It is my belief that we live in a culture that is an elder-starved. As one of my longtime teachers, Michael Meade, has said, “Everyone grows into ‘olders’ but not everyone grows into an elder.”
At the same time, all around us are messages worshipping youth — youth who possess a certain kind of body, youth who are consumers and buy into the mantras of materialism, youth who are vulnerable to cultivating and valuing image management over authenticity, youth who are prescribed endless distractions from true connections, beauty, joy, meaning, and purpose. It is obvious to me that so many young people in American culture and beyond experience disconnection from healthy relationships and wise mentors, values and beliefs rooted in integrity and truth, and loving and strong supports that nourishes them and our society and larger world.
And where are the elders? Where are those who have courageously and with intention cultivated growing into the models and mentors who inspire hope and imagination and creativity, compassion and love and wisdom, and commitment to finding our unique ways of acting on behalf of a highest good for all? Yes, their voices are out there. And, too often, they are muted and marginalized, isolated and ignored, shamed and silenced.
All of which again reminds me of Michael Meade's words once again, this time as he reflected that "any culture which devalues and dismisses its elders and disrespects its youth is in deep trouble." And here we are — in ever growing deep trouble.
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While I cannot speak to what becoming an elder means to others, I can give voice to my own journey — one which empowers me today, not to hide my age or to in any way disparage myself as an older woman, but rather to claim and share and give voice to the hard earned gifts of elderhood.
To be an elder, as opposed to an "older," it is my belief and my experience that I am only able to do so to the degree that I have made conscious the ancestral and cultural obstacles I have absorbed into my body, my mind, my heart and soul that distance me from truth, from beauty, from compassion and connectedness and love. It is not easy at all in our culture to be a fully embodied human being connected with our hearts and the sacred which is woven through all of life.
Certainly the thousands of years of the denigration of the Divine Feminine by the poisonous forces of patriarchy have been devastating in their impacts across time and cultures. The great harm caused — to women and men alike — by imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy (bell hooks words) cannot be overemphasized.
And I think we have to get over not talking about these things because they are uncomfortable or unfamiliar or might offend someone or because it's scary and hard to truly open our eyes, especially the eyes of our hearts. And this is where we can inspire one another. Courage is contagious!
And I believe it takes a lot of courage to grow into an elder. And support. At least this has certainly been my experience.
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All this said, there is certainly no one-size-fits-all prescription for becoming an elder. No shoulds or shame or clear directions. All that I know is that I have needed to grow my heart stronger. To the extent that I have been disconnected from my heart's wisdom and the love and beauty that I believe it at the core of who we all are, is the degree that my growth and my capacity to live a wholehearted and authentic life has been stunted.
This ongoing journey of awakening from layers upon layers of indoctrination, ignorance, and illusions has taken me into the depths of what has been avoided and suppressed, shamed and projected, denied and distracted from in my family for generations. And in our culture — the two go hand-in-hand. Our families and our cultures are inextricably linked. What is unhealthy in our families, we will also find in our societies.
And the costs of not attending to our woundedness as human beings and human societies has only grown and grown and grown with time. And now we have mass shootings and my six year old granddaughter having to do active shooter drills with her kindergarten class. We have massive wildfires in the same state whose leadership denies global warming and seeks to continue with drill baby drill us all into oblivion. We have a government that has been entrenched in funding and fueling endless wars and weapons of death and destruction while denying the genocide and other war crimes it has forever supported and committed. We have thousands of people living on our streets and millions falling into poverty. There are epidemics of racism and caste and misogyny. Addictions and depression and anxiety are rampant across our nation. We have two major extremely polarized political parties, one of which is rooted in neoliberalism and the other fascism. And we have a corporate funded mainstream media who relentlessly deprives we the people of the information we most need to know, understand, absorb, and act upon.
And the list goes on.
To be an elder, I believe, is to know these things. And to be fiercely committed to acting upon what yearns for our attention in whatever ways that we can — both individually and collectively. To be an elder, I believe, is to know in our deepest being that radical change is needed now if there is to be any chance of a habitable planet in the future.
Growing into elderhood, for me, has not meant sitting back and resting on my laurels while enjoying vacations and grandchildren and reading books and visiting friends. There is this, yes, and there is more — and especially if we are privileged. And I take my privileges seriously and understand that with them comes the responsibility as an elder to show up, to continuously be learning, to mentor and teach and inspire, to speak up and act out against the toxic status quo and for a better world — one which honors and protects life rather than destroys it.
Over the years I have come to understand the value and the need to do the hard and ongoing courageous inner work which undefends and strengthens our hearts. This has meant moving towards the traumas — little t and big T — and seeking our own unique and shared ways of addressing, healing, and transforming them. And to model that. To model courage and strong voices of trauma-wisdom and truth and fierce compassion and love.
And all at the same time — and of profound importance — is to shine bright, bright light on beauty, on joy, on kindness and love. This balance is so critical to the well-being of us all. That, yes, life is hard. And in the midst of it all there remains beauty and generosity and compassion and love. And to embody those qualities as best as we can.
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In March I will turn 73 years old. I am now a mother and grandmother, with our oldest grandchild just turning nine and our youngest only 8 weeks. There is not a day that goes by that I don't reflect on the world as it is today and the one that we are leaving, not just my children and grandchildren, but all the children of all the species everywhere. This takes courage to truly see that which imperils our loved ones and the loved ones of those everywhere across our beautiful hurting Earth Mother.
But see we must. How else are we to find the inspiration, wisdom, and fierce love to act upon what is in such great need of our attention, healing, and transformation?
I keep reflecting on how it is that the eyes of the children are watching us. They are. Will we act in every way possible on their behalf? Will we dedicate ourselves ever more deeply to truth, justice, wisdom, and love? Will we increasingly find our strong voices and actions on behalf of healing ourselves, our families and communities, our nation and beyond?
And for those of us who are older, may we continuously grow into the elders our world needs. May we nourish ourselves and strengthen our hearts with the wisdom and courage of the truth-tellers, wisdom-keepers, artists and activists, authors and journalists, poets and visionaries of our times and times past. And may we model what the children and younger ones most need from us, whatever form that may take.
The eyes of the children are watching...
"People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do." — Dorothy Day
Bless us all,
đź’—
Molly
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