I recently sat in Elder's Circles of a 150 or more at the 3rd Annual Conference on Conscious Aging.  What I found was a rich source of persons who need a tribe as much as the children and adults need them.  I must admit I do not understand these letters in newspapers from those who want no disturbance of children around, walling themselves off from the tribe.  I have been fortunate to know early on that my elder's experience was a more useful teacher than most of academic research.  I have also known a few who are bridge builders between worlds.  Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi understands well the "other state of consciousness" needed to be with little children.

He did not remove himself from such demands in his pursuit of the inner life, but taught by his experience how to weave them together.  In recent years he has developed the Spiritual Eldering Institute, a teaching program that enables all elders, and elders-in-training, how to view the richness of conscious aging.  He says, "It seems to me that there are two main tasks to approaching eldering from a soulful perspective.  One is to leave something good behind for the next generation; the other is to make a finale that is right for us.  We have the opportunity now to create a template for growth into the elder years that includes both these tasks, an opportunity that was never available before this period in history" (cf. Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman [1995]. From: Aging to Sage-ing: A Profound New Vision of Growing Old.