Beautifully aged reflections. Thank you.

Thank you and thanks to Carrie for guiding me here and to Kathy for reminding me there are webstrings of connections and serendipity even in comments. I will be coming back. Smile, breathe, celebrate and rabble your rousing. Peace.

Of all the things I appreciate about you, this sort of statement is what I appreciate the most: "For people like me, the notion that old age is a time to dial it down and play it safe is a cop-out. We should be raising hell on behalf of whatever we care about: freedom’s just another word for not needing to count the cost." I think too many people of all ages feel drawn to dialing it down, not recognizing that it is only privilege that makes this choice possible. When the comfortable dial things down and rest into their security, those who can least afford it are left to do all the heavy lifting.
There were two other things I could really relate to in this writing. One is the question, what can I give myself to? Like you I feel like I don't know how much time is left- none of us does, but I know how I want to live- giving myself everyday to the things that matter. No long term objectives anymore. Only this.

Beautifully said!

You have been my inspiration for years -more years than I can count. You walked with me when I wrote my Masters and Doctorate thesis on education, you became an unexpected mentor on the inner landscapes of my students' lives, your books tucked under my arm and on my shelves, guiding me into becoming the educator I knew I needed to be. Your influence has been paramount for me. I have urged countless students to read your work when they have stood on the end of throwing it all in. And now, as I age, your words urge me to think again, to muse, to aspire, to reconsider, to accept, to reevaluate the way I look at my ageing process. May your 78th be full of peace. And all shall be well. Thank you. Tracey.

Been reading and reading, looking for meaning and solace only to become more and more confused, confounded and distressed. The stuff of religion, filled with fire and brimstone, paralyzing rather than praise worthy, scares me to death just when I want to make peace with "the mystery of life" and embrace it as the next big adventure. Asked a friend about my readings and she linked me up to you. Thanks for calming me down and reminding me that we are all connected to each other and each is connected to the universe. Whether future surf or turf, I hope we meet in the compost heap or the exquisite starry night....Thanks for the life tonic.

Joyce,
I, too, have been reading and reading, looking for meaning .....and I go back yet again to Palmer's work. I read it years ago and now I am back. It is grounding. It is what I need. It is a life tonic.

"Whatever truthfulness I’ve achieved on this score comes not from a spiritual practice, but from having my ego so broken down and composted by life that eventually I had to yield and say, “OK, I get it. I’m way less than perfect.” I envy folks who come to personal truth via spiritual discipline: I call them “contemplatives by intention.” Me, I’m a contemplative by catastrophe."

I can certainly relate. I'm forever grateful for your gorgeous words here. Thank you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Parker...you're an inspiration...and as Allen Ginsberg used to say, a Dharma Lion!
Next Friday I will complete my 71st lap around the sun. It's been a long journey to say the least.
In reference to the Yeats poem, I do struggle (less and less)..or I should say that I am saddened that I wasted so much time in my youth...so completely unaware and ego driven. Being mindful was as remote as a distant galaxy. I didn't "wake up" until my 40s and I've been playing catch up since working to understand

Thanks for all that you do to help this process along.
Chet

I love this whole column, but that poem... I have read it three time, and I'm going to print it out and read it again and again. It's just too perfect for where I'm at right now!

Happy birthday, Parker. Your gentle wisdom, grounded in experience, has the welcome ring of truth, especially welcome in this season. Getting to know you in person and in print has been one of the great gifts in the past decade of my life. You may observe a harrowing, but you also express a hallowing. My deep thanks. Enjoy our celebration of you....

This post seeped into parts of my being that were finding themselves cold and terrified of the intensity and uncertainty inherent in life. I am so grateful for your wisdom and way with words. My heart is full, my eyes watery, and my entire self uplifted by your offerings. Much love, light, and soul-nourishing growth to you on your 78th trip around the sun.

I too am a proud "poetry whore" who cannot get enough of the richness of "truth told slant." Thanks for some new lines to savor...You have made it into my personal canon.

As are you, I'm right smack in the middle of the cross hairs. A "younger," friend sent me this reflection. I need all the wise reflections I can get, also I have a canoe. The Greeks or maybe the Egyptians believed we were just as afraid of being born as we are now afraid of dying.

As Peter wrote, thanks be to God who has given us a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that fades not away reserved in heaven for you. I Peter 1:3 & 4

A Hidden Wholeness is one of the books on my short shelf where I can pick it up, open to a familiar chapter or page, and be inspired anew. Thank you for mentoring me through that book in your writings, shared poems (some of which I have memorized) and simple callings to authenticity. Blessings.

PJP is our village elder. Love this man dearly.
Had him on my podcast last year. Thought you all may enjoy it.
https://itunes.apple.com/us...

Thank you Parker. I change decades on this year's birthday and am like a moth to light with your words: "Nothing shrivels a person better than age: that’s what all those wrinkles are about!" And

Whatever truthfulness I’ve achieved on this score comes not from a spiritual practice, but from having my ego so broken down and composted by life that eventually I had to yield and say, “OK, I get it. I’m way less than perfect.” I envy folks who come to personal truth via spiritual discipline: I call them “contemplatives by intention.” Me, I’m a contemplative by catastrophe.

Your book, The Courage to Teach, helped me immensely when I had just begun teaching. One insight I have held on to for decades. The good teacher is one who brings out the teacher in the student and allows the student in the teacher to come forth. Brilliant. Thank you Parker for all the wisdom, including the gems in this essay. I will be 73 this year so not far behind you. Many blessings

Happy birthday! I can not thank you enough for your gift, for sharing your gifts.

I grinned at your use of Emily Dickinson's poem, as I have never thought of it before: "By following Emily Dickinson’s advice to “tell the truth but tell it slant,” good poets have snuck up on me to deliver messages I would have evaded if I’d seen them coming."

You are a good poet.

All IS well... whether we have eyes to see it, or not.

Thank you for this reminder of the vastness of life, of all that can be, all that will be, and it all shall be well.

contemplative by catastrophe!! I love it!

If you take a deep quiet look at death you'll realize that it is more normal than life for there are more on earth who have died than live. It's true this is just a blip on the span of our time. Who knows what the next will be but like you I have no bad memories before this one.

Lesson Three -- echoed by T S Eliot in East Coker: "
Old men ought to be explorers

Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning."

Thank you Parker for your every wise and deep musings that always make me think and feel in expanded ways. Happy Birthday dear friend. May your coming year be fecund with growth, solace and continued adventures in nature and soul. Ron and I are celebrating on either side of you and a few years behind...dealing with many of the same issues although deep in our grand parenting of young children stage right now. And looking for the next anchor in nature as we leave behind our beloved annual renewal site (for the last 40 years) in the Colorado mountains as the altitude has become tricky at this age. I find the leaving behind of cherished old friends, much enjoyed old places and familiar counted on old parts of myself (and functions...like abilities in hearing, sight and ambulation) with whatever grace I can muster to be a big part of my spiritual practice these days. Blessed be Parker.

Happy Birthday Parker! I so love your words of inspiration and deep truth, and this article is one of the best. Please continue to share them with all of us who can hear. Every day you are on the planet is a gift. Thank you.

This is such beautiful, wise, human reflection on the experience of years. Thank you for this eloquent blog. What will we release and what will we embrace? How important it is to share with and to learn from the coming generations. And yes, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

I'll risk saying that I love "A Gathering of Spirits" among others -- if that makes no sense, I apologize and rejoice in there being at least two Carrie Newcomers on the planet.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. At this moment, I would like to give you a BIG HUG...and keep you in my arms for some minutes. This way your energy and my will meet. A hug is not wiser, but it is very rewarding.

Wow...this is so deeply inspiring!!! Thank you! My body turns 49 next month. I LOVE the idea of "what do I wish to give myself to?" Just love this paradigm!!!! I will embrace this next decade from that perspective! Mahalo!!!!

Thanks Mr. Palmer for your soul- rending verses & poetry. It really jarred my consciousness and inspired me to embrace amusing realities.

Happy Birthday soon, Mr. Palmer. I am two year's younger than you, but greatly appreciate your wisdom. It was much needed.

Parker, you are only three years ahead of me, but time and again, the books you've written reside on one of my bookshelves...and a good number of your articles are kept in my files. Your generous wisdom has been shared with my mentoring of emerging leaders from around the globe...sincere humbled, am I, be every one of those sacred, surprising encounters. People often ask me, "When are you going to retire?" Your wisdom and well crafted humor have me further saying to them, "Why should I retire...I'm dead yet!" How much more of life is there to be lived, neither you nor I know. And though we will never have met in our lifetimes, I can now say I have a distance friend who has given me further permission to not dial down, and with even sacred delight raise some hell where it needs to be raised. Thank you for even being a distance mentor to me on living life to the full.

Thank you for "Harrowing" which resonates with my soul. I keep reading and re-reading, and finding hope and renewal in its truth.
And..thank you for "Enough", a word I will try to use, if only inwardly at times. God bless and Happy Birthday!

Happy Continuation Day, Parker, and thank you for being an inspiration to so many of us. "Let Your Life Speak" continues to be one of my all-time favorite books, and one that guided me on a transitional passage in my own career and work. deep bows. -Maia Duerr (aka honey butter!)

Thank you, Parker Palmer. We've met only once, when you were a visiting fellow or whatever it was called at Woodbrooke back in the early 80s. You did a series on community. I can still remember the opening of your first session when you said something like, "Community. What is community? Community is the place where the person you would least like to be with is." May these wise words today on being this age (I too am far older now than I was then, although you've got me beat by a few years) stick with me so well. I think they will. Wishing you well.

Your points are full of gems for contemplation.

My sister forwarded this to me. We are not quite "close to the top of that curve" but our mother, who just recently lost our father, is. A lot of this either resonated with me or made me want to wrap it up and gift my mother with it, or both. As a side note re the power of poetry, Yeats is, in the most affectionate way, a bastard. He always makes me cry.

This post truely is a gift and my day (and beyond) will be better for it. Thank you as always, for your wisdom and insights! Reflecting on the word "enough"; I find it is not only an effective boundary word, but also a most essential self-affirmation ("I am enough"). Many blessings on your birthday!

Thank you for your inspiring and thoughtful words. This is beautiful. I will especially treasure the idea of deciding what I want to hold onto vs. let go of. We're still a "work in progress" for sure, and having just turned 70 and lost my husband to Alzheimer's, I'm learning to cherish each moment.

thank you.

Thank you Parker, and Happy Birthday! May your day be full of Joy and Laughter and Gratitude!

Thank you, Parker. This is just what I needed as I celebrated my 76th birthday yesterday. "It's all good, and it's all gold, a vast web of life in which body and spirit are one".

I will be 85 soon. The thing that has sustained me has been my curiosity about this time on earth. I am still in love with life but am comforted that it is coming to a conclusion. Thanks Parker. Your journey with depression has helped me not get bogged down. There is always another page to turn. Happy Birthday.