Fierce with Age Best of 2019

Hello Fierce Ones,

Spring is a time of rebirth and the Digest entries below pay fitting testimony to this theme. I hope you enjoy reading the entries as much as I enjoyed selecting them.

As we look forward to summer as a culmination of spring’s promise, Fierce with Age will join with sister blog Older, Wiser, Fiercer to celebrate the culminating cycle of life with a special edition, The Wisdom Series.  Please be on the lookout for what I trust Parker Palmer below would be gratified to refer to as “a greening season.”

Fiercely Yours,

Carol Orsborn, editor-in-chief

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 GO FORTH AND BE SEEN

“A door opens.  Maybe I’ve been standing here shuffling my weight from foot to foot for decades, or maybe I only knocked once.  In truth it doesn’t matter.  A door opens and I walk through without a backward glance.

This is it then, one moment of truth in a lifetime of truth; a choice made, a path taken, the gravitational pull of Spirit too compelling to ignore any longer.  I am received by something far too vast to see.  It has roots in antiquity, but speaks clearly in the present tense.  ‘Be,’ the vastness says.  ‘Be’ without adverbs, descriptions, or qualities.  Be so alive that awareness bares itself uncloaked and unadorned.

Then go forth to give what you alone can give, awake to love and suffering, unburdened by the weight of expectations.  Go forth to see and be seen – blossoming, always blossoming, into your magnificence.”

–Poet Danna Faulds.

Thanks to Pat Halper for sharing this with us.

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WHAT FILLS ME

“I am astonished, disappointed, pleased with myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once, and cannot add up the sum. I am incapable of determining ultimate worth or worthlessness; I have no judgment about myself and my life. There is nothing I am quite sure about…

Yet there is so much that fills me: plants, animals, clouds, day and night, and the eternal in man.  The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things. In fact it seems to me as if that alienation which so long separated me from the world has become transferred into my own inner world, and has revealed to me an unexpected unfamiliarity with myself.”

–Carl Jung, the last page of his autobiographical memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

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THE GIFT OF SURRENDER

“Surrender is what cleans off the barnacles that have been clinging to the soul. It is the final act of human openness. Without it I am doomed to live inside a stagnant world called the self….What I do not let into my world can never stretch my world, can never give it new color, can never fill it with a new kind of air, can never touch the parts of me that I never knew were there…

Surrender does not simply mean that I quit grieving what I do not have. It means that I surrender to new meanings and new circumstances, that I begin to think differently and to live somewhere that is totally elsewhere…

I must surrender to the final truth: She did not love me. They do not want me. What I want is not possible. And, hardest to bear of all, all arguments to the contrary are useless…Life as I had fantasized it is ended. What is left is the spiritual obligation to accept reality so that the spiritual life can really happen in me.”

–Joan Chittister, Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

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THE HARD WAY

“There is a boon given to those who are faithful to their path. With the collapse of every dream, the breaking of every illusion, I found myself becoming more vulnerable, more open. And out of this transformation came an awakening of what I believe is the most human of all virtues, compassion. Having suffered, been hurt, failed at so many attempts to gain ‘success,’ I find myself able to reach out to others in a way I never thought possible – with compassion…

Finding the truth about oneself, humankind and one’s place in the universe is an awesome discovery. And then to experience this ultimate gift of aging, this open heart, is a blessing of the highest order. So here I am, at the pinnacle of my life, looking back across the distance I’ve traveled, conscious of all the twists and turns and detours. To be able to reach out in love and embrace this world as it is – that is where life has taken me, and what for me it’s all about.”

—Austin Repath, What I learned About Life I Learned the Hard Way…

Thanks to John C. Robinson for introducing me to Austin Repath.

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WHO ARE WE BEYOND WORK?

“How do we explore who we are beyond work? How do we uncover the unconscious material that erupts around losing our roles? And how do we overcome the denial, resistance and distraction that arises with this change?

To answer those questions, I began to pose to myself these tough inner questions (and I suggest you ask yourself them, too, if you are struggling to decide whether to retire):

What is the role that no longer serves me? How is my identity tied to that role? Who am I if I am not that role? What has been sacrificed during my career to maintain that role? What is my fantasy of the future? Am I drawn to serve others? Am I drawn to a spiritual or contemplative practice? What stops me from engaging in service or meditation?”

—Connie Zweig, To Retire or Not to Retire, Next Avenue

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WALKING THROUGH LIFE ODDLY

“Some of what I mean by ‘force of character’ is the persistence of the incorrigible anomalies, those traits you can’t fix, can’t hide, and can’t accept.  Resolutions, therapy, conversion, the heart’s contrition in old age—nothing prevails against them, not even prayer.  We are left realizing that character is indeed a force that cannot succumb to willpower…

(Rather) character forces me to encounter each event in my peculiar style. It forces me to differ.  I walk through life oddly. No one else walks as I do, and this is my courage, my dignity, my integrity, my morality, and my ruin.”

–James Hillman, The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life

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HARROWING

“…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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SECOND JOURNEY: HONORING FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE BOLTON ANTHONY

–Bolton Anthony, Farewell letter.

Thank you, Bolton, for all that you have contributed to the conscious aging movement in general, and as a mentor, colleague and friend, to me, in particular.  Second Journey existed as a legal entity for 18 years. During that time, over 150 people contributed articles to the 13 issues of Itineraries, their online newsletter. I was honored to be included, invited to share about what it means to be Fierce with Age. Faced with an unwanted diagnosis, Bolton graciously continues to show us the way to live life to the full.  You can access his legacy of wise, inspiring and life-changing work at the Second Journey Archives. www.BoltonAnthony.com.

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