Character and What's Revealed Over Time

I took a picture of this 20 foot tall boulder by the edge of the sea two weeks ago. It has a lot of character. Strata. Pattern. Complexity. Beauty. Age. How old? How long has it been standing there at the edge of the Pacific? I have no idea, but I do know how happy I am to see it there.

Everything in nature has character of course. It's all a beautiful panoply--ferns, massive geologic formations, lakes, oak groves, elephants, whales, foxes, beetles--each living thing has its own distinctive, marvelous qualities.

In human beings, character is usually something that develops over time. Though character development in psychology has largely focused on children. Sometimes young children appear who seem wise beyond their years, but on the whole, it takes decades for human character to develop fully or mature.

"We become characteristic of who we are simply by lasting," James Hillman notes in his book A Force of Character and the Lasting Life, which I mentioned in my last post. I am re-reading the book. When I read what Hillman writes I think of how many friends have said to me, "Now I feel comfortable with myself." As they age, they relax and settle into being themselves more fully. In the process, they embody and share their distinctive qualities more easily. Their character--what has accumulated and been learned over time-- becomes easier to see and know.

"What ages is not merely your functions and organs," Hillman writes, "but the whole of your nature, that particular person you have come to be and already were years ago. Character has been forming your face, your habits, your friendships, your peculiarities, the level of your ambition with its career and its faults. Character influences the way you give and receive; it affects your loves and your children..."

What is revealed over time? What is most deeply important? What is unfinished and wants to be released? What is unfinished and wants to be completed? What healing, reconciliation and life repair cries out for attention? What wants to be shared? These are some of the questions I ask myself these days as I sail towards 70. I have character, and sometimes I am a character, too, less confined by social convention and expectations than I was in earlier decades. This is relaxing. There's still plenty of work to do. My character development is incomplete. The alchemical process continues.

I've always been an artist and it has taken many forms over the years--journalism, environmental activism, experimental music, healing work, theater, (last but never least) poetry. Since January, I've been working on a musical on aging titled A New Wrinkle. I probably could have finished it sooner, if I had ever written a play before. But I never have written a play. I have done some one-woman shows, but that is another creature entirely. So writing a play has been quite a learning process. And without help, especially the help of my playwright friend Carolyn and the help of good lady Hilary, a woman with highly developed literary sensitivities, I never could have gotten to the place where I am, which is close to being finished with a good first draft. That includes the lyrics to 7 wonderful songs. I am working with a marvelous composer on the music. It is a very exciting project.

Couple of weeks ago I went to a playwrights meeting at the local library. When we were introducing ourselves I shared that I was writing a musical on aging. One man (far more obvious in his reaction no doubt) laughed out loud. And let's face it, it is funny. A musical on aging. Most people think aging is pretty awful, laughable, ridiculous. I can't say that's why the guy laughed at me, but I can say that's one reason why I am writing this play.

It is time for the emergence of a new paradigm of aging and old age, with millions of people aging, living longer and staying healthier.

Have a wonderful end of summer. My next blog post will be in September.

Reclaiming the Word OLD

An old forest is different from a young forest. It is fuller, deeper, more complex. When we enter an old forest, we feel nourished, rejuvenated, inspired. It took a long time for that forest to mature to the point where we feel embraced so fully by it. That's oldness.

The mysterious winding paths of very old cities are satisfying to us in ways that new cities cannot be. We find in old manuscripts and statues, old brandy and old gardens a kind of pleasure and sustenance particular to oldness.

Here's something strange: an ancient redwood forest is wonderful, yet an old person is laughable. Nobody wants to be called OLD. The word OLD when used to describe an older person is as genuine a dirty word as any 4 letter word, even though OLD has only 3 letters.

Yesterday I was imagining what it would be like to create a T shirt that simply said OLD and wear it around town. After I thought about it for awhile, it seemed that the whole thing would work better as a piece of performance art, with a troupe of kindred spirits and a bit of fun choreography. I smile to imagine this happening in cities all over the country. It's quite possible and it would be quite wonderful to see that flower.

In his marvelous book The Force of Character and the Lasting Life, psychologist/scholar James Hillman takes a look at the word OLD and our ideas about oldness and old people. I love Hillman's writing and his keen and poetic mind; I highly recommend this book, which will provoke and inspire you to explore aging in new ways.

"Since 'words do not live in dictionaries; they live in the mind', as Virginia Woolf put it, the old mind is lowered by the lowering of "old" to its present undesirable condition: old maid, old fashioned, old guard, old boys, old witch, old fogey, old fart," Hillman writes.

The word old, he points out, is itself a very old word, deriving from an Indo-European root that means "to nourish." Oldness nourishes. We know that. As older people, we know the ways in which an old forest is different from a young forest.

It seems to me a very good idea to reclaim the word OLD. Personally I don't want to be describing myself as 70 years young, if I have the fortune to live to 70. Which of course I hope to do. I was young already. Why would I want to settle for being called 70 years young, the description of an earlier stage of life, which does not take into account everything I have thrown into the alchemical retort over the years?

When did you know you were old? one of my friends asked me the other day. It reminded me of how for many years I was uncomfortable about being a woman in a male-oriented culture. I wanted to be masculine, which I identified with successful. So I am quite familiar with the sense of not being the highly accepted one. It was a struggle to find and accept myself, to understand the unique and valuable qualities of being a woman, a particular woman, and to let go of trying to be one of the guys. I did that and at this point I don't need to do it again, in terms of trying to imitate youth. I was young already. Young people have not yet experienced being old. They still have that to live into.

It's only recently I feel comfortable with being old. I knew I was old when I felt comfortable with it. I acknowledge and value where I am now. I'm an activist of OLD these days. I'm coming from the OLD days, singing the OLD songs. Reclaiming OLD.

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.

Don't Let Old Age Catch Up to You!

I'm not telling you anything new when I say that modern industrial culture is obsessed with vigor, youth, production and consumption. When people are not productive or consuming, vigorous or young, they no longer fit into what's valued.

That's why I saw an ad the other day (I forgot to note what it was advertising or where I saw it) which depicted a forlorn old woman under the headline, "Don't Let Old Age Catch Up with You." Because I am a curious woman, I soon found myself on Amazon perusing descriptions of two books I have no intention whatsoever of reading. One was titled "How Not to Act Old" and the other "How Not to Look Old."

Imagine living in a culture where people wore white wigs in order to look older and more authoritative. Forget the wigs even. A culture where people were reading books How to Look Older and How to Act Older. With millions of people aging, a change in how we regard age is inevitable.

Sometimes I wonder whether "active aging" touted by retirement communities and the aging network is just an extension of our obsession with youth and vigor, our disinterest in the inner life and our unwillingness to consider death. If older people are pushing themselves to keep busy in order not to let old age catch up with them, I would say yes, it is just another kind of shallowness, a frenzied avoidance of some of the deeper aspects of life's tapestry.

So many people are living longer and staying healthier. Imagine the positive impact of millions of older adults who choose to mature altruistically, harvesting their accumulated life experience and setting out a feast to share with others. Older adults who recognize the power of their numbers and the value of their accumulated experience for the common good. This is what I visualize and imagine. Not old people running from age and death, old people filling up their days with distracting activities or old people withdrawing as if they are useless or already gone, but millions of old people like a wave of peace--loving, caring, enjoying and contributing to the welfare of others as their review their own lives, forgive, heal and let go into the bigger picture.
















Photo by Rick Z/Flickr

Thinking about Three Isms from the Sixties

Did you like this poster when it first came out? I did, and it turns out I still do.

I've been mulling over three isms that got going in the Sixties--racism, sexism and ageism. Yes, ageism is a word that was coined in the Sixties by Dr. Robert Butler.

A lot happened with racism and sexism--words that were associated with vigorous movements for social change. After all the consciousness raising, protests, marches, dialogues and confrontations, people understood what was racist and what was sexist. They got educated. There were words you shouldn't use and ways it was not right to act.

No education of that kind ever happened with ageism, not in the Sixties or in the 40 plus years since then. It's as if the word and the social issues it represents just went into hiding for decades. So people are still uneducated about what constitutes ageism. And that includes a lot of older adults, too. Some older adults seem unwilling to acknowledge ageism, or pretend it doesn't exist. With a growing older population, isn't it time for some positive change? I think so.

Ageism was one of the main issues that propelled me into writing the play I'm currently working on, a musical about aging. The play explores social attitudes towards aging, sexuality in later years, retirement, and the surprising secrets of the aging brain among other items. It is a piece of social change theater, in which stereotypes, issues and themes can be displayed, often with humor, and sometimes with a bit of an edge. I hope it will help people to incorporate new ideas and behaviors about age and aging into their lives and the world they live in. I'm interested in changing the current Decline Paradigm of aging, and all the stereotypes about older adults that accompany that paradigm. It's a matter of self defense to begin with. All those ads--"don't let old age catch up with you!" and so forth and on and on. Who needs it? Not me, and I'm guessing, not you either.

This time of life has tremendous value. Old people have tremendous value. That's my rant and I'm sticking with it. I would rant on but it is a very hot day and I am ready for a picnic in the park.

Appreciating the Happiness Factor

There are people who believe that happiness is the province of the young and that old people are sad and lonely. This seems to be another example of those strange and untrue concepts about beings of the older vintages. (ageism: prejudice against and strange stereotypes about old people)

In fact, a spate of recent studies confirms that people actually grow happier as they grow older, and that old people are the happiest adult age group.

I know I'm happier than I've ever been at any other time of my life. I feel much more relaxed and comfortable about being myself. I accept and love myself more than I ever did. I am more emotionally flexible and resilient (and am grateful that I am also physically flexible and resilient, too). I'm much less influenced by what others think. I am more calm and accepting. I appreciate life, people and events more, and at the same time, I feel more detached.

You can read more about the studies of happiness and age in this New York Times blog.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/happiness-isgetting-old/

The brain has something to do with it, of course. Now that researchers are finally paying attention to the aging brain they are making some exciting discoveries.

Scientists used to believe that we stopped producing new brain cells during adolescence. But now they've finally discovered that the brain keeps on producing new cells throughout life.

Psychologists used to think that cognitive abilities peaked in early adulthood. Unfortunately, a lot of people still believe this, though research shows that cognitive abilities actually peak in midlife or even later, depending on the person. There are so many examples of people in their 80s and 90s who embody this truth, people who create marvelous and original art, literature, philosophy, psychology and social activism in their later years.

The limbic system, which processes emotional experience, calms down with age. We are less affected by negative emotions and pay more attention to positive emotional experience. That certainly contributes to the happiness factor.

Researchers discovered that older adults use both hemispheres of their brain simultaneously. That's pretty interesting, isn't it? Powerful and holistic.

And let's not forget "dendritic density," the accumulated forest of dendrites from everything you've experienced and learned, all dancing and communing with each other happily.

All that adds up to mean that older people are capable of more complex, nuanced thinking and have great reservoirs of creativity.

If the subject excites you as much as it does me, pick up The Mature Mind by Gene Cohen, M.D., Ph.D. It's an inspiring read, full of fascinating research, interviews and cutting edge insights on aging and creativity.

I'm a fan of Dr. Cohen, who is very brainy, bighearted and also looks a bit like a leprechaun. As the founding chief of the Center on Aging at the National Institute of Mental Health, he interviewed and worked with thousands of older adults over a period of 20 years.

His upbeat perspective is a refreshing antidote to some prevailing attitudes about age. Here's what some authors have to say about The Mature Mind.

"Gene Cohen nails it: The brain can get better with age! With authority and warmth, he demolishes the myth of inevitable mental decline and explores how the brain expands and develops in the later decades of life."
— Abigail Trafford, author of My Time

"Cohen has coined the term 'developmental wisdom' to describe the emotional growth and wisdom that many adults acquire as they age. His book is sensible, useful, and hopeful—he is a developmentally wise man himself."
— Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia

"Gene Cohen teaches us that the rich possibilities of life—including the life of the mind—continue well into the latest of our years."
— Robert N. Butler, M.D., President and CEO, International Longevity Center

Dear readers, there you have it. Even though the culture suffers from an under-appreciation of the positive contributions and qualities of age, older adults are happy. Even though they experience various kinds of losses and limitations, they are happy. There's plenty that all of us can learn from this, I do believe. And plenty to appreciate about the marvelous way that we human beings evolve and grow over time.

First Time Journey in the Blogosphere

I like the word blogosphere because for some reason it makes me think of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea—traveling in a strange contraption into an exciting new world.

And that just naturally makes me think of child’s play, which continues to be marvelous at any age. People may say “that’s just child’s play” about something that is very easy to do. Sure, child’s play is easy-- guided more by imagination than by fixed rules. Remember that magical sense of wonder, when everything else faded back until nothing remained but gazing at the amazing shapes of clouds changing in the sky, or the pattern of fireflies in the dark, or the moment of throwing the ball into the air, or the smell of the garden near the old house after rain?

Sage’s play is very similar to child’s play. It’s just that there are years of lived experience stirred into the sauce. In the later years, if one is just lucky or chooses to make it so on purpose, there are moments or hours when time opens out, slowing down into the eternal moment as it did in childhood. Then, the inherent magic shows itself.

Old people with all their faculties quite intact thank you, can be childlike, spontaneous, free of conventional rules, absorbed in the magic of the moment. This is one of the unsung beauties of aging, and I want to sing about it some here.

Sage’s play can take many forms, from social change through creative expression, nurturing, mentoring, passing on the stories and the more invisible work of healing, integrating life experience and letting go.

I want to affirm the profound value of age and old people to individuals and society. I want to explore the benefits of creativity and wellness in age. I want to participate in changing our cultural perspective on age and aging to a happier, more real and respectful one.

That’s why I have named my blog Sage’s Play. Here's to making the most of the beautiful experience of being alive.

BONUS!
The Pew Research Center recently published an interesting study that describes how younger people view old age, what they expect from their own old age, and how their beliefs or ideas differ from the reality of older adults’ experience.

Generally, younger adults have unrealistic beliefs regarding the prevalence of memory loss, inability to drive and sexuality in age. In other words, older people have better minds, drive more cars and have more sex than younger people believe they do. (But I’m not telling you anything new, am I?) Fascinating.

http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/736/getting-old-in-america

P.S. Don’t buy into the decline model of aging! And if you don’t know what that means, stay tuned.