Category Archives: Third Phase

Third Phase

Ear Buddied

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Imbolc                                                                  Valentine Moon

Found the Ipod shuffle.  I mentioned it a few posts back. As I finish the last rearranging in the study, I’m listening to music through earphones.  Becoming part of the current generation.  A soundtrack for the activities helps.  I’m not sure what I think of the tendency younger folk have to soundtrack their whole life.  Does it add or detract?  Don’t know.

I’m listening to it right now and it does demand at least some attention, so I imagine it does distract me from certain trains of thought.  But.  Does it stimulate others that I wouldn’t have had?

My suspicion, though only that now, is that the music is a distraction from contemplation, from moving below the surface of things to a different level.  I base that notion on the firmly identified limits on multi-tasking.  Listening is a task.  On the other hand I think nothing of writing with music coming out of loud speakers.  In fact I just ordered a new set of speakers for the study so I can do just that.

Does having the earbuds in change the experience? I think it does.  Makes it more immediate, blocks out the outer world.  Which I sense is its primary attraction to those rarely seen without the wiry appendages.  For me, unless I’m involved in manual, non-intellectual labor, I’m not sure.  Gonna experiment for a while.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Third Phase

It Takes Courage To Get To The Ancient Altar

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Imbolc                                                                 Valentine Moon

“It takes courage to get to the ancient altar
of the moment where I create individual time…I am making it, my time visibly becoming me.”    “Individual Time,” Alice Notley

If I interpret her poem correctly, in it Alice Notley has commented on this author picture, arguing against those who would have had it prettied up.  And I get it.

When we talked about wrinkles and road map faces last night, I believe we were in her territory.  I wanted then to quote a favorite author Jorge Luis Borges, but the quote was longer than I could recall easily.  Here it is:

“Through the years, a man (sic) peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, tools, stars, horses and people. Shortly before his death, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the image of his own face.” – Jorge Luis Borges

Combining the two we could say that it takes courage to get to the ancient altar of our own aged face.  And to follow Notley, why alter what it took courage to gain?

The Keaton side of my family, my Mom’s family, wrinkles early and the men go bald.  That means I look my age and then some.  I have no problem with that.  This face is what you get when you look at me; it’s the one I’ve earned and I’m glad to have it.  No amount of smoothing, lifting or making up will change what it is, the patient labyrinth of lines that trace my own image, the long journey to this ancient altar.

 

 

Aging, Art and Culture, Family, Third Phase

Wow. You’re Really Old Grandma

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Imbolc                                                               Valentine Moon

Over half done with the move.  I can feel the new shape already fitting round my shoulders as I work.  Volumes ready to hand.  Ideas jumping from one to another with just a scan.  A good feeling.

A bit achy but that seems to come with the 66th birthday.  Talked to grandson Gabe, 4 and  1/2 tonight.  He asked Kate how old she was.  68, she said.  Wow.  That’s really old Grandma.  Oh, yeah.  From the mouth’s of babes.

(Old Man with Beard, Rembrandt)

How old?  So old that we’re going to a meeting tomorrow to talk with a women who is, as her book title says, New at Being Old.  Us, too.  This is a Woolly Mammoth gathering and we’re all of a certain age.  Just which we’re not certain, but a certain age of that we’re sure.

When it comes to life, though, I feel gathered, present, neither old nor young, just here, ready to go, still.  Epictetus had a depressing way to think of it:   “You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.”  Still, the soul or the self continues to grow and mature as the mansion begins to sag at the corners, a window or two popping out, new paint needed on the doors, tuck pointing here and there.

So, I feel as engaged, if not more, with my life and work as I have ever.

Family, Feelings, Friends, Latin, Third Phase, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Getting My Kicks

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Imbolc                                                                             Valentine Moon

Woke up, saw fluffy white snow outlining the trees, shrubs and fences.  A beautiful way to start my 66th year.  Spoke with brother Mark, Mary kept off by technical issues.  A new hard drive.  Always a good way to lose a program or two.  As they say in the Old Testament, blessings and curses.

I’ve been motoring along this morning finishing up a lengthy session in Ovid.  Or, I should say, several one hour or one hour + sessions that equal a lengthy one.  I’ve translated 21 verses and I’m confident of most of what I’ve done.  There are still hitches in my git along, but at least for right now I seem to have a flow underway.

Almost finished with the Eddas.  Then I’m going to put pencil to large format desk pad and start roughing out Loki’s Children.  I want to get it thought through to some extent before I start my revision of Missing.  That way, if I have to change things in Missing (and I think I will) I can do that in the upcoming 3rd revision.  I hope #3 is what will make me ready to start the search for an agent.

As I said the other day, I’m cruising into the third phase of my life, which I count as having started with the arrival of my Medicare card, with clarity of purpose, emotional support from family and friends, and good health.  Here we go.  Charlie, the final chapter.

Aging, Dreams, Family, Garden, Latin, Our Land and Home, Third Phase, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

The Life Ahead

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Imbolc                                                                Valentine Moon

So.  66.  Tomorrow.  How that long-haired, green book bag carrying, dope smoking political radical could be turning 66 is, I admit, a puzzle.  Yes, he looks a bit different in the mirror.  Well, ok, quite a bit different.  Instead of long hair, little hair.  Instead of the book bag, a kindle.  Not smoking at all.  Hmmm, still a radical though.  Guess the other stuff is detritus of past fashion.

After passing the last great social milestone before the final one, that is, signing up for Medicare, my life has taken on a new cast.  I’ve written about it here, a change that came gradually but with a strange persistence.  That new cast has home, writing, Latin and friends as its core.  It entails reduced traveling into the city, a much lower profile in terms of volunteer work in either politics or the arts.  A word that sums it for me is, quieter.

Quieter does not mean less energetic or engaged, rather it signals a shift in focus toward quieter pursuits:  more reading, more writing, more scholarship, more time with domestic life.  Unlike the pope I do not intend to give up my beloved theological writing. (Kate believes he’s suffering from dementia.)  I intend rather a full-on pursuit of the writing life, novels and short stories, a text on Reimagining Faith.  This full-on pursuit means active and vigorous attention to marketing.

The primary age related driver in this change is greater awareness of a compressed time horizon, not any infirmity.  How many healthy years will I have?  Unknown, though I do actively care for myself.  Still, the years will not be kind, no matter what I do.  So, I had best get my licks in now, while I can still work at my optimum.

So, the man turning 66 has a different life ahead of him than did the man turning 65.   An exciting and challenging life.

 

Retirement, Third Phase

Enough is Enough

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Winter                                                            Moon of the Winter Solstice

With Kate fully retired and our income coming now from Social Security, my pension and our IRA 2013 will be the first year fully in the Third Phase.  This both changes everything and nothing.  Everything in that our forward scan has to take into account not only personal and marital growth, but the inevitable physical decline.  Already the markers of the latter have made themselves known.  Nothing in that none of this is a surprise nor does it impact, at least so far, our capacity to continue creative, full lives.

Money is not exactly tighter, but our flexibility has grown more constricted.  That is, we have sufficient assets and income flow for our needs; but, since they have to be managed as resources for an indeterminate amount of time, we can no longer flush out spare pots of cash for sudden trips or splurges.  This is a bit of a surprise. This mild surprise lies over against the relief and gratification of having enough.  Enough is enough.

In return for somewhat less fiscal flexibility though we have very flexible time.  Kate can focus on sewing, quilting, the grand kids, reading, cooking.  We can both spend time on the garden and the bee hives.  I can spend more time reading, writing, learning Latin, learning art history and going to museums.  The trade off is more than worth it.

So, what questions arise for the third phase given these realities?  I’m not sure right now, but I’m open to suggestions.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Holidays, Third Phase

13 Baktun

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Winter                                                               Moon of the Winter Solstice

Another take on the end of the world.  Embrace it.  A website I saw suggested that the world did end on the 22nd.  The Mayan long count, 12 Baktun*, did roll round and stop.

But.  Only to start over again.  13 Baktun started on the Winter Solstice according to the article cited below.

So, we have just begun a new cycle of 394.26 tropical years.  This Winter Solstice was closer to the millennial transition than either New Year’s or even the turn of a century.

How will your life be different in the 13th Baktun?  Like me, you’ve lived all of yours in the 12th.  Those of born before 2000 are in a unique position in that we have lived through a centennial transition, a millennial transition and now a Baktunal transition.

Of course, if you’re a die hard rationalist you’ll note that one Baktun is like any other.  Well, maybe so, but they do give us, these chronological inflection points, opportunities to look back and assess and to look forward and hope.  Not a bad thing.

Why not give it a shot?  In my case I can look back over the 65 years spent in this last Baktun, my whole life, and consider its arc.  I can look forward to spending all the remaining years of my life in the 13th Baktun.  That means my aging will occur in a brand new chunk of time.  A chunk of time that I can influence as an elder, perhaps give it a positive shove before I return my atoms to the universe.

And, yes, I also embrace the circular, never-ending, achronological great wheel in which the seasons come and go talking of Michelangelo. On the great wheel of my life I have just passed Summer’s End this year, moving into the great fallow season.  There too my task is to prepare the ground for the next spring, that spring when I am a memory.

What will you do with your next Baktun?

 

 

 

 

 

*Wikipedia.  A baktun (properly b’ak’tun, English pronunciation: /ˈbɑk ˌtun/[1], Mayan pronunciation: [ɓakʼ ˈtun]) is 20 katun cycles of the ancient Maya Long Count Calendar. It contains 144,000 days, equal to 394.26 tropical years. The Classic period of Maya civilization occurred during the 8th and 9th baktuns of the current calendrical cycle. The current baktun started on 13.0.0.0.0 — December 21, 2012 using the GMT correlation.

Family, Retirement, Third Phase, Travel

A Year Ago

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Fall                                                                              Fallowturn Moon

 

Fall Waning Autumn Moon

58 nautical miles south of Ft. Lauderdale, headed for Cuba and the strait between Cuba and Hispanola. Today was a quiet, uneventful day thanks to the high winds, including tornadoes, that struck the Everglades…

The promenade deck, our deck, has had few people on it, so I did some exercise tonight. Tomorrow and the next day are at sea as we make our way 1200 miles south to Santa Marta, Colombia. Santa Marta made Wired magazine last month as the site of an international coffee tasting competition. It is where Simon Bolivar died and was buried. We’ll find out more about in a couple of days.

With Santa Marta the South American portion of our journey gets underway, not to end until we leave the Rio Airport the day before Thanksgiving.

Fall Waning Autumn Moon  October 20th  10 am

A warm morning, sitting on the deck chair, watching Cuba roll by to the south/ Clumps of trees, sandy beaches and a few antenna installations mark this place, a testimony ot the overhang of the cold war. If it were not communist, this ship would stop in Havanna. Odd and more alluring as a result, the island seems a forbidden oasis of, what? Egalitarian socialism? Since we’re passing along its length, it will be in view a good while.

We have come approximately 300 nautical miles from Ft. Lauderdale’s Port Everglade. The night, a calm one, unlike the night before, lent itself to a gentle rocking and good sleeping. I checked the national hurricane center and there are no storms of consequence in the western Caribbean Sea.

Retirement, Third Phase

A Year Ago

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Fall                                                           Fallowturn Moon

Just a year ago:

Fall Waning Autumn Moon Sunday, October 16th, 2011

Somewhere south of New York City in the Atlantic.

We traveled on the earth by taxi and town car; we traveled in the air by plane; we now move across the ocean. That’s earth, air and water and each mode of transportation has fire as a critical element of its engine. Earth, air, water and fire. We’ve touched them all in this journey and we’ve only begun.

Our flight got started an hour late due to air traffic control issues in Newark. As a result, Kate and I walked through an empty dock and became the last two people to board. The Holland America folks seemed relieved we had arrived.

Feelings, Third Phase, Woolly Mammoths

We Needed Each Other

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Fall                                                                       Harvest Moon

The Woollies gathered tonight at Scott Simpson’s house.  Our usual first Monday meeting night.  Unusual to be in a home for this meeting. (usually held in a restaurant)  Scott and Yin felt a quiet home would be better for a time with Bill Schmidt.

It was.

Bill continues his centered, positive perspective while acknowledging tears and grief.  We listened to him.  Ate a meal together.

Main thought/feeling from the evening.  How rare and precious it is to be part of a group of men who could come together with a member who has lost a spouse, the day after, in fact, and be important enough to matter.  This time, this meeting was, in many ways, like other times we’ve been together, focused on the situation of one of us in a tough or delicate situation in our lives.

Those other times, the retreats, the casual gatherings have glued us together now with a bond not seen normally outside of families.  Bill needed us and we needed to be with him.

A gift beyond measure and one we have given to ourselves, over and over again.  Thanks, guys.  I was proud of us tonight.