Adulthood and Evolution

Given I'm a boomer, I look at life from that vantage point and humbly ask this question: Are there very many true adults in this world? I have the advantage of at least fifty years of adulthood to look back on. However, I’m curious about what makes us an adult and, beyond that, what roles adulthood and soul play in our evolution? My premise is that we have don't know there are stages of adulthood.

Using the framework from Bill Plotkin’s book, Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, (1) I briefly explain three of the four stages of adulthood. Then I turn to Rudolf Steiner’s work, Life of the Human Soul: and Its Relation to World Evolution (2) to make my point about our responsibility as adults to engage with our souls for human evolution.

EARLY ADULTHOOD STAGE

Initiated adulthood is primarily about embracing, honoring, and doing right by our soul gifts, and not at all about an acceptance — whether self-admiring or resigned — of our genetic endowments, our personalities and personal histories, or our current life circumstances. (3)

I could say that part of becoming an adult is self-acceptance. To get to self-acceptance, we do inner work to explore who and what we are, and the influences that have shaped us. If we want authentic self-acceptance, we must look at our less accepted parts, the parts we don’t want to look at because they make us feel uncomfortable, and maybe even shameful. We accept or don’t accept that parts of us are not perfect. An adult knows perfection is a myth, so while we strive to know our less than perfect parts, we can also accept they are as much our own as our “shining” parts.

LATE ADULTHOOD STAGE

[Early Adulthood Stage] ends when you’ve mastered one or more delivery systems for your soul image or story and you stop looking outside yourself for instruction or role models for embodying soul. (4)

This is familiar territory, as I devoted many years of my life to my search for something I yearned for. My sources for inspiration and information were books, well-known experts, and courses as I pushed myself to find out what drove me to search. It wasn’t until I began venturing inside toward that wise part of me that I found what I’d been looking for and recognized my soul.

ELDERHOOD and The Sage

The Sage experiences all of creation as “hers” in the sense that the universe is her primary felt membership. She has gone “behind things, beyond hours and ages, [to] be all things in all time,” as Jeffers writes. Or as Einstein puts it, she has widened her “circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” (5)  

I don't consider myself a Sage or an Elder yet, but I glimpsed one person who lived in an expanded universe. I remember sitting beside one of those elders in my mid-twenties on the plane coming home from Europe. She was simply and stylishly dressed and her face bore the deep lines of a long life, yet she appeared ageless. Her demeanor captivated me, as she exuded a quiet strength, genuine sincerity, and a compassionate peacefulness I'd not seen or felt before, irresistibly drawing me into "beyond hours and ages to be all things in all time".

I came across the works of Rudolf Steiner (1861‒1925) when I was studying early childhood education. He and Emil Molt founded the Waldorf School of Education in 1919. The philosophy of the school appealed to me and was influential in how I ran my home daycare. The children could choose from a variety of play experiences based on their interests. While engaged in those experiences, they were also engaged in learning how to take turns, express their preferences and emotions, respect each other, listen and lead, make choices, create, build, imagine, and problem-solve.

I didn’t get into Steiner’s other books and writings then, but in his book, he talks about reincarnation, the journey of the soul and its overall purpose. What interested me was that Steiner suggests we consider the part we play in the development of our souls and how it might affect the world and, more broadly, human evolution.

Today, through technology, the internet, and social media, we can relate and connect worldwide. How does this influence our actions and our souls today? Do we see what our chosen actions may cause in our connected global world as they ripple out around us? Given the state of our world, do we take responsibility for the ripples caused by our actions, or do we even care? In 1922, Steiner asked the same questions, but our western society today may be farther away from connection with our souls.

It’s been a hundred years since Steiner was alive, so I had to ask another question. How has our world changed in that time and could it affect our soul's development? I thought of one factor. A deeper connection with soul in my life was, in part, because of my daily meditation practice of walking in nature. As I walked, I invariably received insights and answers to deep questions. I also was aware of how grounded I felt, yet it wasn’t a "grounded to the earth" sense. It was more like feeling my soul expanding and reaching out to the natural world and beyond. I sensed a connection with all of it. People of Steiner's day spent much more time in nature than most of us do today. We’re more likely to connect with our phones and spend a half hour doom scrolling or taking selfies than walking through trees, or beside the bodies of water.

The other difference I see in western society is a lack of community surrounding our wisest elders except in indigenous cultures. The word “elder” does not refer just to age. It refers to those who have traversed the initiations of adulthood and soul to the point they offer the rest of us a human connection to the mystic and the mystery of the Universe. My sense is these remarkable elders are our life mentors and living bridges between us and what’s beyond us, out there. Where are those elders today?

Sadly, the culture I live in doesn't seem to search for or value these living gems. Perhaps I need to look for them as they aren’t likely to toot their own horn or show up to share their wisdom with us at the local coffee shop. No, we will know them, at once, by their presence. I’ll let my readers know if I find one, so maybe we can evolve as humans?

1. Plotkin, Bill. Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World. New World Library, 2008. Kindle.

2. Steiner, Rudolf, Life of the Human Soul and its Relation to World Evolution, ed. Kendrick Knobel, trans., Matthew Barton, CW212, #212 in The Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner, (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2016). Kindle.

This book is a series of nine lectures given from April 29, 1922 to June 17, 1922 by Rudolf Steiner. The lectures, originally written in shorthand, were first published in German by Rudolf Steiner Press. In 1998, the Rudolf Steiner Press published a second edition. The above book is an authorized translation based on the 1998 edition and published by the Rudolf Steiner Press in 2016. See Notes For the 2nd Edition, 1998, p. 153.

3. Plotkin, 304.

4. Plotkin, 353.

5. Plotkin, 433.