The Forest-Dweller Stage of Life

Wendy,

Thank you for writing this wonderful article. I am a Hindu and I was aware about this and yet your have written it in such a beutiful manner that it has solidified my faith in this fundamental teaching in Hinduism.

-Balaji

Wendy, and all--
Thanks for all the wonderful reflections.

As a 'baby' forest-dweller, a reflection and question is that possibly because of the amount of life experiences that are available to us at such young ages, at least in north American culture, we are functioning at more than one stage of life simultaneously. Thus the term, 'quarter-agers' denotes that some in their 20's and early 30's who are solidly performing householder phase of life tasks, are on intra-psychic levels precociously experiencing the dénouement of the more typical middle-aged person. The question: is this juxtaposition of life stages playing a significant part in our cultural anxiety?

The second comment is a reflection on Norrie's comment. The forest-dwelling stage seems to be a time when there is still meaningful activity (input) as well as what is lacking in the earlier stages--the spaciousness to distill life's activity and experiences into some sort of wisdom. The form of this wisdom may be some form of art, writing a book, a deeper experience of our garden, or the ability to joyfully just 'be' with a child or elder. This 'output' is available to any of us, with or without means (taking into consideration Maslow's hierarcy), with or without travel, or even with or without our external senses.

Indeed, what I am experiencing is a desire to not attract a lot more experience, but to 'chew the cud' of my life-thus-far. There's a quiet urge to plumb the depths of the failures, successes, ah-has, losses and longings of the life that has been given to me.

My maternal grandmother lived to be 103, and died 'with her boots on'. I had the great good fortune to deeply love her and closely observe her move through the tail end of householder stage (she was 55 when I was born), then forest-dweller (probably aged 65-94), and finally renunciate or elder(the last 9 years of her life, heralded by a near death experience at age 94.) I have done some reflection on her life, but there's more--and it can best be done, I'm thinking, as I near the age when she and I first 'met' (my birth).

As host of a new website, the Virtual Tea House (www.virtualteahouse.com) I would love to have all of your reflections and wisdom become part of that virtual community as well as this one!

Thanks again for the space to connect around these important issues, Wendy.

Mr. Rogers, let us hope all thinking people ask important questions we keep trying to answer. In the meantime, Gaby offers us some answers to those "pointed questions" (do they have to be so sharp? Why do they smack of judgement?) that reflect both mind and heart struggling for integration in an unfair world.

Oh yes, Mr. Rogers, life isn't fair. We do what we can in minute by minute decisions. Some manage to be successful sometimes.

Here are some more questions, from the Tao te Ching, Mitchell translation:

Fame or integrity, which is more important?
Money or happiness, which is more valuable?
Success or failure, which is more destructive?

Those are nice "equal opportunity" questions, more in the spirit of the fine essay.

You can be anyone or no one or any combination thereof and get to answer them... to some real benefit.

This is a really wonderful piece, Wendy! It reminded me of yet another favorite part of the Tao, as expressed by Stephen Mitchell:

In the pursuit of knowledge
every day something is added
In the practice of the Tao
every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
Nothing is left undone.

In the ancient Indian tradition, one planned the years of life in four ashrams or stages, with the style of Yoga practiced in each stage chosen to match the circumstances of that stage. A life of 84+ years was sought, with each of the four stages being 21 years. Some have revised these into four stages of 25 years, seeking a life of 100+ years. The purpose for this life planning is to attain the direct experience of Self-realization, Yoga or enlightenment here, in this world, in this very life. While our lifestyles may have changed since then, the basic idea of these four stages is as sound today as it was then.

1) Brahmacharya/Student: The celibate student time of youth is for learning the foundation of lifestyle. The focus is on healthy, positive training and discipline, learning about spiritual, community, and family life.

2) Grahasta/Householder: The householder phase of life is when one lives with spouse and children, fulfilling worldly interests and duties. It is a time of giving, living, learning, and loving in family and community. Religious or spiritual practices are done in the context of worldly life and service to others.

3) Vanaprastha/Hermitage: This is a time for shifting focus more towards more inner spiritual practices of meditation, contemplation, and prayer. Relationships with grown children and community are more in the role of a matured mentor. Lifestyle is more simplified, and the couple may retreat to a quieter place for deeper practices.

4) Sanyasa/Renunciate: The elder person now retreats from active involvement in all worldly goals, seeking only spiritual goals in this final phase. No longer having political, professional, or social engagements, there is a further shift towards being an elder teacher of spiritual knowledge.

While we are a diverse world of cultures, religions, philosophies, and attitudes, this simple framework of life planning has great value for all of us. Regardless of how we may have lived the stages of life that are already behind us, being aware of, and committed to the current and later stages of life can bring great comfort and clarity as we progress on the path of Self-realization.

http://www.swamij.com/four-ashrams.htm

In the ancient Indian tradition, one planned the years of life in four ashrams or stages, with the style of Yoga practiced in each stage chosen to match the circumstances of that stage. A life of 84+ years was sought, with each of the four stages being 21 years. Some have revised these into four stages of 25 years, seeking a life of 100+ years. The purpose for this life planning is to attain the direct experience of Self-realization, Yoga or enlightenment here, in this world, in this very life. While our lifestyles may have changed since then, the basic idea of these four stages is as sound today as it was then.

1) Brahmacharya/Student: The celibate student time of youth is for learning the foundation of lifestyle. The focus is on healthy, positive training and discipline, learning about spiritual, community, and family life.

2) Grahasta/Householder: The householder phase of life is when one lives with spouse and children, fulfilling worldly interests and duties. It is a time of giving, living, learning, and loving in family and community. Religious or spiritual practices are done in the context of worldly life and service to others.

3) Vanaprastha/Hermitage: This is a time for shifting focus more towards more inner spiritual practices of meditation, contemplation, and prayer. Relationships with grown children and community are more in the role of a matured mentor. Lifestyle is more simplified, and the couple may retreat to a quieter place for deeper practices.

4) Sanyasa/Renunciate: The elder person now retreats from active involvement in all worldly goals, seeking only spiritual goals in this final phase. No longer having political, professional, or social engagements, there is a further shift towards being an elder teacher of spiritual knowledge.

While we are a diverse world of cultures, religions, philosophies, and attitudes, this simple framework of life planning has great value for all of us. Regardless of how we may have lived the stages of life that are already behind us, being aware of, and committed to the current and later stages of life can bring great comfort and clarity as we progress on the path of Self-realization.

http://www.swamij.com/four-ashrams.htm

In the ancient Indian tradition, one planned the years of life in four ashrams or stages, with the style of Yoga practiced in each stage chosen to match the circumstances of that stage. A life of 84+ years was sought, with each of the four stages being 21 years. Some have revised these into four stages of 25 years, seeking a life of 100+ years. The purpose for this life planning is to attain the direct experience of Self-realization, Yoga or enlightenment here, in this world, in this very life. While our lifestyles may have changed since then, the basic idea of these four stages is as sound today as it was then.

1) Brahmacharya/Student: The celibate student time of youth is for learning the foundation of lifestyle. The focus is on healthy, positive training and discipline, learning about spiritual, community, and family life.

2) Grahasta/Householder: The householder phase of life is when one lives with spouse and children, fulfilling worldly interests and duties. It is a time of giving, living, learning, and loving in family and community. Religious or spiritual practices are done in the context of worldly life and service to others.

3) Vanaprastha/Hermitage: This is a time for shifting focus more towards more inner spiritual practices of meditation, contemplation, and prayer. Relationships with grown children and community are more in the role of a matured mentor. Lifestyle is more simplified, and the couple may retreat to a quieter place for deeper practices.

4) Sanyasa/Renunciate: The elder person now retreats from active involvement in all worldly goals, seeking only spiritual goals in this final phase. No longer having political, professional, or social engagements, there is a further shift towards being an elder teacher of spiritual knowledge.

While we are a diverse world of cultures, religions, philosophies, and attitudes, this simple framework of life planning has great value for all of us. Regardless of how we may have lived the stages of life that are already behind us, being aware of, and committed to the current and later stages of life can bring great comfort and clarity as we progress on the path of Self-realization.

http://www.swamij.com/four-ashrams.htm

Norrie

"Forest-Dwellers can travel into the depths while staying in one place."

You are so very right!!

Karen Porter,

"I haven't traveled as much as many, so I still have dream places that I may or may not ever see;..."

I've travelled a bit in the world during the past several decades. Now, in the Forest-Dweller stage, I agree with Thoreau's (also a quite well-travelled person) reply to someone who asked if he was much-travelled:

"I am much travelled in the Town of Concord."

Earlier in life he wrote: "I walked through New York [Manhattan] yesterday—and met no real and living person.”

Forest-Dwellers can travel into the depths while staying in one place.

Regards.

First I want to say that I found this piece an exceptional window of perspective on the gift of growing older. As the author notes early on, forests exist everywhere; in actual forests and countryside, in the suburbs and in the heart of cities large and small. Where, in my view, they do not exist is in places where people have given up on life; where they no longer have a purpose, a reason for living, something to motivate them to get up in the morning and go out into the world, however big or small, and do something, really anything, that will cause them to interact with people and contribute no matter how small. The crisis of aging is not about the passage to time. It is about the attitude one takes to that passage. I and I think many people have met people who are “old” at 40 and those who are “young” at 80. The old expression: “You are only as old as you think you are” is absolutely true. Age is entirely about attitude and completely relative.

Given the right attitude, the “gifts” of age that the writer catalogues so well with her personal tale are indeed precious. I turned 60 last year and the ability to “not care’ at some level about what people think, how they might “punish” me for saying something with which they do not agree, or worrying about how I am going to progress in my career or my social situation is very liberating. Living in the forest is about liberation, freedom to be yourself, to think your own thoughts, live your own life, and enjoy the gifts and freedoms that life brings but that you were too busy to notice when you were climbing the ladders that characterize those other phases of your life. These concepts have crept into my own life little by little as time has past like gnomes of minor rebellion causing me to understand what is important and what is trivial and that too much of my “pre-forest” time was dominated by the latter. May we all find our forest dwellings and learn to enjoy them to the fullest.

I most certainly identified with your comumn as I am heading into the forest-dwelling stages of my life.

I too, am grateful and content to be where I am and who I am.

Richard Rogers, one of the posters, is asking some pointed questions such as "Do you question whether you deserve to be there? Do you question your actions - such as your participation in a vicious (or so I've heard) academic political environment? Do you wonder if there is something else you could have done? Are you concerned about the vast number of people your age who don't have your wealth of time and funds?" I don't know how you would answer, but here is how I see it.

I think at one point in my live I have asked those questions myself. But I don't any longer.

Do I deserve where I am? Yes, I worked hard for it!

Do I questions my actions? No, I did what I needed to do to survive in the work envornment.

Do I wonder if there is something else I could have done? Not really, life dealt me my cards and the choices I made were the ones I needed to make.

Am I concerned about people who have less than I do? Certainly, and I give what I can when I can. That doesn't mean I beat myself up about having achived more than others.

There is lots of beauty in this world. One doesn't have to live at the beachfront in Cape Cod to enjoy it. I am forever awed by nature and everything in it. And being in my mid-fifties, I have mellowed and found an inner peace I never had before. And that is a wonderful feeling.

I appreciate where you are, as I am in my mid-50s and foresee a similar bucolic future for myself. But as a child of the 60s early 70s I have to point out that you are at the top of the pile as a tenured professor with a Cape Cod view and time on your hands, and I have to wonder what you've had to do to get there. Do you question whether you deserve to be there? Do you question your actions - such as your participation in a vicious (or so I've heard) academic political environment? Do you wonder if there is something else you could have done? Are you concerned about the vast number of people your age who don't have your wealth of time and funds? I imagine that you have addressed these questions and are satisfied enough to enjoy your time as a forest dweller, but as I was reading your pleasant ruminations, I was wondering whether you had.

I truly appreciate these comments - as another forest-dweller. I turn 60 next week, and I have had a long, wonderful life. I don't mean "wonderful" in the sense that it's been only "up" and never "down" - but wonderful in the sense that I've survived the bad stuff, learned to appreciate what I've got, reveled in so many of life's beauties. As a forest-dweller, just the sight of beautiful trees in all seasons is wondrous enough for my lifetime. Today, I have a beloved child in college - of whom I could not be prouder. I live alone with my cat and dog and, like the writer, relish coming home to them every day - that's all I need these days! I haven't traveled as much as many, so I still have dream places that I may or may not ever see; and my "to-read" book-stack keeps getting higher, not lower. I still must work for a living (not wealthy) and can probably never afford to retire, but I am an antiwar/social justice activist when I'm not at work - and this fills my life with purpose. Every day I get up and thank God for my beautiful world and my wonderful life and pray that others can have the same.

I truly appreciate these comments - as another forest-dweller. I turn 60 next week, and I have had a long, wonderful life. I don't mean "wonderful" in the sense that it's been only "up" and never "down" - but wonderful in the sense that I've survived the bad stuff, learned to appreciate what I've got, reveled in so many of life's beauties. As a forest-dweller, just the sight of beautiful trees in all seasons is wondrous enough for my lifetime. Today, I have a beloved child in college - of whom I could not be prouder. I live alone with my cat and dog and, like the writer, relish coming home to them every day - that's all I need these days! I haven't traveled as much as many, so I still have dream places that I may or may not ever see; and my "to-read" book-stack keeps getting higher, not lower. I still must work for a living (not wealthy) and can probably never afford to retire, but I am an antiwar/social justice activist when I'm not at work - and this fills my life with purpose. Every day I get up and thank God for my beautiful world and my wonderful life and pray that others can have the same.

That was a great little piece! Thank you.

Professor Doniger,

I'm a Forest-Dweller now. I always wanted to be one but had to earn a living. Retired now, I can be.

About 40 or 45 years ago there was a story of a loving couple in France or Italy. When they reached the age of 65 they happily separated. He entered a monastery, she a convent. So I guess there are Forest-Dwellers in all cultures.

I've got you beat on one thing: it took me only until my late teens to discover all the things on Cape Cod that you describe in your last paragraph.

Best wishes.

Great column, it gets right to the point of our different approaches to success and contentment in different stages of life. The point is time, not knowledge of ill-health.