Discovered Treasure: Gems of Wisdom by Connie Goldman

As Liaison with the Sage-ing International Council of Honored Sages for several years, I had the opportunity to speak regularly with Honored Sage, Connie Goldman. We discovered a common love of gardening, and one of my favorite books that Connie wrote is Tending the Earth, Mending the Spirit: The Healing Gifts of Gardening. Connie weaves the language of gardening throughout her writing…describing growth and change in mid-life and beyond as a kind of blooming, suggesting that the changes and challenges that come into each of our lives as we age offer us the experience, not just to grow old but to “grow whole”.

Connie passed away on March 8, 2022 at the age of 91. Last September, SI hosted a virtual Ritual of Remembrance to honor Connie’s life and legacy. In preparation for the event, I went through my many emails with Connie and much to my delight, discovered a treasure…a collection of articles that she had shared with me in 2017.  We are presenting for the first time excerpts from these articles in Sage-ing Times, for this issue focused on Lifelong Learning.

Judith Helburn, CSL, in her tribute for the Ritual of Remembrance shared, “Connie was a woman of many skills that included hosting on both MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) and NPR’s All Things Considered. She wrote engaging books about aging consciously using her skillful, kind, curious voice to interview diverse, older women and men, and record wisdom that many didn’t realize they had.”

On May 9, 2017, on the inception of the Connie Goldman Scholarship Endowment Fund to honor her 86th birthday, Connie wrote, “I am so very appreciative for the encouragement and support I have received from the Sage-ing community, inspiring and challenging me toward new growth and deeper learning. The Sage-ing philosophy has nourished and nurtured a growing depth of meaning as I move through my later years.”

“It is a privilege to be an Honored Sage in an organization that has been so inspiring and informative for me. I am humbled and deeply honored by the establishment of the Connie Goldman Scholarship Endowment Fund. This fund will support individuals who have a passion to explore their inner growth and spiritual selves through participation in Sage-ing workshops, conferences, and other educational opportunities.”

Connie continues to inspire us through these newly discovered articles where she shares her exploration of the benefits, challenges, and changes of aging. We can almost hear her subtle humor and see the twinkle in her eye in the following excerpts.

The Secret of Attitude

 I finally have absorbed the wisdom of that simple phrase, “it isn’t so much what happens to you, it’s how you deal with it.” Wise words that I continue to work to remember when my next challenge, big or small, comes along.

In the hundreds of interviews related to the aging process that I’ve collected for my writing and public radio broadcasts, one theme has emerged, “if your attitude is affirmative, open, and flexible, you can make your life work differently.”

How I respond to major events and changes in my life, as well as the smaller irritations that occur daily, is far more important than what the events actually are.  Attitude does affect outcome.

The Grandparent Connection

However you choose to express your feelings or to touch base with a young grandchild or a grown-up one, I’m sure you’ll find your own way of letting them know that a garden of love for them grows in your heart. I guess it’s up to each one of us to know that to be a grandchild of any age, or a grandparent by blood or by choice, is to be a link in that powerful chain of the generations and to remember that the main ingredient in our grandchild/grandparent relationship is love…to love and be loved.

I clearly remember my grandfather and our treasured time together when I was seven. On Sunday, we had a ritual of visiting my grandparents and always in mid-afternoon, winter or summer, my grandfather would say to me, “time for our walk now?” We’d hold hands during our walks, and I felt the strength and gentleness of his grip. The warmth of his hand told me I was loved. He knew that simple things could be a profound gift. As I write these words, I can remember the smell of Grandma’s soup cooking when we came back from our walk. It made me feel safe. In simple ways my grandparents gave me the gift of love and belonging.

Mid-Life and Aging 

I like to describe growth and change in mid-life and beyond as a kind of blooming, offering the possibility of opening to the richness of parts of your life as yet unexplored. It has as much to do with play as it does with work, with self-enrichment as much as self-examination.

The challenge of our later years is for us to come into our own.  Someone once told me that the journey between who you once were, and who you are now becoming, is where the dance of life really takes place.

When you can’t do or don’t want to do what you used to do, or if someone, or some birthday card message has convinced you that your aging is synonymous with obsolescence or limitation, I challenge you to explore, who you are now that you are not who you were.

Birthdays

 The changes and challenges that come into each of our lives as we age offer us the experience, not just to grow old, but to “grow whole”; to come into our own; to ask ourselves honestly if our desires and priorities have changed. Then we can decide how our perspectives and our pattern of living can also change.

In my career of collecting stories told to me by hundreds of people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and beyond, I’ve learned that when the outer world shrinks the inner world has a chance to grow. The unexpected awakening of a new perspective can come with having the time to watch a sunset, taking a leisurely stroll through a public garden, or a solitary walk on a quiet path with a picnic lunch by a river or a stream.

As the years pass, whether we acknowledge the number of our birthdays, we do grow older. It’s human destiny. We need to embrace the changes, the learning, and our birthdays as they arrive. I often think about a quote written by a writer named Florida Scott Maxwell when she was in her 90s. It gives me hope and inspiration and a new energy to embrace change. I hope it might be a gift to you as well.

“I want to tell people approaching and perhaps fearing age that it can be a time of discovery. If they say, ‘Of What?’ I can only answer ‘we must each find out for ourselves, otherwise it won’t be a discovery.’ Look, and you will find.”