Fierce with Age Launch Edition 2012

Digest #1: Fierce with Age Launches Today–

We are dedicated to bringing you the best content on spirituality and aging for Boomers from around the web.  Subscribers will receive the free Digest in their in-box every two weeks with periodic messages from founder/editor-in-chief Carol Orsborn, Ph.D.  There will also be daily updates for you to visit on this site, on Facebook and on Twitter. If you would like to be one of our growing band of contributors, visit the Contributors tab for details.

Our mission: To support Boomers navigating the wild space beyond midlife with expanded perspective, communal wisdom, inspiration and spiritual growth. Beyond romanticizing, denying or reviling growing older, may we all grow fierce with age together.  

Be Still Does Not Mean Be Stalled

Contributor Kathy Sporre found herself adrift in her sailboat.  Rather than panic, she quieted down and the solution came to her.  Taking advantage of a slight, ephemeral breeze she would otherwise have missed, she was carried safely back to port.

Kathy writes:  “Being calm, aware and present in the moment was absolutely necessary to receive this blessing. And the ability to master this calm presence is one of the gifts I have received through the refinement that only age can bring. In other words, I no longer thrash about like I did as a child when learning to swim now that I know I can float. How many magical moments have you missed while in the midst of an outburst over a change in circumstances or a misfortune of some kind? Did a breeze pass you by without notice and leave you stranded?”

“Smooth Sailing” from the website “Refined By Age.”

 Forgiving Oneself is Daunting

“Forgiving yourself for who you are instead of what you’ve done requires vast reserves of honesty and fortitude. This year I forgave myself for not being as talented as Jonathan Franzen, as thin as Jennifer Aniston, or as driven as Hillary Clinton. I forgave myself for not making it to Broadway, and even more for not having the nerve to try or the perseverance to keep on trying. I forgave myself for not writing a bestseller and for not being someone who rushes to the scene of a natural disaster to help with muscle instead of money… Forgiving oneself is a daunting proposition, but it is a cleansing exercise. All of us with a half a lifetime behind us should grant ourselves a day of reckoning before moving on to greet a new dawn, rife with possibilities for enlightenment and also for screwing up anew.”

–By Blogger Karin Kasdin, “Forgiving Yourself is Oh So Hard to Do” in Huffpo 50.

Bringing Spirituality into Healthcare Environments

Contributor Debi Cost, of Coro Health, points us to an inspiring conversation about the growing awareness of the importance of incorporating spirituality into institutional healthcare settings. What makes this comment chain so remarkable, is that it is peopled by the powerful folks at the Healthcare Executives Network on LinkedIn who are actually in positions to do something about it.  Here’s a comment by George Handzo, Senior Consultant for Chaplaincy Care Leadership and Practice at HealthCare Chaplaincy and President of Handzo Consultin, responding to a quote from Paul A. Clark’s “Treating the Patient’s Emotions.”

“As a chaplain, I think it’s important to point out that Paul Clark correctly includes spiritual needs along with emotional needs as central to patient satisfaction and the patient experience. Studies now have demonstrated that patients with unmet spiritual needs not only are less satisfied, they tend to use more aggressive care at the end of life, thus costing the system money. And the new models suggest that spiritual care, like emotional care, is everyone’s job with the professional chaplain as the team lead in this domain.

Walking the Camino de Santiago

Many spiritually-minded folks dream of marking the transition beyond midlife with a pilgrimage on the 500-mile Camino de Santiago.  Beginning in the Middle Ages, seekers have traveled this ancient pathway across Northern Spain by foot, looking for guidance and meaning.

What I like about Rick Steve’s mini-travelogue on walking the Camino, featured on PBS’s Next Avenue, is that it is stripped down to the bare essentials.  As Shirley Maclaine’s book “The Camino” and Martin Sheen’s performance in the film “The Way” aptly illustrate, it appears that what you get from the journey has a lot to do with what you bring to it.  If you still feel drawn to walking the Camino after viewing this, by all means go.  But remember, you don’t need to go halfway around the world to have a mystical experience watching the sunrise.  The sun will rise on your own front porch tomorrow, too.

Spiritual Growth after 60: Remain Active or Go Inward?

Question many of us share posed recently to Ram Dass by Legacy of Wisdom:

 There is a pressure to remain active and engaged and creative in life. At the same time there is the concept of Retreat, of going inward. Is there a way to bring these two concepts together?

Ram Dass-“I think what you have to do is learn to live on two levels of consciousness at once. The passionate one on this level and the witness or the spiritual one. And in that way, the spiritual one is giving the Retreat and the other one gives you the full Umph, the full Passion.”

The Legacy of Wisdom Project, sharing the wisdom of Ram Dass, Reb Zalman Schachter, Mary Catherine Bateson, Lama Surya Das and many more as a central theme of life and aging.