Issues of Time - Hidden Mysteries of the Grandmothers

Aging and changing, the cycles of life keep moving onward in their endless progression. As a teacher of chair yoga, I see how bodies age with time. There is a trend in our society to create the illusion of agelessness, to hide or shun the natural process of aging. There seems to be a greater fear of aging than there is of death. As a woman I feel the pull of the collective in terms of appearances, competitiveness and fitness in general. Ironically, more so in my field as there is a bit of a pull beneath the surface to need to stay young and healthy. At times, there is a covert bashing, if you will in terms of illness or improper aging, where one is to blame for such occurrences. In many ways there are means to better support the body and care for the vehicle that houses our souls, but sometimes illnesses come to even those who have done the right things (diet and exercise and good will towards all other life forms), and in terms of aging despite all our best efforts it will show in time. The psychology behind anti-aging or youth liberation as it is now called, seems cloaked and hides the undertone that tends to denounce a fundamental inalienable truth; the nature of existence and life in the physical realm itself which is temporal. Fear of change, when all is ever changing on the outside anyways, the real truth of this earth plane is an endless cycle of change in response to time. The laws of cause and effect themselves are submissive to the fact that time wears on. The constant factor; time, is inescapable and yet we strive so hard to fool and outwit it. All is vanity in terms of this grand form of denial as the wise king Solomon was able to show in Ecclesiastes.

Beneath the surface, beneath the physiological realm, on an energetic and even psychological level what is at play here….? What does this mean when we see the collective ever eager to cheat death and age? The boom of the pharmaceutical age, whose bi-products ensure a quicker end to the life of the earth with the wastes and toxins they leave behind to ravage the lands …all so that we can cheat death, stave it off a little longer. A battle against the forces of existence, a truly existential crisis (though most existentialist cannot see beyond the dominion of man his glorious self centered existence and most certainly ignore the horrors we force upon the other kingdoms of this earth both animal and plant to name a few).

We seek to be god, we seek to cheat death; and all the while do not see the vanity in this. For those in the new age world it is convenient to accept ancient vedic ideas of being god, especially since we as a culture have ever been trying to do so in a vitiated way through our self obsession with selfies and individualism.  It is the social heliocentric theory;  we are the shining lights of our universe as we go about in self aggrandizement, eating well and hoping to save humanity all like little gods with our narcissistic herculean hopes ignorant of the bigger picture. We say use this cream or use this ointment, even the most green conscious of us all have a twinge of this inherited karmic collective curse of trying to be divine, and live strong forever. So too is the story of the most beautiful angel in heaven Lucifer the light that tried to outshine god himself. Amongst most religious or mythological tales there is the blight of mankind…mans secret curse induced by our own need, man like the coyote who is a bit too clever for his own good always striving for a bit more of that! That whatever that may be…for now it seems we as a whole want youth, health and life for as long as possible come what may as a consequence.

So we have factories pumping out plastics to cheat the shelf life of the products that are to keep us going just a bit longer and stronger than before. Huge powers that manufacture these goods, keeping dark secrets about the real truth; hiding the secret balance of ying and yang, for each life extended something else dies. Our anti-aging creams, our blood pills, our electric homes, our super modified crops and foods. Always wanting more….flavors, time, comfort, luxury; the market selling to the mindset that has been cultivated well, driven deeper by the original impulse for more.

We as a people must wake up while we are here to see the true consequences of our actions rather then pay them forward to the future children we may or may not leave behind. What do we leave behind for them?  It is not what we have while we are here that what matters in truth, and yet that is the way we are living.  Borrowing from the future to give ourselves the luxuries now, just a few more years or a little younger face.  This is the secret truth that is not remembered but for a few on Saturday or Sunday, and even when we strive to believe we hold this truth daily ….check and see if it is truly self evident -see where you are holding your vanity. Look to the secret shown in your own eyes as you gaze in a mirror.

We change, and we have a little power to guide the way we see this change, how we work with it, what we are doing in terms of it and how it really adds to the collective essence we leave behind; only then do we begin to take a sobering look at the truth and see our part in what is our temporal existance.

Always scrapping the surface, a bit of nip and tuck and little shot of this or that, a hint of freshness...forgetting we are all but fruit on the tree of life, with a cycle that involves change and culminates in death. So why then are we living as though we are only here to buy and sell eternity? This may be the biggest product we collectively sell as a people and the biggest illusion of them all. There is now, there is this and there is what we are doing with the time we have been given.

Eat organic local food, consume less fabricated illusions, leave behind less death for the next generation and care for the earth! Place these things above your own comforts, think beyond our species but of the ancestors of all living things to come. This is why the grandmothers used to be sacred and now are hidden, it is the great hiding of truth!  We hide the aged, the sick.  We drink the milk and eat the flesh but dare not see the factories that make them.  We love to look in the mirror but only see a shallow reflection of what keeps us here to see it.  Look deeper.  

The polarization of terms and ideas has been quite apparent to me in this current social construct. The pros the cons, the right the wrong the good the bad; are entrapments to greater realization. The realization that for each thing there is a price and when we stop looking only at our own preservation and look beyond to the bigger picture only then can we truly respect the truth that is time and life while we are here!