Birthing a Passion Project
Growing Elder Podcast is born.
Two and a half years, that’s what it took to conceive and give birth to a conversation about eldership for the public. Only the last part felt like labor. Most of the rest of it was a gently unfolding wonderous journey of conversations, art, writing, music, movement, scaffolding, and occasionally hitting a wall.
The Growing Elder Podcast is live now. Here is a clip from the first episode with my dear friend, Awo Fatokun:
I met this beautiful wise human four years ago when I was studying with the Gesturing Toward Decolonial Futures Collective in Vancouver BC after reading “Hospicing Modernity”. After a brief period of being “mounted” by the trees in one of our sessions, he started referring to me as Iya. It astonishes me still, and I try to hold the import of the name with the grace it deserves. It’s one of those names that I would never call myself, but I endeavor to carry it well when he uses it.
I feel the same way about the term elder. I do not call myself an elder and I do not deflect it when it is applied to me. I only hope to hold the space with grace when called upon.
Awo Fatokun dives deep into this subject in parts one and two of the first conversation in the series. You can access it on my Patreon platform.