Пересказ: Gathering the Elders

Gathering the Elders

Источник: https://barbaraoneal.substack.com/p/gathering-the-elders

Photo by Zoë Reeve on Unsplash On the African veldt, the survival of calves and family units depends on the health and wisdom of a matriarch, a female elder whose deep body of memory guides the herd through drought and danger. She knows where the best watering holes are—all of them, even the ones others have forgotten. She helps ease disputes because she knows the personalities of the entire group. She listens longer to the roar of lions to determine whether it is a male, whose size makes him a dangerous hunter, and a female, who is unlikely to take down a young elephant. When a matriarch dies without a suitable replacement, the herd can become unusually aggressive or socially unstable, such as the emergence of a young rogue, who can be quite dangerous.

Elephants aren’t the only creatures that rely on elder females to steer their future. Orcas are also led by matriarchs, post-menopausal females who lead their pods with the same combination of memory and collected knowledge, such as where the best salmon runs are, and how to survive lean years. In pods without a grandmother, young male calves die at a higher rate.

Watching the chaos in our own human herds, I can’t help thinking about what happens when the matriarchs are gone. I think we need more grandmothers, real grandmother elders, matriarchs, the ones who know how to make easy meals to sustain the family group, and where to plant tomatoes, but most of all, how to listen deeply in a world that has such fragmented attention that a 60-second video can’t hold our attention.

Becoming a grandmother was not something I’d given much thought. My life was, and is, filled with the pursuit of this writing passion, and I glean a lot of personal meaning and satisfaction from it. I loved raising my sons, and I am the deeply beloved granddaughter of Madoline O’Neal, but I was in no hurry to have grandchildren. It seemed something other women might lose their minds over. Not me.

And then my eldest granddaughter was born. I was there through the grace of my daughter-in-law, and the minute I set eyes on that squished red face, I was a changed being. Instantly. From one minute to the next, I set aside one set of clothing and donned the mantle of Nana. It was the easiest, most obvious thing I had ever done in my life. I would love her, completely. I would listen to her when she talked, whatever she said, without judgment.

Which didn’t mean that I automatically became an elder. I had things to learn, but I suddenly wanted to learn them. How did one become wise? What does wise even mean? I looked to the example of my uncle Tony. What could I learn from him? He wasn’t a patriarch in the old sense; he was a quiet matriarchal soul — tending, listening, guiding without demanding.

Mainly, he showed up. He listened. He knew many, many, many things, and shared them. He paid attention to everyone in his world and noticed when they did things well. He wasn’t afraid to offer a correction, either.

And he did not need to be in the middle of things. He simply showed up, listened, paid attention, gave clear advice when it was asked for, or when it was required. He asked questions when we were unsure. He told stories to help us find our footing. He was whole and human and funny and flawed. The last thing he said to me was, “I am so proud of you.” I am fairly sure it was the same thing he said to many of us.

I will admit that I haven’t attained that level of wisdom, but I am exploring what it means to be wise, to show up in a broken world and try to offer solace or healing or something. Do I know how to point the way to the best salmon run? I don’t know. Maybe?

Maybe the elder wisdom most needed in our fragmented moment is a sense of grace, a lack of judgment of others, an openness to the potential and the humanity of each of us. Many traditions offer the same cornerstones of how to conduct ourselves, which is a way of thinking about wisdom.

Being a good elder means knowing that people who have trouble meeting the basic needs of food, housing, and belonging are bound to go rogue. Elephants trample villages. Rogue boys shoot up schools.

Being a good elder means knowing that youth and riches are not the elixirs that will bring happiness, and we know how to communicate that. Elders build community so the lost children can be noticed and taken in, fed, clothed, given some hugs.

When the matriarch dies, young elephants go rogue. When the elder is lost, the herd becomes unmoored. And so do we. The modern world is being run by a bunch of rogue elephants running around trampling everything in their paths, ignoring the balance of nature and health, punishing anything or anyone smaller or weaker than they are.

It’s time for a matriarchal leadership model. In part that means both men and women have to let go of the only possible manifestation of human female as a desirable young being, ready to reproduce. Of course that’s a lovely stage of life, but it’s not the leadership stage. A female elephant is long of tooth and wrinkled and slow moving, and so are many human elders. Their power is not in their appearance but in the layers of memory and knowledge she has acquired, but a world running entirely on 10-second influencer videos isn’t likely to listen to a crone, or an elder.

We need male elders, as well, which is a topic for a different essay—or perhaps you’ve thought about that and want to talk about it in the comments. I’d love to hear.

Perhaps it’s time for the long-memory leadership of elephants and whales — the kind that listens longer, loves wider, and knows where the water still runs.

How can we learn the wisdom ways, take up this mantle? Do you know people leading with that energy?

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