71st Birthday

Delving into the archive of my writing I discovered this reflection on ageing. At the time I was part of a small group, each of us considering our unique process as we grew older. I wrote it on 11 January 2017, on a day I was feeling connected to all that is, and share it with you today, 6+ years later.

71 by metin ozer on unsplash

October 2023

Today is my 71st birthday.

71 seems such an odd age.

70 felt like a milestone...i’ve lived three score and ten.

71 means I’m ‘in my 70’s’.

I wonder how that happened?

Of course, I know how it happened...a moment at a time, a breath at a time, an insight at a time, a tear at a time, a laugh at a time, an ache or pain at a time, a love at a time, a disappointment at a time...

And here I am...now, breathing.

Today I sat on the floor, cross-legged. I’ve done this thousands of times in my decades as a yoga practitioner.

Today I got up from the floor with an ache in my right hip joint. My left hip has been similarly troubles for quite some time. Today the right one joined the party.

My mind immediately began to wonder in a slight panic,…

What should I do about this? Acupuncture? Osteopathy? Sit for 5 minutes each day to ease the ache? Never sit on the floor again? Pills?

Then I breathed...one breath at a time...breathed into my agitated mind, breathed into my hip, breathed into the letting go of fear, breathed into the unchanging, ever-present Love that is the ground of being.

What does it mean for my body to age/change/transform from what it was to what it is in each moment? My body has never been the same from year to year. It has always been ageing. It has hurt before this, ached before this. And yet, somehow, this is different. This is being old, being less able, being less agile and being more vulnerable.

Can I let my heart be more vulnerable too? Can I open my heart as I breathe? Can I live in this heart space of Love?

The moments that might lie ahead could be filled with this new process—a deeper awareness of my heartLove in addition to the witnessing of my body, to the witnessing of change.

What is this Love? What does Love see? Where does Love live?

Love is that ever-present, unchangeable, glorious space.

Love sees all that is without judgement or assessment.

Love lives in every cell, every molecule of all that exists, has existed, will exist.

And i can touch Love every time I choose to stop, to listen, to sense, to open to Love’s glory.

This is the lesson for my 71st birthday.

She Had Exactly What She Wanted

Many years ago, an acquaintance of mine knew she would die very soon. She had been dealing with a ‘terminal’ condition for some time and was aware that her strength for continued treatment was failing rapidly. She chose to end treatment.

garden by arno senoner on unsplash

She lived in a warm, sunny climate and asked that her bed be moved to her garden. She lived the last two days and nights of her life there. She asked that only one person be with her at a time; more than one overwhelmed and taxed her. She ate only when and what she wanted, was given pain control only when she requested it, and slept whenever she desired.

She had control over the last hours of her life. While this is often not possible, what would you choose if you did have that ability?

Often we read, or participate in, a deathbed scene where the dying person is “surrounded by loving family”. This seems to be the current definition of a “good death”. Is this what we truly want? Would it seem churlish to want to die alone? Or in silent meditation? Does everyone want a group of people with them when they die? Would we deny our dear ones the gift of being with us during that last hour?

orchestra by samuel-sianipar on unsplash

Is our preference for silence, or would rock and roll music playing in the background, those we love dancing, suit us better? Or would Beethoven’s Ninth be a fitting accompaniment to our exit? Or Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”?

And what of the environment around us—a dimly lit room or one full of light? Fairy lights scattered everywhere or a single candle burning in our sight line? Windows open to the breeze or the gentle whisper of incense? Colourful bouquets scattered around the space or a single, elegant ikebana arrangement?

ikebana by oriento on unsplash

Control over those last moments may or may not be possible. If it were, how would you choose to live them?

It's Never Happened Before

by arif dalkiran on unsplash

Each moment passes and we grow older. We’ve been doing it since the day we were conceived. Some of us grew robust; others had challenges from the beginning and yet, continue to grow older. All of us face obstacles, distractions, joys and sorrows—and we continue to grow older.

Pir Elias Amidown, the spiritual director of the Sufi Way, puts it clearly:

This body is growing old
It’s never happened before.
Old age is new to me
and I don’t know how to do it,
but despite its reputation,
it feels like a privilege.

We don’t know how to do it and were never given a road map, though there we might have had guidance to help us grow through earlier phases of life. More of us are living longer and we are creating the map as we go along. Regarding our maturing and our eldering as a privilege transforms the process from a burden to a gift.

Growing older certainly has a bad reputation. It is widely dreaded, avoided, and denigrated. Yet, it is inevitable. Once we have been born, it is guaranteed to us all. What is not guaranteed is the length of our growing older or its trajectory. We have no idea, once we have begun, what the path will look like. It happens once, though continually, in each body.

We may as well regard the undertaking as a gift, a privilege, an honour. The alternative isn’t very appealing, though it is the one portrayed for us by first world culture. We have a choice, however, to regard the mystery of our unfolding into ageing with curiosity and a willingness to explore.

It is not always easy. Illness, aching joints, anxieties may plague us. As our bodies change we are confronted with our limited lives, our mortality. And our bodies are new to us each day. We experience the unknown in each moment. Sometimes we are pleasantly surprised and joyful, other times we find ourselves in pain or disturbed or saddened or disheartened.

Our ability to hold each moment as a privilege, regardless of its content or sensation, is a challenge in itself. We often rail against the unpleasantness and unsatisfactoriness of life, especially against the uncontrollable. Might even these might be regarded as a privilege?

This is the stuff of ageing with awareness, ageing consciously, knowing that challenges lie ahead and creating the inner strength, along with outer resilience and structures that hold us in the embrace of the privilege of the elder.

Proverbial Advice

Older people are constantly bombarded with advice about how to live well. We are told what to eat, how to stay fit, how to monitor our blood pressure, when to have our cholesterol measured, how to form relationships, how to avoid loneliness and a million other certainly well-meant and useful recommendations.

In truth, I find them rather boring and repetitious. There are endless studies telling us the same thing, using money that might be spent building housing that really serves older people, or providing free public transport, or creating opportunities for inner growth, or adequate medical care.

However, I did recently come across a bit of advice that made a great deal of sense to me. It’s a Tibetan proverb.

The secret to living well is
Eat half
Walk double
Laugh triple
Love without measure.

t was the last phrase that touched me…love without measure. To give love may be the one thing that we can all do, regardless of our physical capacity. We may have aching joints, or organs that have stopped being super efficient, or brains that can’t quite remember a word. And we can be loving.

This is a love that embraces, that endures, and that enlivens. It is a love that brings a smile not only to the recipient but to the bestower, the beloved and the lover. Muscles relax, the heart opens, the connection is made.

We are encouraged by this proverb to do something that challenges the strongest among us—to love that which is painful, difficult, even hateful to us. How do the children of Holocaust survivors love Hitler? How do we find love for a nurse who murders vulnerable infants? How can we open our hearts to war-mongers and arms dealers?

I don’t have answers to those questions. I contemplate them simply in light of the Tibetan proverb as questions to live into. And to embrace the whole of the proverb as a guide to living well.

A Precious Privilege

To age with awareness asks quite a lot from us. As David Chernikoff tells us, the process “…asks nothing less of us than to joyfully embrace what the Taoist teachings call,“the ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows.” In our decades of living we have each had our share of grief and gladness, challenge and ease on life’s path. Holding all of it, the whole enchilada, with awareness, enables us to value the gifts we have received and the gifs we might offer. Those gifts are the fruit of the vast sum of all that experience.

By skiathos greece on unsplash

Stepping into a life of conscious ageing allows us to deepen into our selves, to find the richness of our presence on Planet Earth. Here we recognise all of the mysteries of life, all the puzzling enigmas we have experienced. Here we also recollect all of the resolutions we may have found—or not. Here we re-cognise, or know again, and we re-collect, gather again all our sagacity—our sage-ness, our wisdom.

Chernikoff concludes that, “In the end, we come to clearly see and understand what the Sufis call “the privilege of being human” and what Buddhist teachers call “the preciousness of a human birth.”

No matter what we have endured, what we have celebrated, what we have survived, what we have created, our lives are precious. Recognising the worth and significance of our lives is the reward we receive by attending to what is asked of us. We may not be famous. We may not be recognised as a celebrity as we walk down the road, hounded by paparazzi. We may not have a gazillion followers on twitter.

Yet, living a life is a privilege. Holding our lives in this sacred way, allows us to shine as the precious jewel we are.
(I highly recommend David Chernikoff’s book Life, Part Two: Seven Keys to Awakening with Purpose and Joy as You Age.)

Six Words—or Three

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~~Mary Oliver

By blickpixel on pixabay

Oliver, the consummate writer of the extraordinary in the ordinary, helps us to see what is around us, every day, every moment. She tells us how she does it…attention, astonishment, sharing.

Pay attention.
Don’t cling.
Be kind.
~~Sally Armstrong

Armstrong, a Buddhist mediation teacher, begins in the same way as Oliver and then moves into a different direction…attention, letting go, kindness. She calls this a 6 word mantra.

I don’t know.
~~Anonymous
(I truly don’t know who said or wrote this or where I found it!)

This unknown author distills their wisdom into three words. Here we are have a short memo to be curious with an open mind, willing to listen and learn.

Each of these teachings could function as a mantra, the tried and tested practice of repeating a phrase or word to bring the mind to quiet so that we can discover our true nature, or higher power. The word mantra is derived from two Sanskrit words—man, meaning mind and tra which means tool. A mantra is a tool for the mind.

While Oliver, Armstrong and the unknown author might not have enlightenment in mind in these teachings, they can serve as guides to living. Their wisdom can inspire ours as well as keeping our minds awake to what is important. It is a tool for us to use to sharpen our sense of aliveness. It is a tool for us to use to dig deep into our eldering.

After contemplating these words, and decades of my own meditation experience, I decided to search for six words that I could use as daily, or even moment to moment, reminders of the life I choose to live.

Inhale
Exhale
Relax
Open
Connect
Embrace

While they are not complete sentences, these are words that allow me to be present, to be my fullest, most authentic self in any moment. They don’t demand a bendy body or a meditation cushion—only the willingness to continue to grow into my elder years with awareness.

What is your six (or three) word mantra? What are your words to live by?