seeing this before. Now, from the perspective of greater life experience, we begin to question who we are and, even if we are successful, settled and wealthy in social terms, whether this is enough to satisfy us on a personal and spiritual level. We have been hooked for perhaps 20 years by a vision of success defined in consensus or corporate terms but now begin to reassess who we have been and, with death starting to breathe down our necks, to reconsider our lives and ask ‘Is that all?’ as we look at who we might have been and how we might better spend our remaining days (more ‘face time’ in the office or watching our children grow? Climbing the corporate ladder beneath a mad and ungrateful boss or surfing the Rockies for kicks?). This is a time of consideration and thought about who we truly are and what we want from our lives, offering us the potential for adaptation, reinvention, rejuvenation and re-emergence into someone new. It is a time of life when the powers of the mind are more fully and productively used, both in reflecting on the past and revisioning the future. Because of this it is characterised by the element of Air, which has the ability to blow away our past lives and sweep us forward into a new and deeper sense of a more authentic self.
Finally, we arrive in the North and, if we have done the necessary work throughout our journey around the wheel, we may experience a true understanding of self, leading to deep peace and harmony, where we can look back on life and see our real place in the world, the meaning of our life’s path and, perhaps, the flow of all things, from a perspective of wisdom and good humour. We are able to take a more spiritual and reflective look at things and to experience maturity