Stages

sunfell posted a 7 year cycle list of the stages of developement, and it sounds good. It ties in with astrology well.

Those who know me, though, know I tend to tie things with solar cycles intead of stellar cycles. Sun flares rotate on 11 year cycles, and that’s how I tend to view life changes as well. I looked at her list and wondered how it would look if I converted it to a solar cycle, and this is what I got:

0-11 – childhood
12-23 – adolescence – apprentice spirituality, rebelliousness
24-35 – young adulthood – journeyman spirituailty
36-47 – maturity – mastership of spirituality
48-59 – cronelescence – turbulent, searching, innovative
60-72 – Eldership, possible withdrawal for contemplation
73-84 – Cronehood – either as solitary or as “leader behind the leader”
85-96 – Sage, re-involvement with spiritual community, assumes the “leader behind the leader” role or renews it
97+ – Contemplative – presence is often enough, spiritual freedom

Most children under the age of 11 see spirituality through their parents’ eyes, and interprete the world around them through those filters. They believe what they are told by adults.

As they enter puberty, though, they begin to question those filters, see through the filters of friends and peers instead of adults. They explore other religions as naturally as they breathe, and often they’ll choose religions as diametrically opposed to their parents’ religion as they can find.

Most parents are pretty accurate in believing that this is a phase, and if they encourage their children to explore, while cleaving to their own beliefs during this time, then often, it will be a phase, a healthy one of exploration, and the children will eventually return to their birth religion. That’s only “most”. There will always be those for whom their birht religion isn’t the right one for them. When their birth religion is abusive, or oppressive, they may split with it completely, never to return. Sometimes, they’d return, if they felt welcomed back, but in abusive, oppressive forms of religion, they are cast out when they show the slightest desire to understand different worldviews. Not all who leave a religion do so because it was abusive, some leave it because it didn’t offer what they needed, or of it did, they couldn’t access it through the symbols and language of the religion, so they had to seek outside for their spiritual health and well-being.

Codified soul-speak, which is what I believe religion is, speaks to people who communicate in the same language. It’s like people who are auditorially oriented as opposed to people who are visually oriented. The two may intersect, but a religion heavily dependent upon one mode of communication may lose those memebers who need a different mode. That’s why a good religious service is composed of sounds, sights, smells, tastes, and textures, and why many Pagan religions compile all those lists of associations – to blend the right incense, colors, chants, and body movements into one cohesive ritual and add in the “cakes and wine” and the after-ritual potluck – all senses engaged. When the right symbols are chosen, the ritual speaks powerfully to the adherents. And when a religion concentrates on one mode of communication over another – as in sermons mixed with music, but very little in the way of smells, textures, tastes, or visual stimulation, they lose members, lose their attention, lose the message conveyed.

Pagans were sort of on the right track, back in the early days when rituals were composed of full participation and engagement of all sensory modes, but they’ve kind of lost it along the way, in my experience. This is particularly true of those Pagan covens and circles which have “audiences” of people watching from outside the ritual, and no choice on who observes and who participates.

This next stage of spiritual developement is when the person grows beyond rebelling against their birth religion (or their parents), and begins to seriously seek among the religions and learn them. It’s a journeyman period of great intensity, and coupled with the time when they are also establishing families and careers, very hectic. Some people choose one part of their lives over others, and if they choose family, may return to their birth religion simply because it is the one with which they are most familiar.

This next phase is when their children have grown up some (mostly), and they return to their journeyman explorations, only they’ve chosen a religion they want to explore in depth. They work to master as much of it as they can, and based on previous explorations, may feel they have achieved the highest levels in it, may feel they have the right to be termed “elder” when they really have achieved a higher level, but not that high. “Masters” perhaps, if we stick to the apprentice-journeyman-master scenario. Just like there is more to life after one becomes a master, there is more to religious exploration after ones achieves mastery of it. This is a good thing, or we’d be tempted to rest on our laurels, as it were.

Once we’ve attained mastership, often we enter a turbulent time – now what? Where do I go from here? Surely there’s more? And there is. It’s as turbulent and rebellious as the teen years, in adult form. It may be termed a “mid-life crisis” or any of a dozen other appellations, but what it is is cronelescence – a time when adults are exploring the higher spiritual options along with their increased experiences and wisdom gained through life and years. Some people withdraw to be contemplative, others toss themselves deeply into the religion of their choice – it all depends upon personality.

The next phase is one of true eldership – they’ve paid the dues of being apprentice/journeyman/master, and gone beyond mastership. They may choose to let younger people do the actual work of leading the religion, and enter a more ministerial phase where they care for their co-adherents without the angst and work of leading the group. If they didn’t withdraw during their cronelescence, they may withdraw at this time. Or, again, they might not. This is the time when they build the legacies that will be passed along to those follow behind them – write the books, tell the stories, make the decisions, shape the religion. Up until now, they’ve learned the religion, now they have the skill and knowledge to shape it, to make the additions and changes that will allow the religion to continue on for another several generations. Without the elders, there would be no growth, the religion would stagnate.

The next phase behond eldership is cronehood. They’ve paid the dues of their spirituality and now they reap the harvest. For some, this means contemplation over their blessings, for others, it’s a supervisory position while others do all the work – a “leader behind the leader” time. They are beyond being priest or minister, and may combine the two roles, outside the formal structure of worship, ritual, and celebration. The crone may choose to advise the elders, but more often, they are content to observe and simply be present. Their presence is more powerful and important than the younger members realize.

For those who live beyond that, there is the time of being the Sage, of re-connecting to the spiritual society, usually with the elders and crones. When they do reach out to the younger community, it is often through the elders. Their presence alone at a ritual or ceremony lends it a gravitas that would otherwise be lacking, even if no one noticed it was lacking.

And beyond the Sage, we have the Contemplative. Those who live long enough to achieve this are a blessing to their community in ways the younger people can never imagine, not even those who reach mid-life. It’s a different life, the one that approaches the century mark. There are few, if any, questions remaining. Like the Crone and Sage, their presence is often enough at rituals and ceremonies. There is a decided spiritual freedom that isn’t present in the previous stages, and a deeper connection to Dea Nutrix than any previous stage has been able to establish – although some come very close.
These stages can be condensed for those who come from shorter-lived lines, but I’ve noticed these stages for those who anticipate living a century or more. The pacing is different, and the spiritual development seems to be more rooted and freer at the same time.

This isn’t exactly my system, even though I’ve ocntributed to the expanded version. It’s one I’ve been exploring as part of writing our book on Eldering, one that’s been floating around in Numenism since the mid-80’s.

Obviously, all sorts of things will affect any cyclic system – age-related infirmities, illness, gender, and more, but the 11 year cycle fits Numenism better than the 7 year system – which fits many of the other Pagan religions quite well. AS I read through your list, I was struck by how much more appropriate it was for the majority of Pagans (and how Numenism is just that little bit off-kilter with them).

This information, expanded of course, will be in our book, along with lots of other things I’ve been picking up and discussing with other elders in other religions. Very few religions have codified what an elder is – they’ve gone on societal expectations, just as we’ve operated on societal expectations for grandparents.

Only, in America, with no single society, there is no single set of expectations, and advertising – which has become our benchmark to replace societal expectations, ignores anything that appears to be over 30 or possibly 40. Older people are rarely shown, and when they are shown, it’s almost always in relation to medications or getting old age benefits.

Notice how, in ads and TV shows and movies, the younger people are always advising the older people, getting the older people out of scrapes and rescuing them? The implication seems to be that babies are born with all the knowledge and wisdom there is, and they slowly lose it as they age, so of course, kids take care of their less competent parents and the less competent parents take care of even less competent grandparents – sort of the reverse of the real world, where wise grandparents advise smart parents, who take care of their learning children.

As many over 50 people as there are, I wonder why we allowed ourselves to become invisible, and when it became socially acceptable for children to smart-mouth their elders?

I always like Always Coming Home by LeGuin. Back in the 70’s, we were in the same room together at an SF Con, and I was talking about Numenism (then known as “Dianic” – our 2nd name change since founding) with a group of people. She never spoke to me, and I have no idea if she ever spoke to any of the others of us who were there, but it always seemd as if some of the concepts we were exploring were developed (a few in quite different directions) in that novel.

While you were posting your comment, I was exploring our membership rolls and coming to the conclusion that perhaps I ought to be more open with what we’ve learned and developed in Numenism – something my Elders have probably been trying to pound into my dense head for a decade or more.

I’ll accept anyone as a Celebrant, but my criteria for accepting them as priest or minister is much higher, perhaps too high.

As for being a post-apocalyptic religion – wow. I’d never thought of that. Our goal in Numenism has simply been to create a sustainable, American religion, one that could work for all Americans, regardless of origin or even of other spiritual practices. It was meant to be a core foundation, a guiding set of ethics and principles, a henopanentheistic type belief that is as fluid as water or air.

Whatever other form it may take on, it would always be as recognizable as water is whether it’s ice or steam or tea. Numenism would be Numenism, even if it dressed in ancient Roman togas or Celtic plaid or Native American bucksin, whether it spoke English or Spanglish or Esperanto regardless of traditions and holy days.

I know we celebrate a lot of different holy days, but when it comes down to it, we actually only celebrate 2 major ones: Founders Day (August 19th) and Cookie Day (December 12th). All the rest are determined by individual Houses and Celebrants.

As for knowing we have many years of learning ahead of us – ja tschah, of course we do. Learning never ends so long as we are individuated corporeal beings – and it may not end there, either – we, in our bodies, may simply be a learning tool for Dea Nutrix, the way virtual avatars can be learning tools for us.

Our publicly available book is almost a cookbook: it has descriptions, a Q&A, a few exercises, a host of essays, and about a third of the book is a dictionary of terms we use. The dictionary is actually a lure to entice people to explore Numenism more deeply. It wouldn’t be hardship to write a book of favorite Numenist recipes liberally sprinkled with anecdotes and essays, especially since we are strong supporters of locavores (people who eat food produced locally – May is Locavore Month, this is the second year for it, and it’s nationally recognized).

Most of our House meetings take place in the kitchen as we prepare our feasts. I could see them taking place in the garden, too (our tomatoes are nearing ripeness – the yellow cherry tomatoes will be pickable in a few days,as well as the first strawberry, and we’ve been harvesting herbs for almost a month now – ‘Mater Day is coming!).

I still should be somewhat nicer to Celebrants, and not quite so – testy – with their (insert whole slew of shortcomings rant). I agree the standards should remain high, but it’s possible we may need to institute an intermediary stage between Celebrant and Priest/Minister so we can encourage Celebrants to take that next step and not vegetate in Celebrant status.

And ayup – I’ve heard the elitist FMPPH wails, even though I’m not of a lineaged religion.

Locavore is a cool word. It was coined by Dragi back in the 80’s, and then a group of women in California got hold of it and ran with it. They popularized it,and got May to be the Locavore Month.

The book is at Lulu.com: http://www.lulu.com/content/166753. It’s called The Numenous Way, and you can download it or buy a print copy. We put a small royalty on it because Lulu gets a percentage, and we felt they deserved it with all the help they’ve given us for it. We haven’t yet gotten an ISBN for it so it can go on Amazon – this edition has been approved by the Elders, though, all except for me – I found a few typos I want to clear up first, and then it will get its ISBN and go on Amazon. And a new cover. I dislike the cover art because it’s stock art from Lulu, and I want something more personally Numenous.