“To each his (her) own.”

Based on the Latin phrase  – Suum cuique, “may all get their due.” 

Symbols and Color

• Background Position: A calm and serene vista, vast, with a haze hovering over mountains of experience all as the sun begins to set. At the end of the individual’s days on Earth, as it is with the Souls’ incarnating into their twilight lives, calm is more appealing and thus takes a wider and more measured perspective.
• Border Color: Tan – like the Good Red Road of Life in Native American Mythology
• Star: The Sage Level Soul Age is of Higher Expression
• Spiral Nautilus Shell: Cycles and Soul Age Set
• Orangutan: 5th Stage of Simian Evolutionary Complexity
• Elder: The Stages of Maturity – Senior (Slightly shrunken)

Implications of the Upright Position or the Positive Pole

Few Old Souls capture the state of inward directedness of true wisdom, without the fanfare of congratulations or the glamour of fame, as does poet Walt Whitman. He epitomizes the Positive Pole of Fulfillment of promise not because he sought to follow in someone else’s footsteps but because he travelled his own path.

Card messages in the Illuminated position.

+ Fulfillment

(Wisdom, mentor, repository, veneration, vintage,  completion)

1. The old have a vast base of experience. Just because something is old doesn’t mean it is useless.
2. Retirement of something valuable may be necessary, but be sure to have captured all its value before you let it go.
3. Some art and wine become more valuable with age. Fulfillment of potential is as much an attitude as it is a measurement of accomplishment. Even blemishes are part of the unique alchemy which changes the perception of a relic into a treasure. Open your treasures chest and share it with the world.
4. A fruit is both most delicious and most delicate when it is at its ripest.  Fulfillment will come as you are gentle and pick what you do next with great care and wisdom.
5. You have come to the end stage time when it takes wisdom to make the right decision. Your peace with the past characterizes how the process is enhanced or is diminished when base your views solely on the past.
6. “Live and Let live”, is a well known phrase calling for tolerance of differences. Old Soul reality is aware that in order to live one’s own way, we must acknowledge another Old Soul trope “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It is the act of not interfering with someone being themselves. It is also not about letting them control you either. 
7. You’ve fulfilled your potential! In this last stage you have stayed the course and gained wisdom.
8. Art and wine can become more valuable with age. All it requires is that the first capture an idea of deep meaning and the other produce a flavor blended with ingredients that time has perfected. Sign your work and toast the bouquet of your vintage.
9. Old Souls tend to value things for an essential utility and beauty. They value people of principle who stand for ideals they share. Collect only those people and things which work the most directly and elegantly.
10. Your maturity has reached a peak. It is time to put things into perspective and closure.
11. Even blemishes are part of your unique alchemy which alters the perception of a relic into a treasure. Open your treasure chest and share it with the world. No holding out, no holding back. You won’t know your value until you do.
12. The Old Soul has reached a state of philosophic neutrality. Their perspective is seldom bold, but their potential wisdom should be consulted.
13. By this final phase, you have fulfilled your potential. You stayed the course and gained wisdom!
14. Cherish your life, your experiences and contributions as vintage collectables, then you or what you have given, rises with value, not diminishes with age.
15. No one just grows old but you do get older. But does one grow wiser? That happens ONLY if one sees aging as a gift of another day of living. Think, “I just want celebrate another day of livin’. I just want to celebrate another day of life.” Appreciation is the sustenance which converts experience into wisdom. Regret is the muck that lets life become a pile of trash.

  Quotations related to this idea…

• “It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen.” -Brigitte Bardot
• “Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh.” Kahlil Gibran 
• “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” – Abraham Lincoln 
• “We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.” The Story of Rose.
• “We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.” – Samuel Smiles
• “The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquility of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.” W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM, The Summing Up

Implications of the Reverse Position or Negative Pole

Hands that have been used and are no longer strong nor nimble, is the image for the negative pole of antiquated. By shear wear and tear, and fault only to age, they suffer the difficulty to grasp and to hold.

Card messages in the Shadow position.

– Antiquated

(Tired, senility, retreat, useless, disposable, replaceable, useless, disposable, broken, archaic, rotten)

1. Senility and dementia occur when an elder has lost the ability to reason. This breakdown due to age is commonly ascribed to citizens who are deemed unproductive or antiquated. Retire those things that no longer produce anything useful.
2. At the end of a presumed life-cycle, the object or person might be judged antiquated; as a relic or decrepit; or perhaps out-of-place or less efficient. But is it useless? No. In such a circumstance, can you find a way to utilize what you have  instead of bemoaning your shortcomings or limitations?
3. When old is considered used-up or broken, its remaining value is left to languish and unwanted by others. Have you trashed something too soon?
4. It is sad when someone has become crotchety and cynical just because they’ve grown old. Yet, that state of body and frame of mind is capable of happening to anyone at any age who sees life’s scale as a curse, instead of a journey. If you can, heal before you die. At this stage of the game, stating it as a euphemism is part of the same curse.
5. Retire those things that no longer produce any value for you. It will expose your attachments.
6. No one just grows old, but you will get older. Yet will one grow wiser? That happens Only if they see aging as a gift of another day of living.
7. Whatever you are doing is old school. It is no longer working.
8. Author of the Prophet Kahlil Gibran said, “Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh.” At this point, you might surmise that it is first your attitude toward the situation that can change. If you drew this response. You should!
9. This is it, the final few seconds of the game. Do you give up, or go for broke before the final gun sounds? Which one feels like what you most commonly do? Which is happening here?
10. Old Souls learn via terror. And why not, it takes a lot to get the old fogie moving. Even more to get them to change their trajectory.

Quotations related to this idea…

• “All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.” BILLY GRAHAM, Newsweek, Aug. 14, 2006
• “I’ve finally reached the age where my Wild Oats have turned into All-Bran!” TOM WILSON, Ziggy, Nov. 19, 1999
• “When you get old, you can’t talk to people because people snap at you…. That’s why you become deaf, so you won’t be able to hear people talking to you that way.” EDWARD ALBEE The American Dream
• “The old are in a second childhood.” ~ ARISTOPHANES, The Clouds
• “The old are apt to mistake age for experience, and to imagine they are privileged to give good advice, though they may have lived only to afford bad example.” – NORMAN MACDONALD, Maxims and Moral Reflections

Relevance in the Michael Teaching

Age is a series of stages one passes through with no requirement for wisdom, just endurance. Imagining a schema where incarnation after incarnation happens to a conscious entity in order to view life itself with new lenses and new vantage points in increments from 1 day to over 100 years. Summed all together, that is what the Old Soul comes to realize.

The Old Soul stage, like an Elder in his final era, is confronted by a notable lack of ambition for the most part.  Philosophical in reflection and playful of attitude, he or she will tend to view life through a spiritual lens.  And at this Soul Age, the few answers accepted as fact tend to be of experience and personal intuition mixed with an intellectual leaning that connotes a hoi-polio philosopher.

Innately curious the Old Soul might like things that are more personal and their personality may appear to be quirky, wistful and in some cases appear even slightly demented in their eccentricities.

Famous Examples

Jesus of Nazareth, Siddhartha Gautama,  Whoopi Goldberg,  Oscar Wilde, John Lennon, Anwar Sadat, Margaret Meade, Rasjneesh,  Joan Didion, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X,  Robert Oppenheimer, Abraham Lincoln, Alice Waters, Mother Teresa, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Ellie Wiesel, Vaclav Havel, John Muir, Ben Kingsley, Thomas Jefferson, Jane Goodall, Abraham Maslow, Carl Jung, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Gloria Steinem, Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, Ralph Metzner, Meryl Streep, Ram Dass, Timothy Leary,  Patti Smith, Studs Terkel, Gary Snyder, David Brauer, Madame Blavatsky, George Harrison, Georgia O’Keeffe, Carole King, Rep. John Vasconsellos, Mort Saul, George Carlin, Allen Ginsberg, Jerry Garcia, Bill Graham, Sting, Bono, Jodie Foster, Eckhart Tolle, Richard Pryor, Wayne Dyer, Leonardo Divinci, Morgan Freeman, Socrates, Mohandas Gandhi, Marcus Aurelius, Lao Tzu,

Cultural Meaning

While old age can be the golden years many spend it in a virtual pasture put out to fade by family and society. In generations preceding the current era, the Elders of a tribe or town or village were venerated and occupied positions of respect. Years of experience may produce wisdom, but generally patience and a decent BS detector pass relatively equivalent. The Old Soul too, has a built in detector and little tolerance for the requirements of social standing and jousting with the persona’s of others. Including there own. If isolation is a problem for many of the actual aged, the Elder Soul might seek the shelter of isolation and anonymity rather than waste precious energy in the fashion parade that is required for climbing the latter of social hierarchy.

But things have changed. The prolonging of life by artificial means may have extended the quantity of days but there are those who would tell you that the infirmities and loss of faculties they suffer make the quality of that existence anathema to living. Enjoyment of the moment, reflection upon the triumphs and travails of life, occupy the sensibilities of the conscious Elder. But those whose maladies or repressions and regrets have robbed them of the sweetness of life and who feel unforgiven or cannot forgive languish in bitterness or hopelessness resigned to waiting; a secret desire for a passing that is too fearful to openly yearn.

It is in this time of life when the greatest appreciation for what one has and where one has journeyed can make the final years rich with pearls of wisdom to share with any and all who would listen. Ah, but it is the job of the listener to slow down and hear the words and stories so rich with marvels or of pain but may be delivered on the lips of a whisper.

by Stephen Cocconi © 2011, Updated 2024

For a Motivation Cards Reading or Channeled Consultation call: 209.768-4956 or email Stephen at channeling@themichaelteaching.com