Sailing to Byzantium: The Poetics of Aging

$145.00

A trilogy of explorations into latter life, with John Schuster and Rev. Nóirín Ní Riain

Three Saturdays – March 25th, April 1st, and April 8th

9am Pacific, 12pm Eastern, 5pm Irish

1.5hr session

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A trilogy of explorations into latter life, with John Schuster and Rev. Nóirín Ní Riain

Three Saturdays – March 25th, April 1st, and April 8th

9am Pacific, 12pm Eastern, 5pm Irish

1.5hr session

A trilogy of explorations into latter life, with John Schuster and Rev. Nóirín Ní Riain

Three Saturdays – March 25th, April 1st, and April 8th

9am Pacific, 12pm Eastern, 5pm Irish

1.5hr session

Aging with intention is a creative and courageous act, a path to wholeness, approximating an art form when we allow for inner beauty and strength to emerge beyond the inevitable biological limits.

Aging poetically, as an art form, is primarily an inner journey. Our temperament, attitudes, and habits determine much of our experience as the body ages. Being playful, joyful, grateful, loving, determined and undeterred are some of the attitudes we can contemplate and foster.

Many thinkers have addressed the psychology and spirituality of the second half of life. In this program we will apply some of these lessons, both scientifically derived and wisdom inspired, with special emphasis on the arts and archetypes, to the challenges and opportunities of our pilgrimage into latter life. 

Our collective journeys are laden with new joys and new burdens and, above all, opportunities that could not present themselves in the busyness of the mid-life years.


Program Flow

  • Session 1: Introduction and Start Up
    Known and unknown territory: the research and the poetic and spiritual path

  • Session 2: The Two Worlds of Aging
    Inner outer/body spirit/universal particular/Chronos Kairos

  • Session 3. The Work and Play of Aging
    Practices, attitudes, the sharing of what is useful


What you will receive: 

  • Attend three live, 1.5 hour-long interactive Zoom meetings 

  • Every session has an optional breakout conversation with another participant to reflect on a set question 

  • Interact with the group and the presenters with the Zoom chat feature 

  • Gain access to recordings of the three sessions indefinitely 

  • Download the Teaching Notes and Participant Chat for each session 

  • Receive an invitation to join the Dámh Imeall (h)Edge School facebook group 

  • Become a part of this ever growing community of creativity and imagination


Biographies

John P. Schuster is an author, coach and educator who speaks to a wide range of audiences on thriving during the transitions that come with maturing. He has been working in the fields of leadership and adult development for many years, first for those in early and mid-career and more recently for those in later-life stages. He is a regular resource as a coach and as a teacher for a variety of individuals and audiences in various stages of their aging process. 

His books include one on purpose and vitality, and another on life review and helping your past work for you.  He produced a podcast with Public Radio, Stories for the Ages, on aging consciously, carried by NPR.

He holds advanced degrees in literature and Jungian psychology and has four grandkids in Ohio, reminding him and his wife Patricia that aging has many joys. 

Click here for NPR Podcast: Stories for the Ages

Read full biography here

Nóirín Ní Riain, PhD, has had an extraordinary career as Ireland’s Celtic jewel of song and soul. A theologian, musicologist, and recording artist, she has written several books, including her autobiography, Listen with the Ear of the Heart, and Theosony: A Theology of Listening. From 1975 to 2005, Nóirín was married to Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin with whom she traveled, performed, and had two sons, Owen and Mícheál. In 2003, she was awarded the first ever doctorate in theology from Mary Immaculate College for her originality in creating a theology of listening, for which she coined the term theosony—meaning "the sound of God".

She has presented workshops throughout the world and each year leads a select group on a Journey of the Soul in Ireland, a pilgrimage of transformative experience brimming with depth and joy. Nóirín is an ordained interfaith minister now immersed in her new role as a celebrant of rituals, blessings, and sacred ceremonies.