WILDLY FREE ELDER
The Artistry of Aging
Without A Doubt, LIFE IS A GIFT
We sometimes forget that we are an integral part of the cycles, flow and rhythms of life. As this very challenging year for so many comes to a close, remember how precious the moments you have been given ……and that still remain.
This short 7-minute video below speaks for itself. A perfect reminder that without a doubt, life is a gift. See and feel through the eyes of a child and the father that loves him.
Appreciation to all Wildly Free Elder followers and the global community that has formed over the past 4 months. May we all remember in this coming New Year that LIFE IS A GIFT! Gaye Abbott
Back To The Important Places
Standing on the edge looking down and across the Grand Canyon there were tears streaming down my face. An overwhelming sense and energy of sacred landscape permeated every part of my being. This will always be an important place for me, though the time spent there only a few hours in a single day.
We all have important landscapes that imprint deeply within us. Our embodiment of the elements – earth, water, fire and air – draws us into communion with the natural world weaving into inward and outward explorations, adventures, vision quests, and sanctuary.
Now travel on this longer journey with adult son and elder father as they rediscover an important pivotal landscape they share and relive together A beautiful exploration of aliveness, stages of life, and father-son discovery.
“Short film about the connection between a father and son, and the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. The film explores the growth of these two men, through different stages of their lives, and how the thread woven between them, the Colorado River, brought them back to the most important place of all.”
TAKE A LOOK AT OUR NEW SPOTLIGHT – GAEL MCKENZIE, photographer, ontological coach, and Wildly Free Elder! She has also added a poem to our Wild Elder Poetry page!
Would you like to become a part of our Wildly Free Elder community? Go HERE, or contact us to answer your questions!
Seize This Moment To Love
“This is really what grateful living is: returning to the noticing of all that is sufficient. All that is extraordinary. All that already is in our lives – enough to take our breaths away – and using that to help us get through life in a way, through difficulty, through challenge… uplifted, enamored.”
Kristi Nelson, Director of A Network For Grateful Living
Kristi Nelson was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer when she was 33 years old. In the 27 years since, she has lived into all that is possible when we take nothing for granted. In this beautiful short film by award-winning photographer and filmmaker Doug Menuez, Kristi shares her personal story of grateful living – a moving account of what she offers in more detail in her new book Wake Up Grateful.
Wild Elder Elf Magic!
Image Location: Empire Mine State Park, Grass Valley, CA
Have you been in a situation where you listened to your intuition and followed internal guidance over a commitment you had made? It takes a certain measurement of surrender to do so and a huge heaping of trust and transparency.
Waking up last Sunday morning I was overtaken by strong guidance to take myself out into nature for the day, walk some trails in a nearby State Park, and be in silence. The only challenge was that I was to be on an international Zoom call, the last of 3 sessions, with some members of the Wildly Free Elder community that afternoon.
Like everyone else in California I was feeling the isolation, lack of human touch, and in person human presence in yet another lock down due to the on going pandemic. A holiday family gathering in jeopardy of being cancelled which meant not being able to see grandkids and sons.
Though immensely fortunate and blessed over so many going through these challenging times, the realization of a need to simply breathe in the wooded air in a forest and commune with Nature Spirits won out over being on a computer for a Zoom call where I knew I could not be fully present to others in the group.
Little did I know that magic would happen on this walk through the park. Very soon after walking up the trail Martha, Wild Elder Elf, appeared sitting on a tree stump with her holiday adorned dog Peanut throwing out candy canes to those that passed by with a HUGE smile and the essence of joy emanating from her being.
At first I couldn’t believe my eyes, but her presence was so wildly free filled with holiday cheer that I stopped for a bit to engage and willingly broke my vow of silence for the day. She drew out a candy cane from the stocking and offered it with the most enduring and brilliant smile telling me of the group of family she was out with that day, who had left her for a bit to walk a little faster than she could go. (but would be back to get her).
To say she lit up those precious moments at the beginning of my walk is an understatement! Little did i know that the magic would not stop, but would continue on as I passed my favorite grandmother hugging tree where I exchanged energy and then traveled up the path past others walking their dogs or simply communing with each other out in nature in friend or family pods.
Right after I reached the mid-point of my hike another magic moment opened up. Two beautiful women on horseback came toward me with majestic elder horses all decked out in their holiday finest. And they were passing out candy canes too! Was this a coincidence?
Yes, I broke my silence again and engaged with them, ending up telling them about my wild elder elf down the trail, and learned they were part of her group that had gone out that day in the spirit of the holidays to bring joy and cheer (and candy canes) to those in the community walking the trails. Something we all need right now – a reminder to live gratefully!
As I learned about their horses, ages 17 and 16, and a little about them, we shared what a truly amazing time of life it is to have entered this stage of life, being able to freely share through our actions, thinking and relationships how precious life is even with all the challenges we now face. They were so excited that Wild Elder Elf Martha would be on this website that they asked for a website card and shared their ages with me (65 and 60) and their joy at this time of life.
Though it had been challenging for me to not be on the international call, this magic confirmed one thing. Listening to and trusting our inner guidance can bring untold magic, opportunities and possibility into our lives that would never have presented if we chose not to follow it.
Let the magic unfold! Thank you Wild Elder Elf Martha and Peanut for opening that container for us!
And deep appreciation to the members of our group who honored my intuitive choice: Ankya Klay, Andy Kidd, BJ Garcia, Ramona Oliver, Julie Wylie and Jennifer Rugge!
Embodied GPS
A friend in Scotland and I ended up talking yesterday about vision quests and being in spaces of transition as we grow older. Where identities are stripped and new pathways and expanded awareness can emerge.
Where we die to what has been and wake up to something that has been calling to us for a long time – but we were too busy or scared to listen.
We used to pay attention to an innate embodied inner guidance system that was deeply embedded in our intimate relationship with nature, in the rhythms and cycles of life and death, within our inhale and exhale.
But then we forgot, buried deep within our psyches, as we lost our on going conversation with the very heart of our deepest yearnings and knowing.
Each one of us has some artistry or way of being to bring in our lifetime that is unique only to us. Something that perhaps no one else will understand, grasp or appreciate.
It is up to us to recognize what that is. Not from someone’s or cultures expectations, direction or even encouragement. But from this embodied innate guidance system where our heart ignites.
It is in these wild and untamed moments that it emerges. Quietly taking over before we can put up protective walls.
Will we pay attention? I am still finding my way there….
Wild Elder Poetry!
Image by Ankya Klay Photography
Our Wildly Free Elder global community is continually exploring the many facets of life, not only in the aging process, but from curiosity, transparency, vulnerability and celebration.
A recent addition of a Wild Elder Poetry page is devoted to the writing that emerges from our every day, moment to moment experience of embodied life, as well as what is stirred through our connection with each other – the “WE” space.
If you would like to contribute a poem, a Guest Blog Post, or join our community by becoming a Spotlight, please let us know.
Your message has been sent
Choosing Joy Over Despair
“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
~Robin Wall Kimmerer
I sometimes find it challenging to choose joy over despair these days. But also know the choice I make from moment to moment Impacts how I can be, or not be, fully present and available to friends, family, community and even myself.
When one does not have their “head in the sand” – a common protective mechanism of avoidance to the pain and suffering that is going on all around the world, in those close to us, and sometimes within ourselves – then we are bound to be faced with others despair, anxiety, pain and loss.
Where nothing is certain, being a human is messy, and everything is wildly changing. Where the mainstream media endlessly churns out ungrounded assumptions and endless rhetoric, stirring the pot of despair. Where we hear there is an empty chair at the Thanksgiving dinner table, a loved one having lost their life to a virus that does not discriminate. It is sometimes too easy to get caught up in this wounded world.
“How demoralizing and depressing it is to read or watch or listen to the news, if we just step back and think about the world around us, the people we know, there’s a disconnect between that utterly depraved picture of us that’s emerging, and how life actually really works, kind of day to day, hour to hour. The fact is, day to day, we have lots of positive interactions with a whole range of people, now, even in these socially distanced times. Let us not forget this…” ~Krista Tippett
Yet, within the wounds, rather like the tree in the image above, there is new growth and opportunities to re-frame our perspective and turn our attention to moments of joy and small pleasures. New growth that finds its compost from what has died or changed, and leaves us with clarity, a new found direction and hope. A perspective coming from interconnection – not separation.
“We’ve been organizing around parts even as we’re learning to see that in every sphere of life we inhabit ecosystems. …..Humans evolved as beings whose needs to touch and be touched, to converse, debate, and laugh together, to smile and flirt with one another, and to interact in groups, are central to healthy lives” ~ Agustin Fuentes, Biological and Evolutionary Anthropologist
Our senses tune us into what we see, smell, hear, and feel. The ecosystem of our bodies and what is around us. The imprinted “social beingness” that our DNA is coded with.
An entirely new landscape can reveal itself when we are able to re-frame responsibilities as privileges, and release a sense of obligation, shifting to opportunity where cooperation and collaboration are central. Where love is the leader. Where everyone and all life is valued.
Many years ago now I traveled with a small group down to the Northern part of Baja California. Our leader had been there before to this remote area with natural hot springs where the indigenous Paipai of Mexico lived. After an overnight stay along the way, sleeping in tents on a very cold ground, we reached our destination trusting our guide could find his way again as we traversed cross country over rough terrain.
When we arrived we were greeted by a woman in her fifties – Maria – and her father – Ramon – in his late 80’s. Only two indigenous Paipai left in this rough and isolated area of Baja. Birth home to them where they had lived their entire lives. We were to learn that many others in this community had left for more populated areas to seek work and an easier way of life.
It was apparent immediately that the older man could not navigate well except with the help of his daughter. We were warmly welcomed onto their land and were invited to camp out for a couple of days next to the hot springs and share meals with them.
Not having much Spanish we relied on our guide who was fluent. Out of the conversation over a couple of days we found out that the woman’s father was completely dependent on his daughter for his well being as he had lost his sight. This is a man who had loved to roam his land on horseback and independently carry on this life.
That was no longer possible and it saddened him greatly. His daughter’s daily life was taken up with caring for him, the household and the land they lived upon. Despair along with a certain level of acceptance prevailed.
On our last day there we shared a simple meal together and I felt it important before we left to thank this man who could not see me, by coming closer and touching his hand and saying gracias for their hospitality. This is when possibility appeared!
As I gazed at the man’s face and looked into his eyes I saw that he had what I thought were severe cataracts completely clouding his vision. I could hardly contain myself as at that time I worked at a well known medical clinic/research foundation in Southern California and had access to the Department of Ophthalmology and the head of the Division.
The outcome of this story is a testament to choosing joy over despair. Not overlooking or accepting that this indigenous man and his daughter had to simply live with his disability, but taking action on the possibility of restoring his vision.
It took a collaborative and cooperative approach to bring this man and his daughter up to be evaluated. And a true test of trust on their part to travel out of their small home base in Baja where they had lived all of their lives and had never been away from.
Yes, he did have cataracts in both eyes, but one had been injured many years prior from a tree branch hitting his eye when he was on horseback. The vision in this eye could not be restored, but the other eye was given back perfect sight through cataract surgery. This of course meant that his independence could be restored and his daughter’s obligations lightened.
Yet it did not end there, for my friend and colleague, the ophthalmologist, took action to develop an on going vision clinic down in nearby Tijuana, traveling down with other staff once a month to help those with vision problems.
Shifting despair to joy for many, including those of us who collaboratively and collectively were a part of these actions. Given the privilege of embodying the best of human kindness, hope and compassion.
Choosing joy over despair. Lest we forget, It happens millions of times a day….
RESOURCE:
Dare Darlin’ Dare
Image: Julie Ann Wylie along Cape Flattery Trail, Makah Indian Reservation, Washington; photographer Wayne Wylie
GUEST BLOG POST BY JULIE ANN WYLIE
Throughout years of seeking I’ve quite naturally embodied the interpretive & educational qualities of the Hierophant. Translating useful principles, methods and wisdom of others has been a necessary step for my own application and self-study. Passing along both process and outcome to querents along the way fulfills an inner drive to inspire self-healing.
I didn’t see this coming, in fact I wasn’t even sure I had it in me. Never before, best as I recall, have my own words, my unique thoughts, my inherent wisdom poured forth so bountifully.
It started innocently enough with a ‘YES’ to participate in a training for Poetry as a Tool for Wellness. The six hour course brilliantly fosters empathetic facilitators by introducing their curriculum experientially.
On the last day of training, two poems were introduced. I listened closely as they were read and as peers shared what these writings had evoked in them. Next, our trainer gave us 8-10 minutes to write about our impressions and I was ready to go! Thoughts were forming into words and words into sentences as she continued her instructions. Sensationally present within my body, I could hardly wait to get pen to paper as the head waters of this prose poured out …
Dare to share, to create, to open …
Dare I? Dare you NOT?
It’s daring darling that has landed you HERE, NOW.
Daring to start.
Daring to stop.
Daring to show up.
Daring to walk away.
Daring to say YES, oh, and NO.
Daring to care
It’s daring darling that has split the seams in the nightmares of your dreams.
It’s daring darling that keeps you returning to your pillow, almost giddy with wonder about what might be revealed this sleep.
It’s daring darling that drives you to the doors of vulnerability and daring darling that blows those doors open as you exhale or simply lifts your hand to the knob.
Dare darlin’ dare.
DARE DARLIN’ DARE by Julie Ann Wylie (Copyright 11/2020)
poeticmedicine.org julieannwylie.com
Our Wildly Free Elder global community welcomes Julie Ann Wylie into our fold. You will soon see her on our Elder Spotlight page. As an engaged and fully embodied participant within our community., she recently read this poem to a small Wildly Free Elder group who are exploring “What Does Your Life Stand For?” with Andy Kidd.
What Of Death?
We sometimes forget that all life eventually comes to its end. If we are privileged to live longer than most the inevitability of our own physical demise and transition comes to the forefront taking us into unknown territory and, for most, the inevitable fears that accompany this passage.
You see, we are constantly reminded of the cycle of birth, growth, change, death and regeneration every day of our lives. A tutorial or “rites of passage” given to us freely from the vast source of all creation without asking anything from us in return.
Do we pay attention?
Little “deaths” more vividly and intimately felt as we advance in years and reflect back on our lifetimes. Death of the ego in surrendered moments; of expectations; of lost beloveds and relationships; of old patterns of being; of physical functions either temporarily or permanently lost’; of seasons and rhythms in the natural world that are a constant presence throughout our lives – all an intimate part of this cycle of life, death and regeneration in its many and variable forms throughout our time here.
Do we recognize these lessons as being within the whole, interconnected pulsation of life? It took me awhile to do so. Each one of us must come to a reckoning with our own very individualized passing from embodied life.
This is a vast territory to explore and one which is abundant with books, stories told, spiritual/religious philosophies/beliefs which resonate and give us solace at stages along the way, and others points of views. Yet each of us has a unique intimate experience with death throughout our lives which leads us to the inevitable passage and experience leading to our own. A continuum that is written in the archives of our souls.
Each creature and living being has its own cycle, some living much longer than humans and others with brief physical lives that hardly seem to touch us. I have been taught well throughout my lifetime about endings. We all have been in some form or another.
What initiated me at age 14 as a young-woman-to-be when my mother died suddenly at age 39, was an abrupt loss that I didn’t know would craft my patterns and way of being for many, many years to come. She was my first human embodied death, with many to come afterwards.
For the most part they would come in unsolicited and unexpected ways. Perhaps in some preordained way we choose the lessons that weave themselves throughout our lifetimes. Even the ones that contain our own suffering and grief.
i was to go on in my life with the sudden death of my youngest son’s father at age 42, with immense repercussions for both myself and my 7-year old son; the death of my father at 89 passing in his sleep in the middle of the night as I reached the age of 40; to losing a child early on in a pregnancy, seemingly a soul that wasn’t ready to come in yet; to the loss of two beloved women friends this year to the ravaging effects of metastatic cancer; to the many lives lost of individuals that touched my life in some way, some who clung to life not willing to surrender.
Not stopping there my chosen medical profession brought me many more lessons about the continuum of life and death. As a facilitator of a brain tumor support group for families and patients while working in Neurosurgery as a nurse/technical assistant; as facilitator and creator of a yoga based stress management and alternative healing group for women living with breast cancer while working in General Surgery; being present in a clinic waiting area when a woman who had chronic pain for years fell to the floor and “coded”, and when brought back to life her first words to the resuscitation team, “Why did you bring me back?”; watching an in patient in the hospital literally will himself to die with no scientific or medical explanation for his passing; holding the hand of a beloved patient with a terminal brain tumor and saying to him that it was OK to go if he was ready (he passed within 24 hours); sitting with a family in a nursing home as a hospice volunteer and being of support as their mother’s last heartbeat and breath arrived, and with it the peace that emanated throughout the room along with the grief.
Simply accepting the inevitability of our own transition from embodiment may not be enough.
The rawness of full embodied being in this moment in time will never come again. It will be followed by another and another and another until that final act of surrender. Some with immense challenges and others filled with love, beauty and mystery – all to be savored in the miracle of the now we have been given.
All to be transparently acknowledged and felt to the very core of our being….recognizing when it is our time to let go.
The Solace Of Nature
“Silence creates an opening, an absence of self, which allows the larger world to enter into our awareness. It brings us into contact with what is beyond us, its beauty and mystery. Silence is not the absence of sounds, but a way of living in the world – an intentional awareness, and expression of gratitude, to make of one’s own ears, one’s own body, a sounding board that resonates in its hollow places with the vibration of the world. “
~Kathleeen Dean Moore, from the Orion article “Silence Like Scouring Sound”
Dwelling in the ‘silence’ of natural sounds, smells, textures, landscape – sensing with our elementally intertwined bodies. The interconnected life force of nature – wholeness – can bring us out of chaos and separation, and into reverence for the natural order, mystery and intimate beauty of all life. Back into a sense of balance and wonder.
Falling into the portal of nature we are strengthened and reminded of what is important….and what is not.
It was in the silence of a pristine snow covered landscape on a morning in Vermont, my boot covered foot breaking through snow the only human sound, as I started out on my morning walk.
The night before I had been awakened by a housemate knocking softly at my door urging me to get up and follow her outdoors into the frigid night air. The pure delight I saw on her face was enough for me to follow her into the darkness wrapped in only a robe and walk a short distance around a corner of the house.
As I rounded the corner with her I followed her lead and looked up into the star studded sky and almost fell to the snow covered ground as I gazed at a waterfall of light pulsing and flowing down toward the earth. In those moments of this dazzling Northern Light display that charged no admission fee, and asked nothing of me than to be still in the silent night, a childlike wonder wrapped itself around me.
Still enraptured with that experience only the night before, and acute awareness of being part of the larger world, I dropped into the pristine silent snow covered landscape as I begin my morning walk. Bare trees immersed in the low light of a Winter morning were suddenly broken by a flash of color.
A brilliant red Cardinal sitting regally on a branch, gazing in my direction.
The waterfall of Light the night before, brilliant red of the Cardinal on a morning walk – all wrapped in the silence of the natural world – released me into the sacredness, comfort and nourishment of simply being part of it all.
Expressing appreciation for the miracle of embodied life and all that interweaves with it in this shared sacred tapestry.
This continual unfolding creation of nature brings us back home again to the roots of our being where we can take a full breath in reverence….inspired and renewed.
WILDLY FREE ELDER 