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Be Ready

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Does anyone make New Year’s resolutions these days? Or is it just the olders who have gotten wiser, let those magnificent opportunities for failure go? (Maybe we are the only generation who ever did.) Some are really good—drink more water, stop scrolling social media, get more exercise—but who needs the pressure of “resolve”? Some of us have changed to softer “intentions,” providing an awareness of needs or wants, resolutions with no-guilt permission to blow it off. Others have a word for the year. I’ve had a few of those.

To be sure, if you do any of those (resolutions, intentions, word for the year), and it works to keep you motivated, yay you!

For the past several years, though, I have engaged in a more meditative practice: Tarot. My good friend Joanna Powell Colbert, created a deck that feeds my soul. Each year on the winter solstice, I draw five cards and see what they have to say to me about the year past. Or, more accurately, what I have to say for myself inspired by the cards. A question is offered for each card, but sometimes I just listen for them to speak to me. On New Year’s Day, I do a seven-card spread with questions to ponder about the new year. 



As is pretty much always the case, this season’s practices blew me away with the resonance with my life and the insight they inspired.

The solstice practice led me from acknowledging my contentment with relative solitude, to inviting me to ask what I need now and what is keeping me from it, and on to what might I have to let go of to reach a new thing? Because, of course, we can’t live all the lives. 



The new year spread led to this: Be ready. 

Call it a resolution. Call it an intention. Call it a word for the year. Call it inspiration. (Call it a kick in the butt.)



I’m not an astrology practitioner, but I do know Geminis are curious, and they love variety. They also struggle with indecisiveness. So me! I’m also a nine on the Enneagram: the Peacemaker. Sounds good, right? It’s a whole lot like Gemini: receptive, and also complacent. Everything sounds like a good plan. “You decide.” But when you are a solo, there is no “you.”



Like many of us in the third act of life, I’ve been thinking for a good time about where I want to be as I advance toward the inevitable years of changing health and function. Aging at home”—if that means the house I currently live in—is not an option. I’m not sorry. I’ve moved my home eleven times since I migrated across the country in 1976, returning in 2012. I’m good with change. But what? where? when? I’m ready to move to the next adventure. I want to stay near my hiking trails, and sunrises from my home. I’m restless. I’m stuck. Gemini /Peacemaker. 



The cards have offered me the task for this year: Be ready. 



I don’t have make a decision on what, where, or when. (Back off, Gemini/Peacemaker.) Be ready gives me the opportunity to make a list and check off items. (I like that.) Return to cleaning out the house of my parents’ belongings and my own. Complete end-of-life business. Get the house appraised and inspected, property lines confirmed. Get someone to look at the septic tank status, instead of just worrying about it. Pick up again pondering where I want to go and allow myself to dream without the “I can’ts” I tend to put on fantasies. I’ve got this.

Also, buy an orange toaster because color makes me happy. Goodness knows, we could all use some happy right now.


 

“We don’t have to have it all figured out or know exactly where we’re going. We just need to trust in the journey and stay open to the surprises along the way.” —Barbara Brown Taylor


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I  would love to hear from you! Do you set goals for the new year? What are your longings? What holds you back? What urges you forward? Leave a comment below.

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The Gaian Tarot Three of Earth card, the one I think of as the community card, and which inspired the name I gave my family home (and Airbnb) several years ago—Three of Earth Farm—was drawn on the Solstice as my “companion card for the year ahead.” And in the new year spread as “hidden concern.” Gemini. Peacemaker. The internal battle continues, but I recognize the need for connections in these times. I wonder, what longings call to you?

Meet the creator, Joanna Powell Colbert, at JoannaPowellColbert.com. 

 

 

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Wallowing at the Threshold

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My mother suffered from macular degeneration and glaucoma for decades before she finally lost most of her vision in her late nineties. And the family suffered her suffering. She was far more than her health issues, but she didn’t talk to me about her courage, her conquests, her activism. Just her health, chiefly her eyes. I don’t think much about my own vision, what can I do? My only risk factors are genetics and age. I am diligent about an annual eye exam, though. Last month, my optometrist—who was also my mother’s doctor for decades—told me my eye pressure is perfect and the macula shows only very slow degeneration over the past five years. I think it’s safe to say I did not inherit her vision issues. That leaves age; but since I can’t stop the march of time, I can forget about it for another year. (Well, I could eat more dark, leafy greens.)

I’m wondering now, why she was so focused on it for so long. Fear of being blind in the future? Self-pity? An exultation of pride that she was carrying on without vision? She told me once she thought if she didn’t tell people she couldn’t see, they would think her vision was better than it was. I didn’t really understand why that was a bad thing, but probably you have to walk in a person’s shoes to know what makes them tick. Now that she’s gone, I’m better at not judging her. But it makes me think about what kind of elder I want to be. If I am lucky enough to continue to be able to choose.

That story came to mind recently when I read Grant Faulkner’s Substack post about self-pity. (Grant is the executive director of National Novel Writing Month—NaNoWriMo.) He writes:

“Our culture disparages self-pity . . . [and] rewards the stoic response . . . But here’s the rub: wallowing in self-pity is a key part of self-restoration. It’s a vital part of my creative process. I’ll hazard to say that it’s even nourishing. In wallowing, I’m gathering my forces, unconsciously planning a Plan B, reaching for acceptance of a ‘new world order . . .’ I go to the edge of the cliff of despair and peer over it, but I don’t jump. Crying releases oxytocin and a bunch of other feel-good chemicals, and my guess is self-pity does the same (hence the wallowing).”

Maya Angelou seemed to agree, but provided a caveat: “Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.” My mother missed that bit.

I’ve been thinking about thresholds for the past couple newsletters (here and here, if you missed them), and probably will continue to. Perhaps it’s the work of the third act of life, this edging into elderhood.

I went for a hike recently that really kicked my butt. I’ve hiked the trail to Spray Park in Mt. Rainier National Park twice before and didn’t remember it being so hard. Maybe it wasn’t. I was moving so slow on the return, I don’t think movement would have registered on an infrared motion sensor. It’s the first time I’ve linked the exhaustion with aging. These past twelve years as a hiker, I have gotten stronger and stronger. Now, I think, I’m coming down the other side of the mountain. It was a burning bush moment. A little shocking, if you must know. (You can read more about that hike and the startling revelation on my blog.)

You may be at a different threshold; the questions are the same. John O’Donohue said: “At anytime you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it?” (To Bless the Space Between: A Book of Blessings)

I love hiking remote trails, beginning with long drives up forest roads, where most people don’t go. I love hiking solo. I love exploring new trails. I’m not afraid of longish trails with elevation gain—within parameters I’ve set for myself. I think the time to change the parameters is coming soon, and in the future to hike familiar trails not so remote. And maybe not alone. I’ve given up hoping someday a son or daughter or grandson will hike with me, but would it be so terrible to join a hiking group . . . someday? I met such a group on Mt. Rainier while I was doing my volunteer gig this month. Eight women around my age who were delightful. I could do a new thing, right?

I may not be ready to cross the threshold quite yet, but it doesn’t hurt to think about it as I come up the trail toward it. In fact, it would be a gift to prepare myself.

O’Donohue also said,
“You stand on the shore of a new invitation
To open your life to what is left undone;
Let your heart enjoy a different rhythm
When drawn to the wonder of other horizons.
(For Retirement, To Bless the Space Between)

A new invitation to other horizons. Find a new rhythm to enjoy. I can do that. After I finish wallowing in self-pity.

Here’s to thresholds, new paths, new horizons, and maybe a moment or two of self-pity. As always, I would love to hear from you. What are your musings about what’s coming, and what you will leave behind? I hope you will comment here and read (maybe respond to) what others are thinking about.

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The Third Act Organ Recital

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Most Mondays, after my yoga class, I drop in for tea and conversation with my older sister and her husband. We haven’t lived close enough for regular visits since she graduated from high school in 1965. A year ago this month, they moved from Virginia to Washington and live twenty minutes from me. I envy those who have been close to their siblings their entire lives—perhaps in spite of physical distance—but there is no point in dwelling in that particular house, I can only live in this one. Time, now, is growing short. Onward.

I’m tempted to say we have little in common, which would not be untrue (though I wonder, if we all recognized we have humanity in common with every other person and went from there, could this be a better world?). Here’s what we undeniably do share, other than DNA: A childhood (the first act of life) and the fact of elderhood (the third act). It’s interesting that in this last act, recalling the first act and exploring our differing recall and experience is ongoing fascination. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle to piece it all together into something resembling a whole. (Someday, I suppose, it will be all we can remember.)

Last week, over tea, we had our bit of the requisite “organ recital.” I was telling her about the excruciating back pain I’d had the week before, what with hiking—and the seven hours in the car, which the three hour hike bisected—and rebuilding my meadow garden, with heavy lifting (e.g. bags of sand, bark, and soil), along with digging out hardened mole hills and laying down cardboard and landscape cloth between the raised beds. I worked through the pain, determined to finish the job before the rain returned for the next many days. In other words, I did not listen to my body and what it should not do that particular day. For twenty-four hours, I could barely walk, get up from the chair, or turn over in bed.

The interesting thing was my thoughts—as I am drawing my foot back to kick down the gate into my seventy-third year next month—went like this: “Well, this it it. I’m going to have chronic back pain from here out. Hard work is done, hiking is done, this is my forever now.” The next day, when it was much better after rest and an ibuprofen/acetaminophen regimen, I wondered had I known I would get quickly back to normal, might I have been more tolerant of the pain and inconvenience the previous day? Along the same lines, the tendinitis in my hand, which began more than a year ago, took much longer to get better. I was making my peace with it being something I would have to live with. I won’t say it’s 100% pain free, but I’m back to using two trekking poles and everything else I need hands for.

As we talked, I recalled having sciatica in 1980. It never occurred to me at 28 that it was my forever. It was just a “shit happens” thing. Now, everything feels like a potential crisis. That is what I least like about this time of life.

What I am most loving about the third act—so unlike the second act when we are often just trying to get through the days and sometimes looking forward to the far off future—is learning to enjoy this moment, this day, this sunrise, this rainstorm, this hike, this flower, this conversation. As I write this, I’m watching a dark-eyed junco on the deck rail. Is it questioning the empty feeder, or just enjoying a moment in a spot of sun on a dark day?

What I am wondering: what if I approach the set backs with the same kind of observation and interest? Oh, my back hurts today. How can I change my plan for the day to accommodate what is happening in this moment? Maybe I need not clean out the flower bed or power wash the patio, and instead just sit in the sun or take a nap—or both.

I am sensitive to the fact that many do have chronic pain and illness. My father did, both polymyositis and heart disease, along with the complicating effects of the treatments. It was brutal. If you are living with a chronic condition, I hope you have found what brings you joy in whatever your body is able to do.

How are you caring for your beautiful self on the good days and on the challenging ones? Let me know in the comment section. I would love to hear from you. [A note about commenting on a post: Click the subscribe drop down arrow at the top of the comment section and provide your information (it is private) to receive an email when someone replies to your comment. I, at least, will always reply!]

The Shadow & Light of Life’s Third Act

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March 19, 2024, Spring Equinox

Ready or not, it’s the first day of official spring. Maybe, though, like me, you like the quiet coziness of winter and are not quite ready to release it to extroverted spring. While others loudly moan about the fickle weather, I quietly embrace a March snow shower. And, I want to get on the trails. It’s a shadow and light thing I grapple with every year.

Each Sunday, I draw a card from my friend Joanna Powell Colbert’s beautiful and intuitive Gaian Tarot. I knew nothing of the Tarot before I met Joanna more than a decade ago at a writing retreat and learned how it can be a useful tool for self-reflection. Which shook my uninformed understanding of tarot as fortunetelling delivered by a woman wearing flowing clothes, a headscarf, and bangles.

A couple weeks ago, I drew the “Builder,” a young man being creative and industrious, from my shuffled deck. “Hmph,” I sniffed, “doesn’t really speak to me.” Sometimes I draw another card if the first one doesn’t resonate, but this time I left it there on the table next to my father’s recliner for the week. Maybe something would come to me.

Later that week, I hosted a first gathering of “women of a certain age.” (Okay, so I was building something.) Eight of us met in a coffee shop to talk about this time of life we, rather surprisingly, find ourselves in: The Third Act. What are we thinking about? What do we hope this season holds for us? What are the joys, the freedoms? What are the fears, the restrictions? We talked about finding purpose, what that looks like, whether simple or complex. We expressed embracing silence, sitting and napping. Are those two ways of being in conflict with one another?

I’ve been reading The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, by Connie Zweig, PhD. The day after the coffee klatch, I read about “positive aging,” or “successful aging.” The urging by the experts to be productive, to make a contribution. Be the light. In that way, we will age well, the gurus tell us.

But, Zweig writes, there is the shadow side to that. Ideals quickly become “shoulds.” We set ourselves up for failure as we value doing over being. If—or when—we lose the capacity to “do,” we feel shame. Maybe, for any number of reasons beyond our control, we can’t be “productive.” Or maybe we simply choose to slow down. Have we failed to age well? Bought into yet another societal expectation? Beware!, everything screams at us, if you aren’t productive, you are officially “old” and can commence being overlooked by the youngers. My mother (at 100) often said of her day, “I didn’t accomplish anything,” “I was lazy,” “I was worthless.” I was without worth. Really? Should we ever say that about our beautiful selves?

Mary Oliver writes:

“. . . Let me keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing
still and learning to be
astonished.”

I’m with Mary. 

Back to the tarot. The following Sunday, I drew the Elder of Air. Suddenly the Builder made sense. (It’s really quite eerie how often this happens when I consult these cards.) This is a time of shadow and light, between both the seasons of the year and life stages. Sometimes we are gifted with ambition and creativity (the kestrel on the Builder card); and sometimes we are content to create purpose in quiet ways, creating sacred space and accessing wisdom (the luna moth on the Elder of Air card), which is also a gift.

Here’s a question to ponder, perhaps journal. Is there a difference between being productive and finding purpose?

As my yoga teacher says, some days we can access parts of our bodies that other days we cannot. It’s true of all ages, I think, physically, mentally, and emotionally; but in the last third we more often have the luxury of going with the flow day by day.

A true elder, Zweig says, holds the tension of shadow and light. She is both nourished and nourishing. She also says it’s important to practice stillness, even as we are being “productive.” Mary expresses it as standing still and learning to be astonished. In other words, we can’t wait until stillness is, of necessity, the bigger part of our life; embrace it now so it becomes a familiar friend.

When the opportunity calls to build something, I will rise to the occasion–if it brings me joy (the gift of the third act). Other times, I’ll be sitting in my father’s recliner watching the day break in the morning, napping in the afternoon, and watching the birds at the feeders. I’ll be worshiping creation on the trail, examining flowers, and embracing my own slowing pace. 

How are you practicing stillness, whether or not you have an unlimited luxury of time and space? Leave a comment!