sustainable living
How sacred are our mountains…
After watching an episode of Sacred Journeys on PBS, one which included a bit about the sacredness of mountains in Asian thought, I got to thinking about how important it feels to have a full-time view of the forever changing Spanish Peaks right outside our front windows.
The Spanish Peaks, pictured above, have a centuries-old history of sacredness. Dating back far before the Europeans arrived, this area was a crossroads of the American West. Taos Pueblo, located in northern New Mexico today, has been a major Native American trading center for over 1,000 years. One trail headed north out of Taos into the San Luis Valley, crossing east over Sangre de Cristo Pass, through the gap between Rough Mountain and Sheep Mountain.
Various Native American tribes like the Ute, the Navajo, the Jicarilla Apache and the Comanche passed through this valley regularly. To them the Spanish Peaks stood out because they seemed to emerge out of nowhere up to 13,000 feet running east and west, not north to south like the rest of the Rocky Mountains.
The natives peoples considered this a sacred place of ceremony. As far as they were concerned, this is where mankind first emerged from the womb of the earth. In other words, this was their own Garden of Eden.
The Ute Indians named these two peaks Huajatolla (pronounced Wa-ha-toy-a), meaning the “two breasts” which translates as “Breasts of the Earth”. I loved learning this ancient history, which I first heard about from Robert Mirabal when he came here to perform recently.
We moved here to create a dynamic relationship with these mountains, this landscape and the lovely silence. Mike and I have both traveled to many parts of the world. We now find the inward journey more essential than outward ones.
For us this is a sacred place, one where we can celebrate and appreciate the beauty of nature every single day, while continuing a long tradition of sustainable living.
Want to learn more about what it feels like to say goodbye to city life in order to live more intentionally? Here’s a link to my new memoir.
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Boomers’ Views on Election Scams, Medicare Scams and Letting It All Go
Our Boomer Bloggers are feeling frisky this week! Must be the full moon or perhaps the goblins of Halloween are already emerging early just for us… Tom starts us off.
In his post The 0.3 Solution Tom Sightings brings us the latest news from Social Security, and also relates his latest encounter with Medicare. Instead of raising the premiums, is Medicare stealthily cutting services?
As the finale of the never-ending election season draws near, Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting is thinking about life post-election. Not her life – hers will not change – but post-election life for the candidate not moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She has some ideas for one candidate in Ten Post-Election Pursuits for Donald Trump.
On The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, Rita R. Robison, consumer journalist, writes about new election scams and a drop in IRS scam reports since a huge raid in India.
On the other hand, if you are perhaps looking for an escape from corruption and scams, go try these links:
Too little kindness floating around, so that’s what Carol Cassara is bringing forward at Heart-Soul-Mind. Kindness. Let’s spread it, she suggests, and has two posts with practical ideas for doing just that. Kill the world with kindness, and an inexpensive way to brighten another’s day.
We all get caught up in busy days and a hectic life style, even in retirement. Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting took a couple of days off and decided to, if not exactly smell the roses, listen to the sound of the sea, smell the salt water, and enjoy unseasonably warm, beautiful weather. Read about her mini-staycation in An Autumn Respite.
And, to add a little bit of icing on the cake, don’t miss my new post: The Challenge of Being Fully Present in Your Life. This has nothing to do with the world outside your own mind and heart! In case you’re new here, I just same out with a new memoir. Please go check it out!
The Challenge of Being Fully Present in Your Life
“All great changes are preceded by chaos.” – Deepak Chopra
A few years ago I presented a talk to a group of unemployed Americans in their middle years. When I was finished, the first person to raise her hand asked me,
“Do you believe we have to hit bottom in our lives before we truly begin to change?” My answer at the time was, “I did.”
The fact is that most of us will not change until we become uncomfortable enough to admit defeat. Most need to be absolutely convinced that the “plan” they had for their life is simply not working. The way this usually comes about is through a major crisis which demands our complete attention. Divorce, serious illness, the death of a loved one, or long-term unemployment, especially when these occur in our middle years, seem to be the most common stimulants leading to the end of our naïve notion that we somehow can control everything that happens to us. These events become ever more common as we age. These unforeseen and often unforeseeable occurrences tend to inform us in no uncertain terms that changes in our life plan are now in order.
We may first try to defend against the onset of pain and confusion by denying or ignoring this sudden lack of certainty or security in our lives. Most seek to escape into bad relationships, drug addiction, religious faith or even artificially extreme feelings of independence, as they defend against their need to depend on others in their lives.
Even though it may seem completely counter-intuitive at this tough spot, you may discover that accepting and embracing the chaos and uncertainty you feel surrounded by is your first best step towards peace. Stop, sit down quietly, and begin to feel the enormity of this apparent crisis, realizing that this may be one of the most important opportunities of your adult life.
Can you trust in the power of your own psyche to survive this crisis, and in that way heal yourself?
“Have a sense of gratitude to everything, even difficult emotions, because of their potential to wake you up. – Pema
Know that this is the beginning of your own personal rite of passage into full adulthood. This is a natural, normal stage of human development studied by psychologists like Carl Jung, when he experienced it himself.
Recognize that you are not the first to feel chaos and uncertainty in your middle years. This is a well-documented transition of personal change, growth and human evolution. And the best way to move through this life stage smoothly is to embrace the new information and knowledge you will be given now.
By allowing this in, you have the ability to access the unique instruction this moment has for you. Instead of attempting to run from it, embrace the uncertainty. Begin to believe this moment is giving you access to your own unique brand of power, one you may have never known or acknowledged before. Begin to see that you alone know somewhere inside what needs to happen next. Spend the time necessary to listen to the small, still voice within, the one you may have been ignoring for decades. Recognize this voice perhaps for the first time as your inner guide, brimming with accumulated information and wisdom.
This source knows where you need to go next. It will instruct you in how you must change, grow and evolve into your best self in this moment. The sooner you begin to believe in its power and trust this valuable inner resource, the sooner you will follow its instructions, and find more structure, certainty and peace in your life.
This is a brief excerpt from my book, Find Your Reason To Be Here: The Search For Meaning in Midlife. Please contact me directly to order your own signed copies of any of my books!
Cheers, Laura Lee (email me: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com)
Do you have an introvert room?
Introversion is a personality trait characterized by a focus on internal feelings rather than on external sources of stimulation. While introverts and extroverts are often viewed in terms of two extreme opposites, the truth is that most people lie somewhere in the middle of the extroversion-introversion continuum.
I’ve always seen myself as borderline between introvert and extrovert. I need to spend quite a bit of time alone, but too much can be, well, too much. I’m also painfully aware when I’ve spent too much time with others, feelings of anxiety and discomfort overwhelm me, and if left unattended, become unbearable.
The biggest bonus to me with retirement is that I can finally CHOOSE how much time I want to spend alone or with others, and also who I wish to spend that time with. Quality becomes paramount. Unfortunately, the people I would most like to spend time with are back in Fort Collins working. So, after moving to a new part of Colorado recently, I have been studying the process of retirement and making new friends after age sixty.
Mike and I are the absolute best of friends, but I know how important it is not to depend too much on your significant other to meet all of your friendship needs. That can be a relationship killer in the long run. Besides, I really am a fairly gregarious person sometimes. I enjoy going into La Veta and hanging out with the women who run The Silk Road. They are so warm and welcoming to a newcomer like me. The women at the new realty in town are also nice, and I have found a few friendly people up in the foothills where we live.
Then I go home and enjoy my introvert room, the room where I write each morning. I have filled this small room with pictures, sayings and mementos from sixty years of living. I love sitting here looking around the room reminiscing, and feeling safe in my introverted cocoon. No one can touch me here, and I am free to let my imagination run wild, a bit like Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own.”
In my safe place I like to challenge myself with questions like, “What do you want to happen today?” “Who would be fun to hang out with?” “What kind of interactions nurture my soul?” “Who do I know who makes me laugh a great big belly laugh?”
There I can find so much contentment! It sometimes seems I was custom made for retirement, because I don’t need or want much from the outside world. I don’t need much ego-building admiration, just the occasional friendly encouragement.
I’ve noticed that some claim not to have enough money to retire, when in fact their real problem is that they can’t imagine not being around people all day. I never liked most of what happened among my fellow workers. My experience was that of envy, back-biting and office politics, which got me in the end, because I wouldn’t play their kiss-ass games. You have to earn my respect, it cannot be bought.
Being a careful observer of human behavior, and aware of ulterior motives definitely has its drawbacks. Retirement and being a writer suits my character so much better. So glad I finally found my place in the world…
How did I end up here, feeling so fortunate?
It’s a long story, one I can now share with you!
Saying goodbye to the Midlife Crisis Queen
It seems a few major changes are all coming together for me right now.
My new book about our move from Fort Collins to here is out! Please considering buying it. It’s a FUN read! Then write a review on Amazon to share your opinion with others. What I do here is for me, but also to inform others of the challenges and rewards of changing lifestyles in retirement. And while you’re changing, passive solar is a great way to reduce your heating bills!
My other major change is the demise of my original blog: Midlife Crisis Queen. To explain what it feels like to remove eight years worth of my writing from the Internet is difficult. Here’s something I wrote back in March of 2015 when I officially switched over to this new blog:
“After over eight years of maintaining this blog, not to mention a number of others, I am tired. In those eight years I have also produced a number of books and e-books to help others survive and thrive through what can be some tough middle years.”
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 