Episode 033 – The Essentials

I think the last two episodes have begun with me declaring, it has been one of those weeks. 

Today, I shall explain – it hasn’t just been a week, for the last few months, I feel as if I’ve been hooked up to a set of battery cables. The gods handed me a bolt of lightning and said, “Hey kid… hang onto this.” 

Crackling… sizzling and quite frankly, making a few people around me very nervous. Trust me, I’m aware.

It’s the shift. And, it’s caught me off guard. I wasn’t braced well enough to take the punch. For a while, I was in the corner with my gloves up, elbows tucked to my ribcage, absorbing blows, waiting for my vision to clear.

It’s clear. 

[Music]

It’s said that our bodies change every seven years or so. Maybe you’ve heard it referred to as Steiner’s map of human development. 

Back in the early 20th century, philosopher and teacher Rudolf Steiner was known for his ability to connect spiritual and scientific concepts. He’s probably most well-known for this map of human development which theorized that our lives are comprised of cycles as we move from childhood to adulthood.

These cycles last seven years and each of these cycles presents us with challenges and rewards. If we face the challenges with courage, sincerity, and enthusiasm, we will benefit from what we learn or discover. Our psychological and spiritual development then reap the rewards.

0-7, 7-14,-14 to 21 and so-on, each block has its own clarification and breakdown as to what we can expect to see in our development durning that time period. 

And if you know anything about transition, you know it can be messy. 

If you haven’t handled your business, healed what hurt you, you’ll end up bleeding on people who didn’t cut you.

These cycles in nature are not unusual. Biologists tell us human cells replace themselves every 7 to 10 years. In astronomy, every seven years, there are shifts and changes in the cosmos that influence the energies in our lives in major ways. 

If you wanna go deeper, Shakespeare wrote about the seven stages of man. There are seven days in the work week, seven continents, and seven seas. 7 shows up in biblical references such as the world being built in 7 days, seven deadly sins, etc…

Now, some folks believe that life is lived in a linear fashion, you’re born, you work, you die. Others, myself included, believe life is less rigid… comprised of these cycles. In each of these cycles, we attempt, we fail, we replenish, rejuvenate, and then reinvent. 

In June, if all goes acording to plan, I will turn 57. My 56th year or… the completion of my 56th year marks the end of one these cycles. 

While I’m not thrilled with the fact that I’m another year closer to what becomes the end, I am excited by what’s in between… you know, here and there. 

Steiner defines the period of time between year 49 and year 56 as the period in which we should be experiencing a spiritual awakening. Our vision and understanding of life should be expanding. 

At this point in our journey, we have experience. We’ve suffered great failures and tasted success. Life has softened us a bit and given us ample opportunities to examine and refine our perspective. 

And if we’ve acknolwedeged and integrated the lessons from all of the previous cycles, if we’ve nurtured our souls, it’s in this period that we begin to play a larger role…we become key players in our communities and society in general. 

It’s the period in which we actually become the person we’ve always longed to be. 

Where it gets very interesting and exciting is with this coming cycle. The one Steiner describes as the Crossroads; A period of mastery.

Steiner believed the age of 56 to be a major turning point, where newly developed intuitive and spiritual powers merge into a single consciousness. In this cycle, we recognize our mission and begin to devote all of our talents, aquired wisdom, and understanding to a cause greater than ourself and our ambition. 

In this period, like the previous one, our perspective has softened. We’re no longer thrown off course by daily mishaps. And like before, if we’ve integrated the lessons from prior cycles, if we’ve calmed the mind, intuition becomes the guiding sense. 

It begins a period of mastery, personal growth and power. 

It may be a bold assertion, but I feel like this period arrived a little early, Christmas Eve 2022. I was at a party with some dear friends, standing off to the side. I was actively appreciating the richness in my life. 

I felt the click… the actual click that something was happening. I’ve felt it in the past… the little voice in my head says, Hey… this is one of those moments. Pay attention. Remember this. 

I can’t really verbalize what physically happened that night. I’ve tried. I’ve written it out a dozen times and each attempt ends up as a pile of ash. 

I just can’t seem to find the words… And words are usually not a problem for me. 

Since that moment, I have noticed things appearing in my life, like wayposts directing me along. And I have been paying attention. 

And then this week, as I was doing my normal prep, outlining what this piece was going to be about, another waypoint appeared in the form of a book suggestion that appeared in my inbox. A book by a guy named Greg McKewon [Mickewin], Essentialism: The Disicplined Pursuit of Less.

It’s the waypoint I didn’t know I was searching for. It gave me the word I didn’t know I was searching for all along, essential. That’s the word. The perfect word to connect the previous cycle to the coming cycle.  

As a self-described minimalist for the last decade or so, I’ve always had a problem with the term minimalism. With the image it conjures up; somebody living out of a backpack or in an apartment with a single piece of furniture, I don’t know. 

It’s just never worked. I tried to use the word leaner… It didn’t do it either. 

I’ve spoken about minimalism and written books on it. It’s been a major piece in my puzzle. Simplifying my life when I did allowed me to focus on the parts of myself that needed attention.  

For the longest time, there was so much noise around me and in my brain, controlling what I was able to control kept any additional noise to a minimum. Pardon the pun. 

Living an incredibly lean life allowed me then and still allows me to create space, to notice what needs noticing, when it needs it.

But I like McKeown’s word better. It’s not minimal. It’s not lean… it’s essential: absolutely necessary. Indispensable. 

McKeown used another phrase that I love; exceptionally valuable. 

He said, once you decide what is exceptionally valuable in your life, your path and your behavior will automatically beging to shift. 

It’s not just about less, it’s about essential… essential relationships. Essential living. Do less. Do it better.

Focus. Deliberate. Prioritize and once you determine what is essential in your life, everything else becomes trivial. 

The spiritual awakening that Steiner describes, where intuitive and spiritual powers merge into consciousness comes into full view when we attach the word essential to the coming cycle. 

When – if – we prioritize what is essential, the trivial falls away and we can now allow space for the intuition to guide us. 

Until just a few years ago, I liked to describe myself as multi-passionate. I used to think being well-versed in a lot of different areas meant that I’d never become obsolete. I would always be able to adapt and move forward.

I’ve changed my mind. Maybe it’s a result of the last two cycles but multi-passionate now feels a lot like clutter. Mental clutter. Distraction. Too many things to focus on. Confusing busy with productive.

When you are constantly adapting and adjusting, constantly overcommitted, overwhelmed, and overstimulated, there is no space for the intuition to flourish. 

Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Mellon said, when everything is prescious, nothing is precious. 

Transitions can be messy. We don’t know what it looks like on the other side. We have to trust our development. Trust that the work we’ve done will give us the strength to walk confidently into the next cycle. 

We have to trust our intuition.

I will be the first to admit, sometimes that is a big ask. I make this ask every week when I produce these episodes. It’s an experiment. In doing so, I have inadvertently discovered that I am circling my wagons, drawing in, and protecting the essentials. 

I know there will be painful moments ahead. I know there will be revelatory moments as well. 

I will try to be present in for all of them.

So where are you? What cycle are you in the middle of, about to begin or transition out of? 

Have you been able to recognize the shift? 

Is there space where you are… for your intuition?

Too many questions… I know. But wherever you are, in this proess, I hope there is peace.

Moving forward, I’m clear on the mission. I’ve got my essentials but… this lightning thing… I haven’t quite figured out how to hold it. 

I’m gonna have to get back to you on that.