Welcome Dear Listener. Our guest this time on The Elder Well is Randy Morris, Ph.D. Randy is Professor Emeritus at Antioch University Seattle where he taught in the BA Liberal Studies Program for 30 years and was the coordinator of the Psychology and Spiritual Studies concentrations. Prior to his career at Antioch University, Randy taught K-12 students for 10 years, including 3 years at the Hiroshima International School in Hiroshima, Japan. He is also the President Emeritus of the Board at Rite of Passage Journeys, a non-profit dedicated to restoring rites of passage for youth, adults and elders, and where he led adult vision quests for many years. Randy is a Certified Sage-ing Leader with Sage-ing International and served for many years on their executive and ritual committees. He is the Co-President of The C.G. Jung Society of Seattle, bringing the insights of depth psychology to bear on global rites of passage and the dark night of the species soul. Randy continues to teach classes in Dreamwork, Ritual Process, Elderhood and Rites of Passage. He is the co-author of the book Nagasaki Spirits, Hiroshima Voices: Making Sense of the Nuclear Age , co-editor of the book Rites of Passage Into Elderhood and co-editor of the forthcoming book, Spiritual Eldering For the 21st Century: The Sage-ing Way. “…because you’re recognizing the radiance of that person, and when you bless it, when you recognize it, you’re allowing that radiance to come out into the world, so you’re naming that right now, that radiance, and that other person is feeling permission to come out of its cage inside the person and begin to spread its healing balm on the earth, and I go, yeah, exactly, that’s one of the main healing properties of being an elder, is the power of blessing.” In his spare time, he is a grandfather to five and likes to play pickleball, strum his guitar, and paddle his kayak on his beloved Salish Sea. He is celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary at the time this goes podcast goes live. He lives in Langley, the ‘Village By The Sea”, on South Whidbey Island outside of Seattle. In an expansive, rich and powerful conversation… * Randy shares his belief that most of the ills that make up the current ‘polycrisis’ are a function of untended trauma and unexpressed grief… * …he suggests elders may be uniquely blessed with the time and the capacity to drop into the depths of soul necessary for tending the cultural wounds and scars of these times; * Randy speaks to how, in the west, the cultural myths we’re living by are not adequate for what we’re facing since those myths themselves were created in patriarchy... * …and he describes how the extremity of the historical moment is awakening the archetype of the Elder - not just in older people but in youngers too; * Randy invites us to see what’s happening globally not just as a terrible descent into chaos and disaster, but as a part of an arc of a collective rite of passage for our species; * Randy describes how ritual, ceremony, circle work and conscious connection with the sacred or divine are the containers which can hold us as we ripen as elders; * Randy offers us a teaching which came to him in a dream in which Mother Theresa said to him, The point is not to save people, the point is to create the conditions for the transpersonal, the possibility of Grace; * Towards the end of time together, Randy explores the spirituality of eldering and shares how for him, “Standing for the eternal verities of the good, the true, the beautiful, and the just, is the work of the spiritual elder in these days.” Please enjoy…. Know someone who needs to listen to this episode of The Elder Well? Please share below. Key Links for this episode: * More of Randy’s work can be found on his website: randymorrisphd.net * Rite of Passage Journeys * Sage-ing International * Online Awakening the Sage Within * Seattle Jung Society * Rites of Passage Into Elderhood by Randy Morris and Bolton Anthony * Nagasaki Spirits, Hiroshima Voices: Making Sense of the Nuclear Age (2003) by Walter Enloe and Randy Morris Also mentioned in this episode: * On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg * The website of Joanna Macy * The Work That Reconnects * Animas Valley * School of Lost Borders * Meg Wheatley Randy can be reached at rmorris@antioch.edu. “How many are willing to sustain the gaze of the poly crisis? Well, not everybody can do that, and honestly, to do it is quite painful, and you have to be able to go into deep emotional states to witness the global suffering that's happening right now, and I have to say, you just can't do it all the time, you know? Sometimes you got to back off.” We are so happy to share that The Elder Well podcast opens and closes with the song River Run Free composed and performed by MaMuse with Walter Strauss on guitar. This song is shared here with the generous permission of the artists. To find out more about MaMuse, their music and their mission please visit: http://www.mamuse.org/ Get full access to The Elder Well at theelderwell.substack.com/subscribe
