[Living to a ripe old age, or how to harvest moments of eternity in the garden].

Abstract

Growing old is commonly associated with the idea of shipwreck and induced degradation, and limitations slow down or prevent full pursuit of self-realization. Yet aging is an inescapable and universal condition that is not uniform. Old age deserves to be seen as a period of life marked by transformations that are not merely organic, but reveal a different way of apprehending life and inhabiting time. Thus, aging can also be an opportunity to open up time and maintain signs of life that allow us to pursue ourselves. For the extreme richness and complexity to which the garden bears witness, it seems an appropriate metaphor for thinking about the ordeal of aging, particularly from the angle of robustness and rebirth. The garden also seems a promising resource for stimulating sensory, aesthetic, capacity-building and relational experiences, with a view to nurturing an existence under the sign of revival, and for taking care of oneself in a perspective of full present.