Spirituality & Practice

An Invitation to Conscious Aging from Cynthia Bourgeault

The Two Halves of Life
No matter where you find yourself on the timeline of your life, the one thing we human beings all have in common is that we’re all aging. Beneath the endless surface variations, life itself seems to follow the same universal pattern, often pictured as a parabolic curve. The curve begins at birth as we come bursting out of the womb seething with life force and raw potential. It rises to the height of its powers in midlife, then slowly recedes, winding its way toward diminishment and dissolution.

In recent years, it’s become popular to view this curve in terms of “first half of life” and “second half of life” experiences. We generally greet the first half as a time of excitement and blessing. Birthdays, first steps, school graduations, first jobs, marriage, and the arrival of children are joyously celebrated rites of passage as we step into the fullness of our own potential and give individual shape and meaning to the raw potential of our lives.

But when it comes the falling curve in the “second half”, the celebrations begin to thin out considerably. Our retirement party may well be our last “official” rite of passage until our funeral. Who celebrates greying hair, gradual fading of physical strength or mental acuity, or a diminishing circle of agency as posts of authority and leadership we once held now pass to others? What models are there to steer by as we navigate this new terrain? And while lip service is respectfully paid in spiritual circles to the stereotype of the “wise elder,” what’s the actual job description? And where in our relentlessly secular and youth-minded culture is this quality of attained elderhood even recognized, let alone valued?

Betting on the Wrong Horse
In the apparent absence of any truly viable alternatives, our default cultural strategy seems to be to do everything possible to slow down or reverse the process of aging. The vibe is all about maintaining “youthfulness” at any cost, for as long as possible. If you follow the AARP newsletter or any of a plethora of other “healthy aging” dispensaries, you get the drift. As the boomer generation now solidly enters the final leg of the journey (by and large fighting it all the way), advertisements and social media endlessly display sleek, fit elders hawking vitamins, preservatives, botox, gym membership — anything to put the brakes on that inevitable falling curve. Fundamentally, those approaches are hollow, of course. They are betting on the wrong horse.

The Subtle “Other”
Fit or unfit, we will all reach the end of our parabolic curve, and that youthful persona we have struggled so hard to preserve will in the end cede the driver’s seat to something far more interior and subtle that has — or hasn’t — been actualized in our lives. From a spiritual point of view, the far greater loss from a falsification of our final years on this planet is that it deflects us from the real infinitely more fulfilling invitation awaiting us here to cultivate a relationship with this subtle “other,” in which we can discover a much more luminous possibility for the final consummation of our planetary journey.

This subtle “other” is real. You can taste it. It will carry you the distance. Cultivating it is an open secret known and quietly shared by all the world’s sacred Wisdom traditions. This e-course will once again affirm that possibility and show you how to get there, working in the daily material of your own life. I warmly invite you to join me on this pilgrimage of hope.

Components of This Unique E-Course
This e-course will help you draw directly upon the power of your consciously achieved selfhood to bridge the gap between physical diminution and spiritual evolution. That teaching is what sets this e-course apart from other “aging gracefully” courses and brings you into alignment with the spiritual and contemplative traditions.

The course will be structured around “Ten Guidelines for Conscious Aging.” The first two of thirteen emails will lay out the main principles behind these guidelines. The following sessions will consist of three core components: (1) A brief teaching or commentary on the guideline du jour, (2) a set of questions for reflection to help you further unpack the teaching, and (3) a daily task or spiritual practice to help you put this learning to work in your daily life. Some sessions will feature lectio divina (the slow, prayerful reading of a short scriptural text) or audio divina (the same deep and prayerful receptivity, now applied to listening to music). In the final email, a replay of the original Zoom Q&A with Cynthia Bourgeault will be available that answers many questions and reflects further on the value of conscious aging.

I am so looking forward to this e-course and hope you will join me and the S&P team. To register, click on the subscribe button below.

A Couple of FAQ’s:

Is this course meant for younger people as well, or is only for an older audience?
While the e-course will obviously be most immediately relevant to those in the second half of life, we would hope that younger seekers will find something of interest here as well, something that you can begin to work with here and now get a head start on the road up ahead. One of the blind spots of a “first half of life” perspective is that we tend to think that the curve is going to keep rising forever, causing the main mistake that most of us bring into aging: trying to use our remaining biological force to preserve old and outmoded images of ourselves that no longer match the circumstances of our life. The earlier we can sense the entre parabolic sweep of our life, the more consciously we will make our choices and shape our “being,” not merely our careers. And the sooner we begin to imprint the core attitudes — consent, curiosity, presence — into our basic spiritual attitudes, the more gracefully the whole journey unfolds.

Can I “age consciously” when I am coping with Alzheimer’s or dementia? Isn’t this some sort of cruel joke?

Having walked this heart-rending journey with so many friends and beloveds, I would say resoundingly that YES, conscious aging is still indeed possible in spite of or even in the midst of mental deterioration. Wisdom teaching reminds us in many languages that consciousness is larger and more durable that simply the physical brain, and that there are other aspects of yourself that are always in touch with those more subtle wellsprings of your being.

You may want to find a friend or caregiver to do this course together with you, or on your behalf. You may not be able to “discuss” the results. But you will feel the effect, and the hope, for these are the things transmitted in the very inner being we will be working together on.