Our culture is bent on avoiding aging. There's a problem with
that: Every one of us is aging every day. Of course, there are
enormous gifts in growing older and wiser, and Angeles Arrien is
working to help bring that awareness to our culture at large, to
those of us who've passed the fifty-year milestone-and also to
those who are headed in that direction. She notes that as the years
pass, "right now we have in this culture a kind of consensus that
we can only look forward to death, decline, disease, and despair.
The other possibility is a time of dreaming, a time of deserving, a
time of devoting, and a time of deciding." Arrien identifies the
opportunities we have in the second half of our lives to move
beyond obligation and say yes to our natural rhythms and deepest
desires. She points to the enormous possibilities for cultural
change as the generation of the sixties comes into their wisdom
years. Her words open a gateway to personal possibility as well,
and an affirmation that we truly can look ahead to the best years
of our lives.
Angeles Arrien is an anthropologist, educator, and a consultant
to the medical, academic, and corporate communities worldwide. She
has taught at the University of California, California Institute of
Integral Studies, the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and
the Alaya Institute, and is the founder of the Angeles Arrien
Foundation for Cross-Cultural Education and Research. She is the
author of numerous articles and books, including The Tarot Handbook
(Arcus Publishers 1987), Signs of Life: The Five Universal Shapes
and How to Use Them ((Putnam Publishing Group 1998), The Four-Fold
Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and
Visionary (HarperSanFrancisco 1993), The Nine Muses: A Mythological
Path to Creativity (Tarcher/Putnam 2000), and The Second Half of
Life: Opening the Eight Gates of Wisdom (Sounds True 2005). To
learn more about the work of Angeles Arrien go to
www.angelesarrien.com
New Dimensions seeks out the most innovative and creative people
on the planet and engages them in spontaneous, deep dialogues. Its
mission is to deliver life-affirming, socially and spiritually
relevant information, practical knowledge and perennial wisdom
through the voices and visions of those who are asking new
questions and are looking at the world in positive and inspiring
ways. It is through the exchange of ideas and information that we
can be empowered and enabled to meet the future with greater energy
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