Orsborn offers to guide her readers on the way to a great transformation of soul, prepared for by embracing successive stages in turn, to experience older life’s challenges with renewed wisdom and consciousness. With her guidance, you may deepen your sense of the interconnectedness of life, acknowledge the realities of life and death, and develop a “growing compassion for self, others, and the human condition.”
After a short Part One, which serves as an Introduction, Part Two is the bulk of this book, divided into stages rather than chapters. These eleven stages stand for “The Arc of Life,” or the eleven stages of adult and spiritual development.
The book presents these stages in a very practical manner. For example, at the midway point, Orsborn begins Stage 5 like this: “If we could simply skip from Stage 4, 'Unintended Consequences,' to Stage 6, 'Dismantling Your Masks,' and beyond, this book would not need to be about age as culmination. You would have long ago admitted to powerlessness, embraced your authentic self, made appropriate reparations, and fulfilled life’s promise.” These are big order tasks to accomplish, but Orsborn guides the reader step by step.
If summarized in one sentence, this might be her thesis: “Aging, with all its challenges, also provides the best opportunity life has to offer to recognize that there is something more reliable than the illusion of power to which you have been so tenaciously clinging.”
Orsborn speaks of being Jewish, but her teaching comes from a wide range of sources across the spiritual traditions. She quotes some of our favorite spiritual guides including Sri Aurobindo, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, James Hillman, Joan Chittister, Pema Chodron, Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton, Rami Shapiro, Parker Palmer, and Mary Oliver.
