"If you want to change the world...
...throw a better party" ~~Rick Ingrasci
C, a local change-maker who never gives up, asked me to join a meeting tomorrow on an issue I do care about. My body, mind and spirit all whispered, “Dear god no!” I’m old enough to know I can graciously decline if I want to - which I did. But it’s curious, this “meh” feeling about work that used to make every cell sing.
Better project - or better party?
For decades, I wanted to change the world by launching a better project, a better conversation, a better book, a better program, a better speech, a better newsletter. While many of these projects really did enliven, and lift up, many people, it wasn’t a party.
What’s the difference? With projects I had agendas. I had fun with every creation, but there always a goal, a purpose, a desired outcome.
I went to many “throw a better party” parties at Rick Ingrasci’s home over the years, but I always had my purpose on my mind, and lips. People seemed to like me anyway.
For me, “change the world” and “better party” just didn’t fit in the same sentence. Or page, chapter or book. Yes, change the world, but a party? A party is unfocused, distracted, with maybe a few deep conversations in a corner about life, but not about making change.
Now, free flowing social gatherings are becoming more attractive than one more meeting, no matter the cause or the group or the urgency. I miss the intensity of change-making. Maybe I’m choosing differently, or maybe I’m just tired.
The wisdom of not doing that anymore.
Is this part of “coming of aging” - that your motivations, not just your activities, migrate?
In non-profit, world-changing work we used to talk about the shifting the Overton Window and theories of change. I loved thinking about that, loved daylong meetings with lots of post-its on the wall and passionate conversation and bullet points and reports and programs and workshops and training and all that jazz. That was, really, my better party!
Now, not rising to the reville of change-making feels strange. Who am I if I am not that?
The inner call gets louder
Coming of aging is allowing this other call to come, and to let it speak in a relaxed and easy way. A chat, not a chart. No pressure. No assignments to complete for St Peter’s review. Just the soul’s curiosity.
There’s also some humility in here. Not to critique my younger self, but her goals and methods were, shall we say, a bit over the top. Our motto was: The difficult we do today. The impossible will take a little longer, attributed originally to Charles Alexandre de Calonne who was the controversial Finance Minister for King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette.
I call this part of myself Doña Quixote after the Spanish Knight Errant, Don Quixote.
She has taken me on so many amazing adventures, but there are other parts who, in this time of my life, are throwing pebbles at my bedroom window, trying to get my attention.
They are in the clouds, in a long morning of drinking tea and writing in a journal, in the garden in the waning summer evening when the setting sun turns the tall firs to the east golden with Western light. Soon, I’m writing poems, or an email to a friend, or, as you can see, writing about this experience of a lifetime - aging into my 80s, 90s or? Finding other selves bubbling up from the strange brew of me.
And, here’s the truth, I want to turn my stories into funny/poignant/powerful performances using my many selves as actors on the stage. There, I said it, I want to be Lily Tomlin… or Georgina Carlin… or just a funnier, sweeter, wiser distillation of me. Who knows how to deliver a punch line and then deliver a get-your-hankie-out story of loss. But it’s not a project, y’all. It’s a party.
I’m so curious. Are you feeling such shifts? Do you feel like you are abandoning or breaking up with your younger selves? Do you feel anything promising peeking its head up? What are the fears of change now?
As I age I am less concerned with striving and (over)doing. I am more interested in being, presence in the moment, and relationship with myself and others.
When I left Vermont for Maine in 1997, leaving my work in Gaian/Earth-based economics behind (to live with my disabled sister after our father had a stroke), I had no clue what would be next. I did know it would be very different. At first I tried to do the same thing as in Vermont - tried to get a “group” going, I could see so much we could do. And after all, I grew up there (in No. Conway, NH, just over the state line from where I my sister lived in Maine). But organizing in that part of ME/NH was not the same as in Montpelier, VT where I had an organization and lots of colleagues . . . Each group waned, summer arrived and everyone was too busy, and one time a woman I called the “rabid vegan” simply would not tolerate any discussion unless it focused on her particular “ONE” solution. There was no polite way to deal with this, nothing that worked in my past experience worked. I did have a regular column in the local paper (The Conway Daily Sun) for many years. I had some fans, and some who were vocally not my fans. 😄
In due time the garden grew and thrived and taught me how to listen in a deeper way than before. All the beings in my garden became my social network in a way. I published a journal for 9 years (Gaian Voices), and in each issue there was an interview with someone I had worked with, or wanted to chat with. When I look back at the work I did in Vermont - the books, newsletters, research projects, and that journal - it’s amazing to me how relevant it all still is. I mean we haven’t progressed nearly far enough, IMO. Certainly not the progress I had expected, or hoped. Then my oldest son died, which shook my world to the core. I swear it changed my DNA. In fact, I know it did. Moving through those first 2-3 years was hard. Very hard. But I did, and I had a brief return to the old activist me when Nestle came to town with the idea of building a water bottling plant there. We defeated it, and then . . . whoosh . . . it was time to sell the house and move to NY where my boys and grandkids are.
I assumed I would be happy being a grandma. Shortly Covid arrived. And I realized that no way was I ready to let go of somehow having a voice in the world. What I knew, however, was that I did not want to focus on economics. I wanted to find a way of integrating my herbal/plant/perfuming into something worth sharing (beyond the actual perfumes I create). The energy of them, the healing gifts of the ingredients (I only work with naturals, including some ingredients I make myself), how our senses have been “dumbed down”, purposefully, over the centuries . . . and I could go on about that but won’t here.
Strangely, at that time, reaching out to old colleagues, coming back into contact with them, putting my stuff out there more, like you (but on a much smaller scale as your work was BIG 😍) people wanted me to focus on the economy, solutions, what’s new out there (not much unfortunately though there is a greater awareness) . . . I could have done that. I could have revived my old thing with new energy. It’s what people seemed to want from me, or expect? But I had moved beyond that and knew my work now is at a different vibe. Things are so dire, the solutions are heart-based, spirit led . . .
I sense, now that we are elders, our “leadership” is meant to be different. Bringing people in. Holding space for heart healing, for laughter, for sharing in circles, sharing stories, being very personal with all this. Vulnerable. It’s time, finally, for me anyway, to explore and honor my sensuality - not in any sexual context, though that could be a part of it of course. We are all sensual beings. It is time to embrace that. To smell and taste and revel in beauty, experience joy, and grace. And share it. How it feels, how it changes us. To love, to be active participants with Life, to hold space for those in pain.
About 4 years ago, after I had moved to NY, I got a message from the Grandmothers: “It is time to take your place among us.” I knew immediately what it meant, and I have been working with the “grandmothers” ever since. In the evenings, I sit outside whenever possible, and I join them with my heart and spirit, and the relationship has evolved into one of mutual trust and love and support. Yet I am just a neophyte, despite being a 72 year old grandmother. This is not something I have read about or studied. I have to be honest about that. This is my personal practice. And it is far from the days when I wrote and spoke about Gaian Economics or corporate destruction or any of my old topics . . . except for Earth being alive, and the need to bring the voices of All Species into our deliberations. And now I would include the voices of our ancestors, and the Grandmothers. We (whether you are an actual grandmother or not) are their counterparts here in the living dimension. We can be their voices. And so this is where I’m at now. It’s nebulous and I grasp for words at times because I’m a translator and a bridge (which I’ve always known).
I’m glad you are questioning, embracing, and walking through these later years with such grace and humor. It’s so important. Perhaps the most important . . .