Soulful Aging: Four Paths for Reflection and Development of the Interior Life

Taking up this responsibility that Steiner articulates with commitment and vigor is a recipe for restoring the natural cycles of life back into an understanding of integrated community structures that feed and benefit the whole. Many indigenous peoples in tune with ancient wisdom share this concept to which Steiner refers about growing younger and younger with the spiritual evolution of true eldering. This is why indigenous wisdom honors a natural connection between the elders and youth within a community. There is a shared connection to the youthfulness associated with the “other world”—the world of spirit—as well as wisdom each age group has to offer the other in their respective developmental cycles on the planet.

Elder Malidoma Patrice Somé, a West African shaman from the indigenous Dagara people of Burkina Faso, shares in his book The Healing Wisdom of Africa that according to indigenous African wisdom, “Knowing means becoming old. To say that someone is old is to say that this person knows something, or has experienced something valuable” (109). He goes on to share that “there is an elder in the making in everyone, but it is most visible in those who have the receptivity to listen to the stories of others. The ability to listen, and the willingness to support others in difficult situations are the heart and the soul of elderhood” (136). From this indigenous frame of reference, Somé shares that chronological age is not necessarily dependent on the making of an elder.

In our current day and age, there are many difficult stories to be shared. Young people especially lament that the world they are inheriting is in a state of chaos and destruction. It is imperative that they feel the receptivity of listening ears, especially of the elders—ones who have weathered many storms themselves and are able to listen attentively while staying rooted in a ground of resource they have come to trust. Cultural transformation activisit Stephen Jenkinson, author of Come of Age, says that youth are looking for elders who are willing to deal with the troubled times. They want to know that it is worth the trouble, that there will be people they can come to when the trouble is great, and that they can trust their willingness to listen (7). We, as spiritual companions, have a unique role in offering our listening ears and responding to this call.

I recently spent two weeks immersed in the community life of Dano, Somé’s native rural Dagara village in Burkina Faso. I was struck by so many life-transforming things, but one that really stood out was the weight and honor that both elders and youth held within the community. The Dagara people share a reverence that encompasses both ends of the spectrum. The youth share fresh wisdom brought with them from the world of spirit, while the elders hold space for the young ones to flourish through their unique gifts brought to the community as they rest in the depth of seasoned wisdom, which ushers them back through the gates between the worlds when their time comes. According to Somé and the indigenous cosmology of Dagara wisdom, a traditional ritual is done while the child is still in the womb, compelling Spirit to reveal what each child’s soul is bringing to the world as his prime directive, as Somé describes it. The child is named accordingly, and the community’s job is to remind and encourage each child to grow into his meaning and purpose, all within the context of the community in which everyone plays a vital role. It is the elders’ job to nurture and uphold this vision for the child as he grows through his younger years. As the child transitions to adolescence and beyond, traditions of initiation and mentoring with members of the community, as a responsibility to the Spirit world, ignite and burn for each soul’s purpose. In this way, all feel welcomed into a context of meaning and belonging in a way that is nourishing for the individual soul as well as the soul of the community (Somé, 92–102).

A more expansive Western cosmology of interconnectedness is being called for that is waiting for our personal song, our tears, our joy, and our seasoned wisdom that we have gathered along the way through the sometimes messy, often painful, and always meaningful life that we share. Unfortunately, Westerners have not received positive or meaningful role modeling that encourages them to age soulfully, regardless of their chronological age. Our culture has been largely adrift, without a set of cultural norms that encourage and model healthy ways of navigating the vulnerabilities that come with the ups and downs of everyday life. Additionally, we have lost connection with the spirits of the natural world and the ancestors who are a vital guiding life force within the community.

It is imperative in our current postmodern predicament that we turn our attention back toward nature’s living cycles, for they serve as role models for truth and the reliability of nature’s wisdom. It is crucial to acknowledge the abundance of nature’s helpers and ancestral spirits available to support us as we reimagine a more sustainable paradigm in a culture that has gotten lost in an epidemic of isolationism and nihilism.

Returning to my elderly client mentioned earlier, who is struggling to find meaning and purpose in her elder years, I utilized this model to companion her through her feelings of isolation and bewilderment. Through dialogue and body awareness, she connected with the youthfulness and passion that she had experienced in her younger, more active years. She was able to connect with an essential part of herself in which, through her commitment to tending to her vulnerabilities and discovering the strength of her inner life over the years, she identified a well of resource available to her that she could draw from. Her connections with nature, deep engagement with meaningful spirituality, and commitments to family and dear friends were also identified as sources of replenishment.

With resources fully engaged, I knew she had the capacity she needed to delve into the release of emotions she experiences with her decline in physical energies, her sense of isolation in a living environment that is less than inspiring, the death of loved ones, and the loss of functions such as vision and hearing that keep her feeling disconnected in social settings. With my attentive and deep listening, she was able to freely articulate the vulnerabilities and grief that accompany these losses, and she could access and authentically express the longings for meaningful and heart-centered connections that she craves. With this awareness, following the purging of long-held repressions of her essential spirit, she became very animated about ideas for connections that sparked her imagination in enlivening ways in the process of renewal. She committed to accepting a dinner invitation with a family with teenage youth where they intend to share stories and ideas for further connection. We will continue to explore how she can express this newly accessed inspiration in doable and meaningful ways that serve her sense of giving back in return.

My observation in the role of companioning this process for her was that the simplicity of articulating ideas that still have meaning for her and engaging in an inspired conversation about the meaning of these ideas for both of us were fulfilling for her, and they honored an expression of repressed life force that was long overdue. I do not always explicitly identify the Four Paths of Soulful Aging when working with clients. However, the model always helps me identify where a person is oriented within the context of the map and what may be supportive to invite more flow. When it becomes clear that this model would be useful for the client, I share it with them for further use as a self-guided tool. This model is also a useful framework for implementing group and community rituals to honor the spirals of maturation that occur both individually and collectively.

Soulful eldering encompasses a heartfelt and honest connection to being with oneself and sharing what is relevant and meaningful, while modeling and encouraging healthy pathways of developing one’s interior life. These Four Paths are a useful tool in discerning where one stands at any given moment. This provides the critical reflection needed for determining the most relevant path, whether in reflection with oneself or companioning another.

Within the context of the interrelated nature of being, including our connection with those who have come before us, we each have a moral and spiritual directive to reignite our responsibility to engage with prior generations as well as those who will inherit the world we are leaving behind. It is an honor as a spiritual director to support and companion this passage in others throughout the developmental stages of aging. Every one of us is being called to embody the soul-nature of our spiritual selves to be an engaged and responsible part of the transformation toward a more heart-centered, interconnected way of being. We, as spiritual directors, have an opportunity and responsibility to transform our culture’s approach to aging soulfully throughout the course of each individual’s lifetime, as well as within the collective.