"If conscious Elders could take full responsibility for what their hearts already know, the legacy of a sustainable world for their grandchildren would be a universal political priority. The idea that 'natural resources' only exist for the exploitation of a waste-based world wide consumer culture is not only tragically self destructive, it also represents a gross misconception of our true potential.” — Rabon Saip
Rabon was born in Macon, Georgia (1935) and lived in that vicinity for the first nine years of his life. He came to Marin County, California, in 1944 with his mother and serviceman step-father. Rabon was born visually impaired and therefore had a challenging time of it all through public school; however, he did graduate High School and then went on to attempt college a couple of times.
Unfortunately, the educational visual aids available today were not yet in place, nor was Rabon psychologically able to accept his uniqueness. In his own words, he spent the majority of his young life playing a self defeating game of “blind man’s bluff,” working in every way to appear “normal.”
At age 30, after a challenging, fragmented work history, Rabon finally accepted Social Security Disability, and, in his quest for a marketable skill that fit within his limitations wound up as an apprentice in Mexico. There he studied violin making with a woodworking artisan/guru for whom he developed the greatest admiration and respect. During this period Rabon's spiritual experience with creative process was like a “homecoming” and marked a turning point in his life.
He spent the next twenty-five years working to support his family while exploring various aspects of woodworking. For better or worse, it was in his nature to become more involved with the philosophy of creativity and craftsmanship than with the business of business.
Finally, in 1991, Rabon discovered a magic window into the dream of higher education he had given up years before. With a computer and large monitor he went back to school with a passion. He achieved his B.A. in 1993, an MA in Psychology by 1995, and completed the course work for a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology by 1997.
Since completing his clinical internships, Rabon has continued his research into various aspects of his particular take on "Elder Studies" and has also learned just enough technology to create and maintain this web site. If you are interested in connecting with him, contact the link below.
Sunday morning. The sun feels warm and friendly; the air is clean and bright. I’m riding my bicycle down Wilson Street, looking toward a distant band of clouds near the horizon in the southern sky; and then it happens. IT is a sudden, profound feeling of extreme well being, an oddly alien, and just as oddly familiar, sense of completeness. It’s me but not me, like a vague memory I’m having that belongs to someone else. But the feeling is so strong and so deep inside me.
I think back to other incidents of my experience with this same feeling, which is always associated with scenery. I think back to that first dream, a vivid dream, of lying far forward on the bow of a sailing vessel, moving slowly between massive glacial walls, in what I can only describe as a fiord. Then, at a later time, I dreamt of a deeply green and steeply terraced valley wall, with wide wooden balconies at various levels, with hanging plants and artful mobiles floating and turning, with wind chimes softly singing. And each time I had this same deep and awesome feeling of belonging.
Eventually those dream feelings began returning during my waking hours as well, and always, as with the band of clouds in the southern sky, a bit of scenery has triggered the feeling. At first I thought this feeling was only associated with the containment of high walls, whether green or icy, which would speak to a sense of security. But, as with the distant sky this morning, open and soaring like a wild, joyous spirit as it ricocheted off the cloud bank and into infinity, the feeling of boundless elation is always the same.
I remember how the priest and poet, John O’Donahue, wrote so eloquently of his beloved Irish countryside. He introduced me to the unique and wonderful idea that certain Irish landscapes were conscious, even conscious of him being conscious of them. I think I’ve experienced something like what he’s talking about, in what I would call power spots, where I sense something similar to an “awareness” in nature. I recall, mostly as a child, discovering such secret places in the woods, places that somehow felt alive.
And this brings to mind the so-called “primitive” notion of animism, of world soul, a belief that all things on earth, whether animate or inanimate, are alive. This world view is still common among many cultures (including Native Americans), and was long held by the general population of Europe. Such was the common belief, known as Christian Animism, during the Middle Ages. The concept of “soul,” which we think of as something contained within us, somehow within our bodies, was then conceived of as something that contains us. Soul does not dwell in us so much as we dwell in soul.
None of this, however, can really explain the feeling I’m talking about. Its somewhat like what I’ve heard concerning past life experiences, somehow triggered by the aesthetics of nature. To be with such a powerful sense of well being would have to mean a life far beyond any struggle to survive, a life so pampered and supported that not the slightest doubt of self worth, or self confidence, could intervene. A child being raised to be a king might feel this way; or a man with such unquestioned power and authority that his bidding was automatically fulfilled by a host of subjects.
Or, could this simply be the feeling of one who is secure in his relationship to nature, in his sense of belonging to the natural world? One of my favorite writers, Laurens van der Post, has made the following comment:
“The great need of our time is somehow to get rid of the pretense, this awful secrecy in life, where people profess to be one thing and live another. Some-how that has to be brought out in the open, so that we will stop pushing the natural part of ourselves into a corner.”
I wonder if what I feel, as I ride my bicycle down Wilson Street, is this “natural part” of myself trying to get out. In spite of the tragic disunity of our civilizing technology, this natural part of me still labors to breathe, even though compressed beneath the unnatural layers of our quest for comfort and convenience. Can you imagine explaining a fitness salon to a laborer in the field who works hard to gain a living from the earth? I wonder if we are not insulating ourselves out of existence. Or, as I think it was Neil Postman who said, “Entertaining ourselves to death.”
There was a man, a Lakota Sioux Chief named Luther Standing Bear, who said, before he died in 1936:
"I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi, meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization.”
It occurs to me now that this “true essence of civilization” could only be a matter of taking responsibility, of reinterpreting the meaning of our property rights as written in the Book of Genesis. We who have learned how to exploit the earth, to control and destroy and dominate it, have done so with a seeming vengeance, almost as though getting even for those thousands of years during which we felt so much at the mercy of nature.
And so, as I ride my bicycle down Wilson Street, looking toward that distant band of clouds in the southern sky, I wonder if this sudden feeling of joyous be-longing is but a blessed glimpse through a hole in the civilizing insulation that surrounds me. For miles in every direction, we have rearranged and overrode any natural ecosystem that stood in the way of our culture of convenience.
But then, the natural part of me wonders why I can’t just ride my bicycle down Wilson Street and enjoy “the feeling” without investigating it to death. It occurs to me that the human mind is like a babbling monkey that never shuts up, a conflicted creature of cascading associations forever ready to run with the slightest notion, ad infinitum. Perhaps, after all, it is the duty and the destiny of our poor species to do exactly what we are doing.
“If conscious Elders could take full responsibility for what their hearts already know, the legacy of a sustainable world for their grandchildren would be a universal political priority. The idea that "natural resources” only exist for the exploitation of a waste-based world wide consumer culture is not only tragically self destructive, it also represents a gross misconception of our true potential.” — Rabon Saip.
As I re-read this opening statement, with an effort toward “objectivity,” the obvious question confronts me – Is this statement true? Are there elders who understand and care enough about the planetary ecology that is our current legacy? And, are we as a species, in fact, traveling down a dead end road toward self destruction, on a trajectory from which we have little chance of recovery – or not?
I have just read the new Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Report (March, 2005), which summarizes a five year, 1300 scientist examination of the state of the world's ecosystems and their impact on human well-being. It reveals that ecosystems - interacting complexes of plants, animals, and microorganisms - have changed more rapidly and extensively in the last 50 years than in any other period over the past sixty-five million years. And this is primarily through human efforts to meet growing demand for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel. The report warns that many ecosystems critical to human needs will face serious degradation over the next 50 years, unless significant action is taken to protect them.
If the above is true, then maybe my statement is also true. Although I target the wasteful spread of profit motivated consumer culture, the Millennium Assessment simply points to the fact of our species’ very existence, on a sustenance level, which is proceeding without sufficient effort to conserve and replenish the resources we are depleting. A Washington Post headline on the sane report (March 30, 2005) goes a little further: “Report on Global Ecosystems Calls for Radical Changes, Earth's Sustainability Is Not Guaranteed Unless Action Is Taken.”
However alarming this may sound to some, many of us see this kind of information as politically motivated and deliberately sensationalistic. Is it really possible, one could ask, after billions of years of earth’s existence, that our recently arrived puny little species has overwhelmed the planet’s balance of living ecosystems to the point where life on earth, as we know it, may no longer be sustainable? Surely, if enough people in authority knew this to be the case, without a doubt, then pressure would be brought to bear to make the necessary changes - right? Ipso facto, since that’s not happening, these sensational ecological claims must not be true. Much of what we are witnessing, the argument goes, are natural planetary changes that would be taking place regardless of human influence.
I sit is a coffee shop and listen to the conversations around me. I suddenly have a grim vision of clueless, tattered mummies drinking coffee and babbling trivia. No one is talking about the ecological report that occupies my mind. On a recent trip to the mall, which I usually try to avoid, I stopped and watched the passing crowd of shoppers. And I wondered: How many are here to buy something they actually NEED and how many to buy something they simply WANT; and who the hell knows the difference? Our daily media provides a constant barrage of ads which inform us and urge us to need, and to buy. It’s the patriotic thing to do. I remember our President, George Bush, when asked what we could do for our country, advised America to go shopping, to spend money, even go into debt, for the good of our national economy.
Many years ago, psychologist Erik Erickson observed that: “The informed intelligence we need in order to remain unswayed by artfully persuasive mass advertising is not promoted on the lower levels of our educational system.” No need to wonder why.
Industrialism, Eric Fromm maintained, succeeded by
virtue of two psychological premises: (1) that the aim of life is happiness, that is, maximum pleasure, defined as the satisfaction of any desire or subjective need a person may feel (radical hedonism); and (2) that egotism, selfishness, and greed, as the system needs to generate them in order to function, lead to peace and harmony. (Fromm 1976, To Have or to Be)
Getting back to the Millennium Report, let’s allow for the possibility that its deadly warning is absolutely true. Would that not dwarf the importance of any other upcoming crises? Who cares whether or not Social Security will be solvent in 2042, if the young ones we love will not have sufficient water or air for their survival? If the near future
degradation of ecosystems and a short supply of raw material is in fact a coming reality, why are we not addressing the problem before its too late?
For one thing our nation’s founding fathers saw elected representatives as temporary volunteers, not as career politicians who have to raise millions for each election cycle. The two, four and six year terms of representatives was meant to keep the public in touch. However, for a number of reasons, the great majority of these so-called public servants are reinstated election after election, becoming ever more deeply entrenched in a lobbyist infested, cash corrupted and cowardly culture. In such an arena, the quality of attention needed to address our most critical long term interests is simply not possible.
The conservation of ecosystems, which is usually contrary to the interests of corporate developers, does not gather much support. Further, a population that has been commercially manipulated since childhood, sold on the instant gratification of pain killing materialism, can easily fall prey to the same marketing techniques in the manipulation of pain killing ideas.
Those of us who were born before the world changing events of WWII have seen the shrinking of a diverse world, no longer shrouded in the mysteries of myth and distance. Like it or not, a planet load of people and products have found their way into our neighborhoods. One of my friends believes this worldwide spread of human beings is a nervous system the planet itself has grown, destined to spread and colonize its seed through space exploration. Another friend says we are an infection, a cancer, an illness from which the planet will heal in due time.
I’m aware there are many good people doing all they can to address these problems and I am grateful for their efforts. All I can say is -
“If conscious Elders could take full responsibility for what their hearts already know, the legacy of a sustainable world for their grandchildren would be a universal political priority. The idea that "natural resources” only exist for the exploitation of a waste-based world wide consumer culture is not only tragically self destructive, it also represents a gross misconception of our true potential.”
A flight of swallows wheel overhead, moving fast. Then, in one amazing instant, they change direction; all at the same time. A school of fish, like an undulating underwater cloud, suddenly changes direction, and, just like the birds, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Most of us have seen one or both of these common events at some time in our lives and have probably not thought much about it. But, such phenomena are actually quite amazing.
Studies have been done, with extremely precise, time sensitive cameras, which conclude there is no point of origin within the flock of birds or the school of fish for these movements. In other words, regardless of the fact these swarms are made up of many separate individuals, all move as one - instantaneously. How can this happen? If there is no leader, or directional signal, how does this mass of individuals know exactly when and in which direction to turn? The implication is there is some kind of connection akin to telepathy, although the same studies indicate the movements are so instantaneous there is not even time enough for any kind of transmission/reaction signal loop. So, it appears that something even more mysterious and beyond our understanding is at work here.
Among similar recorded phenomena related to this mysterious connectedness, cats and dogs and other animals are known to display unusual behaviors just before an earthquake or tsunami. How do they know something of this magnitude is about to happen? What message or indication do they receive and from what source?
Now and then I take care of a little Jack Russell terrier for a friend while she’s at work. This little creature often seems to know when his mistress is headed his way. Some moments before her car even pulls onto my street, he is already at the door waiting for her. Since there is no particular time frame involved, he is not depending on a schedule. So how does he know she is coming when she is still blocks away? Again, experiments have been done to verify these types of occurrences, but no explanation is offered other than the possibility of some form of communication beyond our means of measurement.
Over the years of my education in the field of psychology, I have engaged in many exercises aimed at acquainting groups of students with a deeper level of connection to something beyond our individual awareness, a separate reality within which we are all strongly, but subtlety, connected; the “collective unconscious” if you will. Through studies such as hypnotherapy, psychodrama and ritual, we experienced a place (below? above? beyond?) our normal conscious state that seemed irrefutable. But where is this place and why do most human beings have to go through some special somatic process to even become aware of its existence?
The world’s major religions speak in similar terms of a spiritual connectedness, and hold their concept of God at its center. But whether it is Allah, Jehovah, Gray Cloud, or the Nameless One; the idea of being “at one with” is a constant. And, in most mythologies of origin, the idea of mankind’s having fallen out of this state of grace, out of this special “one-ness” with God is a common theme.
Psychologists have seen this theme of separation from an all inclusive one-ness with God, or Nature, as a natural parallel with the experience of an individual life story. The human infant exists in a state of almost unconscious participation, without any boundaries between its internal and external worlds. As the baby grows older, it becomes increasingly aware of the distinction between internal and external objects. Then, at around three years of age, the child looks in a mirror and suddenly realizes itself as a separate entity, as an object that others see as it sees others.
From that moment on, there is no going back to a time before this level of self awareness, back to the magical realm where all is one, to a garden of Eden where innocence and a total connectedness with God prevail. The apple has fallen from the tree. Good and evil have become locked in a lifelong embrace. And another conflicted animal begins learning how to dance on a tightrope.
Over the countless centuries of our development as a species, we have moved ever further away from the raw earth experience of our first beginnings. Unlike the indigenous tribe’s immersion with the natural world, “civilization” has evolved its mighty projects of controlling, manipulating, and thereby largely ignoring the needs and tendencies of the natural world; and therefore, also ignoring the needs and tendencies of the “natural” human being within us all. This approach seems to have been encouraged by basic teachings in Western religion. Genesis 1-28: “... and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” And so we “replenish” with chemical fertilizers, “subdue” with cement, and exercise “dominion” over by destroying life and using up natural resources until nothing is left. From this arrogant beginning the earth was mainly seen as something to control and exploit, not to love and nourish.
My learning tells me there are two primary human emotions: love and fear. And the need to control and manipulate is born out of fear. To be truly “civilized” has been for me best defined by the following quote from a Native American Chief who died in 1937: "I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization." — Chief Luther Standing Bear - Lakota Sioux.
To my mind the Christian notion of man as a separate species, with dominion over all other life on earth, is a misguided and dangerous one. The attitude of “us and them,” as regards all other life denies any responsibility for the sacredness, preservation and sustainability of all other life, which is directly connected to preserving our own lives. This is exactly what Chief Luther meant by “accepting the kinship of all creatures,” from which we cannot exclude ourselves. Isn’t it obvious that our own survival is critically dependent upon the survival of all other life on earth?
The degree of our “self” consciousness, our “self “ awareness, is not only the degree of our separation from Earth, but also the degree of our separation from one another. So much of human suffering is due to our sense of isolation and displacement, which I believe increases with each succeeding generation.
I have recently rediscovered an important influence in my life, Laurens van der Post, who said this in a lecture back in 1956: “If you can somehow transcend the kind of civil war from which we are all suffering, the war between our natural selves and our so-called civilized selves, you will lose your sense of displacement.”
It is this sense of displacement from our natural selves, from the primary gratification of “belonging,” that drives us on to the secondary gratification of materialism. In other words, the natural self “IS,” while the civilized self “HAS.” I pray there will come a day when we all realize we’ve HAD ENOUGH.
One of the great advantages of staying alive for a long time is the possibility of making sense of our lives, against an increasingly complex background of paradoxical experiences, in wise and compassionate ways. The mature aging brain, if not disabled by illness, is uniquely capable of complex thinking. In his book about elders, entitled The Force of Character, James Hillman had this to say about how the elder mind functions:
“Life stage thinking is complex... It is complex because it is imaginative – metaphoric, multileveled, suggestive. It harbors a different kind of intelligence than the brightness of youth or the judicious pragmatics of middle age... I can imagine a purpose for the complexity of life stage thinking. A new and necessary intelligence is forming.”
Only a psychologist of James Hillman’s genius and historical perspective could appreciate a “new and necessary” value for elder intelligence.
The myth of a limited lifetime supply of neurons and the certainty of cognitive decline has been disproven. “In fact, the more we think and do – regardless of age – the more we contribute to vibrant cell life in the brain... Science has shown that a stimulating environment results in individual neurons sprouting new dendritic branches, which enhance neurotransmission. Picture neurotransmitters as squirrels and two adjacent brain cells as trees. If more branches grow on the trees, it becomes easier for the squirrels to leap from tree to tree. Communication and connections among neurons improve.” (Cohen, Gene D. "Geriatrics," Apr. 2001, Vol. 56 Issue 4)
Each of us obviously has his or her own individual approach to writing autobiographical stories, which will just as obviously depend upon the kind and quality of the lives about which we are writing. But, regardless of how we do it, we are all engaged in the uniquely human practice of meaning making. And, as elders, we have an opportunity to re-view our stories at the adult life stage named by developmental psychologist Erik Erickson as “Integrity versus Despair,” a final and fitting opportunity for self acceptance.
What can occur in this practice, especially if taken to a fairly deep level of honest introspection, is the benefit of “healing story.” My personal experience, particularly in dealing with painful memories, is that my capacity for a deeper understanding of the contexts of these past experiences has led to some surprising revelations. Rather than the limitations of long ago stressors, shame or confusion, I am now able to focus on compassion, forgiveness, and the possibility of a greater understanding. Such is the power of story.
This is not to avoid responsibility for whatever past actions contributed to the circumstances of a painful memory; but, through story, from a current perspective, to bring these circumstances into the presence of an older and wiser me. With the practice of re-thinking and re-storying, which does not at all imply changing the "facts," healing integration simply "happens" as a natural by-product of the process.
THE FEELING 
WHO CARES
REVELATIONS
HEALING STORY