Tag Archives: wisdom

The quality of your peaceful presence matters.

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Sunset on Manzanita Beach

Dear friends,

I turned 64 a couple of weeks ago. Growing old has been on my mind a lot lately. It’s been damn stressful up in my brain. Here’s what’s helping me, offered to those of you who are also thinking about growing old and feeling stressed about it.

We were at the coast last week for our annual post-Easter rest. (My Episcopal priest husband naps. I walk.) As is often true of the Oregon coast in April, the weather was wet and windy. But every evening for a couple of hours, the rain would taper off and I’d drag Jed down to the beach to watch the sunset. On this particular evening, the sunset was subtle. A solid bank of clouds out over the ocean seemed set to block the sun’s rays as it sank into the sea. The cloudy sky turned a beautiful mauve and pink, mist gathered at the base of Mount Neahkahnie, and waves reflected the sky back to itself.

We passed a photographer with his tripod at the waves’ edge, long lens pointed to where the invisible sun might be. A family of five, their big black poodle bounding in the surf, walked up the beach toward Manzanita, occasionally glancing toward the western horizon. Jed and I were ready to go inside out of the wind ourselves, believing we’d seen all the show there was to see.

We were wrong. Suddenly the sun peeked out from a hole in the clouds and shone right at us. Immense. Orange. Stunningly beautiful—clouds above, below, and all around the one little hole. The sun had an entire limitless Pacific horizon to choose from, and she came down in the one place she could shine through. We were awestruck. Through binoculars we watched the curvature of the sun slowly sink behind the clouds like mountains. Words cannot describe.

I turned to see if the photographer was catching this, hopeful that he’d capture the shot of a lifetime. He was walking up the dunes, tripod over his shoulder, his back to the beauty blazing behind him. The family of five was likewise walking up the beach toward Manzanita, seemingly oblivious, black poodle still bounding in and out of the waves. We watched until the last burnished edge of sun sank below the cloud bank, and reminded each other to breath.

If we’d let the wind and the wet keep us inside, if we’d turned our backs too soon, if I hadn’t brought my binoculars … We would have missed it.

What does this moment have to do with growing old? Here’s my takeaway. If I expect my old age to be a long slide into mellowness and mist, if I turn my back too soon, I’ll miss many extraordinary moments. We see what we expect to see.

Show up. Get out on the beach, no matter what the weather.

Be present with each step and each breath. The future radiates out from the present like a wave.

The quality of your peaceful presence in this moment determines how your future will feel.

Your thoughts about aging—your thoughts about anything, really—will strongly impact your experience. You can choose different thoughts, if you want to and you do the work. (Learning to notice your thoughts and how to choose better ones is a core component of my coaching work.)

Expect the extraordinary.

Carry binoculars just in case.

Love,
Barb

PS. Some resources I’m finding helpful:
This episode of Glennon Doyle’s We Can Do Hard Things with anti-ageism activist Ashton Applewhite
This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, by Ashton Applewhite

PPS. Interested in talking more about aging and how to think more helpful thoughts about this inevitable change? I offer free, no-strings-attached Clarity Calls. 

PPPS. I share coaching availability and current events in my weekly email newsletter. Want to subscribe? Click here. 

Photo: Manzanita Beach, Oregon. 2022. 

Seek Sanctuary for Your Soul

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In his essay “Sanctuary” from On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old, author and activist Parker Palmer describes the mandatory church attendance of his childhood, and how he came to associate the word “sanctuary” with stained glass windows, hard wooden pews, and the strong desire to flee that space and its terrible feeling of captivity. He continues:

“Today—after eight decades of life in a world that’s both astonishingly beautiful and horrifically cruel—“sanctuary” is as vital as breathing to me. Sometimes I find it in churches, monasteries, and other sites formally designated “sacred.” But more often I find it in places sacred to my soul: in the natural world, in the company of a faithful friend, in solitary or shared silence, in the ambiance of a good poem or good music.

 

Sanctuary is wherever I find safe space to regain my bearings, reclaim my soul, heal my wounds, and return to the world as a wounded healer. It’s not merely about finding shelter from the storm—it’s about spiritual survival and the capacity to carry on. Today, seeking sanctuary is no more optional for me than church attendance was as a child.”

Later in the essay, Parker quotes Thomas Merton: “The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work … It destroys the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”

Parker continues:

“Merton names one of our deepest needs: to protect and nurture the “root of inner wisdom” that makes work and life itself fruitful. Fed by the taproot some call the soul (emphasis mine), we need neither flee from the world nor exploit it. Instead, we can love the world with all its (and our) flaws, aspiring to the best of human possibility.

 

We can live that way only if we know when and where to seek sanctuary, reclaiming our souls for the purpose of loving the world. When service emerges from whatever nurtures the root of one’s inner wisdom, it’s much less likely to be distorted by the violence of activism and overwork. Once we understand that, we are moving toward the heart of nonviolence—the only way of being that has any chance to transcend and transform the violence of our culture.”

I am struck by Parker’s discussion of his soul as having its own life, in a sense. He describes his soul as an entity that’s part of him, yet separate—an entity that needs care and protection. It’s through care of our souls, he says, that right action emerges.

Right action, I believe, is crucial in our wounded country and hurting world. Especially now, on the eve and in the aftermath of the American midterm elections. We require action rooted in deep wisdom, action that flows from the sustaining, abiding Heart of Life.

This week, seek solace and sanctuary for your soul. Seek sanctuary for your soul, first for yourself.  And then do it for all of us, your fellow earthlings. When your work is deeply rooted in wisdom, your work will help us heal.

As Parker says, sanctuary is as “vital as breathing.”

Quotes from parker j. palmer’s On the brink of everything: grace, gravity, and growing old. BK Books, 2018.

art by ashland, oregon artist Denise kester, entitled “she let her words fly forth as blessings.”