the Elders Inspire Awe podcast.

I am myratara

of Hearers Hermitage

and the Sacred Mother Elders Council.

Today we are talking about:

The Incarnation Contract:

The later-life purpose

reserved only for elders.

You’ve are no doubt familiar with The concept -

Self-actualization.

Well, I want to suggest here

That Self-actualization is no

the summit of life,

But has become a threshold

to an even greater human contribution.

And that is the incarnation contract,

Which is only possible

when we reach elderhood.

Elderhood is a kind of continuation

of that line of growth.

Now Elderhood itself

is Not at a birthday.

It is Not at a number.

Elderhood begins when a person has lived enough life,

integrated enough experiences,

and cultivated enough inner capacity

to carry a purpose

that could not have revealed itself

any earlier.

This is the later-life purpose

I call the Incarnation Contract.

It emerges only after a long preparation

That we never realized was happening

until the new reality becomes unmistakable.

Self-actualization, in Maslow’s sense, is life’s major task.

It is the long journey toward living and working

in alignment with one’s singular self.

It gives us a sense of deep satisfaction

With the life we are living.

A sense of participating fully in the creative flow.

A sense of the rightness of one’s own path.

We are living much longer now

And As we reach that mountaintop,

we can now see a higher peak in the distance.

Self-actualization cultivates in us

Something that is essential

for this next partnership with this existence:

And that is

a deep trust

in the unseen workings of the universe.

After many years of witnessing

the pattern behind the pattern,

the coincidences

The synchronicities,

the moments of perfect timing

we could never have orchestrated,

we become familiar with the infinite intelligence

moving beneath the surface.

We recognize that our life has been guided

in some mysterious and benevolent way

all along.

Life has been conspiring to help us,

even when we were not aware

of the choreography.

This dawning awareness

This trust

is significant for the Incarnation Contract.

Beyond this threshold,

we begin to experience life

as James Carse described it:

As an infinite game,

one that resounds with a kind of laughter.

Later life becomes a rich and unscripted dance

with the very powers of evolution.

The first two-thirds of life

are about building

and actualizing the self.

This last third

is about trust -

surrendering the self

to a greater energy.

Releasing control.

Actualization prepares the self for its own

blissful

dissolution.

This is not a dissolution into loss.

It is a dissolution into

a pleasantly unexpected

much richer

obsession.

Elderhood invites us to begin again

as beginners,

except now we bring the skillset,

the humility,

and the hard-earned wisdom

gathered from decades

of mistakes,

failures,

And wins.

But,

we must begin this time

as coherent beings.

This new stage requires

full integration

of both our light

and our shadow.

Self-actualization integrates the light:

our gifts,

our talents,

our strengths.

Now we must integrate the shadow:

the subconscious scarring

that lingers from the hurts we endured,

the unhealed residue of childhood

all the ways this has manifested

in our adult relationships,

the aspects of ourselves

we once disowned to survive,

the defenses,

the fears,

the shame.

The shadow is chock full of stuff

We would rather avoid.

But we cannot if we are to become elders.

To integrate the shadow means

to allow our ugliness into awareness;

to accept that we are capable

of both good and bad.

This greatly reduces the possibility

of their surprise appearance

going forward.

The shadow is very powerful.

It surfaces when we least want it to.

But here is the thing:

It - also - harbors - the - specific - gifts - that - serve - our - specific - incarnation - contract.

Funny that the Universe chose to hide this task

within the shadow self.

We cannot enter this promised land

without integrating our shadow.

Why?

because the incarnation contract always

requires us to hold humanity

with great compassion.

We can only hold humanity with great compassion

If we have first

held ourselves with great compassion.

Some of us were given a portion of this capacity

by our parents.

Most of us must earn it.

Once the shadow is integrated,

elderhood becomes

inevitable.

We are virtually home free.

We’ve become clear enough

to perceive the deeper purpose

that was seeded in us from the beginning.

And most importantly,

we are ready to become love.

What is remarkable

about this later-life purpose

is that it is bound

to the direction of the culture.

The Incarnation Contract

is always responsive to the times.

It is concerned with

what the world needs now,

not what it needed fifty years ago.

So elders reside

-Very naturally-

at the cutting edge of evolution.

What is unfolding right now

could not have been known until this moment.

The Incarnation Contract fits the unique gifts of the elder

to the present needs of the culture.

Elders become lovers of humanity.

Sentimental affection, yes,

but also a spacious,

steady,

presence-filled love

that rises from a fully integrated soul.

A love that blesses us

without strain.

I carry a memory of a quiet-eyed elder woman

from a church where I worked

more than thirty years ago.

Whenever we encountered each other,

she would take one of my hands in both of hers

and gently caress it the whole time we talked.

Her warm caresses carved a permanent groove

in my nervous system.

I will never forget her.

The Incarnation Contract unfolds

through this easy and natural kindness and love.

Lissa Rankin writes that

this is the stage where we engage vitally

with synchronicity,

magic,

and the mysteries of life itself.

We are accompanied, guided, and supported

by an intelligence that has been with us

since the beginning.

I often remind myself

that I am responsible for my inner life

and my body.

Tara,

the Mother of All Buddhas,

manages the rest.

Perhaps the eternal

manifests to you

under a different name.

This new awareness

slowly transmutes our fear of death.

As we glimpse the real…

the lasting….

the eternal…

We become clear

that we are more than biographies

& bodies.

It also begins to dissolve our fear of life.

The fear of rejection.

The fear of failure.

The fear of being misunderstood.

The fear of exposure.

Elders come to understand

that the task is to serve life itself,

and so we seek alignment,

We seek discipline,

We seek silence.

We want only to be useful instruments

of human evolution.

To summarize:

Elderhood unlocks capacities

we simply cannot access earlier.

It’s not age.

It is a developmental achievement.

A quality of being that cannot be faked.

Something earned, not merely awaited.

Elderhood is the moment in the human lifespan

when our deepest purpose finally comes within reach.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING

to Elders Inspire Awe podcast

.

I am myratara

of Hearers Hermitage

and the Sacred Mother Elders Council.

The term Incarnation Contract was borrowed

from Diane LeBlanc,

although Diane uses it in a completely different way

than I have today.

Thanks, again, for listening.

And this podcast is brought to you by Hearers Hermitage

& the Sacred Mother Elders Council.

Today, we are talking about why the first members of the Sacred Mother Elders Council will be of African Heritage.

But before we do,

let’ talk about the SACRED PRINCIPLE of DIFFERENCE.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------

The SACRED PRINCIPLE of Difference

So, Imagine this.

Someone sends you a cake recipe

That reads like this:

2 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon flour 1 cup sifted flour 3 Tablespoons very fine flour 1 teaspoon cold flour for sprinkling

1/3 cup chalky flour 4 Tablespoons coarsely ground flour

1 pan dusted with flour

Now imagine your cake.

There would be no cake.Not without the synergy of many different ingredients

will you get cake.

Not similar ingredients — not variations of the same ingredient — but fundamentally different elements.

Synergistic difference is why you have cake.

The Earth’s many different cultures

can be likened to the different ingredients of a cake.

It is what is different about us that serves human evolution.

That which is the same about us serves other purposes.

Many of us in the west have yet to value

our uniqueness as people of African heritage.

Why?

Because most of us in the West feel unsafe in so many ways:

Emotionally Socially Physically Psychologically

Economically…

This constant underlying feeling of unsafety makes being different feel like another handicap.

And, because most everybody else feels unsafe, too,

Difference is often punished sometimes intentionally, often unconsciously…

…instead of welcomed with curiosity.

If we all felt safe,

the heart would STAY open to difference.

The mind would stretch to understand and ENJOY it.

Difference Is the Method of Life

This is the healthy stance toward each other,

because Earth is one exquisite network

of synergized differences.

The rainforest breathes due to its diversity.

The ocean purifies itself due to countless living variations

living together synergistically.

Difference is not a flaw in the system.Difference is the system.

So, before we turn to thinking about the unique gifts of our African heritage,

let’s first come to appreciate this sacred principle of Earthly existence…

The SACRED PRINCIPLE of Difference.

It is not an error.It is the method of life.

It’s the method of evolution.

As an Elder Mother on the Continent or in the Diaspora

So, let me ask you

Have you ever thought about our uniqueness

as people of African heritage?

Can you label some part of it?

For most of my life, I never thought about it.I don’t recall a single conversation about this as a child.

But the years have clarified some things for me: And the value our people bring is unmistakable.

There is probably not much that is truly exclusive to any culture.

But some characteristics are more pronounced in each culture

than in others.

A Story from My University Life

I’m a retired university professor.

Toward the end of my time in academia,

I chaired the dissertation of a young Ghanaian mother

on the social stress Africans feel after relocating to the U.S.

Her participants were shocked by Western individualism.

They had never experienced anything like it.

In their experience back home,

isolated humans just don’t exist.

Two West African indigenous groups Couldn’t even grasp the concept of loneliness — No matter how researchers tried to convey it to them.

They simply did not know what the researchers were talking about.

In Black African culture, a person is a community-being. People exist together - as part of.

My Month in Ghana

Midway through a month-long visit with my daughter in Ghana, my nervous system began to relax.

There was a shared pulse that had started to seep into my bones.

Easy laughter.Peace.

I saw a man on a scooter get hit by a car. A hush fell all around.

Everyone within earshot was struck by that car.

Men gathered instantly to help. Silent…coordinated.

A student once told me, “Ghana is the first time I was around people who aren’t afraid of each other.”

IMAGINE THAT!

Another Black woman put it this way:

Africa feels good.

Countless visitors from every continentHave said SIMILAR THINGS ABOUT THEIR TIME IN AFRICA.

Naomi Campbell’s Words

In her Architectural Digest tour, Naomi Campbell recalls being told she would return from her first visit to Kenya with her first real smile.

She said it was true.

There is just something there — In the atmosphere —

It’s unforgettable.

Our Cultural Heritage Offers Many Gifts.

Here are three that are relevant for the work

of the Sacred Mother Elders Council:

The First one is HUMAN WARMTH

Human Warmth is the single most important ingredient for forming loving bonds between us.

Not just in childhood

But across the entire lifespan.

Human warmth creates the feeling of safety.

The feeling of Safety creates trust.

And Trust is at the core of every healthy relationship,

every healthy family

and every healthy community.

I’m here to tell you -

the warmth in our African Heritage is GOLD.

The Second gift is related to the First,

And also significant for the 3rd gift.

RELATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS

As mentioned earlier,

the African conceptualization of a person

is that of a ‘community being’.

And not an isolated entity.

This may be hard for Westerners to grasp.

Time spent TOGETHER

is considered the greatest investment one can make

in one’s own well-being

and in the wellbeing of the community.

The Third Gift (#3) — is that our

Relational Consciousness reflects Quantum Reality -

There is an EMERGING ENERGY PARADIGM if you haven’t noticed.

Quantum Physics

Shows us that all of life is relational.

Literally connected at the ENERGY level.

African ways of being have always reflectedwhat physics is only now articulating:

There are no separate parts — only relationships.

Elder Mothers of African Heritage

So, the First Sacred Mothers Council Will be Elder Mothers of African Heritage.

This is a seed that begins in its own soil.

and then the circle opens wide, of course, to all elder mothers, across all cultures.

This first formation is not exclusion — It is ANCHORING.

🙏🏾 Closing

Thank you for listening.

If this message resonates,please share.

And please share your thoughts below!!

FINALLY, the sacred principle of difference

applies to you as well.

There is something called an Incarnation Contract

that one can only know about

once she achieves elderhood,

which is easier said than done.

In the coming week,

I invite you to begin thinking about

your own sacred uniqueness.

I’ll be talking about

Your incarnation contract

In the next episode.

Until then

Be well.

myratara