Monthly Archives: November 2009

News

Elders and the Environment – Part 2

By Shae Hadden

According to Dr. David Suzuki, “it is not progress to use up the rightful legacy of our children and grandchildren.” He opened the first Elders and the Environment Forum on Monday in Vancouver, Canada with a keynote address that focused on the role of elders in the environmental movement and how we can make a difference:

  • Tell it like it is, find our voice and speak out
  • Tell us all what is possible and keep us fixed on creating the future
  • Remind younger generations that true wealth

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Wisdom in Action

Wolf’s Theorem: Show Up, Work Hard, Let Go

By Stuart J. Whitley | Bio

I’ve been writing about the ethic of aging, which is an internal imperative obligating the transmission of values, ethics and wisdom from one generation to another. Usually, this is a phenomenon that occurs unconsciously, in a way nearly invisible against the tapestry of quotidian life. But now and then, it’s rendered explicit, often in surprisingly casual ways.

An old friend Wolf and I were in a hunting camp one brilliant fall day this September, each of us with our new son-in-law. It was a spot of extraordinary beauty, near the confluence of the Stewart and Yukon Rivers. It was about as close to nowhere as one can get without a GPS fix. It had been a glorious full day, and sitting on the high riverbank at sunset, scotch in hand, it was hard not to think that when God decided to put His hand to world-building and started to

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Health

A Futuristic Look at Food

New perspectives on what might be possible in terms of local, homegrown food production. This 10-minute video takes a provocative, unconventional look at the implications of genetic modification, land use, and organic produce to come up with designs for diagnostic kitchens, food creation, and home farming.

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News

Elders and the Environment

By Shae Hadden

I attended the David Suzuki Foundation’s first Elders for the Environment Forum today in Vancouver, Canada. The event drew 200+ people, including Elder representatives from several First Nations and concerned ‘older’ citizens from Canada and the U.S. Following are some of the highlights from an inspiring talk given by Miles Richardson, former Grand Chief of the Haida Nation and a member of the board of directors of the David Suzuki Foundation.

  • "We are all in the same canoe, and we have to begin paddling together in the same direction."
  • "An Elder is very importantly and universally recognized as a knowledge-keeper. But we look to them for more than that. We depend on them for wisdom, the distillation of that knowledge gained from living and experieneces, and we depend on them to pass that on from generation to generation. We look to them for guidance when we face the huge challenges that life puts in front of us. We look to them for validation when we are doing what we believe is right when others can’t understand or cannot see what we see."
  • "Being an Elder is not about age. You don’t become an Elder because you’ve grown old. An Elder is someone whose integrity I trust and whose wisdom I respect. That must be earned and real."
  • "Talk is good. Actions are stronger."
  • Overheard at the 4th World Wilderness Congress: "Economic growth is an interpretation. The environment is a matter of survival."
  • Wisdom from an Elder given to Miles when he was complaining about the loss of his native culture: "Before you take another step forward, take a step back and listen."

Check back later this

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Wisdom in Action

The Future Habit

By Jim Selman | Bio

It is almost impossible to turn on the television or read a newspaper or a magazine without encountering one pundit, expert or “man on the street” either talking about the future or trying to blame someone for something. Our media commentary is rarely about what is happening now: mostly it’s about what happened in the past or what someone thinks is going to happen in the future. Combine the establishment media with all of the blogging and chatting going on, and it is incredible

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Fearless Aging

Giving Up ‘Giving Up’

By Jim Selman | Bio

My partner and I were recently enjoying one of those lazy weekend mornings just chatting about life in general when we got onto the subject of getting older and how we feel about it all. I made the point that my passion and The Eldering Institute® is about transforming our culture’s view of aging and teaching people that we can change how we relate to the future—and, as a consequence, we can have more choices, more possibility and more ‘aliveness’

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Fearless Aging

Ageism 2009

By Jim Selman | Bio

There is nothing new about ageism, other than the fact that there are increasing numbers of people growing older (which means increasing numbers of examples of age discrimination against older people). The latest statistics from AARP show formal anti-discrimination complaints are up roughly 30% in the workplace. I had some fun with this in my recent blog, proposing we create the National Organization of Pissed-Off Elders (N.O.P.E.). However, it isn’t a laughing matter when we see a potentially tragic problem growing in our society that can be prevented.

I say tragic because ageism, whether institutionalized, culturally embedded or motivated by fear or greed, is a wedge being driven between parents and children and between grandparents and grandchildren. If we don’t address ageism, we will all continue this ‘circumstantial drift’ toward making age a political constituency that has older people competing with younger people over scarce resources (or whatever the coin of the realm might be on a given topic). At a time when

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