Part 2 - Finding the Soul’s Song. I began to write about ageing when I first admitted I am old myself. Looking at some of the negative attitudes age receives, I realised there’s something of an ageist in all of us. This manifests itself especially when we hit the big ‘roundy’ birthdays. I remember I only wanted inspirational birthday cards for my 80th birthday and not those bright shiny cards with enormous luminous digits that continued to stare at me from the mantelpiece a full week later.  I know a perfectly sensible person, newly turned 60, who stashed away her magnificent array of birthday cards, as soon as the party was over.

What is this age-resistance about? We pray for long life and when we get it we’re not so sure. Popular culture adores youth. No wonder no one wants to be old. There is a Japanese proverb that says: “Receive age as a guest, before you must surrender to age as a thief.” What is it like to welcome age as my guest? I say it over to myself often and sometimes it works, but it’s harder than I once thought. 



Indeed, persons of greater note than myself have grappled with age as an unwelcome intruder. The poet W.B. Yeats penned a nightmare vision of his aged self, a creature reduced to the pathetic figure of a scarecrow. He made no secret of the fact that he would go to considerable lengths to keep himself young and virile. But being a poet, he finds a spiritual solution. His poem ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ that many learned in their final years at school, sketches an effigy of old age as ‘A tattered coat upon a stick’ … but then he makes the proviso. This is so, unless,
Soul clap its hands and sing and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress.
 
The promise is, that the negative diminishment by age can restore itself to a new level of vitality, if only the soul sings and celebrates even louder than the encroaching ravages of age! I find this amazing. How can my soul sing? Where do I find my soul’s song? Now, I reflect on this question every day, even as I look in the mirror and note, yet again, the physical signs of ageing. What makes my soul sing despite the ravages of age? I begin to take note. I’ve just noticed that the hydrangea I planted from a cutting last year is finally showing a tiny cluster of buds at its centre. It will bloom later this summer. I sense a surge of inner joy. A sudden pleasure comes too when a blackbird, then a robin, frequent my driveway and hang around while I dig the garden. A passer-by stops and shares my joy.
 
While attending church, the story of Jesus on the road to Emmaus lights up with a new meaning. Jesus shared a meal with his fellow travellers. It’s such a human thing to share a meal and we all have recognisable idiosyncrasies as we break bread together. Jesus had his.
So now, I have a new project. Each day, whether at work, at play, in company or alone, I make a collection of those things that lift my soul and make me grateful to be alive. 



by Úna Agnew SSL