Of Elders and Olders

Like any occultist who is honest and still in growth, when I look back on my practice ten years ago, twenty years ago, even two years ago in some respects, I feel like I wasn’t really ready. Not ready for the things I was doing, whether that thing was a leadership role or a book I was trying to write. It’s a funny one really because without the many mistakes I made in that exact order I wouldn’t be where I am to look back so smugly on what my former self didn’t know. If all our creek beds are still flowing and bubbling with life then there will be no year in our life where we couldn’t look back and know we could have done it all better now.

I have had quite a few occult olders along the way, but few reliable elders. So whilst I am neither young nor yet particularly old I feel like it’s time to get in training to be one. It requires training, preferably through example of other elder witches in our lives who model all the good stuff: body and age positivity, reciprocal respect for the young and their new current of vision, skills and resources and the willingness to share them inter-generationally, respecting boundaries, openness to change balanced with a storehouse of wisdom you only get through lived experience. A big part of the spirit of Old Craft as I understand it lies in preserving and resurrecting the threads of inter-generational knowledge. When this isn’t available we resolve ourselves to becoming the elder we want to see in the world, and to helping to mend the threads that have broken. This is the work of communities not of individuals though, we can’t do it all on our own, and we won’t see it in our own lifetime. The grace to accept that is also a big part of polishing your elder.

Everyone can get older, but to be an elder you need a community to be an elder to. To open yourself to that you need two things:

1. Relevancy - you have a skill, wisdom, stories or even resources and you’re willing to share them with the young. ie: you bring something to the table.

2. A willingness to see the relevancy of what the young bring in return, or could potentially bring if listened to - you too are still learning about the new world that is unfolding around you, and they are your guide.

Everybody wants to feel they have something relevant to bring and derogatory comments about the young only breeds the same in return. Young people are learning from you all the time, or trying to, even when they don’t realise they are. An elder needs to model how healthy reciprocity works and what it looks like, because many may not have learned it from their parents. Yes, they might have said it about your generation first, but who is the fully-fledged experienced adult here? If someone has to make the first move in being mature it is probably the one trying to be an elder!

Younger people can also help to create a good inter-generational environment. Look at the way you speak about ageing and try not to use ‘you look so much younger than you are’ as a compliment, or anything that suggests beauty and sexuality are only to be found among the young. This can be alienating, it lets your older friend know aspects of their life and body are gross to you now and that they have to edit out their sexual being around you. Plus, if you don’t die before their age you too possess a future elder-self you need to start nurturing, don’t give your future self these ugly messages. If you’re a witch then the quintessential image of the witch is a hag. Mainstream society has Othered this image precisely because it is powerful. The face and body worn-into-character by the elements and the artistic hand of Time should be celebrated by witches if by no one else. What is the actual point of us otherwise?

Feeling like you weren’t or aren’t ready for things, the accumulation of mistakes and what you’ve done with them so far, these are all grist for the mill in honing your own future elder. Don’t just hone your elder in defiance of your olders and vow to do the opposite to them in every way. Being an elder has to be an act of mending, not an act of war. Otherwise you are still the reaction to their action. Or if you do do this I hope for you that it’s only for a time and you build realisations from it and move on. An elder needs to manifest a sense of at-one-ness with themselves, so that younger people can grow towards that like a plant towards sun. Starting out with a resentful or angry core drive will not take you there, or at least, if it does it will be down many a crooked trail. And perhaps you could have only got to your future elder in that way and no other. To be able to say, now or in the future, to the younger witch who comes to sit at your hearth with you, I affirm as necessary all the twists and turns of your path and acknowledged mistakes that brought you to be you, is perhaps one of the greatest gifts an elder can offer, and just like it were the kindly sister of the Evil Eye, it can be done with the gaze alone.