Evocateur

Later Life years are not a time to keep our life-long learning process going. It is a time to accelerate it. We speed up our learning as we age, not because we make it happen so much, but by allowing a new kind of learning to happen. We do this on two levels or planes: the outer and the inner lives we enjoy; the material and the psycho-spiritual. Society with its age-ism—wrinkles are bad, pretend you aren’t aging; keep producing, career[…]

But at my back, I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near   Andrew Marvell My colleague and master coach and teacher Doug Silsbee is dying. He has a blog on these last months of life that he is creating with wife Walker. Doug had many many like me, proud to call him colleague, teacher, friend. He has these beautiful words to offer in his March 25th post. He wanted his son Miles to sense how an[…]

There are always two opposite truths to embody, two polar ideas to integrate. Life would be so-o-o much simpler if only one side of the spectrum were true. We have to be just and merciful, powerful and gentle. As we ripen and mature, we have to hold on and let go at the same time. First the Hold On part, something a lot of us are good at One joy for those aging at this[…]

Maybe we get wiser. Maybe it is having less time. Whatever it is, lots of us in later years report some deeper, clearer understandings of what matters. One great little book, one that pulls no punches on both the hard and good side of the journey, also beautifully captures what to look forward to in aging. The book is The Measure of My Years by Florida Maxwell Scott, which was written when she was in[…]

We must not forget that very few people are artistic in life: that the art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts. Whoever succeeded at draining the whole cup with grace?  ~CG Jung I have woman friend, 87, who resisted going into a tiered living arrangement. But she relented. The she made big discoveries. “This is an exciting part of my life. I am writing again, and I have such[…]

December holidays bring that incomparably palpable atmosphere of gratitude and sense of grace in the world. This month, in this blog, you will read about the upside and the joys of aging. Yes, there are many upsides. I say this to those who doubt it outright or are only partially convinced this is true. I am talking about real and lasting gifts mainly in our inner life, our learning and attitudes, our hearts and souls. As[…]