This six-week course explores how to live the later stage of your life more fully, with joy, creativity and awareness, while delving into the incredible story-telling power of movies, led by Valerie Edwards. RSVP for Zoom login information.
Event description:
Wise Aging considers these years of active aging an opportunity for discovery and growth, in contrast to the ageism that pervades our society and associates aging only with decline and disability. In this class, we will harness the incredible story-telling power of movies to help us explore relationships, forgiveness, cultivating spiritual qualities, embracing impermanence, and accepting loss while finding light. We will also draw on text study, discussion, meditation and journaling to help us as we practice living more mindfully, authentically, and joyfully.
Each week, a film will be assigned and a set of readings will be distributed by email as pdf document attachments. Participants will be expected to watch the film on their own and to complete the assigned reading in time for the next class, during which we will use the assigned film and readings as the basis for our discussions and mindfulness practices.
If you have never participated in Wise Aging before, this class will help guide you towards the deep inner growth, clarity and acceptance that can crown the later stage of life. It will also be an opportunity for you to find camaraderie and friendship among a group of wisdom-seekers who are looking for deeper meaning and purpose in this stage of life, just like you are.
If you have already participated in a Wise Aging class, this will be a wonderful way to build on the skills and insights you’ve already developed on your path towards becoming a ‘Wise Elder’. In this class you will have the opportunity to add movies to the ways in which you can deepen your understanding of yourself and your role in our community as you move through the later stage of life.
No textbook is required for this class. However, you are encouraged to read “Wise Aging: Living With Joy, Resilience and Spirit” by Rabbi Rachel Cowan and Dr. Linda Thal, which is the companion book that underlies much of our curriculum. This spiritually and emotionally uplifting book will enable you to deepen your experience of the course.
