Conscious Aging - by Cynthia Bourgeault (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Release your resistance to aging and step fully into your spiritual maturation.

In this illuminating guide, beloved teacher Cynthia Bourgeault explores aging as a sacred opportunity for spiritual evolution. Drawing on a lifetime of study and practice in the mystical Christian and Gurdjieff traditions, she introduces ten guidelines for mindfully accepting and working with the physical body's changes while awakening the spiritual body within. By cultivating this inner body, we transform the uncertain and sometimes frightening process of aging into a period of growth.

Through the practices and reflection questions included in each chapter, you will discover how to:

• accept your physical changes,
• release outdated self-images,
• befriend new facets of your selfhood,
• and radiate the deep vitality of your inner work.

Bourgeault invites you to walk the path of authentic elderhood. Whether you're already in your senior years or seeking wisdom for the road ahead, this book offers powerful insights that honor both the challenges and the profound opportunities that arise as we approach the end of our earthly journey.

Review Quotes

"What a small gem of a book! Sparkling with a rare spiritual wisdom served up with honesty and common sense, it is the perfect companion piece to my own Falling Upward."
--Richard Rohr, author of The Universal Christ

"In Conscious Aging, Cynthia Bourgeault brings forth a unique and much-needed vision. She shares her profound and deeply lived understanding of our spiritual traditions in a step-by-step exploration of the transformational possibilities in aging. I found the book to be hopeful and reassuring while being entirely practical and exhibiting no touch of naivete. It is a sober investigation into the possibilities available in the later stages of life, and as such, is a worthy read for us at any stage of our life journey. Cynthia takes us into a kind and realistic realization of aging as the emergence of our deepest spiritual nature, and as the culmination of a life. I found it personally moving and helpful and have embarked on using the lessons in this book in my own journey. Highly recommended."
--Russ Hudson, author of The Enneagram: Nine Gateways to Presence and co-author of The Wisdom of the Enneagram

"Cynthia Bourgeault's Conscious Aging is a field guide to conscious living by one of the few people I know who embodies this art. Her distillation of wisdom from a variety of traditions into ten guidelines for conscious aging, along with questions for reflection to personalize them and spiritual practices to bring them into your daily life, makes this book both insightful and practical. Only the aging should read this book, which, of course, means you."
--Rami Shapiro, author of Holy Rascals: Advice for Spiritual Revolutionaries

"This book affected me deeply; and I feel sure you'll find it by turns provocative, inspiring, and rewarding. It's a Hitchhiker's Guide to Mortality. Cynthia offers essential teachings about how to be present in our lives more gracefully as we age. She reminds us that in our society today, aging is seen from a mostly outward perspective as a fitness campaign waged against tired bones and weary flesh. Yet it's what is inside us as we age--our attitudes, our inclinations--that truly matters."
--Lee van Laer, former senior editor, Parabola

About the Author

CYNTHIA BOURGEAULT is a modern-day mystic, Episcopal priest, and theologian. She divides her time between solitude at her seaside hermitage in Maine and traveling globally to promote the rediscovery of the Christian contemplative path. She is a core faculty emerita at the Center for Action and Contemplation and founding director of the international network of Wisdom Schools. Cynthia's articles and essays have appeared in many journals and publications, and she is the author of numerous books, including Thomas Keating, Eye of the Heart, The Wisdom Jesus, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three, and The Heart of Centering Prayer.