THERE IS A "FOUNTAIN OF AGE"

Betty Friedan coined the term.  Remember her?  The Feminine Mystique? Published in 1963 it sparked the second wave of feminism in the US. The first wave got us the vote in 1920, the year my father was born.  Before the second wave, women who had been employed during the years of WWII were sent back to the kitchen, ready or not. Domesticity was romanticized.  Betty helped women who wanted more than an idealized stay-at-home role to find their voices.  

I'm loving this newer book, The Fountain of Age.  It treats age as an adventure, not something to be solved or denied. The book is well-researched, from the perspectives of gerontology to continuing-care communities to men and women aging with vitality.

One chapter is called "Intimacy Beyond the Dreams of Youth."  I can identify with that.  Who knew?  One man told her, "I'm closer to my wife than I ever was.  Now I guess we're secure and comfortable enough in ourselves to accept the intensity of our intimacy.  We have a deep, intimate, intense closeness now--the honesty of it I never conceived of.  We could be physically touching each other, close as in sex, but if you're not emotionally there, you don't really touch each other."  "I can take the feelings I used to run away from," the man continued.  

The book was written after Friedan turned 60.  At her surprise party, she noted that some of the toasts had an edge.  I'm reminded of some of the birthday cards that treat even 40 as old.  Although the book was first published in 1993, it's still timely.  After all, we've figured out that there's no fountain of youth, but why not a "Fountain of Age?"  The idea of each age as a developmental stage, including old age, where what's no longer useful is shed and new satisfactions arise. 


Friedan found that people who denied aging, feared change and competed with the young were in many instances depressed.  But others not like that were blossoming.  Men who were not tied to the masculinity of youth blossomed.  Women and men no longer tied to a job blossomed.  Those who structured their days in ways that had meaning for them blossomed. She found people who survived loss of spouse or divorce, cancer or heart attack, redundancy or retirement--all those difficult transitions--but kept or reached a comfort level with themselves.  Inner meaning replaced external yardsticks of success.  

Certain things, she discovered, are not reduced by age. Upon premiering a new dance at age 96, Martha Graham said, "Sensitivity is not made dull by age."  In later life a physician became a collagist, an art that I love.  

She found that opportunities to be in "Flow" are not reduced in age.  Quite the opposite.  I had no idea that this concept was identified and named by the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (b. 1934).  He defines flow as involvement lying between boredom and anxiety. A person in a state of flow is mentally absorbed in the challenge and pleasure of an activity but without self-consciousness or anxiety about performance. Flow takes energy and effort.  It's not passive.  It's usually experienced when pursuing a goal.  When we're having an adventure we're often in a state of flow.  I felt like that last weekend when we searched out waterfall after waterfall in Western North Carolina.

So many people Friedan interviewed felt accepting of themselves in a way they had not when they were young. Their ambitious striving and years of discontent were over. The men had moved beyond that brutal machismo so bruising to boys. Both sexes had found new intimacy and new creativity.  All these positives should help us age without fear. Age is part of the path we're all on. Our mindfulness, self-care, meditation, parenting our children, using our talents, contributing to the community, loving ourselves and others, are moving us forward in the search for wholeness as we age.

This book makes me think.  What I've had to let go, hard as it is, has not deprived my life of meaning.  All of us say yes to life in spite of death.  We may face inescapable suffering, but go through it with courage and dignity, with "Amazing Grace."  When we need to, we find new roles for ourselves.  The old need to be empowered, but so do we all.  Maybe someone next will write "The Fountain of Life."  
                                                           Nina Naomi

26 NEW MANTRAS

Mantras can be statements, phrases or words that we repeat frequently as an incantation or invocation.  They can be helpful, insightful words and statements, phrases or sentences that bring us to ourselves and inspire thought or creativity.  These are helping me as summer moves to fall. I bet you have some favorites too.   Nina Naomi

"No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world." N.H. Kleinbaum Dead Poets Society (b.1948), American author

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart." William Wordsworth (1770-1850), English Romantic poet

Doing something usually brings people together; buying something does not.

"Simplicity is the greatest adornment of art."  Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), German painter and printmaker 

Bloom Where You Are

"Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase," Van Gogh, 1890

"Creativity takes Courage." Henri Matisse (1869-1954), French artist

Infinite wonder is around the corner. 

Love your home inside and out. 

"When you read, don't just consider what the author thinks, consider what you think."  N.H. Kleinbaum Dead Poets Society (b.1948), American author

You are exactly where you need to be. . .

"So if you are too tired to speak, sit next to me, because I, too, am fluent in silence."  unknown

"This is my life.  It is my one time to be me."  Maya Angelou (1928-2014) American poet, memoirist, singer, activist  



"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul." Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), American poet

"Writing is a way of thinking - not just feeling but thinking. . . ." Toni Morrison (1931-2019), American author

"I love getting older. . . . Things simply become more and more fascinating." Victoria Erickson (b.?), American writer and writing teacher

Make your life a little easier, especially in your head.

Accept the challenge. 

Be kind to yourself.

Expect a miracle.


"Remorse is memory awake. . ." Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), American poet

Desiring little brings more riches than acquiring much. 

"To find yourself, think for yourself." Socrates (470-399 BC), Greek philosopher

"Creativity is magic.  Don't examine it too closely."  Edward Albee (1928-2016), American playwright 

Create every day.


The magic is in you.

"What a Wonderful Life I've Had!  I only wish I'd realized it sooner." Colette (1873-1954), French novelist 






 











 

"THE PRIVILEGE OF A LIFETIME IS BEING WHO YOU ARE"

This quote is by Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), the world's foremost expert on mythology.  I ran across the quote and remembered studying him, Carl Jung and other heavy-duty thinkers in university.  A quotation relevant enough to today's interests, that Joseph Campbell's ideas seemed worth reviewing.   The chat between him and Bill Moyers (b.1934), journalist and White House Press Secretary, in the 6-part PBS series from 1988, "The Power of Myth," is binge-worthy.  The quotation about being who we are triggered my desire to give Campbell a re-look.  His ideas spark thoughts.  See what you think.   

Whitewater Falls, Cashiers, NC

First, Campbell's thinking about God.  He says "God is a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all human categories of thought."  Hmmm. . . . I would delete one phrase and say, yes, "God is a mystery that transcends all human categories of thought."  But not a metaphor.  For Christians, God's Son helps us understand the mystery.  Someone fully human and fully divine who lived in an historical time and an historical place--not a metaphor. I pray to Him daily. "Thank you God" in gratitude or "Help me Lord" in need.   


So that's who I am.  And it is a privilege to be who we are, isn't it?  "No one in the world was ever you before, with your particular gifts and abilities and possibilities."  Also a Joseph Campbell quote, though not unique to him.  Think of the variations on "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."  Campbell says that "myths are the ongoing search for the experience of life." The experience, not the meaning. I like this. The emphasis on the here and now, not some future eternity. Our experience is the meaning, he says. We don't have to look for meaning in the future, whether here or hereafter. I may believe in eternal life, but I don't live there! So consistent with not wasting our hours and days, isn't it?  With mindfulness.

The first function of mythology is "To evoke in the individual a sense of grateful, affirmative awe before the monstrous mystery that is existence."  I must say that many days I feel like that, especially when I am out in nature as we were this week in the mountains of North Carolina.  Campbell calls the teachings of Muhammad, the wisdom of the Buddha and the parables of Christ all mythologies, vital stories that help us look for the truth within ourselves through the guidance of people, real or not, who have gone through similar trials. (Post "Easter is about Dying and Rising; So is Life," 4/5/2018). So I feel comfortable asking my transcendent God for help and guidance. Someone else prays five times daily facing Kaaba, the House of God at Mecca.  Someone else sits in contemplation.  Each of us has a way. 

Illustration by Ruby Taylor

I read that everything Joseph Campbell writes is an explanation of how ancient and modern myths and religions try to reconcile the harsh reality of the world we live in with the transcendent beauty of our impermanent existence.  The difference between the world's beauty and the especially harsh reality of life in America today has certainly been on my mind lately (Post "Another Week of Shootings," 8/19/2019). It's not a small discordance and worthy of deep thinking.

My first acquaintance with Joseph Campbell's writing was his idea of "following bliss," that is to discover when we are happy--not excited, not thrilled, not 'on top of the world,' but deeply happy.  Content many of us would say.  At peace.  At one with ourselves and the universe.  For others it may be different, but when I am in that place God is always there. Maybe just lurking, but somehow a part of my deep contentment (well, to be honest, my husband is often there too, or a grandchild or two).

I also like Joseph Campbell's idea of creative incubation.  And that the first law of life is that we are all one.  That the psychic unity of humankind is poetically expressed through mythology.  And I like what he says about marriage:  "Marriage is not a love affair."  I would say not only a love affair. "A love affair has to do with immediate personal satisfaction.  Marriage is an ordeal; it means yielding, time and again.  That's why it's a sacrament.  You give up your personal simplicity to participate in a relationship.  And when you're giving, you're not giving to the other person; you're giving to the relationship."  Reminds me of that song from "The Music Man" where Marian the Librarian says about her dream man, "And I would like him to be, more interested in me, than he is in himself.  And more interested in us than in me." Do you know the song? Are you hearing it if you do?


I've enjoyed thinking about all this, challenging my brain to sort it out.  We like doing that sort of thing, don't we?  Our minds aren't just for those intrusive thoughts we want to banish or for work or home chores.  They should be free to wander, ponder and wonder. That's one of the privileges of the lifetime of being who we are.  
                                                                      Nina Naomi  

  

ANOTHER WEEK OF SHOOTINGS

August Rodin, Despair. 1890

Another week of shootings in our beautiful country.  Two massacres within 24 hours, one in Texas, one in the Midwest.  Twenty-nine dead and fifth-three injured in less than a day.  In Ohio nine dead in less than a minute.  The shooter in El Paso left a hate-filled anti-immigrant manifesto.  The shooter in Dayton wore body armor and carried multiple rounds of ammunition.  How can we talk about anything else?  Nesting, blogging, mindfulness, "thoughts and prayers," against the obscenity of armed and enraged young men roaming our towns and shopping centers?  The right to keep and bear arms has become the right to kill anyone anytime any place for any reason. Walmart, that most American of institutions, has a body count.  The US Attorney for the Western District of Texas promises "swift and certain justice."  We tighten penalties instead of gun laws.  The United States Senate sits mute.  Only the candidates running for president call for change.  Trump plays golf.  Tweets substitute for action. 

I don't know if any other country needs to keep a gun violence archive.  I suspect not.  But we do.  We keep count of mass shootings where 4 or more people are shot or killed not counting the shooter.  We're up to 251 mass shootings in the 216 days of 2019. 

We have perfected our weapons,

Our conscience has fallen asleep. 

Pope Francis 

Grief continues but disbelief is no longer an option.  Lamentation isn't enough. So what can we do?  

We can't give up, that's certain.  We can campaign.  We can vote.  We can lobby.  Where we have the skills and training, we can help the troubled.  We can alert law enforcement.  We can organize, we can boycott, we can write. . . . 

Many well-established groups are fighting for what are called "sensible gun reforms."  Every one needs money and volunteers.  Here are just a few: 

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence  (www.bradyunited.org) with 94 chapters across the US, named for Tom Brady who was wounded during the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. 

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (www.csgv.org) founded in 1974.  This group works with scientific experts to identify individuals at risk of violence towards themselves or others without stigmatizing mental illness. CSGV was the first prevention group to identify the NRA's dangerous interpretation of the Second Amendment. 

Every Town for Gun Safety Action Fund through secure.actblue.com, info@actblue.com, a registered charitable foundation formed to democratize social welfare giving. 

And the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence (www.lawcenter.giffords.org) where legal experts research, write and defend laws proven to save lives from gun violence. 

What else?  We can raise the next generation to accept our diversity as our strength, we can teach by example.  I feel confident that each of us has skills that can be used to fight for a safer America. And when we need a respite from our activism, or from our fears, we can live simply, love nature, be mindful of each day, keep healthy attitudes and take the time to live well.  Nurturing ourselves and others that way is part and parcel of creating a mindset where the right to live safely outweighs all other competing rights.  We cannot despair.  

                                                                 Nina Naomi