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.