Jane Roberts, on the Seasons of Life

The following is an excerpt from The Nature of Personal Reality by Jane Roberts & Seth:

One of the problems arises out of the connotations given to the words "older," or "old." In your culture you believe that to be young is to be flexible, alert and aware. To be old or older is considered a disgrace, generally speaking; rigid, out of style, and passe.

If you desperately try to remain young, it is usually to hide your own beliefs about age, and to negate all of those emotions connected with it. Whenever you refuse to accept the reality of your creaturehood, you also reject aspects of your spirit. The body exists in the world of space and time. The experiences you may encounter in your sixties are as necessary as those in your twenties. Your changing image is supposed to tell you something. When you pretend alterations do not occur you block both biological and spiritual messages.

In old age the organism is, in certain terms, preparing for a new birth. The combined events of spirit, mind, and body involve not only the passing of one season but preparation for the beginning of another. The situation includes all of those supports necessary to carry you through, not only with acceptance but with great aggressive drive toward new experience.

To refute your reality in time, therefore, results in your being stuck in time and obsessed by it. Accepting your integrity in time allows the body to function until its natural end, in good condition, free from those distorted, invisible concepts about age.