[Oe List ...] Merry Christmas

[cdzoll@comcast.net]

Re: Merry Christmas
    Jeanette: Have you ever heard of the book by Mary Pipher (who wrote the best-selling novel, "Reviving Ophelia" entitled "Another Country" sub-titled "Navigating the emotional terrain of our elders."  Since your are "corresponding" with so many "elders" you might want to think of a bigger font.!  David Zollars

    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Brian Stanfield 
    To: OE 
    Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 3:18 AM
    Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Merry Christmas




    December 2005
    Dear Colleagues, 
     
     In the last few years in Australia, Brian and I have been part of a socio-spirit research team . One thing we have explored is the Role of Elders .  A play we performed at a retreat two years ago focused on the active phase of being old.  In the last year Brian's strokes and his need for continuous care have occasioned many reflections on the next phase of being old- a phase Brian has experienced as being thrust upon him by the unknown itself.  I have been thrown into the carer role and have been on a major learning curve- often experienced as overwhelming.  The love and help from so many individuals and organizations has been gratefully received. My niece Emily spent two months with us in May and June .  Her presence gave us a way to bring Brian home from the hospital.  Now, we have moved into a two story home.  We live on the ground floor.  Amanda Healey and her family live upstairs.  Amanda is a  professional careworker who we have become very fond of in the last few months.  We are delighted that she is so close at hand with her expertise and care.  
     
    Katrin Ogilvy, a colleague who is part of our research team wrote these paragraphs about
    this "next phase in being old".  It spoke to me of our experience this year so I will share her reflection.   

    "Since then (after our active phase work) we have been reminded that more is needed to be an elder. As our bodies change, we learn anew what is possible and what is now the call to us.  Those whose minds and bodies have signaled not so much that 'all is not well' but 'all is not young' and therefore 'all doesn't work as it had'.  Here a different understanding and learning is beginning to take place.  The lifelong search for who we are takes on new dimensions. The lifelong 'exercise' of what we can do becomes a moment by moment challenge.  The lifelong yearning to be an authentic being deepens. 

    Some of us are standing by to assist these undertakings in others. We learn and teach each other to be healers, to bring open attitudes to the struggle for a new independence.  We watch the health professionals and learn their tricks of  trade.  We learn to lift without doing our own back in.  We are walking at the edge of the abyss in a new way.  Our reflections are shaking with uncertainties and tremor with hope.  We are stretched but not beyond our limits as we are aware of each other, of our age, our bodies, our limits and our unique possibilities.  This next phase - as yet unnamed - needs consideration and further learning. "
     
    I recommend a fine movie that includes active elders as mentors of two women in the 20's and 30"s: In Her Shoes.    May newness of life be yours in this time of celebration. 
     
    Peace,
    Jeanette and Brian Stanfield
    227 The Esplanade, Seaford, SA 5169 Australia   Phone 08-8327-1309




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