TRUTH BE TOLD
OUR LIFE JOURNEYS
Image credit: JOHAN MOUCHET on Unsplash.
By DR VICKI BISMILLA
As I sit cross-legged early each morning gazing east at the morning sun, I am keenly aware of Nature’s hand in the four seasons.
Watching the near-melted snow, hearing birds as winter turns to spring, soaking in the beauty of bountiful summers, watching leaves turn into the magnificent hues of autumn and becoming excited as I witness the first snowflakes of winter.
Nature knows exactly what She’s doing, subtly changing from season to season, maintaining the rhythm of Earth’s life on land, sea and air. And so it is with the seasons She has planned for our life’s journey from our childhood spring, to our carefree young summer, to our Autumn midlife and then our winter decades.
We are in good hands. Shakespeare was right in his chronicling of the seven ages.
In his play As You Like It (act II, scene vii), several lords, banished into the woods, help a hungry old man they encounter and discuss “deep and contemplative” that
…we are not alone unhappy:
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.”
It is at this point that Jacques, a banished lord, speaks the famous lines beginning with
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
Shakespeare, writing in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, likely learned about the 12th century idea of the seven ages of man and incorporated it aptly into this speech.
He describes each stage of our lives as:
1. Baby or infant
2. School student or child
3. Lover (young and foolish)
4. Soldier (ambitious, takes risks, seeks out honour)
5. Justice or judge (using experiences from life to advise good decisions)
6. Old person (some faculties start to wane)
7. Extreme old age (again needing assistance like a child)
While many of us educated in the British-influenced education systems studied Shakespeare, sadly our education systems did not expose us to similar teachings in South Asian cultures.
For example, Hindu scriptures list four stages in the human journey.
These are spiritually guided while the western stages are physical.
1. Brahmacharya (the student marked by chastity, devotion and obedience to teacher)
2. Grihastha (marriage, parenthood, sustaining family, duty toward God)
3. Vanaprastha (forest dweller withdrawing from material things, ascetic, yogic life)
4. Sanyasi (renouncer of worldly possessions, seeking union with the absolute and moksha.
Regardless of culture or beliefs, the seasons on Earth as well as its dwellers go through seasons, cycles and journeys designed by Nature.
Whether we look at life’s progressive stages merely as predictive physical and biological changes or we see our journey through eastern lens as a spiritual one, the journey itself is the constant. Just as Nature in Her ultimate wisdom charts the seasons, so too She charts the stages of human life.
It is set and we cannot change the course. The learning for us is to accept that with grace.
Dr Vicki Bismilla is a retired Superintendent of Schools and retired college Vice-President, Academic, and Chief Learning Officer. She has authored two books.