Itineraries 2005

Terry Schiavo’s Legacy For Us by Martha L. Henderson, MSN, D.Min.

The author, Martha L. Henderson, MSN, DMin, is a retired faculty member of the University of North Carolina Schools of Nursing and Medicine and the UNC Program on Aging. She is a geriatric nurse practitioner and ordained minister. In her forthcoming book, The Gift of Life: Living Your Journey to the Fullest, Henderson invites us to live “in the light of death, and not in its shadow.”

How tragic that Terri Schiavo never discussed her wishes about end-of-life treatment with all her loved ones and completed advance directives.” “I would never want to live like that.” “I still haven’t completed my advance directives.” “Who should I choose to speak for me who really understands my values and wishes and will stand up for me?”

I encourage you to engage in a thoughtful process called advance care planning (ACP) or preparing for the end of your life. It will enable you to prepare for a “good death,” one that is as comfortable as possible and determined by your values and wishes.

It will also spare your loved ones from having to make difficult decisions for you.

First, take some quiet time to think about your own death. What comes up for you? This time of pondering may evoke fears of pain or discomfort at the end. It may bring up unfinished business, such as unresolved relationships or questions about your relationship with God or your inner source of strength. It may bring questions about your current priorities in life and some things you want to do before your die. The hardest part of this contemplation is to realize that death can come at any time without warning.

Secondly, take your own health seriously. How much do you know about and take responsibility for your own health, chronic illnesses, such as hypertension, and death predictors based on your lifestyle (being overweight or sedentary, smoking, chronic stress), your family history (heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes, dementia)? Make an appointment to see your primary provider, not only for a check-up, but also to discuss your life expectancy based on your risk factors, and what treatment issues will probably arise for you in the future. Ask if your practitioner will advocate for you in getting your wishes honored and providing comfort care, including referring you to hospice.

Thirdly, take some time to think about what you want when your time to die comes, in terms of imagining your ideal death. Think not only about what you do not want (a ventilator or a feeding tube perhaps), but also about what you do want, such as being at home with loved ones around. What comfort measures do you want, such as having your pet close by, or getting healing touch as your favorite music plays, or having someone reading sacred writings?

There are some tools and resources to help you with the details of this process and the decisions that need to be made. The University of North Carolina Program on Aging created an interactive, educational website to guide health care students and professionals as well as consumers through the advance care planning process. Among the resources, you can find printable advance directive forms (for North Carolina), the living will and Health Care Power of Attorney (HCPOA) as well as a helpful Advance Care Planning Worksheet you can attach to your forms. The learning module includes a discussion of various treatment options, choosing the best health care power of attorney, and suggestions for structuring a family meeting. In North Carolina, you may also obtain and register your advance directives on line at with the Secretary of State. Five Wishes, another popular tool, is available for purchase. Project Compassion is a local area resource for helping individuals and their families with end of life issues. See

Fourthly, talk with your family about your wishes. Hear their reactions and invite them to share their own thoughts about their deaths. This can be a challenging and helpful opportunity to resolve any family conflict about carrying out your decisions, so that your death can be peaceful and they will be left with good memories.

Fifthly, print out advance directive forms or obtain them from your local hospital. Complete them and take them to your bank for signing, witnessing, and notarization. Immediately make copies of ADs and other documents and distribute them to your agent (HCPOA), your loved ones, your primary provider, and your hospital medical records department.

There are two important details: Your advance directives must be translated into medical orders to direct your care. This means a physician or authorized nurse practitioner must write orders, such as Do Not Resuscitate (DNR), Do not tube feed, Do not hospitalize, etc., if and when you become terminally ill or in a persistent vegetative state. You also need an accompanying portable yellow DNR order, available through your primary provider or hospital, if you are transported anywhere.

The final step in the advance care planning process is leaving your legacy. Legacies may include completing an organ and tissue donor form available on the Secretary of State website, or leaving money to a favorite cause or educational institution. It may be writing about your childhood or selecting special personal mementos to give to loved ones now. The best legacy may be to be a role model of living your life to the fullest, recognizing how precious life is and bringing joy to others and yourself.

Love in Later Life by Bolton Anthony

Last June I sent a small group of friends an email I described as “one of the strangest I’ve ever written.” Noting that the coming October would mark 10 years since I had separated from my first wife, I wrote that while “living alone has been good and necessary… I really don’t want to do this the rest of my life and should look for a companion… Since one of the best ways to meet new friends and possible partners is ‘referrals’ from old friends, I’m writing to tell you — and the universe — that I’m open to new possibilities.”

I was poised to hit the SEND button, when the inbox suddenly logged INCOMING mail. That’s interesting, I thought. The new email was from American Singles, an online dating service that I had registered with some ten months earlier. Registering is different from becoming a member; membership costs money. Just registering, however, gets you a weekly batch of “profiles.” But the eight women whose profiles would arrive each week proved so uniformly uninteresting or inappropriate — I could specify age (50-64) but not spiritual sensibilities, distance from Chapel Hill (a 50-mile radius) but not political affiliations — that there were weeks when I simply deleted the unopened email. The new email was different. There among an otherwise undistinguished group was Lisa (a.k.a. “Catwoman”):

Aphrodite in search of Adonis

“I look 50, feel 40, and am an active person with a young and playful spirit and a good sense of humor who likes to laugh and have fun! I love my friends and am a good friend; I’m warm, affectionate and giving, and enjoy spontaneity and adventure. I love movies (old and new), the beach, nature, walking my dog, cooking, reading, theater, music, and trying out new things. I work part-time in the health care field and help people lead happier lives. I’m more spiritual than religious. I stay healthy with exercise and yoga and like to dance. I also volunteer at the homeless shelter.”

I wrote Lisa: “I was writing the email I’ve inserted below and simultaneously got something from American Singles in which your picture jumped out. I don’t ignore such synchronicity and have spent $25 to become a ‘premium member’ and write you. Would you like to meet for coffee?”

It took six weeks for her to get my email and respond: her American Singles membership had lapsed months earlier and she had to “re-up.” It took another two weeks for us to have that cup of coffee, because I was in Oakland — testing the waters for what is now the upcoming August 4-7 Visioning Council at Santa Sabina — when I got Lisa’s email. It took a second date for us to fall in love and another seven months for us to set a date for our wedding.

Southerner that I am, I’m a bit uncomfortable sharing this intimate story. I do it for a reason.

In last June’s email to my friends I wrote, “The likely truth is I could not have done the work I have done if I’d had a partner. It was too intense.” When you are single, your work can be your life — as Second Journey has been mine since I founded it in December of 1999. Once you open the door to a relationship, however, you must strike a better balance between work… and LIFE. My conversation a year ago with Reb Zalman is pertinent. I had just turned 60; he was approaching 80 and intending to “retire.” I knew he had begun his work with “Sage-ing” when he was 60, and I expressed the hope that I also would have 20 years to complete my work. He told me, “I will give you a blessing — a blessing which carries all the good will of all the ancestors who have made me who I am. May you complete your work in 10 years and have 10 years to enjoy it!”
As I wrote last October:

A number of people have thanked me for “holding the space.” It’s as if I’d arrived early for the picnic, staked out a lush spot by the river and put dibs on the place by scattering blankets and chairs all about. I do not have THE VISION; no one person does. It is scattered in pieces among us, and we will find our way into the future only by coming together in community and delighting in the different treats we each bring to the celebration.

So it is for you I have been holding this place. What would you like to bring to our potluck? What are your thoughts about where Second Journey should go, and what role do you wish to play, what contribution do you wish to make? What kind of organization or container do we need to create TOGETHER, to hold and direct this energy?

Yes, I have been holding this wonderful space beside the river for YOU! It’s now time for you to take your place there, time for Lisa and me to welcome greater spaciousness into our lives, and time for all of us to enjoy life.

We live the given life, not the planned.

— Wendell Berry

News and Notices

Opinion by Bolton Anthony

Congress “cut a great road through the law” to get at what some of its members perceived as the Devil: a “culture of death” in opposition to a “culture of life.” Below are the reflections of Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for All Seasons, on what comes of such zealotry.

Thomas More (to his son-in-law): What would you do, son Roper? Cut a great road through the law to get at the devil?

Roper: Yes! I’d cut down every law in England to do that.

More: Oh? And when the last law was down and the devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide…the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws coast to coast, man’s laws, not God’s, and if you cut them down, …do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I would give the devil the benefit of law for my own safety.

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New Book — Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time by Margaret Wheatley
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2005

Meg Wheatley writes, teaches and speaks about radically new practices and ideas for organizing in chaotic times. She has worked in virtually every type of organization and on all continents (except Antarctica), and has been a dedicated global citizen since her youth. She has been an organizational consultant and researcher since 1973, a professor of management in two graduate programs, and serves as president of The Berkana Institute, a global charitable leadership foundation. She is the author of three other books: the pathbreaking bestseller, Leadership and the New Science; and Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future; and A Simpler Way (with Myron Kellner-Rogers).

Provocative, challenging, poetic, and often deeply moving, Finding Our Way sums up Wheatley’s thinking on a diverse scope of topics, from leadership and management, to social change, to our personal role in these turbulent times; from provocative social commentary to specific organizational practices and more.

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ElderSpirit Cohousing Community Breaks Ground in Abingdon, Virginia

ElderSpirit is the first elder cohousing community. A mixed income development that defines itself as “a community of mutual support and late life spirituality,” it has received national publicity (see the recent article, “Communes for Grown-ups,” by Ben Brown in the AARP Bulletin) as it blazed new trails. Construction is expected to be completed by July. Twelve homes for purchase and 14 rental units have been reserved, leaving only one home and two rental units unspoken for.

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Taking Second Journey’s Visioning Council To Germany

The Korber-Stiftung Foundation, which is based in Germany, sponsors an annual “Transatlantic Idea Contest” whose aim is to identify U.S. projects which are good candidates for implementation in Germany. This year’s contest focuses on “Transitions in Life,” and from a reading of the contest guidelines Second Journey’s Visioning Council initiative seems a good fit.

Three proposals will be selected to receive funding for implementation in Germany:

Project Prizes —Up to three convincing concepts will be awarded an additional Project Prize worth 10,000 Euro. This Prize is bound to the respective project – which means it is to be used for the implementation of your idea. If the project develops favorably, it might be eligible for additional support.

We would like to find 2 or 3 people interested in developing a proposal to conduct a Visioning Council in Germany. Since “the contest is open to all who are familiar with both Germany and the United States,” obviously one team member needs to know something about Germany! The deadline for submission is October 31, 2005; decisions are to be made in March 2006

Reflections of a Movement Communitarian by Laird Schaub

“Like old age, community is not for the faint of heart.”

The author, Laird Schaub, has been living in the fire of intentional community since 1974. Involved with the Fellowship for Intentional Community from its inception in 1986, Laird continues today through his work as a consultant to share the wisdom learned from intentional community with groups and individuals across North America. The “reflections” below are taken from his remarks at Second Journey’s May Visioning Council.

The Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC) is a clearinghouse for up-to-date and comprehensive information about who’s doing what and where. FIC publishes Communities Directory, a listing of over 1000 North American communities, both as an online searchable database and as a book (the 2005 edition of which will be released this July). A quarterly publication, Communities magazine explores the issues, ideas, and inspiration of community. FIC hosts events or partners with like-valued organizations to bring to the party the spirit and tools of community. In addition to supporting intentional communities, FIC aims to bring to the widest possible audience the hard-earned lessons of cooperative living as gleaned from intentional communities — the world’s laboratories of cooperation. “For those seeking a greater sense of community in their life, the Fellowship aims to be your source for one-stop shopping.”

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My personal journey in search of community began with dormitory living in college. I loved the combination of stimulation and support, and found it hard to recapture after graduation. I gradually came to question making life choices based on what I’d like to do, and focused instead on who I’d do it with. That led me to intentional community.

Not knowing how hard it was to create a successful intentional community, I joined with friends from college to establish our own. That was back in 1974, and today Sandhill Farm is 31 years old and still going strong — the product of good luck and no small amount of stubbornness. I continue to live there because I’ve found again that precious combination of stimulation and support and know of no better lifestyle which offers both.

While most communities exist primarily to create a better life for their members, that was never enough for me. I wanted community to be a base from which to operate, to be of service in the world.

Amazingly enough, it has been just that. I come to this discussion with several bias. For starters, I see living in community as a political act. It’s an attempt to integrate one’s values into everyday life. At my community we pay close attention to where our food comes from (we grow about 80% of what we eat) and where our waste goes (we have a commitment to not export garbage; what we can’t recycle, we landfill on our own land, so we can face the consequences of our choices).

Second, we’ve taken advantage of the community’s ability to concentrate resources, freeing people up for special work. In my case, 18 years ago I wanted to explore an interest in group process consulting. I thought I might be able to assist groups working through typical community dynamics, based on what I’d learned over the years about the nuts and bolts of cooperative living. In the beginning I was volunteering all the time, supported by my fellow community members who believed in giving me the chance to follow my dream. Over the years I’ve made a commercial success of my process consulting and the income is now a mainstay of Sandhill’s economy. It is very gratifying to know that today the revenue from my consulting now goes to support other members’ dreams.

Over the years, I’ve learned that community is essentially a social challenge — not a design challenge, a technical challenge, or a financial challenge. It’s about relationships, and how people get along with one another. The key is how groups handle the moment when people disagree passionately with one another. Does that lead to creative problem solving or become an occasion for a fight?

Community is based on a fundamental commitment to cooperation, which stands in direct contrast to the mainstream society’s practice of competition and hierarchy. In order to succeed at cooperative living, it’s necessary to recognize the need to unlearn competitive responses and develop compassion for the fact that this takes time.

Living in community is like living in a hall of mirrors, where everyone around you offers a reflection of how far you’ve come and how you have yet to go. While it offers unparalleled opportunities for personal growth, like old age, community is not for the feint of heart.

In assessing where a person stands in relation to wanting more community in their life, I offer four questions, the answers to which will help you figure out what you’re seeking, and what you’re available for:

1. What are the crucial features for you about community?
2. How much do you want others in your life (the converse of which is what boundaries you have about what you share with others)?
3. What social skills do you have for working through differences with others?
4. Why are you a challenging person to live with (and are you willing to work on it)?

For further reading, see Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow an Intentional Community. It is a unique guide to launching and sustaining successful communities providing step-by-step, practical advice on everything from the role of founders to vision docu-ments, decision-making, agreements, legal options, buying and financing land, sustainable site design, and communication, group process, and dealing well with conflict, as well as community profiles, cautionary tales, and ample resources for learning more. Author Diana Leafe Christian is editor of Communities magazine.

Motorcycle Granny: A Cautionary Tale by Bolton Anthony

The drive was a hard one; by the time Lisa and I got back to Chapel Hill we’d logged over 1400 miles. But driving allowed me — en route to the Visioning Council at Summer Hill Farm in Upstate New York — to spend time with my 88-year-old mother in Manassas, Virginia, and the next day see my three grandchildren in Wilmington, Delaware.

Sunday morning found us driving through the D.C. suburbs. At a stop light, Lisa and I both became aware of loud and heated talk. Through my side mirror, I saw someone straddling a motorcycle; and I could see her — for it turned out to be a woman, 70-years-old if a day, zipped up in a black leather jump suit — I could see her leaning over and shouting threats and obscenities at the woman in the car directly behind us.

“What makes you think you can do that? I can’t believe you! You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to follow you home. That’s what I’m going to do: follow you home and beat your ass.” Then she formed her hand into a gun, pointed it at the woman and “fired.”

When the light changed, Motorcycle Granny eased her Harley-Davidson behind the woman’s car and tailed her. I fell back and followed both of them. The driver in the car tried to lose her stalker by weaving carefully across the three lanes of traffic and accelerating or slowing down. Nothing worked. When we came to a second light, Motorcycle Granny pulled along side the woman’s car and resumed her tirade through the window of the empty passenger’s side.

Lisa, who is a psychiatric nurse, thought the motorcyclist was dangerous and probably terrifying to the woman in the car. She called 911 and — a bit lost for words to describe the situation and where she was calling from (since we in fact changed jurisdictions during the call, leaving one county and entering another) — reported her. A mile further down the highway, when the woman in the lead car turned onto U.S. 29, we again called 911. I told Lisa I thought we could defuse the situation by pulling along side the motorcyclist at the next stop light and telling her we’d reported her.

“You keep this distance! That woman’s crazy. She’s just as likely to pull out a gun and shoot both of us through the window.”

Two Fairfax County patrol cars, their lights flashing and sirens wailing, overtook us at the next intersection. We were immediately segregated into three interrogation spaces with invisible walls. After Lisa and I gave our testimony to one of the patrolman, I looked over at Motorcycle Granny, who’d been for the moment left alone in the middle interrogation “room” and was standing-sitting with her butt propped against the Harley. Her helmeted head was hanging; and she seemed deflated, as if all the air — and with it, all her spleen and menace — had been siphoned off.

Lisa and I were both concerned for the driver of the car and wanted reassurance she was all right and wanted to tell her we had called 911 and had been following her. When I’m an angel of mercy this way, I’m rarely angelic enough not to want credit for my good deed. When Lisa started toward the woman’s car, she was promptly intercepted and escorted back to our “room.” She shared her concerns with the officer, who assured her that he would convey them to the other woman. I told him I had not been able to see the driver well, but that she seemed young and slight and had probably been terrified.

“Then you didn’t know,” he asked, “that she had two children seat-belted in the back, a 3- and a 5-year-old?”

Shortly afterwards we were permitted to leave. The police had escorted the old woman to the back of one of the patrol cars and wanted her to lean, spread-eagle, against the trunk while they patted her down for weapons. She was humiliated. “Please,” she pleaded, “you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do this.”

I’ve thought a lot about this incident. For one thing, it reminds me of the “lesson in Japanese manners” that Terry Dobson received as a young man on a Tokyo subway (inserted below). But, as Drew Leder in his book Spiritual Passages makes clear, that story is a parable about elder wisdom. This is a very different story. I have been wondering what words one might have said that could have invited the old woman to remember herself. I thought it unlikely her encounter with the legal system, or for that matter, the mental health establishment, would be a path to wisdom. The one thing I can think of that I would have liked to say is, “Grandmother, you shouldn’t be scaring those children.”

“On a Tokyo Subway” by Terry Dobson

The train clanked and rattled through the suburbs of Tokyo on a drowsy spring afternoon. Our car was comparatively empty – a few housewives with their kids in tow, some old folks going shopping. I gazed absently at the drab houses and dusty hedgerows.

At one station the doors opened, and suddenly the afternoon quiet was shattered by a man bellowing violent, incomprehensible curses. The man staggered into our car. He wore labourer’s clothing, and he was big, drunk, and dirty. Screaming, he swung at a woman holding a baby. The blow sent her spinning into the laps of an elderly couple. It was a miracle that she was unharmed.

Terrified, the couple jumped up and scrambled toward the other end of the car. The labourer aimed a kick at the retreating back of the old woman but missed as she scuttled to safety. This so enraged the drunk that he grabbed the metal pole in the center of the car and tried to wrench it out of its stanchion. I could see that one of his hands was cut and bleeding. The train lurched ahead, the passengers frozen with fear. I stood up.

I was young then, some 20 years ago, and in pretty good shape. I’d been putting in a solid eight hours of aikido training nearly every day for the past three years. I like to throw and grapple. I thought I was tough. Trouble was, my martial skill was untested in actual combat. As students of aikido, we were not allowed to fight.

“Aikido”, my teacher had said again and again, “is the art of reconciliation. Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection with the universe. If you try to dominate people, you are already defeated. We study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it.”

I listened to his words. I tried hard I even went so far as to cross the street to avoid the chimpira, the pinball punks who lounged around the train stations. My forbearance exalted me. I felt both tough and holy. In my heart, however, I wanted an absolutely legitimate opportunity whereby I might save the innocent by destroying the guilty.

This is it! I said to myself, getting to my feet. People are in danger and if I don’t do something fast, they will probably get hurt. Seeing me stand up, the drunk recognized a chance to focus his rage. “Aha!” He roared. “A foreigner! You need a lesson in Japanese manners!”

I held on lightly to the commuter strap overhead and gave him a slow look of disgust and dismissal. I planned to take this turkey apart, but he had to make the first move. I wanted him mad, so I pursed my lips and blew him an insolent kiss.

“All right!” He hollered. “You’re gonna get a lesson.” He gathered himself for a rush at me.

A split second before he could move, someone shouted “Hey!” It was earsplitting. I remember the strangely joyous, lilting quality of it – as though you and a friend had been searching diligently for something, and he suddenly stumbled upon it.

“Hey!”

I wheeled to my left; the drunk spun to his right. We both stared down at a little old Japanese. He must have been well into his seventies, this tiny gentleman, sitting there immaculate in his kimono. He took no notice of me, but beamed delightedly at the laborer, as though he had a most important, most welcome secret to share.

“C’mere,” the old man said in an easy vernacular, beckoning to the drunk. “C’mere and talk with me.” He waved his hand lightly.

The big man followed, as if on a string. He planted his feet belligerently in front of the old gentleman, and roared above the clacking wheels, “Why the hell should I talk to you?” The drunk now had his back to me. If his elbow moved so much as a millimeter, I’d drop him in his socks.

The old man continued to beam at the laborer.

“What’cha been drinkin’?” he asked, his eyes sparkling with interest. “I been drinkin’ sake,” the laborer bellowed back, “and it’s none of your business!” Flecks of spittle spattered the old man.

“Ok, that’s wonderful,” the old man said, “absolutely wonderful! You see, I love sake too. Every night, me and my wife (she’s 76, you know), we warm up a little bottle of sake and take it out into the garden, and we sit on an old wooden bench. We watch the sun go down, and we look to see how our persimmon tree is doing. My great-grandfather planted that tree, and we worry about whether it will recover from those ice storms we had last winter. Our tree had done better than I expected, though especially when you consider the poor quality of the soil. It is gratifying to watch when we take our sake and go out to enjoy the evening – even when it rains!” He looked up at the laborer, eyes twinkling.

As he struggled to follow the old man’s conversation, the drunk’s face began to soften. His fists slowly unclenched. “Yeah,” he said. “I love persimmons too…” His voice trailed off.

“Yes,” said the old man, smiling, “and I’m sure you have a wonderful wife.”

“No,” replied the laborer. “My wife died.” Very gently, swaying with the motion of the train, the big man began to sob. “I don’t got no wife, I don’t got no home, I don’t got no job. I am so ashamed of myself.” Tears rolled down his cheeks; a spasm of despair rippled through his body.

Now it was my turn. Standing there in well-scrubbed youthful innocence, my make-this-world-safe-for-democracy righteousness, I suddenly felt dirtier than he was.

Then the train arrived at my stop. As the doors opened, I heard the old man cluck sympathetically. “My, my,” he said, “that is a difficult predicament, indeed. Sit down here and tell me about it.”

I turned my head for one last look. The laborer was sprawled on the seat, his head in the old man’s lap. The old man was softly stroking the filthy, matted hair.

As the train pulled away, I sat down on a bench. What I had wanted to do with muscle had been accomplished with kind words. I had just seen aikido tried in combat, and the essence of it was love. I would have to practice the art with an entirely different spirit. It would be a long time before I could speak about the resolution of conflict.

Living Life at 60 by Deena Berke

The author, Deena Berke, is a founding member of the Ecovillage at Ithaca, where she has lived for eight years. She was a participant in Second Journey’s May Visioning Council, which was held at Summer Hill Farm in Sherburne NY. Because of her dual interests in music and healing (reflected on in the article below), she is also planning to attend the October 13-16 Visioning Council on Health and Well-Being in the Second Half of Life, which will be held at the Wildacres Retreat Center in western North Carolina.

“…playing music produces a feeling more exquisite than the sweetest nectar 
this world has to offer. It is the sound, smell and taste of grace.”

— Kenny Warner, Effortless Mastery

I had my 60th birthday this year. It was a glorious event with my grown children and their spouses joining me for a vacation at a beach in Mexico. I was also there to take a yoga class.

So, now I am 60 years old, and this essay is about living life at 60. It’s a little joke, really, however; since I’m NOT writing about living as a 60 year old, even though the insight and that birthday arrived simultaneously. What I am writing about is living slowly, in a meditative way.

For me, a symbol for living at a decreased pace is to set a metronome to 60 beats per minute — in musical terms, largo, lento. In English, R E A L S L O W. At 60 beats per minute, you can experience each note; its beginning and its end; its life process, its inner beauty.

Here’s some background on what led me to this insight:

I’ve played classical guitar since I was a teenager. For me, music was always a sanctuary, a great comfort. I played “only for myself,” however, and was extremely shy about performing for others. Because of that, I did not become a professional musician or a music teacher; I became a special education teacher. I retired from that profession when I was 55. After I retired, I took guitar lessons and I practiced a lot. As I was approaching my 60th birthday, I began to think about “giving back to society” in a way that came from my most authentic, deepest self. It was obvious to me that this giving had to be connected with guitar playing.

At that point, I found and began the Music for Healing and Transitions Program, a one-year program that teaches amateur musicians to play “bedside” for people who are ill and dying. In the program we talk about healing, not curing; and we talk about service, not performance. We study books about the physiology and psychology of sound and music as it relates to varying states of health and illness.

In the program, we learned that the most calming music is played at heartbeat rhythm, between 40 and 60 beats per minute. This music should be simple in structure, repetitive and spacious. In it there’s a feeling of “being” rather than “doing;” of “no place to go, nothing to do,” of “dropping in” spiritually. These are all terms used in yoga. In yoga and in music we find a stillness that opens the beauty of the soul to its Godness.

In the time I’ve been studying in this program, I’ve learned to slow music down and experience the deepest sense of comfort it can bring. There’s such a thing as a “walking meditation”; playing really slowly is a “playing meditation.” This is something I can use for myself as well as give to others when I play for them.

I’ve expanded what I’ve learned from music into a life lesson: to try to live at 60 beats per minute as often as I can. Today, it seems that life has sped up tremendously. Most of the time, we’re functioning at around 200 beats per minute — presto, prestissimo; really, really fast. Too fast. At that speed, we don’t notice that we’re rushing in the wrong direction. And do so really, REALLY fast. Perhaps, just maybe, if we can stop and listen, we can use music to help slow us down to 60 — to lento, to largo — and we may begin to notice where we’re going.

News and Notices

Recommended Book — The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community by Ray Oldenburg
Marlowe & Company, 1999

In the absence of informal public life, living becomes more expensive. Where the means and facilities for relaxation and leisure are not publicly shared, they become the objects of private ownership and consumption…

Ray Oldenburg is an urban sociologist from Florida who writes about the importance of informal public gathering places. He argues that bars, coffee shops, general stores, and other “third places” (in contrast to the first and second places of home and work), are central to local democracy and community vitality.

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EarthSpirit Rising
3rd National Council of Earth Elders
Sunday – Monday, July 10th and 11th, 2005 Cincinnati, OH

At this time in history, a time that Thomas Berry calls a “Moment of Grace,” Earth and her people need human elders to accept the rights and responsibilities of Elderhood. Utilizing the elders’ collective wisdom is essential for the transformation of human-earth relations.

At this 3rd National EarthSpirit Rising Council of Earth Elders we will explore such topics as:

• How do we restore harmony between our human communities and the bio-regions in which we live?
• How do we re-create our schools, economic institutions, governments, and religions with sacred trust to serve the well being of all life on Earth?
• How do we begin to know ourselves again with humility, as one within a magical, mysterious planet?
• How do we create rituals and celebrations that honor our place within
• Earth’s community and deepen our bond to all beings?
• How do we promote the Earth Elder concept to others?

The Council will include special contributions from Paula Gonzalez, Joyce Quinlan, John Seed, Malidoma Somé, and Jim Schenk.

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“The Wisdom of Elders”
A call for articles, poems, art and photos

The Ecozoic Reader published by the Center for Ecozoic Studies (CES) in Chapel Hill, NC, styles itself as a journal of “Critical Reflection, Shared Story and Dream Experience of an Ecological Age.” In his article, the Reader’s editor, Herman Greene, invites submissions of articles, poems, art and photos for a future issue on “The Wisdom of Elders.”

No Longer at Ease: Reflections on Hurricane Katrina by Bolton Anthony

No longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.

— T.S. Eliot, “The Journey of the Magi”

Probably like many others in the country, I have been captive to the news ever since hurricane Katrina took aim two weeks ago at my hometown. New Orleans is “where I’m from”; though we moved to Houston when I was six, both sides of my family have roots in New Orleans that go back generations. My oldest son was born there after I returned — just out of graduate school — to teach English and creative writing at a black university in the late sixties. Like anyone who has spent time in New Orleans — who has had the peculiar experience of walking up, not down, to the river — I knew what disaster waited if the city took a direct hit from so fierce a storm and the waters topped the levees.

I’d had minor surgery on Friday, and — under orders to do nothing —spent most of my time watching the hellish images wash across the television screen: the miles and miles of devastated coastline, the flooded sections of the city, and the anarchy at the Convention Center and the Superdome where the poorest of the poor were left to fend for themselves — without food, without water, without succor or rites for the dying and the dead.

We had house guests Wednesday evening. After dinner we ventured out for dessert to a restaurant at the mall. Stepping outside for the first time in five days, it came as almost a physical shock to see the houses in our neighborhood standing undamaged and the streets free of toxic water and storm debris: the storm had become such an all-consuming reality.

At the mall we stopped to tour one of Chapel Hill’s stranger landmarks, a self-styled “gourmet emporium” known as A Southern Season. And as we meandered through this seemingly endless collection of esoteric items — whole aisles devoted exclusively to hot sauces, to green tea, to Belgian chocolates; display after display of glassware and fine china, of crudité and paté platters, of rare and vintage wines — I tried to understand the knot gripping my stomach.

There was nothing here I needed. Among the hundreds of thousands of items, there was not one thing I needed. My sense of need had undergone a radical leveling triggered by the images of those who lacked the most basic things we need for survival.

My wife Lisa, who is trained as a psychiatric nurse, volunteered 10 days ago for deployment to the Gulf Coast and is stationed, as of yesterday, at a Red Cross evacuation center in Natchez, Mississippi, where she will provide grief and crisis counseling. The tremendous pride I have felt in what she is doing is accompanied by the regret that I have no comparably “useful” skill set with on-the-ground applications.

It has also come home to me that Lisa’s ability to respond is the true gift of her time of life. She “no longer has to worry about raising a family, pleasing a boss, or earning more money.” From the dividend our generation now enjoys — all those extra years of life — comes “the chance to join with others in building a compassionate society, [a society] where people can think deep thoughts, create beauty, study nature, teach the young, worship what they hold sacred, and care for one another” — “the chance to do great good against great odds” (Theodore Roszak). “‘Tis a consummation/ Devoutly to be wish’d” and the faith and hope behind my own work with Second Journey.

I told Lisa before she left that I knew she would come back changed. If watching television accounts was enough to trigger soul-searching and a reassessment of one’s personal priorities, how much more witnessing the devastation and human suffering firsthand? I expect a homecoming not unlike that of T.S. Eliot’s magi who return to their “Kingdoms” disquieted: “No longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,/ With an alien people clutching their gods.” It will be a challenge to keep up with Lisa.

The scriptural readings this Sunday came from the great story of the Exodus — how Yahweh’s avenging angel, coming as fire and water, rescued the Hebrews and led them out of the slave camps of Egypt. In Katrina we have seen another avenging angel. She has torn aside the veil behind which was hid that “other America”. She has delivered “the lost and the forgotten ones” — the anawim to whom Jesus promised the Kingdom of Heaven and the Earth as their inheritance. She has delivered them from their ruined city, branded our hearts with indelible images of their exodus, and scattered their numbers through every state in this country where it is hoped they shall be much harder to ignore.

I am writing this on the fourth anniversary of the terrorist attack of September 11. I am writing with fervent hope that we will not again squander the opportunity that a great national tragedy presents. I have in mind specifically the way the public conversation after 9/11 was co-opted:

“In those first weeks, it was as if we had all gone down to our own Ground Zero, the Ground Zero in our hearts and our souls. The public conversation expressed the most beautiful values and behavior in the inspiring examples of the rescue workers, the world’s support and love for the American people, and every American’s desire to help, give blood, or send money. People opened their hearts in so many ways…

“Then after just a few weeks, when the collective state of shock and mourning started to show up as an economic downturn, specifically as a serious fall in retail sales, President George W. Bush in a televised address called upon Americans to support the economy by getting back to business, the business of spending money. Shopping was portrayed as an expression of patriotism, a way to show the terrorists that they could not destroy our economy, our consumerism, the American spirit, or the American way of life.”

The point of Lynne Twist’s essay is that a conversation grounded in sufficiency — a conversation which united us in mutual support and opened our national conscience to deep soul searching — became a conversation grounded in scarcity — a conversation which divided us from our global neighbors and stoked our fears. “The you-and-me world vanished, replaced by the you-or-me world.”

I hope this doesn’t happen again. I hope the public conversation which could lead to a thoughtful re-evaluation of national priorities — around such critical issues as poverty in America, conservation of our wetlands, our oil dependence, and global warming (to name a few) — does not again become co-opted.

I hope we continue “no longer at ease” in our “old dispensation” of conspicuous consumption…for a long, long time

Pushing Through Solid Rock: The Burdens and Benefits of the Dying Process by Wesley Burwell, D. Min.

Wesley Burwell, D.Min., spent twenty years serving four Congregational/United Church of Christ parishes in New Hampshire. For another twenty-seven years he was in private practice in New Hampshire as a Licensed Pastoral Psychotherapist. Now, in retirement, he divides his time between serving as Spiritual Care Coordinator for Seacoast Hospice, guiding Rites of Passage for elders, and his family. Wes was a a participant in Second Journey’s September 2004 Visioning Council, which was held at Wisdom House in Litchfield CT, and plans to attend the October 13-16 Visioning Council on Health and Well-Being in the Second Half of Life which will be held at the Wildacres Retreat Center in western North Carolina.

Once for each thing. Just once; no more.
And we too, just once. And never again.

There are spiritual benefits available to each of us in our dying process if we want to claim them. It all depends on whether we want to intentionally live our lives, up to whatever fullness is possible, or choose instead a living death.

Living and dying are not two separate processes; they are both at work in us together at the same time – at both the cellular level and the spiritual level. While we don’t have much control over the processes themselves, we do have considerable choice about how we are going to react to living and dying and what meaning we choose to make of it.

The process of living is a process of building up connections: connections to others, connections to our own way of being in the world, connections to our own body and the world of nature, connections that when they are all put together constitute the meaning we make out of life. In each stage of our life — from childhood to elderhood — we work hard to make these connections. And just when we begin to feel comfortable with what we have built, it all begins to fall apart.

We may be reacting to something in the familiar old way, when we notice that there is something about our response that doesn’t quite fit. Later on we respond to the familiar situation in the same old way again, and this time it is even less appropriate. What is going on here? What is wrong with me? Other ways of being and responding begin to fall apart. We feel confused. We descend into chaos. What worked so well yesterday when we were 12 years old, is not working today when we’ve turned 13 — something about hormones, they say, and growth spurts and hair growing in strange places. Something is dying. Something is out of control. We’re losing the comfortable connections we worked so hard to put together. And we suffer because of those losses.

And sometimes in the midst of our suffering, we choose what the sacred scriptures of the ancient Mayan culture called the Way of the Worm. We just don’t want to hurt anymore. We’re tired of being confused. We slither and slide and crawl around the pain. We’d do anything to feel better.

The alternative is to choose the Way of the Cougar. We face the darkness within us, wrestle with the conflicting shadows and turbulent energies. We try to figure out what kind of person we want to be. We make mistakes but discover what we don’t want. We try again. And gradually, what at first had felt as scary as the Devil turns out to be an Angel. Like Jacob who refused to give up the struggle until he was given a blessing, we emerge from the darkness chastened, but with new strength, new purpose and maybe even with a new name.

The suffering of dying is inevitable. It can come in the form of physical pain, and it can come in the form of spiritual pain. It can take the shape of losing one’s independence, after spending a lifetime of gradually winning a modicum of control over one’s own life. The deepest human suffering is seen, as a person realizes that he or she is losing the connection to all of the attachments of a lifetime, from the smell of morning coffee, to the intimate sharing with a spouse, to the graduation of a granddaughter from college. Suffering can be seen in the fear of anticipation as everything in the known world dissolves and begins to disappear exposing the great darkness of the radically unknown. These are the inevitable sufferings that death thrusts upon us.

Nancy Wood, a poet who lives at Taos Pueblo uses the four seasons of the year as her image in talking about death:

You shall ask
What good are dead leaves
And I will tell you
They nourish the sore earth.
You shall ask
What reason is there for winter
And I will tell you
To bring about new leaves.
You shall ask
Why are the leaves so green
And I will tell you
Because they are rich with life.
You shall ask
Why must summer end
And I will tell you
So that the leaves can die.

“What good are dead leaves?” “They nourish the sore earth.” Life goes on, dying and living, two phases of one process.

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The great religions suggest ways we can begin our preparation for death through practices of reflection, contemplation and meditation, approaching death directly rather than denying its reality. A Tibetan monk was asked why he spent so much time contemplating death. He responded, “I practice dying so I will know how to live.” This has been the attitude of all religious contemplatives and mystics, regardless of their specific religious traditions.

But in addition to the inevitable suffering that accompanies dying, there are other things which people commonly suffer, which may divert them from the more important work of attending to the inevitable suffering. These are really unnecessary sufferings because they can usually be taken care of long before the time of receiving a terminal diagnosis. Unnecessary Suffering is sometimes caused by a simple lack of knowledge. I continue to be surprised to find people who do not know about hospice, what it is and what it provides for services.

Many people may also endure physical and emotional pain because they do not realize that most pain can be controlled by competent management of medications.

Perhaps the most tragic of unnecessary sufferings concerns broken relationships and the failure to have made some reconciliation or to have come to an acceptance that reconciliation is not possible in this life. In hospice work, life review with patients sometimes reveals painful unfinished business with parents, siblings, children, or former friends. For years people have carried the anguish of resentments and betrayals. Sometimes they are not open to any attempt at reconciliation but still carry the anger and hurt as though the rupture happened yesterday. It may be possible to help them talk about it and consciously decide to accept the end of that relationship and lay down the burden they have been carrying.

In other situations reconciliation may be possible and can be facilitated by bringing the people together face to face, by phone, or if one has died, by making emotional contact and asking forgiveness and offering it in return. Would that each of us might do a periodic review of our relationships, attend to any unfinished business, exchanging forgiveness where necessary, and set our spirit free from guilt and resentment. Anyone who has worked with the dying has seen instances where unresolved relationships have prolonged the dying process and made it more difficult.

So there is an inevitable suffering that any loss brings, including death. No matter what the loss and when it happens in life, we are forced to work through the painful process of letting go and moving on to begin to live without what had been such an integral part of our lives. And there is the unnecessary suffering brought about by:

• a lack of knowledge about resources we might have searched out;
• treatment options we might have asked about at the beginning and made our choices known;
• and broken relationships we might have brought to closure.

The more we understand dying and living as the two parallel processes that constitute life, the more we will do the necessary work of grief and suffering, throughout the life span, as we experience recurring losses. The more practiced we become in dealing with the “little deaths” as they come to us, the more ready and able we will be to face into the inevitable suffering of the “big death”. If we have done our grief work at each life stage, we will be less encumbered with ungrieved loss and freer to give our energy to the inevitable suffering that comes with the physical death of our bodies. But suffering is never easy and it is always an open question whether we can marshal the inner resources to let go of everything we have ever held on to.

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Most people find, at least in the “little deaths” that happen throughout life, that slowly, almost imperceptibly, they find themselves moving. Not that they get over it or out of it. But rather they learn to live with it. They learn how to breathe again. They learn how to move again. They learn how to see again. So that on this side of the “big death,” in the lesser deaths that we all have experienced, most people survive.

And many people do more than survive. Something happens to them in the process of letting go that transforms the suffering. For some it’s a quietness that comes over them in the midst of stormy grief. Perhaps that is what is meant by the biblical promise of “the peace that passes understanding.” For some who have cared for a loved one in their dying, I’ve heard them say that it was the hardest and most painful thing they have ever done. And they go on to say they would not want to have missed it. They feel somehow enriched by it, as though they had touched something in themselves and the other that was more enduringly real than death; almost as though they had been standing so close to the edge of this life that they could see through the veil and catch a glimpse of the next life.

So most survive grief’s suffering and for many there is some kind of alchemy that transforms the suffering into a profound and meaningful experience that both enriches and deepens their life.

Those who survive a great grief deserve to take pride in their achievement. Indeed, they have followed the Way of the Cougar. Those who have found their suffering transformed into great meaningfulness, understandably feel gratitude for having received an unexpected gift and blessing. There is yet one further possibility that I have seen happen for some. And that is that the suffering is not only transformed but is transcended. The suffering itself becomes the source of healing for others and fulfillment for oneself.

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You’ve seen people whose suffering has given them a special sensitivity which they use to help and heal others who suffer. It’s as though they have become part of the healing energy of the universe — the archetype of the Wounded Healer whose purpose in life is to share this healing energy with those who need it.

I have taken the title of this essay from the poem (below) by the German poet Rilke. In his suffering and feeling small he cries out to God and asks him to enter into his pain to transform it. And then in one of the most daring lines in all literature Rilke offers God the opportunity to come to dwell within him in order to learn what human suffering feels like.

It is possible I am pushing
through solid rock,
like the vein of ore
encased, alone.
I am such a long way in
I can see no way through and no space.
Everything is close to my face
and everything close to my face is stone.
I don’t have much knowledge yet in grief,
so this darkness makes me feel small.
You (God), be the Master;
Make yourself fierce; break in.
And then your great transforming will happen to me
And my great grief cry will happen to you.

The mystics in all religions have seen union with the Divine as the spiritual goal of human consciousness. One of the early Christian mystics is quoted as saying, “God became human so that humans might become Divine.” Rilke saw the purpose of human life as collaboration with God in expanding the knowledge and wisdom of the universe: “Inside human beings is where God learns,” is the way he put it in another poem, “Just As The Winged Energy of Delight.”

Surviving the suffering of letting go of all the things we have held on to is an important achievement. More important is the transformation of suffering into the wisdom that enables us to place our trust in God rather than in things — any things. And most important is the transcendence of suffering in which the Wounded Healers collaborate with God in the healing of the universe.

And in this life we get to choose what our goal will be.

A concluding word from Rilke:

Once for each thing. Just once; no more.
And we too, just once. And never again.
But to have been this once: to have been
at one with the earth,
seems beyond undoing.

— Rilke

That’s transcendence — “beyond undoing”.

Follow your muse to better health and well being…
It’s Never Too Late: Creativity in Later Life by Janice Blanchard

Janice Blanchard, MSPH, is a gerontologist and aging advocate. She serves on the executive board of the Denver Commission on Aging, the Denver OWL, and as a consultant for several national organizations, including the National Center for Creative Aging and Second Journey. Blanchard writes and speaks on numerous topics, including spirituality; arts, humanities and creativity; ritual; life narratives; community and housing options; ethics and values; and technology use in aging and disabled populations. This article has been excerpted from the original that appeared in CSA Journal (March 2005) “It’s Never Too Late: Creativity in Later Life.”

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There IS a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the 
creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. 
When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.
— Sophia Loren

The pursuit of one’s dreams, the desire for artistic expression, and the pinnacle of creativity are concepts most people associate with youth. A growing body of research, however, shows that creative potential is not the unique domain of the young or middle-aged. In fact, the third age (65 years and older) offers many people their greatest opportunity to excel.

Simply defined, creativity is bringing something new into existence — be it a product, process, new idea, or new way of looking at the world. That creativity exists at all in later life challenges popular thought; that it can thrive in the golden years is revolutionary thinking. Negative associations between aging and creativity are widespread and ingrained in our society in beliefs — “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

According to Gene Cohen, author of The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life, creativity plays an important role in healthy aging. Preliminary findings in Cohen’s new national study demonstrate that seniors actively engaged in creative activities have significantly better overall mental and physical health, including fewer falls and doctor’s visits; less use of medications; fewer vision problems; less loneliness and depression; and an increased level of involvement in other activities.

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Imagination is more important than knowledge.
— Albert Einstein

Creativity in Later Life

Most people think of creativity in the artistic sense — painting, music, dance, and so on. But creativity is also an element essential to most other fields, for example, biology, chemistry, and mathematics. Moreover, creative thinking is a necessary part of everyday life: it enhances our life enjoyment and provides the inspiration to problem-solve. Cohen believes that the ability to create is one of the key elements of our humanity; it exists in everyone, at every age, regardless of how much or little it is used or recognized.

He distinguishes three different ways and times in which aging and creativity intersect to provide new opportunities for personal growth and creative expression:

1) Creativity that begins and blossoms in later life

2) Creativity that continues as a lifelong pursuit, whether as a continuation in a particularly field, or that changes and takes a new form of expression

3) Creativity that develops as a response to adversity and loss.

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It’s never too late to be what you might have been.
— George Eliot

Late Bloomers

We call the flowering plants that reach their peak only late in the growing season late bloomers. Often these plants do not receive quite enough sun or nourishment. Then one day in late summer, they begin to blossom, one beautiful flower after another, often continuing well into autumn.

Among people, late bloomers are those individuals who (re)discover their creative spirits late in life — often in the face of adversity — and flourish as a result. As a society, we are fascinated and charmed by late-life bloomers.

Anna Mary “Grandma” Moses (1860-1961) had an interest in art when she was young, but her mother encouraged more practical activities. At age 27, she married a farmer, settled down on a farm, and birthed 10 children (5 died in infancy), which she went on to raise. She only returned to art in her late 70’s. A few years later, her paintings — depicting idealized rural life — and her modest, down-to-earth personality captivated the American public. When Grandma Moses died at the age of 101, she had completed more than 1600 paintings and earned an international reputation for her work.

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My breakthrough came very late in life, really only starting 
when I was fifty years old. But at that time I felt as though 
I had the strength for new deeds and ideas.
— Hans Hofmann

Masters and Lifetime Achievers

Some people discover their talents early in life and remain creatively productive all their lives, albeit not always in the same style or even the same field. A surprising number live well into old age, many creating some of their best and most distinctive works in their elder years.

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Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents 
that would otherwise have lain dormant.
— Horace

Out of Adversity Comes Creativity

If necessity is the mother of invention then one could say that adversity is the mother of creativity. Adversity is often the unexpected visitor. Unforeseen accidents, illness, death, or other significant losses can push us to our limits of endurance. Yet even out of the most bitter and terrible times, we can overcome hardship and despair by creative engagement.

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You see things: and say “Why?” But I dream things 
that never were: and say “why not?” 
— George Bernard Shaw

A Time to Flourish

Creativity is a lifelong gift — it is never too early or too late to tap into this renewable resource that resides within each of us, whether to enhance our selves or our businesses. Age often brings with it more free time to create; fewer familial and social obligations; a lessening of inhibitions and fears; and heightens a sense of urgency: if not now, when?

The benefits of creativity in later life are numerous (Cohen, 2000). First, it improves mental and emotional health — creativity produces a fresh perspective, strengthens our morale, improves our sense of well-being, and makes us more emotionally resilient to life’s adversities and losses. Second, creativity enhances our physical health. Creative expression makes us feel better and improves our outlook, which in turn provides a beneficial effect to our immune systems and general physical health. Third, creativity enriches relationships with family and friends. Finally, creativity provides a legacy. The example you set to stay intellectually active, socially involved and creatively engaged will have a positive affect on the younger people around you.

Want a Good Bedtime Story? by Pat Samples, MA, MFA

Editor’s note: The author is a writer, speaker, and transformational educator. Her forthcoming book, Body Odyssey: Lessons from the Bones and Belly (available from Itasca Books in October 2005), offers a new view of the aging body as a remarkable resource filled with stories we can learn from. Samples is the author of six other books, including Daily Comforts for Caregivers and Self-Care for Caregivers: A Twelve Step Approach. Pat Samples frequently speaks and gives workshops on aging, caregiving, body wisdom, and inspired living.

Our bodies are a great source of stories. Hidden in our muscles and corpuscles is a record of all our experiences and what we have made of them – the stories of our lives. Indeed, our bodies have been shaped, in part, by these stories. If we’ve been beaten down often enough, physically or otherwise, our chest may have a caved-in tendency or it may stick out in perpetual defiance. If we’ve “held our tongue” like we were taught in childhood, we may experience TMJ — facial pain caused by temperomandubular joint dysfunction — in our later years. If “hurry up” was our family’s mantra, as it was in mine,” a tendency to rush and its accompanying tension may take up residence in neck and tummy muscles, and more than the needed amount of adrenaline and cortisol is regularly cued up.

This massive archive in our somatic library is available for 24-hour checkout. The longer we live, the more it seems to invite us in for a look. If we take notice of what’s on the shelf before pain and illness strike, we may find some very interesting reading. We can even rewrite some of the stories, potentially reshaping our identities and our lives. This activity is especially powerful when shared in community.

In a course I teach, called Writing Your Own Permission Slip, participants pay attention to their bodies through reflective and playful activities, then do some writing to discover the stories living there. Once on paper, the stories become artifacts, separate from the writer, and open to revision. As participants share their revelations and revisions, the community of witnesses in the class become midwives for new identities to emerge.

A retired engineer in his seventies had lost all sense of joy or pleasure. His only remaining destiny, as he saw it, was to care for his wife who had Alzheimer’s. His sober expression and stiff torso confirmed this view. A therapist had diagnosed depression. In this man’s case, his body’s hidden story of playfulness and creativity was dusty on a basement shelf in the more remote corner of his personal library. In fact, he said he had never really played in his life, because he had to do farm chores and field work from his earliest years.

In the class, we played catch and made faces and did other activities that re-activated the sensations and movement of childhood pleasures. The depressed man was slow to join in and couldn’t recall having had such experiences, but his body had not forgotten. The feeling of connecting bat to ball or of running from “Tag, you’re it” never goes away. It wasn’t long before, in an impromptu acting out of one class member’s wildest dreams of being queen of the jungle, the man with the no-play memory was on all fours at her side, purring playfully in loud tigerly style. His ability for imaginative playing with others had come back to life. By the end of the class, he had remembered the fun of playing in his school band and he wrote that he had decided it was time to take up guitar lessons. He also made plans to find a tai chi class.

Our bodies, when attended to, have much to tell us that will free us. Another student in the class, who had suffered considerable discomfort for many years from breast enhancement, found the courage to reverse the surgery. In a class writing exercise, she asked her breasts to tell her their wishes, and (with her pen) they wrote a passionate request to her to be returned to their original size. In a circle of people who were honoring the history and wisdom of their bodies, she found the support to write a new chapter in her body’s story.

My hope is that in many intentional community circles we can encourage each other to honor the stories our bodies want to tell, especially as we get older. We can harvest their wisdom for the healing of the individual and the inspiration of all.

Review: Senior Cohousing by Charles Durrett reviewed by Lisa Bolton

Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living by Charles Durrett

Charles Durrett has designed over thirty cohousing communities in North America and has consulted on many more around the world. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, the New York Times, the LA Times, Architecture, and a wide variety of other publications. He and his wife, Kathryn McCamant, have received numerous awards for their work including the most recent World Habitat Award, presented by the United Nations, and the Mixed Use, Mixed Income Development Award, presented jointly by the American Institute of Architects and HUD. Contact them at www.cohousingco.com/

Ten thousand Baby Boomers turn 59 each day. As they have at every other point in their progress through the life span, they are creating new choices for themselves. They are looking at the current options for “retirement living” and finding them wanting, both socially and health-wise.

Quality of life is more and more important in the last part of our life, and there is no need to live out our later years alone or lonely. Aging in place — in community — is an opportunity waiting for development; and cohousing — perhaps the most creative housing option for seniors — is one that we can make happen for us NOW, if we, as Chuck Durrett says, “Go forth and be one with [our] own future.”

Chuck Durrett, along with his wife Katie McCamant, popularized the Danish concept of cohousing in this country with the publication of their 1988 book, Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves. In his new book, Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living, Durrett describes the new trend in Denmark, where 20 of the last 25 cohousing projects have been senior cohousing. But Durrett not only writes about cohousing; he and his wife eat, drink, and sleep it: their own personal housing of choice. Moreover, the two — through their firm, McCamant and Durrett — have been directly involved in the design and development of over 38 cohousing communities across the U.S.

Readers unfamiliar with the general concept of cohousing are given a quick introduction to its six components. (The last distinguishing characteristic — “separate income sources” — differentiates cohousing from communes with which the term is often mistakenly confused.)

Addressing the question, why senior as opposed to multigenerational cohousing, Durrett covers the differences between the two and elucidates the advantages for seniors of having a community specifically designed to focus on their needs, interests, and concerns. The architecture and design considerations take into account the specific needs of seniors. For example, the common house may include one or more guest suites in case of need for a care worker to live there temporarily.

Durrett provides a proven recipe, refined from 20 years of increasingly successful experience in Denmark, guaranteed to move the project along quickly. During the feasibility phase — “Do we have a project?” — a core group begins assessing local sites, municipal support, and financing options. During the information phase, a public meeting and follow-up seminar help “spread the word” to potential new residents. The developer and/or architect are also contacted, and the expanding group works to define their expectations.

During the more structured discussions and workshops of Study Group I, the group defines its needs and goals, including the project’s economic aspects, social structure, mutual responsibilities, and decision-making protocols. Potential sites are identified, ownership types described and decided upon, and conclusions described in a report. During this phase, members of the group learn how to work cooperatively with each other.

During Study Group II, the group — now consisting of those who will actually move into the completed community — make final architectural decisions relating to the site plan, common house, universal features of the individual units, and the design of the individual features within the house types. Then a building contractor is hired, financing secure, and ground is broken and construction begins.

The last phase, Study Group III, may be the most critical of the five. Here all after-move-in policies must be resolved. Discussions and decisions about agreements are made, the process of taking in new residents is decided upon, policies are established (e.g. for common meals, pets, who takes care of whom and what), and methods for taking over vacancies are codified.

Copious floor plans and photographs allow the reader to see the many possibilities open to anyone considering cohousing. The financial issues discussed include those involving lending institutions as well as those within the investing group such as setting the building budget and setting the group’s economic policies. An excellent appendix details myriad features of access-friendly design of particular importance to seniors.

Durrett’s book provides an especially good discussion of the issue of aging within the cohousing community. He cautions that basic co-care issues — including what rules related to the age and health of potential new residents are to apply — need to be resolved in advance of move-in. Some “co-care burdens” are a natural, normal part of everyday life. You pick up your neighbor’s prescription at the pharmacy when you pick up your own; you carry a meal over to a friend who has been ill. However, the group will undoubtedly want to hammer out understandings for tasks that go beyond the everyday, those that are more properly described as nursing care. “It’s about boundaries,” Durrett says, pointing out that people who live in cohousing must give themselves permission to say No. “And they generally learn to do so.”

This book is a must-read for anyone over 50 unhappy with the limited menu of residential possibilities currently available. It is easy to read, highlights all the major issues one needs to anticipate, and gives clear how-to-do-it guidelines to a group wanting to take charge of their own housing future. It tackles problems that any group will undoubtedly face and gives helpful solutions, making the often daunting task of creating a cohousing community seem “do-able.” It is very inspiring testament to growing old “in community.”