“If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
~Amanda Gorman
“We have more old people than ever before – but fewer Elders.”
~ Sally Z. Hare
You are the One we’ve been waiting for, and we invite you to self-discern if this speaks to you at this time in your life. There is no particular age at which we become an Elder, but if we don’t begin the journey early enough, we will find ourselves doing remedial work at the end.
We have more old people on the planet than ever before, but fewer Elders. Elderhood is not an age or a stage; rather, elderhood is the work of naming and claiming the value of learning for a lifetime and living with integity, attention and intention. Ideally, we enter The ElderGarten as a young adult in intergenerational relationships with mentors who serve as role models.
Founder of the Benevolent Community Initiative Lori Yadin envisions the leaders we need for today’s world as Elders. As she has created her dream for Benevolent Community during her ElderGarten Fellowship, Lori realizes that kind of leadership could be cultivated in the ElderGarten.
Lori, an experiential educator and leadership coach and Dr. Sally Z. Hare, lifelong teacher-learner – both Circle of Trust® facilitators, invite you into this space to explore the idea of the lifelong journey towards becoming an Elder and cultivating leadership through that lens.
Elders are defined differently in different cultures, but too often, in our dominant culture, it is a negative term. Join Lori and Sally to reclaim this word, this concept, as being about integrity, not age.
Connecting soul and role as Elder is integral to living life undivided, but we have to see Elders before we can be them. Elders have become an endangered species. We must commit to creating space in which we can recover this imperiled treasure, indeed BE this treasure, so necessary to the survival of the Planet.
The Center for Courage & Renewal and its facilitators do not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, height, weight, physical or mental ability, veteran status, military obligations, and marital status.
