Growing Old: The Inner Work

Fifteen years ago I was 55 and I was drawn to begin some of the inner work of aging. I didn't think of myself as old then. In fact the idea of being old scared me terribly. I knew I was unprepared for it. It occurred to me that I should begin some kind of investigation that might increase my self understanding. So I started an archeological excavation into the beliefs, patterns, conflicts, aspirations and dreams that have formed my memories and my ideas of myself.

I didn't know it then, but I had begun one of the tasks of aging--life review, part of which is seeking the meaning of one's life. The artifacts I've unearthed in my digging have borne quite a bit of scrutiny and reflection over the years. I've traveled through a lot of difficult territories. I'm sure you have your own versions of these places in your heart and soul and you know as well as I do that some rivers can be rather difficult to ford, some shadows hard to face and befriend. I've found that this work has been full of healing; it's led to the softening of long-tied knots, with the help of the waters of empathy, forgiveness and compassion. Life review is a practice that continues to be full of blessings, insight and surrender. I'm a believer.

According to Carl Jung there are 7 tasks of aging:

1. Facing the reality of aging and dying
2. Life review
3. Defining life realistically
4. Letting go of the ego
5. Finding new rooting in the Self
6. Determining the meaning of one’s life
7. Rebirth – dying with life

As you can see, these are serious pieces of earthly business. Letting go of the ego, for instance. Not exactly a Bingo level activity, though I'm sure it could happen playing Bingo, especially if you'd done some prep work.

Defining life realistically--what does this mean to you? I read it as the task of adjusting to the current situation of one's body and mind, which may be different from what it was at 25 or 45. Facing the reality of aging and dying, now that is something much denied in our society where so many people continue to try to pass for young into old age and live in denial that they will ever die.

To me finding new rooting in the Self means going deeper, spending more time in contemplation and reflection. I have to confess that I've never really understood the phrase "dying with life" described in the 7th task. Maybe I am just not old enough yet.

I had a visit with a good friend last summer. She is a keenly intelligent, very spiritual woman who now resides in an assisted living residence because of neurological difficulties. She describes aging as "an exercise in letting go and accepting."


"It's moving into a different state of being," she tells me, "shifting the focus from the outer world, releasing the worldly cuccoon, just unzipping and stepping out. It's very liberating, coming to some level of essence and finding contentment with what is."

My conversations with her remind me that the tasks of later life are quite spiritual in nature. Even if a person continues to be active and engaged in the world, there's a natural turning within as one ages. Unless of course, one remains infatuated with activity as an end in itself which seems to be such an obsession in the modern world. Then one can miss out on the harvest opportunity that the later years provide.

In his book Nature and the Human Soul, Bill Plotkin comments "True adulthood, or psychological maturity, has become an uncommon achievement in Western or Westernized societies, and genuine elderhood nearly nonexistent." Plotkin describes our society as pathologically adolescent, divorced from nature and soul. To Plotkin, real maturity is not based on chronological age; he defines maturity as living in a profound, ecologically aware interconnectedness with nature.

Living a long time is a blessing, and those who live a long life and also enrich the world with their wisdom, patience and balance bring an even deeper blessing. Maturation takes inner work. Inner work requires spending time in reflection, contemplation, healing, meditation and prayer. Quiet time. Slow time. Time in Nature. Which our society, so obsessed with production and materialism, both longs for and disdains.

In her book Slow is Beautiful Cecile Andrews describes how slowing down and living simply encourages community and individual happiness. That sounds and feels just about right to me.

I like to imagine/visualize/feel a society filled with elders who are slow and deep as beautiful old rivers, slow and rooted as beautiful old forests, elders who are deep, loving, firm, wise and fierce when need be. Sending blessings on your head and heart. May your inner and outer works flourish.

A good book is like a mandala of flowers

I don't read novels often. Memoirs are usually my preference. The urge to read a good novel does come over me once in awhile. It often seems to happen when I am traveling or visiting somewhere else. While I was in Hawaii, I picked up A Simple Habana Melody by Oscar Hijuelos from the bookshelf in my friend's living room. I was enchanted by it from the start, and found myself musing over some of the book's passages several times. That's a sure sign of love for me. Like this passage, which precedes the start of the story.

"Every sea wave was a clanging bell, the wind blowing from the west like a great and sonorous section of one hundred and seven violins, the sun at dusk was a glaring crimson cymbal, and the earth a kettledrum. On the horizon, beyond the water's edge, a choir had gathered--a million choristers in long silk robes singing from the balconies of a palace, hidden in a maze of distantly humming sea mists, and in the waters beneath the currents, a hundred dance halls, and a hundred pianists, and rooms and rooms filled with instruments and musicians at the ready..."

From that I knew that I was in for some heady music, both earthy and metaphysical. Set in Cuba in the 40s the book tells the life story of Israel Levis, a popular Cuban composer, from the vantage point of his later years. It's a marvelous evocation of an era when Latin music suddenly magnetized America and Europe. The main character is complex, a corpulent creative genius whose music has won him wide acclaim in his country and abroad. He is a man devoted to his mother, one who endured a life-long unrequited love because he was afraid to declare himself.

His late-life reflections on his own character, fears, accomplishments and difficulties are quite wonderful. All in all, this is a splendid, lushly written novel. Oscar Hijuelos is best known for his book The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, which I have not read. And I probably will not read it for awhile, mainly because I am still enjoying the resonance of A Simple Habana Melody, and re-reading parts of it again.

By the time I was ready to leave Hawaii, I was wondering if I could find a book to read on the plane. Knowing that the books on the living room bookshelf were fair game,I started browsing there. This time I found 13 Moons by Charles Frazier who is best known for his novel Cold Mountain. The book's first lines grabbed me with their ferocity and resignation. "There is no scatheless rapture. Love and time put me in this condition. I am leaving soon for the Nightland, where all the ghosts of men and animals yearn to travel. We're called to it...It is the last unmapped country..."

I could hardly believe my luck in finding a second great book right after finishing the first. Isn't there something grand about opening up a book at random, reading a few lines and knowing from the depth of the writing that yes, this book is going to be well worth reading.

13 Moons and A Simple Habana Melody are very different from each other, almost like yang and yin, one set in the tropics, the other set in the wilds of the American West. 13 Moons brings the world of Indian Country, the politics, lifestyle and natural landscape of the old American West vividly to life. The book has an epic scope, in terms of descriptions of nature, history and culture. As protagonist Will Cooper begins to tell his story, we learn that at the age of 12, he being an orphan, he was sent off by his relatives as a "bound boy" to run a remote trading post in Indian Territory. To help him along his way, he was given a horse, a map and a key to the store. Will Cooper's adventures are many. He lives quite a life, becoming a vital part of an Indian clan, acquiring a great deal of land and a fair amount of prestige, and witnessing a lot of changes. He also maintains a life-long love for a woman named Claire. This is a masterful, compelling book, melancholy, provocative and beautiful. I highly recommend these marvelous novels both of which tell their stories from the perspective of old age.

Meanwhile, it is still wintry here, though we have escaped the severe weather that some parts of the country have been enduring. I saw promising signs of spring the other day in a friend's garden where some purple violets were blooming.

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?

What is Creative Aging?

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure." as Joseph Campbell notes. That's the real key. Saying a hearty yes to the adventure, whether the adventure is surfing out on Mama Ocean into one's 60s or 70s or living an inspired life in the sequestered regions of an assisted living facility as one of my dear friends is doing currently.

Her way of enjoying her environment and experience is a real inspiration. "The universe decided to give me a refuge, a retreat situation," she told me recently. So in her own fashion, with an appreciation and sense of humor about everyone and everything she meets in the assisted living facility, a lively interest in books and ideas and an acknowledgement of her current situation as a valuable learning experience, she is doing some real surfing herself. She is aging artfully, using her life experience creatively. Creative aging means continuing to engage in what gives you pleasure, whether it's surfing, writing, dancing or cooking. It has as much to do with being as it does with doing.

Finding the beauty in each moment. Replenishing, communing with nature. Being at home within oneself. Each step of life's journey is meaningful. Entertaining delight... being really alive...because each of us is an instrument, a channel, a resonant spectrum. The music of life streams through us. Creative aging means giving voice to our inspiration and love. Perhaps someday I'll concoct a real list, but these will do until then.

There is plenty of great news about creative aging. Here are a few recent stories that I found interesting and wanted to share. One is a terrific video clip of the work of dancer Anna Halprin at 85.



NPR recently ran a story on a new book titled Lastingness, which focuses on creativity in the later life of some famous artists including Georgia O'Keefe and William Butler Yeats. And finally, I loved a recent New York Times article on the fascinating life of Poppa Neutrino, a very adventurous, creative fellow, who passed over recently at 77. Neutrino built a raft from scrap and crossed the Atlantic on it! The New York Times obituary describes him as an "itinerant philosopher, adventurer and environmentalist." A New Yorker writer named Alec Wilkinson wrote a book about Neutrino titled "The Happiest Man in the World." Hmmm....I will have to look into this further.

For reasons beyond my ken at this moment, I am having trouble linking to those two items, so will just mention them here. You readers are all industrious souls, so if you want to find them, I'm sure you can do it. Or check out my postings on Facebook.

Wishing you pleasure, meaning and delight in your own unique crafting of the art of aging. Here, I am gearing up to produce and film my musical revue on aging "A New Wrinkle." Please visit my website at www.sagesplay.com to learn more about the revue or to sign up for my newsletter. Bon voyage!

“Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.” --William Somerset Maugham

Tradewinds and Wayfinding

Hard to believe that over a month has passed since I wrote a word here. In that time, I did a short good meditation retreat chez moi, traveled to the SF Bay area to attend Tibetan Buddhist empowerments given by the venerable and profound spiritual master Yangthang Rinpoche, hung out in Ashland developing my creative projects and traveled to Oahu for a visit with my longtime friend Shari Sunshine. These photos are from my Hawaii trip. The bright koi in the temple pond at Byodo-In Temple symbolize prosperity, and I wish that for all of us.

We hung out on a beach near Waikiki. This thin, old Hawaiian man really enjoyed himself skillfully out on the water. Shari and I contented ourselves with swimming in the delicious ocean water and sunning ourselves, on days when the sun was out, which seemed to be every other day. I enjoyed the weather, including a dramatic tropical storm with high winds and torrents of rain. The island landscape includes steep mountains that run down its center. There is nothing like the island air, warm and fragrant. We explored some of the towns and villages on the North Shore, famous for its big surfable waves, of which none were apparent when we visited.

The real Hawaii as some people call it is hidden because Only 5% of the population are native Hawaiians. There are many Chinese and Japanese people, as well as Koreans and Filipinos and caucasians. Of course there is a lot of racial mixtures. Hooray! There are Buddhist temples everywhere. We visited two of them, both wonderful in very different ways.



The Japanese Byodo-In Temple at Valley of the Temples Memorial Park is a replica of a temple built in Uji over 900 years ago. It contains a large statue of Amida or Amitabha.

The temple and its gardens are very peaceful, although nobody really seems to go there to spend any time in sitting meditation. Japanese people bow and stand briefly and make incense offerings to the Buddha. Tourists wander. Everyone enjoys ringing the enormous temple bell, taking in the beautiful old architecture and the auspicious big pond with its jeweled koi and black swans.
We visited a delightful art museum whose architecture shows the prevalent Asian influence in Hololulu. This is one of its courtyards. We had some wonderful meals in Chinatown. It was quite a pleasure to eat some good Japanese and Indian food, too. When I returned to Ashland, I realized I would not have that expanse of cuisine choices for awhile.





The Chinese Kuan Yin Temple is located next to Foster Botanical Gardens. In the temple again no real quiet or habit of sitting in meditation was evident. People instead brought beautiful flower and fruit offerings and lit incense, then chattered happily with each other. It was a beautiful place. There are big Kuan Yin shrines all over Honolulu,including in shopping centers, and people stop and make incense offerings as they go about their daily lives. I liked being in a place with a lot of Buddhists though it was odd to be with such constantly active ones. I'm more accustomed to temples where we sit together in stillness.
Of course I took other pictures, too many for this entry. The botanical garden, one of several in Honolulu, was wonderful. It had 24 trees given the designation exceptional because of their size, age, or type. Big beautiful trees, lush and healing.

I met a wonderful guy named Jerry Shapiro. What was wonderful about him? He has had a long happy marriage in which both partners were committed to personal and spiritual growth. (His wife Joan was in Cambodia on a service project of some sort then.) He was a happy and self-aware person. Our two conversations about aging were stimulating and inspiring. I hope I get a chance to hang out with him again one of these days.

All in all it was a wonderful trip, especially because it was a chance to spend so much time with my dear friend Shari. We visited World Medicine Institute, where Shari is studying acupuncture and met with Mike Zanoni, an acupuncturist whose office I shared when he was in Ashland. He showed us the other acupuncture college, where he teaches. Yes, I thought about moving there. I am always thinking about being in a place by the ocean with warmer weather. But Hawaii isn't that place for me.

Now on a gray Sunday in Ashland, I contemplate this new year. I'm thinking about trade winds and wayfinding, both of which have to do more with being than doing. It seems that the term trade winds originally derived from the early fourteenth century late Middle English word 'trade' meaning "path" or "track."Historically, the trade winds have been used by captains of sailing ships to cross the world's oceans for centuries; they enabled European empire expansion into the Americas, and trade routes to become established across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It helps to know about the way the wind blows, and as Bob Dylan says, you don't have to be a weatherman to do it.

Wayfinding involves navigating on the open ocean without sextant, compass, clock, radio reports, or satellites reports. The wayfinder depends on observations of the stars, the sun, the ocean swells, and other signs of nature for clues to direction and location. Wayfinding was used for voyaging for thousands of years before the invention of European navigational instruments. In the 20th century, it is still practiced in some areas of Micronesia, although the traditional knowledge and techniques are in danger of being lost because of modernization and Westernization of the cultures of these areas. However, a revival of the art and science of wayfinding is underway among the Pacific islands, a revival led by Nainoa Thompson, the first modern-day Polynesian to learn and use wayfinding for long-distance, open-ocean voyaging.

Beautiful, in my eyes, this kind of wayfinding. Checking the winds and waters. That's what's going on inside this gal as she sails toward 70. In this midst of this wild churning violent Kali Yuga age, in the midst of the extraordinary beauty of this world, sending you greetings. May the way be found and the waters be friendly. If there are difficult passages, may there be strength (and even delight) to meet them. Every day is a fresh awakening, every moment a new vista.

What are your adventures like these days?

Year End Round Up

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what I've covered this year in the Sage's Play blog. Here's a summary, starting in January 2010. Blog posts marked the passing of human potential figure George Leonard, feminist theologian Mary Daly and gerontologist Dr. Robert Butler.

Some of the film and video mentions included:
Elizabeth Gilbert's TED.com talk on creativity
Dan Buettner's TED.com talk on longevity and cultures that support it
A new documentary on the life of local activist/artist Dot Fisher-Smith
The German film Cloud 9 for its fresh take on late life romance
A trailer from the film on women and creativity "Who Does She Think She Is?"

Book reviews included:
The Making of an Elder Culture by Theodore Roszak
The Longevity Prescription by Dr. Robert Butler
Audacious Aging, an anthology edited by Stephanie Marohn
The Measure of My Days, Florida Scott-Maxwell
Somewhere Towards the End, Diana Athill

I think there were more book mentions and recommendations, but that's good enough for now. I spotlighted well-aged singers and often included film clips of their singing. BB King, Leonard Cohen, Etta James,Yoko Ono, Chavela Vargas and Judy Collins were included. I talked about a grandmother who has become a very popular international DJ-- Ruth Flowers, aka MamyRock and shared news about the work of 91-year old artist Vollis Simpson and dancer Twyla Tharp. Other posts featured 91-year old yoga teacher Tao Porchon Lynch and yogini Iris Lambert, who's a bit younger. I shared news about the theater troupe Crackpot Crones and talked about Peg Rubin's Center for Sacred Theater.

I suggested that we develop an Elder Hall of Fame and noted some of the folks I would nominate for it. The Elder Hall of Fame is still one of my favorite notions. In between all that, I talked about creativity and health, my own creative process and projects, mortality, Buddhism, poetry, friends, relaxing in hot springs, housing, travel and of course the weather.

I am not surprised by how many vibrant, creative, innovative older people I discovered during the year, whose work and lives I shared in this blog. But there are many people who might be surprised. They still subscribe to the Decline Model, and regard aging as a terrible time of life, something to be avoided at all costs. I hope the consciousness-raising music of the Church of the Radically Alive Elders reaches their ears soon.

Here's a quote from Malidome Patrice Some's Of Water and The Spirit, a book I really love. The book itself is about the power of initiation. This quote speaks about the place of elders in society. "Elders and mentors have an irreplaceable function in the life of any community. Without them the young are lost--their overflowing energies wasted in useless pursuits. The old must live in the young like a grounding force..."

This is what we must remember and live into. Otherwise, we will continue to buy into the values of a society where perpetual adolescence is the goal. As I've said before, I was young already. Now I'm in the new growth stage of oldness. It's a good, gentle, powerful, creative, compassionate, wild place to be. Let's "act as if" elders are already valued and respected. Eventually, it will catch on.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday season and looking forward to more friendship and collaboration in the fields and gardens of positive aging in the coming year.

P.S. I plan to take a bit of a blog break--that's good for the soul from time to time. Happy trails to you until we meet again.

Landscapes of the Inner Life

Music pours out, as if I was born to it, or it was born of me through dimensions, layers, lifetimes. I am searching through dreams, thoughts and memories for the words and soundlines to bring this story through. Long ago, before any maps were made, there were people who found their way across vast oceans, sensing and imagining their way over distances where none of their known ancestors had ever gone before. Of course, the ancient people used their ordinary senses, looking out across the endless water, feeling its currents, the movement of winds and the play of weather, day after day, month after month. Physically traversing those distances, with all the rigors of the body and the elements, they also believed themselves into the space, bringing the other shore to them magnetically. Way-Finding they called it.



We each have our own Way Finding. My own predilections always draw me back to the white marble room, an immense lustrous chamber with high vaulted ceilings and tall arched windows. It is a dear, familiar place, a refuge from the rush of the modern world. I have spent many days and nights there, reading, feeling the sun on my face, looking out at the stars and moon.

Sometimes I wish that I were still living in a time when we could bury ourselves in solitude, when the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge and the work of the soul’s metamorphosis had at least as much collective import as did outer successes. I yearn for that amidst the depredations of the current era. Inwardly, I yearn for leisure, spaciousness, and grace. Outwardly, I yearn for great forests, glens, prairies and all the undiminished richness and variety of Nature to sing out in ecstatic splendor, drowning the sounds of machines, drowning not only their sounds, but their imprint on our lives, our enslavement to them.


In this marble wonderful room there is a globe that stands on a long wooden table. Aside from the table and two chairs, the room is very empty. But it has a sense of space, light, and depth that never fails to refresh and renew me. Texts with gem-like illustrations, their pages edged with gold, fill one wall of the room. The instruments and substances of alchemy are also set out on the wooden table. In that room, I am the woman whose forehead shines with light. I am my own beacon.

My house has many other rooms. From the beautiful white marble room, a heavy wooden door opens out to a narrow hallway. I must take the lantern with me. The hallway winds and turns, its stairs descending deep into the earth. The air here is old and dry. I remember the first time I went down these stairs with this same lantern, arriving at a doorway covered with heavy, deep red brocade cloth. I gently pulled the cloth aside and looked into the room that appeared before me. It was not more than ten feet by twelve feet large, 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 all this instantaneously, the way the mind's eye takes things in. At the same time, 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. It took me many months to bring back the memory of the Queen who lay beside him like a still flower. She had a perfume, not of death, but of the ineffable.

The sheer wonder of the place drew me in. I was thirsty for the things that showed themselves to me there, though I cannot now put words together to explain what they were, nor would I wish to. I hope you do not want me to explain the subterranean chamber or the marble room. Every definition I fix on them confines their numinous resonance. I do not wish to flatten or inflate them. Let them be just as they are. Let them remain or fade away as they will.

Of course I have a Tower. To my mind, no house is well done without a Tower reaching out to meet the sky. This is a story of my house and my journey. Of course that makes me fall over laughing. Why? Because as Lorca once said in a poem, “My house is not my house, and I am no longer I.” It is not real or solid, none of it. It has no substance. I have no substance. The whole thing is dreamlike, as much a dream as the splendid and transformative marble room to which I return again and again.

As I approach my seventh decade, I return to these landscapes of my inner life and those that comprise my outer story and I reflect on their patterns, meaning and luminous, empty nature. Even when I am washing the dishes in my kitchen part of me lives in these mythically resonant rooms of dream and imagination, in the woods and fields, the white marble room, the Tower. Even when I am deeply immersed in my inner life experience, everyday activities draw me to them, reminding me that they too also have an unpredictable, mysterious depth. In the midst of family and friends, with the appearance of both invited and unexpected guests, the mythic drama of the present moment spills forth. Decade after decade, treasure accumulates.