Often old people have a touching mellowness about them. Age is not dependent on chronological time. Age is more related to a person’s temperament. I know some young people who are about eighteen or twenty that are so serious, grave, and gloomy that they sound like ninety-year-olds. Conversely, I know some very old people who have hearts full of roguery, devilment, and fun; there is a sparkle in their presence. When you meet them, you have a sense of light, lightness, and gaiety. Sometimes in very old bodies there are incredibly young, wild souls looking out at you. It is so invigorating to meet a wild old person who has remained faithful to their wild life force. Meister Eckhart said that, too, in a more formal way: There is a place in the soul that is eternal. He says time makes you old, but that there is a place in the soul that time cannot touch. It is a lovely thing to know this about yourself. Even though time will inscribe your face, weaken your limbs, make your movements slower, and, finally, empty your life, nevertheless there is still a place in your spirit that time can never get near. You are as young as you feel. If you begin to feel the warmth of your soul, there will be a youthfulness in you that no one will ever be able to take away from you. Put more formally, this is a way of inhabiting the eternal side of your life. It would be sad on your one journey through life to miss out on this eternal presence around you and within you.
When you are young you have a great intensity and sense of adventure. You want to do everything. You want it all, and you want it now. Your young life is usually not a time for reflection. That is why Goethe said that youth is wasted on the young. You are going in all directions, and you are not sure of your way. A neighbor of mine has a lot of difficulty with alcohol. The nearest pub is in the next town. If he wanted to get a ride to the pub, he would have to go to the next village, which lies in the opposite direction. My brother passed this man on the road one evening. He stopped the car to give him a ride. But he refused, saying, “Even though I’m walking this way I’m going the other way.” Many people today are walking one way, but their lives are going in the other direction. Old age offers the opportunity to integrate and bring together the multiplicity of directions that you have traveled. It is a time when you can bring the circle of your life together to where your longing can be awakened and new possibilities can come alive for you.
THE FIRE OF LONGING
Modern society is based on an ideology of strength and image. Consequently, old people are often sidelined. Modern culture is totally obsessed with externality, image, speed, and change; it is driven. In former times, old people were seen as those who had the greatest wisdom. There was always reverence and respect for the elders. Old people still have the fires of longing burning brightly and beautifully within their hearts. Our idea of beauty is impoverished now because beauty is reduced to good looks. There is a whole cult of youthfulness where everyone is trying to look youthful; people have face-lifts and try endless methods to keep the image of youth. But this is not beauty at all. Real beauty is a light that comes from the soul. Sometimes in an old face, you see that light coming from behind the lines; it is a vision of the most poignant beauty. That passion and longing are beautifully expressed in Yeats’s poem “The Song of Wandering Aengus”:
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread.
And when white moths were on the wing
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name.
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
AGING: AN INVITATION TO NEW SOLITUDE
