Earned Wisdom: Becoming an Elder in Times of Chaos

By Julie Simmons

EARNED WISDOM: BECOMING AN ELDER IN TIMES OF CHAOS is a guidebook for women age 50 and up. It takes the reader on a symbolic journey into and through the elder years taking into account these times of intense change and unpredictability in which we live. It focuses on the inner and outer experiences of women using the ancient symbolic language of astrology. This book offers exercises and meditations to support both the personal and universal transitions experienced at this stage in life. Using basic and easily accessible information about the astrological make up of an individual EARNED WISDOM focuses on consciously integrating our awareness of any and all of the experiences of childhood and adulthood to aid in living fully as an elder in these challenging and difficult times. To work with the information in this book it is not necessary to have an astrological chart. It is enough to know the day and year you were born. EARNED WISDOM: Part Two will address this transition for men.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Nov 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781426994951

Julie Simmons

Julie Simmons is the author of PASSION SIGNS and THE DIVINE DESIGN. After graduating from William Smith College in New York with a B.A. in English she studied with renowned astrologer, Eleanor Bach. Julie has been a professional astrologer since 1975. Her passion lies in integrating astrology, mythology and psychology.

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© Copyright 2011 Julie Simmons.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America.

isbn: 978-1-4269-9494-4 (sc)

isbn: 978-1-4269-9495-1 (e)

Trafford rev. 11/15/2011

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www.trafford.com

North America & international

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Appendix I

Appendix II

Notes

Selected Resources

Acknowledgments

This book is dedicated to those who continue to grow old, instead of merely sinking into the aging process.—Helen M. Luke, from Old Age

And to my mother, Eva, who had a terrible time differentiating between a blessing and a curse.

I believe in old age; to work and to grow old: this is what life expects of us. And then one day to be old and still quite far from understanding everything—no, but to begin, but to love, but to suspect, but to be connected to what is remote and inexpressible, all the way up to the stars.

—Rainer Maria Rilke,

The Poet’s Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke

Introduction

Age is opportunity no less,

Than youth itself, though in another dress.

And as the evening twilight fades away,

The sky is filled with stars invisible by day.

—H.W. Longfellow, Morituri Salutamus

In the twenty-first century, more and more of us are living for decades past sixty. We are redefining old age, finding ways to remain active in our communities and seeking a new role for ourselves. This transition—becoming an elder—can be just as daunting as every other major life transition (childhood to adolescence, adolescence to young adult, young adult to mature adult, and now, mature adult to elder). We need to use all the navigational tools we can gather, and seek out those who have successfully made the transition before us.

For thirty-five years I have been a counselor, teacher and writer on astrology. It has informed my way of seeing the world, and its gifts have been many and varied. The sole drawback to being an astrologer has been that many people don’t know enough about this discipline. There is a general lack of understanding about the practical ways in which astrology can help to navigate life, especially during times of change, whether internal (such as a life transition) or external (such as a chaotic political and economic climate). In my own sixtieth year, I have written this book to serve as a guide for those on the journey to becoming an elder, and those looking back and trying to better understand the changes they have lived through.

Astrology offers wisdom and insight into the human condition, developed over thousands of years. It is a language of symbols as ancient as the first person who ever noticed a connection between the waxing and waning Moon and the behavior of humans, plants and animals. In his thought-provoking book on human evolution, Sex, Time and Power, Leonard Shlain speaks of what it must have been like to be among the first people to make the connection between the cycle of the Moon and the cycle of women. This may have been the first symbolic thought.[1] Certainly it was the first major astrological thought. The ability to relate that which is above to that which is below allows us to understand ourselves as part of the universe instead of apart from it. The ability to see ourselves reflected in nature encourages us to feel the connection between our inner reality and the outer one. As we say in astrology: As above, so below.

From these ancient beginnings, astrology has evolved into a language of archetypes. As Richard Tarnas wrote in Cosmos and Psyche, archetypes can be seen as autonomous patterns of meaning that inform both psyche and matter, providing a bridge between inner and outer.[2] In my imagination, at the dawn of creation—the Big Bang, as we now understand it—patterns or archetypes as well as material forms manifested with the explosion. These patterns inform existence. They are invisible to the human eye because they are pure energy. They seem to permeate everything. Each and every person as well as everything in nature is a manifestation of these archetypal patterns. It is said that you cannot look upon the face of God and live. If you think of God as the ultimate archetype, the One that encompasses the All, the whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, it makes sense that it would be impossible to see God through the lens of the physical body the very essence of which is to experience yourself as separate. What we, the living, the manifest, see is that which is manifest. The way we approach the archetypal world is through myth. Max Müller, the nineteenth-century German scholar who created the discipline of comparative religion, wrote:

Mythology is inevitable, it is natural, it is an inherent necessity of language, if we recognize in language the outward form and manifestation of thought; it is in fact the dark shadow which language throws upon thought, and which can never disappear… Depend upon it, there is mythology now as there was in the time of Homer, only we do not perceive it.[3]

The most effective way to approach archetypal patterns is through myth and metaphor. Joseph Campbell, the great twentieth-century scholar of myth and religion, once said: It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.[4] The inexhaustible energies of the cosmos are the archetypal patterns that inform the manifest world. Myth is the metaphor through which we can understand how archetypal principles work at any given time in history. Astrology speaks to us through myth and metaphor and enables us to understand the nature of things that work under the radar of our rational minds.

As a practicing astrologer for more than three decades, I have found the symbolic language of astrology to be an incredible help in navigating my own life as well as the lives of my clients. In particular, I have found in the discipline of astrology an exceptional language for framing all manner of transitions. In school we were taught the difference between a sign and a symbol: a sign is something you look at, a symbol is something you look through. Oddly enough, the twelve primary symbolic constructs of astrology are called signs (Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces). Nonetheless they function as symbols, and by looking through them we can see worlds upon worlds of meaning.

We live in times of chaos and change. Leaders come and go; the economy is in tatters. It has become more and more difficult to understand this chaotic world in the pure light of reason. We find ourselves in need of analogy and metaphor to help us see who we are in the swirling onslaught of too much information. Symbols and the underlying meaning they can reveal to us become more necessary in times of change.

Astrology is not a religion. It is a discipline and can serve as a navigational tool. Like language itself, it allows us to tell the story. The story it tells is a reflection of the experiences we have. It helps us to give context and meaning to our lives, according to the perspective of our culture and the times in which we live. James Hillman, a Jungian psychologist, has said:

Mythological gods differ from those of religion… To paraphrase an ancient Roman defender of myth, Sallust: the gods of myth never happened but always are. Myths provide archetypal ways of insighting the human condition; they present psychological truths… Religion in contrast encodes a particular story as the revelation of a particular god’s own word of immortal truth to a historical human in a specific place at a specific moment. Myths ask the psyche to invent and speculate, to listen and be amused; religion, first of all, calls for belief. [5]

Astrology partakes of the constantly changing nature of myth. Unlike religion, it changes to reflect the times in which the astrologer lives. We stand on the cusp of a new age: the end of one world (the Age of Pisces) and the beginning of a new one (the Age of Aquarius). Like all births it is a difficult and chaotic time with no guaranteed outcome. Astrology as a popular language reflects the culture, which is why it stays so relevant. In days of old Aries was the sign of the warrior, the soldier, the rebel. It still has that meaning, but today it is also associated with the modern athlete and, generally speaking, represents the urge to act as an individual, separate from the whole. Astrology speaks the language of the present even and especially when that present is chaotic and unpredictable.

Astrology holds the keys to the mythic reality of the times even as it shifts. The symbols of astrology allow us to navigate the river of our lives rather than control it. Many people have the mistaken belief that delving into astrology is a way to abdicate control over one’s life. That is not how it works. Here is a simple analogy to convey how astrology works: The dance of the Sun, Moon, stars and planets in the heavens above is said to mirror our reality down below. It is a reflection. If you look in a mirror and you are having a bad hair day, you don’t blame the mirror, you fix your hair. What we see reflected back at us from above allows us to see ourselves and the world in which we live. What we do with that information is up to us. Astrology is actually one of the most stunning and effective ways that we have for seeing and interpreting the transformation of our culture into the next age.

On September 11, 2001, when the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York were attacked and destroyed, thousands died and one of the most powerful symbols of American capitalism was destroyed. People desperately tried to understand this event and how it would affect their lives. Astrology has offered some insightful perspectives. Pluto is the planet that symbolizes the powers of destruction and irrefutable change. On 9/11, it was in the sign of Sagittarius, which is associated with the notion of fundamental belief systems and the passion that people bring to defending their beliefs, their religion and their culture. Saturn, the planet of the status quo, the figure of authority and control over resources, was opposite Pluto in the sign of Gemini, symbolized by twins. An opposition means a challenge. Astrologically this opposition could be interpreted to suggest a picture of inevitable change, driven by fanatical conviction that the beliefs held by certain individuals or groups are truth itself, and thereby righteously justified in attacking the status quo as seen in the twin towers. The location of the Saturn Pluto opposition in the heavens on September 11, 2001 was almost exactly on the axis in the astrological chart of the United States that denotes challenge, conflict and war. [6]

It is possible to cast a horoscope for any event that has a place of birth as well as a date and time. The event that we are most familiar with in this regard is the birth or beginning of a human life. It is also possible to cast an astrological chart for a nation, a business, a marriage, or just about anything that you would like to understand through the lens of astrology.

Knowing these things doesn’t take away the horror and the pain of loss, but it can help us to grapple with a world that will never be the same. One of astrology’s most valuable gifts is that as it frames an event such as 9/11, it opens the door to discussion in a way that helps us to do more than simply theorize; it allows us to participate in the event itself. Knowing that Pluto was on the ascending sign of the United States at this terrible moment indicates that it was already in a condition of deep, destructive transformation. It suggests that a process of decline was already underway. The placement of Saturn on the opposite point, the point of open enemies, indicated an enemy with a lot of staying power. In Cosmos and Psyche, Richard Tarnas describes periods when Saturn and Pluto interact as historical periods marked by a pervasive quality of intense contraction: eras of international crisis and conflict, empowerment of reactionary forces and totalitarian impulses, organized violence and oppression, all sometimes marked by lasting traumatic effects. [7]

Astrology [8] gives us a way to catch a glimpse of how powerful archetypal patterns work within and around us. In a sense we are made of archetypal constructs or complexes. In our least aware moments we are often compelled to unconsciously act out these patterns. This is most distressing if the patterns are dysfunctional. If we grow up in difficult circumstances we must choose as adults to act out the past or awaken to the present. As we become more conscious of the energies that have shaped us, our awareness develops into a valuable tool that allows us to consider different possibilities in the ways we might use the energies that we embody.

This book grew out of a workshop that I teach for people over the age of fifty. I originally developed the workshop for two reasons. Through my years of counseling, I had noticed a specific astrological pattern starting around the age of fifty. Gradually it began to dawn on me that these astrological events plot a course through the transition from adult to elder. You start at fifty as a mature adult. You are actually in the last stages of adult life. By the time you are sixty, you have become a young elder. Making this transition with as much awareness as possible is extremely helpful in creating a context of meaning that allows us to take up residence in the elder period of our lives. It’s a great help in navigating the transition from adult to elder as well as offering much insight in how to sustain the experience of being an elder after the age of sixty. It is never too late to do this work. No matter how long ago you might have turned fifty, the insights and understanding that come at the transition between adult and elder can guide and enrich the experience of being an elder even well into your eighties and beyond.

The second reason I developed the workshop was very personal. When I reached the age of fifty-five, I began to understand that the process of becoming an elder was not simply theoretical. It became clear that my life both inner and outer was changing. I realized that I was disoriented and confused as to how this period would be different than what I had been doing for most of my adult life. The strongest disorienting circumstance was that my only child was about to graduate high school and my role as mother was changing much faster than I was. I quite literally could not understand what was expected of me. That feeling combined with one of my most trusted axioms; if you really want to learn something, teach it. And so I was inspired to gather people together and see if, using what astrology suggests, I could ask the right questions and in so doing generate some insight into this stage of our lives.

I offer this book to you in the spirit of using it to ask the right questions. As we step into the rich, symbolic language of astrology to understand ourselves, we are engaging the unconscious. Some of what lives in our unconscious is personal—messages from our past that speak of forgotten or insufficiently understood experience. In another aspect of the unconscious—the collective unconscious—we discover things that resonate for all humans, across cultures. Using the universal symbols of astrology allows the dialogue between the known and the unknown to become stronger and enables us to catch profound glimpses of meaning that can enrich our experience.

Keeping a journal as you read through the material in this book will help create a very personal mirror for your experience of transition from adult to elder, whether you are in the midst of the process or have long since transitioned. For each topic I have created an exercise; you can find these exercises in Appendix II at the back of the book. The exercises are simply to help stimulate thoughts on any given subject. My hope is that by keeping a journal and possibly doing the exercises you will create a kind of personal manual for your own elderhood. Once you have completed this process you may find yourself, from time to time, lost in the experience of being an elder (rather than becoming one) you can refer to your journal and it will help orient you on the path. Some people have found it illuminating and fun to engage with the material in this book with their friends who are also over fifty. Sharing perspectives is always enriching.

Although the material in this book looks specifically at the years between fifty and sixty it can be useful even if you have long since passed through this decade of your life. The experience of crossing that boundary lives in your mind and has set the tone for your experience as an elder. You can think of it as a birth. We may not remember anything of our actual birth, but it is a fairly well accepted psychological axiom that the birth experience can condition the course of a person’s perspective in life. On a slightly lesser level this is true for any new stage of life we enter. Our first day in kindergarten sets the stage for how we feel about school. Our fist sexual experience is the cornerstone on which we build later sexual encounters. Our first child gives us the archetypal experience of what it is like to be a parent. Our second child may be different but we will experience that difference in comparison with the first. So it is with the process of becoming an elder. If we look back to the years in which we transitioned from adulthood into elderhood, we will see that this is where we set the tone for our sixties, seventies and much of our eighties. Reflecting on the experiences you had crossing that threshold can only deepen your awareness of what you have learned and how it holds meaning in your life.

So whether you are in your fifties or eighties, welcome to the threshold where things generally only felt are spoken, where we can look with ruthless compassion at who we have been, who we are and who we might become.

Chapter 1

The Language of Astrology

If life is a journey, then it is no surprise that every once in a while we feel the need for some kind of navigational tools. In this book we will approach the transition from adult to elder through the lens of symbolism. The symbols we will use are astrological ones. Even if you have never considered astrological symbolism—what planets and signs might mean, for example—you may know more about these symbols than you realize. I could have written this book without ever mentioning astrological terms, but with more than thirty years of experience practicing astrology, it strikes me that astrology is a most useful and accessible symbolic language.

This need to actively navigate the white waters of life’s changes is most pronounced when we stand at the threshold of a major life transition. In the West, we are expected to develop strong and independent identities. In facing life’s challenges, each of us is the hero in our own story. When we come to a transition, a time when we must cross a threshold—to become an elder, for example—our intense sense of individuality can also mean that many of us face these major changes feeling as though we are on our own.

Facing the transition to our elder years in the twenty-first century we find ourselves contending with some unique conditions unlike those of our ancestors. Being born is the first major transition of our lives. Second to that we come to adolescence. At this time our bodies changed in ways that would have been familiar to humans for generations before us, but our sexual identity was emerging into a world unlike that of our parents and grandparents. Until the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, many young women were surprised, confused and embarrassed by their first period; they were often left to navigate the ups and downs of the menstrual cycle alone. Although by the last decades of the twentieth century it had become permissible, even accepted, to talk about these things and even joke about them, today’s elders emerged from a society that still fostered an environment of shame and secrecy around the transition from child to adult. As they became partners and parents the lack of openness continued; they were often on their own when it came to sustaining a marriage or raising healthy children.

Technology has made such radical changes in the fabric of reality from the time of our parents’ coming of age to our own that we have quite literally stepped into a world that is not the same as the one we were born into. Doing things the way your mother or grandmother did made no sense to us as we became adults. This is exciting to think and talk about, but for many of us, it was disorienting to experience. The lack of guidelines contributes to a sense of confusion as to how we might make this transition to our elder years or even if we really have to at all. Like the other great transitions of our lives, it is not well marked or even acknowledged in many cases. We assume that being an adult extends somehow into a period of life called retirement or semi-retirement and then we die. This final stage of life seems in a vague way to be some kind of logical extension of adult life. Yet we all sense that there is a difference between adulthood and what we will call elderhood.

Since the mid twentieth century it has become more and more commonplace to mark our transitions in highly individualistic and creative ways. Everything from graduation to burials has been re-invented. Such is the nature of cultural transformation. Although it is quite likely that this process is necessary, it also creates confusion as to what is expected of us at various thresholds. Reinventing ourselves is a creative and wonderful process. To reinvent ourselves as elders we must be mindful that this stage of life is distinctly different from adulthood. Growing old is one of the most mundane things about life. We all start out young and, if we are lucky, grow old. Yet each of us experiences aging in a personal way. We are all human—we are all the same—yet in a simple but profound way we are each different. For example, losing a parent is not a generic experience although it happens to most of us. It’s my mother who dies and in that thought is found the nature of my relationship to her and all that is lost with her passing. I remember my first kiss as if it happened only to me. These universal experiences unfold in uniquely powerful ways in our individual lives.

As mentioned in the introduction there is a distinct difference between a sign and a symbol. When we are