ANN ‘N DAN Easter Outing: Buffet, Yellowwood Lake Hike with Spring Ephemerals

April 20, 2022

During the last long Covid winter, former housemate and Green Acres Village podmate (for five years) Dan and I vowed to start getting out into wild Indiana. Two trips so far, this one on Easter Sunday, to which neither of us paid attention, until Saturday, when I suddenly realized I’d need to get a reservation for our favorite place for brunch: the Brown County Inn —

We just managed to slide in to an 11:30 AM slot, and wow, did they deliver! An extraordinary Easter Buffet.

Then, off to Yellowwood Lake, about halfway between Nashville and Bloomington, for a six-mile trek.

Here’s Dan and Shadow, near the end of our two hour journey around the lake. (Shadow slept all the way home.)

On our trek, Dan (a Virgo), took photo after photo, while naming tiny spring ephemerals.  I asked him to please send me both the photos, and a list of their names, in order, both of when they were taken, and to make sure correct names linked up to the photos. (Now that I’ve put each one with its name, I might remember, ephemerally . . .)

 

Thanks Dan! Didn’t get a close-up of him on our trek, but here he is, clowning, at last Thursday’s Community Dinner.

What’s the Difference between GETTING OLD and GROWING OLD?

April 19, 2022

Yesterday, I called up an old female friend on her 80th birthday and sang our special song to her.

Here’s the song, sung to me at my 79th birthday party. Somebody put the camera on the floor, but anyway, it was recorded, not with MY usual verve, in fact it slowed down to a dirge . . . Oh well, you’ve probably heard it elsewhere. I myself learned it at one of our Crones Counsels.

So I sang our song, with the immense feeling it can convey, to Ellen, and yes, she cried.

How could anyone ever tell you

You are anything less than beautiful

How could anyone ever tell you

You are less than whole?

How could anyone fail to notice

That your loving is a miracle

How deeply you’re connected to my soul.

And that led to a two and a half hour crone-versation which delighted us both. Hearing stories of the gratitude each of us has now for especially the hardest journeys that we undertook, the ones which just about did us in, and instead turned into jewels of meaning that we gleaned, and have polished in their telling through the years. I remember Ellen as yes, an Aries, but scared to really show her stuff back then. Wow! Not now! Now she’s fully alive, fearless, and open-hearted;  the wisdom she’s gained through processing her long life shows through with every story she tells.

Ellen, who now lives in Idaho, has been processing in the past few years with Laurie, another old friend who still lives in Jackson Hole (Ellen and I lived in yurts there). They are on the phone regularly, helping each other consciously work with their latest challenges by mirroring, and illuminating, for each other, the jewel that gleams from the heart of every extended encounter with destiny.

I told Ellen I’m processing lately with another old friend we both knew and treasured from Jackson Hole, Janet, who now lives in Ecuador. Each Sunday morning Janet and I get together to meditate and reflect on the week just past.

“Janet!” Ellen exclaimed. “She’s the one who got me through that awful time when I had a lump in my breast and I kept going to her as an energy worker and she was so loving and profound with her hands and voice that the lump, after a few months, just dissolved. ”

Yes, we old women do become “wise,” so that our very presence offers a healing balm for others, IF we learn how to process our experiences, and often that means with at least one other. Otherwise, we just get stuck, and end up bitter.

Otherwise, we just get old, rather than grow old. Big difference.

Personal Processing pdf

Learning to Trust the Process pdf