#elderhood

[imaginal-ai]

"Esteemed Elder" (0002)

(More of The Elderhood Series)

0001

[juliansummerhayes]

Daily diary: Friday, 10 May 2024*

I’m sat here in my lovely kitchen; I say lovely because the light is wonderful or rather the emergence of the light through the windows is body-warming and mind-altering. 

I’m typing these words at 05:54 which would normally be a non-working day for me but I’ve now officially left my job, having wound down the clock on a protracted period of notice – three months. 

I feel or rather I am calm, relaxed and looking forward to welcoming in the day. 

Aren’t we lucky?

No, not that sort of roll-the-dice sort of “luck” but the type where we’re on the receiving end of everything that makes us human(e) even if there are times in our life when the Lords of Chance make or appear to make things gut-wrenchingly hard. 

I have no plans for the day but I do want to finish my latest book, “William Blake vs The World” by John Higgs. So far, I’ve not learnt a huge amount about Blake but there’s been a nice juxtaposition between this world and the one Blake inhabited. After that, well, I want to read a book of William Blake poetry before I dig down into the books that I’ve just shared via a short video.

As regards my future work prospects, all I’ll say is that I do have an iron in the fire which may come off very shortly but it’s not something I approach with any relish or not in the same way as I would have done as an up and coming lawyer in my 30s. 

For the record, I don’t think I was remotely “up and coming” but instead felt that I was swimming against the tide of pettifogging rules, political shenanigans and an approach to the work that bordered on lunacy by dint of the emphasis on billing our clients to death and not being, as I believe is the job of lawyers, in service to the client – however trite that may sound.

One other thing I’m bound to remark upon is the fact that I continue to see glimpses or strong images of those people no longer here. And they not only emerge in my dreams but have a habit of muscling into my daily walks. It’s not upsetting or odd but I feel that “they”, i.e. the dearly departed, are keeping watch over me and if there’s one question that I’m trying to dig into apropos of their presence – don’t ask me why – it’s this one:

“What would an elder do at a time like this?” 

(Thank you Stephen Jenkinson as always for making me bear down on elderhood – see his book "Come of Age: A Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble".)

Take care all you weather-beaten and worthy pilgrims.

Blessings, Julian 

*I like the idea of sharing my morning musings but we’ll see how it goes.

Photo by Michaël Bakker on Unsplash

[venuskind]

☆ Becoming a Crone ☆

Much of what has been written on middle age and becoming a crone only partially resonates with me, if it does at all. I feel the relative truth of what I hear and read, my truth though related is different. From my vantage point my experience and truth feels more expansive, as it does not limit me to a form, gender narratives, nor ancestral myths. 

The states I am being initiated into are not as earthbound, or linked to ancestral traditions still known to us. They are ancient in that they have been present on this planet in times before - before the forgetting and atrocities of separation consciousness. The states I am being led to carry in them the frequencies of earth, our galactic origins, as well as the dark formless that preceded all form.

The much glorified and centered rewilding has been a part of my journey, a part that was given to my thirties and which played a part in my liberation. Looking from where I am now it becomes obvious that it was but a preparatory stage, not an end or climax of this path. My Soul calling me to walk further, to remember ancient knowing of *all* my lineages planetary, non-planetary, and all the way back to the source of all form - the numinosity of the void.

One piece of this becoming is the lesson of stripping off all human identities, identifications with personality, body, and mind, to immerse into and know the formless essence of being. In stripping off the aforementioned I find myself no longer beholden to them, seeing them as mere constructs, artificial to the boundless nature of being. Realizing how being human has been limited to repeating patterns and limited possibilities of expressing and being due to the great forgetting and the rule of stark unconsciousness. Our being knows that there is another way of being human and exploring this dimension, and this knowing is calling ever so loudly for embodiment. To do so we have to take off the heaviness of unconscious patterning, and distorted perceptions, only then will we be truly receptive to and have enough spaciousness to call in expanded possibilities to flow through our being and rework our collective field.

Another aspect of this becoming is to wholly embrace oneness. It sounds simple but experience shows how much our mind body system resists it. It will accept it here and there but in the next moment it will hold on to separation consciousness in order to differentiate itself from 'others', which it holds in some form of judgement or dislike. So deeply ingrained are these conditioned distortions that we find ourselves once again split within, some part vibrating with the frequency of oneness and others clinging to separation consciousness. 

And I am learning that a nervous system which has been dysregulated by complex trauma is slow in releasing the fears and automated responses it has created for survival and open to the deeper meanings and ramifications of oneness. This is where deep compassion and skillfulness are needed to help integrate and heal with the guidance and grace of Self energy. It is a very slow process and yet it is a crucial part of this journey, it is the most important key to unlocking our full potential, expanded knowing, and full alignment with consciousness/life.

While working on the previous a third aspect is being learned and gently entrained in our body: 

To drink of the poison cup without sickening or dying. 

What I mean by it is the capacity to be present with the most harrowing aspects of human doing, with the oppressions, injustices, and violence our plant, animal, and human kin are suffering without resorting to denial, repression, numbing, or acting out. To be a vessel large enough to feel and hold it with compassion and perceive with eyes of consciousness, witnessing it fully and honoring the experiences observed, and act where it is in our power with love and care to alleviate and balance what we can. To feel and know the suffering of all - victim, perpetrator, bystanders, and saviors alike - knowing the underlying distortions and conditioning that keep recreating these experiences across millennia. 

Being, seeing, feeling, reflecting at the same time, side-stepping explanations and resolutions of the conditioned mind, and  opening to the mystery while leaning into not-knowing with trust. Letting the love at the core of our being call to the mystery to reveal knowing, a path to change or healing, and support us in holding it in a way that doesn't poison us to be a(n unwitting) part of it. 

This is what embodying a different frequency and holding it in a dissonant field is to me. 

... continued on the blog.

Art: 'ATMA - The Guide of Souls' by Autumn Skye

Source: https://venuskind.de/2023/11/crone/

[mitchipedia]

There are sayings about aging that everyone likes, and others that people find reassuring when they are young or young-old, and preposterous as they grow older still. You’re only as old as you think you are is one of them. Ursula K. Le Guin rebutted this popular falsehood and several others with her usual wit and brilliance: "If I’m ninety and believe I’m forty-five, I’m headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub.” She goes on to note that when people say you’re only as old as you think you are “to somebody who actually is old, they don’t realize how stupid it is, and how cruel it may be.” Another expression I hear often, one my father invoked several times, is old age isn’t for sissies. Of that one, Le Guin had this to say: “Old age is for anybody who gets there. Warriors get old; sissies get old … Old age is for the healthy, the strong, the tough, the intrepid, the sick, the weak, the cowardly, the incompetent.”

— Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life

[melanielynngriffin]

Magical Years - Happy 2024!!

Hi friends! I haven’t posted in a while. Or worked on my memoir or drafted an essay or submitted an article for publication or … well, done much of anything in the writing realm. I told you I have a job, a real full-time job, for the first time in a dozen years. I’m working at Third Act, organizing folks over sixty to protect our planet and our democracy, and I love it. But it’s eaten my writing…

[landgraabbed]

marius finally became besties with sasha! and he invited beneatha over

[grimfolks]

Robin is a granny now and I'm sad

[jasminesilk]

Kitty has been working on writing her poetry while Daniel has taken up cross-stitching.

[crumbleclub]

Something I think would destroy Michael when he finally got out of William's house:

At every turn, the adults who were supposed to care for him failed him. Now that he's an adult, nobody is expected to help him at all.

[peachypiichi]

is it too much to ask for a sims family tree maker that lets you put pictures of your sims' life stages in it FOR FREE

[imaginal-ai]

"Esteemed Elder" (0001)

(The Elderhood Series)

[juliansummerhayes]

The Lost Nation Road

There is so much I could say but I recognise that my shtick has become melancholic, dark and sombre. And I’m fine with that. No, really. I don’t mind being the death, grief and elderhood guy or whatever label has become affixed to me in sharing all these angst-ridden words.

What’s driving this incessant need to keep sharing?

One overriding theme; namely: it hasn’t always been like this. 

No shit.

I’m deadly serious. When your lived memory involves living with your great-grandparents who were all born in the 1890s there’s some weight in there that can’t be shorn into our obsession with all things modern.

Does that mean I’m nostalgic?

Yes, I suppose so; but I know there’s no going back, and there will be many people who can show and/or demonstrate to me that it was a lot worse then by dint of the inequality, our lifespan and child mortality and I don’t argue the point(s); but just because we’ve edged the needle in one direction on the human scale, doesn’t evince of a better way of being in the world. In fact, I’d say things are a lot worse now if you look at the direction of our anthropocentric travel.

Still, there’s always tomorrow.

Is there?

There might not be; but when we don’t look into the sanctity of life, it’s no wonder we put everything off for another day.

Anyhow, let’s see what Monday holds for me.

Take care.

Much love,

Julian

Photo by benjamin lehman on Unsplash

[nyaskitten]

chat i fear i may be redoing old posts... not even of my own concsious decision im just posting things going "i hope i didnt post this before..."

[arctic-hands]

On any given day I exhibit about 6 signs of Parkinson's but those symptoms overlap with other symptoms of things I have so I ignore it and hope for the best

[dustbon]

Finally made up his mind :’)

[glowfrogs]

✔︎ master the fabrication, handiness, and wellness skills ✔︎ complete the master maker aspiration