It started many
years ago, after my stroke. I started writing, what later turned out to be my
first book Embracing Life. I thought
I was dying, so I didn’t think much of my intuition, at that time. I had been
exposed to a lot of transpersonal thinking in graduate school. There was a lot
of interest in states of consciousness, particularly enlightenment. Through
investigating and teaching community I had grown an interest in development and
came to see the relationship between consciousness and growth. And, in the
final stages of writing, I wondered if old people were more likely to reach,
what I called the farthest reaches of human development.
I was surprised
later, when Xan and The Elder’s Salon came into my life, to have this thought
reoccur and be confirmed. I discovered, mostly through observation, that life-experience,
under the right circumstances, occasionally led to really refined
sensibilities. Mostly the old people I observed had no idea that they possessed
any unusual awareness.
I’ve been paying
rapt attention to this phenomenon ever since. The years have accumulated and so
have my impressions. Now, I tend to think something important is happening with
some older people, something so significant that I can no longer justify
waiting to describe it. There is a state of consciousness that some old folks
manifest that goes beyond the expectations of experts in the field of human
development. I call it reverence. I’ll get into why later, but for now, I just
want to say that what I have noticed throws a lot of our culture’s images of
human potential, aging, and consciousness, way off.
The gold standard
for human development has been the observations of Erik Erikson. He enumerated,
and described, 8 typical stages of human psychosocial development. There is a
lot more to be said about Erik, his life, and the orientation that brought him
to his observations. If the reader has such interest you will not satisfy it
here. My intention is to focus attention upon Erikson’s final stage (from age
65 until death), he called it integrity vs. despair. It is my sense, that while
Erikson’s view is germane and generally pertinent (regarding integrity), his
schema is too brief, and leaves out an important facet of development that likely
happens only late in life.
Erikson emphasizes
integrity at this latest stage. His focus upon the satisfaction that arises
with a life lived in alignment with self-chosen values seems very apt.
Conversely the discovery that one’s life doesn’t add up can lead to despair and
depression. So, I don’t have a problem with these assertions. They seem
correct, but do not go far enough. What I see, and what I anticipate with the
combination of the longevity revolution and the demographic surge of the baby
boomers, is that a new longer life means that late life is expanded and
encompasses more.
What I see is that
some old people shift their self-image and their sense of the world they live
in. Erikson had noticed how people became more inner directed with age, but he
didn’t live long enough to know what this shift accomplishes. My observation,
plus the research that is being done with people in their 90’s and over a
hundred (the fastest growing demographic in the human population), reveal that
this shift grows more and more significant with age. As a result, some old
people have a very different take on their existence.
In some regard, that
is why I think it important to make clear that a new, and very different,
perception exists. I’m not going to describe this consciousness, this new
psycho-social awareness in great detail here, but I am going to affirm the
perception that there is a kind of ripening taking place, and that it is the
result of changes that take place within.
The old are much
more likely to perceive themselves to be a part of the Cosmos and constantly in
relationship with it. They have gained an inner as much as outer perspective on
existence. Reverence for being part of a larger being totally changes their
outlook. They know themselves to be a contiguous part of a much larger process
of Life. This alters their perception of themselves, others, the environment,
and the human experiment. Death is less frightening, happiness more common, and
they are much more likely to grasp the big picture as it is.
For too long
humanity has suffered with images of isolation, competition, violence and
cruelty. This is an accurate picture of
the immaturities of humankind. But, the new picture, that emerges when one
grasps what human maturity is like, suggests that humanity has another face.
Reverence, a new take on human ripeness, reveals a species, that has the
potential to adapt to and revere life.
That, I think, is
worth knowing.
