editors: Myrtle Heery, PhD & Gregg Richardson, PhD

In the short time I have been on this planet, I have had the honor to learn from many wise and remarkable elders. Whether simple or profound all their advice has given me grist for the mill of my life process.  Many of these teachers have said in one form or another that we are not human beings on a spiritual path, but spiritual beings in a human path.  For me, this observation is liberating, and helps me to understand that the struggles I experience every day are often due to the “humanness” of this particular spiritual life.  It is comforting and useful to recognize all of the trappings that catch me – all of the things that contribute to feeling hopeless and overwhelming with “shoulds” and “what ifs”; and all the ways in which I knowingly and unknowingly make this life more difficult, all these trappings are due to what is often called “the human condition.” In this human condition, these difficulties are not an appraisal of who I truly am, my deeper self – my spirit or soul.  That “part” is perfect and unchanging, and I can always access my deeper self (at any age) for comfort, for support and for the inherent wisdom about who I am.  Some call that part God, Allah, Buddha, Mother, Creator, Christ, Love, Divine, Higher Power, Lord, Jesus, Om, Great Spirit, One Soul, Energy, Light – all these names lead to the same place, that which does not die or leave, but is a deeper part of myself and each of us, that makes us whole and complete.  It is what we all share, and it is what in fact connects all of us regardless of age. 

What my experience with elders has taught me is that as we age, we have an opportunity to continue to explore this part – our souls, our spiritual selves – more deeply with the benefit of life experience and, if we allow, with the curiosity of a child.  I have been inspired to see, by some amazing examples that I can continue to learn about myself (in turn learning about and connecting to each other) in ways that encourage each of us to enter into this last part of our lives and gather the many gifts offered. Finally, these elders have shown me that my own spiritual exploration can continue and that I, like many elders now, have the opportunity to give the gift of the wisdom gained in this process, so we all can realize we are wise and wonderful beyond what this human life may represent.

The Way It Is 

There’s a thread you follow.

It goes among things that change.

But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread.

– William Stafford[i]

Aging can afford us time to explore the deeper values that have guided us in our lives.  Time to re-new, or re-tool or re-fine our values and perhaps pass them along to others who follow.

As we age we have the opportunity to tap into the wisdom we have and continue to acquire, and allow ourselves to open to deeper meanings in our lives, as we leave jobs, move, change and face death.  Each unique chapter of our aging offers us spiritual opportunities and spiritual gifts that can be integrated to deepen our connections to ourselves, to each other and to the Source, God, the Divine or to that which is mysterious, unknowable and unexplainable.

Cora[1] was a 76 year old woman who I met while she was living in a beautiful assisted living environment.  An Episcopalian by birth, she attended church through her marriage and the birth of her children.  Now a widow and facing end-stage lung cancer, Cora wanted to explore the questions and feelings she had for most of her adult life – the nature of God, the palpable yet un-namable connection among all of us, the soul, death and life after.  She wanted to explore what life was presenting to her now.  In each meeting with Cora, we discussed her questions.  Always, she told stories about her life, her experiences, her art, her family, her dreams, and what she had learned. She became more and more curious about the teachings and writings from other faith traditions – Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and others.  “What did these traditions have to say about the nature of God in us?  What about death?  How does one prepare?  What is forgiveness?”  Discovering the variety and similarity of the ideas across faiths, along with the wisdom she had already gained, provided her with some of the answers.  The rest that was unanswered and unknowable in this life Cora accepted as it was, trusting that the deeper place within her would allow her peace to sit with the unanswerable.  Cora asked me to teach her some simple meditations that could bring her into her Heart and help to calm her as her pain increased.  She embraced this whole process of exploration with the excitement of a child and with patience, grace and humility that comes from aging and trusting that the threads of her life were guiding her.  Cora died very peacefully, with her daughters around her, remembering that peace was in her Heart.  One of the many things that Cora taught me was that we are never done learning, and our spirit can truly expand if given enough space.

Facing our most unanswered questions is perhaps the most difficult part of becoming aware of our aging.  For most of us, including myself, each birthday can significantly emphasize the aging process with the emergence of more and more of these questions.  However, I often take that time of year to re-evaluate my own life.  What have I done?  What haven’t I done yet?  How did I get here?  Where do I want to be next year, in five years, in ten years?  How is my life different/similar than I expected?  What does my life mean now?  These questions begin to open that deeper part of myself, that part I always have access to – my soul, my spirit, the thread.  Questions like ones of meaning and purpose come up at any age, and as we age “who am I now?”, and “what is life about now?” can offer important spiritual lessons and are essential to explore, even if there is no immediate answer.  It is necessary to allow all the questions to reveal themselves, and to let ourselves ponder them, write about them, meditate on them, talk about them, and/or pray about them, because the act of engaging the questions, and lessons presented by this engagement will feed our souls and enrich our lives.  The exploration of these big questions; sitting with the unknown, and turning to the inner wisdom that is refined year by year is a spiritual endeavor that is worthy of our time and attention, at each birthday and in between.  I have discovered in myself, and have witnessed in many elders, that engaging in this process of exploring the meaning of our lives, especially as we cope with the fact of our aging, offers our spirit and deepest part of ourselves the opportunity to continue to integrate the changing terrain of life, to work and prepare us for what is ahead.

I met a 76-year-old woman, Pam, who was taking care of her 107-year-old mother, Mary.  Over 12 years Pam had faced and prepared for her mother’s death (at least she thought she had prepared).  Now, on hospice care, Mary was truly declining, her body weakening, but her spirit was getting stronger and preparing for the journey ahead.  Mary had been preparing for this journey for a long time, but because of her dementia, she could not convey her unique, slow inward journey to her daughter.  Talking with Pam, I was able to explain the journey of her mother’s spirit at that stage of her life.  I told her about the way her mom was moving inward to “process” this stage, and likely her whole life.  Through the metaphoric language Mary was using, we knew she was working internally to get things in order, and to prepare.  Her apparent working to be ready for her passing; the slowing of speech; sleeping more often; not eating as much—all were indications of her inner journeying, and that Mary was well on her way.  Interestingly, Pam, a working RN, while curious about her mother’s physical and spiritual process, began to talk about her own spiritual process while caring for her mother all these years.  She talked about the (illusory) control she attempted to maintain over the care of her mother in the process of illness and dying, and of her own aging.  I pointed out to Pam that when her mother died, Pam’s identity would change.  She would no longer be her mother’s caregiver as she had been for many.  She would be an “orphan” with both parents now gone.  She would be the older generation, the elder in her family. What did this mean for her?  How would/could she navigate this new terrain?  What support did she have—family, friends, community, prayer, herself—that could help her sit with these questions while she grew into the answers and accepted the unknown qualities and depth of the process of exploration?  These were the deep spiritual stirrings of aging that Pam was reluctantly ready to embrace, and continues to embrace, with grace, curiosity, fear, sadness, ambivalence and a myriad of other feelings, even after her mother’s death.

Movement of outer focused and inner focused – Spiritual Practice

One thing I have found working with most elders and especially those who are getting closer to the end of their lives, is that the spiritual process in aging is one that can have a cyclical, rhythmic flow, from inner focus and processing—quiet contemplation, prayer, meditation—to outer focus and processing—talking, crying, yelling, physically moving, getting out of bed—and then back to an inner process.

In this rhythmic flow, many reach for a form or structure to help steady the journey, especially the inner journey.  Any spiritual practice can help to do that.  Spiritual Practice allows our own rhythm of engagement to our inner and outer processes to take place with a greater sense of awareness, peace, presence, stability and fluidity.  A spiritual practice allows us to be more present in our lives, so that each event, each moment can be lived with a greater sense of ourselves as active participants instead of observers or passive objects.  A spiritual practice need not be a formal, time-consuming, complicated, or an expensive endeavor.  The most basic spiritual practice is attention.

As social beings in this world, we must relate to the world, to people, to things that are outside of us, each day.  We eat, breathe, poop, walk, sleep, hug, make love, cry, play, dance, listen, look, feel with our bodies and with our hearts, read, watch television, drive, laugh, smile, move, and just exist with the external world.  Any of these activities, done with attention and intention to the observation of ourselves in the process (emotionally and spiritually) can become a spiritual practice.  For example, we can pay attention to our body when we walk, slowing our pace, paying attention to what our feet feel like with each step – the toes, heel, instep.  This simple exercise is a spiritual practice that allows us to focus on what our body feels like, bringing us into the present moment, and into what is happening right now, however subtle.  When we allow ourselves to pay attention to this simple external activity of walking we also come to notice what happens internally—our thoughts and feelings during and after.

One of the most recognized spiritual practices is meditation.  “What is meditation?” a curious student once asked.  There are many “forms” of meditation that one can choose to “do.”  Simply, meditation is being present in the moment as it is happening.  Reaching for a state where the internal chatter about ourselves, the other, or the world is noticed and quieted, in order to allow a more full experience of whatever is going on in any moment.  Anything that can help you to pay more attention in each moment can be meditation.  Even the above-described attention to walking is used as a meditation in several traditions, as is the simple act of breathing.  Paying attention to what it feels like to breathe – what happens to chest, belly, arms.  Are my shoulders tense?  Release them.  Are my legs uncomfortable?  Get comfortable.  What happens when I take a deep breath, in through my nose and let it out from my mouth?  What happens if I do all of this with my eyes closed?  Or open?

If you already have a spiritual practice that feeds you, great.  If not, you can simply begin with a breath or walking meditation.  There are lots of resources—books, tapes, online instructions—that can assist you in learning meditation from a variety of perspectives.  I caution you to not get caught “in your head” with the resources.  Let yourself, let your body, let your soul experience the meditation exercises first.  Try to let go of whether or not you are doing it right.  Just be with yourself in the moment(s) of practice.  That is where you will find the gifts, the thread, again.

We Get by With a Little Help

If the Creator had meant for us

to figure out this life on our own

each of us would have been given our own planet.

- Richard Squeri, Jr.[ii]

After about two years of age, accepting help is something we all struggle with, resist, and often outright refuse (myself included).  As we age, the progressive loss of our ability to do things ourselves—drive, shop, cook, pay bills, clean house, take medication—can be a slow decline into a place of relative helplessness where we may suddenly find ourselves isolated, sad, lonely, yet not willing to reach out for help because of embarrassment, pride, or finally, the inability to know how to reach, or where, or even what for.  The rugged individualism that is a fundamental value in this country is highly overrated, most especially as we move into our later years.  Asking for help should not be seen as a sign of weakness in men or women, yet we often judge those asking for help.  More sadly, we judge ourselves when we ask for help.  All this clouds our mourning for the slow loss of independence and the changing meaning of our lives.  If we are no longer capable of the independence we have had for the majority of our lives, then who are we now?  This is a huge spiritual question which we have to let ourselves be with for a long time, hoping and praying that if or when an answer reveals itself, we will find peace.  Sometimes, there is no answer and we have to find peace in the not-knowing.  Sometimes the spiritual lesson in this particular place comes from an answer we can give instead of an answer we may be waiting to receive.

Abe was in the military for 30 years, retired at the age of 47.  He invented and built tools, built several homes, built three boats, created art, tended an organic garden, cooked for family and friends, took care of his ailing wife until she died, and gave over a third of his post-retirement time to volunteering and helping those who could not help themselves.  Now at the age of 85 he was dying of cancer and struggling with his inability to do the things he loved.  He lived alone but it was clear he would not be able to do that for much longer.  His sons and grandsons wanted so much to help him in whatever way they could.  Abe was reluctant because he didn’t want to be a burden.  He didn’t want his children to suffer what he imagined would be a heartache for them.  He did not want to give up.  Abe understood the progression of his illness and readily accepted his death and the help and comfort provided by hospice, but he did not want to give up his independence by having family care for him in the ways he had always taken care of himself and others.  He didn’t want to give up who he was.

While talking with Abe one day I asked him what he had felt when he was able to give so much of his time to others, when he built so many things, when he took care of his wife  Abe beamed.  He told stories of the people he helped.  He pulled out albums of pictures of the houses he built and the parties he gave, and the gardens he tended.  He talked about what he had been able to give to his sons over the years, not just materially, but his counsel in a number of areas of their lives.  He became tearful when talking about his wife and how he refused to place her in a nursing home because he wanted to take care of her.  All these things gave him joy and a sense of purpose and of really making a difference.  “Now,” he said, “what good am I?”

I told to him that indeed he was losing his ability to do all those things, but that inability did not make him “bad” or worthless.  In fact, I offered, he still had something very valuable to give, something very special and meaningful to his sons and grandsons.  By allowing them to care for him, he would be giving them a beautiful gift.  He would be giving them the opportunity to experience all the love, joy and fulfillment of caring for their father and grandfather at a time when he needed them the most.  He would be giving them the opportunity to experience what he had experienced when he was giving so much of himself.  And that gift, I suggested, would be the most loving and special gift he could give his family now, and one they would carry with them long after he is gone.  Abe was able to move past his pride and reluctance and did eventually let his sons and grandsons care for him.  Later, they told me they were very grateful for having the chance to care for Abe.

That is what we all can do for each other.  We already know that in the times of great need our desire to give can almost feel like an ache, because we want so badly to make a difference.  When we do – when we are chosen for the volunteer assignment, when we help the stranded motorist with a tire change, when we serve food at the soup kitchen, when we pick that name from the community Christmas tree and buy a gift for someone we don’t know – we feel fulfillment, we feel we have been able to do something good in the world.  I charge each of us to realize that our conscious choice to allow others to help us and give to us is an important gift we can give to them.  It is truly the gift of life and the gift of connection.  The spiritual gifts we gain from receiving are deep and will continue to be uncovered the more we practice and the more we age.

…for years I’ve been watching, waiting for old woman

feeling lost and so alone, I’ve been watching --

now I find her weaving, gathering the colours

now I find her in myself…

-- Anne Cameron[iii]

As I move toward my Elderhood I feel blessed by such wondrous life-enhancing examples of many elders, giving me a glimpse of what and how my later years can be.  However, I believe that our culture needs to evolve from the perspective that aging is a time to be delayed, avoided, feared and defined by references of youth.  Linking the aging process to the rightness or wrongness of how it is done sets all of us up for disappointment and feelings of failure.  If I only look outside myself for the measuring stick of what my later years should be, then I miss a huge opportunity to harvest the distinctive inner wisdom I have cultivated throughout my years.  Then I miss the opportunity to become an example to others of the richness of Elderhood.  If I also reach within myself for the unique lessons and gifts I have acquired over my life, and take the time to explore those internal places that hold my most precious, perhaps most powerful experiences, then I can find that wise elder in myself.

 

Defining Elderhood each day, searching for, finding, contemplating and hanging onto the thread of my deeper self; acknowledging the big questions of my life and holding them with respect for what they will teach me (with or without answers); paying attention to the delicate and subtle movements within me as I move about my external world; allowing myself be taken care of and loved; trusting the wisdom I know I have gained to guide me through this unfamiliar territory; and by being curious and open to new experiences (external and internal), I can find a measure of peace within the stirrings of my spirit along this human path of aging I share with others.  And perhaps, the peace I find within myself and can give to others with be the Peace that will truly change the world.

 

References

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[1]  Names of patients and family members have been changed to insure privacy

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[i] Stafford, William. The Way It Is. 1998. Graywolf Press, St. Paul, MN. p. 42.

 

[ii] Squeri, Richard. 2006. http://www.flowingdragonswords.com

 

[iii] Cameron, Anne. Daughter Copper Woman 1981. Harbour Publishing, Ltd. Madeira Park, BC. p. 198.