We hold in our hearts those who aspire to move from age-ing to sage-ing.

Once I quit drinking, my inner voice and I began the harder work: that of creating a life from which I do not need or want to escape.

May we find unexpected ways to remember where we came from and imagine where we may go next. May we find touchstones of our pasts, and may they become a foundation for the future.

Here, today, in this place and with these people, May we listen so that we can hear; May we hear so that we can feel; May we feel so that we can know; and May we know so that we can change ourselves and this world. May this chalice we light, Light our Way.

This body is not what it was I got shin splints from running today Ten years ago all I’d get was smelly feet My back aches just from sitting these days In my youth, all my pain came from climbing trees This body is not what it was Not some alien thing thrust upon me So clumsy, always in the way I...

(adapted from the original) I say that it touches us that our blood is sea water and our tears are salt, that the seed of our bodies is scarcely different from the same cells in a seaweed, and that the stuff of our bones is like the coral. I say that the tide rolls in on us, whether we like it or...