FLOWERING INTO ELDERHOOD

This Taurus moon is called the Flower Moon because of the blooms that appear in the Northeast US around this time, a name that comes to us from many Algonquin-speaking tribes in the region. As our thoughts turn to flowering power and the blossoming of the feminine, I ask myself: what does blossoming look like for a 71 year old woman standing at the threshold of her elderhood? What does blossoming look like for a woman going through breast cancer? A woman finding her way into aging.

I recently said to a friend, “you know, I don’t see myself as aging, I do see myself as ripening”.

I like this vision of myself as an abundant fruit that is getting ready to one day be plucked off the Tree of Life. To me, it is a kinder, richer vision of aging. Seeing myself as ripening is an act of quiet resistance against all the stereotypes of aging in our youth obsessed, botox-driven society. I refuse to see this as a time of deadening, withering and decaying. For, even as my wrinkles begin to line my face, my joints stiffen and my body lose some of its youthful flexibility and even as I go through these difficult cancer treatments – I choose not to define myself by the physicality of this time. It feels too small.

What I really am experiencing is different – it is a blossoming of the spirit, a flowering of my creative essence, a time of unfolding that I am devoting to my healing, to my writings and reflections, to my walks in nature, to my solitude and to my community of friends and family. Even as the vibrant energy of youth begins to quietly disappear, this time of sacred aging invites me into a deeper sense of nourishment, vitality and joyful living. Joy is very much part of it – joy as a radical act of resistance.

My pleasure senses are simple and more fully alive –watching sunlight dance on walls, awaking to the call of the birdsongs in the forest nearby, breathing in the fragrance of lilacs by the lake, tasting a delicious strawberry. My senses open up like petals of a lovely flower.

Standing at the edge of each new dawn brings with it a sense of awe and curiosity. I wonder what surprises Life will bring me today, knowing I have to be open to both the blessings and shadows. They co-exist. For even as I wrestle with the challenges of chemo fatigue and exhaustion, I also experience the showering of abundant blessings. There are many. I call this Grace.

Grace has arrived in the form of the Divine Mother, the great protector, healer and nourisher of the human spirit. She arrives as Kali, Durga and Lakshmi – the three feminine deities of my Indian lineage. She arrives through the sacred dances to the Divine Mother that I am now learning. She arrives through the Vedic chants that I recite, bathing myself in the cosmic sounds that hum through my body. She arrives in dreams that illuminate the electric, energetic current of the Divine feminine, its Shakti power.

I feel open to these experiences in a way I have not before. It feels like the call of elderhood is to open new doors. To see where the threads of curiosity and wonder will lead. To savor this time as one of deep ripening and blossoming presence. To not be afraid.

This to me is a secret to aging well.

Painting: Divine Mother (watercolor and pen sketch)