When Elders Become Ancestors: Claiming Gloria, Dolly, Wendell & Larry’s Medicine
This morning I woke up to the news that Gloria Steinem has died at 92.
The Washington Post quoted historian Christine Stansell describing Gloria as “to the women’s movement what Martin Luther King Jr. was to civil rights: the galvanizer.”
What a life. What a force for evolution.
This photo is from a writers’ retreat (at Hedgebrook for “women authoring change”) where Gloria and I were both guests in residence nearly twenty years ago. I remember how much fun we had, how soft-spoken and kind she was, and how naturally she asked good questions and listened. She even admitted she didn’t love public speaking! Listening was part of her genius, the capacity to hear what women were experiencing and give voice to what needed to be heard. It was her work that paved the way for me to create the first TN Women’s Career Convention in 1979 where 4,000 women from 16 states gathered for 3 days to hear inspiring speakers and meet 100 employers who wanted to hire them. It changed my life and led to my being named the first women to be the SBA TN Small BusinessMAN of the year!
I talk a lot about Original Medicine—the particular gifts we each carry that make our expression in the world distinctive, undeniable, and necessary to the whole of life. Gloria’s medicine was unmistakably hers, expressed in naming what others couldn’t yet name, challenging structures that diminished women, and helping millions of women see themselves and their possibilities differently.
And now, in little more than a week, we have lost Dolly Parton and Wendell Berry and Dr. Larry Dossey as well, four extraordinary human beings with three completely different expressions of Original Medicine in service to the world.
Damn, it’s hard losing these elders.
Gloria disrupted what needed to change.
Dolly disarmed what kept us apart.
Wendell never let us forget the natural world of which we are a part.
Larry invited us to take seriously what we cannot see—and helped bring the mysteries of consciousness, healing, and prayer into conversation with medicine and science.
There are so many ways to evolve a world.
I am thankful that in my understanding, our elders don’t simply disappear. They become ancestors on whom we can call. There is a practice, after a death, to consciously call in the qualities—the medicine—the person embodied that we want to claim and carry forward ourselves.
So this is more than a time to mourn these four extraordinary lives. It is a time to ask what they awakened in us that we want to embody and express.
What of Gloria’s courage are you willing to claim? Can you claim Dolly’s generosity and ability to cross divides with kindness and humor? Can you express Wendell’s fierce devotion to the living world and to our belonging within it? What of Larry’s willingness to explore beyond the boundaries of what conventional wisdom says is possible are you willing to carry forward?
How will this enhance your commitment to express your Original Medicine in a world that needs your gifts?
With these heart-wrenching losses of three beloved elders, the world is asking us to carry forward what they awakened—and bring our own medicine fully into service.
May it be so.
© 2026 Real Speaking LLC
P.S. Each day, I’ve been writing an Essay for Evolutionaries, exploring who we need to become to have the world we say we want.
This one had an immediacy that asked not to wait, so I’m sending it to you now. Watch for the series, coming soon.
Original Medicine is a teaching that has two distinct parts.
• You come to this earth with gifts and talents nowhere else duplicated
• If you don’t express these gifts, they are lost to the world for all time
In teaching this perennial wisdom, I’ve discovered a third truth:
Original Medicine fulfills our deep longing to know and live our purpose. Without its expression, we never feel quite whole.
If you have a longing to find your Original Medicine, you can learn about my foundational teaching here.
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