Age Point echoes - 36 and 72 years

While researching my recent co-authored book - The Second Time Around - a number of contibutors to the book, who were sharing their own experiences of the Age Point moving around the chart for the second time, noted the "Echo Effect".

Using the chart as a LifeClock, the hand of the clock moves, in an anti-clockwise direction, around the lower half of the chart. Staring at the ascendant (AC/zero point/birth), it takes 36 years to reach the descendant (DC) which is opposite. In astrological psychological terms, this lower half of the chart relates to the unconscious. OK, we're not exactly unconsious from age 0 to 36, but we do have significant formative, shaping experiences which we are challeged to work with and through, surviving and establishing ourselves as indiviuals along the way. During this period we have the opportunity to learn much about ourselves through the contacts and relationships we make, and the responsibilities that go with making our mark in the world.

At age 36, the hand of the LifeClock crosses the DC and, like sunrise waking the earth at the start of the day, we "wake up" to a new perspective on life. Some people speak of finding this age and time of life like being "halfway there" (maybe to old age?) but many people experience an increased sense of maturity and a deeper understanding of their place in the world at age 36.

Even with no astrological knowledge, this age and period of life can feel significant and meaningful; people have described it as a time of waking up to the possibility of new horizons. There is an insight into the immensity of what this next stage of life can offer - I've heard it described by clients who recognised this time as the "world is my oyster" moment.

An echo effect is at work with the 36 year point of the cycle and it's second stage, the next 36 years, leading to one circuit of the circular chart at age 72. Sigificant psychological events that happened in childhood, or between ages 36 and 42, can ping back into consciousness as they are revisited from a new perspective at 36 years or 72 years later.

The 72 year period seems to be of particular significance as we re-enter the 1st house/area of life experience. We're there, literally, for the second time around and we have the first opportunity to experience consciously the energies and events encountered in early childhood, at a time when we had no possibility of assimilating potentially traumatic experiences.

Memories and echoes of this past, or from 36 years earlier, of events we experienced - good or bad, beneficial or painful - surface. Unresolved issues may demand attention and, with the wisdom of life experience to draw upon, it's possible - with some willing work on our part – to clear these. There may be insights, understandings, new perspectives, forgiveness and letting go of things from the past which are no longer relevant of useful – especially if we’re on an upward spiral and a spiritual path.

T.S.Eliot says it far better than I can, and in fewer words:

What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory down the passage which we did not take towards the door we never opened…..

Time past and time future, what might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present.

Four Quartets: Burnt Norton