Shifting Gears at Sixty: What now?

Workshop # 59
Elisabeth Dearborn and Joyce Victor

Participants age 55+ explore the passage from parenting/career into the vitality of the unknown. Reflecting on related topics, playfully engaging experiential exercises, song, and in-depth conversation. Likely to foment inspiration on questions like: How do I stay rooted in my changing body? How can relationship to partner/community evolve with me?

Percentage of time:
Worship/worship-sharing 20; Lecture 0; Discussion 40; Experiential 40

Adults only

Day One: What am I stepping out from, emerging from? making sense of what has just happened, things I wish Id done differently, identifying what I need in order to clean up the old life and finish it well

Day Two: Being in the Body:  experimenting with movement, yoga, singing, painting, drawing, writing ~ enjoying & accessing the vitality of the body we do have, acknowledging the changes in bodies as we age

Day Three: Relationships: partners, friends, elder parents, community ~ How to stay together if interests are extremely varied? How do couples evolve through this essential passage?  invite some older "stars" to shine their light like Marie Schutz, Marge Larrabee

Day Four: Tapestry day: what threads have not been pulled through? What loves/ parts of self lie fallow? What's possible for me? Where am I being led? what are the clues to the story that wants to come alive in me?

Day Five: Putting it all together
 
For the format:
We'd begin everyday with 20 minutes of worship and end with 10 or so minutes of worship.  Inbetween we'd be doing two kinds of things:  one is introducing the questions of that morning, providing time to write about them, and then settle either into whole group of small group or pairs to share . The other activity  might be a simple walking meditation, a series of  stretches that open the creative or reflective juices, a chance to create an imaginative dialogue with a favorite Elder or a favorite Great Grandchild, telling him (her) what changes you made at age 55/60 in order to live the biggest, deepest, fullest life you could imagine for yourself;  or a quiet working with a question in clay.  These and the journal writing are ways of "greasing" the shifting gears in the body and the heart complementing the rich conversational mode.  Optional "homework " assignments could include: find an elder of your choice and talk to him/her about how he/she did this particular passage.  Or:  Like detectives look for clues, be a "Light detective" for the next 24 hours and notice where the Light is at work at FGC.  Bring back your observations to share, thus opening a discussion on how the Light is at work in this passage in our own and others lives.
 
Expectations:
Our desire is to plant seeds and fertilize them sufficiently so that, after FGC, they will be sprouting in their own good time.
Generous conversation with personal reflection time, held in the arms of the two periods of worship, and spiced with movement and art will likely yield tears, joys, delights, puzzles ~ and community with song, laughter, depth, and fresh discoveries.
 
Objectives:  Our objectives are to bring into the Light this particular passage for  others and ourselves. Our goals are to design an experience which enables people to touch their own courage and faith as they navigate this passage.