Gazing in the Mirror

March 18 - Stages

Spiritual and religious traditions,
when shaped by the feminine principle,
affirm the cyclical phases of our lives
and the wisdom each phase brings.
~ Patrick Wynne

True non-resistance is the surrender
of every arrogant attitude of mind ...
Those who have made this surrender
have found real peace of mind,
happiness, and wholeness in the
only place where it can be found,
which is within themselves.
~ Ernest Holmes

I wrote this quite a few years ago but my essays often seem to have a universal, timeless aspect.  My weekly Life Visioning session gave me something new. Often it is only the same old. I got an affirmation that I am somehow "on track". For example I have a deep sense in writing these essays that I am now "on track" with something I've been visioning for years now. I am writing something of enough substance, enough personal content, in a formally structured kind of way, to make it "publication possible". Whether it ever is actually commercially published or not, it is a kind of writing that might get published. So many of my friends have published some work of their own and so this is a personal goal that does not seem out of reach to me, though I sometimes question deep within myself as to whether there is actually any kind of "need" for that in me any longer.

What arose for me yesterday was this concept that our perspectives of living a path of embodied life shift depending loosely on our age and perceived place in a season of ages. Most of us go through stages – the child, the young adult, the mature adult and the adult who is preparing to leave the current body behind. Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. I was writing this essay in the Autumn of my life at almost 59 years of age (this year, 2020, I will turn a nice 66). My parents and some of my friends seem to me to have different interests of perspective. Though I was casually aware of having reached "Autumn" – as in "it's not really time to think about dying yet" (though that could change unexpectedly at any moment) what I had not considered until that day was that some who I hold in my heart as near and dear might actually be beginning to express my "next" stage of perspective now.

There is a deep embrace of empathy in realizing this. I've felt myself drawn at times to hospice work. This arose for me first when I saw Tuesdays with Morrie performed as a play with my Mother-in-Law not too long before her own death. The play was about the decline of a man with Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS) and I was strongly reminded of the pain I felt in watching my "formerly strong Marine" uncle slowly lose all capability of movement with only thought remaining at the end during my high school senior year. I experienced some of the wonderful benefits of Hospice service with both of my in-law's during their dying days. The first of those two to leave was my Father-in-Law. His dying was quite profound in freeing me from any fear of death. His dying allowed me to actually see that death can be a kindness, a loving response to bodily decay.

Elsewhere I find the 4 stages that I think of divided further and doubled to eight. These eight life stages mirror the steps in Shakespeare's life ages of man and the life phases from conception to death. Stage One is exploring, Stage Two is calling (following the promise of things to come), Stage Three is focusing, Stage Four is working, Stage Five is excelling, Stage Six is mastering, Stage Seven is transcending (regarding which the author notes "few people reach this stage") and Stage Eight is Regensis (a concept I've heard Barbara Marx Hubbard call Regeneration). This last is preparing for a rebirth as you make a transition. If one has beliefs that this world is not all there is (which I admit I feel deep inside me is true without having any real proof) then one senses evolution into the next exploring phase. In the perspective of Hubbard this Stage Eight does not even require leaving the body but rather reframing one's existence at an advanced age.

The author notes that on rare occasions a person will reach the end of a cycle of development (aka a way of life, a career path, a lifelong relationship) before they run out of life force and they will need to evolve. I have commented often that I have lived several lifetimes in this embodiment without needing to die and be re-born first. The Re-genesis stage represents the process of undergoing a fundamental transformation. Many who I know are drawn to concepts illustrated by the life cycle of a butterfly. Some of us have to re-discover who we are more than once in a lifetime.

We should be highly mindful of the limited scope of embodied life. No one is going to die along with us. No one can live our life for us though some people close to us may seem to try. We should live exactly as our deepest sense of authenticity tells us we should for we do not have an unlimited amount of time to do so. So many people live their lives rather mindlessly, being pulled along by the cares of the day moment-by-moment with no seeming volition of their own in that regard. Having lived my life rather fully I felt complete when I was first writing this essay.  Then a huge change came along and I learned who my original grandparents were after my parents had died knowing next to nothing (they were both adopted).  It is easy to say "complete" at some of the moments of our lives.  Then, I did not feel the sword dangling over my head and truth be told, I don't feel that yet today. I hope when the reality of my coming death is face-to-face with my presence in physical form, I will be ready to face what my hopes tell me is the next adventure. Not that I am willing to forego the adventure of now expecting a better one to come "in heaven" for that would be foolishly wasting what I actually have now.

~ perspective

I seek a balance between letting go
and holding on to what feels precious
even as I realize that nothing lasts forever.
I don't consider myself a victim of aging
but rather see achieving an advanced age
as a kind of success that I was never
guaranteed on beginning to breathe.
With age I am able to fully inhabit my
body as I am no longer fearful of its
being sexually abused.
I am able to see beauty in aging faces
and I would hope that I can find an
appreciation in my own aging face in the
same manner I've given it to those
around me who are aged.
I hope to find at the end of my Life
that what is left is a surprising
opportunity to have the subjective
experience of letting go willingly with
a sense of completion and readiness.

#autumn #butterfly #death #empathy #fear #hospice #needs #perspective #rebirth #transition