Journey Into old Age (part 5)

 

Last time, I offered the fourth part of the workshop based on the work of Helen Luke in her study of the journey into old age which draws on a number of classic stories.  Luke’s writing on this subject is found in her book – Old Age; Journey Into Simplicity.  Here is the fifth and final part of that material.

 

      I.          The Story: Odysseus is now informed that he must make sacrifices to Poseidon - the god he had offended in earlier years.  The three-fold sacrifice of ram, bull and breeding boar is his alone to find and fulfil.  This seemingly impossible task is made all the more impossible by the fact he must only use a rope to accomplish it.  This was in truth no surprise to our hero as it had all been foretold so long ago by the blind seer Teiresias.  For this fate had been truly forged in Odysseus’ pride filled ambition. 

The three sacrifices are made.  The god is appeased, enmity is ended and honour is thus restored.  Thus, the chasm between man and god - between ego and psyche is mended.  Odysseus place in the cosmos is thus set aright.   Odysseus then returned to where his journey had begun.  However, as has been said it was not the home he left because you can’t go to the home.  He has now fulfilled the life of the hero.  Domestic and divine were there united as the gods had after all ordained. 

The journey of growing old must be marked by sacrifices of those qualities that were forged in our pride and ambition of youth.  We must now as we grow into Old Age see with humility the follies and frailties of youth.  We must by these sacrifices appease the gods which we have dishonoured in the youthful follies.

 Exercise: Identify a god that you have offended in your youth e.g. this could be a value such as truth, honesty, charity etc.  Imagine what a sacrifice would be to appease that god. 

This concludes our journey into Old Age guided by Helen Luke.  I wish you blessings on your journey. 

 

 

Journey Into old Age (part 4)

 Last time, I offered the third part of the workshop based on the work of Helen Luke in her study of the journey into old age which draws on a number of classic stories.  Luke’s writing on this subject is found in her book – Old Age; Journey Into Simplicity.  Here is the final fourth part of that material.

 

III The Story: Odysseus awakes with realization of the path he must take.  He now knows the journey that he must take – a journey that is now not by water as is his want, but by land.  It is a journey he must undergo with a familiar token of his past voyages - an oar, which is now his only companion. Our hero then began this unfamiliar final journey until he came to a crossroads.   At this place he encounters a stranger who repeated words that had been prophesied so long ago.  The stranger did inquire after his well-formed oar, naming it as it was first so long ago – a winnowing fan.

 

Odysseus now is given the clarity vision to see the folly of his former years.  With eyes now clear and sight now freed he looked to what lay ahead and not behind.  His heart’s yearning was to go home.  However, he knew and the stranger’s words confirmed that would only lead folly to follow folly.  He must now face his fate so that he would not condemn his son to follow him in folly renewed.  

 

The stranger continues to tell Odysseus of the effect that oar - now winnowing fan will have on those that see it.  With the taste of that apple, they will be awakened to the possibilities they were not previously conscious of.  And so, a journey now beckons and begins.  Odysseus now plants the oar at the centre of the crossroad.  There it will grow as if alive - for so it is.  Its root will seek the depths of Hades – the Unconscious - and its new-formed branches – now sprouting leaves will reach the heavens.  This axis mundi will bear the fruit of Odysseus’ life work.  And there a carne was laid to mark this monument.    

 

 

Here the symbol of his former life – the oar which cut the water and propelled him through the hero’s journey of his youth – has now taken on a new symbolic meaning – a winnowing fan.  The winnowing fan that separates the wheat from the chaff will enable us to see clearly and differentiate the wheat, which provides the bread of heaven to nourish our souls from the chaff, which feeds our egos with empty calories.

 

The journey of growing old is one of increasing humility - where we see clearly the folly of youth - the striving and the conquests that youth is inevitably err to.  Will we give in to the temptation to hold onto the dream of recapturing our fading youth or will we seek the new way in which our oars will become winnowing fans. Again we face a challenge – to plant the oar of our last journey in a new land that will grow as we continue to explore the new land of our growing old.

 

Exercise: Identify an aspect of your youth - a symbol which propelled you through your journey in life. How can that symbol be transformed into a new symbol for your journey into Old Age? 

 

I will complete our journey with the final part of the material next time.  Blessings on your journey.

Journey Into old Age (part 3)

Last time, I offered the second part of the workshop based on the work of Helen Luke in her study of the journey into old age which draws on a number of classic stories.  Luke’s writing on this subject is found in her book – Old Age; Journey Into Simplicity.  Here is the third part of that material.

 II The story: Odysseus now recalls the words of Teiresias spoken so long ago.  With those words he recalled the folly and fate that youth had brought.  He recalled the prideful blindness his seeing eyes could not reveal.  In those words, consciousness came and with it the knowledge of the consequences they now bring.

 One of the marks of Growing Old is to begin the journey in humility.  To be truly humble is to see clearly as has been noted elsewhere.  We see our lives for what they are, the folly that we have embraced, the mistakes we have made, out of blindness and willfulness, the hurt we have caused others, and the hurt we perceive others have caused us. 

Exercise: How has humility, i.e. seeing your life clearly enabled you to appreciate this as a temptation? What does it mean for you to be humble?  Describe how you see yourself with clarity that you didn’t see at the age of 20, 30, 40, or 50. Identify a temptation that you experience at this point in your life that would feed your ego rather than enabling you to grow old.   

 I will continue with the next part of the material next time.  Blessings on your journey.

 

Journey Into Old Age (Part 2)

Last time, I offered the first part of the workshop based on the work of Helen Luke in her study of the journey into old age which draws on a number of classic stories.  Luke’s writing on this subject is found in her book – Old Age; Journey Into Simplicity.  Here is the second part of that material. 

Section 2 

In this section we will examine Helen Luke’s imagined epilogue to Homer’s Odyssey.  The epilogue was introduced by Homer in the middle of the story but never fulfilled.   Let us explore the final journey of Odysseus, which is his journey into Old Age.  I have summarized Helen Luke’s story and provided commentary on the different sections.   

I. The story: The peace and order ordained by Zeus has now been established for our hero Odysseus.  His reunion with Penelope long delayed is now enjoyed.  The hero watches his son gain manhood as Odysseus had these many years before.

Within Odysseus, rested but no longer at peace, restlessness stirs.  He yearns once more for the sea voyages of his years gone by where he once more would be the hero of years long gone.  Our hero falls into a sleep, which reveals to him a different journey now unleashed by forces stirring within him. 

The seer long absent to his waking life is now present once more.  Teiresias will reveal that fate, which has always been there waiting to be revealed.  The destiny revealed is no longer one of youth waiting to be lived out.  Rather it is one of completion to be fulfilled.

Teiresias reveals the journey that Odysseus now must make.  It is a journey unlike the others Odysseus embraced with joy and anticipation in his youth.  This journey will be by land not by sea.  It is his final journey he must now embark upon in his maturity.  It is a hero’s journey to be sure but not one for loot or conquest or glory.  Rather it is one of sacrifice and repentance.  

Teiresias, the wise old man, had appeared to Odysseus and revealed the journey that awaits him if he chooses.   This journey in his maturity will be unlike the one that he made as the hero in his youthful pride and exuberance.  It will be a journey by land and not the familiar sea, which he embraced, in earlier days.  

This different journey reveals the challenge of old age – particularly in our culture of eternal youth in which youth is prized and old age is devalued and ignored. The journey so tempting to our Ego will be one, “tempting us towards repetition of our life’s triumph, tempting us toward wreckage and the inferno, the other coaxing us towards the true journey of the soul that has lived long and well, and must turn away from mere continuation of accustomed efforts to new significant, perhaps painful, soul-journeys.” (Old Age viii)

Exercise: Imagine what it would mean for you to ‘Grow Old’ rather than succumbing into the aging process.  How will this journey be different from the journey of your youth?

 I will continue with the next part of the material next time  Blessings on you journey.

Journey Into Old Age

With all the hype about the latest phenomenon at the movie box office – the retelling of the story of the Odyssey – I went back to look again at a workshop that I had developed which involved the story of Odysseus.  The workshop is based on the work of Helen Luke in her study of the journey into old age which draws on a number of classic stories.  Luke’s writing on this subject is found in her book – Old Age; Journey Into Simplicity.  I would like to share the workshop material with you.  The material is too lengthy for this venue, so, over the next three week I will share one of the three sections of the material which deals with Odyseus’ journey into old age. 

Introduction

 

I shall say no more except that I already told you many years ago of the alternative journey you are now called to take – a journey which does indeed lie on the slopes of that mountain but holds no fame or glory for you; only loneliness and sadness.  The choice is yours.  Will you deceive yourself as Dante’s Ulysses did in a sin far worse than the deceit of the Trojan horse? (Old Age 12)

 

These words of the poet Teiresias, the blind poet, imagined by Helen Luke, to Odysseus resting from his toils and trials of youth, sum up the choice which all of us must make when we face the journey into old age.  Are we truly to continue ‘grow old’; to continue to grow in psychic maturity or will we simply succumb to the aging process – sinking perhaps not gently into that perceived not so sweet night fighting that inevitable journey every step of the way.

 

Helen Luke examines this journey as presented in some of the great heroes of literature who made that journey of growth rather than relentlessly sinking into old age.  In Old Age, Journey into Simplicity, Helen Luke examines the hero’s journey into Old Age presented in essays on classical works; The Odyssey by Homer, The Tempest and King Lear by Shakespeare, and Little Gidding by T.S. Elliot.  I will draw on two of these works for this workshop; The Odyssey and Little Gidding.

 

Section 1

 

Let us begin our exploration of old age as a state that we are approaching or have reached by first looking at Eliot’s thoughts on the subject.  Helen Luke identifies three ‘gifts reserved for age’ which Eliot has revealed (92):

 

First, changes which take place in our bodies, as our bodies age into maturity.  These can be sudden changes due to a loss of physical health.  Our bodies may begin to betray us.  We can no longer do as much or do things as well as we once could.  However, often it is a gradual lessening of energy in its different forms, which comes to us through the senses.  Our sight becomes dimmer and we need glasses for reading.  Our hearing becomes less acute, and we may need hearing aids to comprehend what people are saying to us.  Our taste, smell and even touch become dull as do those other things that give us pleasure.  What lies ahead is the prospect of an ever-diminishing horizon of the physical world. The ego depends on imaginings of future achievements.  We of necessity turn to the present moment for our satisfaction.  As Luke notes, the Self lives in and for the present.

 

Second, the helpless rage at the folly of people and the laughter at things in which there is no humour.  We see the folly of those in political power whose only concern is reelection and the things which will ensure that.  We see the arrogance and greed of business leaders and politicians who are enthralled to the acquisition of money and power.  We see idealism turn into intolerance.  Growing Old gives us the opportunity to find the place beyond rage, which is true compassion, and joy in all creation. 

 

Third, there is the gift of memories.  As we grow old, we are able to see the past with true humility and see what were once triumphs of the ego at the expense of others.  As Luke says, “the hypocrisy of the ego always at bottom (is) concerned with its own merit and comfort, and most dangerously of all, its own spiritual merit. 

 

Exercise: select one of these gifts which resonates with you most at this time.  Do you see this as a gift or as something less positive?  Has your understanding and perception of this gift changed in your life? 

 

I will continue with this theme next week. 

 

 

Growing Old

American essayist and wise woman, Helen Luke, in her book Old Age - Journey into Simplicity, writes of the challenge of growing old as opposed to aging chronologically - her emphasis being on ‘growing’.   I first read this work, along with other works by Luke, when I was in my early sixties.  I embraced that approach, and it has been a goal of mine to do just that – grow old with the emphasis on growing.  I have done this haltingly with very mixed results.   Now that quite a bit of time has passed since then and I am old by most definitions – turning 75 recently, I think it would be useful to revisit what I wrote in my reflection on that work.  This was a reflection on Luke’s imaginings of a journey taken by Odysseus following his epic return home from the Trojan war.  It is a journey in which he grows old – a true hero’s journey. 

Here the symbol of his former life—the oar which cut the water and propelled him through the hero’s journey of his youth—has now taken on a new symbolic meaning—a winnowing fan.  The winnowing fan that separated the wheat from the chaff will enable us to see clearly and differentiate the wheat, which provides the bread of heaven to nourish our souls, from the chaff which feeds our egos with empty calories.

 The journey of growing old is one of increasing humility—where we see clearly the folly of youth—the striving and the conquests that youth is inevitably err to.  Will we give in to the temptation to hold onto the dream of recapturing our fading youth or will we seek the new way in which our oars will become winnowing fans. Again, we face a challenge—to plant the oar of our last journey in a new land that will grow as we continue to explore the new land of our growing old.

 As the signs of aging creep up on me and I resign myself to the increasing challenges of greeting a new day with less vigor than usual and I have what seems to be more “senior moments”, I can see that this new land of growing old is not for the faint of heart.  It will bring new challenges as my horizon shrinks – and not just because I need a new prescription for my glasses.  I find myself a stranger in a strange land. This new land requires a new way to navigate through it which I am just beginning to explore, and I haven’t discovered a GPS that truly works yet. 

I will close with a quote from Atul Gawande, a physician and author who has explored this land with his patients and himself with great patience and wisdom:

 

And what I realized is, we were not really talking about death or dying. We were really talking about: How do you live a good life all the way to the very end, with whatever comes? And that’s where you begin to unpack. 

 May we be blessed to all grow old on our journey in this new land.