The beauty of age.

I am going to be 30 this year, my birthday is in a couple of months and the life that I am actually living is very different to the life that I thought I would be living.

I am so grateful for the wisdom and peace that has come with maturing, although I am not so thrilled about some of the other things that are shifting and changing.  I slather my face with anti-aging lotions and potions in the hopes of fighting the wrinkles that will inevitably appear.  We all have a terminal illness, it's called life and there is no escaping the aging process unless I curl up and die in this youthful body today.  I don't want to do that, I want to live, I want to age, I want to grow and I want to find peace in this process.  I don't want to look in the mirror 30 years from now and not recognise myself because I have been nipped and tucked and injected with fillers and plumper's and who knows what else.

My mother has always been my hero, I have always loved her so completely. I look at her and she is so beautiful, she is completely her and she is so comfortable in her skin. I cover up my thighs because they are not as toned as I would like, and I wear long clothing to cover my legs because they are not as tanned as I would like, and I buy push up bras to create an illusion of having more that what I do. I want to grow into someone like my mom that has found peace, and is living her yoga, even though she is not aware of it.

I read this today and it has me meditating on the process of growing older with dignity and grace:

"Come my child, I have something to show you."  My head reeled.  I had so little private contact with her up to this point.  She was notorious for being a stubborn, cantankerous old woman who's displeasure could be amply displayed but not readily allayed.
To my horror and surprise, the old lady began to unbutton her gown,  Slowly and painfully, the gnarled, arthritic hands began to reveal what was better left hidden.  Before I looked away in embarrassment, I caught a glimpse of her breasts, pendulous and glistening but shriveled like giant black prunes, hanging from her bony frame. 

"Now you have the beauty of youth, so you can shudder at my wrinkled breasts", she said, chuckling to herself.  Her grin was accentuated by a few remaining teeth hanging from thick pink and brown speckled gums, I was at an utter loss as to how to respond to her.  But she continued: "But just you wait and see, as the seasons pass, your waist shall grow thicker, your hips shall be round and full like the moon, and your breasts will hang low like fruit that has passed it's ripeness on the tree." 

She clasped my right hand in hers.  Then she laid it on her wrinkled cheeks and made me caress each crevice.  I could feel the roughness of her face, the soft bristles of her eyebrows, and the undulations of her forehead as she guided my hand gently over her profile.  As she did so, she spoke softly.
"That was from the tears I shed at his birth.  It was painful.  It hurt like the lightning that splits the tree.  Right there - that line was when he began to talk.  Oh how I laughed and laughed!  That furrow there - feel how deep it is.  That was when he left the farm to join the struggle.  Dear God how I worried.  And that little crease is from grinning at the sweet memory of his success.  And that one - ooh, it still hurts - that was when they threw him into the jail and beat him."
"You look at us old women and think we are afraid to show our bodies.  But that is not so.  My beauty is here now", she said, pointing to her wrinkles.  These are the marks of life.  My face, just as it is, the map of my toils and joys, is as precious to me as your little waist and rounded breasts are to you.  This is a testimony to the love I have given my family.  It is a body of love.  You see it as an old, dry, lifeless thing, but one day you will understand that each beauty has it's season.  The body of youth knows its day and must live it to the fullest.  The body of the harvest, too, has it's time.  That is mine.  It is a body that has reaped and sown and gathered unto itself.  Someday, too, will come the body of the earth, the final eternal one, to which we must all return.

"A woman's body follows the moon, it is not still and hard like a man's.  Her happiness and sadness take many forms, each day the brightness of her light and the mysterious depths of her shadows may change.  A woman is close to the earth, yet near to the heavens.  She grows like the harvest, she becomes ripe like fruit.  The body of your youth stays with your youth, and the body of the harvest, that is the body of your later years."

She had shown off her body as a magnificent monument of the human spirit over hardship.

I am so blessed to have a strong woman as my role model. I thank my mother for being so beautifully true to herself, and I hope to become a woman that my children are proud of.

Love yourself.

Namaste,
Jacqui.