Seven-year cycles
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Over the course of human life, changes happen on many levels: in the anatomy and physiology of the body (including biorhythms), in consciousness (studied by developmental psychology), and in the sense of individual direction and biographical intentions. Change tends to take place in discrete and definable stages; Rousseau and Piaget have described some aspects of these stages for childhood.
This principle of staged development has had its most coherent advocate in Rudolf Steiner, who described all of human life developing through a series of approximately seven-year phases. (Seven years is the norm for each phase, but individuals may differ in developmental rates.) He correlated the changes in physical development, rhythms and consciousness that occur within each of these phases. Steiner's descriptions of the first three of these seven-year phases, which run from birth, or actually conception, until the twentieth year of life, predate but correspond closely with what Piaget and Gesell empirically discovered about the stages of childhood.
The seven-year cycles of human life are briefly described below; for clarity, the stages are grouped into the larger categories of childhood, young adulthood, and middle age, each running for three phases of seven years each, or 21 years.
(The following descriptions are provisional; the sources below are recommended for those interested in the subject.)
Childhood
The first phase of childhood begins at conception and passes through infancy and early childhood. The physical body experiences its most important growth phases during this time; especially the head takes on almost its final size. The inner organs are formed. Sensory perception develops and is at its most intense; consciousness and learning are extremely connected with concrete, sensory experience. The child lives through doing, through his or her will; learning takes place through imitation of the environment and activity.
The next phase includes the (elementary) school years, from six or seven up until thirteen or fourteen years of age. The trunk grows to most of its final length. The relationship of breathing to heartbeat stabilizes to a 4:1 rhythm. The forces that cause growth metamorphose into the capacity for learning. Imaginative pictures can now be actively transformed and metamorphosed; thus, pictorial-imaginative learning supplements concrete experience.
Finally comes adolescence, which lasts until adulthood at around twenty or twenty-one years. The limbs and reproductive systems reach their final growth. The metabolism is substantially transformed; sleep habits and the corresponding biorhythms shift once more. Abstract reasoning and rational judgements develop. A strong inner life arises, including personal feelings.
Young Adulthood
The first phase, the twenties, is a phase of exploration. Soul experiences are felt intensely. Often many different options are tested out as the young adult finds his or her feet. Often, the young adult is led by the environment and its possibilities.The next phase, about 27-35, is a phase of settling down and organizing. Life usually becomes more internalized and stable. This is a period of increasing self-direction and commitment.
The third phase, 35-42 years of age, is a phase of consolidation and reflection.
These three are all social phases, in the sense that much of the development of young adulthood takes place through interactions with others.
Middle Age
A whole period of life has now completed; it is as challenging to pass from young adulthood to middle age as it was to pass from childhood to young adulthood. The challenge is to accept the loss of youth not knowing what gains middle age will bring. One's development becomes more dependent upon individual initiative, less upon the community.
The first phase of middle age, 42-49 years of age, is a phase of acceptance of the new limits: physical limitations, career limitations, personality limitations, etc. At the same time, new directions may open up. Inner development may intensify through an idealistic, religious or spiritual focus.
The second phase, 49-56 years, can see an expansion of the initiatives begun in the previous phase. A clearer overview of one's life can be achieved.
The third phase, 56-63 years, often focuses on bringing the life's work to a conclusion. Retirement is seen coming; loose ends are tidied up.
Old Age
The elders of a community often had a special place in it. Those who are no longer tied to personal situations, who are outwardly or inwardly free, can advise others more wisely. If this wisdom and liberation from what is merely personal (egoistic) can be achieved, the next phases of life can be very fulfilling. Concrete descriptions of the seven-years stages of old age are as yet missing from the technical literature; this remains a task for future researchers.References
- Harlan Gilbert, At the Source: The Incarnation of the Child and the Development of a Modern Pedagogy.
- Bernard Lievegoed, Man on the Threshold
- Bernard Lievegoed, Phases.
- Bernard Lievegoed, Phases of Childhood
- George O'Neill, Human Life
- Rudolf Treichler, Soulways: The Developing Soul. Life Phases, Thresholds and Biography
- Rudolf Steiner, Education in the Light of Spiritual Science
- Rudolf Steiner, The Education of the Child
The images accompanying the stages of life above are a metamorphosis series drawn by Peter A. Wolf and originally published in the first of the referenced works, above.
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