HONORING OUR ELDERS
By Barbara Pettibone
The idea for a ceremony to honor the elders of SoULL during our July SoULL gathering in Racine probably occurred to me for 2 reasons:
First, I turned 75 in July - something I really do consider a landmark achievement!
Second, largely as a result of an in-depth review of my life during the second year of the SoULL Whole Life Doula program, I realized that I’m an extraordinarily “experience-rich” woman and it really is my responsibility to share from that wealth. The SoULL work reinforced for me the extraordinary magnitude of all that I’ve received from the people, the studies, the spiritual learnings, the difficulties, and peak involvements of the past 75 years. And wow! It’s a lot! While many cultures recognize and honor the gifts brought by elders, American culture doesn’t really acknowledge aging and elderhood as worthy of attention, much less honor. In fact, our culture tends to avoid the subject, preferring that we quietly move to Florida and disappear so as not to remind youth of what’s coming.
So, since SoULL is very much about community, and since our current enrollment includes a magnificent group of elders, I asked if we could formally honor them in a ceremony during our July gathering. In recognition of the fact that we are a community of all ages, I asked Nandita, my beloved partner in hosting the online portion for the first-year class, to help me. Nandita*s understanding of ritual and her eloquent leadership in SoULL made her the perfect partner to host the ceremony, not to mention the fact that as the “symbolic” eldest and youngest members of our group, Nandita and I are the “bookends,” the “parentheses” of SoULL, who hold our community of all ages between us.
So we set out to design the ritual – gathering the words, and creating the setting for our ceremony, On the first morning of the July gathering, we asked who among the members of our community would like to claim the mantle of elderhood, describing the word “elder” as a verb – eldering - which requires something of us -- we are calling on our elders to identify what of their rich life experience they want to return to the community. We announced the ceremony on Thursday evening and gathered for the ceremony on Saturday evening
THE CEREMONY
Standing within a circle of vines laid on the grass under a magnificent canopy of trees on the DeKoven grounds, those of us assuming the mantle of elderhood stood on one side with the “youngers” facing us. In the middle of the circle was a path of 7 bowls of water, each holding a floating lit candle, representing the different eras in the long lives of our elders.
I introduced the ceremony, describing the origin of the idea, and speaking of the elders’ life experience as a river – the water of life carrying us from our younger selves to our older selves, to the relationships, work experiences, loves and losses we’ve all experienced. Each of us had been asked to identify the gift they were bringing to the community. One by one, we elders entered the center of the circle, lit a candle, and placed it in the bowl of our choice- arriving to tell Nandita the gift we were bringing. The entire community then repeated the name of the gift, received it and promised to use it well.
The gifts we offered included wisdom, humor, a listening ear, perseverance, peace and ease, an open human heart, knowledge of the impermanence of life, my truest self, healing, love and appreciation for all life brings, and hope. What more could we ask for?
The ceremony concluded with circle making led by Nandita - first, the youngers of our community encircling and holding the elders, and then the opposite, the elders holding the youngers. And all of this was followed by folk dancing for the remainder of the evening, led by Darice Griffith, our local folk-dance teacher, treasured by the Soull community.
It truly was a grand evening! Our elders continue to express appreciation for the ceremony – “That meant so much!” -- “It felt so wonderful to be recognized!” – “Yes, I want to give to this community!”. And the younger members continue to speak both of feeling held and supported by the elders, and of their appreciation of the many gifts that were offered.
It does take all of us.
___________
AND HEADS UP: Related, Jann and I are offering a 6 week group on Aging, the Elder Cafe, on Zoom beginning October 10. See more on the SoULL website and please join us if you have any interest at all. All are welcome! And stay tuned! This is a pilot group that may well morph into a repeating or ongoing experience, so if you can’t join us this time around, another opportunity may arise!
Barbara Pettibone
Barbara is an elder herself and a SoULL student. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has worked in inpatient and outpatient mental health settings for the past 45 years. She is currently in private practice.
