Richard Stuecker's Blog

The Tale of the Wise Old MenAmy Friedman and Meredith Johnson http://www.uexpress.com/tell-me-a-sto...
Once upon a time in a village in Romania, a group of young people gathered together. The evening went on, with everyone laughing and joking and socializing, when one of the young people suddenly said, "Why do we need the old men?"
At first the others gasped, but then they began to talk about their fathers, who forever were giving advice; they complained about their grandfathers' sagas, their uncles' tales, their neighbors' old-fashioned ideas. They all agreed: The old men were old and had lived their lives. Who needed to hear what they had to say? Surely the young people had ideas that made more sense in these modern times.
They decided to go to the palace to tell the young king of their idea -- that it was time to get rid of all the old men.
The young king was young indeed, and he agreed this was a fine plan. The next day, he ordered his soldiers to gather all the old men in the whole country and to lock them away, so no one would have to listen to their stories or their advice or their ideas anymore.
The soldiers carried out the orders.
There was one young man named Felix who despised this new law. He loved his father and considered him the wisest man in the world. But Felix and his father were fearful of what would happen if they disobeyed. So they agreed that the old man would hide in the cellar, and they would visit each other only at night. No one would know.
That spring, the flowers bloomed, and fat, juicy grapes grew on every vine. Every tree bore fruit, and the young people celebrated their new freedom. But by summer, a drought had hit the land. The crops died. The trees withered. The animals suffered.
A severe winter followed the summer of drought. People shivered from the first to the last of the season. They had never felt such bitter cold. The fields were covered in snow and ice, and when at long last winter ended and spring came again, nothing grew.
The people were hungry, and they were afraid. None of the seeds grew because drought and freeze had killed them all, and the people were so worried that they could not think what to do.
The young king gathered his group of young wise men, but they were too burdened by worry to be wise.One night, Felix visited his father as he always did, but this time his father looked at him and said, "I know something is wrong. I've never seen you looking so sad. What's wrong? Has somebody died?"
"Oh father," Felix said, "our land is dying. Our seeds have all died, and there is nothing to do but wait and starve."
The father reached out and gently touched his son's hand. "Do not be afraid," he calmly said. "Take our plow and go to the city. Plow up the roads that lead into the city and the roads leading out. Don't answer anyone's questions. Just do as I say."
Felix trusted his father. So the next morning, he harnessed his horse to the plow and set off. As he plowed up the main roads, he saw the earth he turned over was thick and moist, and, to his astonishment, he saw the seeds beneath this soil were not dried up or frozen or dead.
The weather was warm, the sun bright, and in just a few days, these seeds began to sprout and grow up from the tilled land. Quickly they grew tall -- corn and wheat and other crops.
When people saw this, they began to ask questions: "What happened? What were you thinking? What have you done? Is there some magic here?"
Remembering his father's words, Felix answered no questions. He just smiled and said, "We are growing food."
The neighbors ran to the palace to report this to the young king, who soon sent for Felix."I have no doubt that your father is with you still," the young king said. "I suspect it was he who advised you to plow up our roads. Speak the truth and I promise I will spare your life. Lie to me, and you shall die."
Felix looked down. "It's true, your majesty," he said. "My father lives in my cellar. I could not bear to give him up. And it was he who advised me to plow up the main roads."
"Bring your father to me," the young king commanded Felix.
So Felix returned home, and the next day, he and his father traveled together to the palace. People gasped at the sight of an old man freely traveling in a carriage, and the whispering began. What could this mean?
When Felix and his father arrived at the palace, the young king looked the old man in the eye. "What is the meaning of the advice you gave your son?" he demanded. "Why have you destroyed our main roads?"
"Your majesty," the old man said, "carts filled with seeds and corn pass through our village all year-round. Some of those seeds fall from their carriages to the ground, and the carts and plows and people tread over them. But those seeds that are left behind may grow if given a chance. That is why I told my son to dig up the dirt -- to give them a chance."
The young king was no fool. He understood at once that the old man was wise indeed. The young king quickly understood the folly of his ways. He understood that just as the earth stores nourishment, old people store wisdom.
That very day, he ordered all the old men to be set free. After that, with people old and young talking and giving advice, sharing wisdom, meeting together and listening to each other, life was much richer and more nourishing.

At the USAGE at Land of our Grandfathers, I was deeply impressed and inspired by the inclusion of the Young Warriors, Eric Thomas and Chris Geyer and the other young warrior from Houston who joined us. I was gifted by Scott Lederer when he asked me to join their small planning team to participate in developing a presentation and to facilitate some sort of Young Warrior/Elder agreement process. Chris led the facilitation with support from me that led to rich discussion of what such an alliance might begin to look like. Each of these young men were brilliant in their presentation and facilitations, Later, I caught up with Chris and another young man, Morgan Toabe, at the Central Great Lakes Elder Retreat. This deepened my connection and again knocked me on my ass with regards not only to the brilliance they brought to the retreat, but to the connection that appears to be longed for and a natural fit between Young Man and Elder. 
When Tim Schladand and I began developing the passage into elderhood experience we call Vibrant Emeritus Weekend, we included a young man named Ronnie Hager as a support person and massage therapist. At first, we were looking for a young man who would be a gofer and would see the music was played at the right time. How quickly we were disabused of that view. Because Ronnie is a nationally certified massage therapist, we thought we might include chair massages between sessions. He immediately pointed out how a deep massage experience could anchor the experiences of those attending and that the massage room might be a place for men to let go in safety. An hour body work session for each man was integrated and boy was he right. 
We included Ronnie throughout the design process of the weekend. He became an equal partner in our work and his insights were  invaluable. When we held our first weekend in December 2013, he not only did the body work and saw to all the logistics, but he took amazing notes with valuable insights on each of the modules -- unasked. 
Ronnie found that as the weekend progressed that he could examine his own life from a Young Man point of view as the Elders examined their own. He told us it was life changing.This year, based on Ronnie's experience, we invited five key members of the MKPKY community Young Warriors to both support and participate in the weekend. I wrote Young Warrior participation into each module and over the weekend the Young Warriors challenged the Elders to accept themselves with authenticity as they moved into the Second Journey of life as it might relate to young men as role models and mentors. I met with each young warrior for several hours to explore what participation might look like and how they saw the Young Man/Elder relationship. To a man they expressed a yearning for connection with Elders. They clearly explained that they wanted to be listened to, valued by an older man, have a place to speak to their lives man to man, equally, and to be able to consider their lives -- asking for guidance but not being told what to do. 
On the weekend they brought a new energy that enriched the Elders. It was clearly an Elders Weekend and the focus was on providing a time and space for older men to go through an initiatory process into the second half of their lives. Most of the men participating were in their mid-fifties. But, as Ronnie had the year before, each of the young men experience powerful insights and discoveries about themselves and about their relationships with their dads, their fears about their First Journey, and their need for support.
As we are moving forward to decipher and define this powerful connection, we are finding ways to proceed. It is Tim's and my intention to maintain the relationships we built as we move forward, one to one. I have applied to staff the Young Warrior Gateway here in April. Ronnie and I are in conversations to plumb what we have learned with an I toward writing a book together to support such relationships between young me and elders.
I believe that the mentoring process is very different than the usual process found in mentoring programs in that it is a much more egalitarian relationship that enriches both the young man and the older man.
In fact, each party, those entering their First Journey as Warriors and those entering their Second Journey as Elders are both exploring entirely new and mysterious days in their lives. It is not simply a man of experience sharing his acumen with a younger man. There is a much greater dynamic going on that I believe is primal and necessary both to the personal growth of each man and to the ultimate health of the community.
I a very interested in how Elders in other communities are looking at this relationship with their Young Warrior brothers, and what they might be doing to foster this alliance. Clearly many Elders left the Houston inspired and invigorated. Perhaps through sharing our experiences here we can develop healthy Elder/Young Warrior relationships throughout the MKP community.

I have been truly blessed recently. I have been given the opportunity to keynote and present workshops at retreats for Elders including the Kentucky Elder Retreat, the Central Great Lakes Elder Retreat, 2013 and 2014 USAGEs in Pennsylvania and Texas. My new book, Vibrant Emeritus: The Elder in the Twenty-First Century is now available at Amazon.

The greatest blessing has been connecting with Young Warriors at these events. I have invited them to participate as staff and as part of each module of the Vibrant Emeritus Weekend next week here in Kentucky. 

Clearly there is a natural and vital connection as these men enter their first journey in life and men 50 and over enter their second journey. I believe that this connection is crucial in healing the community and developing both Warriors and Elders of distinction, integrity, and generativity. www.vibrantemeritus.com

[image error]Vibrant Emeritus: The Elder in the Twentieth CenturyA Book by Richard StueckerEnter the second half of your life journey with vibrancy, generativity, creativity and blessing! One’s second half of life can be an amazing adventure of abundance, generativity, and deepening spirituality. Vibrant Emeritus: The Elder in the Twenty-First Century offers a path that embraces a view of life that counters the belief that one’s “second journey” is one of dissipation and disappointment. With vibrant prose and a truly wise heart, Ric Stuecker has connected Hero to Elder powerfully, then gone even further to detail the stages of the elder's path. This is wonderful material--gracious, beautiful, and perceptive. I highly recommend it. ~ Michael Gurian, author of The Wonder of AgingIt was my very great pleasure reading Vibrant Emeritus. Once I got started, I couldn't put it down. By the time I finished, I knew we were brothers. Vibrant Emeritus is a book for those considering the path of the Enlightened Elder. Becoming an Elder is not an easy path, but the work - if followed sincerely - will transform your life and lives of those you love and serve. This is an authentic and powerful book because Richard Stuecker gets it! He did this work for himself and he knows the way. With so much to teach, his book will become an ever-deepening experience of your own initiation into the mature masculinity. Be sure to read it several times! ~ John Robinson, author of What Aging Men WantAvailable, November 28, 2014 from John Hunt Publishing, www.johnhuntpublishing.com and Amazon ebook $9.95      Paperback $19.95

Michael Meade writes:A man can get caught between an outer life whose meaning is draining away and an inner life dominated by lions enraged from lack of nourishment. After a while, stuckness becomes numbing.—one of the most fearful states men experience. Turning numb happens in all kinds of ways and has become so common that it’s considered part of aging. Certainly, it is one of our fears about aging. Whatever the primary emotional style of a man may be, numbing can occur. His anger may turn cold and form a hard shell that blocks his inner and outer life. Even a warm heart may become stone cold and kill intimacy of any kind. Fear may become petrified, keeping people at a distance and blocking change within. Shame may build to a point where any close attention will shut everything down; it can stop a man from doing something before he even gets started. Sorrow may begin to feel like a weight that can’t be moved, and a wasteland can grow out of the numbness.            In the present culture, because of the dearth of role model, honored and respected Elders in our lives and the dearth of men who see Elderhood as anything but a depressing vision of life of debilitation in a nursing home, we often get stuck at the crossroads where a decision is called for. I have met many men who appear confused about what to do with their lives as they age and their careers are ending. Life as a Vibrant Emeritus can be as active, challenging, growthful and exciting as life as Warrior. It is life on a different frequency and it is emitting energy out to others from one’s deepest core. I have met men whose confusion comes from their attempt to continue to do what they have always done to stoke and stroke their inner dynamism and it is no longer working. I talked with others who have lost their purpose.Life as a Vibrant Emeritus offers the discovery of new challenges that can be met in ways that demand creativity, movement into what is unknown, “going we know not where to fetch we know not what.” Men taking this route today are pioneers and early adapters, forging the path others will want to follow. We will become the role models, supporters and inspirers for the next generations, mentoring them through their Warrior Journey, and lowering the obstacles to their entering the last half or third of their lives with passion, enthusiasm and joy. www.vibrantemeritus.com 

Having made the decision to move forward, we discover that within us might be found the direction we have been looking for: our youthful inspirations – our better selves. I have worked with many populations including men in prison to men attending the New Warrior Training Adventure to military veterans to men in recovery from addictions. Even in the most desperate of situations, including a man on death row, I have never met a man who as a youth did not have noble and inspiring dreams for himself, his family, and who still didn’t believe in his most deeply held hopes and aspirations. 
At the beginning of Parsifal’s Quest, he sees the five knights who he takes as angels or demigods. These figures represent those glorious and noble visions we have as a youth. Parsifal is at the edge of puberty and will meet the stirrings of his male heart when he meets the woman in the tent he takes for a cathedral. Filled with youthful passion, his hubris high and his blood running hot, he challenges and defeats the Red Knight and takes on his armor: the armor of the Warrior. When his adventures end and he lets go of this mask taking off the armor, he enters the Grail Castle of deep spirituality and transformation. It is here that he can merge the shining noble visions the five knights first presented to him with his hard won wisdom and transcend the Warrior life. Now he enters the place where noble youth and maidens present him with the symbols of the Christian faith (emblems of his spirituality).The Vibrant Emeritus is a man who moves his vision from personal reward to those youthful and ennobling aspirations that he may now have the “strength, patience, and wisdom letting go of ego “as the guiding force of life.”
www.vibrantemeritus.com 

What many Boomers have is the experience of challenging boundaries throughout our youth. This includes both challenging the Vietnam War and having the courage to fight for one’s country. Included is willingness to experiment and use conscious changing drugs and for some to face one’s own addiction. Also included is youthful embracing of idealism, vision and a change-the-world philosophy. Many commentators have noted that the Boomers lost the idealism of their youth as they built self-serving lives of avarice, ruthless commerce and self-obsessiveness. My belief is that alive under those shadows lives our better consciousness. Boomers have the opportunity to reconnect with their better selves and inhabit the noble goals of youth merged with the practical skills, understandings and know-how they gained as Warriors. My hope is that many of them will have the courage to do so.

Vibrant Emeritus: The Elder in the Twentieth CenturyA Book by Richard Stuecker
Enter the second half of your life journey with vibrancy, generativity, creativity and blessing! One’s second half of life can be an amazing adventure of abundance, generativity, and deepening spirituality. Vibrant Emeritus: The Elder in the Twenty-First Century offers a path that embraces a view of life that counters the belief that one’s “second journey” is one of dissipation and disappointment.
With vibrant prose and a truly wise heart, Ric Stuecker has connected Hero to Elder powerfully, then gone even further to detail the stages of the elder's path. This is wonderful material--gracious, beautiful, and perceptive. I highly recommend it. ~ Michael Gurian, author of The Wonder of Aging
It was my very great pleasure reading Vibrant Emeritus. Once I got started, I couldn't put it down. By the time I finished, I knew we were brothers. Vibrant Emeritus is a book for those considering the path of the Enlightened Elder. Becoming an Elder is not an easy path, but the work - if followed sincerely - will transform your life and lives of those you love and serve. This is an authentic and powerful book because Richard Stuecker gets it! He did this work for himself and he knows the way. With so much to teach, his book will become an ever-deepening experience of your own initiation into the mature masculinity. Be sure to read it several times! ~ John Robinson, author of What Aging Men Want
Available, November 28, 2014 from John Hunt Publishing, www.johnhuntpublishing.com and Amazon ebook $9.95      Paperback $19.95

This is the moment of great mystical importance. Here your consciousness, your body and its consciousness, are at their prime, and you are in a position to ask yourself, who or what am I? Am I the consciousness, or am I the vehicle of consciousness? Am I this body which is the vehicle of light, solar light, or am I the light?  (Joseph Campbell)
I come to a place in the road, the time of the seven tasks. It is late and I am chilly. I ask myself: Which way do I go? Am I stuck here? What skills do I have? What understandings? What will I need for the road ahead? Will the road ahead be like the road behind me? What burdens do I carry? Am I enough?
This is the third task.

And so here we stand, together at the crossroads in the midst of life with the artists, wunderkinds, and kings, gazing Janus-like forward and back, trying to figure out what the rest of our days on earth will bring. Trying to formulate a strategy. Trying to discover where the gold of happiness and fulfillment lies hidden. Trying to find out if there really is any gold.And then that little voice comes again: Time is running out. Is this really all there is?Harry R. Moody, The Five Stages of the Soul

Michael Meade writes:A man can get caught between an outer life whose meaning is draining away and an inner life dominated by lions enraged from lack of nourishment. After a while, stuckness becomes numbing.—one of the most fearful states men experience. Turning numb happens in all kinds of ways and has become so common that it’s considered part of aging. Certainly, it is one of our fears about aging. Whatever the primary emotional style of a man may be, numbing can occur. His anger may turn cold and form a hard shell that blocks his inner and outer life. Even a warm heart may become stone cold and kill intimacy of any kind. Fear may become petrified, keeping people at a distance and blocking change within. Shame may build to a point where any close attention will shut everything down; it can stop a man from doing something before he even gets started. Sorrow may begin to feel like a weight that can’t be moved, and a wasteland can grow out of the numbness.            In the present culture, because of the dearth of role model, honored and respected Elders in our lives and the dearth of men who see Elderhood as anything but a depressing vision of life of debilitation in a nursing home, we often get stuck at the crossroads where a decision is called for. I have met many men who appear confused about what to do with their lives as they age and their careers are ending. Life as a Vibrant Emeritus can be as active, challenging, growthful and exciting as life as Warrior. It is life on a different frequency and it is emitting energy out to others from one’s deepest core. I have met men whose confusion comes from their attempt to continue to do what they have always done to stoke and stroke their inner dynamism and it is no longer working. I talked with others who have lost their purpose.Life as a Vibrant Emeritus offers the discovery of new challenges that can be met in ways that demand creativity, movement into what is unknown, “going we know not where to fetch we know not what.” Men taking this route today are pioneers and early adapters, forging the path others will want to follow. We will become the role models, supporters and inspirers for the next generations, mentoring them through their Warrior Journey, and lowering the obstacles to their entering the last half or third of their lives with passion, enthusiasm and joy.