WITH VIRGINIA FILIP & D ALLEN
Even if we don’t realize it, or we want to escape it, it’s a fact that we’re aging every day. In this workshop we’ll look more closely at the process of aging as it is happening in our body and mind. We’ll get in touch with our own experience of aging through meditation, conversation and sharing our stories of aging. We’ll learn from each other. We’ll make discoveries, and we’ll find new paths through not only aging, but also illness and dying.

Aging includes losing much that we value in life: strength, health, beauty, mental abilities, hearing and sight. We also suffer because we compare our aging selves with how we used to be, or notice how others now see us differently than when we were younger. We may think that aging is a terrible thing happening to us, that we are being attacked and diminished by our own body and mind. We may fight to stop this process, but we know we can’t win. This creates a lot of misery, because really we’re fighting against ourselves. We’ll explore how we don’t have to do this. We’ll begin to see that we’re not an isolated person living inside a bubble that’s slowly falling apart, but a whole and complete human being whose painful joints and wrinkled skin and failing memory are shining with a marvelous vastness we may not have noticed. We'll learn some concrete and practical ways to walk more gracefully through this aging life, maybe even to love it.

Virginia Filip has taught yoga for over 20 years and is director of Casa del Angel Yoga and Meditation center in Oaxaca. She is also a therapist, movement instructor and painter. She has led support groups for Oaxacan women for many years.

D Allen has worked in hospitals in the USA with people living with chronic pain and many illnesses and anxieties common to aging. He is a Zen meditation teacher and leads retreats in the United States and Oaxaca. He is founder and director of Oaxaca Zen, and has collaborated with Casa del Angel since 2004.

Saturday, September 21
10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
$800MX donation (some financial assistance is available)
In Spanish with english as needed

The workshop will be held at:
Casa del Angel Yoga, Meditation and Therapy center
Boulevard La Paz 105 (next to the CFE of San Felipe, Oaxaca)
www. casadelangel.com.mx

For more information or to reserve your place, you can call or message 951 2229678 or 951 9838347.
You can also write directly to Virginia: virginia.filip@gmail.com or D Allen: queave@gmail.com
------------
Envejecer incluye perder mucho de lo que valoramos en la vida: fuerza, salud, belleza, habilidades mentales, audición y vista. También sufrimos porque comparamos nuestro cuerpo que envejece con el que era antes, o nos damos cuenta de cómo los demás nos ven de manera diferente a cuando éramos más jóvenes. Podemos pensar que envejecer es algo terrible que nos sucede, que nuestro propio cuerpo y mente nos están atacando y disminuyendo. Podemos escoger luchar para detener este proceso, pero sabemos que nunca vamos a ganar. Esto crea mucha miseria en nosotros porque realmente estamos luchando en contra de nosotros mismos.

Exploraremos cómo no tenemos que hacer esto. Comenzaremos a ver que no somos una persona aislada que vive dentro de una burbuja que se desmorona lentamente, sino un ser humano completo cuyas articulaciones adoloridas, su piel arrugada y su memoria defectuosa brillan con una intensidad maravillosa que quizás ni siquiera hayamos notado. Aprenderemos algunas formas concretas y prácticas para avanzar con más gracia a través de esta vida que envejece, tal vez incluso hasta podamos amarla.