Being Both Young and Old

Being young


Being old aka mature

Below is one of the daily devotionals I read today. I took a little license and reworded some of the nouns to make it applicable to both male and female. Thought it was pretty good.

MASCULINE/FEMININE SPIRITUALITY

Question of the Day:
How can a person befriend both the young person and the old person within?

I believe in every person there are two basic archetypes and they are most simple:  the young boy/girl and the old man/woman.  In many of our lives, one or the other totally dominates, some never grow up and others never grow down. The ideal is when the two become friends and meet somewhere in the middle.  That is the “grand” father/mother that we all love and need.

The young inspires the blossoming of things; the old presides over the harvest.  The young hopes and expects and is naturally optimistic.  I remember feeling that way when I was young: “It is still coming; it’s out there, wherever it is.”  Now in my sixties “it” seems to have already happened, and I have struck the mother lode, the unified field underneath. Now life deserves both tears and laughter, I can be both grounded and free, both young and old at the same time.

Our native peoples said that “the young man who cannot weep is a savage and the old man who cannot laugh is a fool.”