Elderhood: The Post-Heroic Journey

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October 3, 2022

a project of ServiceSpace

Perhaps more than anything, to become elder is to be comfortable with your place in the world, finally to have understood where all of your various journeys have been leading you, to understand your gifts as well as your limitations, and to tightly focus those gifts on service to the earth and to community.

- Sharon Blackie -

Elderhood: The Post-Heroic Journey

In her book 'If Women Rose Rooted,' author Sharon Blackie explores what she calls an'Eco-Heroine's Journey.' She describes this as, "a path to understanding how deeply enmeshed we are in the web of life on this planet. In many ways, it is an antidote to the swashbuckling action-adventure that is the Hero's Journey, with its rather grandiose focus on saving the world....This path forces us first to examine ourselves and the world we live in, to face up to all that is broken and dysfunctional in it and in our own lives. Then it calls us to change -- first ourselves, and then the world around us. It leads us back to our own sense of grounded belonging to this Earth, and asks us what we have to offer to the places and communities in which we live. Finally, it requires us to step into our own power and take back our ancient, native role as its guardians and protectors. To rise up rooted, like trees." Blackie goes on to say that this journey is a "'post-heroic journey': a journey which recognizes that the time of the Hero is over -- or that it needs to be. The post-heroic journey applies as much to men as to women. I believe that our journey through the second half of our lives -- our journey into elderhood -- is profoundly post-heroic. So how exactly would I define the nature of the 'post-heroic'?" She shares more here. { read more }