Courage on the Rocks

Courage on the Rocks

Courage on the Rocks

Dunya Dianne McPherson

Shay, my nieceโ€™s 36-year-old fiancรฉ, reached down from the rocky incline above me. I was stuck, afraid to move. โ€œGrab my wrist,โ€ he said calmly, cheerfully. โ€œPut your foot there.โ€ I saw where. I grabbed and stepped and he hauled me up. My legs, which were not strong enough on their own after surgical rebuilds, suddenly had a memory of their former mountain goat selves bounding up similar inclines. Up we went, step by step. My legs struggled but slid into play. A rhythm, a flow. Shayโ€™s abundant strength poured through his arm into mine. It ignited my determination to not give up, not slough off. No. Reach. Try. He imparted physical courage and this reawakened the fiery field of courage in which I have lived my entire previous life.

It is part of who I have known myself to be. Hip replacement surgery had tamped this down. Surgery is traumatic, even though we are asleep when it happens. The body, however, remembers. I found myself wandering around with some crucial sense of self missing. Post-surgery, being methodical and reasonable has been a choice, but on a subtle planeโ€”where we don’t consciously chooseโ€”I didn’t trust myself. I hesitated instead of putting my foot firmly down. I cowered in solitude where I didn’t have to fight, or be seen.ย I had stopped letting the blood of gravity and the breath of space surge in me.

In the struggle up those rocks, a great medicine occurred. A person helped me and everything except the steps, the tumbling slippery gravel, the clasped wrists disappeared. I was awkward, perhaps even pathetic, but I didn’t care. I got to the top. New warmth flowed through me. I came back into my courage. Since that day, Iโ€™ve stepped up my training. Iโ€™m methodical and patient. And courageous.

Graceless
Aging gracefully is not my lot. I don’t have time and energy for it. To age gracefully connotes the appearance of being untouched by the process of livingโ€”code speak for looking young, unravaged by living, not creased by pain or soured by disappointment. Appearing to have escaped decline and unsightliness may comfort others. They think, โ€œAh, age. Itโ€™s no big deal.โ€ Really? I don’t think so. Thereโ€™s death, the game changer, coming down the pike, and thereโ€™s breaking and mending and the medical gauntlet. There is also this strange, darkly potent grief of knowing you have only one quarter or so of your allotment left.

Personally, I need my energy to scramble up the rock face. I need my energy to recover my equilibrium after having my thigh bones scooped out and metal stitched in. Aged gracefulness, like youthful prettiness, distracts from living and from feeling oneโ€™s way. Living is just as vibrant and just as painful as it ever has been, though perhaps different. The timbre. The quality. The touch between this and that. We continue to search and learn and strive until the last breath.

I will admit, however, when a dark potent grief visits I can no longer see anything elseโ€ฆ

Two Crows by Luella Martin

Fog
Yesterday, this happenedโ€ฆ
The fog came in thick waves.
The trees were still.ย 
The bunny trundled into the woods. The grassesย wereย still.

I felt abandoned by โ€˜societyโ€™,ย that is neighbors and friends who are supposed to distract meโ€”in my mind that is their roleโ€”from existential grief. I was suddenly flooded with the sense that I am three quarters through my time. Not so much that I am frail and all that. I find that sort of loss uncompelling since I cannot feel my young, strong self and so am not plagued by comparison. No, the feeling was that I have only a measure of time remainingโ€”the way one sees that theย  once-full tea tin has only a quarter pound of tea left. This dark wave separated me from the late after noon beauty. I wept.

I spoke later with my friend Bill. He told me his moment of impact wasn’t grief. When I asked how he felt, he struggled unsuccessfully to characterize the emotion.

The rift in oneโ€™s own space-time continuum is confounding. Was mine grief? Partly. I think I cried because my confusion was so utter and so deep, it jumped up and cut open my skull.

Today, I watch the dun-colored bunny, creature of compassion. Fog quells the fever of my realization. Ravenrock is a place of peace where truth erupts. Such a sword is solitude. It slices and I bleed. After, purged of pent up unseemliness, my soul unbinds. From my perch in the morning chair, a day sits before me unsculpted, fog covering over all but close steps, close minutes. The hand pump in the counter makes a โ€˜tuckโ€™ sound, digesting water and air after the morning sluicing. My pen scratches. Silence.

Feeling Beauty
When I was young I was externally beautiful but numb. Now, though I’m riddled with scars, I can feel. In my practice, lines of motion arc through me, sculpting beautiful forms in my flesh and I feel this beauty. Unearthly hoodoos. With age, we know more but knowing more doesn’t mean we can solve what is unsolvable. It certainly doesn’t mean being able to control what is uncontrollable. In age, we lose control. The time is gone. Just really goneโ€ฆAnd losing control, or letting go of the impulse to control, is the central work of spiritual path. It is the out breath to every in breath.

As theย saying goes, Let That Shit Go.

Hoodoos in the Bisti Wilderness, NM.

I am delighted that you are with me and appreciate your sharing these writings friends. Thank you!
My work and writing are sponsored by Dervish Society of America, a nonprofit organization helping people realize their human and spiritual potential by honoring their body and its movement ways using evolutionary Sufi Dancemeditation practices. Thank you for your gift. Itโ€™s tax-deductible! DONATE TODAY!

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Riena Ouellette
Riena Ouellette
4 years ago

Hello Dunya,
I enjoy your writing style; full of raw truths delivered through symbolism and metaphor that can be applied in both specific and generalized ways to so many concepts we perceive in our experience. I love thinking/processing in this way, where a concept is both simple and complex at the same time. Your writing feeds my thought processes.
Thank you

Dunya
4 years ago

Riena, thank you for such a thoughtful appreciation. Iโ€™m so glad it feeds you. Nothing better! Yes, fog. Such a common metaphor, yet as I sat in it as a damp, cool reality I felt it in and on my body (so not a head moment.) Palpable. Always a good baseline.

Deborah Koziarski
Deborah Koziarski
4 years ago

Always so moved by your writings. Thank you for sharing
your art and beautiful insights into our very human journeys.

Dunya
4 years ago

Thank you, Deborah ~ Many facing palms to you. ๐Ÿ™๐Ÿป

Catherine
4 years ago

Powerful, Beautiful, Dark, and Compelling. And very very real. I have thought of this often; having reached the time when our memories seem far greater then our futures. I am impressed by the gut wrenching depth of your expression. Thanks for sharing.

Dunya
4 years ago
Reply to  Catherine

Thank you, Catherine, for these treasured words. ๐Ÿ™๐Ÿป๐ŸŒน

Karleen Koen
Karleen Koen
4 years ago

I always thought of aging gracefully as accepting it, and in the acceptance was grief, rage, wonder, and fear. I think of aging gracefully as stepping up to the baggage of life’s experiences that are yours and seeing past them, not dwelling in the complainer or blamer though visits there are inevitable. I think of it as moving fully in all your pieces that range now between your girl and your elder. I think of aging gracefully as not dumping your grief and rage at the inevitable on those around you, as if it’s their fault. I see it as… Read more »

Dunya
4 years ago
Reply to  Karleen Koen

I love your thinking, Karleen. No doubt. I just would never choose the word โ€˜gracefulโ€™ for it. I guess I consider your definition as โ€˜aging vibrantly.โ€™ Or, better yet, living vibrantly. The word โ€˜agingโ€™ is often a dismissal.
Thank you for your powerful words.

Karleen Koen
Karleen Koen
4 years ago

My thoughts have danced on. Aging gracefully for me means carrying the fact on your person and in your interactions that you’ve walked the walk (12-step, living truth) and are continuing in it. And truth has hard edges. And I think of the word graceful as reflecting, like a skillful dancer, unseen hours of practice and thought and struggle. And then the word grace, unmerited blessing from above or beyond, or the verb, to confer dignity or honor on. Maybe I think of it as an outward reflection of much inner work, the flowering garden where onlookers see not tilling… Read more »

Adelia Ritchie
Adelia Ritchie
4 years ago

My dearest Dunya, “letting that shit go” is never easy but at almost 72 I’m learning that it all begins with living in the moment. As you say, waking up to an unsculpted morning is the best I could ever want. It’s mine to create or to just let be. I’ve lost my fear and actually look forward to some of the advantages of old age, e.g., asking for what I want or need (even demanding when necessary), doing (or choosing not to do) all those things I never had time for in the early years, being amazed at how… Read more »

Dunya
4 years ago
Reply to  Adelia Ritchie

Dee, this made me cry…
I love you and miss you…
Come visit soon.