The Second Adventure

Whereas the first adventure may involve the pursuit of happiness and the recognition that comes from outer accomplishments, the second adventure of life involves the fulfillment of the inner longings and hidden destiny of the soul.

 

The second adventure involves a kind of “gnosis,” a deeper knowledge of life that becomes available once we awaken to the nature of the inner spark and the greater calling set within the soul. It involves finding and learning to give one’s god-given talents, skills, and gifts in ways that make life in general more meaningful and genuine human community more possible. The second adventure leads to the pursuit of wisdom, the kind of transcendent knowledge that enlivens individual life, nourishes genuine community, and helps re-create culture.

 

-       Michael Meade: from Why the World Doesn’t End

 

From the outside, my first adventure and my second look pretty much the same. I’m still traveling the world doing workshops now like I did then (since January, Australia, Macau, Taiwan, Tennessee, Toronto, Vancouver, Salzburg, New Orleans, Carmel Valley, China). But re-reading that whole journal, I am clearly so much happier now. No conflicts at school because I’m retired there, my marriage leveled off to the ways that we work together well, one daughter beginning a promising new relationship and the other finding herself more fully in her separation. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune keep firing at me (as at everyone) but they don’t hurt as much and many just glance off my thicker skin. Like many my age, I pick and choose what I’m willing to let bother me and am enlarging my capacity to accept and let go. Also like many my age, I suffer from the inevitable physical diminishments (thankfully mostly small), but enjoy the larger soul dimensions of an elder’s life. 

 

When it comes to my workshops and courses, I may do the same material, but with a greater depth and height to it. Well-captured in Meade’s closing sentence, imbuing it all with a kind of transcendent knowledge that enlivens individual life, nourishes genuine community, and helps re-create culture.

 

So young people, no need to pity me for my computer skills, slower walk, sagging flesh. There is a greater adventure for you yet to come and I’m here to report that it can be glorious.