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.
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