May Sarton

Going back through my journals,  I’m currently in 1989.  I was enamored with the books of May Sarton, with her wisdom, probe, examination, and investigation.  From A Shower of Summer Days by May Sarton.

“Any real exchange between the young and the old is nourishing.  And no love is wasted.” “Getting old is only disgusting if you fight it with the wrong weapons.”  “One doesn’t know, one senses.” 

From As We Are Now:

“Old age is not interesting until one gets there, a foreign country with an unknown language to the young, and even to the middle-aged.”

“Only our pain brings us back into compassion.”

“Sometimes silence is the greatest sign of understanding and of respect.”

“Don’t let them steal your mind,” with tranquilizers.

“I am gathering together all that matters most, tasting it for the last time.”

And isn’t that what we should always be doing and being, tasting for the last time, perhaps over and over again?

“Absolute nakedness is required, so that we are all one and there is no wall between the living and the dead.”

Blooming all the way to change!

Meeting What Comes

We spent the weekend with our almost seven year old grandson.  That meant being coached in soccer and baseball.  He found it astonishing to learn that I never played soccer in school.  The sport is new to this country, well, new if you’re my age, which brings me to age.  I feel young, though this morning when I rose from bed, I realized that swinging a bat, reaching for that satisfying connective thunk, involves more muscles and flexibility than I recognized.  Morning invites a stretching back out.

It’s odd to realize the years ahead of me are not what I’ve left behind which makes them even more precious and valued.  It’s a new and deeper experience of the passage of time. It’s as though each cell in the marrow of my bones is jumping up and down,  and cheering, “You’re here! Congratulations! Celebrate!“

I’m with the words of Alice Walker: The more I wonder, the more I love.  

I’m wondering and loving, as the words of this Tibetan prayer reverberate through me.  

May I be at peace.  May my heart remain open. May I awaken to the light of my own true nature. May I be healed. May I be a source of healing for all beings. 

May I be Kind.  

Looking through the rising and branching of trees
What frames my view now?
Learning to take a stance to hit a ball out of the field and over the fence!
Learning to run with exuberance and joy to kick the ball to meet the goal!

Impermanence

Each time I look up, the sky is different.  This is always true, and yet, here where the fog plays games it seems even more so.  Sun, wisps of fog, full enclosure of fog, sun.  Change.

My book group discussed how we meet what comes, this aging, now called Saging process, that is so illusive, like life, but it becomes more clear as wisdom moves like waves of fog in, out, and all around.

Invitation
Tender Touch
Whispers of Change

Ripening

Aging, I find myself seeking open vistas. I’m nourished by spaciousness.  Bridges connect and release like flowers opening to petals transforming fall. 

Path, Heron, Ocean, Sand, Bridge, Dunes – Abbott’s Lagoon
Beauty and Instruction in Connection and Impermanence