Full Moon, Summer Solstice: Contemplating the Archetypes

 

 

 

I find myself wondering who you are, reader. Who is it that continues to peruse my now very occasional messages here?


I would love to know.

Here, I find myself in a retiring kind of mood. Which has surprised me a bit, though it seems quite natural. Retiring in the sense of letting go of some projects, the push to accomplish.

Our society encourages us to continue in that continuous accomplishment style, even as we age. Active aging-- and in many cases overactive aging.

It's an overcompensation for the way our society denigrates aging--so elders are pushing to prove we are still viable, capable, worthy of notice.

I have been in this mold myself, but find that as time goes on, this heroic archetype interests me less and less. I have lost interest in some of the work that I was so intensely engaged in.

The musical review I wrote on aging, and the one-woman show on aging I have contemplated producing, they seem like such a lot of work. Too much work. And in fact I have to admit that I am just not interested in doing that particular work. It's not easy to spend years and years on a big piece of work and then drop it, let it go. Though I have have to remind myself that I have done just that many times in my creative life, and it seems I am doing it again.

Hallelujah--choice is a wonderful thing. And dropping things that took a lot of effort is good practice for dropping the body, which we will all be doing at some moment.

Perhaps it is natural, even inevitable, that I withdraw or retire even more. Six planets in the 12th house for one thing--bringing a strong tendency to value immersion in the inner life.  I have been a Buddhist for decades. I am in the final years of this life. What is it that I want to accomplish in these final years? What do I want to leave behind? How can I continue to mature my character and behavior so that I am more of a benefit? These are things I contemplate lately.

I just finished creating a book with a collaborator friend on the history of Tashi Choling, the Tibetan Buddhist center I helped to found in 1978. Now I am working on another book, the life story of my spiritual mentor, Tibetan lama Gyatrul Rinpoche.

The first book will be published by September, hopefully. It is very exciting to me, with over 300 color photos that illustrate everything we have done together there.

The second book is really still in its early stages. Of course it is a wonderful opportunity to write a book about the amazing life of my spiritual teacher and it is also challenging in many ways, as you might imagine. Both of these books are meaningful to me, and they are what I want to focus on in terms of creative work.

I had a turbulent period recently, really examining my impulse to move to Mexico, a place I really love. And I decided to stay put here in Ashland, where I have lived for so long. Oh how mundane.

People will give you a lot of encouragement for doing things they consider risky or adventurous, like fitting out a gypsy wagon and wandering here and there with a one-woman show--stuff like that, things they might never do themselves. I'm sure some elders will carry on that tradition, and here's to them and their vividness.

To me, the real adventure is within. In the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, when people grow older, they retire into a more contemplative way of life. It seems natural. I may not be moving out into the forest or into a cave (though who knows?) but I find the archetype of the prayerful forest-dwelling elder one that calls to me.

I wonder what elder archetypes call to you. I would love to know.

May you be blessed on this beautiful full moon day.

Of Time and the River

"All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken."
--Thomas Wolfe

I was 18 when I read Thomas Wolfe's wonderful Look Homeward Angel, a book written in a passionate, gorgeously poetic stream of consciousness style that I found absolutely thrilling. This morning I tell myself firmly I must get a copy of the book this winter and read his chronicle of "the strange and bitter magic of life" again.

Put it on your list, Gaea says that one inner voice. Yes, another voice within replies. I imagine you have various inner voices too.

It was Thomas Wolfe's writing that inspired Jack Kerouac to start writing. Kerouac later abandoned Wolfe's romantic style to forge his own version of stream of consciousness chronicles. Now Kerouac is much better known. Such are the vagaries of literary fashion.

Incidentally, I mean Thomas Wolfe who is often considered one of America's great mid-century writers, not Tom Wolfe the journalist known for Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Bonfire of the Vanities.

I never read Thomas Wolfe's second book Of Time and the River, but that did not stop its title from dancing into my mind this morning as I was musing about how quickly the summer streamed by-- and how quickly the years have streamed by.

This is a recurring topic of late. And it's perfectly natural that as one ages, one sits by the river and contemplates the flow of time.

Now it's autumn already. It's 2011 already. I am 70 already. Protesters are occupying Wall Street, the president of Brazil postponed (hopefully forever) flooding a huge swatch of the Amazon rainforest and we are in the midst of gigantic global, political and economic changes. These are the times we live in.

So of course it is a perfect time for an ancient Japanese poem about autumn.


The hanging raindrops
have not dried from the needles
of the fir forest
before the evening mist
of autumn rises.
--the monk Jakuren



P.S. For more news about Sage's Play projects and events, please visit my website and subscribe to my monthly e-newsletter. I wish you would.

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.

New Year, New Moon, New Moment

Happy New Year--again! Now we've entered the year of the rabbit, according to Chinese astrology. It is predicted to be a more peaceful year--ah may that be so in both the outer and inner worlds. I always feel surfeited with new years because I have 3 of them in my world. To begin with, there's January 1st, then the Chinese New Year, and finally the Tibetan New Year or Losar, which for who knows what reason never coincides with the Chinese New Year. This year, Losar is on March 5th. So I will continue to be in the new year mode for awhile.

It's the middle of the night here, and I woke up thinking about quite a number of things, including two wonderful books I read while I was in Hawaii recently, which I want to write about here. My mind was also full of my fundraising efforts for A New Wrinkle, ideas about costumes, staging and script changes I want to make, and some public events I'd like develop to catalyze support and fundraising. It was obvious I should get up out of bed and here I am. It's a wonderful time to be awake because it's so dark and still everywhere.

During the past 2 weeks, I've been sending out fundraising appeals for A New Wrinkle, my musical revue on aging, which debunks stale ageist stereotypes and promotes a vivid age-positive perspective. I sent out a letter via snail mail, and then had fun adapting it to send out via a program called Mail Chimp, which I really enjoy playing around with. I invite you to take a peek at what I created.

I was delighted to receive a donation of $1,000 from a kind individual philanthropist a few days ago. Then some smaller contributions arrived from other folks who believe in the uplifted vision of aging that A New Wrinkle portrays. I feel encouraged by this support. My current fundraising goal is $15,000 which will cover stage production and filming of A New Wrinkle.

We've made some changes to the Sage's Play website. Now the lyrics for all 12 songs in A New Wrinkle are available there. We also have installed a DONATE button that allows visitors to give a tax-deductible contribution online or learn how to do so by snail mail. Be an angel and take part in the adventure as we create a new vision of aging in our society! Your contribution is most welcome and needed!

(At the website you can also subscribe to receive my newsletters, which usually appear monthly.)

The two books that have so mesmerized me recently are A Simple Habana Melody by Oscar Hijuelos and Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier. They were books I happened to find on the shelf of the house I was visiting in Honolulu. Both are gorgeously written. I found it interesting that each book described their main character's lives from the perspective of old age. I want to write more about both of these books, but not now, because this night has begun to move into early morning. I think I will take a bit more rest before greeting the day. And tonight, dancing! Tell me, what's new in your life?

84 Things and Radical Self-Disclosure

I am writing this because I told Joanna Jenkins at The Fifty Factor that I would, and of course I am writing it because I think it will be creative fun.

1. I am fond of the phrase "radical self-disclosure," which my onetime lover Ponderosa Pine introduced me to.

2. I met Ponderosa Pine, aka Keith Lampe, in Bolinas, a little town in Marin County, CA. He was one of the Yippies. (Remember that? They were 60s radicals.)

3. I am writing a memoir titled Songs of the Inner Life.

4. Let's get the celebrity stuff out of the way. I typed part of the manuscript for The Armies of the Night for Norman Mailer in Provincetown one summer.

5. I went to listen to Jerry Garcia rehearse in Marin County.

6. I was part of the crowd the first time that Jimi Hendrix played in New York.

7. I never shook a politician's hand as yet.

8. I want to become a saint but have a way to go.

9. I published a best-selling book on herbs (Gaea Weiss, Growing and Using the Healing Herbs, Rodale Press) but it was a long time ago.

10. Many things happened long ago because I am 69 years old.

11. I used to tell my second husband "It's nothing that a month in Greece wouldn't cure" and I still think that is so.

12. I have studied with various Tibetan spiritual masters for 35 years, and have experienced by being around them what is possible in terms of human potential.

13. Through no fault of theirs, I am still at the threshold of human development.

14. I love the poetry of Rilke, Yeats, Lorca and Thomas Merton, among others-- including women poets like Dorianne Laux and Ellen Bass.

15. I am a Taurus with 6 planets in the 12th house and yes, I love astrology.

16. I am a late bloomer.

17. I miss engaging playfully with men.

18. I do not miss being married.

19. I love systems of divination and inquiry like the Enneagram, astrology and Myer-Briggs.

20. Solo performance is a wonderful high in my book.

21. I am dreaming of Oaxaca, India, Thailand and it's not because of Eat,Pray, Love.

22. Elizabeth Gilbert is a very good writer.

23. I guess I might be considered a foodie.

24. My morning starts with coffee and then meditation.

25. I love NIA, a form of dance that includes yoga and martial arts in its routines.

26. Yes to truffles, no to Milky Way. Yes to good Indian or Thai or Chinese food.

27. I still remember a meal in a Bay area Chinese restaurant with about 25 Chinese people. The Chinese people ordered and I ate wonderful things never tasted since.

28. I have lived in Ashland, Oregon for over 30 years. It is artsy but provincial and conservative too, or maybe I have been here too long.

29. All summer I thought of having some Pernod, and now summer is nearly over.

30. My creative aging venture, Sage's Play, focuses on the art of aging including creativity, wellness and spirit.

31. I belong to an artists' coaching community called Artist Conference Network.

32. It can be deeply moving to share our work during Artist Conference Network meetings.

33. I helped to start Tashi Choling, a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center 30 years ago, in a mountain valley south of Ashland and I still go there often to pray.

34. I love writing.

35. I would like to live in a culture where I could pray quietly on the street or wherever and nobody think I was weird or offensive.

36. Sometimes I think about moving to another country, because America gets to me.

37. Sometimes in a similar vein, I wish I could escape myself, but as has been said, wherever you go, there you are.

38. I love the spacious restfulness of darkness.

39. I would love to live in the country again, with a woodstove and a hot tub.

40. One of the best things about Ashland is Jackson Wellsprings and its mineral waters where I love to swim and soak.

42. I am a self-educated woman with considerable curiosity.

43. I discovered about 6 months ago after reading a book by Barbara Sher that I am a scanner, a person who has many passionate interests and capacities.

44. When I mentioned this to my younger daughter, she looked at me sideways and commented, "And you've just discovered this Mom?"

45. I knew it already but I loved knowing more about Scanners and finally understanding why my Mother used to say, "You never finish anything," which wasn't true but it was true that some things landed by the wayside because of new passions.

46. I want to produce A New Wrinkle, my musical play about aging, in many cities because it is a theater of social change, intended to catalyze a positive perspective on aging.

47. I am grateful for old friends and the love we share.

48. 84 things is a lot of stuff.

49. I believe in the power of Eros, which has loomed large in my life so to speak-- and certainly that includes the G spot, various forms of orgasm whose existence is debated by scientists, pleasure, ecstasy, the fire of the ecstatic impulse and the links between eros and mysticism.

50. The above was not an example necessarily, but people think I am funny. I think it is funny to be in a body, but sometimes not that funny.

51. Lately I have been contemplating the phrase, "entering the world."

52. And also "leaving the world."

53. Of course, I love reading and cannot cite a favorite author or book but randomly The God of Small Things, The Myth of Freedom, Speak, Memory come to mind at the moment.

54. I started examining my life and writing autobiographical essays about it when I was 54.

55. I lost a lot of teeth when I was 55, and it seemed to be practice for losing a lot of other stuff not long after.

56. I know what it is like to be buried in the sands of time like some old mummy from a long-dead civilization.

57. I have re-invented myself quite a few times, including at 57.

58. I have changed my name because of marriage and in a voyage of self-discovery from Gail Emaus to Gail Madonia to Blackbird, Laughingbird, Gaea Weiss, Gaea Laughingbird.

59. Sometimes surprising things happen when you change your name, and they happened to me, but those stories are too long to share here, so read my book when it is done.

60. The 60th birthday was not so much of a milestone as it seems the 70th may be.

61. I believe in taking risks and leaps of faith.

62. I like learning new things, like right now I am calling people I never met to raise money to produce my play.

63. I want to learn Spanish.

64. I never wanted to travel, but now the urge comes on me from time to time.

65. I am in the winter of my life.

66. And very alive-- as Florida Scott-Maxwell wrote--"As we age, we are more alive than seems likely, convenient, or even bearable."

67. I love custard, pumpkin pie, duck, carrot/ginger soup, fresh-baked bread, and the list could go on of course because I am a foodie.

68. Yes, I would like to lose 20 pounds.

69. I am 69 right now and recovering from 4 broken metatarsal bones in my left foot.

70. I am still walking gimpily but glad to be walking after the educational experience of using a wheelchair and walker.

72. I am grateful for my strong constitution and good health and energy level.

73. I rest when I am tired.

74. I am waiting for Dr. Robert Butler's latest book Longevity Prescription to arrive in the mail.

75. I am a fan of Dr. Robert Butler, who died recently. He coined the word ageism in the 60s.

76. I have not mentioned it, but I have two beautiful daughters, 20 years apart.

77. Kindness changes everything, and I am working on being kind.

78. I used to be a lot more rasty, aggressive and domineering.

79. I am not a nice little old lady though because I believe in being subversive or you will be worse off, and for many other reasons as well.

80. Sure, I would like to live to be 80.

81. I do contemplate dying and because Buddhists do that as part of their practice, I am used to the contemplation.

82. Death is a major life event and I believe in preparing spiritually for it.

83. Sometimes you have to play for a long time before you can play like yourself, is what Miles Davis once said, and I agree.

84. I love reading a wonderful book called Graceful Exits, which is filled with the last words of many spiritual masters.