Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés: Dear Brave Souls: For My Brother and Sister Elders, and elders about-to-be soon enough, and those who
will be elders some day a bit farther down the road from now. In the world views I see — my traveling now ‘OVER the hill’ –not as in depleted — be serious– but as in traveler, sojourner, like many of the elders… accomplished in the endurance, in the mapping, in the far and near views, despite but perhaps because of all our ‘fall downs’ and ‘where the heck am I?’ along the way…
We, together my dear elder peers, my elder brothers and sisters… we are now walking into the long valley of Life with the cragged beauties and perilous conditions of past/present/future Life set all around as mountain walls –writ upon by the weathers of our lives.
This set of realizations that we have truly ‘accumulated’, truthfully without blinders… into sky high ranges, leading us to what I’ve coined “the far encampment’ began to arrive, long and long ago.
Long before we could claim a ninth decade, or an eighth decade on earth, or a seventh, [the last, meaning one would be in their sixties in chronological years.]
This awareness we carry now… that we are definitely at the time of life, where three-quarters of years alotted to us thereabouts, are behind us, and far fewer ahead… this awareness that in the psyche, as in the heart, there is a hidden long valley with a climb to an escarpment at the end of it, a climb from which one can and will soar… is a knowing of great magnitude; changing much if not even all things within us in terms of present and future plans and laying the past to rest.
That escarpment we are moving toward is to use to perhaps at first soar and land back on Earth. Soar and land back on earth.
And/ But, then, one day, a final soaring…. as all harnesses and lacings break free at last… The intimation of such a place to launch from, for a while, and in the end, a leavetaking… is not tied to wits, nor some fluffy ‘pretty idea’.
It is dirt-swimming if need be, it is dust storms that occlude and then reveal, it is fires extinguished suddenly in the night, and new fires lit from only straw and stick, and it is being rendered in all those. Meaning flensed of one’s skin and… growing new, and all attendant birth pains and new life determinations.
But the intimation that there is such a place, that there is a far encampment and now, despite all plans to the contrary, one veers inexhorably and begins to walk, stumble, toward that village in the middle of nowhere, but under the same starry sky one has always lived. One more stop under our sheltering ‘roof of lights’. Our Home. The new, last place– from which to launch in many directions.
Some can hear the call to veer, for it can come over and over, often vaguely at first, but they can slam in hard — most often in later years, but also, can come sometimes in extraordinary circumstances of health challenges, and extreme travail, in younger years, even though it not be time perhaps for one to take up permanent residency there, yet.
This awareness of the far outpost, and one’s place there, can often accompany susto, which is not of the outer world, but a flying apart, like an atom smasher of the interior previously held view of much of/ all of life. A view of some or much that no longer sustains one’s true Spirit and true Soul.
Sudden realization of the vapidity of x and y, is an expected and ongoing set of rites of passage throughout all of life. But this one is different, for those who have the eyes to see, ears to hear, this one is about one’s final home place on Earth and also the final launching pad toward what some would call the Eternal.
In reality, I would shelter and counsel the young and unleash you to do so also about the ways and means to the final encampment when it is time… for the overculture often fails utterly in preparing the young for the interior life that lights up like a Milky Way, the entire person when present. In that sojourn the light and the love within oneself doubles and triples in velocity and volume to heed the Call, to take action to implement, as we gather more years.
The interior life that has a deep rooted basis has outcomes of contentment, ease in remembering what is real and what is illusion. It is tied to a decent heart, and a good mind for one’s own value and for the value of others. It is tied to insight into what to many younger, will appear opaque or hidden. Only because of lack of experience. They too eventually will be able to uncannily ‘see.’
The realization of ‘that birthing and launching place’ that calls to the elder, that home place of true self as never conceived or known before, contrary to overculture and certain shinkdom concepts– is not tied to a condition exactly, and not necessarily tied to an exact age, as though age is a line in the sand and once one crosses it, one is ‘whatever.’
No we human beings with angelic bloodlines are far far more complex than that.
Permit me to repeat, for it is so salient: Awareness of The Passage to ‘the far encampment’ and one’s place in that cosmic pattern is not tied to a certain condition or timetable. The young are not stupid unwritten-upon beings. They are full beings, learning to read the writing by that Greater, which IS written upon them. We too. So, they, also.
This uncanny, down to earth awareness of ‘far encampment’ –a very different way of living and perceiving and thinking, is most often brought about by collision of values between soul and overcultural aspects which exist in many kinds.
It is not a crisis of ego, wherein one suddenly wants a red sports car or a new spouse or a whatever ego might long for.
It is often more a sudden or slow awakening about ‘what is most important to soul and to spirit.’ It is a return to Cosmic Task in full depth, breadth and especially actions.
There IS a longing when one touches the concept of the encampment: It is longing for, and to live in, daily, nightly, True Self. At last. Or for first time, but irregardless, for the Ever, now.
Though as an elder, there can be tangential issues from the overculture, that have come as a result of one’s prior decisions, or prior twists of fate, like the middle of a ven diagram– the rite of passage to glimpse the ‘farther world’ occurs, often in thunder, in the midst of the mundane.
And can occur in children, teens especially, young adults, any age group. But/and taking up domecile there in the far encampment in permanency comes from matters additional than just number of years lived.
How do elders know it is time? In my humble
experience, there is a huge soaring and a thud-landing in late life that is unparalleled to those glimpses that come before if one is paying attention.
That sudden flight and thud-landing that says ‘we are no longer in Kansas and never will be again.’ That we are almost Home again. That if we will continue to strive straight into the winds and weathers, meet the challenges now in our elder years, we will reach that locus that is so radiant, that locus no one and no thing can strip from us, that way of being and especially SEEING far, that there we can and will live the rest of our days… in far more peace, and far more energy and far more meaning and creative life, than ever before.
Why? Not because we have ‘more time’ on our hands. Exactly the opposite: because we have so little time left in comparison.
I dont know that this is everyone’s journey. I know it is mine, and many many of my peers: Our home is this far encampment. Though I know some trivialize it, and think it can be another romp on the carnival that much ‘spirituality’ has fallen too as it has been taken up by the overculture, in fact, the ‘far encampment’ cannot be visited like a tourist. It is a way of life.
And when as one ages, the curious map of the whereabouts of this far encampment, drops at your feet, delivered by a winged one in one form or another, one then knows as hard fact, not enamourment or wishful thinking, not vapid-izing as the overculture teaches– but that we must gather up what we can, our ancestral remnants and robes… and go.
Truly Go.
Launch out now in old age, not as trim and strong in certain ways as when young. But launch out in full faith that we will somehow be led, be ministered to, somehow find the arm to lean on if need be, somehow meet and remember in such joy our fellow travelers we came to earth with, on mission, long long ago.
To annoint one another in the vally-earth of it, the rain of it, the star shedding of it all… to have lost and then refind self again, in often shockingly well and strong forms.
And each of my old brothers and sisters are old enough then to understand this — each in his and her own way and to make proper and useful ablutions toward seating oneself in True Home that has always been there, but often run from or ignored, or delayed for just one more turn on the not-so-merry-go-round, or just ‘not yet Time.’
The tasks in what I named ‘the far encampment’ are sometimes harsh, for they require truths and endurance and minimization of much, shedding of much– not self selected: instead, challenging right down to the bones.
We are called to sometimes painful expansions that our hard work is mean to make show above ground. For our sakes, but also for the sakes of those younger, so as to gently say, ‘Come, come, as you go along in life: this is the way through.’
So THAT instruction, rather than being left out in the salt flats without water, our young are provided the cool drink of Knowing which directions to go in when ‘their time’ comes.
Aging aint for sissies. There is much to the Much, yet ahead. Exciting, myserious, challenging Sweet Mystery of Life.
The words ‘Serving’ and ‘being a Helping Companion to Greater,’ are far far more meaningful as one comes deeper into the work of the elders’ time. Each is his own way. Each in her own way.
There are some central features I can note, and there is also a customized journey for each elder that is different than the overculture’s trajectory it tries to force elders into.
I say, simply and gently but with conviction, regarding the overculture’s vapid ideas of the elder: Resist.
Resist the overculture’s absurdist, often insulting ideas of old age and elders unless it serves the Soul. Resist especially those who say they have ‘studied old age’ as a science. And the ‘behemother they” know how all others ought live.
No. No one knows but you and your soul. Consult Soul, and then take the best of what might be offered by overculture, and/or create your own neverbeforeseen ways and means. We ARE creators first and foremost, not sheep.
This time of life is not about where to live. It is about How and Why to live, in relation to Whom and What and one’s own KNOWN and DEEPLY FELT Cosmic Task…
that is, the Deep Calling that comes from and leads us toward the Last Encampment.
To my brothers and sisters who are already on the trek here in the long valley that leads through our lives written upon the mountain rages –toward the beautyand challenges now and ahead: Courage. Endurance. Love.
As you see in my poem, The Bus:
‘ My one good leg for your bad leg.
Your one good arm for my weak one.’
This is how we go in love and regard for one another Brother, Sister.
As I so often tell you:
“We are walking
different
pathways, but we are all
walking along
together.
“We are “The Ultimate
Half-drunken on the Soul”
Singers.
We are a limping, climbing,
stumbling,
soaring
eternal La posada.
“We ARE
the Conference of the Birds–
We each
carry
the golden feather
over our hearts–
so many of us
helping
each other as we go,
leaning on what we know,
learning what we dont know,
and with no
caring heart left stranded.
“By lorry or travois,
by carrying in our arms
and most certainly our hearts,
we are all returning each other back
to true home….
all moving toward the farthest
True Home.
Together.”
If you, at whatever stage or age, might not understand all I’ve gently written to you here, despair not. You will. In your own ways.
If not now, then one day. Tuck this away and take it out during another turn of the Earth now and then, and you will see more and more over years, over time, how you too have caught glimpses of True Home that comes into certain sight…
And one day, as gracefully as possible, you will as billions of souls before you have done, you wlll let go of the last ties that bind oneself to Overculture only, ties that do not serve the Child Spirit and the Soul, do not serve the Cosmic Task.
You will choose anew then, and do-overs, and new formerly inconceivable ways and means that are goodness for you to follow. You will see. Literally, you will See.
“and white hair that lights the way. . .
and how, as the eyes grow dim,
they see far,
farther,
farthest.”
with love,
dr. e
This term, ‘cosmic task’ I first heard from my comadre Martita, Montessori diosa, which is written by Maria Montessori the farseeing educator who first said that all children have souls, and that street children of course, can be educated. Be serious. Mil gracias gemela.
