Bone Woman: Conscious Eldering
Understand the role you are
to play in opening a petal
of humanity's blossoming.
Jacqueline Small, 'Psyche's Seeds'.
Image: altar, Queen of the Harvest Ceremony.
What's In the
Harvest Basket?
Taking the time to ask ‘what is in the harvest basket?’ creates an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of your self, and to work towards an integration of past experiences. You will gain a sense of the capacities that have arisen within you over the course of your life to date. The process can prompt recognition of patterns including attitudes, belief systems and ways of reacting. Gaining awareness of these elements is the first step toward developing the capacity to consciously create new and life enhancing patterns with which to live your life according to your own script.
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This exercise divides your life into seven-year sections called septennials. Every seven years there is, within your body and soul system, a total change. As every cell changes and renews over a period of seven years, so too does an evolution occur in the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual realms. Many traditions have a special relationship with the number seven and human cosmic evolution. For example, the Baha’i, the seven Christian days of creation, the seven chakras, the seven doors to heaven and hell in Islam and the seven lucky Gods of Japanese mythology are just a few.
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Sorting the seeds is a creative process designed to bring forth an image for each of the septennials you have lived to date. It is based on Process Meditation and Rudolf Steiner’s middle way process, which brings negative and positive feelings together, and at the intersection of the two there emerges a new, third thing.
I call this new synthesised thing a seed space, from which we will ask for a symbol to emerge. This symbol acts as a metaphor for the integration of each septennial. Each seed is a transpersonal blueprint unique to you, and put together, the symbols you glean from each septennial carry a thread of your life, and of you. The instructions below outline the process to repeat for the following website pages for each septennial that you have lived.
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What’s in the Harvest Basket?: The Process
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What you need:
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A new journal to write in for your Bone Woman journey;
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Round pieces of paper, dinner plate size, one for each seven years of your life to date;
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Pencil plus crayons or textas or paints – whatever you would like to use;
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List of prompts for each septennial (listed below and available as a printable);
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Some time and space free of distractions.
Instructions:
This process is about cultivating a bird’s eye view of your life journey and gaining a deeper understanding of yourself and your life as you work toward an integration of past experiences. It is an observation exercise designed to provide insight into your unfolding self and your life trajectory. Try not to get caught up in detailed memories, judgements or emotions and remember self-care and self-responsibility: only go as deep as where you can safely return from. If you get caught up in memories and emotions take a break and return to this later.
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Focus on the breath, letting all thoughts and preoccupations dissolve. This is a time for you: a time to reflect on the events and experiences that have brought you to the present moment. This is a process of digestion, integration and synthesis – your opportunity to sort through the ‘harvest basket’ of your life, and to find some distilled seeds that can be taken into the next phase of your life, in service to a greater vision and purpose.
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Start by journalling in response to the prompts listed on the following pages, for the amount of septennials you have lived and including the one your age now is in. They focus on remembering the main facts and events of your life from different and specific time periods, as well as your inner responses to the events of your life and the resonances they now have for you. They are prompts: if different memories flow then write those – strict adherence to the prompts is not the point.
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After completing the prompts for one septennial, divide a page into two columns. The headings for each column should be ‘negative’ and ‘positive’. In the ‘negative’ column, write a list of negative experiences, emotions, themes, actions and reactions from the first septennial. In the ‘positive’ column write the positive experiences, themes, actions, gifts, relationships of that septennial.
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The totality of truth present in every soul is a seed. Rudolf Steiner.
Demeter: Goddes of Gracious Generosity; tending the pure seed.
'...we must find the strength to view ourselves as we would
strangers; we must face ourselves with the inner tranquility
of a judge. If we achieve this, our experiences will reveal
themselves in a new light.
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Once we attain the inner peace of the overview, the non-
essential separates itself from the essential. Sorrow and
joy, every thought, and every decision will look different
when we face ourselves in this way.'
Rudolf Steiner.
Then, take a few moments with your eyes closed to feel into the negative list, considering each item you have written down. Then do the same for the positive list. Now, allow the two lists to merge – try to sit above or apart from the two lists and allow them to merge into one list, being, or energy – however you like to think about it. From this place, ask for a seed image to emerge, which represents the summation or synthesis of this septennial.
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Your seed image may appear in your mind visually, or as thoughts describing the image, or in another way. Go with the first image that arises and open your eyes and draw it on the first round piece of paper. This process is repeated after journalling for every septennial.