Elder Flowering

Elder Flowering: Lived Experiences of Growing Older

The “social art” of biography work has grown from the insights of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science—insights that have proved useful in identifying and exploring the archetypal rhythms and milestones of human life. The most well-known, even obvious, of these are the roughly seven-year rhythms of early childhood, childhood, and adolescence, culminating in the transition to adulthood around the age of twenty-one.

But this and other archetypal rhythms continue to unfold throughout life, perhaps more subtly and certainly in the most differentiated and individualized of ways. These have often been explored, especially as they pertain to the “active years” of adulthood. But less has been written about the so-called elder years. This volume seeks to remedy that.

Written and edited by longtime students and practitioners of anthroposophic biography work, all of whom have completed at least ten cycles of seven-years, this unique volume aims to address, first hand, the joys and sorrows, triumphs and realities, of these years, when the ripe fruits of a life truly lived swell with seeds for the future.

C O N T E N T S:

Preface

Onward from 63: Helpful Concepts and Personal Stories

From Seven to Twelve: A New View – Patricia Rubano
Opening and Choosing – Anne Kollender
Sixty-three and Beyond – Victoria Seeley
Born on a Saturday – Martha Loving Orgain
Eldering Exploration in my Pluto Time – Linda Bergh

Tracing the Arc of Life: Gifts of Aging

Following a Thread – Karen Gierlach
Chroneology – Davina Muse
Somebodies and Nobodies – Christopher Schaefer

Coming of Sage – Mary Bowen
The Gift of Aging – Joseph Rubano
“There is so much to admire, to weep over.” – Alex Reid

Health Questions

New Perspectives on Health, Aging, and Biography Work – Douglas Garrett and Renee Meyer, MD
The Paradox of Aging – Ann Sawyer

Death Is Part of the Story

Death as a Process and a Doorway into Light – Karen Apana, PhD
Memories of the Future – Christa Hornor
Loss and Transformation – Lorna Kohler

Ways of Working:  Ongoing Reflection

Researching the Later years – Betty Staley
Biographical Questions: Sharing Our Stories – Signe Eklund Schaefer

Why Not (a) Play?

Heart and Soul: A One Act Play – Kathi Ciskowski

Bibliography

About the Author

SIGNE EKLUND SCHAEFER was the founding director of a professional development program in Biography and Social Art, one of several activities of the Center for Biography and Social Art. A teacher of adults for many decades, she has been a student of life for as long as she can remember. Never having heeded what was told her as a child—not to ask so many questions—she continues to love learning. Her desire to know more about the multiple dimensions of human development led her as a young person to the work of Rudolf Steiner and to Waldorf education. She directed Foundation Studies at Sunbridge College for more than twenty years and was on the faculty of Emerson College in Sussex England before that. She continues to teach both nationally and internationally, including at several recent workshops in China. She coauthored Ariadne’s Awakening, a book on gender questions and coedited the parenting book More Lifeways. A mother and grandmother, she now lives in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, with her husband Christopher Schaefer.