The skies and our ancestors

 Let's start with Skywatch Friday!

Some dawns give interesting features...heavy frost (which I had to scrape off my car windows before going to an appointment that morning - but Barry our maintenance man helped!). And the fog rises from the river valley between my hill and the mountains to the south.

The mist changes second by second!

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Our connections to the past:

 "Long ago, in shamanic cultures, we knew how to communicate with the Life of the Earth: with the spirits of the plants, the water, the mountains, the animals, and with the Life of the Cosmos — the sun, the moon and the stars in the night sky. We also knew how to communicate with the ancestors and their wisdom. Today, we have lost those skills and are increasingly losing the skill of communicating with each other, listening to each other, respecting each other.

All this has come about because, over centuries and millennia, the visible, material world has become separated from the invisible one. We have lost the thread of Ariadne that once connected us to our cosmic Source. Belief, directed by powerful priesthoods, became a substitute for direct shamanic experience of the Source. We have lost touch with our soul — even the awareness that we have a soul. Cut off from soul, our mind has become impoverished, rigid, dogmatic, and inflated. In compensation for the loss of relationship with soul, it has become driven by the need for ever more power and control, which is why we find ourselves in the extraordinary situation we are in today when millions are suffering the effects of wars and from physical and mental illness, and we are threatened with becoming inducted into a technology that could replace our species with a transhumanist one created by AI, which could bring our species to an end. We need urgently to find our way back the way we have come, towards nature and the ground of our own nature."

-Anne Baring, Divine Wisdom and the Holy Spirit: The Forgotten Feminine Face of God.

Posted in Girl God Books from Norway on FB

Art by Jakki Moore

Sharing with Sepia Saturday - a week late on the needlework! Sorry, no musicians this week!

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Today's goddess:

In the unique ancient art of Cyprus, the female form of the Goddess is often associated with prayer and birth. It seems to be the birth of the world, the birth of trees and nature. Before Bronze Chalcolithic Limestone Praying Goddess, Cyprus, 3000-2500 BC.

The goddess smiles.

Thanks Jenny Mendez FB site

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Winter Solstice is in 9 days

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New header (for phone reading where headers are cut!)

A bit of blurry Santa's sleigh, with the various cars to give juxtaposition across the street further in the distance. Taken through the Peri Social house window.

Some interesting things to consider about aging

This is for those of us accepting that we identifiy as elders of our tribe. Perhaps we're the ones holding wisdom, but more likely just the remote for the TV!

pencil drawing by 16-year-old Shania McDonagh

*Knowledge is key*

*What is the biological phenomenon that appears in human gradual loss of muscle mass, strength and function when they are growing older?*

This is known as *Sarcopenia*!

*Sarcopenia* is a gradual loss of muscle mass, strength and function... the loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength as a result of aging... The situation may be terrible, depends on individual.

Let's explore & analyze multiple ways to prevent *sarcopenia* thus:

1. Develop the habit, if you're able to stand... just don't sit, and don't lie down if you can sit!

2. Whenever an elderly person falls ill, and get admitted to the hospital, do not ask him/her for more rest, or to lie down, relax and/or not get out of bed... It's not helpful. Help them take a walk... Except if they lost stamina to do so.

Lying down for a week causes loss of at least 5% of muscle mass! And unfortunately, the elderly can't recover the loss muscles!

Usually, most seniors/elderly who hire assistants loses muscle faster than the active ones!

3. *Sarcopenia* is more terrifying than osteoporosis!

With osteoporosis, one just need to be careful not to fall, while sarcopenia not only affects the quality of life but also causes high blood sugar due to insufficient muscle mass!

4. The fastest loss of muscles (atrophy) is through idleness in muscles of the legs...

Because when in sitting or lying position, the legs do not move, and the strength of the muscles of the legs are directly affected... This is especially important to pay unto utmost attention!

Going up and down stairs... walking, running and cycling are all great exercises, and can increase muscle mass!

For a better quality of life at old age... Move... & don't waste your muscles!!

Aging starts from the feet upwards!

Keep your legs active and strong!!

As we grow older on a daily basis, our feet should always stay active and strong.

If you don't move your legs for just 2 weeks, your real leg strength will decrease by 10 years.

Therefore, *regular exercises such as walking, cycling etc. are very important*.

The feet are a kind of columns that bear the entire weight of the human body.... So,

*_Walk every day!_*

As shared on FB by Sanwal Dani (where all the **s are part of the original text)

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This YouTube workout isn't the one I do, but is very similar. Search around for what you want to start with, or improve your knowledge as to what feels just right for you. Always have your physician's ok to do whatever you plan to do. (No marathons planned here please!)

I have friends who use a treadmill and can walk a mile that way, and watch a movie. For me, I'm nowhere near that fit yet, but do like looking at familiar instructions such that I can listen to an audio book!

Walking in nature would be my first choice always. But January and maybe even February and March around here have some iffy weather to avoid. I can use my walking stick if the terrain is muddy or not flat and paved. I also can continue with the print-outs of the physical therapy exercises I learned when I last took part in that and felt much better after just 4 weeks (twice a week, 20 minute sessions.)

There are many inspiring messages to share about being an elder and loving it. Gotta take care of myself before I can help others...a reminder I often have to give myself.

Today's quote:

I love this, but I have determined my inner child may continue even as the body ages. I've joined some of the actresses I admire and think I am embracing growing older, no longer fighting it, and certainly not trying to stay young. I am what I am!

Helen Mirren once said, “One of the great gifts of growing older is to discover the exquisite art of being alone.” What used to be an uncomfortable silence, is now a luxury. The house is peaceful, and I can dance in the kitchen without being judged or just doing nothing. My best company is myself, with a coffee, a good movie and the freedom to be, because solitude is not absence, it is fullness and peace of mind. "

Credtis: Somos consciência espiritual

Helen Mirren

Today's art:

The late great Dame Maggie Smith, watercolor portrait by Jung Hun-sung (S. Korean) 

Clint Eastwood at 94.

Sharing with Thankful Thursday

Some Elders doing something about climate change

 Somehow I found some really interesting climate change links...

Here's one that I subscribed to...1001 Ways monthly newsletter with articles about climate.

I found it through this site Elders Climate Action which I found had the slowest pages to load onto my laptop. It could be they are really big, or my internet is really slow. But when they finally loaded, there were lots of links to look at.

There is no Elders Climate Action Chapter near me. That's OK. I am more interested in reading about things and sharing them here on my blog. But I just knew all the grey and white haired and bald people of my generation represented a lot of great thinking, and should be speaking up about climate change.

Don't you think?

Now I have to check out Elders Action Network. Is it just another AARP? I haven't been a member of that organization for years. This EAN group seems interested in current events, and having actions on the things of interest. More than just armchair reading materials, perhaps.

Of course the Unitarian Universalist Association has a lot of action that is happening on climate justice. I may plug into some of that soon too.

There's thinking you know about your future and...

From a post Oct. 6. 2016

 Reading "Being Mortal" which has more information than I expected.

Ah, having worked with elder people doesn't give me any extra insight into how to be one.

This is one book that I think everyone should read, young and old.  It points out a huge hole in our culture, one where every one of us will eventually slide.  That of the final infirmities and lack of good models of care for us.  The current treatment is once you have infirmities of the body, you need to be in a regimented nursing home, where you suddenly lose all your independence and become just one more cog to be given treatments like scheduled medication, bathing, toileting, and feeding.  There may be some better options for those who have a lot of funds.  There is still a dirth of  good care for all the rest of us.

(me then)

And yes, the author gives great examples of how geriatric care is different than regular medical treatment.  Do you know how? (I hate to say it, read the book!)

(Me 2023)

Not enough geriatricians are being developed...physicians who specialize in care for the elderly and dying.  There isn't any incentive.  They are paid less, have fewer courses of study, and don't have any incentive to work with the population which will be increasing exponentially in the next decade.

The author of "Being Mortal," Atul Gawade, quotes Chad Boult, the geriatrics professor... 

"In a year, fewer than three hundred doctors will complete geriatrics training in the United States, not nearly enough to replace the geriatricians going into retirement, let alone meet the needs of the next decade.  Geriatric psychiatrists, nurses, and social workers are equally needed, and in no better supply.  The situation in countries outside the United States appears to be little different.  In many, it is worse.

He goes on to say

"another strategy: he (Boult) would direct geriatricians toward training all primary care doctors and nurses in caring for the very old, instead of providing the care themselves.  Even this is a tall order - 97 percent of medical students take no course in geriatrics, and the strategy requires that the nation pay geriatric specialists to teach rather than to provide patient care.

Boult concludes

"We've got to do something, Life for older people can be better than it is today."

There is a very thorough bibliography, and I think the quotes above come from
University of Minnesota; C. Boult et al., "A Randomized Clinical Trial of outpatient Geriatric Evaluation and Management," Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (2001)
as well as
The American board of Medical Specialties, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology; L.E. Garcez-Leme et al., "Geriatrics in Brazil: A Big Country with Big Opportunities," Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (2005)

Norma made a fairy house in clay

I enjoyed reading about Driving Miss Norma on Facebook recently.  A dying 91 year old woman spent her last year with her son and daughter-in-law driving in an RV around the country, where she experienced everything she wanted to.  She took her last breath September 30, 2016. I didn't discover her posts until after she was gone, but it is interesting to look at what her family posted.  This is a use of social media that I like.  And again, this is a woman who had resources with which to have such a wonderful experience in her last months.


TODAY'S QUOTE:

In being with dying, we arrive at a natural crucible of what it means to love and be loved. And we can ask ourselves this: Knowing that death is inevitable, what is most precious today? ROSHI JOAN HALIFAX

Listen to the elders...

"Peanuts" comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, 1976.

In case you're an elder...please make a comment below.  I think it's more likely that those who read blogs are of the elder persuasion than of school age.  Just my opinion!

It's not just me...

Thanks Ronni Bennett for bringing this issue to your audience, which is much larger than mine.

Here's her post today about Dental Care for Elders.
http://www.timegoesby.net/weblog/2014/09/elder-dental-care.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TimeGoesBy+%28TIME+GOES+BY%29

So what can we do about this?

Please leave comments if you have suggestions...anything might help me, Ronni, or someone else.

Mortality

When I was 69, I began to accept my own mortality.

I'd worked with elders for years, so I had certainly been thinking about my own death during some of the time I was spending with those who might well have been closer to their own deaths than I was to mine.  I never took that for granted however.

I remember one of the youngest people who worked with me at an Assisted Living Facility, who was shot one night.  That was a tragedy that shocked everyone, staff and residents equally.  His funeral was very well attended.  His wife said he'd gone outside to check if there was a prowler.  She heard someone on the other side of the bedroom door and shot him through the door, accidentally thinking he was the prowler.

Anyway, death is a constant companion of elders.  Maybe that young man thought of his death occasionally, since he was around elders daily just like me.  It doesn't mean people are depressed just because they think about their death.  Unless they start planning a way to make themselves die.

I do have the feeling often that I might be dying right now, whenever I have chest pains, tingling fingers, etc..  What if I have a heart attack is usually my first thought, whenever I feel something doesn't feel right.   Those jokes on TV weren't completely off base.  It's one of the first thoughts.  I just don't use it to get attention.  I never have told anyone that I think about it.

Will there actually be that light at the end of a tunnel?  I joke when I say this, though I know many people think seriously about that.

Lately I've been thinking that I'll probably be with the spirits of lots of my ancestors. There's a reason for that.  It's more real in my experience than that tunnel.

Every October for the past few years (and I don't remember how long) I've been visited in my dreams while asleep by various ancestors.  So far they have all been people I've known...not anyone relatives who died before I was born.  But I've had to ask them, respectfully, to let me get some rest during the night.

I have no doubt that this time of year, with the changing weather, the reaping of crops, the snuggling under covers while the north wind turns cold, that there are spiritual presences that can be available for those who are open to communicating with them.

Now I'm not into seances, rituals where the dead are asked questions, or psychics generally.  But when people say the "veil between the worlds is thin" I have to agree.

So that's why I'm thinking of my own death so much also these days.  I figure if I do drop dead any time soon...I might have to deal with these spirits in some way, and perhaps a lot more intimately.

There's lots of theories about life after death.  I've always (well, maybe since I was a young adult) believed that the after-life was just what each of us believed it to be.  Sort of a smorgasbord of available choices, based upon a religious or non-religious belief of each person.

And for me I just figured it wasn't what any religion said it would be.  That's because all of the religious beliefs I've heard of have completely irrational answers, certainly unprovable.  So one belief I had was that a person's soul or spirit continues in the minds of those who remember them, and the body becomes chemicals that are returned to nature to nurture new life forms, from plants to animals and insects.

But I have also begun to believe that reincarnation makes sense.  Unfortunately there isn't a lot of support for that belief in a Christian neighborhood.  But if there is a continuing essence, perhaps the spirit or soul of the individual, I would like to think of it changing into another consciousness.  And I also enjoy the thought that this essence would address similar issues that I've dealt with in my life, and perhaps do better than I have, so the next time (or the next) there would be a completion.  This final sense of enlightenment is satisfying, where the spirit or soul would no longer be held by the issues and can be totally free to join with some kind of eternal bliss. 

But I don't pretend to know this as true.  So death just represents something that will perhaps provide answers to this curiosity.  Just as my belief in a deity is that She is immanent, within each and every thing around me, so has my death become part of my daily activities.   In the meantime, I've got a lot of living to do still.

And my ancestors who visit me at night may have something they want me to listen to, if I'd only be able to understand it.