Spring Hare Moon
Aware now that the current moment of my life, the now in intensive journal language, began with Kate’s retirement. It’s a hinge time, a door has opened toward the future, one closed toward the past.
Two good metaphors for this time came to me in my journal work yesterday. The first may not be obvious but bear with me. Riding through the desert.
The desert is a stark place, often flat, but occasionally interrupted by bare loaves of rock, pinnacles, towers. It also has a nighttime life style with critters coming out when the air cools down. This is a place in Western culture where spirituality blossoms. A desert spirituality.
Aging, especially as it carries us into the third phase, can strip away work, goals, shave off the barnacles of culture that slowed us down as we passed through life’s most pressured phase. That means the third phase can begin as a ride through the desert, paying special attention to the soul when the forest is gone, the meadows are gone, the fields are gone.
This ride readies us for the twilight zone, that zone where the light from above diminishes, then winks out. I’m not talking about death here, or at least not only about death; I’m talking about our ability, strengthened by our desert spirituality, to walk into the depths of our lives, no Park Ranger by our side.
When we go down through the natural entrance to our inner depths, we can return the same way, finding the twilight zone both ways. These kinds of journeys may well be the signal moments of the third phase.