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This Fertile Time of Aging

As I connect with more and more older people across the internet - bright, fascinating, creative people reinventing the idea and experience of aging, I grow evermore amazed. There is so much creativity going on these days! Symposia, websites, blogs, conferences, books, organizations - my head spins in this new and exciting landscape. But what to do with all these possibilities?

On one hand, I feel thrilled with excitement. I want to contribute, join every website, befriend every new companion on the road; on the other hand, I feel drawn downward instead, downward into solitude, darkness, quiet, silence, stillness, peace, unity and simple wonder. At this other extreme, union with my own depth of being is enough. Here, in this natural, mystical fecundity, being feels like self-fertilization, and a time of waiting, waiting to gestate the next movement in my unfinished symphony.

What polarity! A tension of opposites, tearing of fabric, confusion of splendors, a spinning dial. What path do I take? Both directions are fertile, it's the timing that matters. Staying too long above ground can deplete one's inner resources; too long belong ground, and the need for expression and involvement grow like magnum in a volcano. So I wait in this mystery, each day looking for the thread that guides me along a path that I cannot see but cannot violate without great cost. This may be part of what Erickson called Basic Trust - trust that the world is meaningful, real, nurturing and inviting even when no signposts are visible.

All my life I have been following an invisible compass setting, drawn forward into a mystery I can neither fathom nor abandon. It is the mystery of my own nature, the invitation of my own being unfolding steadily whether I understand it or not. My usual mistake is to "push the river" to make things happen faster. Now, in this time of aging, I am learning to wait. I am pregnant. I am patient. I am.

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