From White to Yellow: Crossing the Midlife Threshold
THE GREAT CHOICE: SAMENESS OR ALIVENESS
“...in this state of “whiteness” one does not live in the true sense of the word, it is a sort of abstract, ideal state. In order to make it come alive it must have “blood,” it must have what the alchemists call the rubedo, the “redness” of life. Only the total experience of being can transform this ideal state of the albedo into a fully human mode of existence.”
—Carl Jung
Not everyone decides to -truly- cross the threshold from white to yellow, both in alchemy and in life.
Jung tells us that many alchemists would feel satisfied with the progress they had made and would never choose to move beyond the white stage1, to not spoil the peace and comfort they had worked so hard to attain through the perilous nigredo journey.
Indeed, the yellowing often feels like a regression; it initiates another dark night of the soul, reminiscent of -yet different from- the original nigredo one, that brings back shadows we thought we had moved past for good, and brand-new ones too. Paradoxically, as we explored in part I of this post, the Gold of yellowing comes with a generous amount of black woven in it, in the form of loss, identity shifting and existential reckoning, -and that is why it activates such widespread resistance.
In the words of James Hillman:
“The white refuses to be yellowed. It seems a spoiling. Yellowing rots the perfection.”
By the time we reach Midlife, it has become difficult to let go of what we have already acquired; to allow the products of our great investments, both energetic and material, during our first adulthood, to ‘rot’.
However...
The Opus doesn’t end in whiteness. As Jung points out in the opening quote of this piece, in this state, we don’t truly live. ‘White’ safety and security are highly valued, and thus tempting, in our world. And yet, the price we pay for holding onto them is our own aliveness.
To continue to exist in situations, inner and outer, we have outgrown, whose life force has been depleted and which don’t feel true to us anymore, we inevitably have to numb parts of ourselves out, expend psychic energy silencing the screaming voices that know inside, and live in a state of distraction that our culture is all but built upon.
Sameness or Aliveness
We are only just starting to collectively re-discover the importance of rites of passage, the value of the liminal, and the age-old mysteries of Death and Rebirth. We are slowly remembering that Life equals Change, and that the only way to stay alive while we’re still here is to allow ourselves to transition, evolve and shapeshift, over and over and over again.
Generations before us didn’t have this understanding. For a very long time, sticking to what is known and secure, be it a career, a relationship, a path in life, or an identity, has been associated with success. Feeling lost, not knowing our way, not having ‘arrived’, especially from a certain age onward, have all been seen as signs of immaturity, as personal flaws.
The result of this approach? Our good old friend, the Midlife Crisis.
Every single one of the stereotypical signs and symptoms of a midlife crisis -affairs, usually with younger people; extravagant purchases; setting one’s whole life on fire from an impulsive place rather than out of conscious choice; regressing into an adolescent mindset in all sorts of ways- result from the avoidance of facing, and willingly crossing, the Midlife threshold and the deep change it brings with it.
Avoidance, more often than not, comes from fear, and fear comes from a lack of understanding, a lack of familiarity. Framing the Midlife passage as just a crisis that randomly occurs without a deeper meaning or purpose incites both fear and avoidance. Not having a context, a map, a framework for the, often, intense experiences of this period, makes it likely that we will try to suppress the forces at play for as long as we can and close our eyes to the metamorphosis that is pushing to unfold. However, as we know very well, what we resist, persists; what we refuse to see does not just disappear, but continues trying to get our attention in unconscious, seemingly self-sabotaging ways.
In Search of a New Mythology
To counteract and start rewriting this powerful collective narrative, we urgently need to turn to affirming models and wisdom traditions, both ancient and modern, that can help us weave a new framework and experience of Midlife beyond the Crisis narrative.
We need a new mythology that helps us shed light on the deeper ‘why’ behind experiences that often don’t make rational sense, and activate our willingness to work with, rather than against, the invitation our Soul extends to us.
In my own, intensive search for meaning, as I have been approaching and navigating the Midlife threshold over the last three years, there have been three approaches that have been most supportive -and which are also the very basis of my work:
Alchemy, Depth Psychology and Archetypal Astrology.
Woven together. In synergy.
It is those traditions that I have brought together in my self-paced course, The Midlife Initiation, created to introduce you to both the theory and practice of Midlife metamorphosis. You can learn more here, if you would like to go deeper.
Discovering the psychospiritual meaning of Midlife is not going to protect us from its challenges and tribulations -and it is not meant to. Midlife is an initiation, a rite of passage, and some form of crisis has always been an inherent part of these experiences -it is the very catalyst of transformation.
It is though going to light a candle in the dark for us, help us remember that Midlife instability is not random, but deeply intentional -actually, essential- and that we are not alone in it -even though it manifests differently for everyone, the passage is universal.
To close with another one of Jung’s potent quotes:
“Meaning makes a great many things endurable—perhaps everything.
In the Dance with you,
Stella