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Conscious Aging Alliance- Resources for Aging Spiritualy

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Conscious Aging Alliance

The Conscious Aging Alliance is comprised of several organizations that are making a positive contribution to a new vision of aging. Information about each of these organizations is below:

Center For Conscious Eldering

The Center for Conscious Eldering, based in Durango, Colorado, is dedicated to supporting the development of conscious elders. We do this by offering our signature Choosing Conscious Elderhood rite of passage retreats, introductory workshops by invitation from churches, retreat centers and other groups, Coaching for Conscious Living and Meeting Ancient Wisdom pilgrimages to meet indigenous elders. We serve those in and approaching the elder third of life who seek passion, purpose, growth and service as they age.

An important aspect of our uniqueness is that we use the power of nature to support your growth as an elder. It is in the natural world that we can most easily remember that which is authentic and natural in ourselves, and thus gain clarity and vision for how

we can best thrive and contribute in a world urgently in need of the wisdom and gifts of conscious elders. Our retreats, workshops and pilgrimages all involve significant time spent outdoors in inspiring natural settings. Our Founder and Director, Ron Pevny, is author of a book based upon our unique approach to conscious aging, to be published by Beyond Words in 2014.

www.centerforconsciouseldering.com ron@centerforconsciouseldering.com

Fierce With Age

Fierce with Age: The Online Digest of Boomer Wisdom, Inspiration and Spirituality is a free digest featuring daily and bi-weekly summaries and excerpts of the best writing about spirituality and aging for Boomers on the web. The Digest recognizes the boom in quality aging and spirituality content for, by and about the Boomer generation. Editor-in-chief Carol Orsborn, Ph.D., a Boomer generation expert and author of 21 books with a doctorate in religion, cites the growing number of websites and books on the subject, as well as the increasing visibility of spiritual content on Boomer, aging and spirituality websites. In addition to the Digest, Fierce with Age offers self- guided online retreats on the subject of spirituality and

aging. Dr. Orsborn also serves as executive director of
CoroFaith, which provides access via any web-based device to a customized audio library of spiritual and religious content for individuals in the aging and healthcare communities.

www.fiercewithage.com carol@fiercewithage.com

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Gray is Green

Gray Is Green is a national non-profit focused on the possibility for older adult Americans to offer distinctive benefits to our society in response to unprecedented ecological challenges. These benefits may range from block-votes for a variety of policy changes to mass market demands for sustainable living choices in housing, food, transportation, healthcare and urban design. Gray-Greens possess unique gifts for adaptive response. Such include a wealth of generational responses to war, economic collapse, epidemics, and political upheaval, together with individual responses to parenting, managing businesses, leading organizations, voting, volunteering, meeting worklife challenges, enjoying the wonders of nature and culture, and more. Following decades of environmental change—for better and for worse— and now witnessing the cumulative environmental legacy modern society is leaving to our children and grandchildren, Gray-Greens hear the call to action and reflection.

We invite to our network individuals and organizations open to the distilled wisdom and environmental passion of older adults. In response to the longing for authentic inter-generational accountability expressed by Gray-Greens, we help foster a beneficial response. All are invited to sign up at http://grayisgreen.org for our periodic email updates and news items for sustainable living and environmental advocacy. The site also offers unrestricted access to our archive of information resources and a link for donors.

http://grayisgreen.org kathschomaker@grayisgreen.org

Legacy of Wisdom

The Legacy of Wisdom project is dedicated to creating a vision of “wise living and aging”. It’s founding was generated through the work of Ram Dass, Rabbi Zalman Schachter, Jay Goldfarb, Tom Valente and Roshi Joan Halifax. Other supporters have been Mary Catherine Bateson, Bob Atchley, Rick Moody, Al Kaszniak and others.

Taking advantage of a structured set of questions in five Key areas of life, the Legacy of Wisdom will publish its findings from interviews and from conferences and workshops with inspiring elders which we sponsor. Global in perspective and multi-generational in reach, we know that living wisely can occur at all ages. The children of today are the aged of tomorrow. The five Key Wisdom areas:

  • Mission and Fulfillment
  • Relationship and Lifestyle
  • Health Care
  • Finance and Legal
  • End of Life PreparationsBy limiting our range of questions, Legacy of Wisdom will provide an easier avenue for understanding – and through that a sense of inspiration and motivation. Links to resources, courses and helpful consultancies will flow naturally from the work. There is a need for both the skill and the emotional will of Wisdom. www.legacyofwisdom.orgwisdom@legacyofwisdom.org
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Life Planning Network

The Life Planning Network is a community of professionals and organizations from diverse disciplines dedicated to helping people navigate the second half of life. Our mission is to create and communicate knowledge and resources that support professionals in their work to enhance people’s later lives and thus benefit society.

There are several ways we support professionals in this field, including workshop leaders and facilitators. Our members can promote their organizations and activities to the public through a directory on our web site. We also list a broad range of resources specifically for our members on our web site. Members gather in chapters as they emerge around the country as well as in regular program opportunities to share and learn. And they collaborate, refer, co-market and partner in other ways to build their respective businesses and to advance the value of the life planning movement for the benefit of all.

www.lifeplanningnetwork.org LPN@lifeplanningnetwork.org

Mankind Project Elders

The Elder Body of the ManKind Project (MKP) is made up of hundreds of members over age fifty who have formally declared themselves as elders. The mission of the elder body is ‘To awaken and nurture intentional eldering by teaching and mentoring.” When a member becomes a “declared elder” he is announcing to the community that he is living the second half of life intentionally. We believe that this intention includes being a source of blessing, an advocate for Earth, a mentor and a wisdomkeeper.

The manner in which the elder body of MKP accomplishes its mission is through four practices:

  • Certified ritual elders guide a circle of elders at each new member initiation weekend in creating an maintaining a sacred container for the weekend processes led by other men we call “leaders.”
  • Once a man joins he is encouraged to join a support group. There are hundreds meeting all over the world. Some are made up entirely of elders and most have a elder or two as members.
  • In each of our regions (Canada, USA, Germany, France, UK, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia) annual conferences are held by the elders which we call Gatherings.
  • Individual elders do personal work by taking classes based on a seven stage life path we call the Elder Journey.

http://elders.mkp.org  jimhoward12@gmail.com

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Memorial BrainWorks

Memorial BrainWorks is a department within Memorial Hospital of South Bend, Indiana, and an affiliate of Beacon Health System. Our philosophy is that brain health is the single most determining factor in how we live. The quality of how our mind functions drives the ability to remember, learn, relate, think, experience, contribute and enjoy life like we want today and for all of our tomorrows. Making brain-healthy lifestyle choices is an investment in long-term mind and body resilience.

Memorial BrainWorks received an American Society of Aging/Metlife Foundation 2013 MindAlert Award in the category of Mental Fitness Programs for older adults for our program called Grandbuddies. Our Sage-ing Center, one of the vitality programs offered through the BrainWorks Wisdom School, is devoted to promoting understanding of how personal growth and development can continue as we grow older. We do this by providing webinars and, by invitation, on-site educational programs around the country.

One of our best known services is our weekend program, offered at sites across North America, to train Sage-ing Circle Facilitators. We also reach out to younger people to encourage lifestyles that will support healthy aging in their years ahead. We want people of all ages to know that there is an upside to aging.

www.memorialbrainworks.com

brainworks@memorialsb.org 574-647-6628

Recognition Rites for a New Vision of Aging

Recognition Rites is a program founded by Dr. Tom Pinkson that shifts attitudes about aging and older people to the position of respect and reverence that mature cultures demonstrate with their valuation and socially integrative use of their elders. It offers a unique blend of ancient and contemporary knowledge that is the result of Dr. Tom Pinkson’s forty years of work bridging cultures, traditions, belief systems and peoples. Recognition Rites offers hope and a call to action, in a most timely and necessary manner.

Recognition Rites bring people of diverse background and belief systems together for an event that helps break down barriers of separation between races, ages, religions and social class. They build community. They foster greater appreciation of diversity, of older people, of how love and appreciation enrich all our lives. Recognition Rites serve as

a seed and stimulus for others in attendance to create celebrations for meaningful elders in their own lives.

www.drtompinkson.com

tompinkson@gmail.com

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Sage-ingTM International

Sage-ing International is an organization with the mission of helping to change our society’s current belief system from aging to sage-ing—that is, from simply becoming old to aging consciously. We believe that the

wisdom and gifts of conscious elders is urgently needed in today’s world, and sage-ing supports the development of such elders. Sage-ing is both a philosophy and a set of psychological and spiritual practices, originally developed by Zalman Schachter Shalomi, that support living with passion, purpose, inner growth and commitment to service as we age.

We train and support a network of Sage-ing Leaders who transmit the wisdom of sage-ing through workshops, elder circles, and other educational and personal growth programs. Through our website, we offer a free six-month Associate Membership which provides access to valuable resources for individuals wanting to do their own conscious aging work while encouraging others to do likewise. We also conduct a robust public education program using a wide variety of

social media, and are committed to collaborating with other like-minded organizations.

www.sage-ing.org

info@sage-ing.org

Second Journey

Second Journey is among a small number of emerging social-change organizations helping birth a new vision of the rich possibilities of later life…

  • to open new avenues for individual growth and spiritual deepening
  • to birth a renewed ethic of service and mentoring in later life
  • to create new model communities—and new models OF community— for later life, and

to marshal the distilled wisdom and experience of elders to address the converging crises of our timeCaptured in the shorthand of our logo….Mindfulness, Service and Community in the Second Half of LifeWe pursue this mission through publications, including our quarterly newsletter, Itineraries, and occasional book releases; through workshops and Visioning Councils with their focus on the challenges of Creating Community in Later Life; and through the rich resources on our web site.www.SecondJourney.org

SecondJourney@frontier.com

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