Veils to the Soul
Season 2 ... Masculinity and Spirituality. An exploration into the current state of the Masculine in Therapy and Spirituality.
Season 1 ... Birthing Spirit in the Modern World. An exploration of what's between us and our Souls' birth, and how the Modern World resists that birth, but needs it - if it's to survive and thrive!
Veils to the Soul
9. Aging
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After postponing the episode on Fun Oliver and Gary tackle the topic of Aging.
Looking at topics as diverse as the search for Elders, what it means to be an Elder and what responsibilities come with the 'role'. The transition from youth to maturity (?) , Spiritual teachers and maturity, do we disappear with age? and how we relating across generations particularly in Men's Groups.
Thanks for listening!
Find out more:
For Oliver's Psycho-Spiritual work with Individuals, Couples and Groups, please visit www.oliverbaum.co.uk.
For more information on Gary's work www.thewrightmedium.co.uk
And today we're talking about men and aging. And we we were supposed to be talking about men and fun today. We're supposed to follow on from sex uh to have a bit of fun. And neither of us, uh, in our conversations in the run-up to this were particularly feeling fun, which I think is partly down to the astrology at the moment, um, and also the fact my sleep has been all out over the place. But um men and aging definitely seems to be more appropriate today, so that's where we've decided to go. Um, and particularly in the realms of sort of spirituality, um, and and conversations that often happen alongside this. For me, anyway, it's the idea of sort of men and masculinity and elders um and the lack thereof. I get quite a few, or starting to get quite a few sort of um men in their late 20s, and some in their early, and some younger than that coming through who are looking for more, they're looking for that sort of spiritual element to their life, but then they look at sort of the men around them and and society around them, and there's just not really any models of what that looks like. Um, and you know, the people there are people out there, but I think on a day-to-day basis, um, and I suppose we're recording this just after sort of deep chopper um sort of name has been sort of I I don't know how to put that, just you know, it's popped up in the Epstein files fairly frequently. Um and I yeah, I don't know, it's just there's something in this about the disillusionment with men and masculinity and that longing and and in within men for almost for a true father figure or a true elder.
SPEAKER_01So the last two men's retreats that I've been on, I've found myself being the oldest one actually in the room by about 16, 20 years. And it's been quite tricky, actually, because when you're young and gorgeous, your um your gift to the world is being often young and gorgeous. And I realize that when you get older, you haven't got that bit so much, you're readily at hand. Um, so you have to do character in a way, then you know, all the wisdom and the life and years and all sorts of things is tricky to hold in the same way because it's not the first thing that's available to you, the first thing that people see. And in a society where people, youth, and things in some ways is celebrated, especially marketing-wise, I found that it's actually been quite hard. And I was sitting next to one of the older men at something, and there was a sort of pick you pick you pick your favorite person thing. I mean, a particularly great exercise to do, and he whispered to me, he went, Won't watch us be left right to the end. And I went, Why? Well, because we're old, and we were, and it was really quite interesting that there is that difficulty in young men, but I found myself doing it, where I slightly retreated because I thought, well, I they won't want to talk to me because of that. And one of them sat me down near the end and he said, It's been very interesting with you and boom boom and the other. There were three of us over 50. I was the oldest out of that. It wasn't much difference in our ages. He said, You've all slightly held back from the younger ones. He said, and we find that's quite difficult because it looks like you don't want to speak to us. Where we'd all gone, they don't want to speak, they won't want to speak to us, but they took it like we didn't want to speak to them. And we had removed ourselves quite readily from both situations, and therefore it had been quite tricky to do that. And so we'd all step back, and it had been very, very problematic on both camps that both of us had a standoff on a judgment that we hadn't kind of sorted out. So it was very interesting, and I thought, well, actually, it it's a big lesson here of not not assuming that you know, not falling into the gender divide.
SPEAKER_03So there's a longing, probably in both sides, but but um from the older and the younger people to connect, and for what and you know, there's gifts that can be given and received from both. I don't know, is that fear?
SPEAKER_01Is there a I mean, what is the aversion? Uh well, I can I can only answer that in myself. For me, it was a uh a fear of that I wasn't gonna quite be what was required. But of course, what kind of happened? That was the first time I had been on a retreat, the second time I had was on a retreat, I kind of didn't, I actively didn't do that. I actively thought, no, actually, it'd be available. And but it was quite energetically quite tiring to hold that space of being very available to and not kind of fall into that kind of retreat space. And people did come over and spoke to me and and needed the wisdom, you know, needed the the thing of you know, why are you worrying about that? And and but that will sort naturally, that will kind of fit together naturally. Don't worry about it, and that part where you just fall into a a space where the the history of the years you've been here does mean that sometimes you can trust a bit more that things somehow work themselves out eventually, for the better, sometimes. Not every situation, but for the better. That's been my experience. And so there was an opportunity to sit down and be able to sit and chat and reflect. And because I don't hold a particularly father-like energy, because I'm not a dad. Sometimes younger people have now said to me, Well, you're easier to talk to because you haven't got the you don't naturally fall into a father energy, because I just don't. I mean, I've there with my boots and my skinny jeans, you know, so I definitely don't look like somebody's father that you'd want your father to dress like. You know, so it's a kind of different space, which is rather lovely, but it is very confusing, this this aging and what young people expect older people to be like, and not wanting to, you know, step in. It's a it's a whole mix of a big dance, really. But that thing of elders and and wise people in the in the space is an interesting thing. Of, you know, we don't have elders, we don't celebrate elders quite in the same way as we used to in society. Not in not in the West, I don't feel.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think that's true. And I I know I'm sort of going back to my younger days and when I was in circles, I was always a bit suspect of people who who almost wanted to put themselves in the wise elder position. There's that kind of that kind of guru thing. Whereas I I don't know, for me a wise elder, and this is a should, but there's a sort of quiet strength, a quiet presence there rather than someone who forces themselves to the front.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, yes. Because the wise wise elder was all the always the person that you went and you know you went and seeked out, or you saw them, you found them, you had to go journey to them. So when somebody comes in with look, I've got a load of wisdom, here we are, it's not exactly very helpful.
SPEAKER_03No. But I I wonder if the and this this probably again goes back to sort of more the mind-body spirit, there's a lot of that kind of eternal boy, you know, pure eternus energy in a lot of spiritual teachers and a lot of spiritual teachings. It's this kind of you know, the seeking of eternal youth or whatever it is, and the sort of Peter Pan archetypes. And I'm really struggling to think of um a male spiritual teacher, you know, fa a well-known one who has some serious depth. You know, they all have a boyishness to them, which is isn't necessarily a bad thing. Um but I just yeah, I just wonder I just wonder what's going on in there.
SPEAKER_00But it's interesting to think what spiritual depth is, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And what does it look like? And does it require the inquisitive of youth to constantly keep improving oneself? You know, does you know, do the people who get there and go, Oh rah, I've got it all sussed, do they become irrelevant suddenly? Because do any of us ever get it all sussed? It's a very interesting topic, this. Because it is about how one shows up in the world, really. But I know what you mean. It's a difficult thing, isn't it? Because we've had a lot of falling from grace, really, um, by lots of people over the last few, few, well, last decade, really. You know, there was a point where the church had that authority, and now it doesn't.
SPEAKER_03And there's this this it's interesting with your phrase showing up in the world, and I wonder if that's such an important part of sort of the elder vibe, is that it is somebody who can show up in the world. So it's not about that kind of transcendental enlightened figure, the kind of which you know, and there's this I'm talking stereotypes, but there is that sort of stereotypical sort of guru nothing touches, sitting under a sort of on a lotus plant, kind of up the side of a mountain in Tibet or whatever. Um, but there's something about having that energy of being in the world. So, yes, they may have access to that sort of enlightened place, um, awakened place, whatever language you want to use. But there's something about how does that get them brought in the world, and there's something about the breadth and depth that that takes.
SPEAKER_01There's often this point when I see very young people in class, you know, 20s, 22s, it's very interesting. When you know, they're very good psychics, very good mediums, give very good messages, you know. Um, but when somebody's sitting with them, somebody often reverts to sort of telling them what to do, you know. Well, when I was your age, I didn't worry about this, this, and this. And then this and this happened. And oh, but you know, and they get sort of lectured at, and they've all sort of come and found me over the years and gone, well, somebody's just lectured me. And I've thought, oh, okay, I'll keep an eye on it. And then it's not just one person, lots of people reverse in a very meaningful way and very kind way to give in advice, which isn't the kind of work, but there is that part where people can't sort of take something from a younger person often, because they assume they have no life experience. And of course, life experience is very important. So I don't know whether that wise elder kind of thing is we're all slightly kind of looking for something with a long grey beard. But the long grey beards at the moment, you know, don't haven't always shown up as what well. Some of the long grey beards and those sort of spiritual teachers have been quite abusive. I mean, yeah, I don't want to get too political, but you know, some of the the church doesn't have that authority anymore, but used to. But it doesn't because of what's been happening for the last few years. A lot of people don't feel that they can go and seek out a vicar or a priest spiritually in the same way as they did.
SPEAKER_03But that's that's a yeah, yeah, well no, I was just saying that's interesting because what that brings up for me then is the and again it's about being able to be in the world. There's something about spiritual teachers and um and so-called elders, and shadow the relationship they have with their shadow side. Um, you know, sort of I th and I think a big problem with the church, particularly say with paedophilia, is because sexuality is so suppressed, yeah, and the feminine is so suppressed in a lot of um particularly Christian um churches, um it comes out sideways. All people who have proclivities go and hide there, and then it comes out sideways kind of thing. Um and I mean I suppose it would you know any position where you you can sit in politics as well when put someone puts themselves up as being good or righteous or self-righteous or whatever, they're on a hiding to nothing, really. They're they're gonna get themselves in trouble.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and that's the difficult thing, I think, with being a spiritual teacher, or or or those those guru-like figures that have turned up as a as wise aged men, is that you have to help somebody find their spirituality and not impose your spirituality on them. That I think has been sometimes quite lacking. I mean, I'm not saying I got this right. You see, not me suddenly going, yeah, but when I do it, look, I'll do it like this. But when I'm teaching people, you know, psychic development, which is kind of a spirit, you do have to kind of know yourself. So you do have to reflect quite a lot on who you are. So there is a spiritual aspect to it. I've never tried to change anybody to work like I have. I've found the way they work well and then enhance that and then strengthened the bits they're not so confident in. And that doesn't tend to happen over quite a lot of some of the organized religions as well, of find who you are, because because you don't find it's not easy to say to somebody, you know, well, well, let's let's do it your way and let's find it, find out who you are, because they've become so you know, you're raising somebody to become very independent. And that's not always been the gift of the spiritual teacher to kind of want to load people around them to be independent. Because if you've got loads of people who are independent and self-thinking, are you relevant anymore?
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, I suppose I'd argue that the real wisdom is you know, almost wanting to become irrelevant. So that person it's a bit like being a parent in some way, or a good parent, is that you want the child to launch. Exactly that is the purpose of a parent, is the purpose of a teacher. You know, is and uh and I you know, I I mean too much because I I I was I worked under, is that what you call it, uh um someone who was a guru for nearly a decade, and I I gained a huge amount from it, um, and it didn't end well, but it I did gain uh a lot from it. So I mean it I'm kind of tentative in wanting to say that the age of the guru or the age of the sage on stage is over. Um but I think it is, and I think it is much more about you know, how can you, you know, a teacher is there to encourage someone to be self-referring, ultimately, to find their own way and just you know nudge them on to the right direction if they're steering off, but but that's about not it, because that's quite a big thing in and of itself. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, but you're totally right. That is really what needs to happen. What you know, that is what's happening and needs to happen because this sort of thing of you must do it my way is kind of really over. I mean, you know, you can kind of see that, you know, in the world, things falling all over the place, you know, people who had authority and people who hold themselves up for you know, think like this and do like that, and you know, make sure you only buy three new articles of clothing a year because we've all got to save the planet, and then you know, they're jutting off on here, there, and everywhere. And it doesn't apply to them, but it applies to the rest of us, is kind of not many people are buying it anymore. So is a bit about what you walk, how you walk and show up in the world, really, which is very, very interesting, really. But it is interesting that being said, is that when you know, 20 odd years ago when I was fitted into the young and glamorous camp, um older people used to say to me, Oh, well, you disappear at 50, it's really hard, it's very difficult. So you do just disappear, you blend in the background at 50, you know. And all the gay men said to me, we blend in the background at 40, you know, it's like all these people suddenly saying they know, but they they don't they're not seen. And I thought, oh ridiculous, of course you are seen. I see you, I'm seeing you, but ridiculous. And then I hit 50 and I thought, oh god, wow, um, because you don't often feel yourself aging, and then you suddenly realize that sometimes people do uh don't see you, or don't um recognize that that part, you know. What they said, you know, what they said would happen happened. And I didn't think about it until it happened. I thought, what is going on here? It took me ages to work it out. And I thought I've just moved into a different decade that society says is not quite relevant at the moment. And then you have to really energetically work hard to be seen and and not disappear. Because if you buy into that narrative, it's it's very, very it becomes very very irrelevant.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, no, it's in it's interesting because I mean we're both in our 50s, and that really hasn't been my experience of moving into my 50s. If anything, I'd I'd feel probably more seen than I ever have done. Um, which you know that brings up other things um as well. Um Yeah, and I I I've been talking I've been talking to a few friends recently who are you know similar age or a bit or a couple of years younger. In fact, I met up with an old university friend on um Friday, and and we were talking about age and and the there's a generational difference, I think. Yeah, because I I I remember at 30 looking at someone who was 50 and thinking, oh my god, they're ancient, kind of thing. Um and um and now that I'm in my 50s, I I don't feel that, but then I caught myself, it suddenly dawned on me that uh this friend had come to my mother's 60th, which I'd done the cooking for, partially done the cooking for. So I'd we'd done this thing I used to in a hotel, and it was all we we did this lovely dinner. Um and then it suddenly dawned on me in the train back, that's seven years away. Me cooking it, cooking that seems like a couple of years ago. So I d yeah, I suppose so there's something about the relationship with time. Maybe there is a generational difference that we our generation doesn't feel as old as the previous generation did. I don't I don't know if that's true or not. Or maybe it's a mindset thing. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I think I think we definitely are encouraged to look after ourselves better and be emo and emotionally more intel, you know, emotionally emotionally intelligent and maybe therapies and things are much more talked about in the generation before didn't do things like that, didn't think about those things, you know, didn't, you know, they're tough in a different way. That especially that war generation are tough in a very different way, they're strong in a very different way, but they did tend to kind of you know go. My dad was great, you know. He used to just go, don't put me in beige. And I'll go, like, what was I gonna tell you what to wear? Because don't ever buy me anything beige. I'm never wearing beige, because he saw if you wore beige, it was all over. And um, I don't know, nothing wrong with beige, I think, but it was for him. He didn't wear it, he liked colour, he wore colour, my father, uh, for a number of you know, well, really happened to the end. I mean, he was quite poorly before he died, but um, he would wear colour, and so but people never thought of him being his age because he'd wear purple and blue and yellow and pink, and you know, he'd he would he liked colour, so he wore it. And um that didn't happen to him, where I kind of favor the black and gray palette because I'm an old dancer and it's slimming, and um that has definitely sort of put me in a different place. But I it's interesting, you haven't had that experience, and I really have. And I've had conversations this week with men in their 50s who are saying, Well, I just feel like I've disappeared. Not in Korea, none of us felt like, but we have felt we've disappeared on the street to. Different ways and and in other ways as well, really. That's interesting.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because yeah, because even sort of say, you know, romantically in dating that side of things, uh maybe I just had incredibly low self-esteem when I was younger, I don't know, but it feels um it yeah, yeah, I that's not been my experience at all.
SPEAKER_01Um well uh romance and dating, somebody said to me the other day, do you know any single men who are sane and sober in their fifties? I went out too much, and the only one I could think about was you. Oh, right. Well, they were difficult. They were either single and and not one of that for had either of those other things run, you know, uh uh or not about not interested in women or whatever. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But actually, you were the only one. This is uh okay. Well maybe I've I should be giving your number out more or okay.
SPEAKER_03So maybe it's just a lack of people then rather than me being anything else.
SPEAKER_00No, it's I don't think it is. I didn't want to take that experience away from it.
SPEAKER_01It was interesting that that that you would be seen, I think, in that way, because you you show up and are authentic. And there is something about being authentic and aging, which is kind of what I was trying to uh make, I didn't make that point very well, but that's what I meant. You know, that actually all being authentic and being present and being uh self um self-conscious, not self-conscious, self-aware, is um is clear really. Um look, as you get older, those things people do really appreciate those things. And that's the bit when I that that's the bit that I didn't realise all these young people quite respected in me. Yeah. And I'm a bit of a I do have a maverick energy, you know. I do, I do I do have, you know, I'm not an astrologer, but those of you who are, I do have Pluto in the 11th house. So I find, you know, institutes and groups sometimes quite challenging. Um but I do I will say what I think in some ways, and sometimes I haven't realized that gives a lot of young people a lot of permission and a lot of safety that they could also do that. Of how do you feel? I don't say to people you must change because it's to suit me, but this is how I feel, and this is how what I'm gonna do with it. And that I think in for young people is very, very, very empowering.
SPEAKER_03I think not just young people, because I uh you know, I've experienced that in your classes, and there's an a permission inherent in that to you know be a bit adventurous, be a bit not dangerous, but kind of you know, push push at the edges of of what might be comfortable and grow and develop that way.
SPEAKER_01It's an interesting thing with aging, isn't it? Whether one sits back and decides that you've done it all. Or whether you you go for it. I was reminded yesterday that um a couple of well-known dames of the theatre are all in their 90s now. Um and I've met a couple of them over the years, and um some of them are a bit younger than that, but a lot of them are. And they're because you can work as an actress and an actor at uh, you know, you don't have to give up when you're kind of 67. They have a dynamic because they keep going. And they have an excitement that you know they might do something really wonderful tomorrow. Life could be different tomorrow. And it's interesting of whether we age more when we kind of stop really going forward or stop really being excited by life.
SPEAKER_03I yeah, it's interesting that, isn't it? And I mean, I notice that with couples I work with of a certain age, that it's quite often it's the woman who might have a new lease of life um and want to go, you know, do more inner work, want to explore things more. And it's often the husbands who who are kind of like, Well, why do we need to do that? And trying to get through that those layers of um I suppose it's almost culture, isn't it? Or society, all the you know, it's all kinds of things. But those layers is very, very difficult. You know, they there' some will will rather lose their marriage than sort of just say, Well, okay, let's do that then.
SPEAKER_01Where do you think that comes from in a minute?
SPEAKER_03I think that uh that's a really good question. It's a it's a big question that. But my sense is um a lot of it is cultural, so you know, the sort of stoic Brit would be the stereotype. Um, you know, they they uh have done everything that they they're good boys ultimately, they've done everything that they've been asked that's been asked of them. They've gone up, they've been successful, worked in the city or wherever wherever it might be, they've got a nice house, they've you know, the kids have left home, they've gone to university, yada yada yada. They've ticked all the boxes, you know, they've got the pension set up. Uh and rather than think, great, this is an opportunity now to go inward or do something exciting, um, they might take up a new hobby or something, but it they it's like, okay, well, I haven't got the world of work anymore, so I'm just gonna put on a pair of slippers and start doing some gardening or take up golf or play more golf. Um I mean, ultimately, I think it's fear, but I also think it's a lack of lack of curiosity and a lack of education as well, a lack of awareness. You know, they've done the masculine in theory is is outward looking and outward going, and they've done that bit. So, you know, what's the problem? They don't need to do anything else. And and women, again, sweeping generalization really hate that. You know, they want present presence. And I don't mean gifts, I mean people who are present.
SPEAKER_01So nothing wrong with a couple of gifts. Well, that's true. But um, no, I know what you mean. But it it's an interesting thing, uh and maybe there's a lot for us slightly older men to learn from the younger men who who do seem to want to already tackle that spiritual part of themselves. Which I find quite inspiring, because when I used to go to these men's, I was a bit weird now. I used to go to these men's things and groups and retreats and things, and I was always the youngest person there. By by quite a long way. You know, a good 20 years. Now I'm the oldest person there by 20 years, but the other way, there were not young people young, so many young men going to these things. I found myself in a room full of men in their sort of late 40s, 50s at 25. And now I go at 54, 55, 54, you know, somewhere around that. And then I find myself the young, the oldest by a good 25 years or 20 years sometimes. Maybe not quite as stretched out, maybe you know, more sort of 15, 18. But it's a very interesting one where you know it seems to have completely swapped over that young people now are more interested in their spirituality and how they show up in the world on that level than maybe my generation was at the time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I agree, and particularly relationally is is my experience. Um, and it is inspiring to see you know guys who who really want to be become. I mean, I think a lot of the time it's motivated by wanting to be better, but ultimately it's about becoming more of themselves.
SPEAKER_01And that's quite an interesting space, really, to uh if your starting block is wanting to be better, really, but it leads you to understand yourself more, then that's whatever gets you into that space sometimes doesn't really matter, but it's you know, but it is it is much more um enriching now to be in these groups with um some younger men who were talking about being in the world at that point, a very different world to the one I grew up in, actually, because so much more technology technologically advanced, got it there in the end, is that you don't almost you know somebody said to me once you're 25, he said to me it was no point having a career. I went wine. He said, Well, the time you've trained, it's all so fast changing, it's all different. And oh yeah. And even, you know, the arts are changing quite rapidly in some ways. So even in those skill sets, yes, you have a physicality if you're working as maybe a dancer or an actor, you know, that that you've always needed, but maybe what the plays and what's relevant and what's available now are very different, you know, because those big plays with the casts of 13 don't get put on very often because they're too expensive.
SPEAKER_03Actually, I'm gonna stumble over technological now. Oh no, I've managed it. There we go. Um but um there's I mean that there are so many dangers, I I think, particularly with spirituality in that that uh you know Instagram becomes the guru in some ways, and it's um and people get sucked into the little s tipits of you know quotes from whoever quite often misquoted or given to um sort of I've I've trying to think of a quote which has been sort of credited to about five different people. I have no idea who actually said it, and I think springs to mind, but anyway. Um so I do think, and this goes back to what we were saying about becoming your your own teacher in some ways, discernment has become more and more important because arguably, you know, 30-40 years ago, depending on where you where you know you had a religious book or a you know, feel the fear and do it anyway, or something, you know, there wasn't as much information out there. Now there is so much information um that you know discerning your way through it is very, very difficult. And the whole spiritual marketplace, and you know, one minute someone's doing breath work, the next minute they're off doing ayahuasca and just hopping from one lily pad to the other, which which can be part of the process, but that process of of discernment has to distill into something. Um and I wonder if if that process and that distillation is the beginning of of what it means um to be a man in the spiritual sphere. I mean, it's probably the same for women as well, but but I'm talking particularly in the relationship between the the elders and the and the younger ones.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, what is it that makes an elder? Oh, go, but I mean, not wanting to sound not wanting to sound like I'm trying to put this into every podcast we do, but you do have to hold your own heart, don't you? Definitely. I mean, we were talking before we started, just about stability in oneself in a fast-changing world. And in a way, you could say holding your heart your own heart is about stability in in oneself as well, knowing not getting buffeted around so much. Um it was very interesting. When I lived in Japan, because I did for a while, there was a lovely lady who I was speaking to, and she she was she said something to me, she said, Oh, well, it's the eight winds. And I said, What do you mean? And she said, The eight winds of life. And she rattled them off. I can't remember them, but you know, some are pride and you know, some are outer and some are in her. And she said, We're all buffeted by them. And you have to learn, you have to learn to bend through them and not get caught in in a particular kind of wounded space. And I think as older men showing up, maybe who have you know been divorced or had children who are now grown up, maybe they've started to leave the nest a little bit, you know, they're young men in the world themselves. Um, you know, maybe been made redundant, have changed the career, you know, all those things that you know, you know, sort of 30 years of being, you know, being in the world and will do to you, is probably very reassuring that actually you can survive all this. Where when it's happening to you, you know, it's the biggest disaster in the world and you're never going to recover. There is an ability to kind of be able to grow through it and survive. I'd be a bit battle-scarred by the end of it, you know, but you're still here, and that probably is in some ways quite inspiring if we share it. But that I think is the really interesting thing for sort of elders in spaces where you've got men, they have to share because they have been through something and come out the other side, just just on time. You know, have I got my ability? Can can I hold my heart any better than somebody who's 25? Well, you know, probably not on one level, but I might have been doing it a bit longer, so I might know some things. Um, I've been through some stuff. So, in some ways, you know, there is a sort of survival which can actually be terribly, terribly inspiring. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And uh it's interesting, it sort of goes back to that first um retreat you were talking about with where the sort of there's a bit of a separation from the younger and the older. And the uh you know who's moving forward. So there's there's it sounds like the elders need a humility, so they're not sort of lecturing or giving advice. But at the same time, they need to step towards people who are younger, and then they have to be willing to be receive to receive that. Is that always going to be the case? You know, I think some people are hungry for for the wisdom of elders, and and other people, it's probably as as much as anything it's got to do with the relationships with their father or or even with patriarchal religions and that kind of thing. Um, that desire to push away that sort of older male, something which is actually, I mean, developmentally at some points in life, you know, that's appropriate.
SPEAKER_01But it's interesting, isn't it? This is this comes back to the thing of how are those spaces held and is and are older men in those spaces celebrated? And that is a very interesting thing of can we celebrate aging? And it was quite interesting on one of the um one of those retreats that um somebody asked me quite um quite bravely, you know, for for him. I realized there was this huge vulnerability in asking this question. He said, Oh, can I just ask you something? And I said, Oh, yeah, okay, you know, because I'm quite open to ask me anything in some ways, might answer it, but you'd ask me. And so I said this, and he said, Can I just ask you? And I thought I was waiting for this huge, great, big kind of thing that he was going to ask me about something. And he said, Uh what age did you decide to let your hair go grey? And I said, Well, when it came out that colour, just like it kind of happened to me, really. But he I then realized he hadn't. He had gone into a space of dying it and was attracted to youth. So he found me very, very, very challenging. That I had I have a certain level of fitness still, you know, because of dancing, but I have a certain level of awareness of my body as my body has aged because of dancing. But I'd also gone with certain other things. And there were a couple of men on one of them who had men of a certain age problems, medical problems. Um, and they got very, they people really called them out on it, you know. Oh, you, you know, you're hiding behind it. And it was the young people who called them out. And I was, I I found it very, very hard to sit in that space at one point. Because I the you know, the the the gobby person in me wanted to shout, okay, well, I'm sure he'd swap with you. You want what he's got, I'm sure he'd swap. I didn't say that, I wasn't going to say that, it wasn't appropriate to say that, but I wanted to say, you know, you know, there was part of me that wanted to boil over and say, come on, wind your neck in, actually. It happens to people very quickly, and we can all suddenly become unwell. But it was interesting that you know what what had been said was it was too far in too it was too far in the room, but they hadn't bought it too far in the room. It's just the celebration of aging hadn't been hadn't been hit.
SPEAKER_03That wasn't there. I mean, there's something for me anyway, in that about a mutual respect that can go both ways. But I also I also wonder, you know, beside you, you know, we before we we we started recording this, we I can't remember what the context was now, but we're talking about being when we were younger, looking at people who were in their 50s and thinking, oh my god, they're ancient kind of thing, and then not feeling ancient now. We're in our 50s on a good day. Um then um um I and I wonder what that is. I think there's there's a sometimes older people can hold a mirror up to us. Um and this is probably true at any age. Um and um maybe we don't always like what's in that mirror, you know, the potential for illness, the potential for you know, bits not working, or what you're you know, whatever it is. Um to be faced with that potentiality, um you know sometimes it's easier, I suppose, for people just to turn away.
SPEAKER_01Yes, but it's also an opportunity to sit and understand because what what was interested in the in the men who, you know, were had you know long-term sick things, you know, uh that they were how they were challenging it and how they were dealing with it, and how they were working through it, and they were very inspiring. But it was interesting that that some people just didn't what couldn't sit with that, couldn't sit with the inspiration of tackling something around ill health and aging.
SPEAKER_03I wonder if that brought shame up for them.
SPEAKER_01Well, if it did, they didn't, they never told me they didn't share it. But I I mean maybe it did, maybe they shared it with this. I can't say it didn't, but I didn't get told. But it was very interesting that there was an aging, there was a thing that was difficult. And this thing where somebody said, Watch all the elder people be left at the end. And we were, and it was very hard not to go into then for me, especially you know, the single child in me of you know, last to be picked for the football team, you know, really kind of shot up. But it was a very interesting thing of that point, but that that was where we had all we had all retreated. We sat together on a table, we didn't necessarily mix together with the younger people, we assumed that they didn't want that. And it was only when one of them held us all up at the end and said, actually, I've found this quite difficult, and I've not been able to break through your barriers. You haven't let us in. So there's definitely a two-way thing here, but there is definitely something about being able to sit with aging and and and that process. I mean, I'm you know, my mum's in a nursing home at the moment, and I go in to visit her, you know, and I walk through, and you know, I see the very, very, you know, what age does to you. And it isn't it isn't easy to sit with, you know, even with me who does, you know, you know, spends their life saying, you know, death is not the end. Um, but the decline of the body is definitely a limit, and that is hard to sit with, but that doesn't mean that the wisdom of the person is diminished in any way. Back to the uh back to the interesting older ladies of the theatre. I had a friend now, she's past her, um, my friend Audrey, who was still on stage at 93, and she was lying about her age and saying she was 90 in case she didn't get hired. She was still working. But she had a she had a brightness for life that was never going to go out, you know, and it was she, you know, she faded quite quite quickly in some ways, you know, but she had a brightness for. life. She she was on to the next thing. She said to me once, she said, Oh, I'm I'm not going to see you for a couple good few months. I went, Well, what have I done? She said, Well nothing. I said I'm going on to I'm going on I'm going on tour to the Far East. Okay. But you didn't kind of think about it because it was there. But she had decided that age was not going to be a limit. Which is interesting.
SPEAKER_03There's definitely I mean the thing that's really there's a couple of things that are really coming to me from this conversation. There is something about that brightness and holding that light of curiosity of um wonder I think which is which arguably could be considered quite a young energy but keep that coming through even in as we we age. But also there's something here about whatever age we are having the courage just and again it is about heart having the courage just to step towards and be available.
SPEAKER_01Yes is an interesting thing and not to take on that what is what can't you know I can't do that because you know I mean maybe we don't all want to throw ourselves out of a plane for charity anymore if we're you know in our 50s. It's more at risk but there is that thing of actually being able to not put a barrier between anybody and being available is a is a real kind of I mean that is I think the gift of the elder really that they can be available for whoever needs them.
SPEAKER_03And and for me as well there's something you know whereas you know jumping out of a plane is very much an outer thing and you could argue there's a sort of clinging on to an adrenaline fueled life that light is much more inner for me. And you and you you kind of know it when you well certainly I know it when I see it in people. And it's just like that there's that sort of acknowledgement.
SPEAKER_01And those people who have actively realised they're slightly getting older and have decided to inwardly do something about it. I have a friend who you know was who hit 60 and he said I'm definitely not I'm definitely not going to become unsexy and unsexual in my activities. Okay as soon as he announces to a table of us and um I watched him kind of I watched him tackle this internally and he's a stylish man. But people stop him in the street well excuse me I just need to say I just need to say I don't know what I'm I just need to say I just need to say hello or they say I love what you're wearing or you know things or can I take you for I mean you know he has a sex appeal in the in a room but he made a conscious effort that he wasn't going to disappear a real conscious effort and he worked on that and he doesn't he doesn't um and I've got another friend who's you know she's in her sort of early 60s at the moment and I saw her sit sit on a tube um uh she's a very beautiful looking woman but she sat on this tube a surround and they you know got a group of slightly leary teenagers got on but they were all absolutely she hadn't charmed within about 30 seconds she never said anything she just was available because she was available for them and didn't retreat they had very interesting conversations with her and I sat her I sat her there watching and I had very interesting conversations with people who were you know 40 years younger than her but they were all completely charmed because they'd never seen no but they had you know that somebody was available they had somebody showed up somebody noticed them but there is something about as we age are we also you know are we available for so many young people or do we find their energy a bit kind of mad and well we just want a bit more of a quieter life. I'd a friend of mine who it was there was a wild party above her of you know like 40 people you know above her bouncing up and down in the flat she got uh she got an outfit on she knocked on the door she said I'm coming in she was about 70 and she and they were all like looked at her like what are you doing and she said well I can't sleep can I'm in the flat below so I thought I might as well come and join you give us a drink and they all sat there going oh or all dance screaming and dancing around and throwing themselves whatever young people do at a party but she said there was no other way of dealing with it. Oh that's genius the only way to deal with it was to call the police and we've all been young and I'm not gonna do that to a load of young people it's ridiculous and you know they got the you know mum and dad were away got the keys so she just she just went she she got she got her outfit on she got what she was going to wear to a party she went upstairs she joined in you know and I only found out the next day so she said shattered so what would you I didn't get until seven I said well we should upstairs and she you know she'd sort of went quiet down by 11 and at quarter to 12 she went right I'm going up there and she didn't go in and shout she went in and and stood there and was present but also made them think there were other people around so she did a very subtle thing and I think sometimes as an older person you do have to remind some people that you were young and you do get it which sometimes that age you know that thing of you know as we were saying at the beginning we looked at old people we forgot that they were young.
SPEAKER_03So basically we're where are we presence availability and a willingness to put your glad ragers on.
SPEAKER_01Yes and to be somewhat um in that presence to be somewhat visible you have been listening to Veils to the Soul Masculinity and Spirituality with Gary Wright and Oliver Baum For more information on the work of Gary Wright please visit www dotherightmedium dot co.uk and for Oliver www dot oliverbaum dot co dot uk produced and edited by Oliver Baum with additional editing and music by Felix thank you for listening
