A High Spirited New Year to You!

"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."
                      -- George Bernard Shaw

In High Spirits

I started Sage's Play because I feel passionate about the richness and bounty of age. The Sage's Play perspective is about growing old with the emphasis on growing. Which means continuing to explore, stretch, learn and deepen as an elder, someone with worthwhile qualities and much life experience to share with others.

In the US, we are afflicted with a variety of toxic attitudes about aging and toward old people. One of the reasons why I decided to spend the winter in Mexico this year was this: I wanted to experience another culture's way of being with older people.  What a relief it is to be in Mexico, where there is none of the dismissive, condescending behavior toward older people that is found in the US. Nobody is rolling their eyes at you, looking away from you because you are older, ignoring you or being sarcastic or dismissive. It is a restorative experience for me, and one of the reasons why I am considering spend much more time in Mexico.

If you are in the US or another country that marginalizes the old, then high-spirited aging means not buying into those stereotypes, not becoming a caricature of yourself, but continuing to engage in a real, vivacious, lively, energetic, happy way with life. No matter what country you live in, having a high-spirited attitude is naturally invigorating and healthy. That's why I am sending wishes that your 2015 be high-spirited. May your life this year be happy, fulfilling and creative.


In the Village of San Agustin Etla

It's January 3rd already. I have moved into a pleasant room at Rincon San Agustin, a country posada in San Agustin Etla, a village 16 miles out of Oaxaca city that has a justified reputation for being very beautiful.

I came upon these morning glories though, not in San Agustin but just around the corner from where I stayed with Conchita on a very busy street in Oaxaca. I love blue flowers. They are so ethereal. I stayed with Conchita for a couple of weeks. She is a wonderful, cheerful woman. I probably told you that she has lived in her house all her life. I liked her a lot, and her family and helpers were all great, too.

But she was renting four other rooms out. (Which I did not know when I booked the place. Read airbnb descriptions carefully, and certainly ask more questions, I tell myself.) Because sometimes the guests were not as pleasant as Conchita and her family. An understatement. Especially regarding the young German tourists whose amazingly loud, drunken behavior assaulted us all one long night.

I was really ready to have a respite from being in cities after two months spent in Guanajuato and Oaxaca. I wanted to see open fields and trees. I wanted to be in a more quiet environment for awhile. The posada here provides this. It is right next to a river, and I can hear the sound of the water from my abode, as well as the sounds of birds and when the breeze comes up in the afternoons, the sound of the wind in the trees. Though what passes as a river here is more like what we call a creek in Oregon. In fact, Lithia Creek in Ashland is often wider than the river here.

Bad hair day, or just letting down one's hair?

Traveling in new places, one naturally has a great interest in experiencing the local culture. One goes to museums, concerts, fiestas, mercados. One  sits in the zocalo and in plazuelitas, surveying the passing scene. One tries out the local cuisine, and in my case, one seeks places where vegetables are favored. Though not a vegetarian, I do want many more vegetables than are provided in the customary Mexican diet. It is possible. There are some wonderful restaurants in Oaxaca, including some that serve plenty of veggies.

I am smitten with the rose colored walls at this restaurant Tio Guero. The ambiance and food there are good. But my favorite places are La Jicara, La Olla and La Biznaga.

Today is the first day I have a very open, free schedule with only two appointments. My first appointment is at  3pm when I will go to my host Amalia's house for comida, the main meal of the day, which she is cooking and I am looking forward to eating, especially so since I have been eating only one meal a day for the past few weeks. And my second appointment is at 5:30pm, when I will go on a walk with Amalia along the river.

Another painting on that gorgeous rose colored wall

It feels very good to let go of all the activity I have been engaging in while in the city and to take a break. Not exactly to do nothing at all, which if you have ever tried it is not easy unless you are in a meditation retreat, and even then it is not easy. In fact meditation is a lot of work, which some of you readers no doubt know.

I will be here in San Agustin until January 15th, and I am hoping to get some work done on a book about Tibetan master Gyatrul Rinpoche and the development of his center, Tashi Choling.

In my travels thus far, I have not done much on this project, but hopefully, the good conditions at this place will allow me to focus on it. It is a big project, and one close to my heart, since I have been involved with Tashi Choling from its beginnings and am a longtime student of Gyatrul Rinpoche.

I have done about 20 interviews, and while I need to conduct more interviews and collect much more reseach, I think I can find a way to write some passages and excerpts given what I have assembled up until now.

"Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them . . . Life obliges them over and over to give birth to themselves."                

 --- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The church at the Mitla ruins

But to return for a moment to the business of seeing things while traveling, I generally dislike going on tours. However, I bit the bullet and went on one earlier this week.

When you're traveling alone and do not want to rent a car or cannot convince some unsuspecting person to join you, sometimes a tour is the best option.

There were three vehicles on this particular tour, two of which were filled with gringos. It turned out that I was the only gringo on the bus full of Mexicans, which I enjoyed. I got a chance to hang out and listen to their conversations and experience their reactions after we visited various places.

Mitla ruins

One thing I dislike about tours is the short time one spends in each place. An hour? Just not enough time most of the time. Anyway, we went to Mitla, a beautiful and famous pre-Hispanic site, said to be the place where people moved after they abandoned their city at Monte Alban.

We made a brief visit to the village of Teotitlan, where we were given an interesting talk on natural dyes and weaving and we took a beautiful road up to Hierve de Agua, which is one of the most spectacular places I have ever seen. I did not take any pictures that did it justice.

Turquoise pools of water in white limestone, cascades of limestone "waterfalls' flowing down the hill, the whole scene set high up in the mountains. Amazing. Magical. That is a place I would like to return to and stay for an overnight or two. Hierve de Agua. Here's a link if you want to read more.

The tour took all day. We ate a delicious lunch at a buffet-style restaurant, visited a mescal brewery where most of us tasted this and that.  Finally at dusk we arrived at the ancient Tule tree, said to be the tree with the widest girth in the world.  It is a beautiful tree indeed and seeing it made me both happy and sad. I wish there were many more ancient, immense trees in our world. Gigantic old trees are so nourishing, and so comforting. I dream of vast ancient forests.

I had a delightful Christmas day at a wonderful fiesta in a beautiful garden. The party, the guests, the food, the drink--it was all marvelous. I met some great people there. I have no idea if I will encounter them anywhere again. That's one of the things about traveling. You have to leave places and people. It's good practice for dying, at least I hope so.

But of course since I am still very much alive, I would like to continue to become friends with some of those folks, most of whom were interesting gringos in my age range.

It is wonderful to experience the skill of the craftspeople and artists here in this part of Mexico. This loom is in a workshop in Teotitlan.

Here generations pass on their knowledge and design/skill lineage to their children and kin. We have lost that to a large extent in the US, but it is strong here and very beautiful.

This is the dirt road near the posada where I am staying in San Agustin Etla. If I turn right from the posada, I can walk to another small village, whose name I do not recall. I think I will learn more about this road when Amalia and I walk together later today.

This is the building that houses the center of the arts in San Agustin Etla. It once was a textile factory.  I wrote about the exhibit which is currently being shown there in an earlier blog.

The current exhibit focuses on a very important issue --- protecting native corn from genetic modification. I've included a link here with more photos and description. It is a lovely place.

Now out of nowhere, a band is playing on a road nearby. Such is life in Mexico. Oh, and now a big explosion of course, now two. Always celebrating something, usually quite noisily, too.

It was a short burst of music, as it turns out. Now it is quiet. The sun is shining. The clouds are floating across the sky. This is how it is right now, in this moment. A sweet moment. The present moment. Just breathing in and out as life flows through. A woman in high spirits. Wishing you well.

New moon contemplations

Two small figures made of Herend China from Hungary circle a small Tibetan prayer wheel on the mantel

It has been so long since I've felt inclined to share here in any real way that I feel I should be opening the door with a big grin and yelling, "Honey, I'm home!"

Sometimes I learn by eliminating what I do not want. This has been the case recently. I joined the Ashland Chamber of Commerce a couple of months ago, with the encouragement of my business consultant. I am not placing any blame on him. His job is to help his clients move forward with their business. And he is very helpful in that regard. I have enjoyed working with him for the past few years. He has a lot of wonderful qualities. It's not about him. It's about me.

It found it instructive to attend Greeters meetings on Friday mornings at 8:15 and experience the manic and usually sincere energies of such a varied group of humans, all doing their best to make a good impression on each other and also make a living.

I am humbled by what I've experienced there. I feel for all of us, all of us human beings. And there were some magical and delightful moments, not only when the energetic gal in a red evening dress jumped up on the bar during the meeting she sponsored. That was dramatic enough but it was just as sweet to see how people engage each other with humor, props and stories. I was moved to see each of us present ourselves. Every one of us is uniquely marvelous. And it has been my long belief that we are often reduced to confining ourselves by the circumstances of our lives. Attending the Greeters meetings brought that up for me. 

Then I agreed to advertise in a wonderful paper here called Locals Guide. I like the fellow who runs it. I appreciate his philosophy and his qualities. He is a real sweetie. But the closer it came to my interview being featured in the paper (something I was paying for), the more uneasy I felt.

So I had to bail out. I felt very bad about leaving him in the lurch. I did leave him in the lurch and I am not a person who makes a habit of that. While all this was happening, it occurred to me at long last that my heart was really not in it,  really not into promoting my various talents and skills in this way anymore.

I have done it for a long time, and I am weary of it.  I began to think, "Maybe I should just drop it completely." It being the many unfinished creative projects and services I have been concocting for the past 5 years. The musical revue, the individual coaching work, the workshops.

The prayer flags in front of the Tashi Choling temple make a beautiful sound in the wind

I think my passion for shifting the paradigm on aging is a version of saving the world. Of course, it will be great when the paradigm on aging shifts to a more positive one. That's not what I am talking about though.  As you probably already know, thinking he or she can save the world has a certain fairly immense amount of egotism to it. But leaving that aside, the question of egotism, my heart was just not in  it anymore. I was burned out. I had lost the joy and inspiration, and was just slogging along as a responsible adult often does.

Too adult, too responsible. Fortunately, there are many other people who care about shifting the paradigm, so it is just fine if I shift my own attention. And I am.

I am re-imagining the ways I engage in Sage's Play in order to include my own growth and pleasure in the equation.  I am letting go into a new field of experience. And this includes a certain amount of change, loss, and uncertainty. I'm okay with that.

New moon is the time in the lunar cycle for new beginnings. New vistas. Am I retired? Have I dropped out? Stay tuned....

Welcoming New Experiences in Slow Time

New experiences make time stretch out. That's why time goes so slowly for children. Everything they encounter is all fresh and new. The heart and brain get a workout with new experience; it slows time down.

The more familiar and routine the world becomes, the more quickly time seems to pass, according to neuroscientist David Eagleman, who wrote about our perceptions of time in a fascinating New Yorker article published earlier this year.

Time goes quickly when we have no fresh unexpected, unfamiliar experience. I've been musing about this at year end. I've lived in the same area for over 30 years. My life does have a familiar routine. I don't make resolutions for the new year, but I am certainly willing to say that I am open to fresh, challenging, healing, invigorating, provocative new experiences that stimulate growth and engagement, while bathing me in the beauty of slow time. Does that sound good to you too? She grins. It does to me.

NEW IMAGES SPARK THE IMAGINATION

For example, take this image of a cobalt blue bowl and five bright yellow lemons. It made me quite happy when I found it. It's an image I never saw before and it's so full of light, color and chi. It makes me think of Greece or Mexico. It makes me feel alive. I like feeling alive.


SETTING SAIL IN NEW WATERS

Another thing that gets me going are images of sailing ships. I can smell the salt air! The feeling of the wind in the sails and the possibility of new waters and new lands invigorates me.

Sometimes I like to imagine taking a voyage aboard a sailing vessel with red sails like this Vietnamese ship. Or sometimes I muse about sailing in a dhow somewhere off the coast of Kerala in south India. Nothing out there on the open sea, thank you. Not until I have a little more experience anyway.


COLOR, PATTERN, FESTIVITY!

The celebratory use of color and pattern always livens me up. And there are times when I think it would be so delightful to spend some slow time in a country where they decorate their buses and trucks with all manner of fanciful patterns and ornamentation. They look so much more playful and festive than our vehicles. This is a picture of a bus in India.




Wouldn't it be fun to travel in a gypsy caravan, as I believe I asked in another post a year ago or more. My father had a persistent fantasy of doing that, so perhaps I inherited it from him. People do this you know, in England and Europe. I love the thought. It wakes me up.

Or how about visiting some eco-villages where people are living cooperatively and growing their own food in beautiful gardens? That would be lovely. We do have some beautiful farmers right here, too. I must remind myself of what is right in my own environment. You know it's sometimes seeing the same thing with new eyes.



HEALING WATERS

This hot spring in Costa Rica looks rather wonderful to me, especially in the midst of winter. Ahhh, there is nothing like a hot spring to rejuvenate the body and soul. We have a hot spring right here in Ashland, Oregon where I have lived most of the time since 1977. And it would also be great to visit some hot springs farther afield. I'm open.

How can I infuse my life with new experiences in 2012? Will these new experiences come through travel, new people, new creative adventures? Will I seek new music, new ways of singing and new dances? New foods, a new language? How can I find ways to experience each day in fresh ways? What allows me to slow down into the magical attention of the child?

The truth is I have no idea what new experiences await in 2012. But I welcome them! So hark, ye new experiences, and hie thee hither into my life, which is ready to celebrate thy refreshment.

Thank you all for your interest in my work with creative, conscious aging.

Wishing for you that 2012 be a year full of delight, health, growth and profound enjoyment.