Recognition

Julie Squires – Recognition

Spokes on the heavenly wheel
Keep rotation constant.

Those who follow Tao believe that Tao progresses through phases. They apply this principle to all levels of their outlook, from cosmology to the stages of growth in a person’s life. On the microcosmic level, they point to the rotation of the stars as evidence of smooth progression. In a person’s life, they recognize the stages of aging beginning with childhood and ending with death.

Each one of us must go from phase to phase in our development. If we stay too long in one stage, we will be warped or stunted in our growth. If we rush through a stage, then we will gain none of the rewards of learning experiences of that phase. Subsequent growth will be thrown off-balance; we will either have to go back and make it up, or, in the case of experiences that can never be repeated, lose out on them forever. The proper discerning of these transitions is essential.

As we go through our various stages in life, it is important to mark the shift from one stage to another. Recognition is very important. We must understand that we are leaving behind one part of life and entering another. Sometimes, we mark this with a rite of passage such as graduation or marriage. At other times, it may be a personal declaration made privately. Whatever the reason, it is important to know exactly when to close one phase and when to open the next. That is why it is said that one counts the spokes on the heavenly wheel as it turns: It is the measure of our lives.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

In our society, we tend not to focus too much on rites of passage. We have graduations, marriage ceremonies, and funerals, true, but we don’t really give ourselves the time to appreciate these changing stages of our lives. We rush back to our jobs or whatever without fully appreciating what has changed in our lives. We don’t recognize the real stages of moving from childhood to adulthood, to becoming parents, to becoming elders. We lack respect for the fact that people are going through these changes, encouraging children to “grow up already” instead of respecting that a young adult needs time to adjust, encouraging people to “get over it” when they experience a loss, without taking the proper time to grieve. We treat older women especially as irrelevant to society, failing to recognize their wisdom and what we can learn from their experiences.

Americans look constantly to youth, without appreciation of the wisdom of elders. In our own lives, we deny the changes of our bodies, wanting to stay young-looking, fighting the lines and wrinkles and balding of aging, without embracing the new-found wisdom we might experience as we age. The passage of time is seen as a bad thing, instead of a natural thing.

Much of our society seems geared around impermanence. We move rather than letting our houses grow with us, into spaces that are impersonal and lack reflection of who we are as people. We want the bigger house or car, instead of appreciating the value of a house that we know well and that our children have grown up in. We move them to a new place rather than letting them remodel their own space, creating a changed version of their own space to grow with their ives. We lack the joy of seeing a garden grow and mature into an elegant reflection of ourselves, settling for a characterless patch of lawn and a few trees or shrubs. Where are our rich gardens, full of the flowers we love, that mean something to us? The lilies we ourselves have cut to give to friends in honor of thier birthdays or the loss of a parent, the roses we cut and give to the people we love? Where are the joyous patches of wildflowers changing with the seasons?

We need to mark our own personal passages in life and honor them. We need to design our society to honor all the phases of our lives, instead of ignoring or disparaging them, and give ourselves and others the time and space to truly experience our lives fully, richly and honorably.