When I read the book From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Profound New Vision of Growing Older by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, he introduced me to the concept of “sage-ing,” which changed my life. But I was also intrigued that Rabbi Zalman interchangeably used the term “spiritual eldering.” Rabbi Zalman says that “spiritual eldering” is an “ongoing process” that “helps us consciously transform the downward arc of aging into the upward arc of expanded consciousness that crown’s the elder’s life with meaning and purpose.” (5)
Even though I was brought up to be an agnostic if not an atheist, I have always wanted to have more spirituality in my life. And I know that many of you feel the same way I do, because often in my classes, when the readings use the word “spiritual,” I ask my students what this word means to them. We always have a good discussion, and I’m always sorry that we don’t have more time to explore this topic. Happily, in this stage of my life, I’m paying a lot more attention to the spiritual aspect of my life (which has also increased as a result of sage-ing), and I’m looking forward to including this topic in my blog.
In my last blog entry, I quoted Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi who said, “The inner work of spiritual eldering helps…us to return to the clarity of our true nature. We become individuated, living…as the precious, unique, nonrepeatable experiments of the universe that we are.” (107) In Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally Really Grow Up, James Hollis tells us that Carl Jung, who gave us the term “second half” also gave us the” idea of individuation,” which is “the lifelong project of becoming more nearly the whole person we were meant to be—what the gods intended, not the parents, or the tribe, or, especially, the easily intimidated or inflated ego.” And Hollis continues, “While revering the mystery of others, our individuation summons each of us to stand in the presence of our own mystery, and become more fully responsible for who we are in this journey we call life.” (10)
There are so many exciting concepts in these quotes. “Return to the clarity of our true nature,” “becoming more nearly the whole person we were meant to be,” and “become more fully responsible for who we are in this journey we call life.” This definitely sounds like spiritual work, and Rabbi Zalman gives us a tool to help us with this spiritual work—“life review.” In his book, he uses the metaphor of “harvesting.” He refers to a Hebrew chant, which he says “points to the dilemma of many elders”: “We have plowed, we have sown seed; but we haven’t yet harvested.” (54) He suggests that in the past, perhaps we didn’t have the time, but now evolution has given many of us many more years in which to do this.
Rabbi Zalman gives us a structure in which to do our life review, which he calls “The Cycles of Your Life.” (see P. 271–273 in From Age-ing to Sage-ing) Rabbi Zalman tells us that we can remember better, if we divide the time into 7‑year cycles, and in class after class, my students have agreed. Then we can think of each 7‑year cycle as a month in the year. 0–7 is January. 8–14 is February. If you live a long time, you will run out of numbers, so while December is 78–84, in Sage-ing International, we call 85+ the Jubilee month.
After you have gone down the left side of your paper and divided your time into 7‑year cycles, then across the top, divide the paper into three sections: a) significant moments and events, (b) people who guided and influenced you, and © contributions to the continuüm of my life.
As my blog goes on, I will write a lot about how doing this “life review” will contribute to your spiritual eldering or sage-ing, but I wanted to give you the mechanics at the beginning, so that whenever you’re ready, you will know how to begin your life review. I hope you choose to begin the process soon. If you’re actively working on writing down what Rabbi Zalman calls “the raw data of your experience” (272), what I say in my blog about doing life eview will be much more meaningful.
