Bows Or Bows

I was listening to music, in this case Carlos Nikai. He had done something interesting to me, by playing with some traditional Japanese musicians. The collection of music was called, “The Island of Bows.” I read it like bows and arrows. The title seemed off to me. It was only later that I realized my mistake. Then came a fascination. I had inadvertently come across two different words that were spelled alike. That cast me into a creative reverie. This is a facet of that moment.

 

I delighted by finding these two words with such different meanings. One is a gesture, an act of deference, a way of honoring the ineffable in another. The other, an instrument for projecting control, designed to assert one’s will, and change what is. It seemed to me, they couldn’t be more different, yet they shared something in common.

 

For some reason, I began playing with them. Whether a bow or a bow, is to me, the difference between inside, or outside. A bow to the mysterious is also an act of reverence to Mystery wherever it appears, including, and especially, within.  Whereas, a focus outside oneself is what is required to be good at archery. The essential foci of each is dramatically different.

 

I was also captivated by the way each of them reflected a totally different way of being. Inside/outside. I thought of all the times I’ve tried to alter the world by projecting my will. I’ve suffered a lot because of my stubborn determination to make the world different than it is. I’ve also accomplished more than I know. I keep doing it. Paying the price of suffering just for the moments when I get to make some difference. Moments, I know exist, even though I cannot always recognize them. Moments, I do recognize, that hurt me and others.

 

Conversely, the more reverence I have, the more I bow down to Life, the more I am able to live in harmony. Bowing, for me, as a human male, has taken a lifetime to learn. I know I’m still learning. It took a long time for me to get that I had to look around inside, at what I could see, and revere there, then I could perceive and bow to in others. Bowing, to me, has a very internal dimension.  Not to mention, how much arrogance and hubris I have to overcome, just to remember that bowing is an option.

I’m equally fascinated by their commonality. Each form of bow is utterly human. Each activity conveys something about our orientation. It might be said that both are essential to a human life; the willful imposition, and recognition of the Mystery and reverence. The inner and the outer.

 

We are at a time when more balance is essential, maybe Covid is doing the job, but it seems like that balance requires us, to live more into both. Let’s intend to apply our will towards becoming more reverent.

 

Its funny, that such a little mind hiccup can lead to something so big. Inside or outside, and sometimes, both.

 

 

 

  

Made It

I was just completing the always challenging process of transferring from her car seat to my wheelchair when I said “I made it.” She heard me. Teasingly, she said that would be a good epitaph on my tombstone. That seemed right to me, so right, that it stuck in my head, and now is begging me to use this Slow Lane piece to reflect upon it. I can imagine those simple words being the last I speak. “I made it!”

 

Each life is a creation. It is the sum of all the responses had to its many challenges. When it is all over, I will relish the end point I have reached. In the last seconds, I imagine I will have a chance to look at the whole of it, and see what I have wrought. I hope I can say to myself that I have completed this course with a certain amount of aplomb. Just as transferring never held certainty, this process of living has been an uncertain, and sometimes treacherous, undertaking.

 

‘Made it’ has two meanings for me. Both of them telling. I went through everything that was allotted to me. I found my way to the presumed finish line. I am spent. And, I’ve created a wake, the vapor trail of a life, a momentary house of cards. It is the sum of having been.  It is whatever artistry I was able to muster. I made it. My death-moment assessment, of my time here, will in some way be tied to this fading presence.

 

I’m not particularly worried about how that moment will play out. I think mainly, like when my unbalanced and disabled movements come to a resting place, I’ll be relieved. The finish line gives meaning, by bringing an end to the effort involved.

‘Made it,’ is also a celebration of accomplishment, the acknowledgement of a period of initiation, the final step.  For me, my recent life of imbalance is over. And, what it has drawn out of me, is briefly evident.

 

‘Made it’ reassures me. I’m not sure why. I guess I long for the barn. There is something about a prolonged effort that is both productive and confining. I want the freedom of an ending, the mortality of being mortal. I guess I would rather be a brief thread of color on the loom of creation, than be the loom itself. I could never keep my weft and my warp clear anyhow.

 

I don’t know if anything comes next. It seems to me, that this life has prepared me for something, but I’m ready to be surprised by what it is. What I know is, that I want a sense of accomplishment out of this one. ‘Made it’ carries with it a sense of achievement that I like. It isn’t a merit badge I seek, but it is the sense that I’ve made it through the birth canal of this experience.

 

With that comment, I’ve made it through this reflection. By now, I think you can see, that the Slow Lane is a deeply human endeavor with all of its flaws, ego aggrandizement, and wonder — evident like errant underwear. I hope it isn’t too shamelessly revealing for you.

 

 

 

 

The Waiting Room

Recently, I woke up from a dream. At least, I think I did. It was a strange age-related shimmery kind of experience. Very powerful. But, weird. To this moment, I’m not sure whether I had the dream, or it has me. All I know is that this residue remains.

I am in a waiting room with a bunch of pregnant old people. We are all pregnant with ourselves. There are a lot of people in various stages of shock — of being in swollen discomfort. A few are smiling and happy, but the majority are confused and anxious. There don’t seem to be any doctors or nurses around. There is only this pervasive atmosphere of expectancy. Over it all, hangs a feeling of great distance, as if something vast is in attendance. Then there is a pop, and someone disappears.

I call this dream ‘the waiting room.’ I am assailed by the sense that I am living something like it out. There is a deja-vu quality haunting me. No matter how productive my life seems, no matter how engaged I am, since grayness has come over me, I am somehow on hold. Something inside is waiting. I am swelling up, while all this nothing is happening, and I am becoming more and more a mystery that is about to pop. Any moment now I am going to break, disappear, and give birth to the real me. It could be a happy moment, or one poignant with grief.  I sense the immanence of my coming and going.

I want to stress that what I am describing now is not the dream, but some aspect of my current-time reality. Aging has brought with it some faint sense of expectancy. It isn’t death-dread, nor is it cultural doom, rather it is some graying mirage — a kind of prospect, of an unexpected and unanticipated tomorrow. I don’t know if I am living evolution out, or if evolution is living me out. I just have the sense that the story is getting longer, more nuanced, and totally necessary.

There is a part of me that chafes at the idea that before I am done being me, a new me might come onto the scene. I am getting tired, fatigue is setting in, the old is already too heavy. The new seems, whatever weight it will be, overwhelming. I wait with more than anticipation. Life is full of dreamlike twilight-zone suspense. I bulge in all the places I used to play.

For some reason the dream seems to correspond to some mysterious part of my life. I think it actually is an aspect of getting old in this uncertain time.  I’m not sure I want to body-forth new human trait, in a time when humanity hasn’t made up its mind about surviving.  I am not in favor of still-born potential.  There is a cloud of uncertainty hanging over me.

I am generally optimistic. I tend to think Life knows what it is doing. But, for some reason, an aura of caution has come over me. I’m guessing it’s my human part in the equation that troubles me. The verdict is yet to come in. Meanwhile, I, like everybody else, gets to wait.

A Holy Symmetry

Many people believe I adopted the name “Lucky” because I survived my stroke and its aftermath. Certainly, I was lucky. But, that wasn’t the reason. Strangely, that entire episode, took me out of myself, and introduced me to a level of reality I probably could not have known otherwise.  I underwent an extreme form of initiation, which launched me into a connected life, one where I experience the length Life goes to grow us. I became “Lucky” when I felt the winds of evolution at my back.

 

Recently, I attended the first meeting of The Ripening Room. I could feel my resistance to being there — I gave voice to it — by saying I didn’t want to be there, because I didn’t want people to see my ugliness. After a day or two, I realized that was not completely true. At least a portion of my resistance was because I didn’t want anyone to see my beauty. I realized The Ripening Room could be a place where ripening was revealed, as much as sought. It could be a place where fullness could be as evident as shortcomings. Suddenly, the holy symmetry, the relationship between Life and we humans, could manifest.

 

I have never been prepared for the change in awareness that befell me after the stroke. As the medical people said, “I was too young to be going through it.” What they couldn’t see, what their instruments didn’t show, was that I was being re-worked. Through a medical crisis a whole lifetime disappeared, and a connected luckiness arrived. Since then, Life’s medicine has been evident in all my moments. Since then, I have known that ripening was happening all the time.

 

So, that is what I want to convey. Every step of the way, Life is preparing us for what is to come. All along, hardships or grace-related events, are happening, and shaping each of us. I am amazed, realizing that Life has been embracing me long before I began embracing Life. I became “Lucky” long before I knew it. 

 

I am not really interested in becoming an evangelist. The real work is Life’s to do. I just want to act more like ripening has already set-in. Yes, I could certainly use more. But, the truth is, that getting older has made ripening all that much clearer to me. I am the beneficiary of a Life force, that pours through this life and enriches my interactions. 

 

I need to re-visualize what I am doing. Ripening, and the holy symmetry, changes my perception of The Ripening Room from a place where one acquires ripeness, to a place where one reveals ripeness. Instead of a sense of scarcity, I envision a feeling of being endowed. Ripeness is suddenly present as potency.

 

I have come to see, that the way I think about self-confrontation, shapes how I see it. If I saw The Ripening Room as a way of showing and experiencing my pathology, it is an undesirable thing — but, if I saw it as a way of demonstrating my wholeness, it is another. I know that the opportunity to demonstrate my wholeness is also true with aging, the ultimate self-confrontation. Thinking maturity is out there waiting for me (perhaps when I die), is far different than perceiving ripening as something already growing as me. I am “Lucky” because ripening is part of who I am.

 

Ripeness has brought us here. The obstacles, and challenges, are simple initiatory ordeals arranged by Mystery to draw out from within what already exists. Ripeness brings one to a place where ripeness can exercise. I can now look forward to getting older as more than an as an ordeal. 

 

The focus upon hardship and attainment, mental, emotional, and spiritual effort, the doing of it, misdirected my thinking. I am a victim of the old way of perceiving things. Ripening is not my power — it happens despite my effort. The best use of my power is to get out of the way, and help nature do its thing. 

 

My luckiness, is what I share with all of you, the joy of knowing what really is within us, what really makes things happen. Ripeness is generating more ripeness. A holy symmetry is at work. Love is purifying Love.

 

 

  

Loss

“Honesty is not the revealing of some foundational truth

 that gives us power over life, or another, or even the self,

 but a robust incarnation into the unknown unfolding vulnerability of existence, 

where we acknowledge how powerless we feel, how little we actually know, 

how afraid we are of not knowing, and how astonished we are 

by the generous measure of loss 

that is conferred upon even the most average life.”    David Whyte

Life asks so much of we humans. Most of it isn’t obvious. But losing is. The ‘generous measure’ seems to fall on us all. The quality of our response to loss ultimately determines the quality of our lives. Tragedy, pathology, heartbreak, disability, violence, death. There are so many ways to experience loss. Some seem like they are indicators of a careless deity, and others, random acts. Each sears into us our unique and totally idiosyncratic character. Loss generates something mysterious. It conveys to us who and what we are. It is the “ask” of Life that centers us in the evolutionary process.

 

Loss is perhaps the most paradoxical gift of all. It shapes us, turning each of us into someone touched, sensitized, directed, disillusioned, empowered and freed. There is a wild ache in the world. Each of us is exposed to it, shaped by it, and sometimes grief-struck. It is part of the way Life christens and certifies us — we are human to the core.

 

Loss is the way gain comes about. The two are linked in some unknown grief-saturated way. Alchemy holds no mystery compared to these two’s relationship. The light shines brightest upon the ground prepared by the darkness of grief and loss. Shoots of newness, and resounding beauty, bear the scars of what has been and now is let go of. Loss opens the way for the new.

 

We live in a human-defined world where loss is primarily seen as tragedy. There are many who labor under the weight of shallowly perceived loss, who cannot imagine the gift they received wrapped in grief. The greatest tragedy is when loss is perceived inaccurately. It still hurts — but it is a strange, seldom-welcome kind of fertility. The Universe has come calling, bringing with it, ineffable possibility.

 

Each of us has to come to terms with what is given to us. Sometimes what looks like a curse is a gift. There is no way of telling in advance. Providence seems to match loss to us very carefully, but we humans don’t get to know about this justice. All we have is this kind of wondering and awe.

 

 

 

  

The Ripening Room

Aging is still controversial. There are those who think it is a kind of natural disaster, the bitter broken end of the story. There is a growing minority who believe that old age holds the key to personal uniqueness and fulfillment. At the moment, amongst other big changes, the traditional view of the latter part of life is undergoing a metamorphosis. The old is becoming new.   

This changing of the fall of Life, is only welcome in some corners. It’s scary. Life has more to offer. It also asks more of us.  The newness arising, is a mixed blessing.  Longer, more complex lives, with less functional bodies, and greater losses, more death of loved ones— all add-up to a challenge like no other. Some would say it is these hardships, that make old age such an undesirable part of life.

 

Others, including this author, see these hardships, as the gifts of later life. They are a part of an initiatory ordeal, that quickens life, and gives it a miraculous magical quality, dignifying and connecting we humans to the processes of Creation. It is when our bodies breakdown, that our spirits become more available to us. There is an awakening, that becomes available as life ripens us. Falling becomes flying. Wrinkles, cellulite, and scars become the signs of a new phase.

 

This transition is handicapped by looking bad, appearing as a kind of demise, a failure to thrive. But that is only what’s happening on the outside. It is what is most visible. Miraculously, something else is happening on the inside. Unseen, and unrecognized, an immaterial capacity is forming. Sensitized by all the losses, an internal being is growing — an invisible wonder is ripening.   Aging is a gateway— a portal into another form of being human—another adaptation to existence.

 

We all know we are living in precarious times. No one knows what is going to happen. Your fantasy is as likely as mine. Still, there is something happening within we humans. I don’t think it has been adequately accounted for. I may not know exactly what it is, but I have noticed that the overall theme of aging seems to be that the old gray mare “ain’t what she used to be.” I think that is true, and I’m offering a new story about what that may mean.

 

Ripening, in my opinion, is happening. I think it is built into us, like a homing instinct, an integrative drive, a natural tendency towards wholeness. Ordeals, hardships, and dilemmas, ripen us, maturing our nature, and growing each of us into our unique selves. All of that development, is part of the ever-expanding Universe, guaranteeing diversity, and making sure that evolution always has something new to create with.

 

The Ripening Room, a new development — is a prayer — designed to emulate and support life. It is a social experiment, a very human attempt to aid what is already alive within us. While the focus will be self-confrontation (watch for your invitation), the truth of the matter is, The Ripening Room will be a place to celebrate what we all have in common, a vital connection with the evolving edge of Creation.

 

Being human is, with all our fragility and limitation, living at the edge, in the ripening zone.

 

 

 

 

The Self Needs

I ran across a book, The Adjusted American (1957), long ago, before I became a therapist, that has had a life-long influence upon me. It simplified my sense of what was important as I grew, and provided me with simple guidelines with which to direct my efforts.  I still find myself thinking of the guidance offered, and the subsequent gifts that came my way. The book provided a lot, from describing a “normal neurosis,” to a simple description of our “self-needs,” which I intend to pass on to you. I find that the later has served me, even as I age beyond so many other forms of guidance.

 

The “self-needs” that Putnam and Putnam put forward were so simple that I remember them today. I feel motivated to pass them along because of a conversation I had with an elder friend of mine. He was nearing another birthday, and he was in the midst of a hard time. The perspective their model offered, was so useful to him, it clarified what could have been a pathological assumption into a normalizing growth pattern. He walked away marveling about his own evolution. We were both happier, and could celebrate his getting older, because we noticed, the ripening still going on within our breaking-down bodies.

 

They posited only three simple self-needs. 1) A self-image that is acceptable. 2) A self-image that is accurate. And lastly, 3) a means of verifying the first two. If one has a self-image that is unacceptable for any reason, or one that is inaccurate, then one gets in all kinds of difficulty. The more accurate and acceptable the better. The more readily one cultivated good relationships with loved ones, family, or community, the more means for verifying the accuracy and acceptability of one’s self-image. All-in-all, a very simple and relational way of looking at one’s self-experience and grasping what’s at stake in any given situation.

 

I have had to go through some significant upgrades to my self-image. The uncertainty of these times in my life have been great. Old age has been in some ways been no different, only slower and more thorough. I’ve always, during such times, adhered to the twin needs. I steered towards acceptability (mine) and accuracy. Community has been my preferred source of verification. The diversity of community has always provided a multi-faceted way of seeing myself. I could bare the times of transition, because I had friends who helped verify my changing image along the way. 

These later years have been the most delicate for me. I keep having recollections, or friends, who help point out that I’m not who I always thought I was. My self-image is going through wild fluctuations. My approaching death has gifted me with greater clarity. I can see the path I’ve been on, and how I’ve sometimes wandered away from it. As a result, my self-image has also grown clearer. The result is, that if I can stand the strain, I get to re-discover who I am, and as importantly, I get to improve my self-image, and thru my community become more who I want to be. What a late life gift!

 

The self-needs have helped me navigate thru some difficult waters. They keep me honest. They help me hold to what is so difficult and so essential. I offer them to you. I hope they can help you like they keep helping me. At the very least, they offer an alternative way of looking at yourself, that isn’t so pathologically oriented. Ripening sometimes means seeing one’s self more clearly. That can be painful. But, invariably, that pain results in increased character. Ripening is a gift of aging.