I continue to discover that many practices that I considered sacrosanct are now of questionable value. It is particularly challenging to be faced with your past errors of judgment, but also freeing to be able to accept what has happened and take action to correct and/or change those practices. As Earth Elders, we can help others do the same....
 

 
Septuagenarian Fred Lanphear lives at Songaia, a cohousing community in Bothell, WA, which he helped co-found.

I embarked on a one-year rite of passage when I turned 60... It began with a grand celebration of my 60th birthday with reflections of my 60-year journey from family, friends, and colleagues who were either present or sent letters. It was a time of naming and letting go of the past...
 

 Septuagenarian Fred Lanphear is co-founder of Songaia Cohousing Community in Bothell, WA, where he has lived for over a decade, and he is webmaster of EarthElders.org.

Fall 2007 Issue

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The question is not how can the younger generation take care of its elders; it is rather how do we as elders help the younger generation care for the Earth and their own future. We are in a time when the quality of life, if not our survival as a species, will most likely be determined by the decisions we make in the next two decades…
 

 
The author, Fred Lanphear, worked for 20 years with the Institute of Cultural Affairs (an NGO), empowering villagers in remote African and Asian communities to participate in and direct their own development. On his return to the US in 1989, he became president of the Northwest Institute of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and now lives in Songaia Cohousing Community in Bothell, WA.
 

Fall 2006 Issue

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