The New Elder (Age 58)
Wisdom is one of the few things in human life that does not diminish with age.
At age fifty-eight, there's another shift as we enter the phase of the elder. Once again, taskmaster Saturn is our guide when we come to our Second Saturn Return. And you thought you were finished with the Saturn Return. Sorry, it returns every twenty-nine years.
Before you mutter Dorothy Parker's famous “What fresh hell is this?” let me explain. Yes, it's the same old “tough love” Saturn we met at twenty-nine, so it involves discipline, responsibility, commitment, reality, and new challenges. With our first Saturn cycle as the reference point, we've outgrown ourselves again; we need a new purpose, a great work—one that will occupy the rest of our lives. But at this age, our goals are different, and so are we.
During our first Saturn cycle at age twenty-nine, we're invited to move from youth to adulthood; at age fifty-eight, during our second Saturn cycle, we move from adulthood to becoming an elder. During the first cycle, it's normal to be self-centered; we're establishing an identity and carving out a place for ourselves in the world. At that age, the ego runs the show, and we tend to be driven, competitive, single-minded; we're focused on what we want to get.
In the second cycle, the ego is no longer in charge; it's more about what we want to give. What kind of legacy do we want to leave? What do we have to offer the community? What kind of elder do we want to become? In our late fifties, the need to “make our mark” or “take the world by storm” recedes and is replaced by a growing desire for wisdom, self-knowledge, and transcendence. This doesn't mean we can't continue to be active, ambitious, and successful, but ideally, at this point in our lives, we're motivated more from a desire for meaning rather than simply for achievement and recognition.
There is a power rising in you and an invitation to give your gift to the world.
—Steven Forrest
Comedian Billy Crystal is a wonderful example of the Second Saturn Return. His career took off at his first Saturn Return when he appeared as Jodie Dallas on Soap, followed by Saturday Night Live and a string of major films.
During his Second Saturn Return, he wrote and starred in a successful one-man show on Broadway. He named it 700 Sundays, the amount of time he had shared with his father, who had died when Billy was fifteen. This touching tribute is filled with Billy's trademark humor, but it's also deeply moving and bares the hallmarks of a high Saturn, the compassionate elder.
Author Frank McCourt began a brand-new career at his Second Saturn Return. He was fifty-nine and retired from teaching when he met Ellen Frey, the woman who would become his third wife. She encouraged him to finally put down on paper the stories he'd been telling to his cronies in bars and taverns; the result was his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, Angela's Ashes, which he published at age sixty-four.
If you've read this memoir or seen the movie about his bleak childhood in Ireland, marred by poverty, neglect, and near starvation, you know that it's a book he could not have written in his youth. The work that comes to us later in life is not that of a young person. Billy Crystal's one-man show or Frank McCourt's book required more than sheer writing or acting talent; loss, pain, tears, humility, and a lot of hard-earned life experience were necessary ingredients.
For some people, it's during this third act that they finally receive the recognition they deserve. The artist Cezanne had his first one-man show when he was in his late fifties. At fifty-eight, Al Gore was the subject of the Academy Award–winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. At fifty-nine, Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, a Primetime Emmy Award for Current TV, and was named runner up for Time's Person of the Year.
Hillary Clinton campaigned (the first time) to be president of the United States during her Second Saturn Return. She was appointed secretary of state shortly after that. Kathryn Bigelow won an Oscar for her film, The Hurt Locker—the first woman to win the Academy Award for directing. In 1982, at his Second Saturn Return, Jimmy Carter started the Carter Center, a nonprofit organization devoted to advancing human rights and alleviating human suffering.
We're not all famous people with high-profile careers, but we all need a way to be in the world as an elder person. Saturn is a no-nonsense planet and wants to manifest something real and finite—as well as something different for everyone. At our first Saturn cycle, we often find a mentor; at the second, we have an opportunity to become one. There's a desire to pass on what we know, to leave some tangible evidence of our existence, so this may well be the time when we begin to teach or consult in our chosen field.
This transition doesn't have to be professional in nature; for many people, it means being able to spend time with grandchildren, travel the world, become involved in philanthropy or volunteer work, or finally have the time to write the book that's been calling them. Others reinvent themselves and discover new energy in the process. What's important is that the projects we pursue and the life we lead reflect who we've become and not who we once were.
Both Leslie Stahl (television journalist and correspondent for 60 Minutes) and author Anne Lamott (Travelling Mercies, Bird by Bird) wrote books about becoming grandmothers. Anne Lamott wrote Some Assembly Required with her son Sam Lamott. It was published when she was fifty-eight (at her Saturn Return).
Leslie Stahl was seventy when her first grandchild was born. Her book, Becoming Grandma: The Joys and Science of the New Grandparenting, came out in 2016. “This is what I didn't expect. I was at a time in my life where I assumed I had already had my best day, my tallest high. But now I was overwhelmed with euphoria,” she wrote.
Andy Rooney worked for CBS for twenty-nine years (a full Saturn cycle), but it was in 1978 (when he was fifty-eight) that he began dispensing wisdom on the segment “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” that appeared each week at the end of 60 Minutes. He continued to do it until October 2011, a month before his death at age ninety-two. Andy Rooney accomplished many things in his life (journalist, author of My War, writer and producer of award-winning television documentaries), yet he is most remembered for this brief weekly segment.
What does it mean to be an elder in this culture? What are my new responsibilities? What has to be let go of to make room for the transformations of energy that are ready to pour through the body-soul?
—Marion Woodman, Bone
There's more to becoming an elder than simply aging. Turning fifty-eight or sixty doesn't place the mantle automatically on your shoulders. You may be a full-fledged member of AARP and have an abundance of success, wealth, or worldly power but still not have access to the many dimensions of elderhood.
As astrologer Steven Forrest says,
Elder is an archetype; there's another archetype available; it's called an old fool. . . . The difference between an elder and an old fool is that we want to spend time with an elder; we can't wait to get away from the old fool. An old fool gives unsolicited advice; an elder gives solicited advice.8
Like “elder,” the word “crone” is unpopular; it sounds positively archaic and definitely not relevant or sexy. Yet in ancient times, crones (like elders) were the wisdom keepers, healers, and shamans. Women are generally associated with being crones, but “crone” refers to the feminine quality in both genders, so men qualify as well.
In earlier times, calling someone a crone was a great compliment. According to Jungian analyst and author Marion Woodman, the word crone means “crown,” and it represents the pinnacle of a life lived as consciously as possible. On her CD, The Crown of Age: The Rewards of Conscious Aging, Woodman explains that we are born or crowned twice; once at birth and again when we become an elder.
Croning ceremonies are returning. Women in their fifties, sixties, and seventies are welcoming their maturity and celebrating it as a way to reclaim the once-honored standing of the crone. Traditionally, the ceremony takes place at age fifty-six (right before the Second Saturn Return), but it can be done as early as age fifty. Dancing, singing, poetry, guided meditations, and a celebratory meal are often included. So is taking a new name. But you can create your own ritual; what's important is to honor the past and acknowledge this new phase of life.
Another ritual for this cycle is to gather together a group of friends and read Jean Shinoda Bolen's book, Goddesses in Older Women: Archetypes in Women Over Fifty. Her book is filled with empowering advice and deep wisdom on how to be a juicy crone.
Let's be clear: at fifty-eight we enter the realm of the crone and the elder. The Second Saturn Return signals a major transition, but we are just at the beginning of this great phase; we are rookie elders, newbies, freshmen. Becoming a true elder or a genuine sage is a process—not an event—and that requires time as well as consciousness, compassion, and patience. As Marion Woodman says on her CD, “The goal is not perfection. The goal is wholeness.” Fortunately, we have great role models, wise teachers and juicy crones who have come before us to show us the way.
In the introduction to his warm, wise, and inspiring book, From Age-ing to Sage-ing, the late Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi wrote about approaching sixty. On the surface, his life was extremely active and his work fulfilling; he was a rabbi, a scholar, a professor of religion at Temple University in Philadelphia, and a pioneer in a movement to renew Jewish spirituality in the contemporary world.
Yet when he was alone, he felt anxious and out of sorts. “A feeling of futility had invaded my soul, plunging me into a state of depression that no amount of busyness or diversion could dispel.”9 As a rabbi and spiritual leader, he was the one who provided the answers for others; yet when “I confronted my own aging process, I didn't know how to answer the new questions that life so insistently was bringing to my attention.”10
Rabbi Zalman decided to go on a forty-day retreat at the Lama Foundation near Taos, New Mexico. Once he settled in, and the noise in his head receded, he was surprised to realize that he was being initiated as an elder, a sage. He let his intuition guide him as he instinctively began to look back on his life—as he began to do what he refers to as “harvesting” his life.
To initiate this process, he asked himself, “If I had to die now, what would I most regret not having done? What remains incomplete in my life?”11 During his retreat, he spent time in meditation or prayer, wrote letters to his children, and ultimately gathered a new vision for what he termed elderhood. He returned with a fresh sense of enthusiasm and a commitment to making his vision real.
Back home, he read extensively on gerontology and life extension; consulted with philosophers and researchers, such as Jean Houston and Gay Luce; and, most of all, studied his own eldering process. From his exploration, he founded the Spiritual Eldering Institute in 1987 and began conducting workshops around the country, dealing with the issues of eldering and aging. In 1995 (with coauthor Ronald S. Miller), he published Age-ing to Sage-ing, still one of the best books on the aging process.
What Rabbi Zalman discovered was a renewed purpose, one that was built on his years of being a spiritual leader but was now being shaped by his evolving needs and the needs of his community. Finding something to devote our lives to is part of the great journey of this cycle. Following Rabbi Zalman's example and giving ourselves some time to examine our life is a good place to begin.
To know where we're going, we need to examine where we've been; a life review can give us that perspective. This concept was developed in the early 1960s by psychiatrist, gerontologist, and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Robert N. Butler. Butler is considered the founder of modern gerontology, and his pioneering work has since gained widespread acceptance and respect among psychologists, social workers, and gerontologists.
At age fifty-eight, the natural desire to sum up one's life makes the life review both an excellent ritual and a deeply healing process. It involves writing down events in our life, thus far, as a way to bring to consciousness the different stages of our lives and reintegrate any unresolved conflicts. The result can provide greater self-acceptance and self-compassion, both of which help us move forward.
A life review can be done alone, but it's more effective when done with another person or in a group. There's something empowering about sharing our story, especially out loud. Gene D. Cohen, MD, in his book The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life, wrote: “Sometimes it is only when we tell our whole story or get it down on paper that we are able to ‘connect the dots’—literally connect the dendrites—to gain a meaningful view of ourselves and our lives.”
In the theater, the Third Act is when everything that happens in Acts I and II must pay off if the play is to be memorable. “Maybe life is like that,” I thought. Maybe, in order to know how to have a good Third Act, I needed to look back at Acts I and II—to do what is called a life review.12
In Prime Time, Jane Fonda writes about her experience of doing a life review. At first she merely recorded events in chronological order, but that turned out to be dry and unsatisfying. By studying old photographs, speaking with relatives, and getting inside those experiences emotionally, she began to understand what had happened on a deeper level. She also discovered greater compassion both for herself and her mother, who had committed suicide when Fonda was twelve.
Fonda notes: “What the experience of doing a life review has taught me is that while we cannot undo what has been, we can change the way we understand and feel about it, and this changes everything.”13
We can't all go on a forty-day retreat like Rabbi Zalman, but some kind of “time-out” is the perfect way to honor the Second Saturn Return. Retreat centers like Esalen (in California) or Omega (in upstate New York), as well as many destination spas frequently conduct weekend and week-long seminars on the subjects of aging and the second half of life.
Ron Pevney, author of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging and founder of the Center for Conscious Eldering in Durango, Colorado, wrote that “Life review is the foundation for much of the inner work of conscious eldering.” His center offers a selection of programs for elders, conducted in retreats and spas around the country. Michael Meade (www.mosaicvoices.org) is a renowned storyteller, author, and mythologist who brings a fresh perspective to ancient myths and cross-cultural rituals. He offers lectures, conferences, and residential retreats for young and old alike.
You can also initiate this cycle with a meditation retreat, shamanic journey, or creative workshop. But you don't necessarily need a formal workshop or retreat center. Simply getting away from your usual routine and locale with the intention of exploring and “harvesting” this new phase of your life is beneficial. Consider creating a weekly or monthly support group to do life reviews or to share ideas, books, and articles on this new elder phase. An ongoing group can be a valuable source of support as you learn how to navigate this passage.
Rabbi Zalman believed that, in the future, the work in spiritual eldering would be conducted in residential retreat centers that combined the best of spiritual communities such as Omega and Esalen Institutes. The retreats would include training in life reviews, preretirement planning for people in midlife, programs for elders, and instruction for young people who want to apprentice themselves to conscious elders.
There would be colleges that include all ages. “By providing the communal support, the knowledge, and the spiritual technologies to school people in their depths, these centers will initiate people into the profound mysteries of conscious aging.”14
In modern culture people try to change their outer appearance to look younger, but the role of the elder is to go deep inside, to stay in touch with the eternal as well as the sage in one's heart.
—Michael Meade
A recurrent theme in many of the books and lectures on aging is the need to develop our inner life as we get older. In his book Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, James Hollis wrote that there are two major tasks in the second half of life. “The first is the recovery of personal authority.”15 According to him, that means “to find what is true for oneself and to live it in the world.”16 The second task is “discovering a personal spirituality.” He goes on to explain, “A mature spirituality will seldom provide us with answers, and necessarily so, but will instead ask ever-larger questions of us. Larger questions will lead to a larger life.”17
In his essay, The Four Stages of Life, Carl Jung points out that we would not live to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. He used the analogy of the sun passing through the sky from early morning to night to describe the aging process. Youth was “morning,” midlife was “noon,” and old age was “night time.” He referred to the elder years (from fifty-six to eighty-three) as the “afternoon of life” and described it as “just as full of meaning as the morning; only, its meaning and purpose are different.”
Jung believed that cultivating a spiritual outlook is what healed patients in the second half of life, and he recommended using contemplative tools such as dream analysis and creativity. Journaling, yoga, prayer, or spending time in nature are also ways to awaken those parts of the self that were not developed while we were building a career and constructing our social persona. Rabbi Zalman's experience endorses this by quoting Jean Houston: “When we don't have to devote a large percentage of our time in fulfilling social obligations and meeting other people's expectations, we can unleash these energies and harness them for self-awareness, spiritual development, and creativity.”18
If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place.
—Lao Tzu
The Canadian police do it. The folks at Google do it. The Bank of England does it. Paul McCartney, Jerry Seinfeld, and Lena Dunham do it too. And thanks to the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, between 70,000 and 150,000 students in 350 schools throughout the US and South America also do it. The foundation also teaches meditation to US military veterans, African war refugees, and prison inmates.
The practice of meditation is one of the best ways to quiet the mind and go within. Rather than withdrawing from the world, meditation helps us become more present and live more fully. Yogis have been meditating for thousands of years, and now hard science has caught up. Research shows that people who meditate have changes in the area of the brain associated with memory, thinking, and learning.
Meditation also reduces stress, increases levels of empathy, boosts creativity, and helps with depression. It doesn't seem to have any downside, and unlike most things in life, it costs nothing—and you can do it anywhere. There is Transcendental Meditation, Mindfulness Meditation, Hindu Meditation, Buddhist Meditation, Vipassana (also known as Insight Meditation), and even walking meditation. It doesn't have to be long, hard, or uncomfortable. Even meditating for three minutes a day can raise the quality of your life.
Pema Chödrön's book, How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Our Mind, is a great introduction. The American-born Tibetan Buddhist nun brings her gentle yet straightforward style to this ancient practice. Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Jon KabatZinn, Tara Brach, and Thich Nhat Hanh are all highly respected teachers of meditation and have many fine books, CDs, and videos on the subject; there are even apps. Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey's 21-Day Meditation Experience is a popular program available online.
But loving-kindness—maitri—toward ourselves doesn't mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means that we can still be crazy after all these years. . . . We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to change ourselves. Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.19
The potency of youth is defined by energy, strength, and speed; in our late twenties and early thirties, we are like the heroes of old, intent on conquering and changing the world. Our middle years are propelled by a need for leadership, accomplishment, and power. The gifts of age arise deep inside; it's the wisdom that we have acquired from distilling and integrating the various parts of our life and from the perspective that comes from living longer and seeing the big picture.
We may lose influence in the outer world and become less visible (this is especially true of women), but there is another kind of power that arises and new doors that open. By not being as competitive, we are more present and less threatening, which results in greater respect and deference. As Michael Mead writes in his book, Fate and Destiny, “Elders have an inner authority developed by becoming the authors of their own lives and the bearers of a living destiny.”
That's the whole meaning of life, isn't it? Trying to find a place for your stuff.
Comedian George Carlin's famous routine about our “stuff” remains relevant because it's so true. We carry around a lot of “stuff”—material stuff as well as emotional baggage. Most people at this stage begin to give away their stuff. There's less and less desire to acquire and accumulate, and a need to scale down becomes stronger. With kids who are grown and moved away, many people naturally downsize; they move from a big house to a condo or begin thinking about a retirement community.
It's time to consider the next generations: to make our wills or update them, or, if one is wealthy, to set up trusts or endow a university—all excellent Saturn rituals. Even if we don't have a great deal of money or valuable possessions, we naturally begin thinking about our stuff. Who gets our favorite painting or jewelry? Who will take care of the cats when we're gone?
On her CD, The Crown of Age, Marion Woodman speaks of the need to simplify our lives, about the fact that as we get older we don't have the physical energy or the time to deal with a lot of unnecessary possessions; we need that energy for our spiritual life. It's a time to streamline and let go of whatever isn't vital and that includes relationships, situations, and activities that no longer energize us and are holding us back. “You want your resources for your strength, and your responsibility is to your spiritual strength,” Woodman said.
The secret of life is to die before you die.
—Eckhart Tolle
Years ago, while visiting my dear friend Marguerite Churchill in Lisbon, I had the opportunity to meet Conchita Citron, the great female bullfighter. Known as the “golden goddess,” she began her career at fourteen and fought on foot and horseback.
Marg had become friends with Conchita in Hollywood in the 1940s when they were both young. Conchita was at the height of her career as a bullfighter; Marg was an actress who had starred on Broadway in Dinner at Eight before going to Hollywood, where she appeared opposite John Wayne in The Big Trail and two dozen other films.
Though I'd heard stories about Conchita for years, I didn't meet her until Marg moved to Lisbon, where Conchita also resided. Conchita was in her late fifties at the time, a small woman with a strong presence and impressive posture. We were having tea at Marguerite's charming apartment on Rua da Bempostinha, and between sips of Earl Grey, Conchita looked straight at me and asked with authority, “Do you think about god? Do you think about death?”
I was speechless and couldn't think of any response. She probably thought I was naïve at best or, more likely, a complete fool. She would have been right; I was in my mid-twenties and—to put it mildly—still asleep. “I think about both every day of my life,” she announced proudly, breaking an awkward silence. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. I do now! Like Conchita, I think about God and death on a daily basis; not in a depressed way and not out of fear but as a natural part of life.
Something happens as we approach the threshold of sixty: death enters the conversation. It becomes something real, palpable. You realize you're closer to the end of your life than you are to the beginning, and that awareness can deepen you and influence the choices you make. Being fully conscious of death doesn't diminish life; it enhances it and makes it more alive. In fact, death is so much a part of our existence that to deny it its rightful place is to negate life itself.
In his book, Fate and Destiny, Michael Meade wrote about how the ancient people placed death in the center rather than relegating it to the end of life, out of sight, so as not to have to deal with it. “Death used to be called the great teacher of life; for in knowing something about death people came to value life more distinctly. The point of considering the role of death in life isn't to be morbid; rather, facing one's own mortality may help clarify one's role in life.”20
It is different because it has a ring of mortality—so it has a big message of stop wasting time.
At our Second Saturn Return, we realize we simply don't have all the time in the world, and that's not such a bad thing. Personally, I don't want to do everything, have everything, or be everything. When I was younger and owned the restaurants I could multitask like a pro—cooking, ordering, bussing tables, doing the books, etc. Now I hate the idea. I just want to focus on what's important—period. Life is short; so is my Bucket List.
What happens if I get ill? Where will I live in ten or twenty years? How do I want to spend the precious time I have left? In this economy, many people are postponing retirement; in some cases, it isn't an option. Whether you retire or keep working, these questions need to be discussed. They become very real at our Second Saturn Return, and part of becoming an elder is a willingness to deal with them.
An advance directive is a general term that describes a document, often including a living will, in which a person makes provision for medical treatment in the event that they are not able to communicate their decisions to a doctor. Just talking about the end of life, let alone filling out a medical directive, can be intimidating. My friend Irene solved that by organizing a gathering at her home on this subject. About a dozen people showed up.
Irene invited two professionals to answer questions and help people with the forms; her good friend Laurie who had been a nurse for many years, and another friend, Judith Redwing Keyssar, a registered nurse, palliative care director, and author (The Last Act of Kindness: Lessons for the Living from the Bedside of the Dying). Everybody had lots of questions about the legal aspects but also the physical and emotion side of it. Some people chose to fill out the forms there, others decided to do it at home; but they all left with more information and less fear about the whole process. This is a wonderful idea and a perfect ritual for the Second Saturn Return.
What in the world is a death café? Well, it's not as scary or strange as you might think. People simply gather in cafés or living rooms, drink tea, eat cake, and discuss the end of life. There is no charge and no staff; it is run on a purely volunteer basis. The aim is talk about death (along with grief, loss, wills, and burial rites) in a safe and respectful environment. This concept is based on the work of Swiss sociologist, Bernard Crettaz.
In the UK in November 2010, John Underwood read about Crettaz's work in a newspaper article and opened the first Death Café. This franchise spread quickly, and there are currently over 1,000 cafés all over the world. What's interesting is that this whole concept caught on while Saturn (the planet of seriousness) was in Scorpio (the sign associated with death and taboo subjects).
Gen Xers and Millennials are creating their own ways to deal with grief, loss, and bereavement. The Internet is full of blogs, web-sites, Instagram feeds, and YouTube series by people in their twenties and thirties, bringing the conversation out in the open, which is where it belongs. These Gen Xers and Millennials are helping us all have a better relationship with death.
What we all need, whatever our age, are personal role models of living in the present—and a change that never ends.
—Gloria Steinem
My friend Marguerite, whom I mentioned above, was one of my greatest role models. When we met in Rome in the early sixties, I was just nineteen. Marg was in her fifties, drop-dead gorgeous, feisty, funny, and outspoken. She was also an avid reader (she devoured a book a night), a world traveler, a gourmet cook, and she could repair, restore, and sew just about anything.
When I was growing up, my own mother was ill, and I had to become the parent. Marg was not only a role model but the mother I never had; her home became a refuge.
When she was sixty, she relocated from Rome to Lisbon. A move to another country with a new language is daunting at any age, but Marg pulled it off and made a life there. She had always loved music but never formally studied. In Lisbon, she found a teacher and began seriously studying the viola; the viola became her late-in-life passion.
We're living in an aging society. As a result, there is more research, information, and inspiration about aging and the second half of life than ever before. There are also more fabulous role models—beautiful and vibrant people who are leading rich, full lives in their fifties, sixties, seventies, and beyond. These men and women are creating a new paradigm for a fierce elder, a juicy crone: Gloria Steinem, Helen Mirren, Diana Nyad, Edie Windsor, Mary Oliver, Ram Dass, Billy Crystal, Louise Hay, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Michael Meade, Pema Chödrön, David Whyte.
No doubt you have many examples from your own family and friends or favorite historical figures—Georgia O'Keefe, Carl Jung, the poet May Sarton, to name a few. Celebrate, honor, and emulate them. Consider creating a vision board with their photographs and quotations. Begin bringing their energy and inspiration into your life. One of the greatest things we can aspire to as we age is to become a role model for the younger generations.
As our involvement in the world begins to wind down (again, the key word here is begins) around age fifty-eight, the roles we've had while creating a personal and professional identity, raising a family, etc., naturally shift. The new purpose and fresh sources of energy that will support us in the years ahead won't come from the outer world. That is why the inner work is so essential. It is through the soul work that we develop the depth, wisdom, and compassion that are the foundation for this new phase.
Throughout our lives, transitions require that we ask for help and allow ourselves to yield to forces stronger than our wills or our egos' desires. As transitions take place during our later years, a fundamental and primal shift from ambition to meaning occurs.
No doubt, many of you have big jobs, a presence in the world (and on Twitter and Facebook), and no plans to retire. In fact, for many people, it all comes together in this third act. Nevertheless, some fine tuning is necessary. Arianna Huffington is a good example. A super A-type personality who cofounded the Huffington Post in 2005, she typically worked eighteen-hour days. In 2007, she fell asleep at her desk and woke up on the floor, lying in a pool of blood, having cut her eye and broken her cheekbone on the corner of her desk when she collapsed. She was fifty-seven years old at the time.
After extensive medical tests, her doctors found nothing wrong besides extreme exhaustion and lack of sleep. “This was the classic wake-up call,” she writes in her book, Thrive. “Looking back on my life, I had other times when I should have woken up but didn't. This time I really did and made many changes in the way I live my life, including adopting daily practices to keep me on track—and out of doctors' waiting rooms.”21
Her book is the result of what she learned and how she came to redefine success to include well-being, wisdom, compassion, and giving. These days, the Huffington Post offices have naps rooms, a gym, plus meditation and yoga classes.
What Doesn't Work: We've all seen people who are trapped in an earlier period of their life; a time when they had money, power, or great beauty. But the world has moved on, and they've remained in a time warp. If we don't make the transition and find something that brings us alive and inspires us, then we remain stuck in an old persona and are vulnerable to becoming “the old fool” rather than the “wise elder.”
“Eldering for me is a process word,” writes Rabbi Zalman, “a verb that connotes change and movement. It doesn't connote the unchanging frozen state of a noun.” Engage. Engage. Engage.
What Works: Saturn is Father Time, and we can't hold him back. Part of the Saturn process is making peace with ourselves, our past, and the whole process of aging. It takes years, but this cycle is our initiation. There's something very beautiful and inspiring about someone who is at ease with themselves and their age. “Bien dans sa peau,” is a well-known French phrase meaning “comfortable in your skin.”
The opposite of old is not young. The opposite of old is new. As long as we continue to experience the new, we will gloriously inhabit all of the ages that we are.
Rituals: Public ceremonies and rituals help us close the door to the past and reinforce our commitment and our readiness to embrace a new phase. In his book, Rabbi Zalman explains how people in Japan mark their sixtieth birthday with a celebration that includes wearing special red garments that proclaim their new elder status and freedom from social obligations. “Elder initiation rites formally sever our ties to midlife goals and aspirations, replacing them with the freedom and wider concerns of elderhood.”
Jean Haner, author of The Wisdom of Your Face and other books, has this to say: “In Chinese culture, turning 60 is the single most important birthday of your life, considered to be the completion of one full life cycle, when you are now freed of old responsibilities and can move forward in a new way!”
Ritual: Kate converted to Judaism in her mid-forties, having attended services with her Jewish husband for more than fifteen years. It was a meaningful life choice she came to on her own. As her thirteenth year as a Jew approached, around the time of her fifty-ninth birthday, she decided she wanted to read from the Torah—like most thirteen-year-olds at bar and bat mitzvahs. Rather than simply memorizing the portion she had been assigned, she wanted to stand before that scroll having gained the ability to read it, which she did during the ceremony in front of her family, friends, and community. Her actions brought her to the status of “adult” as her Jewish self, while simultaneously becoming a true elder. Meanwhile, unlike actual thirteen-year-olds, she planned her own party afterward.
Saturn Wisdom: Carolyn G. Heilburn notes, “What they never tell you about age, some pundit once observed, is that it's such a delightful change from being young. The secret is to view the passing of youth as gain, not loss.”
The period between when I sold my restaurant in New York City (at fifty-two) until my Second Saturn Return (at fifty-eight) can best be described as fumbling, floundering, and trying to figure it out. I was doing a little of everything.
My passion for astrology continued to grow as I took classes and attended lectures and conferences. I even began doing some readings, but not enough to support myself; at that point, I wasn't thinking of astrology as a career. I patched together a living doing a series of part-time jobs; at various times I worked as a salesperson in a Native American jewelry store, as an assistant in a public relations firm, teaching computers at Methadone clinics, even dog walking. These jobs supported me while I focused on writing a book with my good friend Lyn Skreczko. It was entitled The Manhattan Health Pages: A Resource Guide to Educate, Pamper, and Inspire You; it was published in late 1999.
The Manhattan Health Pages was a guide to everything healthy and holistic in New York City. The book was published by a small but classy local publisher, and although the book turned out beautifully, it didn't sell well. I had envisioned it as akin to a Zagat Guide to health in New York City, but it needed a couple more years to gain momentum.
In retrospect, the book was an extension of my old life in the world of health foods—a world that was over, only I didn't realize it. This project turned out to be a long detour (the story of my life), but it eventually brought me back to astrology.
My plan was to use my background in the natural food industry, combined with the book, to create a new career writing and lecturing on health and wellness. Makes sense, right? It seemed to work in the beginning. Lyn and I did a lot of TV interviews and lectured at corporations like Viacom and Comedy Central. Then the corporate lectures on urban health led to lectures on astrology. An editor I approached about doing some freelance writing on spas offered me a chance to write a Sun sign column; that column led to others.
Around 1999, Steven Forrest began his apprenticeship program in California. I found out about it in 2000 and signed up, flying to Southern California twice a year. Not only is Steven a master astrologer, but he's also a brilliant communicator and a wise and compassionate person. The seminars at Blue Sky Ranch, outside San Diego, were exciting, inspiring, and exactly what I needed.
Evolutionary Astrology isn't just another astrological technique; it's based on the values of freedom, responsibility, and respect for people's innate ability to grow and change. I resonated with Steven's approach, and that became the basis for my own astrological work.
Meanwhile, I was under enormous financial pressure. I was really winging it the last couple of years the restaurant was open, at times using credit cards to cover bills. That led me to refinance my house in East Hampton, which gave me a bigger mortgage. Plus, I was still paying off the restaurant in Great Barrington! I continued juggling a couple of part-time jobs during this period, and although it wasn't easy, things slowly began to fall into place.
Someone I worked for was instrumental in helping me land some Sun sign columns. Even the dog walking job led to a gig writing an astrology column for TV Guide! There's a saying, “Ride the horse in the direction its going.” I finally decided to do just that. My Second Saturn Return had its challenges, but it was also a rich time of learning, growing, and, most of all, laying the foundation for my third act.
Dunne was once a big Hollywood producer, but he lost his marriage, career, and reputation as a result of alcohol and drugs; he became a pariah and a laughing stock. He was so broke, he sold everything he had, including his dog (which says it all), and drove to Oregon, where he lived in a tiny cabin. There he wrote a book entitled Winners; it didn't do very well, but it was a start. Unfortunately, it would get worse before it got better.
His daughter, Dominque Dunne, was murdered by her former boyfriend. Shortly before the trial began, Dominick ran into editor Tina Brown, who was about to take over Vanity Fair; she suggested he take notes during the trial, so he did. The result was an article he wrote for Vanity Fair entitled, “Justice: A Father's Account of the Trial of his Daughter's Killer.” That article led to a contract with the magazine, a brilliant new career, and a passion for justice. He was fifty-eight years old.
Shirley Soffer's interest in astrology didn't begin until she was in her early fifties. At the time, she was working in publishing; during her lunch hour, she found herself drawn to a nearby bookstore that carried astrology books. She began reading them and never stopped. She started studying astrology seriously a few years later.
By the time of her Second Saturn Return, Shirley had become certified by the NCGR (National Council for Geocosmic Research)—a national astrology organization—and was building her practice; eventually, she started lecturing and publishing articles. She also created her popular Wednesday night class that, twenty-five years later, is still going strong. In 1998, when she was sixty-four, she wrote her book, The Astrology Sourcebook.
“I had been in a marriage, raised a family, and worked in different fields, but I didn't have any one area that was mine. Astrology was the missing piece of the puzzle. Once I had that, it all came together; my beliefs, my interest in mythology, dreams, art, literature, and religion. Most important, I had life experience, the emotional depth and the maturity.” At eighty-two, Shirley is still doing what she loves. “Every day is a blessing. I'm grateful to be alive,” she says.
In 2009, the singer Sting released an album entitled If on a Winter's Night. Deeper, darker, more spiritual and contemplative than his previous music, this album seems like a meditation on winter, the Christmas season, and perhaps aging as well. Saturn is sometimes referred to as the lord of winter, and at our Second Saturn Return, we enter the winter of our life. Sting was fifty-eight at the time and going through his own Second Saturn Return.
8Steven Forrest, from a class lecture, used with permission.
9Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older (New York: Warner Books, 1995), p. 1.
10Ibid, p. 2.
11Ibid., pp. 2–3.
12Jane Fonda, Prime Time: Love, Health, Sex, Fitness, Friendship, Spirit (New York: Random House, 2011), p. 20.
13Ibid., p.36.
14Schachter-Shalomi, From Age-ing to Sage-ing, p. 249.
15James Hollis, Finding the Meaning in the Second Half of Life (New York: Gotham Books, 2005), p. 183.
16Ibid., p. 184.
17Ibid., pp. 185–186.
18Schachter-Shalomi, From Age-ing to Sage-ing, p. 34.
19Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1991), p. 2.
20Michael Meade, Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of the Soul (Boston: GreenFire Press, 2010), p. 218.
21Arianna Huffington, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom and Wonder (New York: Harmony Books, 2014), p. 2.