{"id":355941,"date":"2018-04-09T15:35:22","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T14:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/how-falling-down-can-lead-to-waking-up\/"},"modified":"2018-04-09T15:35:22","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T14:35:22","slug":"how-falling-down-can-lead-to-waking-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/how-falling-down-can-lead-to-waking-up\/","title":{"rendered":"How Falling Down Can Lead to Waking Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Sonoma County, California \u2014 The organic Kokopelli Farm has been my home, as well as my main work, identity, and love, for the last two-dozen years. Then I fell into a badger hole in the ground, covered by grass, on January 15 this year. I crawled painfully uphill back into the house, as if I were a baby. This unwelcome anniversary will remain in my now 73-year old body and memory.<\/p>\n<p>The fall plunged me into deep reflections, followed by life-changing behavior. \u201cYou must change your life\u201d is a poetry line from Rilke that kept emerging as I spent hours each day in bed, no longer able to provide \u201cthe farmer\u2019s shadow\u201d with daily walks on the land, so essential to good farming.<\/p>\n<p>Growing up is not always easy, even for elders like myself, closer to my death date than my birth date. Maturing can be sparked by a sudden, unexpected incident, like falling. What to do, other than feel sorry for one\u2019s self? How can one turn an apparent loss into a learning experience and gain knowledge from it for one\u2019s self and others?<\/p>\n<p>I began by lightening my load. I decided to give away hundreds of books, DVDs, records, furniture, luggage, dog things, etc., which I had been collecting for decades.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI call that \u2018essentializing,\u2019 commented Alexandra Hart of Transition Sebastopol\u2019s monthly Elders Salon, which has been happening since 2010. \u201cAging makes one slower, so it means simplifying and seems to require letting go of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve noticed in the Elders&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/2018\/04\/how-falling-down-can-lead-to-waking-up\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sonoma County, California \u2014 The organic Kokopelli Farm has been my home, as well as my main work, identity, and love, for the last two-dozen years. Then I fell into a badger hole in the ground, covered by grass, on January 15 this year. I crawled painfully uphill back into the house, as if I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2525,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-355941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2525"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}