Growing old

 It's Friday. 

The end of another week.

And by my reckoning, given my date of birth, that's 2,776 weeks and 3 days since I was born.

Is that a lot?

It sure feels like it. 

In fact, only this week did I conjure up from the abyss of my reckoning the fact that I'm officially old.

Now we can debate the passing from middle age to old age but it's not the years that are important but, to me at least, a felt sense of belonging or should I say acceptance.

Yes, that's it: acceptance not resignation.

Did I think this time would come? Not really. As a wee kid, growing up in a small seaside town in Devon, England, all I ever wanted to do was escape. Get the hell out. I did. And I ran and ran until, well, I not so much found myself as I felt I'd put some hard yards between the old, underwhelmed me to someone slightly happier in their skin. But the trouble was I never quite escaped the need to do -- to always be on the road of 'doing'.

And (sadly) I worked so hard that my life disappeared by with hardly a mention. 

As I've written about ad nauseam, it was only when I suffered a little bleed on the brain that was I brought to my not very enlightened senses. For a while, I took my foot off the work pedal but it didn't take long before I was right back at it.

Why am I telling you this or any of it?

Because it's so easy to forget that in the middle of all that is us -- a fallible, sensitive human being. And if we're not careful we miss so much of our lives. That's not to say that we should ruminate ourselves into a solipsistic stupor but taking time out -- no, not to retreat -- to contemplate life and all that it offers is not only sensible but, I think, mandatory in these anthropocentric times. 

"Oh, please Summerhayes, not all of us can afford to lounge about doing sweet FA."

Perhaps you're right, but my overriding sense is that if we're not careful, even with all the planning in the world, our lives accelerate so fast that before we know it, it's over, and given what's at stake that would be a disappointment of the highest proportion. 

To be clear, I'm not exhorting any sort of change programme, JFDI daily routine or some molar-grinding presentation of be all you can be right up until the bitter end but I am asking or inviting a slightly different purview of growing into old age.

The truth is -- my truth -- I'm pleased to think of myself as old, if only because I'd like to think that with it comes a little more insight, a little more wisdom and patience for what lies ahead.

Have a wonderful day.

Take care,

Julian

Poem of the day

 Caged Bird

BY MAYA ANGELOU

A free bird leaps

on the back of the wind   

and floats downstream   

till the current ends

and dips his wing

in the orange sun rays

and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage

can seldom see through

his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and   

his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings   

with a fearful trill   

of things unknown   

but longed for still   

and his tune is heard   

on the distant hill   

for the caged bird   

sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn

and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams   

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream   

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied   

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings   

with a fearful trill   

of things unknown   

but longed for still   

and his tune is heard   

on the distant hill   

for the caged bird   

sings of freedom.

Little pockets of sanity

Life is a marvellous thing -- no, really it is -- but right now, betwixt a global pandemic and likely mass unemployment, it's hard not to get lost in a desperate wellspring of misery.

"Why me?"

My shtick (if I were to market myself!) wouldn't be premised on offering yet more advice, answers or even a cool sense of vulnerability to what ails you (I long ago dropped the 'coach' badge), no, instead, I'd invite us to wonder. I don't mean to daydream, although that might be in the mix. No to think about and ruminate on the notion of limits, endings, grief, sorrow and love. Especially love.

Of course, this sense of "What if?" isn't going to (inter alia) pay the bills or necessarily pull you out your funk, but then again, don't you feel that what we've done previously -- if not personally then certainly collectively -- hasn't really allowed us to see a more beautiful world our hearts know is possible (see the book with the same title by Charles Eisenstein)? I don't mean to suggest that you're the author of your own misfortune but perhaps, just perhaps, more of the same isn't where we now need to turn our gaze.

What I'm hinting at though, more than ever (and hence the rubric to today's meagre post), is in those fleeting moments of wonderment, we might find ourselves more lucid, more upright and able not only to fully comprehend our situation but to see it through a new vista.

But then again, in that heady state of wonderment, we may not be hopeful of anything more than our eventual demise. (That's a given for all of us and always, for me at least, puts things in perspective.) 

Here again, that lonely feeling of despair might not be what the doctor ordered, but sit with it for long enough and perhaps out of the cesspit of your orphan self might come a new take on what it means to be human. And in my book when comfort is so often the only show in town, I'm not sure that's such a bad thing.

In the end though how you approach any situation is a matter for your discernment but going (again) for the tried and tested option might not be the best way to navigate these choppy waters.

Blessings,

Julian

Photo by Federico Bottos on Unsplash

Poem of the day

 A Month of Happiness

- Robert Bly

A blind horse stands among cherry trees.
And bones shine from cool earth.The heart leaps
Almost up to the sky! But laments
And filaments pull us back into the dark.
Night takes us. But
A paw
Comes out of the dark
To light the road. I'll be all right.
I follow my own fiery traces through the night.

Poem of the day

I'm going to start with sharing a few poems by my favourite poets, and then, all being well, start to share a bit of my, slightly experimental work.

Thanks for stopping by.

Julian

The Simple Life

But it rarely is.

Simple. 

Oh sure, we simplify here, reduce there but we've still to wrestle our inner demons, even in the most blissful of locations. (That damn Monkey Mind.)

Perhaps I'm wrong. It could be that when you put everything in neat rows, elide all the shit and paint a pretty picture, so your mind settles and life becomes easier.

The thing is, I know what brings me joy -- spending time with my family, walking the dog, a cup of coffee, quiet music and a good book. The rest, well, it's often out of whack with how I'd like it to be and previously, drawn on mercilessly by the little voice in my head that tested the very fibre of my being, I'd be driven to order everything -- to keep up appearances if you wish (save the DIY -- not really my thing). It drove me mad. I found myself forever tidying up, judging myself by the perfect 'this' or 'that'. Why? Who really cares? It wasn't like I was hoping to sell my 'minimalist' shtick. 

What am I saying?

Be you, fully. Embrace the whole bloody thing even if, at times, it pisses you or other people off to a lamentable degree. 

I know, it sounds so lame -- "Be you" (oh please) -- but then again, I think we all know what truly floats our boats and there are only so many days left to live; and, trust me, no one, or at least not in my homestead, is going to judge you by how many times you decluttered, kept a perfect house, wore amazing clothes or had the most up to date lifestyle. 

Take care.

Blessings,

Julian

Photo by Dan-Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash 

A lost culture

“...along with the other animals, the stones, the trees, and the clouds, we ourselves are characters within a huge story that is visibly unfolding all around us, participants within the vast imagination, or Dreaming, of the world.” ― David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World

Culturally, at least in the West, we're one generation deep.

Occasionally, we might reminisce about what went before, but, mostly, we're lead to believe in and brainwashed by the cultural here and now. You know the one that exhorts (among many other malignant traits) 'be all you can be'. 

But if you're prompted, you only have to walk around your local graveyard to understand that there's a little more to our cultural locus than what pops up in your social media feed or even, perhaps, the folklore that's been passed down through the family. 

Of late, largely as a result of work done by my brother, I've been able to reach back in the past -- at least to the 1800s -- to establish that there's a long lineage of Devonians floating about in the ether. I'll be honest, as woo-woo as it might appear, for a while now, I've wondered if there might be something more to my love affair with Devon than the immense landscape and the quiet thrum of the place.

It really is my spiritual home.

And that makes me feel connected -- perhaps more connected than ever. 

What about you?

Do you feel that you've found home?

But it's more than a lived spirit I feel. I also sense that there are rituals and ceremonies that have been elided from my memory that I need to understand. I know there are a few people who might illuminate what might have existed (Dr Martin Shaw comes immediately to mind) but something tells me, as part of my long-overdue pilgrimage, I need to appreciate culturally what binds me to this place.

Anyhow, enjoy your day.

Blessings, 

Julian

Photo by Tyssul Patel on Unsplash

Only better questions

For the past few weeks, I've been busy with work -- real busy. In fact, I can't remember a time (certainly since lockdown) when it was like this.

And that's fine. No, really. It's kept me occupied and certainly, I've not had much time to surf the web or engage in social media. (Sorry, that sounds a bit off-hand. What I mean is that I've been nicely distracted.)

I have, though, missed blogging. It's quite something -- at least to me -- to go from a daily routine to, well, nothing. 

Nada.

In many ways, apart from the busyness, it's also been good to regroup, to collect my thoughts and to sit with all that's been arising -- especially the grief of losing my father-in-law who was (and still remains in spirit) a big part of our lives.

I don't have a mission, or strategy or plan as to how my blogging will unfold -- I've stopped posting on Livejournal and am back to Blogger (please feel free to subscribe 😀) -- but I'm hopeful that I will get back to something fairly regular, something a little different (I still crave to write the odd story or poem or something off the spiritual track) and something to keep me engaged with all that life offers.

For now, I'll leave you with today's musing, namely the idea that we need a better question or set thereof rather and instead of looking for another slick, easily assimilated answer to today's culturally-endorsed problems. This isn't new. Indeed, I've mentioned it more than once but, for me at least, as someone in the legal 'answer' game, I can tell you, from a lifetime of offering first one and then another answer, not much, if anything, has changed. What? You heard me. Despite all the flag-waving, cheerleading and exhortation, nothing much has changed.

You might ask, well then, what might be a better question than...how to solve this problem, how to be a better version of you, how to be kinder, less solipsistic etc? 

Here's mine for today:

Why is there so little wisdom in a world awash with old people?

And in case, you're wondering the genesis for this pithy number, I can tell you that it's straight out of Stephen Jenkinson's extraordinary book, Come of Age, A Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble. This isn't a plug or recommendation but if you want to know what it means to wonder about this question, then you might like to read a few pages from a free sample of the book (Kindle) or you can reach out to me on Twitter and we can share a few musings on the elder proposition.

Anyhow, have a lovely week.

Much love,

Julian.

Photo by Ksenia Makagonova on Unsplash

Letting go

Sometimes we get a choice, but mostly the ghosts intervene and everything, or most everything we hold dear, falls away.

In my case -- not that my backstory is worth remarking on -- endings have grown in importance, not just because they've shown me the real meaning of life but because it's part of who we are; namely, to be human, grown-up and no more and no less than our circumstance.

At this stage, you might be wondering where this post is headed. Nowhere, really. Previously that wasn't the case: I was all vim, vigour and hype. Of course, that too is part of being human -- i.e. a young man with great ambition or at least enough ambition to take me away from my barren, unloving and unloved life. But it wasn't me. It was a cloak to mask what was really going on.

I suppose all I'm saying is that we so often look for something out on the horizon that ends up being a chimaera. And that's fine. Fine in the sense that there's nothing to do, and certainly we shouldn't feel compelled to journey forth in the hope of replacing one faux dream with another. In any event, we'll do what we do, and go where we go, and we should see that for what it is -- a dynamic, flow of humanness.

I think it was Thomas Merton who said "Stand on you own two feet...", and the more I meditate on that divine expression, the more I'm driven to understand that to allow something deeper, more profound into my life I have to be prepared to let go to the fullest extent -- however much lament that might induce.

Anyhow, until the next time.

Much love,

Julian

Photo by Josh Nuttall on Unsplash

Everything changes

 “Experience life in all possible ways --
good-bad, bitter-sweet, dark-light,
summer-winter. Experience all the dualities.
Don't be afraid of experience, because
the more experience you have, the more
mature you become.” ― Osho

Life is replete with great joy but also sadness. Sadly, in our competency-addicted culture, we think it (sadness) something to get through, to be on the other side of; and then (not for everyone) it appears to give them bragging rights.

What if instead we practised sadness or grief or brokenheartedness?

I know what you're thinking. Here we go again, another faux branding exercise around the human experience.

Possibly, but for me, as I look back on my life, I realise how much I've stuffed down or skimmed in the hope of never having to face myself and my demons. And it did me no good. No good I say. No, all it did it was make me weary in not understanding why all the thrashing and expectation of things working out, lead to a slightly hollowed out life.

And now?

It's not so much I've turned a corner but being wrecked on schedule isn't something to be shunned or got through in double-quick time, but to pause, reflect and invite a more beautiful question into my heart:

How can I be more human?

Just to be clear, there's nothing to fix, to sort or make better. 

There's just life and death. 

And that excites me in equal measure.

Blessings, 
Julian