A Man for all Seasons

This is an article about man’s spiritual struggle, but will be of interest to woman who is his beloved companion on the journey through existence. For he who is inspired to find God, the task requires him to have experienced life to the degree that he knows his world sufficiently so as not to be fooled by its phony pretensions. The spiritual quality of transformation has often been perceived through nature and the changing cycles of life on earth. Similarly, to merge with the innate power of the creative source is to participate in the divine nature of our eternal origins. Ultimately this can only be realised by a man for all seasons.

To be seasoned is to have experienced life at its most base as well as its finest level. It’s to have succeeded and failed, and to have suffered and enjoyed the ecstasy of love – but holding on to nothing with no memorable reference to the past. From birth until puberty is the season of innocence in which the young boy develops, both physically and psychologically, into the rough outline of the emerging adult man. This season of the life is indelibly impressed within the being since the senses are remarkably attuned at this time to the scent of nature, which creates a deep bond with the environment in which one is raised.

At puberty, the gathering season begins as the drive into the sensual experiences of life on earth. As the sexual energies of the unconscious replace the sense of innocence with the vibration of craving for lust in the flesh, the young man gradually adjusts to the new octave of life. Within a few years he is fully acclimatised and ready to take his position in a world populated with like-minded fellows. The gathering season continues throughout the twenties and thirties as the striving for wealth and acquired worldly knowledge. With new responsibilities such as a family and comfortable home, life is good for a while – but a new season is fast approaching.

The season of loss begins with the death of someone who is dear or a similar emotional setback, and is accompanied by the sense of impermanence never registered before. The mat has been pulled from under the foundation of the structure of life, assumed erroneously to continue uninterruptedly in a sort of dream state within the harsh outer crust of the world. The man has reached a mid-life crisis which, unknowingly, has been invoked by a deeper and more profound aspect of his reality within. What happens is a surge to the surface awareness of the value of the living life’s experience to date. It’s a climactic moment and his response will determine the next phase and season of the life.

Now at the age of forty or fifty (or even sometimes little earlier or later) there are two distinct possibilities which trigger the emerging new season of the life. These are the season of death or the season of elimination. For a man who is unable to make the necessary changes to instigate the next phase of life (which could entail leaving a partner or changing his job) the season of death will prevail and his life will gradually diminish into a sort of living death whereby his manly authority will be largely subverted. This can be in the form of compromise with his partner for the sake of some peace, or working long hours to meet the monthly payments and secure the full benefits of the retirement pension. For a man who recognises the opportunity to break with the old so as not to be a slave to the decisions and choices made in his twenties and thirties, the season of elimination has begun.

The emergence of a man of all seasons is a new authority and presence that is not reliant on a prestigious job or money in the bank. Whereas the season of death is a steady decline into the geriatric condition of old age, the season of elimination is a shedding of the ignorance and restrictive elements of the living experience. As the man for all seasons enters his sixties, he is divested of the burdens of his unconscious past in preparation for the union with his original season of innocence. He is gathering once more, but this time the virtue of his entire experience as a being of the earth. The loss is now a season of that which no longer serves; and in its place is love, no longer concealed by the form but in its original diamond-like splendour. As death of the body approaches, the elimination is finalised by the release of time as any burden and the need to be reborn into the seasons of the life.