Getting older

Too be truthful, I'm not so much getting older as simply old.  Of good health and sound mind (not quite but close enough), my challenge is to find something to do that is meaningful or at least time consuming ( I have too much of it)  I have done all the stuff  required to be among those who have had a fulfilling  and rich life, and as well I have volunteered for various worthwhile causes.  

      And yet the fact remains - I don't know what to do with myself.  I go to bed early because the day has been too long, and I want to get up early because I'm bored with lying in bed.  No I'm not complaining simply presenting the current state of affairs in my contented but bored old age.  And now I'm ready for the solution.

      In some way it is in finding a more profound way to love – myself, my wife, my friends, all whom I meet during the day.  (visit invitation.acalltolove.ca and then read the first story in http://webhome.idirect.com/~thepilgrim/lastrites/Index.html

And you? How are you handling getting older? Don't tell me your busier now that you were when you were working or something to that effect.  How is your life really?

Things that I sense are possible in my future.

One thing that I realize in my future, maybe closer than I think, is my own death.  I have  a lung condition that I have been gone to some length to know very little about; however I can feel that it is limiting my energy and doesn't augur well for the future. Although after some medical examinations I seem to be good for any number of years.  This does not preclude the certainty of my death.  Being in the blessed state of self proclaimed senility I chose to ignore the all to current fears of my generation: dementia, stroke, diapered existence in an old people's home.   Instead I imagine the death I would like to achieve.  I am hoping to make space -- physical, psychic room, to allow my life to play itself all the way out -- so that rather than just getting out of the way, aging and dying can become a process of crescendo through to the end.

More to come. What about you? any thoughts about your 'big event'?

Around The Bend  March 19^th

 What I plan to explore can best be covered by proclaiming that I am an old guy and a little "around the bend," in that I don't have all my marbles.  In other words this is my cover.  And it begins with my birthday horoscope.  I was 82 on February 22^nd.and my horoscope for that day read as follows.

Pisces Feb 19 | Mar 20 – 2017

 Would you like some free healing that's in alignment with cosmic rhythms? Try this experiment. Imagine that you're planning to write your autobiography. Create an outline that has nine chapters. Each of the first three chapters will be about a past experience that helped make you who you are. In each of the middle chapters, you will write about three things that are current and present in your life. In each of the last three chapters, you will describe a desirable event that you want to create in the future. I also encourage you to come up with a boisterous title for your tale. Don't settle for My Life So Far or The Story Of My Journey. Make it idiosyncratic and colourful, perhaps even outlandish, like Piscean author Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius.

Homework: What are the main dreams you want to accomplish by 2025? Testify at 

It has been a while since I've posted.  Not sure why, but a few very important developments in my life.  On a personal level, I asked my partner of 36 years to marry me.  I said marriage; she heard wedding.  She ignoring the many attempts to help or influence organised an out-of-this world wedding, that is one of the highlights of my life. If you don't believe me take a look at http://thepilgrim1.wixsite.com/wedding  The other event has been the publishing of A Call To Love in the Light of Consciousness magagzine. light-of-consciousness.org/  And I'm turning 82 in two weeks and life is good

I have just completed a project that I am particularly proud of.

For  many years now, I have practised opening my heart and sending love out to all I meet. Over this time I have experienced a longing to share this work with others.

The result is an "invitation" to consciously pour this energy into the world - and to create a world wide web of love. I ask that you consider and share it with others whom you think might respond to the call.

You can find the invitation below, or by going to www.acalltolove.ca. (I think you'll appreciate the beauty of the site.) If it speaks to you, I hope you will forward it to your friends.

To share this with others:

1) Send them a personal note and a link to this page: http://thepilgrim1.wix.com/invitation

 2) Refer people to the main Website: http://www.acalltolove.ca

My  81st birthday

81 is a more interesting number than I first imagined. Eighty-one is the square of 9 and the fourth power of 3. Like all powers of three, 81 is a perfect totient number. It is a heptagonal number and a centered octagonal number. It is also a tribonacci number, and an open meandric number. 81 is the ninth member of the Mian-Chowla sequence.  TMI (too much information), I know. But then this year of my life offers more than I can grasp or understand.  I had originally thought of my 81st birthday as a non event, a birthday to ignore, but then ...
         I realized that this was the last chapter of my life. And like any good story it needed a good ending. One that would take the plot line, the character development, the tension of the conflicting themes and resolve them into a satisfying, releasing ending (denouement?).
         And so not to be content to sit in front of the fire basking in half forgotten memories of remembered accomplishments, real or imagined, nor accept the slow descent into senility, I've got up off my couch and started to shape my last chapter.
        When I first read the lines from Tennyson's poem, Ulysses,  "Old age hath yet his honour and his toil /Some work of noble note, may yet be done, /Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods." I knew this was the challenge and now the time to answer the call.  The Noble Deed was what I was about.
       The task: pull forward all the elements of my life that this final chapter will be the fulfillment of a life well lived. I realized that the reoccurring theme of the last two decades has been the toning, developing, expanding my commitment to loving.  As my body and brain succumbs to the ravages of aging, I believe/hope/demand that the essence of who I am will continue to grow in love in that mature and cosmic way that for me is exemplified in that religious image of a Man with his heart exposed, pouring out love to all who he meets, indeed sending out love like a radiant golden light out into the world.
        My last chapter – becoming this man.

We all have flying dreams.  In some of my flying dreams I am above everything, looking down on my street and seeing my friends.  It's like being above the turmoil of life.   In many of my dreams I'm unable to keep flying. Despite the fact that I am flapping my arms as hard as I can, I descend back to earth unhappy and let down.  It had been so exhilarating being above everything.
        For me it meant having to accept the fact that I am one of the vast number of normal, average human beings. Not easy to accept my ordinariness.   I realize that there is the 1% who have talent, even genius: the musicians, the poets, the leaders - those special ones who for unknown reasons I thought myself one of them.  Truth is I'm not. 
        Growing up, I thought I might be a saint. At the least a member of the chosen, the saved, guaranteed a seat in heaven.  Now I know heaven doesn’t exist, nor does God.  And so here I am down to earth with the awareness of the limits of my species. And individually painfully aware of my own frailties, foibles and failures.
       Oh there are times, that I can fly high, be connected to my higher self, the Divine within me, These times I accept as blessed moments. But they do not last, and once again I come down to earth, conscious of my limits if not aware within me of the latent darkness that I see manifest within my species that for wont of a better name we call evil.
       And this seems to be my task. To accept that I walk this earth, conscious of the destructive nature of my species, one with the lost and lonely and anguished of my kind, aware of my kinship with all who walk or crawl, and share this world, and open to the brief glimpses that are offered to all of us, of what is all about us – Life in all its awesome beauty and being.