isn’t someone older or more credentialed. It’s someone who has done enough of their own inner work to be genuinely useful to a group or a situation, especially when things get hard. Elders care about everyone in the system, not just the people they agree with. They can hold their own position while also genuinely understanding the position of someone they disagree with. They can stay present when the room is at its most difficult. They can name what’s happening without taking sides. And take a side when that’s what’s actually needed.
Anyone can step into the role of the elder temporarily. You might do or say something that is ‘elderful’ one moment and then go back to being one-sided the next. In this way, it is a dynamic consciousness. A thread in the larger tapestry of the group or individual consciousness.
It’s a quality that develops over time, through ongoing inner work, real experience with conflict and a willingness to keep learning. It is also often a role in the field that anyone can occupy. Commonly, individuals or organizations can have moment of eldership where they briefly occupy the role of the elder. These moments don’t last. The same person may slip back into one-sidedness an hour later. But the moments themselves matter.
Eldership matters because conflict tends to pull people into polarized positions where each side can only see its own truth. A facilitator without eldership often gets pulled into one of those positions, even subtly, and loses the ability to hold the larger field.
An elder, by contrast, can move with fluidity between sides, support whoever needs support in a given moment and help the conflict find its way through to whatever wants to emerge.
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Maraya Karena is a Process Work Diplomate, Counselor and Consciousness Researcher based in Portland, Oregon.
“My passion is to study consciousness itself. To develop tools and models that support us to navigate everyday life. To make the reality we share more reflective of who and what we truly are. To find the pulsing, living heart of this life journey. And to engage with it fully and completely. I explore poetry, dance, embodiment, sex, social issues, futurism, philosophy, mysticism, joy and agony all to learn a little bit more about what is really going on and how we can most authentically express ourselves.”
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