New Dimensions; Senior Actualization and Growth Experience; Part 3

<v Speaker>[Song: The Kiss by Judee Sill] <v Speaker>[Song: The Kiss by Judeee Sill]

<v Michael Toms>That's an incredibly beautiful song called The Kiss, song by <v Michael Toms>a lovely lady named Judee Sill. <v Michael Toms>Unfortunately, the elements on its way out of print so check your used <v Michael Toms>record stores, and you might find it, a beautiful, beautiful song. <v Michael Toms>We're talking with Gay Luce. And I also want to invite our listeners to participate <v Michael Toms>via the telephone. I'm going to give the phone number. <v Michael Toms>It's 6-2-1-1-1 -2-6-6-2-1-1-1-2-6. <v Jeff Mishlove>I'm interested in in bringing out a point here, Gay.

<v Jeff Mishlove>I know- When I first met you and interviewed you five years ago <v Jeff Mishlove>or so before you began SAGE and had written your book on body <v Jeff Mishlove>time and on sleep. It was for me one of the most profound experiences, and no <v Jeff Mishlove>question in my mind that you were well versed and well grounded in an understanding <v Jeff Mishlove>of the rhythms and cycles of the human body and the whole growth process. <v Jeff Mishlove>And then you began teaching this material to <v Jeff Mishlove>to elderly people. And now you've described to me with <v Jeff Mishlove>with incredible enthusiasm and with an incredible glow how these <v Jeff Mishlove>people who you were teaching years ago have become your teacher. <v Jeff Mishlove>That there's something about their process which <v Jeff Mishlove>you with all of your depth and experience, finding incredibly awesome. <v Jeff Mishlove>I know it must be very special. I'd like you to tell us about that. <v Gay Luce>It's very hard to it's very hard to describe. <v Gay Luce>I'm blown away by it.

<v Gay Luce>I-I guess I- as I described earlier in the program, <v Gay Luce>there are many mysteries to all of this, which I'm never <v Gay Luce>going to be able to put into words. <v Gay Luce>In fact, when I first started working on this project, I had a little folder by which <v Gay Luce>I described it in my file and it was called Rediscovering the Mysteries. <v Gay Luce>That was what I thought of SAGE as when I was just thinking about it. <v Gay Luce>I look at my mother, and I can say all kinds of words <v Gay Luce>about the evaporation of the ego, the preparation <v Gay Luce>to become transparent, allowing <v Gay Luce>the channel of the universe to open like your grandfather, billions <v Gay Luce>and billions of imensities. <v Gay Luce>And I rush around the world fundraising for SAGE or doing <v Gay Luce>my administrative stuff and so on, and I'm aware

<v Gay Luce>that even when I stop and try to open myself, there's something <v Gay Luce>coming through them that isn't yet coming through me. <v Gay Luce>And I believe maybe there's a time, you know, a season <v Gay Luce>in our lives when we're ready. <v Gay Luce>I don't think that we're on this earth for as long as we are for no reason. <v Gay Luce>We're not here to whatever age is simply to be tortured. <v Gay Luce>[laughter] I don't think that that's the purpose of old age. <v Gay Luce>I don't believe so. We're here, <v Gay Luce>I guess, to give us maybe to give us all a chance to have that channel fully open. <v Gay Luce>And when, as I experience with the people at SAGE, they <v Gay Luce>begin to- ?inaudible" Mildred said at the Western Journal Logical Society and <v Gay Luce>should it? She is very uncomplicated language, she says, 'I just have gotten so that I <v Gay Luce>don't have to control things, including this program and and other people around <v Gay Luce>me, and I simply accept I can give

<v Gay Luce>it my unconditional love.' And there she is, bathing everything in her <v Gay Luce>glow. Everything. <v Gay Luce>You know, when I'm bitching at this net and bathing some things in my love and and <v Gay Luce>complaining about others. And there's such an immensity to what she says. <v Gay Luce>And it's not verbal. <v Gay Luce>It's who she is. It's what she's letting through. <v Gay Luce>It's not her ability to articulate it. <v Gay Luce>What I'm moved by and my mother has to do with the light that comes <v Gay Luce>through her. <v Gay Luce>It's dazzling. <v Gay Luce>I mean, it's moving. I want to cry when I think about it. <v Gay Luce>It generates a feeling of enormous tenderness and love <v Gay Luce>in me and the kinds of things when I think about <v Gay Luce>Christ, and I see that in these people <v Gay Luce>and many of them again would say, you know, I'm- I'm not a religious person. <v Gay Luce>I don't like spiritual language, but I feel kind of one with the world.

<v Gay Luce>[laughter] Well, it is mind blowing. I mean, people who are going around rough and ready <v Gay Luce>and doing great- doing a lot of service. <v Gay Luce>I think of one man, Bill Love, in our program who uses, again, <v Gay Luce>very simple language about it. <v Gay Luce>I'm not spiritual, he says. I just feel one with the world. <v Gay Luce>And he does, and what he does is he radiates that. <v Gay Luce>And that blows me away. The sages are sages with their being, <v Gay Luce>and we're a culture that appreciates words and information. <v Gay Luce>And that's not what they're about. <v Gay Luce>There's one- there are lots of people at say I could talk about. <v Gay Luce>So many of them. It's to be in their presence. <v Gay Luce>You know how when you're in the presence of a- of an awesomely enlightened being, some <v Gay Luce>kind of energy comes through that transforms you for that little while <v Gay Luce>with these people each in their way, something comes through that transforms me

<v Gay Luce>and gives me a message of assurance about being <v Gay Luce>75 or 79 and about the transition <v Gay Luce>into another world. It gives me some kind of message that's never gonna come <v Gay Luce>through in words because I can read the Bible, and I can read the great masters forever <v Gay Luce>and not have quite that feeling. <v Gay Luce>So I think that one of the things that can happen out of <v Gay Luce>our own sage is realizing that that's who they are, our own older people, realizing <v Gay Luce>that they play that role for us. <v Gay Luce>They are the bridges for us. <v Gay Luce>And it's not that they have to have any particular information or be religious or <v Gay Luce>or say something, they do it with their being <v Gay Luce>with their own, uh, experience <v Gay Luce>and what that transmits, so that we can be around them, younger people can be around them

<v Gay Luce>and know that what was created is good. <v Gay Luce>I mean it's there's- I don't know how else to say it. <v Michael Toms>You're doing a pretty good job. [laughter] [Jeff Mishlove: It's coming over] <v Gay Luce>It's really hard to get across the idea that somebodies field <v Gay Luce>of energy, somebodies presence without any kind of pretentious words <v Gay Luce>and so on. I'm a word monger, so I use a lot of words. <v Gay Luce>These people would say, oh, shut up already, you know. <v Gay Luce>[laughter] But they would do it just by being there. <v Gay Luce>And many of them, much to my surprise in the healing group, <v Gay Luce>have a power. <v Gay Luce>I mean a- much more energy than I have. <v Gay Luce>Meaning that to me that their channels are very cleared out. <v Gay Luce>There's nothing holding back. <v Gay Luce>And when you touch their hands, I mean, the power coming out is enormous. <v Gay Luce>[pause] And <v Gay Luce>very healing.

<v Michael Toms>We have some callers on the telephone. <v Michael Toms>Let's take a phone call. Our number here is 6-2-1-1-1-2-6. <v Michael Toms>We're talking with Gay Luce. <v Michael Toms>Hello. You're on the air. <v Caller 1>Hello, I'd like to hear an experience I had with a <v Caller 1>84 year old neighbor of mine that was dying of cancer, <v Caller 1>and she, uh- At the time, I was having difficulties with my <v Caller 1>wife. She taught me a very beautiful lesson. <v Caller 1>She said, Dick, you don't realize a woman is a most precious thing in the world <v Caller 1>through the miracle of birth. Your experience her as your mother and <v Caller 1>your nursed and neutered and brought up your whole character <v Caller 1>and life is formed by your mother. <v Caller 1>And then you experience her as your sister in a family relationship. <v Caller 1>And then you fall in love with a sweetheart and you <v Caller 1>get married and have this beautiful sexual, physical intimacy. <v Caller 1>And then you're she's a mother of your children and you share and

<v Caller 1>develop and in bringing up your children into adulthood and then as <v Caller 1>grandparents. And so she's your lifetime companion. <v Caller 1>And the interesting thing happened, I-I just came from a <v Caller 1>three day enlightment intensive. <v Caller 1>And these young ladies that I shared <v Caller 1>this experience with, it had a tremendous effect on 'em. <v Caller 1>I actually saw changes in their face and their flesh <v Caller 1>when this message was over because it was such a cheap and artificial <v Caller 1>sense they had of sex and of womanhood. <v Caller 1>And speaking of these fields of energy and this intensive <v Caller 1>program, why when I looked into another person's eyes and face, <v Caller 1>and I saw so much of myself and the other <v Caller 1>that all my defense mechanisms dropped away.

<v Caller 1>And I just relaxed. And the most amazing things happened <v Caller 1>through that experience. I could actually see these fields of energy building <v Caller 1>up like a cloud like mass between us and envelope us. <v Caller 1>And then I had the experience of a young fellow telling me he was having difficulty <v Caller 1>with his parents, and I couldn't handle it. <v Caller 1>And I broke down, and I cried. <v Caller 1>And I and my manly ego, I tried to stop it. <v Caller 1>And I just felt like I want to fall over and just try as hard as I could. <v Caller 1>And I wish I would of as Gail said, <v Caller 1>this crying releases this tension and clears the channels and- <v Caller 1>and my body after this intensive- for now, this is <v Caller 1>going on over two weeks. <v Caller 1>The energy that is being released, and it's a healing energy, <v Caller 1>that's breaking up all these tensions in my body. <v Caller 1>And I just- I just felt I had to share this with you.

<v Michael Toms>Thank you. <v Gay Luce>Thank you. I'd like to celebrate with you. <v Caller 1>Thank you. <v Michael Toms>Our phone number is 6-2-1-1-1-2-6. <v Michael Toms>Hello, you're on the air. <v Caller 2>Oh, hello. I'm- I'm in San Rafael and I- for the last 15 years, <v Caller 2>I've been going through quite an experience myself to follow a self-investigation, <v Caller 2>into determination, ?actualization? and finally into what <v Caller 2>self-government through a lengthy process. <v Caller 2>It fits in nicely with an idea I have in mind that would tie in <v Caller 2>well with SAGE would be in itself learning experience, learning about what? <v Caller 2>What you really are, where you're from. <v Caller 2>Like for instance, all living things are quite possibly <v Caller 2>immigrants from outer space landing on this earth and

<v Caller 2>also making studies on, you know, ?inaudible? <v Caller 2>Egyptian exhibit coming to the city. <v Caller 2>It's, uh, a study on the pyramids and the connection <v Caller 2>between the pyramids and the measurements and how they relate <v Caller 2>to space. Plus, Stonehenge and other mysteries <v Caller 2>like the Easter Island and the Peruvian plane. <v Caller 2>Why were they there? What the hell are these? <v Caller 2>It's all these questions. <v Caller 2>It's uh- I think it's a good exploration point there. <v Gay Luce>I think people at SAGE would be really interested in hearing and exploring that with you. <v Caller 2>Maybe it could. <v Caller 2>Would uh- you have information there at New Dimensions on this program? <v Michael Toms>I'll give you an address and phone number how you can reach SAGE, OK. <v Caller 2>Fine. Good

<v Michael Toms>Thanks for your call. <v Caller 2>Bye <v Michael Toms>Our number here is 6-2-1-1-1-2-6. <v Michael Toms>If you have a question or comment or something you'd like to share with our guest. <v Michael Toms>Get loose. Those of you who are interested in getting more information about the SAGE <v Michael Toms>Project, you can write to 41 Tunnel Road. <v Michael Toms>Berkeley, California. And the ZIP code is 94705. <v Michael Toms>That's Sage 41 Tunnel Road. <v Michael Toms>Berkeley, California. There's a phone number as well. <v Michael Toms>On the phone number is 8-4-1-9-8-5-8. <v Michael Toms>That's 8-4-1-9-8-5-8. <v Michael Toms>I'll give you some more information about upcoming programs that say you're putting on as <v Michael Toms>well. But there's the address and phone number, which I repeat at the end of the program. <v Michael Toms>Those of you interested in getting more information. <v Michael Toms>And I should also say that SAGE needs support of all kinds. <v Michael Toms>You need volunteer help. <v Michael Toms>Certainly financial help. <v Michael Toms>There's lots of ways that people can help. <v Michael Toms>And certainly I can't think of a better place to help than the SAGE Project.

<v Michael Toms>Let's take another phone call. <v Michael Toms>Hello, you're on the air. <v Caller 3>Hello. Thank you. I'm calling from Marin county. <v Caller 3>And I think you've just probably answered my question. <v Caller 3>I'm very enthusiastic about your program. <v Caller 3>Thank you. And wondered if <v Caller 3>if there's any way that that, you know, people in general and <v Caller 3>you're listening audience or anyone else can do anything to make sure that a project <v Caller 3>like this survives. It sounds wonderful. <v Caller 3>And I'd certainly like to help. <v Caller 3>And I'm sure other people would. <v Michael Toms>Good well, Gay, Maybe there's some things that you can say about how what people can do. <v Gay Luce>Well, one of the things that we that we need immediately, of course, is financial help. <v Gay Luce>And there are probably a lot of people who want <v Gay Luce>progress age programs. We are going to be offering some new intensive training programs <v Gay Luce>and who would be able to help us build self-sustaining, self-sufficient

<v Gay Luce>programs in their regions. <v Gay Luce>We will soon be needing a lot of volunteer help. <v Gay Luce>It would actually help us to have people <v Gay Luce>right rather than phone at this point because we're overloaded, <v Gay Luce>and we will probably also be looking for various <v Gay Luce>office spaces. <v Gay Luce>SAGE is now spread around. We started in Berkeley and that office space that <v Gay Luce>the address that you have is the Claremont Hotel. <v Gay Luce>We will look for some good donated space <v Gay Luce>for our community in Berkeley because we have quite a large community there and <v Gay Luce>probably also for some space in San Francisco because <v Gay Luce>the program is becoming national, and it's easier <v Gay Luce>to for people to get to from airports and so on. <v Michael Toms>Thank you for your call.

<v Caller 3>Yes, thank you. <v Michael Toms>Our phone number here again is 6-2-1-1-1-2-6. <v Michael Toms>That's 6-2-1-1-1-2-6. <v Michael Toms>What do you think the future of the SAGE Project is, Gay? <v Michael Toms>I mean, where- where do you where- where is it going to go from here? <v Michael Toms>From this point? <v Gay Luce>I've been sitting here feeling a shared emotion with <v Gay Luce>Jeff, which is- that's a com- I <v Gay Luce>can't even describe it. It's a combination of things of- of sadness <v Gay Luce>and joy and relief and a sense of awe. <v Gay Luce>I know it's no accident that we started when we did. <v Gay Luce>It's no accident that we came together in that living room. <v Gay Luce>We didn't make it happen. <v Gay Luce>And now as I look ahead, and I see that we're on the edge of the 80s, <v Gay Luce>that 15 percent of our population is going to be over 60 very soon. <v Gay Luce>Pretty soon, a large group over 75. <v Gay Luce>The shift is taking place. <v Gay Luce>And I think that SAGE is really on the edge of a breakthrough.

<v Gay Luce>I think that if we can now begin to help <v Gay Luce>communities throughout the country, start programs like this, we can radically <v Gay Luce>change our relationships. <v Gay Luce>I think our program will become more intergenerational. <v Gay Luce>But for the moment, we would like to concentrate <v Gay Luce>on reaching the people who ought to have our first grasp <v Gay Luce>on us. We'll- Making an intergenerational is is no problem <v Gay Luce>because it is an ageless program, just as we are ageless. <v Gay Luce>We're continuous beings and the age is arbitrary. <v Gay Luce>But right now, I think we are really on the edge of a <v Gay Luce>breakthrough. I think what we can do is show people in the rest <v Gay Luce>of the country how to form support networks that are nurturing, <v Gay Luce>deeply nurturing, so that we're helping each other. <v Gay Luce>We're not doing charity. We're doing what we want for ourselves. <v Gay Luce>And what we would like to be doing is creating consortia

<v Gay Luce>of people, agencies, independent people, healthy people, people <v Gay Luce>and institutions, parents, children who want to create this <v Gay Luce>kind of group. <v Gay Luce>And it will vary from region to region. <v Gay Luce>We've done it in Chicago, and we've seen that this is an immensely <v Gay Luce>fruitful way to work. <v Gay Luce>And it's not busywork. I think the one thing about it that really excites me <v Gay Luce>is that it's a chance for us to deepen together. <v Gay Luce>And to work at that level with each other, that is really meaningful. <v Gay Luce>Instead of getting bogged down in problem areas, you know, which we tend <v Gay Luce>to do when we consider them from outside, and instead of talking <v Gay Luce>about our troubles- I think one of the things about SAGE that really does <v Gay Luce>differ from many, many groups, therapy groups, for example, people tend to get <v Gay Luce>together and talk about their problems. <v Gay Luce>We don't do that at all.

<v Gay Luce>What we do is share experience deeply. <v Gay Luce>And out of that, our mutual understanding comes. <v Gay Luce>And so a lot of what we're doing is providing positive alternative experiences. <v Gay Luce>So we don't feel stuck in one way of being that generates a problem, <v Gay Luce>which is not to push people's problems aside. <v Gay Luce>We we do talk, but we we talk propose something. <v Gay Luce>It's a mutual experience which does give us a positive way of going. <v Gay Luce>I think we can we can do this all over the country. <v Gay Luce>And I think it will. It's just as the zeitgeist in aging is changing. <v Gay Luce>I think that will bring us another leap into <v Gay Luce>depth in our relationships with one another. <v Jeff Mishlove>It strikes me that organizationally speaking, what SAGE is going through now is <v Jeff Mishlove>is one of the most difficult periods that any organization has to ever deal with. <v Jeff Mishlove>Almost a crisis period where you've been working locally on a relatively small <v Jeff Mishlove>scale for five years. You've proven to yourself and to the people in the program

<v Jeff Mishlove>what a success it can be. Now is the time for you to to share your work <v Jeff Mishlove>with the whole country and to reach out and to begin to- to grow almost <v Jeff Mishlove>exponentially. And many times organizations destroy themselves <v Jeff Mishlove>in that process. And it- it strikes me personally that just as is the <v Jeff Mishlove>work that you're doing, the transition of growing old is such a <v Jeff Mishlove>delicate space between wisdom and what we might label <v Jeff Mishlove>insanity, and that the social support makes all the difference that in terms of sages <v Jeff Mishlove>survival right now and in taking this leap, the social support that Sage <v Jeff Mishlove>receives may make the difference between life and death for your organization. <v Gay Luce>Our organization has been working on this to Jeff. <v Gay Luce>A year ago we realized we weren't a little family anymore <v Gay Luce>and we couldn't operate like us like a core group, which is what we've called our basic <v Gay Luce>group structure. <v Gay Luce>And- oh, heaven brought us a wonderful teacher.

<v Gay Luce>Always the right person comes at the right time. <v Gay Luce>We thought we wanted to be fundraising and actually what we needed to do was build our <v Gay Luce>organization first. And so a wonderful teacher named Hugh Mclaine <v Gay Luce>came in and taught us communication skills. <v Gay Luce>And for a whole year, the entire organization, the staff and a couple of the core groups <v Gay Luce>spent learning how to talk to each other, how to say what we feel to each other. <v Gay Luce>We've only begun to make inroads, but it prepared us to create an administration <v Gay Luce>which we weren't ready to do last year. And we just we've just begun to do that. <v Gay Luce>We have a wonderful board of directors now and an executive director, Joan McKinney, <v Gay Luce>who has all kinds of skills that none of us had. <v Gay Luce>I mean, she is- she's done wonderful things in the peace movement on Capitol <v Gay Luce>Hill with a third of the Senate and a group that she created. <v Gay Luce>So we've- we've begun to prepare that transition, that bridge. <v Gay Luce>And it is true, we do need a great deal of social support at this point,

<v Gay Luce>because we are bridging into that leap. <v Gay Luce>And we're going to have to um- to know that we <v Gay Luce>have that social support, that those arms to jump <v Gay Luce>into- those we receive about 150 requests for new groups a <v Gay Luce>month- were inundated with requests. <v Gay Luce>And we now have a nice talent pool of old and young teachers. <v Gay Luce>We usually teach and teams teach in our group process is that there <v Gay Luce>are group leaders who help structure it and facilitate. <v Gay Luce>And we act as a team. And it's usually a couple of younger people and a couple older <v Gay Luce>people who've been in the process. <v Gay Luce>And since none of us are playing God, we don't have to know everything. <v Gay Luce>You know, if we needed to know a new tip technique or we pull someone in from <v Gay Luce>the outside or we go learn it, it's an easy going kind of team. <v Gay Luce>These teams and it's a subtle kind of training, people come to us and they say, what <v Gay Luce>are we learning? And it's very hard to tell them, what are they learning?

<v Gay Luce>But in about three months of just sitting around and being in sage groups and <v Gay Luce>participating, people begin to get the point. <v Gay Luce>And it's not something that we can. Even in my book, I had a very hard time trying to <v Gay Luce>describe what it is we're trying to teach <v Gay Luce>because it's not a cognitive thing. <v Gay Luce>So this kind of process has brought us a nice talent pool now. <v Gay Luce>There are many interns, poor students or professionals who came to us and many older <v Gay Luce>people who've gone through the additional process of learning leadership training <v Gay Luce>and of being in the internship. <v Gay Luce>And they are now ready to start taking this to other people in other <v Gay Luce>parts of the Bay Area and other parts of the country. <v Gay Luce>And what we hope is that we will have enough social support <v Gay Luce>so that this process can be eased and and go with <v Gay Luce>full force. <v Gay Luce>I'm overcome with the poignant letters that we get every week

<v Gay Luce>from people who don't know where to turn. <v Gay Luce>And turning to each other is something that I think is very simple to learn. <v Gay Luce>It just takes a little while. <v Speaker>[Song: Matthew by John Denver] <v Speaker>[Song: Matthew by John Denver]