“Plummet into aging, stare mortality in the eye, surrender everything and what else is there left to fear? The way is perilous, danger on all sides. But we are no longer a generation afraid of age. We are becoming, instead, a generation fierce with age.” –Carol Orsborn
Welcome to our Archives for Boomers and beyond who are learning to walk the fine line between romanticized and stereotyped notions of aging. The Archives features nearly 1000 digest entries, summaries, comments and links to curated content about conscious aging. The Archives are searchable by subject matter at the bottom of each page.
For eight years, the curators and contributors to Fierce with Age: The Digest of Boomer Wisdom, Inspiration and Spirituality, led by myself, author Carol Orsborn, Ph.D. sought the best content about wisdom and spirituality for Boomers ranging from the classics to cutting-edge thought leaders, including Thomas Merton, Joan Chittister, Ram Dass, May Sarton, Florida Scott-Maxwell, Parker J. Palmer, James Hollis and many more.
The men and women of our generation redefined midlife. Now we are finding that the wild space beyond midlife can be much more than merely accepting aging. Having broken denial, we are getting our first, promising glimpse of what it truly means to be free.
So welcome. Enjoy the best of my years as editor of this Digest, and in many ways, the best of my decades-long experiential course on what matters most.
–Carol Orsborn, Ph.D., Founder and Curator
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For the complete collection of best-of-the year-editions, click HERE.
For the editor’s selection of the best from nearly 10 years of publication and thousands of entries, read on.
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AGING AS ENLIGHTENMENT
“What if people began to experience age-related changes in consciousness as essentially mystical in nature? A gradual fading away of identity, as if who you were or think you are is no longer very important or even that real…a loss of ‘high gear,’ that hard-driving, goal-oriented focus on getting things done…memory failures (for names, details, intentions, ideas, and habits) and so on…
As these contents of consciousness empty, we can become aware of consciousness itself, pure and omnipresent…When we experience consciousness directly, free of thought, we are literally experiencing Divinity, and a door to eternity opens in the human psyche. Aging is enlightenment in slow motion.”
–John C. Robinson The Three Secrets of Aging: Seeking Enlightenment in the New Aging
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PARKING THE GYPSY WAGON
“I find myself in a retiring kind of mood. Which has surprised me a bit, though it seems quite natural. Retiring in the sense of letting go of some projects, the push to accomplish. Our society encourages us to continue in that continuous accomplishment style, even as we age…It’s an overcompensation for the way our society denigrates aging–so elders are pushing to prove we are still viable, capable, worthy of notice…
People will give you a lot of encouragement for doing things they consider risky or adventurous, like fitting out a gypsy wagon and wandering here and there with a one-woman show—stuff like that, things they might never do themselves. I’m sure some elders will carry on that tradition, and here’s to them and their vividness. To me, the real adventure is within.”
–Gaea Yudron, Sages Play
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THE FREEDOM TO DO IT WRONG
“There is no right or wrong way of growing old. A great source of suffering in our culture, and one which hounds many people as they age, is that if they could just figure out how to do things right, there would be no suffering in age. If they could just learn to succeed in aging correctly, as they struggled to succeed in marriage, parenthood, business, and other areas of their lives, age would cease to bring challenges they didn’t quite know how to face.
But when it comes to how we choose to live, creating our lives and the roles we play as we move along in years, the rigid notion of right and wrong, and of success in general, should be irrelevant to how we make our decisions. We’re finally free to make ‘mistakes,’ follow our hunches, experiment boldly, or do nothing at all, as age liberates us from our old roles and offers us the chance to seize an authentic way of living.”
–Ram Dass, Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying
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GHOSTS OF THE PAST
“Regret, one of the ghosts of aging, comes upon us one day dressed up like wisdom, looking profound and serious, sensible and responsible…Regret claims to be insight. But how can it be spiritual insight to deny the good for the sake of what was not? No, regret is not insight. It is a sand trap of the soul.
The fact is that the twinges of regret are a step-over point in life. They remind us of the people we loved, the sense of directions that drove us…It is the choices in the past that we made in the past that have brought us to be the person we are today…It urges us to continue becoming.”
–Joan Chittister, The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully
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WOBBLING BEYOND MIDLIFE
“This may be the hardest part of passing from older middle age into true old age: the acceptance of limits, the paring down to essentials. I now think I know what the Talmud means when it says, ‘You are not obliged to finish the work, but neither are you permitted to desist from it.’ …
My steps may have wobbled on the way to older age, but now that I have crossed the threshold my walk is growing stronger and my heart beats with something akin to a teenager’s anticipation of all that still lies ahead…Not for me will there be skydiving at age 75 or a half-marathon at 80. I will be content with what Wallace Stevens called ‘the pleasures of merely circulating.’
Such pleasures, in the movement of the spirit, will be enough. They will be more than enough. I wish for myself and for all who are growing older release from fear and anxiety so that we can fully receive the valedictory gifts of vision and completion.”
–Peter Laarman “Among School Children”, from Reflections: Yale Divinity School’s “Test of Time: The Art of Aging”
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SO WHAT IF NIGHT COMES?
“St. Thomas told his secretary and biographer Reginald that if his days as a writer and teacher were over, then he wanted to die fast. I don’t feel that way about it. And I don’t feel that my days as a writer are over. I don’t care what they are.
The point for me is that I must stop trying to adjust myself to the fact that night will come and the work will end. So night comes. Then what? You sit in the dark. What is wrong with that? Meanwhile, it is time to give to others whatever I have to give and not reflect on it.
I wish I had learned the knack of doing this without question or care. Perhaps I can begin. It is not a matter of adjustment or of peace. It is a matter of truth, and patience, and humility.”
–Thomas Merton Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing, edited by Robert Inchausti
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THE BEAUTY OF SHADOWS
“Marlene used to be a very active person. No more. Now she lives with her daughter and son-in-law. Marlene is as alert as she ever was. However, walking is very difficult for her now. Marlene spends much of her time sitting outside in the sun.
She has discovered the beauty of shadows. There is a stately white birch tree nearby. Marlene watches how, with the passing hours, the sun’s lengthening shadow sculpts that tree. Marlene keeps her pleasure to herself. She knows no one who would appreciate her discovery. Certainly not the always-on-the-go person that Marlene used to be.
Marlene smiles. Different delights for different times of life, she muses to herself.”
–David E. Sanford, Old and Joyous is a new organization offering support groups and building blocks for a happy and abundant life for men and women 60 plus. Heading the programs is 82-year-old marriage counselor and author David E. Sanford.
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FLAMING WITH WILD LIFE
“My seventies were interesting, and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate. I grow more intense as I age…Though drab outside—wreckage to the eye…inside we flame with a wild life that is almost incommunicable…
It has to be accepted as passionate life, perhaps the life I never lived, never guessed I had it in me to live. It feels other and more than that. It feels like the far side of precept and aim. It is just life, the natural intensity of life, and when old we have it for our reward and doing. It can—at moments—feel as though we had it for our glory. Some of it must go beyond good and bad, for at times—though comes rarely, unexpectedly—it is a swelling clarity as though all was resolved…
We who are old know that age is more than a disability. It is an intense and varied experience, almost beyond our capacity at times. But something to be carried high”
–Florida Scott-Maxwell, The Measure of My Days
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THE DALAI LAMA’S TEARS
“At one of his annual three-day retreats in New York City, the Dalai Lama…explained that when we open to the experience of interconnectedness with the world, our sense of individuality softens and the heart opens with compassion toward all beings. This compassion has a radiance about it, he added. Suddenly he paused, interrupting his own train of thought.
‘But that’s not the way things are,’ he shared. ‘We are just people groping in the dark,’ and he put his head down and began to weep openly.
After a few moments, he sat up, blew his nose, and continued where he’d left off.”
— Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle, Aging with Wisdom
To read Carol Orsborn’s commentary on this story, click HERE.
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SHE LET GO
“She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go. She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go…
She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it. She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer. She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go…
In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.” –Rev. Safire Rose
Thanks to Fierce with Age contributor Mary Beth Speer for sharing the wonderful poem by Rev. Safire Rose we excerpt here with us. For the whole poem, visit this website.
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THE EVOLUTION OF AGING
“An increasing number of individuals in our generation are discovering the potential inherent in aging to provide a culmination to the spiritual path we have been walking most of our lives. This does not mean it’s easy…Conscious aging beckons us to take into account both the light and the shadow side of growing old. Admittedly, establishing and maintaining both a hopeful and realistic vision of the aging process requires a level of spiritual maturity that challenges the best of us.
As H. R. Moody puts it: ‘Conscious Aging– the holistic line of development– is not an easy path nor is Conscious Aging likely to appeal to a majority of those entering old age…Conscious Aging means going beyond patterns of ego strength acquired during youth and mid-life.’
So why embark on this path in the first place? Because conscious aging is the only path to embracing the entirety of our lives as the fulfillment of our spiritual purpose. For those of us who have embarked on aging as a spiritual path, it is an exciting time, indeed, to be growing old.”
–Robert Weber, Carol Orsborn and H. R. Moody, What is the Value of Aging? Excerpted from The Spirituality of Age: A Seeker’s Guide to Growing Older. (Weber/Orsborn, Preface by H.R. Moody
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DANCING WITH LIGHT
After chanting Buddha’s name for years, an old woman suddenly feels “all the falsehoods of her life drop away and she is completely and utterly awake. Thrilled, she rushes to see the great Zen Master Hakuin, telling him that her whole body is filled with Buddha and that all of the mountains and rivers, forests and fields are shining with great enlightenment.
He looks at her: ‘Oh really?” he says. ‘And is this great light also shining up your butt?’
Even though the old woman is tiny, she pushes him over, shouting, ‘Well, I can see you still have work to do yourself, old man!’
They laugh themselves silly and are so happy that they dance and dance and dance—awakeness meeting awakeness.”
–Geri Larkin, “The Secret of Abiding Joy” in Spirituality/Health.com, Nov/Dec. 2015
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“…I have plowed my life this way
Turned over a whole history
Looking for the roots of what went wrong
Until my face is ravaged, furrowed, scarred.
Enough. The job is done.
Whatever’s been uprooted, let it be
Seedbed for the growing that’s to come,
I plowed to unearth last year’s reasons—
The farmer plows to plant a greening season.”
–Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old
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For the complete collection of best-of-the year-editions of Fierce with Age: The Digest of Boomer Wisdom, Inspiration and Spirituality, click HERE.
