WISDOM AS POISE AND GRACE
Wisdom is another quality of old age. In former societies, the old people were called elders because it was recognized that having lived so long, they had harvested wisdom. Our culture is absolutely obsessed with information. There is more information now available in the world than ever before. We have so much knowledge about every possible thing. Yet there is great difference between knowledge and wisdom. You can know many things, you can know a lot of facts about things, even facts about yourself, but it is the truths that you realize yourself that move deeply into you. Wisdom, then, is a deeper way of knowing. Wisdom is the art of living in rhythm with your soul, your life, and the divine. Wisdom is the way that you learn to decipher the unknown; and the unknown is our closest companion. So wisdom is the art of being courageous and generous with the unknown, of being able to decipher and recognize its treasures. In Celtic culture, and in the old Irish Celtic world, there was immense respect for wisdom. Since the Celtic world was primarily a matriarchal society, very many of these wise people were women. The Celts had a wonderful tradition of wisdom, which subsequently continued down into Irish monasticism. When Europe was going through the Dark Ages, it was the monks from Ireland who preserved the memory of learning. They set up centers of learning all over Europe. The Irish monks recivilized Europe. That learning became the basis of the wonderful medieval scholasticism and its rich culture.
Traditionally in Ireland each region had its own wise person. In County Clare, there was a wise woman called Biddy Early. In Galway there was a woman called Cailleach an Clochain or the old woman of Clifden, who also had this wisdom. When people were confused in their lives, or worried about the future, they would often visit these wise figures. Through their counsel, people learned to engage their destiny anew; they learned to live more deeply and enjoy protection from imminent danger and destruction. Wisdom is often associated with the harvesttime of life. That which is scattered has no unity, whereas that which is gathered comes home to unity and belonging. Wisdom, then, is the art of balancing the known with the unknown, the suffering with the joy; it is a way of linking the whole of life together in a new and deeper unity. Our society would be very well advised to attend to the wisdom of old people, to integrate them into the processes of decision making. The wisdom of the aged could be invaluable in helping us to articulate a vision for our future. Ultimately, wisdom and vision are sisters; the creativity, critique, and prophecy of vision issue from the fount of wisdom. Older people are great treasure-houses of wisdom.
OLD AGE AND THE TWILIGHT TREASURES
Old age is also the twilight time of life. On the west coast of Ireland the light is really magical. Many artists come to work in this light. Twilight in the west of Ireland is a time of beautiful colors. It is as if the latent colors of the day, which were lost under the whiteness of the light, now have the courage to emerge; every color has a great depth. The day bids us adieu in such a dignified and beautiful way. The day’s farewell is expressed in twilight, in the magic of color and beauty. The twilight makes the night welcome. It is as if the beautiful colors of twilight slip into the night and make the night habitable and bearable, a place where there is hidden light. Similarly, in old age, the twilight time of life, many of the unnoticed treasures in your life can now become available and visible to you. Often it is only with the twilight perception that you can really glimpse the mysteries of your soul. When the neon light of analysis grasps at the soul, the soul rushes to conceal and hide itself. Twilight perception can be a threshold to invite the shy soul to come closer to you in order to glimpse its beautiful lineaments of longing and possibility.
OLD AGE AND FREEDOM
Old age can also be a time of clearance. All perception requires clearance. If things are too close to you, you cannot see them. Frequently that is why we value so little the people who are really close to us. We are unable to step back and behold them with the sense of wonder, critique, and appreciation they deserve. Nor do we behold ourselves either, because we are too close to the rush of our lives. In old age, as your life calms, you will be able to make many clearances in order to see who you are, what life has done to you, and what you have made of your life. Old age can be a time of releasing the many false burdens that you have dragged behind you through stony fields of years. Sometimes the greatest burdens humans carry are the burdens they make for themselves. People who put years into constructing a heavy burden for themselves often say, Sure it is my cross in life, God help me, I hope God will reward me for carrying it. This is nonsense. Looking down and seeing a people carrying burdens they have invented and created themselves, God must think, How foolish they are to think that it has anything to do with my destiny for them. It has more to do with their own negative use of the freedom and possibility that I give them. False burdens can fall away in old age. One possible way to begin would be to ask yourself, What are the lonely burdens that you have carried? Some of them would definitely belong to you, but more of them you have just picked up and made for yourself. To begin to let them go is to lighten the pressure and weight on your life. You will then experience a lightness and a great inner freedom. Freedom can be one of the wonderful fruits of old age. You can undo the damage that you did to yourself early on in your life. This whole complex of possibility is summed up magnificently by the wonderful Mexican poet Octavio Paz:
With great difficulty advancing by millimetres each year, I carve a road out of the rock. For millenniums my teeth have wasted and my nails broken to get there, to the other side, to the light and the open air. And now that my hands bleed and my teeth tremble, unsure in a cavity cracked by thirst and dust, I pause and contemplate my work. I have spent the second part of my life breaking the stones, drilling the walls, smashing the doors, removing the obstacles I placed between the light and myself in the first part of my life.