Dying Wiser #2

Wisdom Through Literature; Eldering Through Dad: “From Age-ing to Sage-ing”

We again nourish our communal experience with some shared reading. Have a seat in your comfy chair, grab your own oatmilk latte and homemade vegan blueberry muffin, and open your copy of wisdom literature—YUM! Let’s dig in!

Manifesting Sages

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (with Ronald Miller) wrote a wonderful book called “From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older” (Grand Central Publishing, 2014). It continues to both feed my appetite for Elder wisdom, and provide a vision for countering the societal pull away from the respecting and honoring of a way of being that cultures of the past relied upon to grow its young—the “way of being” as a Sage.

Some excerpts:

We don’t normally associate old age with self-development and spiritual growth. According to the traditional model of life span development, we ascend the ladder of our careers, reach the zenith of our success and influence in midlife, then give way to an inevitable decline that culminates in a weak, often impoverished old age. This is aging pure and simple, a process of gradually increasing personal diminishment and disengagement from life. As an alternative to inevitable senescence, this book proposes a new model of late-life development called ‘sage-ing,’ a process that enables older people to become spiritually radiant, physically vital, and socially responsible “elders of the tribe.” (p. 5)

In our current day and age, to be brutally honest and real, our world, with its advances in technology and medicine, is producing more and more old people. While at the same time, and, I argue, much to our impending demise, nurturing a culture that is producing fewer and fewer Elders—or Sages.

Dad is an old person.

Sadly, as he was existing and being in his own current aging process, I recognized Dad in the words “a process of gradually increasing diminishment and disengagement from life.” And this was making me sad. Like, REALLY sad.

This sad process of diminishment for Dad formally began on March 8, 2016–the day of mom’s death. And as his close family boar close witness, we watched him become…less. There was a wide range of emotion associated with that witnessing—helplessness and futility (“That’s just the way aging works.”); frustration, if not anger (“Why the hell doesn’t he just get up and DO something?”); blame (“Why did mom, why did HE, allow himself to become so dependent on another to the point where he can’t even cook a meal?”); regret (“We never helped him cultivate any interests in life. Were we even supposed to DO that?”); deep sadness, if not some form of real grief (“This is not the Dad we grew up with.”); resignation (“This looks like this is the way it’s going to be—until he dies.”); to, now, compassion and action (“Nope, not gonna have any of that. Dad has teachings to offer—his life had more meaning than just a resignation to diminishment. His Death WILL have meaning—and we can make that happen.”).

More from Reb Zalmon:

Aging itself isn’t the problem. It’s the images that we hold about it, our cultural expectations, that cause our problems. To have a more positive old age, we must change our aging paradigm, the model or blueprint that determines the quality of our experience. Much like the software that we insert into the active memory of a computer, the program that we run dictates whether we will have a fearful, unattractive old age or a creative, fulfilling one. (p. 14)

It’s CULTURAL! And cultures are made of individuals. But like most conglomerations of individuals, cultures will take paths of least resistance especially if technology serves to make everything easier and faster. So many cultures, especially our Western culture, say old people are too slow and they’re in the way now—we can simply put them away so we can get on with our things. That will be easier for us. But…

… Saging and Eldering, by definition, ARE slow—they are ancient technologies of wisdom transference. Eldering is counter to the values of our current culture. And, whether you know it or not, we are the less for it. Not so ironically, WE become diminished as our “Olders” diminish. (Here’s a tease for an upcoming post—Elders are our Sentinel Species—yet we don’t recognize them as such).

BUT we can do something about that strong cultural pull, if we want.

Sage-ing by Proxy

We’ve intentionally taken Dad out of that “process of diminishment.” He was never going to be able to do this on his own—he never received the Eldering needed himself for him to pull that off, NOR did he cultivate his own personal development toward true Sagehood. So, we all are serving as his proxies.

Proxy: (noun). 1 : the act or practice of a person serving as an authorized agent or substitute for another —used especially in the phrase “by proxy.”

2a : authority or power to act for another.

(Merriam-Webster, 2022)

Reb Zalmon says “People don’t automatically become sages simply by living to a great age. They become wise by undertaking the inner work that leads in stages to expanded consciousness.” (p. 15).

And thankfully there’s a complementary way toward sage-hood (‘cuz, you have to know, and brace yourself if this is going to be earth-shaking news to you—it might…—Dad hasn’t all of a sudden independently undertaken “the inner work” of yoga, zen meditation, chanting, deep reading in philosophy, or life-reflection journaling to “expand his consciousness.” What a surprise, right? To all that Dad would just say “What the hell is that?”). The complementary way I’m intending to offer is: “Sagehood by proxy.” We are Dad’s proxy. And we do so with full hearts, clear eyes, and LOVE as our only intention. That is the authority by which we are acting to keep this entire endeavor one of compassion, while honoring Dad’s full integrity.

To realize his potential as our resident Sage or Elder, Dad needs US to be his proxy. So this is what we are doing by chronicling his way of being both past and present, by the mutual sharing (writing and reading) of his stories, by recalling memories either of Dad or of others whom my Dad calls to your mind (if you don’t personally know Dad—but I hope you ARE coming to personally know Dad!), and by the application of the inherent lessons his life has for us—provided we become or remain his ready learners.

As for my meager part, I’ve come to my own realization of how I can best serve Dad into his Eldering, into his Sagehood, and therefore into his “Wise Death with Great Meaning.” Reb Zalmon uses the term “spiritual elderhood” (which I LOVE), and captures it thus:

In putting forth a new model of spiritual elderhood, I am not only reviving an ancient and venerable institution that has enriched civilization since time immemorial, but taking it a step further. As part of the emerging approach to late-life development, the contemporary sage draws on three sources: models of the traditional tribal elder whose wisdom guided the social order for thousands of years; state-of-the-art breakthroughs in brain-mind and consciousness research; and the ecology movement, which urges us to live in harmony with the natural world. These forces converge in the sage, whose explorations in consciousness are giving birth to an elderhood that is appropriate for the modern world. (p. 6)

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Eldering 101: Eldering as a Practice; Eldering by Proxy

Having learned now that the term “Elder” is better conceptualized as a verb (“to Elder”) rather than a noun, we can also make a connection that Eldering is also a skill—like woodcarving, or pottery, or teaching, or driving, or high jumping, or farming, or coding. And like any skill, one becomes better at it with practice. In fact, Eldering can be conceptualized AS a practice. For me, this particular conceptualization turns the act of Eldering from something quaint and idealized, into something practical and action-oriented. And oh how we need it.

Elders know they Elder—and they do not apologize for it. True Elders don’t force their practice on others; sometimes, like my Dad, they simply let their actions speak for them. They leave wakes behind them that can impact their world in wonderfully glorious ways. Those of us who will be in the waters or on the banks of the future, have the opportunity to ride those wakes—but we have to know we can, and recognize them when they come. Otherwise, they just pass right through us as only echoes from the past.

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“…[Despite] all the invalidations of our youth culture…elderhood is a time of unparalleled inner growth having evolutionary significance in this era of world-wide cultural transformation…. [Spiritual] eldering is a call from the future….

(Zalmon, p. 8)

Ultimately, although we gain meaning now from this engagement with Dad as our Elder, our maximum benefit will come at some point in our own futures—when we turn around after looking around and realize WE have become potential Elders for the generations to come. It is as if our future selves seek now from Dad a sharing of wisdom, his wisdom manifested through his way of being in the world, so that we benefit with a better, more meaningful life. And then, through alchemy, churn that wisdom to be of greatest benefit for all those who come after us—we, as THEIR Elders.

Try THAT on for size as a moral obligation!

Text grab p. 12 of “From Age-ing to Sage-in”

My Dad needs our help to fulfill his obligation as wisdomkeeper, and his responsibility to mentor and pass that wisdom on. I trust it’s resonating, even by my proxy. I trust YOU are working at tuning in to find your own resonance. Because, when it becomes YOUR time, if you are not Eldering, you are simply getting old. And the world doesn’t need more old people.

Follow my Dad’s model—and do what he didn’t do. Do what we are helping him to do now by proxy. He was diminishing; you are too magnificent to diminish. Dad has started down a new path, with help. If you haven’t yet started, start now.

There might not be anyone there to help you should you need it.

“The joy of passing on wisdom to younger people not only seeds the future, but crowns an elder’s life with worth and nobility.”

You don’t have to be “old” to do that. 

And you shouldn’t need a proxy.

T plus 57 days and counting. And Sage-ing. Even if by proxy.