Live with The Elder Well

Welcome Dear Listener,Our guest this time on The Elder Well is Meg Wheatley.Margaret (Meg) Wheatley began caring about the world’s peoples in 1966 when she volunteered for the Peace Corps in post-war Korea. Since then, in a career spanning 5 decades and counting, Meg has had many different roles – speaker, teacher, consultant, advisor, and leader – always working from the same unshakable conviction that leaders of all kinds must learn how to invoke people’s inherent generosity, creativity and need for community. Meg is the author of thirteen books and since 2015, she has been training leaders and activists from more than 35 countries as Warriors for the Human Spirit, an in-depth training program and path of service supported by a robust global community.“So we can’t be casual about any of this now. And it doesn’t help to just shut out the world and stop watching the news. It helps, but it doesn’t keep us engaged. And so the task is to stay engaged with the world and find where you can serve.”This episode with Meg Wheatley is both compassionate and unflinching, as we explore themes dear to Meg’s heart and life’s work including:* How Meg sees time of cultural and environmental collapse as a profound invitation for each of us to become what she calls ‘warriors for the human spirit’;* Megs also speaks to the importance and potential of creating refugia – islands of sanity where life and community might continue to thrive amidst the chaos and destruction;* She offers a powerful reframe for those of us who fear for the lives of our own and of all grandchildren;* Towards the end of our time together, Meg invites us to think and act locally invoking words of President Teddy Roosevelt who said: “Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” To which Meg adds, “With the people in front of you.”We hope, like us, you find courage, solace and inspiration in this conversation. Please enjoy…We invite you to share this post of The Elder Well with a dear friend or someone who you feel would be inspired by this conversation.Key links for this episode:* Meg’s library of work* Meg’s courses and offerings* Meg’s book: Warriors For The Human Spirit: A SONGLINE - A Journey Guided by Voice and Sound* Meg’s latest book: Perseverance - A Companion for the Journey* On Meg’s Warriors for the Human Spirit“But the work, first of all, is for us to take control of our minds. This is not a simple task, but it’s essential. It’s what all good meditative practice does: teaches you. To watch these fears and not get seduced down that trail of bringing it more and more to life. And so at one level, whatever is going on in the greater society, and it’s extreme fear promotion now. I’m just watching how the weather is covered; what horrible thing is about to happen, someplace here or over here. It’s become a feature of the daily news to be afraid of the planet. We have to take control and realize that we can’t control the external events, we have 100% control over how we respond to them.”We are so happy to share that The Elder Well podcast opens and closes with the song River Run Free composed and performed by MaMuse with Walter Strauss on guitar. This song is shared here with the generous permission of the artists. To find out more about MaMuse, their music and their mission please visit: http://www.mamuse.org/ Get full access to The Elder Well at theelderwell.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome dear listener. Our guest this time on The Elder Well is Francis Weller. Francis worked as psychotherapist for over forty years. These days, he describes himself as a writer and a soul activist. Many of our listeners will know Francis for his bestselling book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. Through this wonderful book and through his other writings, Francis has introduced the healing work of ritual to thousands of people.Francis is still very active within WisdomBridge, an organization he founded and directs, that offers educational programs that seek to integrate the wisdom from indigenous cultures with the insights and knowledge gathered from western poetic, psychological, and spiritual traditions. Listeners may like to note that, at the time of this recording, Francis was working on his 4th book which is called: Facing the World with Soul and Why It Matters.“I see almost every single iteration of trouble in the world arising out of that emptiness.”In a soulful, rich and often deeply moving conversation, Francis speaks about…* …how, humans holding themselves as separate from the rest of nature remains the greatest unhealed trauma in western culture;* …how this myth of separation continues to drive multiple systems of harm including hyper individualism, all forms of colonisation, and the insatiable cravings of consumer culture; * Francis shares how he sees the role of elders increasingly as disrupters of these systems of harm…* …and names some of the qualities he believes healthy elders can seek to restore including: reverence, awe, receptivity, humility, patience, reciprocity, mutuality and, perhaps above all in the west at this time, restraint.We were moved and truly inspired by our time with Francis and sincerely hope you are too. Please enjoy…The Elder Well is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Links from this episode:* Francis Weller’s website* The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief and other books* Adrift by Mark Nepo* Ancient Rhythms: Pat McCabe and Francis Weller - A recording from SAND’s December 2024 winter-solstice gatheringThis episode of The Elder Well was recorded on 27th May 2026. Since its recording we have become aware of, and wish to acknowledge, the conversation taking place on Substack and elsewhere between Francis Weller and members of his community. Our understanding is that Francis is engaged in a process of repair with members of his community. We respect this process and direct listeners to his Substack page for further information: https://substack.com/@francisweller* We are so happy to share that The Elder Well podcast opens and closes with the song River Run Free composed and performed by MaMuse with Walter Strauss on guitar. This song is shared here with the generous permission of the artists. To find out more about MaMuse, their music and their mission please visit: mamuse.org Get full access to The Elder Well at theelderwell.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome Dear Listener.Our guest this time on The Elder Well is John James Howell, also known as JJ Middleway, most often simply JJ. JJ is a celebrant, ritualist & poet based in Stroud in the west country of England. He is father of four children and seven grandchildren in partnership with a woman, Polly , who he calls his greatest teacher during the 53 years since they first met. For much of his life, JJ has been significantly influenced by Sufism, Shamanism and what he has come to call “Silly Foolism”. For the past four decades, JJ has primarily been guided and influenced by Druidry and is an elder in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. By the many people whose lives he touches, JJ is recognised as someone who embodies the qualities of Singer, Seer and Sage. JJ has been living with a terminal diagnosis of cancer and describes himself as “…being in the middle of the eighth decade of this particular incarnation, loving and living in a state of grace, contentment and peace.” He says his guiding affirmation in these, the latter days of his life are: “To inspire as I expire.”“Presence – presence is a key word for me for an elder. Being present. Witnessing…”In this intimate and at times very moving conversation,* JJ invites us to recognise and honour the pain, the joy, and above all the sacredness of this wild and precious life.* Describing a process he calls “humilification”, JJ speaks of the tempering nature of life, in particular, sharing how a diagnosis of terminal cancer has been many things for him, including a catalyst of profound joy, connection and celebration; * Elsewhere in our conversation, JJ shares the deep teaching he received from a bee-keeper about the potent and profound life wisdom encoded in a bee-sting;* Towards the end of our time together, JJ shares the story, sacred to these Isles, of The Well Maidens and how this myth is reemerging, pointing as it does to the current state of rupture between the masculine and the feminine in the prevailing culture. He names what he sees as a vital need for the collective reconsecration of the sacred feminine and a collective remembering of the sacred masculine; * Throughout our conversation, JJ weaves in prayer, poetry, story, and song. We are very grateful for the time we spent with him, and hope you enjoy, as we did, his playful, prayerful presence….Please enjoy…Know someone who needs to listen to this episode of The Elder Well? Please share below.Key links for this episode:* JJ’s website: https://enchantingthevoid.co.uk* For more about the myth of The Well Maidens, listeners may like to visit: https://celticroundhouse.com/well-maidens/* The order of bards and druids: https://druidry.org* Journeyman: Rites of passage for teenage boys: https://journeymanuk.org/We are so happy to share that The Elder Well podcast opens and closes with the song River Run Free composed and performed by MaMuse with Walter Strauss on guitar. This song is shared here with the generous permission of the artists. To find out more about MaMuse, their music and their mission please visit: http://www.mamuse.org/ Get full access to The Elder Well at theelderwell.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome Dear Listener.Our guest this time on The Elder Well is Randy Morris, Ph.D.Randy is Professor Emeritus at Antioch University Seattle where he taught in the BA Liberal Studies Program for 30 years and was the coordinator of the Psychology and Spiritual Studies concentrations. Prior to his career at Antioch University, Randy taught K-12 students for 10 years, including 3 years at the Hiroshima International School in Hiroshima, Japan. He is also the President Emeritus of the Board at Rite of Passage Journeys, a non-profit dedicated to restoring rites of passage for youth, adults and elders, and where he led adult vision quests for many years. Randy is a Certified Sage-ing Leader with Sage-ing International and served for many years on their executive and ritual committees. He is the Co-President of The C.G. Jung Society of Seattle, bringing the insights of depth psychology to bear on global rites of passage and the dark night of the species soul. Randy continues to teach classes in Dreamwork, Ritual Process, Elderhood and Rites of Passage. He is the co-author of the book Nagasaki Spirits, Hiroshima Voices: Making Sense of the Nuclear Age , co-editor of the book Rites of Passage Into Elderhood and co-editor of the forthcoming book, Spiritual Eldering For the 21st Century: The Sage-ing Way. “…because you’re recognizing the radiance of that person, and when you bless it, when you recognize it, you’re allowing that radiance to come out into the world, so you’re naming that right now, that radiance, and that other person is feeling permission to come out of its cage inside the person and begin to spread its healing balm on the earth, and I go, yeah, exactly, that’s one of the main healing properties of being an elder, is the power of blessing.”In his spare time, he is a grandfather to five and likes to play pickleball, strum his guitar, and paddle his kayak on his beloved Salish Sea. He is celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary at the time this goes podcast goes live. He lives in Langley, the ‘Village By The Sea”, on South Whidbey Island outside of Seattle.In an expansive, rich and powerful conversation…* Randy shares his belief that most of the ills that make up the current ‘polycrisis’ are a function of untended trauma and unexpressed grief…* …he suggests elders may be uniquely blessed with the time and the capacity to drop into the depths of soul necessary for tending the cultural wounds and scars of these times;* Randy speaks to how, in the west, the cultural myths we’re living by are not adequate for what we’re facing since those myths themselves were created in patriarchy...* …and he describes how the extremity of the historical moment is awakening the archetype of the Elder - not just in older people but in youngers too;* Randy invites us to see what’s happening globally not just as a terrible descent into chaos and disaster, but as a part of an arc of a collective rite of passage for our species;* Randy describes how ritual, ceremony, circle work and conscious connection with the sacred or divine are the containers which can hold us as we ripen as elders;* Randy offers us a teaching which came to him in a dream in which Mother Theresa said to him, The point is not to save people, the point is to create the conditions for the transpersonal, the possibility of Grace;* Towards the end of time together, Randy explores the spirituality of eldering and shares how for him, “Standing for the eternal verities of the good, the true, the beautiful, and the just, is the work of the spiritual elder in these days.”Please enjoy….Know someone who needs to listen to this episode of The Elder Well? Please share below.Key Links for this episode: * More of Randy’s work can be found on his website: randymorrisphd.net* Rite of Passage Journeys* Sage-ing International* Online Awakening the Sage Within* Seattle Jung Society* Rites of Passage Into Elderhood by Randy Morris and Bolton Anthony* Nagasaki Spirits, Hiroshima Voices: Making Sense of the Nuclear Age (2003) by Walter Enloe and Randy MorrisAlso mentioned in this episode:* On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg* The website of Joanna Macy* The Work That Reconnects* Animas Valley* School of Lost Borders* Meg Wheatley Randy can be reached at [email protected]. “How many are willing to sustain the gaze of the poly crisis? Well, not everybody can do that, and honestly, to do it is quite painful, and you have to be able to go into deep emotional states to witness the global suffering that's happening right now, and I have to say, you just can't do it all the time, you know? Sometimes you got to back off.”We are so happy to share that The Elder Well podcast opens and closes with the song River Run Free composed and performed by MaMuse with Walter Strauss on guitar. This song is shared here with the generous permission of the artists. To find out more about MaMuse, their music and their mission please visit: http://www.mamuse.org/ Get full access to The Elder Well at theelderwell.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome dear listener,Our guests this time on The Elder Well are Anne and Terry Symens-Bucher.Anne and Terry are founders of Canticle Farm, an intentional community in Oakland, California, experimenting at the intersection of faith, social justice, and Earth-based nonviolent activism. Canticle Farm is rooted in Franciscan spirituality and the Work That Reconnects, a body of teachings best known through living systems and Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy. Anne worked as Joanna Macy’s Executive Assistant for the last twenty years of Joanna’s life. Prior to that she was involved in nuclear disarmament, Sanctuary, nonviolence, and ecological sustainability work for twenty-five years, primarily as Co-Director of the Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation Office for the Franciscan Friars of the St. Barbara Province. Terry has a Master of Divinity Degree from the Franciscan School of Theology and a Juris Doctor degree from U.C. Hastings College of Law. He supports and develops rites of passage for men of various ages and faith lineages. He is currently focused on guiding elder rites for men. In his community building efforts with Illuman, he centres the role of conflict in personal and organizational development, and the ability of trauma and shadow work to transform relationships by deepening the social field. Anne and Terry are retreat facilitators of the Work That Reconnects and guides for elder rites of passage. They are the parents of five children and grandparents of three. They celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary this year. “…I think my eldering is realizing that I can be in a story that I’m breathing and I’m living my life, or I can choose to turn my attention to that I’m being breathed and I’m being lived, and that’s increasingly where I want to find myself.” - Ann Symens-BucherIn a rich and wide-ranging conversation…* Anne and Terry share from long lifetimes dedicated to peace-activism and community-building; they suggest the skills humanity currently lacks most are the very skills we most need – namely the skills of conflict resolution;* They acknowledge the prevalence of untended trauma in our time - personal, ancestral and collective – and speak powerfully of how everything we need to support our individual and collective healing is already present in our ecosystem, we just need the eyes to see it;* Terry unpacks what he holds to be two of the key cultural tasks of elders at this time - forgiveness and speaking the unspeakable…* …and Anne shares how, for her, eldering well includes listening to younger people, describing her on-going commitment to creating opportunities for younger people to be deeply heard in their longing, their grief and their searching;* We acknowledge the disconnected, co mpetitive, and highly individualistic culture in which we’re living, and Terry and Anne speak eloquently of the vitality and necessity of relationship, community and shared commitment to the common good;* Towards the end of our time together, Anne and Terry share something of their respective spiritual journeys including the ways their beliefs support, nourish and inspire them to keep showing up, for each other, for their community, and for humanity.Please share your reflections in the Substack comments….Links to further resources:* Canticle Farm* The Work That Reconnects* The website of Joanna Macy* Illuman Elder Rites of Passage * IllumanAlso mentioned by our guests in this episode:* Gabor Mate* Thomas Hubl“…we’ve also figured out how to grow food and make medicine from plants and accompany people giving birth, but what have we not figured out how to do as a human species is to deal with our trauma and our conflict, you know. We have not learned to live together. We have not learned. I used to wear a button around that said, I will not kill you, and just love the, you know, I will not kill you, no matter how upset I am, no matter how much I disagree with you. I will not kill you. Can you imagine if we could just start there? So my Noah’s Ark is filled with people who have conflict and mediation and trauma skills, because if we can’t figure that out, none of the rest of it is going to matter.” - Ann Symens-BucherWe are so happy to share that The Elder Well podcast opens and closes with the song River Run Free composed and performed by MaMuse with Walter Strauss on guitar. This song is shared here with the generous permission of the artists. To find out more about MaMuse, their music and their mission please visit: http://www.mamuse.org/ Get full access to The Elder Well at theelderwell.substack.com/subscribe

Our guest this time on The Elder Well is Manda Scott. Based in the UK, Manda has been, variously, a veterinary surgeon, columnist, acupuncturist, regenerative smallholder, homoeopath, coach, renegade economist - and author of 16 novels, several screenplays and one non-fiction book. She holds a Master’s degree in Regenerative Economics from Schumacher College, is a contemporary shamanic teacher, and co-hosts the Accidental Gods podcast with her wife, Faith Tilleray. In this episode of The Elder Well, we sit down with Manda for a courageous and compassionate conversation which explores elderhood, personal and collective trauma, wonderment, chaos, the web of life, the future of the planet, and more…Know someone who’d love this conversation with Manda Scott? Please share below. Manda speculates that culturally we may be at peak trauma now and cannot as a collective go much further without either crashing and burning, or emerging into a new system which does not have trauma as a baseline.She describes the differences between “trauma cultures” and “initiation cultures”, and suggests the marked absence of meaningful initiation rites and rituals keeps much of society stuck in a kind of arrested early adolescence.Manda offers fascinating insights about initiation cultures being more serotonin-based in contrast to the prevailing culture in the west which is largely based on dopamine requiring continual and ever-larger amounts of stimulation to sustain itself;Throughout our conversation, Manda points to paths which would lead us away from the brink of cultural and planetary collapse. “If we don’t bring a critical mass of people to the edge of what’s possible and leave behind all the old structures of predatory capitalism and trauma culture then I don’t think we make it through.”Manda speaks movingly of an inspiring vision she had in mid-winter 2018 in which she was shown the earth floating in space, criss-crossed by millions of fibres of light, creating a web, and how at every crossing point was a node of consciousness, of which some were human….and most were not.Manda shares how, for her, a true elder is someone who has the capacity to not become hijacked by their own trauma, who has learned how to connect with the web of life, and has offered themselves fully in service of youngers and the planet.Manda invites each of us to cultivate joyful curiosity, and to fall in love with the magic of being alive in spite of the obvious chaos around us.Towards the end of our time together, she shares an inspiring vision she is holding of a possible future where each person wakes up feeling safe, confident and excited, awed and alive with the possibility of the day, connected with themselves, other people and the rest of the web of life, knowing what’s theirs to do, confident in their capacity to do it, and doing this in the company of other people who they trust in good faith are doing the same.Offering a few links to explore this conversation further:* The Accidental Gods Podcast* The website of Manda Scott* Releasing Our Burdens: A Guide to Healing Individual, Ancestral, and Collective Trauma by Richard Schwartz PhD and Thomas Hübl PhD* The website of teacher and author Thomas Hübl* Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman by Malidoma Patrice SoméWe were enlivened and inspired by our time with Manda; we very much hope you are too. Please enjoy.“I think in general terms, the point of an elder in any healed and whole culture is to be helping to hold the space for the younger people coming through. I think one of the points of being human is to create the compost the land, create the soil of which to grow other humans who will be wiser than us.”We are so happy to share that The Elder Well podcast opens and closes with the song River Run Free composed and performed by MaMuse with Walter Strauss on guitar. This song is shared here with the generous permission of the artists. To find out more about MaMuse, their music and their mission please visit: http://www.mamuse.org/ Get full access to The Elder Well at theelderwell.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to The Elder Well at theelderwell.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome dear listener.Our guest this time on The Elder Well is Mac Macartney. Mac is a visionary, international speaker, author, and change-maker. He is the founder of Embercombe, a social enterprise and 50-acre rewilding estate on Dartmoor (UK) dedicated to the profound regeneration of land and society. He bridges ancient indigenous wisdom with 21st-century leadership. Over a 20-year period, Mac was mentored by indigenous elders, profoundly shaping his worldview and driving his advocacy for earth-centred leadershipIn this episode, Mac shares insights and wisdom from a life dedicated to beauty, nature, spirit, courage and love.…* Mac shares how, for him, one of the great invitations of the second half of life is to uncover - or recover - our authentic voice, and to speak from this in service of what is real, true and has value;* Now aged 73, he describes how in his 20’s, encountering the deep spirituality of First Nations people, recorded in the book Touch The Earth, profoundly moved and inspired him, and shaped the course of the rest of his life;* He offers a vision of what might be expected of conscious, engaged elders, which includes looking to the future, acting to benefit the overall cohesion of society, and being invested in young people having safe, sustainable, fulfilling and dignified lives;* Our conversation ends with Mac offering ‘A call to the brave’, an inspiring invitation to all who can to step up in these times of crisis, and co-create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.Please enjoy…Links:https://macmacartney.com/https://www.embercombe.org/the-journeyhttps://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/509333.Touch_the_Earth“…in the end it’s not much more than the things that we’ve already spoken of. You know, to know that you are loved. You do not need to prove anything. The “spiritual things” in our view are by and large, everything that we call ordinary in this life, a sunrise… I mean, I understand we have different religions, and they serve many people very well, but I think we were born into a ceremony, and the very nature of life is spiritual.”We are so happy to share that The Elder Well podcast opens and closes with the song River Run Free composed and performed by MaMuse with Walter Strauss on guitar. This song is shared here with the generous permission of the artists. To find out more about MaMuse, their music and their mission please visit: http://www.mamuse.org/ Get full access to The Elder Well at theelderwell.substack.com/subscribe

We are pleased to introduce our first guest on The Elder Well — Ned Abenroth. Ned has spent his adult life tending to transformational spaces. He was ordained in his early 20’s in a Christian community of artists, theologians, poets, musicians, and other glorious misfits, and served as a pastor in unorthodox settings ever since. In this episode, Ned takes us on a journey of heart and soul, exploring how eldering is a profound invitation to change our relationship with the second half of life. He shares how he sees eldering not as a fixed identity but more as a process of becoming - an on-going deepening, ripening and flowering. “I often think of ‘elder’ more as verb than noun and that the verb to elder, if I was to give a definition, would be to give away one’s final season for the good of the world”He offers insights from his elder rites of passage work including the necessity of grief work, the liberation of waking up from the dominant culture’s fear and denial of death, and the immense gifts and Grace that can flow when we face our own mortality.Ned is a beautiful soul. Take your time to find out more about Ned using the links below:* Ned’s website: nedabenroth.com* About the Elders Rites of Passage (EROP): eldersritesofpassage.com* Illuman, the interfaith community of men: illuman.org* Ned’s beautiful Poem ‘Yes’: nedabenroth.com/yesPlease enjoy…“Only the ego has a problem with death but we have to remember that death is not the opposite of life. You know, it’s the opposite of birth. They’re both doorways into and out of this world. But death itself is not antithetical to life, if anything, it feeds life. Spend any time in an old growth forest and on the forest floor and you’re standing on generations of death and decay. There would be no forest without all of the death that has happened before it, you know, so, there is this impossibility of there being anything close to what we think of as life, if death were not part of this beautiful, beautiful cycle of it.” —Ned Abenroth* We are so happy to share that The Elder Well podcast opens and closes with the song River Run Free composed and performed by MaMuse with Walter Strauss on guitar. This song is shared here with the generous permission of the artists. To find out more about MaMuse, their music and their mission please visit: mamuse.org Get full access to The Elder Well at theelderwell.substack.com/subscribe

Why The Elder Well? Why us? And why now? These are some of the questions that came up in this pre-launch chat with Ian MacKenzie of the Mythic Masculine podcast. We are big fans of Ian and the Mythic Masculine so it was a huge honour to have him support us in this way.We chat about the origins of The Elder Well, including how the name itself arrived with Sarah on a hillside at dawn in Devon, during a ceremony at Embercombe. We also share an insight emerging across our first conversations: that an elder isn't self-appointed - it's something bestowed by others, in relationship. We hope you enjoy this intimate chat with Ian MacKenzie and we look forward to seeing you for our Substack Live event on Friday 6 June at 7pm BST / 2pm EDT / 11am PDT. Get full access to The Elder Well at theelderwell.substack.com/subscribe