I recently celebrated my 72nd birthday so the process of aging is very much on my mind. And in honor of that birthday I took the past few weeks off from teaching the online classes ( I’m back to my regular teaching schedule in October) to deal with some nagging body issues by engaging in an ancient cleansing and rejuvenation healing process via Ayurveda called a Panchakarma, and WHEW but that’s been intense.

This mini-sabbatical also gave me the space and time to get quiet and reflect on what this new phase of elder hood means to me. The bodily changes are all too real. I need to rest more and those nagging issues take a lot longer to heal. My focus continues to be much more internal and my energizer bunny self has become slower and much less interested in doing. Being is the name of the game.

This period of my life also includes a lot of looking back and reflecting on where I’ve been by honoring the various epochs of my journey that got me here.

Such as feeling a deep sense of gratitude for that young woman in her 20’s who courageously left her family home and made a life for herself in the wilds of California with no plan, just leaping fearlessly into the unknown. The woman in her 30’s who devoted herself to learning as much as possible and honing her craft as a healer so that she could bring a new way of being into the world. The woman in her 40’s who took some major and often scary risks to become her full and unapologetic self. And the woman in her 50’s and 60’s who took all of the mastery that she had developed over the decades and built a very successful business doing this weird ass intuitive painting thing and birthing some truly amazing creative experiences and mentoring programs for her many students and clients.

But I’m also noticing a very interesting phenomenon on the psychological level for both me and my many beloved students who are also at this phase in our lives.

I’m someone who has been quite devoted to self awareness, understanding myself and exploring my inner psychological and emotional worlds. I have put a lot of energy into trying to dismantle my various toxic patterns such as codependency, low self worth, giving myself away to others and not taking care of myself.

And I’ve done a pretty good job of that, creating a life for myself that has been fulfilling and satisfying on so many levels.

But there’s been one or two of those patterns that have been incredibly difficult to root out and change. They have been so deeply tied in with my identity and sense of self that actually letting go of them has felt quite terrifying.

I’m still chipping away at my unrelenting self reliance. And even though my body is definitely moving at a different rhythm these days the internal pressure to continually be producing is very frustrated with this new experience of slowness.

 

And I’m asking this question a lot… who am I now? And who can I be if I TRULY let go of those ancient patterns that I associate with my survival ? Is there some other experience of myself that is aching to be revealed? And does this process of healing EVER end??? ( said with a wry smile and a bit of an eye roll.)

As I go through this next phase of unraveling and unfolding I’m also reminding myself of this ancient and holy truth …. that becoming an elder is a fierce practice. Old is not to be messed with. Old is an honorable and venerable place to be. And that the journey to elder hood and beyond is just another opportunity to be creative and courageous in the face of the wild unknown.

OLD FIRE

I’m still surprised when I look in the mirror

And see an old woman looking back at me

But one thing that surprises me even more

Than the wrinkling skin and the jiggly jowls

Is that this old womans eyes are filled with fire

This is not a cheery fire

Creating a sense of cozy warmth and homey safety

Confined, contained and domesticated in a fireplace made of polished stone

Or the raucous bonfire on a sand studded beach

Blazing to the heavens with a hunger for more and more and more

As youthful, limber, glistening bodies dance with abandon and grace

Fed by the heat and the promise of fecund, aching life

The fire that hides behind this old woman’s eyes

Is a fire that can no longer be reined in

Tamed

Domesticated

Harnessed

Muzzled

Or controlled by my human will or preference

It is an ancient fire

A howling fire

A timeless fire

A dangerous fire

It is the raging wildfire that cleanses the landscape down to the rocks and stones

Leaving behind nothing but blackened trees on a mountain hillside

Naked and charred in preparation of the slow eventuality of rebirth

It is the all consuming fire that strips your skeleton clean

Bleaching it solid white

Leaving it lying exposed in the charnel house

As devoted monks wail and pray over that final uncovering

Making your calcified corpse sacred once again

It is an undying fire

Smoldering quietly as glowing-eyed embers

A hidden heat buried underneath layers of gray ash

Awaiting just the right moment to burst into the flame of righteous revelation

It is the invisible fire that burns with a secret knowledge

That only comes when you have lived long enough

To feel in your bones the certainty of your own demise

This fire strips away any illusion of compartments and categories

Labels and preferences

Titles and demarcations

This fire reveals the story of separation as the biggest lie of all

This fire lays bare a truth that is rarely spoken

The truth that this earthly realm we struggle to call home

Is not a battleground between the forces of light and dark

Right or wrong

Good or evil

Life or death

But that we are rocked in the loving arms of an ongoing and eternal rhythm

Of mystery and epiphany

Divination and manifestation

Proclamation and prophecy

Inspiration and wildness

Breaking down

Breaking open

Breaking free

The fire stripping away anything that is not the tender knowledge

That everything is one thing

That holy paradox and numinous contradictions

Are simply the thousand upon thousand upon thousand faces of love