FootprintsintheWind.com

All of life, we say, is served by our inspiration, yet perhaps all of life means not so much years and years but all the living that touches this moment.

:- Doug.

We don’t know when the high point of our life is. It might be right now. If we live it, it is right now.

:- Doug.

Eldering is embodying our ultimate place in the world and for the world. It is taking responsibility.

:- Doug.

Failures are inversely valuable for they say This is so important that outcomes don’t matter—the doing does.

:- Doug.

Elders live their lives in widening circles.

:- Doug.

The elder is one who moment to moment crosses the threshold and lives out a felt responsibility for the grandchildren’s grandchildren, the community, and the world.

:- Doug.

To elder is to mentor with a longer sweep and a more opened spirit.

:- Doug.

The elder offers to the world not mere wisdom but rather the elder’s life entire.

:- Doug.

The elder is making the invisible visible.

:- Doug.

Eldering is doing while exploring ever more what matters.

:- Doug.

Make me accepting of my new vulnerabilities, going forward into your perilous trustworthy next panorama.

:- Doug.

Do you have a story or image that told you and tells you your role, place, and life?

:- Doug.

What are your artistries O elder?
Perform them on earth for the peoples to
See

:- Doug.

If an elder were to elder
you how much eldering
would you admit?
Would you in your turn
elder the elders?

:- Doug.

What in eldering is perilous? Go here.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1710

It is conceivable we might add another 30 years life expectancy in the next 300. So what do we do with the extra years?

That is an extra generation of people to elder. We already have an extra now.

Or perhaps, because age is a concomitant of dementia, maybe we spend 30 years “demented” or in spiritual work.

So elders ought explore these ideas, dig out the meat in them, rather than just dismiss them as musings. It is important that someone think the long things, the things that give us choices we can consciously make.

Please pass it on.

© c 2017, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

What do you want to ask our grandchildren’s grandchildren’s grandchildren…when they are elders?

:- Doug.

What questions will grab the elders?

:- Doug.

Could we profitably ask When is eldering?

:- Doug.

What do we as elders need of Plotkin’s four dimensions? We do need North, nurturing, generative—this is our work and being, the other dimensions feed these; South for the wild, natural; West for our muse, portal to soul; and East to remind us that sage is fool and both the door to spirit, the transcendent.

:- Doug.

From where does the elder see the world? Where is the overlook from which the elder takes in a view panoramic enough? What’s enough?

:- Doug.

Can it be good for an elder to purposely get lost? To make an art of it?

:- Doug.

What are the skills the elder calls upon?

:- Doug.