BOLD PERSISTENT EXPERIMENTATION

When Kamala Harris laid out an economic plan for her future presidency, she invoked FDR’s motto for pulling the United States out of the great depression, BOLD PERSISTENT EXPERIMENTATION. 

Nature is the ultimate experimenter.

The same motto describes my approach to figuring out what it means to be an elder in contemporary society. And that begins with caring for a living body.

FLEXIBILITY

Two days a week I participate in a Water Aerobics class led by an 87-year-old volunteer. I have found that it helps keep my joints flexible. In addition, there is something primordially satisfying about being in water kept at 88 degrees. Perhaps it is because water provided the origin of an evolutionary process that led to Homo sapiens. Or maybe because the human embryo grows in an amniotic sac inside a womb.

Biden's flexibility led Democrats in a new direction.

BALANCE

The first question at one’s annual physical checkup is, “Have you fallen in the past year?” The desirable answer is, “No!” To achieve that answer, another two days a week I engage  in a Senior Exercise class led by a 65-year-old fitness instructor. By building overall muscle strength we enhance our balance. To engage the neuroplasticity of our brains, we learn simple dance steps.

Trees show that balance is a total body experience. 

REBUILDING

Due to repeated actions related to a persistent lifestyle, the brain-body connections of our bodies become rigid or distorted. Some muscle memories receive strong repetition and others weaken. To refresh and rebuild attenuated muscle memories, I attend Yoga once a week. Holding a pose for several deep breaths provides time for the brain/body connection to be renewed and attenuated muscle memory to be recharged.

The sentience of trees.

AGING BACKWARDS

After about a decade of illness, health challenges, societal upheaval, and the Covid pandemic, I now appear to be experiencing what my friend Catherine Marsh calls ‘Aging Backwards.’ 

Living in my body today feels more like how I felt in 2014. I attribute my enhanced wellbeing and increased body awareness to at least six factors: Diet, Exercise, Purpose, Friendships, Centered Solitude, and Engagement in the Arts.

Over the next few blogs I hope to dialogue with you about each of these topics, one at a time, and to invite you to share your own experiences with healthy body awareness. Let's begin with HEALTHY EATING.

Here’s my standard get-the-day-started-right breakfast recipe.

 

Ingredients

Place in a stovetop pan
Whole Grain: ¼ cup of rolled oats with raisons (Red Mill Country Style Muesli)

 
Protein: 

. 6-8 chopped walnuts (protein)
. A pinch of black Chia seeds (reduces blood pressure & inflammation + more)

Fruit: 
. Two tablespoons of dried organic cranberries (prevents urinary tract infections)
. ¼ cup frozen blueberries
. ¼ apple chopped (or fruit of season)
. ½ banana chopped (potassium & magnesium)

 
Seasoning: a couple shakes of cinnamon                                       

Pour enough unsweetened Almond Milk to cover (Calcium for strong bones) 

Milk Added

Stir and place on medium heat for just long enough to read Heather Cox Richardson’s daily blog. 

Milk boiling 

Remove from heat when liquid is bubbling and add
. 2 drops of liquid Vitamin D3 (boosts immune system + improves anxiety)
. ¼ tsp ground cloves (promotes healthy bones, especially teeth and gums)
. ½ tsp Tahini paste (reduces heart disease & inflammation)

 

Add ons

Allow to cool for ten minutes
Eat with prescribed medicine and vitamins

Note: I am not recommending any of these brands. I vary brands a lot; this is what I have on hand today. 

Ok, your turn! What is a meal plan, recipe, or discovery you have made about healthy eating?

PASSING THE TORCH

Ambiguity 1 LiDoña Wagner 2024

Grandmother Phenomenon

Standing in front of a glass exhibit case on the second floor of the Human Evolution Museum in Burgos, Spain in 2017, I was stunned to learn for the first time about the Grandmother Phenomenon in humanity’s evolution. 

When our hunter gatherer ancestors migrated from Africa into the Near East and Northern Mediterranean regions, women began in earnest to collect and propagate plants as a source of nutrition. Alleviating hunger ‘in place’ meant that Homo Sapiens did not have to keep moving in search of food. Permanent and semi-permanent settlements began to form. As women took on agriculture, men became herders more than hunters. 

Caregiving replaced the predatory behaviors they had learned from other animals. Young girls and child-bearing women were out in fields and forests for long hours. They left newborns with their own less physically strong mothers (grandmothers) to care for and educate. The human lifespan at that time was thirty to forty years, so grandmothers were the equivalent of sixty to seventy years today. 

Ambiguity 2 LiDoña Wagner 2024

Fireside Storytellers

Before and after this transition to living in place, as a tribe ate and rested around a communal fire in the evening, their oldest members told stories about where they had come from and the strength and courage it had taken to reach new-found security.

In contemporary society this key social role of storytelling has been taken over by profit-oriented media. Throughout my lifetime, media have hyped youth and diminished the historical role elders play in an ever-evolving humanity. One result has been Ageism, the denigration and dismissal of older people as irrelevant and a burden on society. 

Ambiguity 3 LiDoña Wagner 2024

Grandfather Phenomenon

In recent weeks, the United States has been confronting Ageism head on by reminding us that wisdom is neither book learning nor is it following the latest fad or most entertaining clown. Wisdom is experience reflected upon and distilled into nuggets and decisions that can enable humanity to continue to evolve in response to new threats and dangers. 

On Sunday, July 21, we witnessed the Grandfather Phenomenon as President Joe Biden passed the torch of leadership to a younger person of character and integrity, the experienced Black woman who has been his steadfast partner in meeting the demands of our times. In acknowledging that there is a time and place for fresh ideas, he revived the storytelling role of elders around the world.

May we each find within ourselves the strength and courage to renew our caregiving societies by passing the torch of leadership when a worthy successor emerges. 

Ambiguity LiDoña Wagner 2024

The Good Sleep

Night sky setting stage for the 'good sleep.'

Sometime after turning fifty years of age or going through menopause we begin experiencing the need to get up in the night to pee, interrupting the ‘good sleep’ we had previously taken for granted. We know from nature that ‘good sleep’ is important to health and creativity.

 

Unfortunately, once we have awakened, it can be hard to get back to sleep. Thoughts and images intrude into our natural circadian rhythm. After years of ‘good sleep’ our brain/body has become wired for us to get up and start our daily ‘doing’ once we awake. So, how can we retrain our brain/body into going back to sleep? 

After a long winter sleep,
my red tulips awakened, yeah!

Here are some tricks I have learned:

 

Store a small container of almonds in the bedroom. After peeing, walk around eating a small handful of almonds. Since it takes the stomach longer to process protein than other foods, this tricks the brain/body into using energy, convincing it that you have performed the obligations of daytime work. 

Or have an eye pillow close to your bed. After slipping back under the blankets, cover your eyes with a gentle eye pillow. Take three slow belly breaths and keep your focus on a gentle in and out rhythm while counting backward from ninety-nine down to one. 

Surprise! After taking a break last year,
my Peony burst forth alongside the Verbena.

Another option is to begin practicing Yoga Nidra. Moving awareness to your ears, listen for the subtle buzzing sound of energy. Shift awareness to your mouth – upper roof, lower floor, and two sides, lips, teeth, and tongue. Next, shift awareness to your inner ears with their marvelous tiny crystals and hairs and then to your cheeks and nostrils. Pay attention to your breath, following the gentle in and out of sleep rhythm. 

If you have not yet fallen back to sleep, keep moving awareness to eyes, scalp, back of head, and down, consciously relaxing each body part, including each toe and finger. The part of your body that has been holding tension will amaze you.

Wow! Given a space in full sun, my Clematis
 keeps bursting forth with new blossoms.  

The best trick of all: Keep a pad and pen on a bedside table. Returning from emptying your bladder, thoughts may arise as you try to get back to sleep. If so, rise enough to write them on the pad. Ah, the brain registers that your body has performed a necessary function and allows you to go back to sleep.

If this is an early morning pee, you may be slightly aware of dreams and images. Capture them in a few words on the pad. These are seminal insights for where your life is trying to go and for creativity. Don’t let these pearls from ‘good sleep’ escape!

My Honeysuckle rested all of last year
but is growing now and going to town.

Here's to your GOOD SLEEP!

Drop the Disguise

 

What happened?

Drop The Disguise

Leah Early

 

Just as I threw my hands up and 

Surrendered

To living Winter in the Pacific Northwest 

f-o-r-e-v-e-r,

 

I became aware suddenly

That this year’s tree moss crop 

Ranks particularly plump,

Like dollops of bright-green snow caught in bare branches.

 

I remembered slipping and splashing through puddles, 

Walking on surfaces in squishing shoes, and very wet pant legs.

At times the soil’s thirst was so replete, 

The ground could not sip another drop of rain.

 

And yet, in all that grey gloom dressed as Winter,

Skinny daffodil stems (no chance of being “a host” yet) 

Stretched toward the warmth of sun rays.

A few brave bulbs nudged out to ask: “Is it time?”              

 

Oh, it is time, you bet!

It is time to drop Winter disguises in multiple shades of grey.

It’s time to grasp a vision of a harvest and

To move bravely toward blooming and bearing fruit.

 

Spring, please.

Don’t be bashful.

Come! 

 

Amazing!

My Fragile Nature

by Catherine Marsh

The Road Catherine Marsh 2024

Recently I was called upon to share what I had learned over the past three months, since the last meeting of the Learning Circle, a group of six women whose roots and sisterhood go back some 50 years. We range in age from 76 to 87 and meet to share and encourage one another to continue the path of personal transformation and growth as we progress towards our 80s and 90s.

 
Given that context, the learning that I articulated was, “The beauty of life lies in accepting its fragility.” As the youngest member of the group, my encounters with my own fragility have only just begun, but my recent hospitalization reminded me that over the coming years, as I struggle with macular degeneration and osteoporosis as well as other conditions that will arise, such encounters are not likely to diminish in frequency or duration. However, they do not need to diminish me.  Fragility is a part of my nature.

 
I have accepted that I am fragile, and like the delicate orchid, I require attentive cultivation if I am to continue to grow and blossom.  I am learning to handle myself with care.  I eat healthfully and strive to sleep at least seven hours a night; I work out three times a week, twice with a trainer; I have developed practices of writing daily and painting regularly; I walk a mile to and from my painting class each week; I receive injections in both eyes four times a year; I receive an annual infusion for osteoporosis.

Perhaps more than ever before, with intentional care of my body, mind and spirit, I am living a bountiful life. My children are just a phone call away, and will come if called, but I have learned that I also have wonderfully caring neighbors that only need to be asked to help. I zoom monthly with old friends who live far away. Nearby friends join me on excursions into Chicago to participate in many of the wonderful cultural opportunities that exist close to home, and I have decided to stay planted in Evanston – what a wonderful place to call home.

I recently encountered work colleagues that I had not seen since retirement. They all seemed quite shocked and commented that I was aging in reverse, that I looked better than ever. One even used the word, “beautiful.” Ah yes, I noted to myself, I have accepted my fragile nature.
 

 

 

 

 

GIVE AWAY

Last night at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, after cracking jokes about his age, President Joe Biden heralded the importance not only of a free press but the necessity of an informed public.

Despite Michelle Obama's dislike for politics, she has always understood and encouraged everyday citizens to VOTE, underlining their freedom and responsibility as citizens of a democracy. She was the inspiration for my creation of VOTE / HOPE teeshirts in 2016.

Women's Tee Back LiDoña Wagner 2016

Women's Tee Front LiDoña Wagner 2016

As part of my participation in ensuring democracy I am giving away my three remaining shirts, two XXL and one XL. I will mail one to the first three persons to send me their address and size choice.

As citizens women understand that our freedom requires that we make our own decisions about our bodies.

YOUR VOTE MATTERS!