Elders

[Hopefloats]

"When a noble life has prepared for old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.

Sometimes our lives seem ungrounded. We seem to be swinging in space on an invisible tether that appears to be attached to nothing. No wonder we get anxious. Many of us have lost the grounding that contact with our Elders gives us. We often see Elders as politically incorrect and technicall retarded, and we cannot conceive what they have to offer us.

Native peoples the world over know that our feelings of being grounded and our ability to place ourselves meaningfully in time and space are very much related to our relationship with our Elders.

Through our Elders we experience the strings of lineage and immortality. Through them, we have the possibility of reaching beyond their lives to what they have learned from their Elders, and we can participate in the heritage of remembering.

We need our Elders.