by Maggie Kaplan

I would like to share a very personal commitment with you. I have been stepping into my “wise eldership” in the past few months, as I turned 60. I decided to create 60 adventures in this 60th year to celebrate this passage!

The Invoking the Pause Convening was one of the KEYSTONE adventures–as I step into my own “Maggieness” and the woman I want to be in the world. One might expect that this would be a relatively simple task, but opening myself up to expansion at this time in my life has its own set of challenges.

I made a vow in front of my friends at my 60th birthday. I re-affirmed it with at the Convening with all of the participants — and choose to do so now again with you the reader.

It is a paraphrased quote by George Bernard Shaw:

“This is the true joy in life … being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one … being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy … I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It’s a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

I trust and have a deep knowing that what is in “right alignment” will be born from Invoking The Pause. Over the past few years I have experienced many examples of “right alignment” as I have set my intentions and then focused my attention on calling forth both seen and unseen elements to help manifest those dreams.

Thank you all for participating and being a part of this project, this website, this vow. Thank you for your part in being either an engaged, compassionate witness or a vital, ingenious actor, as the case may be.