getting old(er..)

Adjusted to fit UK contexts, here is a poem from David Rynick, a wise and compassionate man:

  65^th birthday manifesto, by David Rynick

NHS, Atorvastatin,
baby aspirin please.
Don’t forget: zipper up,
phone, wallet, keys.

Sixty-five, still alive;
running now on fumes.
Yet to come, worrisome;
the piper plays the tune.

Still I’ll dance with tattered pants,
shameless far and near.
Too old to care when others stare,
I’ll find new freedom here.

 More of David on: http://davidrynick.com/blog/

and in his wonderful book "This Truth Never Fails."

I wish him plenty of fumes. Maybe growing old has new freedoms in it, as well as deteriorations. Yeats wrote:

 

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress

Interpret and relate to "soul" as you wish.  Let's sing and dance onwards.

walking, age, Ken Jones

I really hope the family and friends of the late Ken Jones, meditation teacher and poet, don't mind my posting this, as a tribute to a fine teacher I wish I had known. I belong to a walking group and a meditation group, to both of which I recommend this sequence.

Octogenarian Ramble

Rambling through old age -
she looks behind
to see if I'm still there

As her flickering compass tacks and veers, I lag behind with the map to shout changes of direction. In the interludes of easy going, my poles clicking on the tarmac, we once again strike out together.

Facing obstacles once taken in our stride, like this crumbling drystone wall.

Dignity dictates
I decline her proffered hand
this life in the past tense

Sometimes, however, I do accept a little push-up over a sheep fence.

Barbed wire yoga
the lift of my boot
just one inch short

At a broad, fast flowing stream she honours me - by not looking back. Left alone to enjoy both fear and audacity. Launched creakingly in mid-air, that second of freedom beyond age and youth. And Splash!

Old age is also about falling over.

Black and blue
the colour scheme
of this old body

Happily, the elegance learnt in youth remains. I can still fall gracefully, softly and unnoticed. Moreover, I can still provide some entertainment.

His roly-poly fall
down a gentle slope
her helpless smile

And so mortality eternally renews our weekly rambles through crag and forest, pasture and bog.

Getting lost together
blithely we make our waytowards the final destination

Old Age: dissolution or integration? The Fear of Death part 2

In my last post, a very welcome comment from K at   freerangeweddings sent me in search of insight into our fear of the potential dissolutions and illnesses of old age. So I went to the water's edge. 

There I let go, as far as I could, of whatever was keeping me from being in  the moment, then came home and tried to Think, which hurts, hence the capital letter.

I reckon the first step is to acept the unavoidable reality of change.


Change

Said the sun to the moon, 


You cannot stay. 



Change 


Says the moon to the waters, 


All is flowing. 



Change 


Says the field to the grass, 


Seed-time and harvest, 


Chaff and grain. 



You must change, 


Said the worm to the bud, 


Though not to a rose, 



Petals fade 


That wings may rise 


Borne on the wind. 



You are changing 


Said death to the maiden, your wan face 


To memory, to beauty. 



Are you ready to change? 


Says the thought to the heart, to let her pass 


All your life long 



For the unknown, the unborn 


In the alchemy 


Of the world's dream? 



You will change, 


Say the stars to the sun, 


Says the night to the stars.

               Kathleen Raine

Not just to understand this, but but to let it into your life, so you live it. And actually, though it means we age and die, thank goodness we do age and die. What could be more tedious than to be the same for ever? It's impossible.

But what K wrote is, I reckon, widespread: a fear of dissolution and decreptitude in old age.

Well, the first thing to say is that old age isn't always like that. I've visited a lot of families in seven year's work as a funeral celebrant, and that's my basis for thinking so. Of course we have the relatively minor complaints of ageing, but it may help to remember Mark Twain's observation: "I'm a very old man. I've had lots of problems. Most of them never happened."

(Genius, thanks.)

The trouble with my next step is that it involves a set of practices and beliefs that you may feel don't or couldn't apply to you. All I'll say is that meditating enables people not merely to stay in the moment, but to lessen the effects of pain and illness by reducing the fear and mental tension they generate. Pain is one thing, our response to it is quite another. Meditation can help with both.

K also worries about dependence. I understand that fear. So much depends on individual situations, but I sometimes think we worry too much about being dependent on others; we might reflect on the times others have depended on us. 

Having an old person depend on you is so much shaped by the personalities involved - you, and the old person. I'm going to preach, sorry:- if we can aim to live in the moment, if we can feel gratitude for our lives and compassion for others, we are surely less likely to be a burdensome presence as we age.

OK, sometimes old age can be pretty horrrible - I hope it won't be for K, for anyone reading this, but I believe there are things we can do to lessen that possibility.

That's enough for one blog. Maybe more another time. The island is storm-lashed tonight and I'd like, for a change, to listen to what the wind says.