The Branches of Mentoring: the Roots of Elders
My impressions gathered at a Michael Meade presentation.
Several of the Conneaut Creek Farm Vision Keepers attended this workshop.
Spirit:
- Each soul comes into the world with a unique longing to fulfill a unique mission and present a unique gift.
- Our gift is what the Spirit is calling us to do. It is a verb rather than a noun.
- The journey, not the accomplishments, is what matters in our life.
- What was the Golden moment of your youth, when the passion of your Soul became clear to you in a flash?
- Expressing the fulfillment of your life’s longings can be restricted by the envy of others, the fear of being alone in exploring uncharted territory, and the fear of being crazy, since there will be nothing to validate the unique expression of your being.
- Where is your inner hurting? These places are close to your soul gifts.
- Stabbing words only cut when they are directed at what the soul is passionate about.
- Avoid those who want to keep you ‘where they think you should be’; rather than seeing you as you really are, here and now.
- Do not try to compare how your gifts (art/music/creative expression/nurturing/loving/humor/…) measures up to other’s or you diminish it: keep it clear and true to your heart and let others do the comparing if they must.
- Who are your soul’s leaders and teachers? Who do you look up to? There is where your heart is led and misled. Your soul’s true expression is the unique gift that brings fulfillment to you in life’s journey.
Initiation:
- Separation: leave the known and the familiar.
- Ordeal: through trial, risk, or suffering become an empty container.
- Transformation: a second birth and awakening to new inner gifts.
Healing:
- You must get lost to be found.
- We have to get into the right trouble, because trouble stirs up our life and makes things interesting by providing opportunities for growth.
- What the Story means to you is a ‘Mythic Diagnosis’ of the state of your being. As you grow, the meanings in the Story will evolve.
- Fantasy (ego based) is not imagination (creative spirit), any more than lust is love.
- Fantasy is escape from life, while imagination is embracing life creatively.
- If you get old without becoming an elder, your life will become empty and you will fear death.
- We must bank our eternal moments throughout our life, for they are all the baggage that we may take with us as we pass through death’s door.
- Life is ongoing vulnerability and healing.
- Knowledge of death is medicine that heals our life.
- The heart loves healing.
Culture:
- A Culture is the sum of its imaginative thoughts.
- Culture collapses when the youth are disenfranchised from the elders.
- Culture collapses when the youth and the elders are disenfranchised from the main stream.
- Culture collapses when it denies its imagination and embraces fantasy.
- We need to bring the Eternal back into our dying culture in order to heal and revive it.
Mentoring:
- A mentor is one who walks along the path with another on a life journey.
- True Discipline is learned as a Disciple of a loving Teacher.
- Youth respond to authenticity.
- Youth do not want to be like most of the old people they see around them. A mentor or elder is one who is living true enough to be respected by the youth.
- Mentoring does not imply seeing the results of your mentoring.
- All parents wound their children. This is a basic fact. Children become individuals and tear away from their parents.
- We need to build a generation bridge and span the generation gap.
- No one would want to be an indigenous chief or a true guru, when they are selected by the community; they humbly accept the heavy burden.