Years ago, I was inspired by Flemming Funch’s great piece which I have previsouly shared with NPD readers. Here is a new video treatment of his work. May this video go viral and reach the soul of humanity from which it comes. As always, please click on the link at the bottom of this e-mail to view the video.

by Duane Elgin
Visit Duane Elgin’s blog

The phrase “axial age” has been used to describe the relatively brief period of time — roughly 700 years — when the great religions of the world arose: Hinduism and Buddhism in India; Confucianism and Taoism in China; and monotheism in the Middle East. The period from roughly 900 BC to 200 BC is referred to as an “axial age” because it set the orientation or direction for spirituality for more than two thousand years into the future.

Around the world, the axial age was marked by the growth of trading networks, the rise of large cities, and massive armies equipped with iron-age weapons. This was also a time of extreme violence and widespread warfare. All of the world’s great religions understood that a core challenge was to moderate the violence that emerged from our perceived sense of separation from one another. Despite their great diversity of culture and geography, a common understanding of the need to put compassion at the forefront can be found in all of the world’s wisdom traditions. Here are a few examples:

As you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.
– Christianity
What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary.
– Judaism
No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.
– Islam
Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.
– Hinduism
Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.
– Buddhism
Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you.
– Confucianism
Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.
– Taoism
All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves.
– Native American

As these quotes reveal, the first axial age began with a view of separation and the “other.” In a world of growing individualism and differentiation, the religious emphasis on compassion served as a vital bridge between people. Now, a second major axis with a very different orientation is opening in the world. Religions of separation are becoming religions of communion as we realize there is no place to go where we are separate from the ever-generative womb of the living universe. The second axial age begins with a recognition emerging from the combined wisdom of both science and spirituality; namely, that we are already home — that the living universe already exists within us as much as we live within it. In the words theologian, Thomas Berry, “The universe is a communion and a community. We ourselves are that communion become conscious of itself.” Compassion remains a vital element of spirituality, but it is now being held increasingly within a context of communion rather than separation.

As people around the world move into spiritual communion and empathic connection with the living universe, we see the role of religion differently: Less often do people look for a bridge to the divine. Increasingly, people seek guidance and community in the journey of awakening within the living universe. People want to know there are others on the journey of soul-making and seek guideposts along the way to support the awakening of their experience of unity and intimacy within the universe. Less and less are people seeking only religions of belief. Carried along in this great cultural project of awakening, we are increasingly seeking religions of direct experience — religions of communion with a living universe.

When our aliveness consciously connects with the aliveness of the universe, a current of aliveness flows through us. At that moment — when life meets life — a direct connection between the living universe and ourselves is realized and we have an awakening experience. We no longer see ourselves in the universe, we experience that we are the universe. We do not need to manufacture or imagine awakening experiences. Instead, we only need to experience directly what is already true about the fundamental nature of ourselves as beings who live within a living universe. When the conscious knowing of ourselves becomes transparent to the reality of our participation in an ever-emerging universe, we recognize there was no separation to begin with — we all emerge in communion at every moment within the unity of a continuously regenerating universe.

My friend Lynn Augstein, a talented SF based light artist, sent me a link to this great TEDx Berkeley talk by Bryan Alvarez. I like his vision of a collaborating culture. May it be so.

My friends Richard and Alice Matzkin beautifully illuminate the aging process through their sculptures, music and paintings, book and loving relationship. We are all aging and more of us are approaching and entering our golden years. In their work, Richard and alice help us see the positives of aging that I have come to see as “sageing”. This article is from the Spring issue of a wonderful new online and print publication, Itinearies (http://www.secondjourney.org) that focuses on The Inner Work of Eldering

Richard Matzkin, M.A., is a sculptor, jazz musician, author, and retired psychotherapist. Richard has had numerous one-man shows, and his sculptures are in collections throughout the United States. He and his wife, Alice, are authors of the much-honored book, The Art of Aging: Celebrating the Authentic Aging Self. They live in Ojai, California. Contact Richard through the Web site: www.matzkinstudio.com/.

CREATIVE EXPRESSION IS AN ESSENTIAL ASPECT of the human spirit. In every place on the globe, in every era from prehistoric times to the present, humans have engaged in the creative arts.

The active aspects of artistic creativity involve an individual taking that which is free to be molded — be it art materials, musical notes, written words, vocalization, or body movement — and manipulating it in a way that becomes a personal expression. Its counterpart is passive appreciation, which also demands creativity. Just as creating art can evoke thought and feeling in the one creating it, experiencing that art — listening to or watching a performance, or viewing an art piece — can also evoke thought and feeling in the participant.

My own experience as a sculptor and jazz musician provides a hint as to what might be occurring during the creative act that would account for these healing effects. As I engage in sculpting or playing music, I enter an altered state of consciousness akin to meditation. My discursive mind turns off or fades into the background; I am not aware of my body; time ceases to exit; there is no past, no future, only the present moment. All that exists is fingers moving clay or the flow of the music.

One doesn’t have to be a professional artist, musical genius, or Zen master to enter this flow. My wife, Alice, a painter, and I have conducted beginner’s art workshops for adults at community colleges, taught art to children, and worked using art therapy in psychiatric hospitals. Almost invariably, as a roomful of people become absorbed in their work, the silence and the sense of peace in the room are palpable.

The act of creation is a living, breathing process. You are giving birth to something from deep inside yourself — your unique expression. Creating a piece of art presents you with the opportunity to proclaim, “This may not be a masterpiece, but this is who I am … This is what I have created!” This can be especially satisfying and empowering for elders, who see their sense of control and authority gradually slip away as they age and become less “productive.”

Another factor that makes creative work so engrossing is the element of surprise, of improvisation. As the composer composes, the artist paints, the poet writes, each note, each brush stroke, each word is an exploration that carries the artist along into the unknown. I watched a film, shot over a period of several days, of Picasso painting a portrait. In that time the painting went through numerous transformations before Picasso finally brought it to completion. This element of exploration, of stepping into the unknown, is the very essence of creativity, and it is the antithesis of stagnation. Stagnation — being bored, listless, uninvolved — can be a plague of the elder years, when the weight of disability or a “been there, done that” attitude can dampen one’s vitality. Stagnation is as deadly as any disease.

	In this beautiful book, painter and sculptor Alice and Richard Matzkin explore the experience of aging through their art, finding inspiration rather than despair. The Matzkins — now in their late 60s and early 70s — use their paintings, sculptures. and personal narrative to examine aspects of growing older: the progression of physical changes, sensuality and relationships, aging parents, spirituality, and death. They feature well-known people such as feminist Betty Friedan and potter Beatrice Wood, as well as friends, neighbors, relatives, and themselves. They both explore the older nude body in some of their work. Drawing on their own experiences and the wisdom of older mentors, they demonstrate that the elder years can be a time of growth and wisdom rather than stagnation and loss. This wonderfully illustrated book is a feast for the eyes as well as nurturing to the spirit, and it leads to a greater appreciation of the miracle and blessing of life.

Artistic creation has played an important role in my renewal and also that of my wife Alice. Both of us possessed artistic gifts as we were growing up — skills which lay fallow as we were raising children and pursuing careers. In our 40s, our creative fires were rekindled and we returned to painting and sculpting. As we entered our 50s and felt the physical effects of aging, we began to use our art as a way to explore our issues about growing old and dying. Thus began a series of projects related to aging that brought our fears and anxieties to the surface where they could be consciously experienced, worked through, and transformed into understanding. Those projects — portraits of inspiring elder women; sculptures of old men in dissolution; paintings of elder nude women; sculptures of old couples in tender embrace; and sequential portraits of an aunt ages 89–97, showing the progressive effects of age on the body — helped us come to a deeper acceptance of and understanding about our own process of aging, and led us to value the preciousness of each present moment.

In time, we were able to add another medium to our creative arsenal, writing. Inspired by the focus that our artwork brought, we authored an award-winning book,The Art of Aging: Celebrating the Authentic Aging Self. With speaking engagements and additional projects, we find ourselves today, at ages 68 and 71, busier, more creative, and more engaged than at any other period in our lives.

Age is no barrier to creativity. Examples abound of elder artists whose creative production extends into late old age. Our neighbor, the potter Beatrice Wood, continued drawing and throwing pots until she was 105 years old. The autumn and winter of life is an optimum time for engaging in creative activity. Retirement and liberation from child rearing allows leisure time for exploration into creative resources. Elders have more life experience to draw upon to fuel artistic endeavors. Wisdom, wider perspective, and maturity of years lived can allow creativity to blossom with greater depth and richness. And that creative juice can invigorate the body, vitalize the mind, and renew the spirit in our elder years.

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For more….visit matzkinstudio.com

Midnight Express is the story of 23 year old Billy Hayes who is caught smuggling two kilograms of hashish while attempting to board a flight from Istanbul, Turkey, in 1970. He was originally sentenced to four years and two months and with his release date weeks away, he learned that the authorities had chosen to penalize him with a life sentence in a hellish Turkish prison before his escape in 1975. Hayes wrote a book on his ordeal, Midnight Express, which was later adapted into the 1978 film of the same name.

In the film, Billy is played by Brad Davis with a screenplay by Oliver Stone based on Billy’s autobiography and divides viewers into opposing camps: those who think it’s one of the most intense real-life dramas ever made, and those who abhor its manipulative tactics and alteration of facts for the exploitative purpose of achieving a desired effect. The film went on to be nominated for seven Academy Awards and won an Academy Award for “Best Music”, “Original Score” by Ennio Morricone, “Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium”

Now 33 years later, actor, writer and director Billy Hayes sets the record straight, sharing his harrowing experiences with audiences in his one man show, Riding the Midnight Express at the Hayworth Theater, 2511 Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles at 8pm on Thursday nights for a limited run.

The show clarifies some disputed points in the film but it is Billy’s humanity that shines through his 80 minute monologue. Billy’s emotions surfaced often during the show and while it is fascinating to hear the story told in his own words with grace and humor, it is his amazing courage, unwavering hope and heart that shines through his intense performance and life.

Many other men in that prison and other American men in other prisons around the world during the 60′s and seventies were broken or emotionally scarred for life receiving the same kind of treatment Billy did and the story of his escape is every bit as compelling as his arrest and prison story.

If you are interested in the true story of a a young and foolish kid who thought at the time he was invincible and paid the price, Billy’s one man tour de force is well worth seeing and, if you know any young person who is teetering on the edge with drugs, this is a cautionary tale that shows the dark side of what can be a glamorous projection. In this regard, a college tour and Broadway run are being explored.

Finally, Billy makes it clear that not all Turkish people are brutal, a fact, he has dedicated his life to righting as the film’s portrayal dramatically reduced tourism to Turkey for years. In 2007, Billy Hayes traveled to Turkey to apologize for the way the country was depicted in “Midnight Express,” saying that the image of Turkey produced by the film ”was not fair to them or true to my experience.”

More recently Billy was featured in a National Geographic special, Locked Up Abroad.

In short, I was deeply moved to see and hear a man who has made it through a dark night of the soul with his humor, dignity and love still intact.

For tickets, visit the Hayworth theater website, thehayworth.com.