Let's be their elders (so they don't have to turn to the AI version)

Listen to me (not an AI bot) read the post…

This morning on Instagram, the algorithms fed me a beautiful Indigenous man with long silver hair sitting in the pristine woods holding his drum. He was talking about how pharmaceutical companies are profiting from the stolen medicine of his people. Thousands of people were responding to him with the code word that would get access to the medicine directly from him.

I’m certain that this wise-looking elder is AI generated.

This isn’t the first of these I’ve come across. A couple of months ago, it was a beautiful Black woman with silver hair and dramatic lighting, talking about how the ancient wisdom of her people will help us heal from the damage done by patriarchy and colonialism. Like the Indigenous elder, she’d gained hundreds of thousands of followers in a relatively short time.

There’s also the silver-haired hippie musician who, according to his videos, is taking American Idol by storm. As captivating as his music is, it’s all AI generated.

It’s not hard to see why these AI elders are compelling. Their wisdom is etched into the lines on their faces. They speak clearly and courageously, looking into the viewers’ eyes as though nobody else matters. Each one is the epitome of the wise grandparent you wish you had – somebody who will look at you like you matter, while offering guidance for how to navigate this confusing world.

At face value, they seem harmless. Their messages are grounded in much the same values and principles I teach every day (which is why the algorithms feed them to me), so why wouldn’t I applaud the fact that these messages are reaching a broader audience?

Sadly, like the Wizard of Oz, what we see is not what’s behind the curtain.

These are not elders grounded in the ancient lineage they purport to be from. Their “wisdom” has been scraped from the internet (and stolen from people’s books, like mine) and is simply being used as another marketing tactic to sell people something. Peek behind the curtain and somebody is selling the “medicine” that supposedly comes from Indigenous sources rather than pharmaceutical companies, and somebody else is selling books and other merchandise branded with the Black woman’s name. There’s little chance that the people making money are even the same race as the AI bots they’ve created – they simply know that a racialized version of these “elders” will draw in more viewers, especially among a certain “woke” audience.

It feels hopeless, sometimes, doesn’t it? To witness just one more way that capitalism twists something good into a sales tactic? To see the ways in which our longings are being manipulated and we’re being given something empty instead of what we truly seek? To know that even our values around racial equity and care for the earth are being co-opted by empire?

But there’s a message here that takes me beyond the hopelessness, beyond the frustration with the capitalist machine, beyond even the rage. The message is this...

People are hungry for elders. So hungry, in fact, that they will gather at the virtual feet of AI bots who offer nothing but mirages on the distant horizon. If that is true, then it is the responsibility of those of us who’ve reached the third act of our lives to offer them TRUE eldership, rooted in REAL lineages, and grounded in GENUINE relationship with the earth and with our communities.

We need to be their elders. We need to be the flesh-and-blood, authentic, and flawed humans that they can turn to instead of these polished and perfectly lit mirages. We need to do our own healing, and then we need to ground and resource ourselves so that when they come to us, they’ll find something solid and trustworthy instead of empty promises and useless products.

I turned 60 recently, and in the year leading up to it, I put a lot of thought into what it means to be an elder (and not just an old person). Twenty years earlier, I’d been looking for my own elders (and was lucky enough to find a few of them) and so I asked myself what I’d been looking for that I should now seek to be myself.

Here are a few of the things I was looking for that now guide me in how to become an elder myself:

1. An anchor: Some sturdiness to help tether me during a time when the living strings tying me to my lineage were being severed (i.e. my parents’ deaths). Even after forty, orphanhood can make one feel rudderless and untethered, tossed about in an unpredictable ocean. I wanted at least one person who would feel grounded enough to hold the other end of the line when I was unstable.

2. A wisdom keeper and guide: Someone who was further along the spiritual path, who would hold a torch for me so that I could find my footing. Since my path had veered away from the evangelical Christianity of my family, I’d often felt like I was searching in the dark with no flashlight, and I longed for a kind hand on my shoulder guiding me toward the light. It wasn’t simply another teacher I was seeking (I could find plenty of those in books and workshops), it was tenderness and companionship mixed with loving guidance.

3. A cheerleader – Someone who believed in the work I was doing and would be the loudest voice in the room whenever I did something they were especially proud of. My dad died before I started the work I now do, and my mom was suspicious of it because it didn’t feel Christian enough, so I’d never had that feeling that the younger parts of me still craved – the feeling of rightness and strength that comes when an older person believes in you and points you further down the path than they have managed to travel themselves.

4. A nest – Someone who would offer a temporary safe place for me to rest whenever I’d overextended myself or was flooded with self-doubt. For much of my adult life, I’d been “the capable one”, the person who other people relied on. As a leader and mother, I often had to perform confidence to help others feel secure. That played out in my relationships with my former husband and mom as well – both were plagued with insecurity and turned to me for reassurance. After many years of this, I was longing for someone who expected none of that from me and was comfortable holding space for me when I needed to fall apart.

5. A shield – Someone who would, at least occasionally, stand between me and the harm that the world would sometimes shower down on me. In my adult life, I’ve had to fight a lot of battles alone, and it often left me feeling exhausted, lonely, and beaten down. I longed for someone to stand alongside me in the struggle, to notice when I was too exhausted to stand, to invite me to retreat, and then to shield me from any incoming blows. In the words of Billy Bragg, in his beautiful song I will be your shield, “Whеn the world beyond your doorstep no longеr makes much sense, and hostile thoughts surround you, I’ll come to your defense.”

The last few years, there’s been a significant shift for me, as my own elders have been aging and dying, as my daughters moved out of my home and started their adult lives away from me (and are now seeking something different from me), and as I’ve gone through some physical challenges that have brought aging more directly into my consciousness.

It feels daunting to be on the precipice of eldership, but I want to be ready for it, I want to be worthy of it – I want to be what the younger generation needs me to be. When they see the mirage for what it is, I want them to be able to find something solid.

I want to be their anchor, nest, shield, cheerleader and guide.

Over the last few years, as these ideas have been evolving in my head and heart, I’ve been working on a series of essays which I eventually hope to turn into a book. I’ve also been incorporating these ideas into my work, including our online programs Become a Grounded Guide, Holding Space Foundation Program, and Whale Song. In September, I’ll be co-teaching my first workshop on eldership in Europe.

I am grateful for the eldership I’ve received from my own lineage and from people like Randy, TuBears and Lorraine. I am also grateful for the ways that the trees and whales are guiding me. In this aging, disabled, flesh-and-blood REAL body, I want to be a Grounded Guide for those who come after me.

We start Module 3 of Become a Grounded Guide tomorrow and there’s still time to register. We’ll be talking about how to understand people better by learning about their core needs, beliefs and biases, relationship patterns, and nervous systems.

We start the next offering of the Holding Space Foundation Program in October. Join us for one module or all five.

Join me for one of the in-person offerings in Europe in Fall.

Also on the horizon… we’re considering offering a version of Whale Song for other audiences, like maybe a conversation space for young adults, or one for members of the queer community, or…? We’re open to your ideas if you’d like a space for meaningful conversations!

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