In Praise of Oldness: Longevity, Vitality and the Fulfillment of Meaning

Since I returned to Oregon from Mexico in early March, I have plunged back into the creative development of Sage's Play, and in the process of that, I have naturally found myself immersed in contemplating and considering our culture's perspective on oldness, aging and elders.

Desmond Tutu dances at the Dalai Lama's birthday party

"Why does our society believe old people need help?" asks author James Hillman. "They are the ones who would be, in some other society, passing on help to others: teaching skills, telling stories, leading rituals, caring for children. They have a contribution to make, and instead they are segregated as sick people who need to be nursed. This is ridiculous."

With all this I wholeheartedly agree.

When I am sitting here with my Sage's Play hat on, and my Sage's Play glasses on, I am often inspired to sing praises to oldness, to its value, richness, depth, and the essential resonance of oldness, which we find so powerful and comforting. Oldness, staying power, lasting, the accumulated pile of life experience, of knowing, caring, leading, setting a good example, keeping the faith, passing on the old stories, showing how to plant the seeds and cultivate the garden of this life.

Maya Angelou

As I have said before, I believe it would do us all good to create an Elder Hall of Fame!  I have a list of many people I have been collecting and all of them are worthy candidates. Of course there's the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu, both of whom are great examples of sages at play.

And poets Maya Angelou and Stanley Kunitz. Comedian Betty White, along with Yoko Ono, Mick Jagger, Pablo Casals, Pablo Picasso, Bernie Sanders, Tao-Porchon Lynch, teaching yoga in her 90s,  Robert Redford, Leonard Cohen, Jane Goodall, among others. Because I am interested in art, many of the elders I chose are artists of one sort or another.  Who would you want to add to the Elder Hall of Fame if there was one and you were on the panel?

Perhaps you might find it useful, as I have, to take a long look at the old people you admire. What is it that you find most fascinating or touching about them? What kind of oldness do you want to embody? What qualities do you want to continue to cultivate in yourself as you age?

Twyla Tharp

This morning, I listened to a great talk by Ashton Applewhite, a pro-aging activist based in NYC whose work I admire and support. In her talk, Ashton discusses prevalent stereotypes about aging and how they impact older adults and society at large. Because let's face it, not all older people are as clear in their life mission and work as are those I am mentioning here. Many elders find it difficult to push through the age prejudice in our society to contribute their valuable skills and knowledge.

Age discrimination and prejudice are bad for our health and the health of our world. It's as simple as that. You can watch Ashton Applewhite's incisive, information-packed talk on ageism here. I highly recommend it....you can also take a look at her website This Chair Rocks.

Incidentally, I post a lot of great articles and observations about aging on the Sage's Play Facebook page.

Well, that's a collection of links for you to explore...and here is one more,  just for good measure. Have you taken a look at our revamped Sage's Play website? There are some delightful changes and additions you might like to see.

Right now, I am revising Your Audacious Aging Kit and  developing a new e-course titled Into the Mystery: The Healing Power of Memoir and Life Review. I feel rejuvenated and filled with fresh inspiration from my sojourn in Mexico. Stay tuned...and enjoy the magic of the approaching full moon!

Healing Power of Memoir and Life Review, Septuagenarian Vitality and more....

 I am a big fan of Dr. Bill Thomas's work to provide  liveable alternatives to what we currently call nursing homes. Dr. Thomas does this pioneering work through The Eden Alternative and The Green House Project. Are you aware of his work? If not, check it out. It's marvelous and needed.

His blog Changing Aging is a platform for sharing news about his very important work and the work of others, too.

I am very pleased that I have had two guest blogs published on Changing Aging recently. My first blog was about our musical revue A New Wrinkle. How glad I was when Changing Aging Editor Kavan Peterson emailed me to tell me that he had listened to the mp3s of songs from the revue, and had read some of the lyrics on our website as well and that he found the songs funny and wonderful. As I've said before, the artist's life can sometimes be a solitary endeavor, and it is very encouraging to receive positive response from one's audience.

This morning, I had another guest blog published at Changing Aging, on the healing power of memoir and life review. 

In it, I describe the value of life review to older adults and share some experience of my own life review over the past 17 years, which has resulted in my new book Songs of the Inner Life.

Life review is considered one of the important tasks of later life. It allows us to examine, let go, forgive, understand and integrate our life experience.

On another note, Mick Jagger turned 70 and 71-year old Paul McCartney gave a big concert in Seattle. Both of these music icons' ages resulted in New York Times articles. The articles are very different from one another.

Gail Collins took a friendly retrospective view of what rockers including Jagger said about aging when they were younger, and how they feel about it now that they have entered the territory of aging. Her opinion piece is warm and engaging. Enjoying your life has a positive effect on the aging process as Collins points out.  "... if you’re doing something you love to do, you can rise above it."

The article Septuagenarian Strut by Timothy Egan is another story entirely. Egan's reflections on Paul McCartney's recent concert were unsettling, a  flagrant display of the kind of disgust many people feel about aging and older adults. It's a rather sad read. Egan himself is in the demographic he writes about so scathingly.   Such repulsion and aversion to aging--it cannot be healthy. Here's one excerpt.

"Milling about Safeco Field in Seattle under a nearly full moon, I loathed my self-loathing. Demographically speaking, I’m smack dab in the middle of a generation that refuses to acknowledge age or get off the stage. Where is the off-ramp marked grace, dignity or class for the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964?"

Readers sent over 200 comments on each of these articles--the comments make for fascinating reading.

That's the news today from southern Oregon, where wildfires are raging all around, making the air very, very smoky. Air quality is rated as unhealthy and we are urged not to go outside at all. We are all hoping for the fires to be contained and the air to clear soon.

Speed of Light in the Slow Lane

Tashi Choling's beautiful temple and a clear blue sky

Until one grows older, one doesn't understand the comments of older people who insist  that "the years flew by so quickly." Now, however, we understand. One moment, we were 30 years old, the next moment we find we are 60 or 70, taking life in more slowly and with the panoramic perspective unique to age.

In 1976, I was fortunate to meet Gyatrul Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama who became my root teacher.  I could certainly devote many blog posts to events and recognitions that transpired in my relationship to him, to his amazing example of what is possible as a human being.

Paradoxically, there has been a whole lot of physical effort involved!

I hope that I live long enough to write about some of this, not necessarily here, but in a book that describes the creation and evolution of Tashi Choling, one of the Dharma centers that he inspired, which I helped to ground in its early years.

Tashi Choling's majestic Tibetan temple sits at the top of an expansive meadow. It is a beautiful place --peaceful and inspiring. I just finished taking part in 7 days of spiritual practice there, as our annual spring retreat unfurled.  We were blessed by the presence of Lingtrul Rinpoche, a wonderfully open and relaxed Tibetan lama, and my teacher Gyatrul Rinpoche came to the final session of the retreat. A very rich, powerful time....an incredibly moving time....a dip into the timeless heart essence ....

The proof copy of my new book--close to publication!

Songs of the Inner Life

Today I plan to finish the final proofing for Songs of the Inner Life, my soon to be published memoir.  The book is a project of Sage's Play, a venture I created in 2008, whose programs focus on creative, conscious aging.

I am very pleased with the cover design created by Robert Frost.  Robert has done many beautiful design projects for me over the years. I love his work.  He created a delightful brochure for the Retirement and Inspirement Coaching I offer and he has developed many many other posters and brochures for me.

It has been 25 years since I published a book! Well, that's not exactly true. I self-published Words Themselves are Medicine, a chapbook of poetry and essays in the early 90s.

My first book Growing and Using the Healing Herbs was a big success, thanks to the publisher Rodale Press' fantastic marketing structure. That herb book sold 200,000 copies -- the royalties paid for land I owned with my then-second husband, who co-authored the book with me.

Now we are about to send Songs of the Inner Life out into the world through Sage's Play.  I am very pleased to be offering Songs of the Inner Life, which tells some of the stories of how mysterious events and forces led me on my way in the midst of the landscape of ordinary life. I began writing some of the stories that appear in the book when I was 55!  I was plunging into life review, even though I didn't know it then.

The introduction to the book is available at our Sage's Play website (see link a few paragraphs up) under the Book and Writings link. I've collected some reader comments on the book as a way to let people know a bit more about what they can expect when they open its pages. If you are curious or interested, you can check them out at our website, too.

Writing and creating art of any kind  is of course an offering. Each piece of art attracts its own audience, people who resonate with its color, form, scent, message.  Songs of the Inner Life will emerge and connect in its own perfect timing with the people who are meant to read and appreciate it.

The Gardens

I feel very fortunate to be living amidst these gardens. The south-facing garden in front of the house is now filled with masses of blue love-in-a-mist, poppies, hibiscus, roses and dayliies. I expect the feverfew to explode into clouds of white blossoms any day now.

I am an earth-digger. With 6 planets in Taurus, it seems natural, perhaps inevitable.  It gives me a great deal of pleasure to enrich the soil and create beauty in gardens.

Years ago, when I lived in a place that had very dense clay soil, I used to imagine living in a cottage like this surrounded by profuse flower gardens, and now here I am....have I said this already? It is still very true.

In the back, there is a shade garden, boxes full of vegetables and the area at the very back of the yard, where a variety of vegetables and herbs commingle with some roses. Butterflies, bees, birds---the garden is a natural place of rest, where one can slow down and listen to things as they grow, appreciating their vigor and their perfect beauty.

The Pleasures of the Garden

 Twenty years ago, when I was still in my second marriage, I was living in the country on land that boasted very dense clay soil. In spite of the difficulty of the ground, I managed to convince some gorgeous white antique roses as well as some herbs like tansy and mother wort to flourish there. I had daydreams that when I was older, I might live in a cottage with a beautiful flower garden, where the earth was easy and cooperative.

Now I do live in just such a place. The front garden has a lovely English style (read profuse and a bit chaotic) flower and herb garden.  In the back, there is a shade garden and two areas where I grow vegetables.

From the time I saw the place, I thought the front shutters should be painted blue rather than the faded charcoal grey they were. I like them much better this way, and they bring out the color of the masses of pale love-in-a-mist that are now blooming in various parts of the front garden.

Artist's Life: Little Playmates and Current Projects

My friends the horse, frog and monkey

The red fairy Sophia painted long ago

The tiny elderwoman Helen made, with Betsy's mandala nearby

I am in the midst of several substantial projects.


I am preparing to publish Songs of the Inner Life, "first in a series of short memoirs." To that end, I sent the manuscript out to a group of people, asking for them to provide reader comments that I can use for publicity. I also talked with designer Robert Frost about creating a cover design for the book. I should have that to share soon.

I am preparing for a talk, an OLLI class and I'm updating my website with information about solo performances, speaking and workshops.

I'm working on two final songs for our musical revue on aging, and then will review the script with our script consultant Carolyn Myers.

So in the midst of these creative endeavors, I took time to visit with my little playmates, who live in my house with me.


They may seem as if they are just sitting there on the shelf, wall or counter, but there's more to it than that.

The monkey reminds me to play and swing freely in the midst of everything I am developing. The frog tells me to persevere --he assures me that my work will add up and bring positive, fertile results.

The horse brings the thought of adventure, a painted gypsy wagon, summers in the meadow, running unbridled.

These particular little playmates have other things they share too, depending on the day.

The red fairy has been with me since my daughter Sophia painted it in Grade II of Waldorf School. The red fairy reminds me of the beauty, magic and innocence of real aliveness.

I feel quite happy when I gaze at her amidst the big red flowers and green grass.  


I have a lovely little elder woman with braids in my kitchen. She carries a basket and has fetching green shoes and old-fashioned country clothing.

I got her from Helen Jucevic, who makes Kinder Dolls in the Waldorf style.                          
In the background is Betsy Lewis' mandala titled Grief. When Betsy gave it to me, I couldn't resist asking her why she was giving me grief.

You can see more of Betsy's work at the link above. I recommend taking a look.


I have other little playmates, too, like the chap here on his ox, with his flute in hand. He doesn't talk much, being a rather quiet fellow, but he does play the flute very beautifully.

I'm sure I am not the only person in the universe who has an affectionate relationship with small beings who live nearby. Do you?

Well it's out for a walk for me, before I head into two exciting meetings. At least I imagine that they will be exciting.

The value of late life journeys into memoir and life review

I no longer remember the exact day I began an archeological expedition whose purpose was to delve into my life history in order to understand it better. I was in my mid 50s and I was living in a rustic house at the foot of Tashi Choling, a wonderful Tibetan Buddhist temple I had helped to found years before.

I am a person who relishes an occasional riotous discard of papers due to the misplaced hope that their destruction will bring freedom from onerous details of self and mundane life. Because of that habit, I have no notebooks from that time.

Fortunately, that habit has not reached my computer records so I do have a chronological set of files that describe the scope of my themes and how I approached them over time. Writing this particular book Songs of the Inner Life has occupied my imagination for the past 15 years. I've worked on it intensely for months at a time, then set it aside and taken it up again, over and over. I've written three quite different drafts. When one has spent that much time on a project, it assumes a dreamlike quality. Will it ever emerge as a finished book? That's certainly my firm intention. And now at 70, I finally feel mature enough to do it.

There is a marvelous exhilarating energy about setting off on a voyage, though that excitement may be mixed with certain misgivings and fears. That was my mood as I began exploring my psyche and personal history, intending to dig as deeply as needed to unearth new insights and healing artifacts. I had no idea when I started that I had plunged into the process of life review, which is considered an important developmental task of later life.


I began the first draft of the first chapter by contemplating the mysteries of how a singular human being precipitates from light into matter.

"A baby is still close to the angels. Its newness melts us. Its skin soft as a flower petal, its sweet breath, tiny hands and feet move us to wonder. Babies sometimes seem as if they are not quite in their bodies yet. We suspect that they may be lingering in luminous realms which have become invisible to us. Perhaps that's why being with a baby brings us back to the state of beginners’ mind, beginners’ eyes, beginners’ smile. And when we look into a baby's eyes, we feel that we are gazing out into the spacious reaches of the universe, or deep inside the secret wisdom of the uncreated.. A baby brings us into the ecstasy of the present moment."

I was working up to exploring some difficult terrain, and it helped to start by remembering original grace. After that, I spent months exploring and writing about my deepest childhood wounds, the beliefs and experiences that led me to feel worthless, isolated and deformed. It was hard going, but I kept on slogging through it, infusing the process with breaks for meditation and walks in Nature.

I agreed to engage in a continued encounter the Shadow because I wanted to heal. As they used to say in that old radio show about The Shadow, "The Shadow knows!" It's true. Digging into those layers was not an easy job, but I am very glad I did it.

"Writing memoir is not for the meek," a fellow writer wrote recently on Facebook, that beautiful mandala of offerings from other humans (whose management manipulations are sometimes terribly annoying.)

Of course, there were times on the journey when I felt as if I had become lost in a labyrinth. Not a labyrinth as beautifully green as this one but a forlorn rocky confusion of dead ends, isolation and being walled off from the rest of life.

I endured the hopeless confinement of one who felt she would never find the way out.

Is the way out, or in--or just relaxing and sitting still in the moment?

I am looking forward to returning to this book during the reflective months of winter. I am about to publish an excerpt preview of the Introduction and first three chapters of Songs of the Inner Life soon. I will let you know when it is available on amazon.com.



My recent article on memoir and life review (mentioned in my previous post) was mentioned in the September News Briefs of the National Center for Creative Aging!I am pretty pleased about that.

Because I believe so much in the powerful integrative and healing qualities of memoir and life review, I will be offering workshops devoted to that exploration through poetry, movement, deep relaxation, storytelling, voice and prose. A one-day workshop is coming up in Ashland, Oregon on October 16th. Please email me at gaea.yudron@yahoo.com or call me at 541-535-3084 if you would like to register. Fee is $50.

I plan to develop an online version as well so that friends in far places can participate.

Interested in walking through fire, discovering forgotten talismans in long forgotten sites, finding understanding and resolution that provides release from old issues, coming face to face with original grace, recognizing and engaging your deepest gifts? Memoir and life review is a way to do all of that and more.

The Waters of Memory, the Sky of Dreams

When I was in my mid 50s, the past, which had never much interested me before, became fascinating. I spent almost a year reading and musing about the ancient Silk Road and the oasis cities that flourished there so briefly before being buried by the sands. Thinking of those lost cities and the civilizations they contained was a kind of doorway that spoke to me piercingly of impermanence, and also led me to aspects of my own psyche that up until then had been buried in the rushing torrents of life.

It's sometimes said that with age, qualities of reflection naturally arise. This has been true for me. Yes, I continue to show up in the outer world. I do the laundry, work, pray, cook good food, enjoy my friends, music, dancing, plunging into nature and the elements just as I’ve done for years. Yet as time passes, I find myself “living in the past” something that has been widely vilified as a sign of elder dottiness, but which I find to be a worthy task. What have I lived through and what is the meaning of the patterns, impulses, events and people that have filled my life? We live as the Christian mystic Jacob Boehme pointed out in two worlds. The material and the immaterial.

And as one grows older, it is possible that one may live more in the immaterial world--In the past, in the imagination, in prayer, meditation, spirit. Though I may be conjuring much consternation perhaps by putting all those things together. It works for me. If it does not work for you, adjust as you will to valences your psyche finds harmonious.

Every stage of life has its peculiar dreams. So during my mid 50s I found myself dreaming of a big white marble room with tall, narrow windows. The room contained a long table with a globe on it, ancient manuscripts their pages edged with gold, and some instruments and substances I associate with alchemy. In that room, I was a woman whose forehead shone with light. I was my own beacon.

In what we think of as the ordinary world, one doesn’t describe oneself this way. That is a bit of a problem with the ordinary world, because all of us have mythic, archetypal, immaterial qualities and when we ignore those, we are diminished.

From the beautiful white marble room, a heavy wooden door opened out to a narrow hallway. I had to take a lantern with me. The hallway curved, its stairs descending deep into the earth. The air was old and dry. I arrived at a doorway covered with heavy, deep red brocade cloth, gently pulled the cloth aside and looked into the small room that appeared before me, which was illuminated by votive candles set on a ledge that ran along its walls. Its ceiling was low, its dark walls were hewn from black rock. Three icons hung on the walls-- one of Jesus, one of the Black Madonna, and one of St. Michael. In the candlelight, their golden halos blazed out from the dark backgrounds of the paintings.

I saw an ornate, jewel-encrusted coffin in which lay an old King, strong and undecayed. His deep red robe was embroidered with flowers sewn of golden threads. His beautiful golden crown was set with rubies and emeralds. His Queen lay beside him like a still flower. She had a perfume, not of death, but of the ineffable.

Was it this dream that led me to begin excavating the archeological layers and the brightly lit memories that comprise the way stations of my life experience? I do not rightly remember if it was. But it was around that time that I started reflecting on and writing about my life in an effort to understand, reconcile and let go.

“I come to the fields and spacious palaces of memory, where are the treasures of innumerable images, brought into it from things of all sorts perceived by the senses,” as St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions. It takes both fierce focus and soft trust to enter the territory of the soul with both eyes wide open, to describe the seasons and stations of the inner journey. It is a task and opportunity that can be taken up in the elder years, if one is drawn to do it.