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Stage Specific Unfolding
posted Sunday, 31 July 2005
Each of us has a very individual path to follow. Although each of us is
uniquely different, we do share a very specific sequence of unfolding with
the rest of humanity. Take children for example; all over the world, no
matter what of what culture or circumstance, at more or less the age certain
changes are experienced in the unfolding, to prepare the individual for the
stage of growth.
The following is a brief summary of stage specific development as presented
by William Bryant - The Veiled Pulse of Time (Life Cycles & Destiny)
I have found it to be true in my own life and to those around me.
First 7 years of life - The trailing clouds of Glory: 'growing down', the
way the self gradually penetrates body and soul and enters mortal space and
time.
7 to 14 years - from light to shadow: This period is ruled by feelings,
emotional expansion and awakening of intellectual activity.
14 to 21 - Flush of Independence: Feeling of self and sense of isolation
brings a need for community and the desire for relationships with opposite
sex.
21 to 28: the Chase of Experience: Psychological advancement now depends
largely on our efforts. - Digestion of outward experience becomes part of
inward self. This exploratory phase of life tempts us to taste the
bittersweet fruit of life. Our need for the emotional and intellectual food
offered by human relationships plays a major role in this period. False
paths and dead ends, but the exercise of liberty prepares the still-emerging
self for a greater challenge - destiny.
28 to 35: Adjusting the Course: A phase of contraction, and our
inward-looking self assessment primes us for the vital expansion towards a
life that now demands more exacting and thought-filled decisions in keeping
the emergent sense of self and our social responsibilities. We are forced to
reconsider our position: how and where do we fit into life? Are we on the
right course?
35 to 42: under Self-power: A subtle change in the quality of our mental
relationship to ourselves and to the world. The patterned methods of
thinking and reaction conditioning our intellectual connection to our inner
life and outer world are less satisfactory. The self-observer senses that he
is deeper and more enigmatic than he previously thought. This deepening
perception stirs new doubts and hopes in the soul. Our development, the
deepening of our humanity, is now a matter of fate or freedom - it is our
choice.
42 to 49: the Dark Wood":
"Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel
and piece together the past and the future,
Between midnight and dawn, when past is all deception,
The future futureless, before the morning watch
When time stops and time is never ending." T.S Eliot
It is a time that challenges us to disperse the shadow of our psychological
past, which includes all the character weaknesses and imperfections
imprinted in our youth and reinforced throughout the years. It is a time for
change, for self-examination and self-acceptance, a time for truth, a time
to stop fooling ourselves
Bio 49 to 56: a second wind: Newly found self-reliance can reshape
lifestyles and relationships because there is the realisation that real
security resides not in things or other people but in the self and its sense
of purpose. Only by developing the capacity for change can we find
fulfilment.
Bio 56 to 63: Reaping the harvest: All our experience, the reactions and
conflicts which comes to us by way of the external world, sinks into the
interior cauldron of synthesis. Experience is distilled and assimilated into
the self.
Yet within the sameness of stage specific unfolding also occurs the
individual characteristic unfolding that reveals each person's unique path.
In this unfolding there are also stage specific unfolding, in this I have
found the 5 stages as presented by Harry R. Moody and David L. Carroll in
their book "The Five stages of the Soul", the most accurate; The Call, The
Struggle, The Breakthrough and The Return or 1, Ethical training, 2.
Attentional training, 3. Emotional transformation, 4. Motivation 5. Refining
awareness, 6. Attainment of wisdom.
Of course many get stuck in specific stages and never progress beyond,
although points of crisis would always come along to nudge us along, but
even this can be ignored and result in a hardening, simply causing an
atrophy of ourselves. The choice is always ours.
So well do I know this, the layers of revelation. The layers of unfolding. The layers of revealing.The unfolding of consciousness. If there is one thing that makes me belief that there is a grand plan somewhere it is this perfectly timed unfolding.. The fortunes, the misfortunes in my life have had equisite timing, in guiding my revealing.
