........................ .... MARY'S PAGE

 

 

Read a wonderful review of Rushing to Eva - a Pilgrimage in Search of the Great Mother, 3rd edition, 1992, by Anne Mossop. There are also two excerpts from that book describing adventures the author had on the Tor in Glastonbury and in the ruins of a medieval castle (or possibly a Cathar temple) known as Montségur, at the top of a pogue (or tor) in the Pyrenees in southeastern France.

 

Poem of dedication to the Great Mother, and, from The Flying Bird Brings the Message - Lessons from Life as Metaphor, Chapter One,,The Glass Garden

Also, Panic, a reflection that appeared in the Journal of Family Life in 1994.

 

Read my essay Conscious Dying about accepting the reality of life's end, spending time as one grows older looking at ways that may enhance the ultimate dying process.

As author of this voluminous and opinionated website I also invite you to look at some of my essays, poems and articles on this site - not just writings on the subject of maturity, old age, illness and dying!

Click here for the complete listing, or here for a review of a book about Wilhelm Reich by Myron Sharaf on this website.

At this writing I'm a couple of weeks away from being eighty-two, and this is my chance to let you know what it's like! This glimpse into my mind's eye is intended to be encouraging to younger people - especially baby boomers - for whom the prospect of falling, ready or not! into the category of

SENIOR

ELDER

OLDSTER

RETIRED PERSON

SENIOR CITIZEN

... in which state one becomes

OLD

AGED

ANCIENT

OVER THE HILL

GERIATRIC

or even

DISABLED or

SENILE

either of which states leads to

ALZHEIMER'S

NURSING HOMES

HOSPICE

and finally (shudder!)

DEATH ...

 

is a HIDEOUS one! - and that death is presumed to be lingering, painful, terrifying and against one's will, at the hands of uncaring and underpaid persons drawn from the unemployable to ease the unloved one ungently into the crematorium! Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet (who died of acute alcoholism), urges us,

 

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Fight, fight against the dying of the light!

Is it any wonder younger people shun these and other hideous labels given to this age category by our politically correct and our humanly INcorrect American public media? As far as I'm concerned, we all might as well wear yellow stars on our chests or yellow armbands on our arms! Labels are terribly damaging things!

OK, so am I suggesting we need a new, non-prejudicial term so people in the last few decades of their lives won't feel stereotyped? Actually, no, I'm not. That's just not possible. I am suggesting that the main reasons these terms FEEL stereotypical is because we areall so damn prejudiced toward anything to do with old age. And the reason baby boomers dread getting old is because they hate the very idea of joining such a low-status, ugly, dead-headed, sickly, neglected social group!

So, I invite you to discover the good news about old age, from the mouths of the inhabitants of that country themselves - so you can start now to get ready for it. For example, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi gives an Omega workshop called "FROM AGING TO SAGING" that addresses this issue. Try looking at some alternative terms for describing old age like:

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