Spring Planting Moon
The third phase and its staggering newness, a third phase of life available now to many by virtue of health care, sanitation and public health campaigns. A phase of life previously available only to the lucky and the strong, as Bette Midler’s the Rose sang of love. Like love in the Rose though, the third phase is not only for the lucky and the strong, at least not anymore.
Now many, perhaps most, will live 20 years or 30 years beyond what used to be considered their expiration date of 65. Since this was far from the norm for generations prior to ours, this time remains undiscovered country, at least insofar as it is a country of our life and not a painful preliminary to that Shakespearean, final undiscovered country.
Carl Jung, a long time spiritual adviser and guide, divided life into two phases:
““We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life’s morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true, will at evening have become a lie.’
What is the difference between these two halves?
Jung believed that middle and old age, like youth, have specific developmental tasks. While the developmental tasks for youth involve turning outward and engaging life, the goal for the mature you is to consolidate your conscious and unconscious parts of yourself. In other words, the primary task in the first half of life is to develop and adapt to your outer world and thus fit into society. You study, find employment, form relationships and move through your life with a social cohort of like minded people. For the second half of your life the task is to adapt to your inner world; that is, to discover who you really are and then create an environment to suit your unique self.” from secondhalfsuccess.com
In my scheme I separate out a learning phase and a career/family phase, moving us into what Jung defines only in the third phase. Yet his understanding of the second half and mine of the third phase mesh pretty well.
Distillation. Condensation. Authenticity. Work only I can do.
