Three Questions

There are endless articles, websites, and podcasts addressing the issues of ageing. Most are focused on health, both physical and mental. These are undoubtedly vital issues.

Very few of them look at the other, interior, space we elders occupy…the space of meaning, the space of our essence, the space of our consequence. Older people are rarely encouraged to examine this area of being. Conscious ageing, on the other hand, asks us to delve deeply into our sense of meaningful living as we grow older.

How then can we contemplate this intangible, almost inexpressible part of our selves? There are a few prompts that might guide us in this exploration. The first one, “Why are you here?” opens our minds and hearts to a basic, existential enquiry. There are no right or wrong answers to this intimate question. Each of us, with our decades of life experience, will answer differently, and differently each time we ask. A written or spoken journal might help us organise our thoughts and feelings as we dive deeply, and gently, into our very essence.

The second question we might ask is, “What matters?” Again, what is important is personal to each of us. It could be a social or political issue. It might be people, or volunteering, or meditating. It might be a creative project or walking each day.

Identifying what truly matters in our lives allows us to focus our energy and attention. It is easy to become distracted by the daily dose of negativity in the news, or concerns about our dear ones, or our own changes as we age. Attending to what matters most, what is most important, gives us energy and enlivens us to carry on contributing in whatever way we choose.

The third guiding enquiry to consider is, “What crossroads are you facing right now, in this moment?” We are continually presented with choice — engage with this or with that? Being fully aware of each crossroads gives us breathing room to think and feel into the choices, and then act. Some crossroads are momentous, others of less consequence, though each asks us to pay attention.

Should I rest now or after I’ve completed this task? Is that treatment better than the one I use now? Shall I spend money on this project/idea/gadget or save it for the proverbial rainy day? Cremation or burial?

We have faced numerous crossing points in our long experience. We know how to sift through options. Our elderhood gives us a gift we didn’t have when we were younger —discernment. We can make each choice with the wisdom of our years.

Exploring these three questions offers us the incentive to live into our elderhood with awareness of our value, awareness of our capabilities, and awareness of our rich inner lives and the actions that manifest from that wealth.

Creamtion and Its Urns

One of the sacred tasks of conscious ageing is looking ahead to our dying and death. Many people are planning their funerals/celebrations of their lives and answering the question of what to do with their bodies. Cremation is a growing trend. According to legendurn.co.uk “The cremation rate in the United Kingdom has been increasing steadily with the national average rate rising from 34.7% in 1960 to 75.44% in 2015. Nearly 58% of the United Kingdom inhabitants (42% 18-24 / 71% 65+) want to be cremated when they die, a YouGov survey on attitudes to death in 2016 reveals. Of these people, 79% would then like their ashes to be scattered somewhere. Just 7% want their ashes to be kept after they’ve been cremated.”

Though a small number, the ashes of that 7% need to be dealt with. I would venture a guess that in the following seven years since the survey was conducted, the number may have increased. An urn is the usual answer to hold the 2 to 4 kilograms of ashes left from the cremation of an adult.

Junchen Zhou on Pexels

Funerary urns have a long history, the earliest evidence found in China dating from 7000 BCE. Much more recently an exhibition to honour people who may have died of Covid19 was held at Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Called Art, Death and the Afterlife, it features funerary urns created by ceramicist Julian Stair OBE. He incorporated, literally embodied, the ashes into the clay that he used to create urns commemorating several people. The ashes were given to him by the families of those who had died and the urns will be given to them at the close of the exhibition.

Our concern for the planet makes cremation an increasingly popular choice. While Stair works in clay by commission, funerary urns are readily available today, made of many different materials. There is something imposing, noble, about the shape of an urn regardless of its size.

Is cremation a choice for you? The Eastern Orthodox Churches, Orthodox Jews, and Muslims discourage cremation. For those who do choose it, the major question that arises is what to do with the ashes. Scattering them, burying them or retaining them in an urn at home are choices that may limited by local law. Where keeping them in an urn is permitted, we have the opportunity to create a memorial honouring the deceased.

This question is one more that arises as we take the time to make our wishes known about our dying and death. Do our loved ones want some or all of our ashes? Who would be the guardian the ashes? Would you or they prefer to scatter or bury them? Where?

This sort of advance planning certainly makes our death easier for those who survive us. The decisions have already been made and the survivors are not burdened with extra concerns at a time of grieving and sorrow.

Cremation? Burial? Questions to ponder.

The Old-Fashioned Legacy

We elders are encouraged to leave a legacy. The common notion of a legacy has to do with money and property. A newer approach to legacy has to do with our values, our gifts to and from life, sharing with our descendants what is important to us. We are encouraged to leave this legacy in the form of a letter, a voice recording or a video recording. This is a new legacy.

But what of the old sort — the one that has to do with material objects, wealth and property? How are these received by the youngers we have chosen to inherit them? What strictures and clauses do we attach to their inheritance? Is it freely given or do we impose our will (pardon the pun) onto this gift? Might it be received as a gift or a burden?

Are the beneficiaries equipped and educated in this inheritance? Are the beneficiaries the kind of people who know how to deal with this gift? Do they want that silver candelabra or the money or real property left to them?

Most of us think we would welcome unearned money. Most of us think we would welcome the family home. Most of us think we would welcome heirlooms that hold the history of generations. Think about it deeply. Would you?

I have a friend who is incredibly grateful to have been able to retire from the work world and enjoy a comfortable life. She is also ill-equipped to deal with the tightly controlled and restricted inheritance. She must rely on expert advice every step of the way. She was not given guidance by the people who created this inheritance. She, as a post-war, upper middle-class girl, was not expected to deal with any of this. Instead, it was presumed she would marry and someone else would watch out for her inheritance. Now, as a mature, conscious elder she is having to learn, in her 70s what would have been easy to integrate in her 30s, 40s or 50s. She is stretching and exercising her brain to learn a new language, one she did not choose to learn.

There were opportunities. She had asked for the help of the family members who could guide her. The guidance never came. Take a moment to consider what you might include in the legacy that would offer support to the beneficiaries, might offer them guidance as they live after you do. Even better, what practical, educational support can you offer now, in the present, that will allow your descendants to understand and enjoy your gifts?

Take good care with legacy. It is not to be taken lightly. When my friend’s legacy was created, in the 1970s, the world was very different from the 21st century. As you create legacies attend to the trends of today and try, as best you can, to project ahead. What might your beneficiaries actually benefit from? Would it be a pile of cash? Would it be a trust fund from which they can draw monthly income and invest wisely in order to maintain the trust money for future family members? Who might be the successor beneficiaries? Would they actually love to own the house they lived in or visited when they were younger, or would they prefer that it be sold before you die?

Speak to the beneficiaries who are old enough for the conversation. Just as we are beginning to open doors to conversation about our care and treatment as we approach dying and death, it behooves us to open discussions about inheritance and legacy.

It is, of course, difficult, and, in some cases, impossible to answer many of these questions. It is the thinking, feeling and speaking that are important. There is no way her forebears could anticipate that my friend would never marry, choose not to have children and live a creative, adventurous life. You too cannot imagine a life that will be lived in the future by the people you love and who will follow paths of their own.

Now my friend is both burdened and supported by her inheritance. She is navigating a path for which she has no map, no star chart, no compass.

Take care with all the legacies you leave.

The Mystery

In The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell writes, 

“It’s important to live life with the experience, and therefore the knowledge, of its mystery and of your own mystery. This gives life a new radiance, a new harmony, a new splendor.”

The unknown.

The mystery.

The ineffable.

The marvel.

The elusive.

How do we express that which is inexpressible? Is it possible we are not meant to answer this question? To answer it would fix it in time and space, limiting the enchanting to one particular time, one specific space.

Living within the mystery, surrendering to it, knowing we live in its embrace, gives us vibrance, courage, and resilience. Holding all we experience within the mystery allows for presence, a nobility in living. The joyous times and the painful times are held in that elusive space. It is the space of each breath, each inhale and exhale, the rhythm of life.

“Breathing in, I calm my body and my mind.

Breathing out, I smile.

Dwelling in the present moment,

I know this is the only moment.”

Thus Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us of the mystery of each moment. He makes the enigma tangible, in each breath and in each mind. He brings the marvel of living to its simplest form, one we have known since birth. And we will know until our death.

Suddenly, the mystery, and all its power, becomes manifest.

Forward and Backward

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), thought to be the first existential philosopher, noted, "Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.” As elders we have the opportunity, indeed the task, to both look back and live forward.

To look again at the extent of our decades is a privilege as well. We who have lived into our 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s have the long view to see the pathway of our lives. We can see the roads and streets and trails of our individual lives embedded into the map of history. We have been affected by war and pandemic, social change and cultural shifts — those we might abhor and those in which we rejoice. We have grown and we have changed on all levels of our being.

Importantly, we have the opportunity to make our voices heard, to share what we have learned. With any luck those lessons have transformed into wisdom, making our road easier to navigate and creating a smoother journey for those around us.

We also have the opportunity to repair some of the hurts we have lived, both those we have inflicted and those we have experienced. Mending the pot holes in the road takes slow, thoughtful work, demanding discernment and care on our part. To look once more at these events can bring again the feelings of shame, guilt and pain. They can also bring the joy of forgiveness, tender release and greater internal freedom. This reconditioning restores the beauty of our lives.

To live forward we step into the strength of awareness, the open path of possibility. We cannot know what lies ahead, though we can imagine, envision and prepare. We cannot control even the next moment, though we can live with mindful responsiveness to it. This state of consciousness enlivens each day with internal energy. Regardless of what arises in that next moment we can be open and receive it with the knowledge of the past and the wisdom we are now.

We have looked back, learned from the past.

We look forward, embracing the riches of life.

Fruition

We grow older. We pass each day, each moment, growing toward fruition.

Just as a tree or a vegetable or a flower grows from its seed to a juicy apple or a succulent broccoli or a fragrant carnation/dianthus, we too grow to be our fullest selves. Ageing is the fruition of a life lived moment by moment.

As we grow into this period of culmination we have experienced endless transformation. We have lived as a constantly changing process in relationship with those close to us as well as to events far away. Though we are not separate from others, our first inhalation began a unique treasury of experience, knowledge and wisdom that we can now gather in as our harvest.

From a single cell seed we have matured. We have moved through our developmental stages just as above-ground plants do. In childhood and adolescence we pass through a stage of rapid growth comparable to the leafy growth stage. Then we bud and blossom into flower as we begin to create our path.

Next the full bloom or fruit appears as our middle years bear witness to our actualisation. This is the busy time, a time where our focus is on ripening into our place in the world.

Now we enter the stage of harvest, the fulfilment of our complete selves. The apple, ruby red, or the energetic crown of emerald green broccoli head or the scented richness of the carnation, has now reached its pinnacle, ready to be savoured. The plant has flourished. It is now ready to disperse its seeds, to share its life with others, in the same was as we humans grow into elderhood.

We contain life-giving nutrients —our wisdom— that can foster growth in others. We are our own harvest.