Guest Post

If you are familiar with my writing and work, you know how much I love to garden. It's not simply the act of gardening but the garden as a teacher. A garden is potted poetry. It's not beautiful because each section is beautiful, but because each part is beautiful in relation to the other.

Serendipity. I sat across from the doctor and listened in disbelief as he told me the prognosis. "You have a stress fracture in your foot from too much hiking. I'm looking at your chart. At 67, you might be too old to be hiking. Maybe you should consider doing something else."

Let’s explore the word dependency for a moment. If you look up the word “dependency” in the dictionary, the first word that comes up is “subordinate.” The next descriptor is “under the jurisdiction of.”

Having recently celebrated my eighty-fifth birthday, I hold my intention to live in exploration. According to the dictionary, exploration means “to investigate another country.”

In 2015, my Uncle (who raised me) died of ALS. One of the last things he told me was: “I have one piece of advice for you: don’t wait for anything. I waited my entire life to do things, and now I can’t.”

Last week, as I sat watching game shows and eating lousy Chinese takeout in an even lousier airport hotel in Denver, I knew my Modern Elder Academy compatriots were watching whales and enjoying a delicious dinner and delightful conversation without me. I thought about the irony of expertise.

The original meaning of the word “epic” is not an adjective to describe “bigger than, greater than, king of the hill, master of the universe.” It means a long form story of “derring do” – daring to do and daring to be. And stories are important. It turns out we don’t live in our lives or our relationships.

The microwave was invented accidentally in 1945 by a self-taught engineer named Percy Spencer, who was leading a radar project for the defense giant, Raytheon. While testing a new vacuum tube called a magnetron, he discovered that a chocolate bar in his pocket had melted from the heat. He decided to try another experiment by placing some popcorn kernels near the magnetron, and watched as the kernels popped.

Post-pandemic it’s never been more clear that we are a culture disconnected from our rebel souls. What exactly do I mean by that? Consider this disheartening evidence:

The great 20th century Jewish philosopher Martin Buber is best known for his thesis on “human existence as encounter” known as “I and Thou.” Buber suggests that there are two primary types of encounter: I-It or I-Thou. These modes of consciousness, interaction and being can take place between people, inanimate objects and all reality in general.