Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
— Mary Oliver

Sponsored by Second Journey and the Orange County Department of Aging
 

Saturday, October 4, 2008
   9:00 AM to 4:30 PM ~ Registration at 8:30 AM 
Seymour Center ~ 2551 Homestead Road ~ Chapel Hill, NC

► Click here for directions


An increasing number of us are living decades longer

than our parents or grandparents due to 20th-century advances in medical science and public health. Think of those years as a resource — “a cultural and spiritual resource reclaimed from death in the same way the Dutch reclaim fertile land from the waste of the sea.”1

How do we make best use of this dividend of extra years?

  • How do we open ourselves to inner work, exploring new avenues for individual growth and spiritual deepening...
    so that our longer lives become more meaningful lives?

  • What calls us to work in the world? How do we find that “intersection between our own deep gladness and the world's deep hunger”2... so that our longer lives become wider lives?

  • How do we gather companions for the journey? How do we create new communities — and new models OF community — for later life... so that our longer lives become richer and more satisfying lives?

Join us to explore these questions with...
 


 author of From Age-ing to Sage-ing, who will deliver 
a welcome via video recording.

During the afternoon session, progressive rounds of a World Café conversation,
will allow participants to explore their own thoughts
and connect with colleagues with similar passions.

What is the World Café?

                The World Café is an innovative yet simple conversational process for hosting conversations about questions that matter. These conversations link and build on each other as people move between groups, cross-pollinate ideas, and discover new insights into the questions or issues that are most important in their life, work, or community. As a process, the World Café can evoke and make visible the collective intelligence of any group, thus increasing people’s capacity for effective action in pursuit of common aims.

Conversation is the way humans think together.
— Margaret Wheatley

Who Should Attend?

●  conscious aging advocates & practitioners creating community around new models of aging, spiritual deepening, and care at the end of life;

●  educators, activists & healing arts professionals associated with a variety of teaching/learning centers;

●  architects, developers & smart-growth advocates committed to sustainable design, new “neighborhoods” with a sense of place, and revitalized urban space;

●  social entrepreneurs & other cultural creatives;

●  writers & visionaries; and

●  passionate elders.
   

The Presenters

Second Journey founder Bolton Anthony's varied career has included teaching English and creative writing to undergraduates and working as a public librarian, a university administrator, and a social change activist.

Geraldine (Dene) Peterson is the moving spirit behind ElderSpirit, a mixed-income elder co-housing community designed to foster mutual support and later life spirituality. Her tenacious efforts in creating this country's first elder cohousing community were recognized with a Purpose Prize in 2006.

A much-loved teacher at Elon University in North Carolina, philosopher John G. Sullivan was named its first Distinguished University Professor in 2002. He is the author of Living Large: Transformative Work at the Intersection of Ethics and Spirituality.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi is an internationally recognized sage who draws from many disciplines and cultures. Instrumental in inspiring the convergence of ecology, spirituality and religion, in recent years he has put special emphasis on “Sage-ing” as he calls it in his seminal book From Age-ing to Sage-ing.

Costs

The registration fee includes lunch.

Registration Fee

Individual  $ 45
Couple  $ 80
Full refund deadline is September 12, 2008

►Click here to register

 
 What Outcomes Can You Expect?
  

●  the opportunity to interact with others who anticipate with zest the gifts that come with Elderhood;

●  the opportunity — in a setting where there are no “experts” AND all are experts — to have one’s own wisdom and life experience deeply valued;

●  the opportunity to learn about resources to support further work at the local level;

●  the opportunity to “talk shop” with architects and developers, with activists and practitioners, who are creating new model communities and new models OF community — and learn from their experience;

●  the opportunity to find colleagues with similar interests, to move from vision to action on new projects or rekindle enthusiasm for stalled ones; and finally,

●  the opportunity to be INSPIRED by the gathered energy within the group and by excitement for the Great Work to which we are all called in these emergent times.
 

 

Second Journey, Inc.
4 Wellesley Place, Chapel Hill, NC 27517
(919) 403-0432

  

Second Journey, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit corporation

0References:

 1 Theodore Roszak

2 Frederick Buechner