AUDIOBOOK
About
As featured in Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper!
• 2025 Nautilus Gold Award
• Presents years of weekly inspiration and practices pointing the way forward through every conceivable mood, opportunity, and stumbling block on the spiritual journey through the second half of life
• Includes quotes and stories by and about mystics, sages, and old souls from ancient through contemporary times who have walked this path before us
• Shares insightful guidance on transforming loneliness to solitude, loss of identity to freedom, anger to self-protection, fear to faith, and envy to love
Many of us navigating the years beyond midlife report high levels of self-acceptance, freedom, and joy, but there can also be bouts of second-guessing and regret as well as the occasional longing to be reminded that you're not in this alone.
Designed to be read weekly in two-year cycles, the 120 timeless readings in this book focus on the issues and concerns that arise among those who view aging as a path to spiritual culmination. Transforming loneliness to solitude, loss of identity to freedom, anger to self-protection, fear to faith, and envy to love, Orsborn's wise and compassionate insights are seasoned by quotes and stories by and about mystics, sages, and old souls from ancient through contemporary times who illuminate the path to living a full life while embracing old age. The connecting thread is the reminder that you have what it takes to shift from reacting with fear to the challenges of aging, instead accepting these challenges in a spirit of gratitude as they help you grow not just old, but whole. Carol Orsborn, Ph.D., is founder of the Spiritual Aging Study and Support group and author of more than 35 books, including The Spirituality of Age, with Robert Weber, Ph.D., and Older, Wiser, Fiercer. She has taught at Georgetown University and lives in Nashville and Toronto. Greetings, Old Friend
You and I have been working spiritually and psychologically for a long time to get to this place of arrival. We who have been transformed by the challenges of time have tasted the wholeness, freedom, and completion that is life's promise to us. We count ourselves fortunate to walk arm-in-arm with our cohort of lifelong seekers following the path of the mystics, elders, and old souls who have lit the way: Ram Dass, Rumi, Pema Chodron, and Carl Jung, to name a few. The growing cadre of way-showers grows deep and strong as we have learned from them so much about humility, acceptance, human nature, and what it means to fully embrace life.
In many ways the rewards wrested from growing older are greater than we'd ever expected. But even here, advancing toward the peak of adult and spiritual development, rising to meet life's many occasions is sometimes more than we can bear. Just when we begin to celebrate a degree of mastery, something unexpected raises the bar. We encounter old wounds we thought we'd made peace with long ago. The thing we were most afraid of knocks at the door. Or we simply forget for a time how small we are and how big the mystery. One of the ironies of age is that past levels of mastery will never prove sufficient because as we expand and deepen our consciousness, the questions become only larger.
This book of readings has come to you at this particular bend in the road to meet you wherever you are in your journey through life. Every week for the next two years and beyond you will be reminded how far you have come already, and that regardless of what life brings your way, you are never truly lost or alone.
The weekly readings comprise a perennial loop of two-year cycles meant to accompany you through the coming years. They are designed to be read one each week, your choice of day and time, and over every two years' span to cover every conceivable mood, challenge, and topic you may encounter. The readings are at once personal and archetypal, applicable to every one of us. They came to me from
• 2025 Nautilus Gold Award
• Presents years of weekly inspiration and practices pointing the way forward through every conceivable mood, opportunity, and stumbling block on the spiritual journey through the second half of life
• Includes quotes and stories by and about mystics, sages, and old souls from ancient through contemporary times who have walked this path before us
• Shares insightful guidance on transforming loneliness to solitude, loss of identity to freedom, anger to self-protection, fear to faith, and envy to love
Many of us navigating the years beyond midlife report high levels of self-acceptance, freedom, and joy, but there can also be bouts of second-guessing and regret as well as the occasional longing to be reminded that you're not in this alone.
Designed to be read weekly in two-year cycles, the 120 timeless readings in this book focus on the issues and concerns that arise among those who view aging as a path to spiritual culmination. Transforming loneliness to solitude, loss of identity to freedom, anger to self-protection, fear to faith, and envy to love, Orsborn's wise and compassionate insights are seasoned by quotes and stories by and about mystics, sages, and old souls from ancient through contemporary times who illuminate the path to living a full life while embracing old age. The connecting thread is the reminder that you have what it takes to shift from reacting with fear to the challenges of aging, instead accepting these challenges in a spirit of gratitude as they help you grow not just old, but whole. Carol Orsborn, Ph.D., is founder of the Spiritual Aging Study and Support group and author of more than 35 books, including The Spirituality of Age, with Robert Weber, Ph.D., and Older, Wiser, Fiercer. She has taught at Georgetown University and lives in Nashville and Toronto. Greetings, Old Friend
You and I have been working spiritually and psychologically for a long time to get to this place of arrival. We who have been transformed by the challenges of time have tasted the wholeness, freedom, and completion that is life's promise to us. We count ourselves fortunate to walk arm-in-arm with our cohort of lifelong seekers following the path of the mystics, elders, and old souls who have lit the way: Ram Dass, Rumi, Pema Chodron, and Carl Jung, to name a few. The growing cadre of way-showers grows deep and strong as we have learned from them so much about humility, acceptance, human nature, and what it means to fully embrace life.
In many ways the rewards wrested from growing older are greater than we'd ever expected. But even here, advancing toward the peak of adult and spiritual development, rising to meet life's many occasions is sometimes more than we can bear. Just when we begin to celebrate a degree of mastery, something unexpected raises the bar. We encounter old wounds we thought we'd made peace with long ago. The thing we were most afraid of knocks at the door. Or we simply forget for a time how small we are and how big the mystery. One of the ironies of age is that past levels of mastery will never prove sufficient because as we expand and deepen our consciousness, the questions become only larger.
This book of readings has come to you at this particular bend in the road to meet you wherever you are in your journey through life. Every week for the next two years and beyond you will be reminded how far you have come already, and that regardless of what life brings your way, you are never truly lost or alone.
The weekly readings comprise a perennial loop of two-year cycles meant to accompany you through the coming years. They are designed to be read one each week, your choice of day and time, and over every two years' span to cover every conceivable mood, challenge, and topic you may encounter. The readings are at once personal and archetypal, applicable to every one of us. They came to me from