The Passion and Purpose of Conscious Eldering: Addressing Challenges and Impacting Our Culture

If you think of people over 50 as seniors, then all Elders are seniors, but not all seniors are Elders.

The Elders of Colorado are conscious seniors, mostly over 65, who dedicate themselves to service to the world and to the younger generations that are coming after them. There is lots of information for and about seniors. and sadly very little about Elders. We take our inspiration in part from The Elders, a group of world leaders founded by Nelson Mandela, dedicated to working for world peace and service to the “youngers” of the world, especially those who are most in need of their support. The Colorado Elders mostly live and work locally in service to the youngers in our world.

Mary, Rick and I are getting excited about creating a conscious, nurturing elder group that would elicit discussion and support the work that each member is doing about which they are passionate and purposeful involving Eldering in their lives. We would most likely not be involved in the same projects. Our overall goal would be to provide each member a place where their work is valued and encouraged by one another and can be supported and critiqued in a nurturing environment whatever their Eldering work happens to be. I would like to see us address the challenges that each of us face being Elders in a culture that mostly does not value what we do.

For now, we will continue to meet on the second Monday of each month at 10am at the Eggshell in Cherry Creek.

Join us with your Eldering passion and energy!

By John Mariner,
Licensed Clinical Social Worker