Came across something that sent me wondering just now ... I had a message somebody had updated his blog so I went to have a look and he was talking about his 49th birthday yesterday ... seven times seven ... wondering what he had been doing on every single one of those seventh .... and it got me thinking as well, I have always been a believer in that our life changes like every seven years in some way. We change, it's a biological thing to some degree, nature inflicted, hormones, whatever, but it's a fact that every single cell of our body renews in that cyclical rhythm, so you have a completely new body every seven years. Also there is a change in our energetic life cycles or rhythms, a different chakra is entered every seven years (if you want to know more, read here: The Chakras), bringing a change in awareness and activity, reason and willpower. The old indians believed that a man only becomes a "real" man with his 42nd birthday – entering his true spiritual path only then – and will only reach some stage of enlightening or Samadhi with his 49th ...
I don't know about you but I'm always pretty much aware of these things, how I change, how my body changes, my mind, my perception of the world – wondering what is bringing that change about and what comes with it – and I can see how my life took a turn of direction every seven years or so ... sometimes rather subtle, sometimes very distinct ...
At age seven most of us have just started school and experience how our world changes to some degree at that time .... we experience the first major constraints and responsibilities of our childhood, people start messing around with our minds, influence us, form us, and we have to go along and find our way in all that somehow ...
Around fourteen we fully enter adolescence and I guess we all know how that changes everything again .... wow, thinking back now, that was a heavy time ... the ballerina became the punk ... it's the time we try to find out who we really are and where we want to go I guess, hopelessly caught between childhood and adulthood, feeling somehow out of place in both worlds.
At 21 most of us have a vague notion of what they want to do and who they may be, have plans for the future, start developing their gifts and talents further ... many are in their first serious relationships, first serious jobs ... life is a strange mixture of expectations and everyday routines, dreams, hopes and possibillities, a desire to have fun and enjoy oneself and at the same time settle for something in some way, mostly with a regard to success in all it's different aspects ... life is ours in our minds and just waits to be conquered ...
At 28 we have most probably experienced our first failures and our first successes, have had to make some clear decisions concerning our lives ... some have started families by then, others have some kind of professional career going on, enjoying the fruits of their labour for the first time in their lives, being able to buy things, afford cars and holidays. Or if not, there still is this certainty it's sure gonna happen sometime soon ... life isn't as exciting anymore but still seems so promising and rewarding ... still we feel very much in control of everything and satisfied, more or less ... hungry for more ...
Then at 35 ... well ... all I can say so far is that this was the time I started to question all my earlier decisions ... started to scrutinize the so-called successes and accomplishments as well as the failures and flops, the routines and "safe-harbours", the paths I had chosen and where they were leading ... finding out that what had seemed hugely satisfying or promising at 28 no longer held much attraction. I had come to understand by then how little control we really have over our lives and how all that career thing leaves you with nothing much to hold on to in the end. Just emptyhanded when it comes to your self, your own reality beyond who you may be professionally. Same for relationships ... for the first time I could see clearly which had just been carried along, which had developed, which had failed, which left me empty or flat and which were rewarding in some way ... it was as if I got a clear picture of the whole situation – past and present – looking much deeper for the first time, knowing and understanding that this wasn't what I had wanted and feeling somehow reluctant to go on with it ... decisions had to be made – still have – things had to be straightened out and clarified in some kind of inventory of my own life. I guess that's where I still am, what I'm still doing, despite having a feeling so much has changed already ... such a long way to go yet ...
This is where my seven-year cyclic rhythm experience ends because I do not yet know what's gonna happen in the next stage ... at 42. Seems so far away, but looking back I see how fast time passes. What I expect is that by then I will have to look again and reconsider some of my present decisions, filter again, observe and scrutinize again: where have I been too scared to go all the way, make the right decisions, where have I been driven by fear, where by safety-thinking or a need for comfort, for company ... maybe things will seem more urgent in a few years ... more imminent ... less and less time to lose ...
Then at 49 ... what will that be like, I wonder? I think it's the last chance to really change something after all. Some kind of "now-or-never" situation. If you still act out of fear and safety-thinking, seeking comfort and serving outside expectations you'll probably end up doing that forever, getting a new chance only in a future life ...
Well, so much for my Saturday morning pondering ... thanks to Mike Scott ... if you care to read, here you go: Mike Scott's blog
