Serene Ambition : Weblog

Featured Blog Posts

Conversations on the Web

The Dance of the Generations

Tuesday Dec 29 2009

“Mentors and apprentices are partners in an ancient human dance . . . the dance of the spiraling generations, in which the old empower the young with their experience and the young empower the old with new life, reweaving the fabric of the human community as they touch and turn.”   
—Parker J. Palmer
American author, educator, activist[Read More]

Written by eldering at Fearless Aging

Tagged with: community empower generations old young

Still Going Strong

Wednesday May 06 2009

The Herald Sun recently featured an article on Betty Calman, an 83-year-old instructor still going strong after 40 years of teaching yoga. Author of 3 books on yoga and a pioneer in bringing this practice to Australia in the 1950s, Ms. Calman was drawn back into teaching up to 11 classes per week 8 years ago by her daughter, who runs a health centre and needed more instructors. According to Betty, "You're never too old. The body is a remarkable instrument. It can stretch and stretch, and get better all the time. Forget age. Even a basic posture, or just going to a window and breathing deeply, can have big benefits." See Betty Calman in action.[Read More]

Written by eldering at Health

Tagged with: age body old yoga

Curiosity

Friday Feb 01 2008

I have been thinking about the process of growing older for a long time. In my 30s, I discovered I had all sorts of stereotypes about old people (which for me at that age was anyone over 60) and that most of my notions were just plain wrong. For example, I learned though conversations with a number of older friends that most people aren’t afraid to die after a certain point—but they are afraid to die without having left a mark or without having been able to pass on their life’s experience to the younger generation. I began to distinguish that we all grow old ‘into a cultural interpretation’ of what it means to grow older, into a story about what we can expect and what is and isn’t possible. I realized that aging isn’t personal, anymore than the weather is (or any other context we all share for that matter). Yet, our whole conversation about aging seems to be about ‘me’ and what I want, how I feel, why I am doing or not doing something, and what I think about everything and everyone in my life.[Read More]

Written by eldering at Fearless Aging
Join discussion COMMENTS [0]

Tagged with: aging curiosity generation learning old

Aging as a Conversation

Friday May 04 2007

By Elizabeth Russell
Bio

We think of aging as something that happens to us, something as inevitable as waking up in the morning. But what if our way of speaking about aging actually influences our experience of it? Satchel Paige once asked, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?” Because he was black, he wasn’t allowed to play major league baseball until he was well past retirement age for ball players. When he finally got his chance, no one knew for sure how old he was and he wasn’t telling. Who he was and the performance he gave on the field were more important than how old he was.

Tagged with: age aging conversation old

Riverboats and Bone Yards V

Monday Mar 05 2007

By Stu Whitley
Bio

This is the fifth in a five-part series.

Is there any joy to be found in sadness? I believe there is. Sadness is almost always about loss. If we are able to examine in a serious way the nature of that loss, I think we would find a validation of what we took to be good. In other words, sadness can be a reaffirmation of the virtues we hold dear. This can be a bit tricky though. For example, if one regrets the passage of youth for its own sake, enormous and ultimately futile effort is needed to ignore the ceaseless transformation that the natural world presents.[Read More]

Written by eldering at Learning
Join discussion COMMENTS [0]

Tagged with: age loss old sadness youth

The Mirror of Old

Wednesday Nov 22 2006

By Shae Hadden
Bio

I'm fascinated by how people affix meaning to language, and the limitless interpretations they draw from words. 'Old', for example, triggers different responses among my friends. And their interpretations show me how they feel about growing older. It's not always a happy image...[Read More]

Written by eldering at Personal Empowerment
Join discussion COMMENTS [0]

Tagged with: culture old young