February 2023
This weekend I hosted my first AAPI community gathering and it was really moving to hear the shared experiences in a community setting. There is something really comforting and supportive to hearing our individual diaspora experiences mirrored in a larger group. Afterward, we shared homemade rice dumplings and baked goods in a potluck – communal sharing warmed our hearts and spirit.
And now I am excited to build another community – for those who are going through changes in midlife. The Soulcentric Mid-Life class registration is now open.
Back in December, I read a long quote by Paul Weinfield, an NYC meditation teacher I hadn’t heard before. When people talked about Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journeys,” he said, they think of heroes slaying dragons and conquering obstacles, and returning home to share success and wisdom after a long journey. When very often, in real life, by the time people come to midlife, the dragons have slayed us, where we have experienced challenges and failures, and life hasn’t turned out the way we envisioned it when we were young. Yet, he argues, this is where we can finally leave our ambitions and egos, embrace our humility, and begin our spiritual journey. His writing really moved me. When I think of the people in our age group, we are experiencing significant changes – physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually…it inspired me to create this class to explore this rich terrain we called midlife.
This is a list of writers who started writing in their 40s or later: Toni Morrison (age 40), Mark Twain (age 41), J.R.R. Tolkien (age 45), Annie Proulx (age 57), Laura Ingalls Wilder (age 65)…This is not to encourage more endless ambitions but rather to ask – if we could make peace with what life has brought us so far and soak in the wisdom from those experiences, what could we do with these life experiences and skills? If we could find a sense of clarity and purpose, how do we want to live the second half of our life? If we haven’t accomplished what is conventionally defined as success by modern Western society – career, money, relationship, kids – how do we find meaning in our life? How do we find our place in this universe?
Midlife can be a rich period when we confront our mortality and explore questions. My hope is that I can facilitate this exploration and you can find your own answers, and that we can come out of the class appreciating this extraordinary ordinary life.
Wishing you inner and outer adventures in February!
Blessings,
Lin
Photo: Alaska, June 2022