes-painful experiences.

When maturity sets in, then a strange thing happens. Through transforming the self, the other gets transformed. The intruder suddenly becomes the introducer. Another level of reality, a more complex one that is paradoxically simpler, is brought into view. The other is a work of art specifically, and impossibly, designed to increase one’s awareness. Miracles are unfolding in extraordinarily ordinary ways. The littlest thing has a life of its own.

The other is always masquerading around, pretending in very real way, to be the one who impedes, while being the one who instructs. Life uses aspects of our wholeness to introduce us to our diversity. Paradoxically, a deeper integration happens when we split up into an infinite number of pieces. Each of them, the others within, and the others without, are tickets to our place in a greater wholeness.

The emotional reaction that one often has, when realizing the presence of an other, is as much excitement of return, as it is anxiety about hardships to come. 

Surrendering Attachment

Throughout the years there has been a very special set of guidelines that have informed my work on behalf of consciousness. They have grown me into the person I am. The guidelines, which are called “The Four-fold Way,” are the products of Basque wise woman, Angeles Arrien. Angeles passed on last year, but has left us all with these universal cross-cultural practices. They represent the world’s wisdom. And, they have the capacity to shift consciousness, into subtler, and more poignant, forms of awareness. Each is a deep and compelling practice, which will with time, reveal the underbelly and glory of reality.

The Four-fold way is composed of the easily remembered guidelines  “Show Up,” “Pay Attention,” “Tell the Truth,” and “Surrender Attachment To Outcome.” They represent truly multi-use guidance.

I’m writing about them today, because I want to focus upon the last of them. I am finding special relevance, and huge difficulty, with the last one, surrender attachment to outcome. This guideline has always been the most reliable, and hardest to practice, for me. I think I especially need it now, to take me deeper, as I am ageing, and experiencing so much loss.

I have learned how important it is for me to let go of my expectations, particularly in my relationships, but now I have entered old age, and I am realizing that I have to let go of everything.

I have, with the help of the perspective, provided by this guideline, settled myself down a lot. Change — the impermanence that is everywhere — tends to throw me less often. But, as I face the loss of energy, functionality, loved ones, and even self-assumptions, that comes with age, I find I chafe more, even with this good reminder. Grief, seems to be becoming a regular emotional feature of my life now. Letting go isn’t just a practice, it is a choice-less experience that seems to be ushering me toward the inevitable. There is relief in knowing death is approaching. I’m not too worried about that, I’m anticipating a kind of solving justice, with no more disabilities.

Instead, what I find difficult is, that I am learning as I age, what is really important. And, those things, which have come into focus so recently — pass so quickly. I barely have a chance to take hold before I have to let go. I used to hear Johnny Cash sing, “now that I am old enough to finally live, I’m old enough to die.” The poignancy of that reality is kicking my butt. Letting go, surrendering attachment to outcome, has taken on a new level of meaning, and is delivering me to a new, deeply poignant reality.

I am still practicing surrendering, and I’m getting more and more into the world’s creation myths that feature a creation deity who’s tears are the source of all things. It seems that existing is a grievous thing (I know it is also a miracle) because it inevitably means dying. Creation and destruction, birth and death, surrender and attachment are all paradoxical parts of this great Mystery, and they take my breath away, as they ask me to be human. I sometimes flounder. And that is when that particular guideline helps me the most. When I have occasion to remember, surrender attachment, I recall that other humans came this way, and foundered more wisely on these same paradoxical shoals, alive with grief and wonder, compassionately trying to take it all in, and becoming more broken down and alive along the way.

I haven’t been able to reconcile surrendering attachment with my desire to live yet. I don’t know if I ever will. I don’t know what ripening has in store for me. But, I find that I am ever thankful that Angie found the wherewithal to give this aspect of human experience, such an elegant, and abbreviated wording — now as I stumble across it, I become ever so slightly more humanized.

Ageing seems to mean placing more emphasis upon surrendering. I prefer to think the powers that be are essentializing me, getting me ready, for the final stripping that is simultaneously a birth into a new, and hopefully wiser, form. I am letting go, because I have to, not because I’m good at it, but I am getting softened up, hopefully becoming more malleable, and slowly fading, into I don’t know what. I don’t know exactly why, but I trust being human, existing in this bittersweet world, and waiting for meaning to ripen into greater realization.

The Universe is grinding me down. I am learning to surrender. I don’t know much more than that. I don’t know how to account for it, but I feel grateful. Life has made me up, breathed life into me, and exposed me to grandeur. The trip seems to come with a very exacting price tag, but I think I might have paid it anyway. Surrendering seems to be the price/wonder of this trip. 

Stuff

I’ve been sick these past few days. Coughing, sleepless, and sore, my attitude has gone into the dumpster. I don’t know about you, but when I’m sick, I begin thinking more about death. During the worst of my illness, when I am desperate, tired and alone, I begin fantasizing that death is near-by.  I don’t know if it is wishful thinking on my part; I am ready for my sickness suffering to end, or, if it is some kind of dread that dying will be just as lonely, energy-less, and debilitating. In any case, I’m not my best when I’ve been ill for a while. All of this, left me thinking this week about growing old, and trying to come to terms with living/ dying.

One of the things that came to mind was about locating myself in terms of being an elder-in-training. I know I’m intent upon moving along an elder path, but I’m wondering if there is a way of recognizing movement forward. While I was sick I thought about this some more, and decided there was. I came to the conclusion that my relationship with the ‘stuff’ of my life was a good indicator. If I was letting go of stuff I was on course, and if my stuff was mostly in charge of me, I wasn’t.

Now this thought benefits a lot from the conversations I’ve heard in the last months.  Old people have sat in circles discussing their relationships with things. Each of them is facing their own mortality, knowing they aren’t what they used to be, and that they are being reduced as they age. In talking about the difficulties in facing their stuff, and getting rid of what is no longer relevant to who they presently are, they shared something of the exacting rigors of growing older. A lifetime of necessary and unnecessary acquisition was giving way to a different way of meeting the future. Letting go of stuff, was like letting go of parts of the self. It was painful, and these old people also knew, it was liberating.

Such an exquisite pain!

There is something about growing older that is so poignant and beautiful. There is so much surrender involved! The process is like moving into a series of smaller and smaller houses. Each move requires letting go of some things. Amazingly, some old people, grasp the freedom that this shedding brings. Along the way, though, is a kind of forced march, a period of loss, an era of giving up aspirations, dreams, accomplishments, hard-earned competencies, identities, and lots and lots of stuff. Wriggling out of old skins is painfully difficult, even while it is liberating.

Stuff is the detritus of a life, while the real thing is the liver — the one who has grown ripe by going through many stages and becoming multi-layered, nuanced, and complex. Losing is part of that complexity, a necessary ingredient, that liberates all of the flavors that contribute to a real richness, a bountiful character, an inner fullness. Knowing this aspect of what it means to be human, of getting to be alive, is a gift that comes primarily to the elderly. It is a gift that comes with an exacting pricetag. It is ours, it comes to each of us, but the price is high. To gain what is our birthright, we must give up everything. It is a trade that can only be made in the secret recesses of the individual heart.

In my sickness I could see all of this. I wonder if I am up to it. Can I let go of everything? I like my life now. I never imagined it could be this good, despite being disabled, poor, and marginalized. Still, I know I have more letting go to do. Everything that can be lost, will be.  Going toward the light, means lightening up. That is easier said than done.

Stuff is the most visible dimension of a much deeper process. It indicates something about how that process is going.  Meditation training should include the dictate, “I’m not my stuff,” as well as “I’m not my Body.” They are both very similar, and both things that will be left behind.

In the meantime, though, stuff is a good way to grasp where one is viz. a viz. the exacting nature of Life’s reduction of us into essence. 

Solitude & Love

I’m taking a six-week break in my relationship.  My partner and I have agreed that each of us wants this time off, to balance our relationships with ourselves, with our relationships with each other. This move is re-introducing me to un-diluted solitude. I’m finding something in my solitude I didn’t expect, I hoped for it, but didn’t know what would be possible for me. I’m finding, there is a relationship between how I feel about me, and how I feel about my significant other. Solitude is deepening both. Through this process, I’m learning that being alone, which is difficult, grows my relationship with me, which in turn, grows my regard for her.

There seems to be some paradoxical relationship between solitude and love. The more I am alone, and come to love myself more, the more love I have for my partner. This sounds like some kind of fusion, a confusion of our being mixed together, but it actually only evolves when we are apart. Go figure! Life has apparently set-up an elegant paradox with very exacting parameters. “Know Thyself” becomes “Love Your Neighbor.” But, only if I spend the time alone to really get to know myself.

Take for example freedom. My partner is more free to be herself, more free to find out for herself what that means, because I can handle being alone. My time alone liberates her, as she is figuring out for herself her own liberation. A friend of mine calls this “co-liberation.” To me, this is what relationship is really all about.

The German poet Rilke correlates loving with solitude. He points out a special aspect of solitude, which if cultivated, is to “become world.” “Become world in him [or her] self, for the sake of another.” The idea of becoming your self, and containing the world, for another, is the ultimate in expansion and freedom. The whole idea of becoming fully one’s self, being the development that frees the other, is counter – cultural. Isn’t love supposed to be a multiple-party thing? Isn’t it about mutuality and collaboration? It seems that there is a connection, but it is more complex than just being about holding hands and cooperating.

I find being alone, even when I am able to turn it into solitude, hard. The hours seem to scold me, and I feel challenged to find the creativity to engage my self. The day can stretch out, and I am often revealed in ways I wouldn’t have guessed at. The mirror of solitude, for me, has been flawless, despite my protests. Strangely, I like this. Self-revelation tends to sober me, and settle me down. My anxiety about myself abates. I have a more accurate picture to work from, and that, despite not always being pleasing, sets me to working on what really matters about my life. Plus, each night I tuck myself into bed, and I know my life is being lived out, the best I can.

This thing about becoming myself, and that being the most loving thing I can be doing for my partner, awes me. I want her to know I am real. I want her to know that when I touch her, the world is saying “you belong.’’ I want her to feel movement inside, some sense that the Universe is moving too. None of these things are possible, so I’m learning, without my experiencing them in my solo life. It is in such moments, moments alone, where I experience the invisible link that joins us, and I know that all along we have been part of something larger than us, that joins us to one another. It is alone that I am more likely to cry from that knowing.

Solitude also breaks my heart. It reminds me of the real benefit of remembering my existential aloneness every moment. I don’t know about you, but I would just as soon forget how alone, and responsible I am, for my own life. That forgetting, which I do all the time, is revealed in my solitude, to be the reason I don’t recall the miracle that attends our being together. When I forget all of that, I treat us both with disregard. I miss the miracle that is going on.

Solitude isn’t just freeing for my partner. I guess that is what is so compelling about it. I walk taller (in this case, sit taller) through this life, when I admit, and this only happens when I love what the Universe has created in me, that my being here is no accident. I may not know why I’m here, but I know, that despite all the bad scientific advice I’m getting, I belong. I’m the universe expanding in a totally unexpected way. So are you. Imagine that!  I do, especially when I am alone. 

Shifting

“Gratitude is the litmus test of Self realization.” Byron Katie

The genesis for this Slow Lane is a question. A 76 year-old woman came to the informal gathering of some old folks on Friday at Coffee Catz, a coffee house in Sebastopol. She brought with her a question that was haunting her. It seems like a pertinent one for all of us. She wondered, out loud, when does one know they have gone beyond grandolescence (a term used to refer to the adolescence-like transition period between adulthood and elderhood) into elderhood? This is an uncertainty that bedevils and perplexes many old people. Most of them, lacking the reflective learning community of the Elder Salon, and its peripheries, ask it more in the form of, when can one be considered a elder?

I don’t think that anyone human can really answer her question, because I believe Life selects the ripest of us for that particular set of challenges. Never-the-less, there seems to be something about maturing that delivers one to the place where Life selects. My take is based on my experience, and represents only a version for consideration. Life makes the selection, and I think the most we can do is ready ourselves as much as possible.

I know her well enough to know she is going through a rather rough change in her life. I think it fair to say that Life is putting her through a time of reduction that is asking her a fundamentally difficult question. Who is she now? She isn’t who she used to be, she’s lost a lot of capacity, and being like she is now — the more essentialized being — then who is she now?

The last stage of life is so much about integration that it constantly delivers up realizations about what is really important about one’s existence. These moments, or periods of life, can be confusing. They add to the sense that one isn’t who they used to be. If one isn’t securely grounded in self (and let’s face it, most of us aren’t) then this kind of integrative challenge generates a lot of uncertainty. It raises questions, like hers, about maturity.

The idea that there is a transitional period (which I have called grandolescence) between adulthood and elderhood is new enough that it is bound to generate questions. I’m not sure when elderhood starts. But, my experience suggests a few things. The transitional period (grandolescence) introduces a lot of loss to most of us. These losses might take the form of the loss of a partner, the death of significant friends or family members, illness, financial uncertainty, cognitive shifts, and the loss of social status, prestige, or the ability to be as productive. Multiple, sometimes simultaneous, losses. All of this loss is introduced to us in the initial phase of becoming older. Diminishment is a real component of old age. It hurts and confuses.

Culturally, this much of the transition to elderhood, is seen. This accounts for some of the cultural fatalism about aging. There is a whole lot more to the story however. The less visible inside dimension is lost. And this is where the real ripening is taking place. Her question is really about the inside indicators that ripening is taking place? Futhermore, I suspect, she is wondering what is it that is carrying her beyond this partly-formed place towards a more complete version of herself?

The time after my stroke taught me a lot about making a shift. I went from bedeviled and broken David to freshly enabled Lucky. And, I think that my experience is pertinent to making the same kind of shift to elderhood. I lost most all aspects of my life. I thought I was done for. I wasn’t. Somewhere along the way I realized that looking at, and dwelling upon, my massive losses, was killing me. So even though my losses were compelling, I began the long, arduous, and lonely process of shifting my gaze to what remained. By re-focusing my attention, never ignoring the truth of my losses, but concentrating on making the most of what remained, I discovered a new life.

Elderhood, in my opinion asks for a similar shift of attention. To me, gratitude, happiness, integrity, and freedom are the hallmarks of elderdom. They are what remains. They are the gains, if you will, that come alongside all of the losses. One has to shift their gaze to see them. The cultural penchant for external orientation, looking primarily outside oneself, makes the losses alone visible, but the gains mostly reside inside, and are only visible to those who do shift their gaze. Shifting is hard. It’s counter-cultural. It involves occupying a minority position. It takes enormous amounts of solitude and community. But, the reward is that the miraculousness of the world is part of what remains.

Elders enjoy a kind of double-vision, a paradoxical binocularism. By focusing on what remains, they can see the sorrows of the world alongside its miraculous nature. They are more grateful because they have learned the difficult skill of placing their attention right in the breach, were things come together.

Shifting is an acquired skill. It is available to everyone. It is the answer to how one goes through transition, and comes out paradoxically smaller and bigger. Life takes away, and gives all at the same time. This pattern is especially perceptible to those who make this shift. 

Salient Risk

There is only one way I know that takes my worries and anxieties and turns them into growth and maturation. This is a move that, in my mind , is equivalent to turning a pile of straw into gold. This, however, is not a fairy-tale task, it is a real-life escape into freedom. When it comes to living fully, balls out, gut-extending, risking, then I think that one has to make an intentional effort. And when one does, by actually going to bat for oneself, then one has to use their head and come up with something I call “salient risk.”

A salient risk is one that is personally cooked-up for the express purpose of putting one’s sense of self on the line. The personal part is where the salience lives. This is the kind of risk-taking that can only come from the inside out. That makes it a rare form of risk, which many people have a hard time conceiving of. It takes self-knowledge. Real self-knowledge, not the kind made-up to make oneself feel good, but the kind that unfailingly haunts one, with more than one wants to know about one’s self. This kind of self-knowing, the kind that isn’t based on certainty, resides in our self-doubts.

It is not-knowing, feeling greatly uncertain, being dubious even, about one’s own character, which makes this form of risking so powerful, and so on-target. There is a hair-raising, harrowing quality, that is extremely germane, central even (to one’s fears), that empowers this kind of risk-taking. It is like a ropes course, only without the safety harnesses and nets. People go to this extreme, in themselves, because they love the idea of being themselves. And one cannot find out who one is without salient risks.

This is the self-administered test, the one where there is really doubt about the outcome. Strangely, the benefits that come from this kind of risk-taking, are exactly proportional to the amount of uncertainty aroused by it. This is both the confidence-builder, and the test for hubris. The good news is that one gets a better, more accurate picture of reality no matter what. Simply risking everything, throwing one’s self into the grave, has the paradoxical impact, of strengthening the self. So, one of the best formula for growing the self is putting it to the test through salient risk-taking.

I first came up with the idea of salient risk when I was learning about ways of undermining chronic anxiety. You know, the “what-if” stuff that keeps one anticipating some disastrous future. I found that a burst of acute anxiety, anxiety grounded in the reality of the moment, had an effect upon one’s ability to tolerate chronic anxiety, so it didn’t tend to run the show. The effect is, that by weathering the storm, the spike of real in-the-moment acute (higher than usual) anxiety, one develops one’s tolerance for anxiety, and this feels like being less anxious. There isn’t really any important change in one’s level of chronic anxiety, but there is a new level of tolerance of anxiety, and this translates subjectively into a greater confidence.

I didn’t know it yet, but I had stumbled into a discovery of the emotional immune system. It turns out, that each of us is equipped, by Nature’s providence, with an on-board system for dealing with the emotional character of this ride through Life. In other words, each of us can become more solid, and resilient, by looking for anxiety-provoking circumstances of the right magnitude, and putting ourselves through them. Later, I realized this was a kind of self-building process. After that, I have been on the look-in for these kind of opportunities.

Maturation, it turns out, is partly self-directed. We are all like our cousins, the salmon. It is our desire to be all that we can be, that takes us out to sea, but it is the even greater desire to fully be ourselves, which draws us back to the source. Risking ourselves is how we swim and develop the capacity to deal with obstacles.

We live in a society that doesn’t provide many ladders, that has very little idea of the source, that doesn’t easily regard inner evolution. So it is up to each of us, to create for ourselves the wherewithal to turn ourselves free. The real ladders, desire and source are all within. Salient risk unlocks the inner door, and each of us must muster the courage, in the face of the pressing unknown, to motivate ourselves, and enter.

There are no free lunches. There is no ride through life, where Life itself, doesn’t ask things of us. Salient risk-taking is one of those things. One can live without it, but how one lives, and how much of Life one embraces, depends upon the saliency of the risking involved. 

Reassurance

While experiencing the rather desperate uncertainty that comes with focusing my attention upon the life-struggle at the end of life, I heard something from another that warmed my heart and made me think. These are some of my thoughts.

I live alone. My daughter (27) lives back east in Philadelphia. I am the oldest in a large family (8 siblings), but none of them really knows me, and is so busy with their own lives they don’t even know what I’m up to, or what matters to me. I have friends, and a well-cultivated sense of community. I am Lucky, I also have an important relationship with Xan. Still, in living alone, I feel lonely and vulnerable. I live with some level of dread, that something might happen to me, and that days may pass before anyone knows.

I don’t think I, and my feelings of dread, are that unusual. It seems that this might be an old person’s kind of dread. Why not? Isolation seems to breed this particular anxiety. Most the time, I don’t even notice I’m feeling anything like it. I’ve grown so used to this feeling, of isolation, that I hardly notice it. I live alone. I am good at it. I’ve learned how to turn loneliness into solitude. I may have gained a self of my own, but I’m still isolated. Life in this culture means that I live alone most of the time.

As I said, I’ve grown so used to it. Most of the time, isolation is just like the air I breathe, there, unnoticed, and determinative of the quality of my life. I take it for granted. But, recently while sitting in a group dedicated to looking a little harder at the end of our lives, I felt again the price I pay for living in this modern way. I live alone. I am touched occasionally, by loving others, but I experience long periods of time when I am on my own. Now, maybe this matters more to me because I’ve known the vulnerability of having everything change instantaneously, or the experience of being in the emergency room alone, or waiting on a gurney for emergency surgery without anyone to talk to. I am a disabled old person now.  Thus, being alone carries a poignant weight for me.

Whatever the case might be, I am aware that my chances of having the life, or death, I want, are all dependent upon having someone on hand who is interested in helping me toward that desire. That makes me very dependent upon the person, or persons, who are currently not there. Rilke said, “I live too alone in this world,” and so do I. Aloneness may be an existential fact of life, but the kind of social aloneness that is haunting me, is an artifact of the way we organize ourselves. The kind of loneliness that assails me, and causes me so much dread, is social aloneness. I live alone, in a world occupied by other lonely people.

So, I was feeling this pretty intensely, while facing the fact that I have little influence upon how this life might end. I heard someone in the group describing an idea meant to address some of the aloneness I felt. This is why I wanted to attend this group, I was hoping I might hear fresh ideas of ways to move toward the qualities I wanted in my remaining days. She talks about “reassurance calls.” It seems her elderly mother had once lived in a senior community, where volunteers called each, and every old person, to check in on them, and let them know they were being thought of.

The thought of receiving such a call, brought ambivalence to my mind, I’m not sure I want to be so evidently in need of attention, but what also came was a feeling of assurance, I am somebody enough to be cared about. I also felt what it would be like to make such a call. I liked the feeling of caring about the community I am part of. It was reassuring to me, feeling so thoroughly connected.

I really am touched by this idea. I feel so strongly the goodness, the rightness of this practice that I want to do it. I will proceed unilaterally if I have to. And, I don’t have to wait for anyone’s approval. I can start as soon as I want to. I’m sure I’ll recommend it to others, but you know, I’ve been looking for ways I can undermine the cultural edifice I feel stamped by, and this seems like a really good, humanly satisfying, way.

I think I am going to create a list of those people I know, whom I think might benefit from such a call, and start calling them. I urge you to consider doing the same. Call me sometime too. If you want me to call you, let me know. I can’t imagine living without this sense of connection. I’ll let you know if it affects my loneliness. I expect it will. I hope you might benefit to. 

Necessary Suffering

THE DAKINI SPEAKS

My friends, let's grow up.

Let's stop pretending we don't know the deal here.

Or if we truly haven't noticed, let's wake up and notice.

Look: Everything that can be lost, will be lost.

It's simple - how could we have missed it for so long?

Let's grieve our losses fully, like ripe human beings.

But please, let's not be so shocked by them.

Let's not act so betrayed,

As though life had broken her secret promise to us.

Impermanence is life's only promise to us,

And she keeps it with ruthless impeccability.

To a child, she seems cruel, but she is only wild,

And, her compassion exquisitely precise,

Brilliantly penetrating, luminous with truth,

She strips away the unreal to show us the real.

This is the true ride - let's give ourselves to it!

Let's stop making deals for a safe passage -

There isn't one anyway, and the cost is too high.

We are not children anymore.

The true human adult gives everything for what cannot be lost.

Let's dance the wild dance of no hope.

by Joyce Wellwood

When I was younger, I used to hear myself saying “There is a lot of unnecessary suffering we suffer, because we are refusing to suffer the necessary suffering.” Then I grew older. I noticed, that some of the old grey ones I was now rubbing shoulders with, had developed a capacity to suffer necessary suffering. From observing and trying to be like them, I learned what the dance of “no hope” is. It turns out to be a wonderful descriptor of what separates an elder from a merely older person.

I’ve known about, and loved, the poem, The Dakini Speaks, for well over a year. In all that time I have wondered, and watched groups wonder, at that last line. “Let’s dance the wild dance of no hope.” People chafe at the idea of living without hope. It has been a source of painful confusion. Maturing, which is so highlighted by the poem, is so bleak, or, so I thought.

Recently, a new thought came to my mind. It had to do with necessary suffering and the dance of no hope. I realized that the poem addressed the immature, by pointing out some elements of a more mature awareness. The poem ends with an invitation to join the dance of no hope, because that is the beginning. It is the act of giving up hope, of the human, childish, cultural kind of hope, which frees one from the tyranny of immature hope. The dance of no hope (of immaturity) gives way, when the immature surrender to it, and becomes the dance of a more mature realization, one where pain and suffering accompany growth, one where loss and gain are paradoxically linked.

The wild dance of no hope is a doorway, a portal into a new outlook. It is the moment when the process of being ripened into uniqueness is incredibly palpable. One feels an essential wonder. Hardship, uncertainty, pain and unknowing are all part of what confers important distinctive characteristics upon one, they bring out the uniqueness that each of us are endowed with, they alter us in ways that only Life can make real.  Hope, is not in our own efforts. It is in responding with all our being to what Life asks of us. The impermanence of Life, the ruthless and exquisite promise that defeats all our plans, is the very thing that uplifts us, that enables us to become full and ripe — the kind of human being who fulfills Life.

Suffering is not for the weak of heart. Nor, is aging. Knowing the power of dancing without hope, requires the belief that one can envision a way to be whole, without suffering the uncertain, and vulnerable process of creation. There is always some necessary suffering in Creation otherwise — Life wouldn’t be alive. The process of existing is such a demanding endeavor, such a bout with uncertainty. Newness only comes into being through birth pangs. Everything that has Life, has come through the gauntlet of necessary suffering. Elders know this. They are the humans who have developed the capacity to weather the storms of pain, anxiety, and fear, for growth.

Think about it, some folks assume that for Creation to have a spiritual dimension there must really be no suffering. That kind of thinking prevails in an immature world. Paradoxically, it accounts for much of the unnecessary suffering. Instead, I invite you to the dance of no hope, the dance of inevitability, the dance of the elder who has a mature realization that suffering will come, along with the newness that refreshes and renews.