Earth Elders Council of Honored Elders

The Council of Honored Elders was established by Earth Elders in 2000 when six people were recognized for their lifetime contributions to the planet's preservation and their role as elders. The honorees included Thomas Berry, Joanna Macy, Ram Dass, Helen Matthews Lewis, David Brower and Cecelia Hurwich.
The biographical descriptions below appeared in the Spring and Fall 2000 issues of Earth Elders’ Connecting.

Thomas Berry — Responding to the invitation to be on Earth Elders’ Council of Honored Elders, Thomas Berry says: “It is a high honor indeed! The role of assisting the human community toward a more appropriate relationship with the planet is truly a challenging role...I am willing to do anything I can that would be of assistance.”

Thomas Berry was born and raised in the Piedmont area of the Southern Appalachians in the early 20th century. He spent ten years in a monastery where the religious liturgy was intimately associated with the cosmic mystery of dawn, sunset and the sequence of the seasons. After attaining his doctorate in history,

he taught in China and at Fordham University studying both Hindu and Buddhist literature.

He founded the Riverside Center for Religious Research in New York. There he focused on the consequences of the industrial revolution on the life systems of the Earth and on the religious and cultural life of the human community. In 1988 he published The Dream of the Earth which has been hailed as one of the most important works in awakening peoples around the world to what was happening to the planet. Later, with eco-physicist Brian Swimme he wrote The Universe Story to provide a comprehensive understanding of the discoveries of modern science and the mystery of creation and the unfolding of the universe.

His recent masterpiece is The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. His conviction is that all possible human effort must now be turned toward establishing a viable mode of human presence on the planet Earth. This constitutes the Great Work that is before us.

Thomas Berry lives on a farm in North Carolina where he continues to write and study. Thomas Berry, we consider it a great honor to have your blessings for Earth Elders.

Joanna Macy — Joanna says of our work: “Earth Elders has an important story to tell and an essential job to do. The story is about the pioneering environmental leadership and grassroots activism of seniors. And the job is to enlist yet more of them, so they may continue to inspire and guide all ages in the healing of our world.”

Eco-philosopher Joanna Macy, PhD is a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory and deep ecology. Weaving these threads together, she has created both a groundbreaking theoretical framework for a new paradigm of personal and social change, and a powerful workshop methodology for its application. Her wide-ranging work addresses psychological and spiritual issues of the nuclear age, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the fruitful resonance between Buddhist thought and contemporary science. Dimensions of this work are explored in her many books including Thinking Like a Mountain (with John Seed), World as Self, World as Lover, and Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World (with Molly Brown), her most recent book.

Joanna’s work is at the interface between spiritual breakthrough and social change, helping people transform despair and apathy, in the face of overwhelming social and ecological crises, into constructive and collaborative action. Joanna Macy is an elder and mother of three children; she and her husband live in Berkeley, California. Joanna is in great demand as a lecturer and workshop leader. We are honored to have Joanna’s enthusiastic support for Earth Elders.

Ram Dass — Born in 1931, the son of a lawyer father who was president of a railroad and helped found Brandeis University, Richard Alpert (aka Ram Dass) began his adult life earning a PhD in psychology from Stanford. He then taught at Stanford, the University of California and at Harvard. It was at Harvard that in the 1960s that Ram Dass’ explorations of human consciousness led him to research and experimentation with mind-altering chemicals — and dismissal from Harvard.

Traveling to India in 1967 to study yoga and meditation, he met his spiritual teacher and took the name Ram Dass, which means “Servant of God.” Since then he has continued to teach about

the nature of consciousness and about service as a spiritual path.

In 1974, Ram Dass founded the Hanuman Foundation to promote consciousness and service, developing such programs as The Prison Ashram Project and. the Dying Project. The Ram Dass Tape Library Foundation now serves as the vehicle for his teachings and the distribution of his books and tapes.

Ram Dass is one of the most respected spiritual teachers of our era. His books include his famous Be Here Now (written in 1971) which is now in its 37th printing, Grist for the Mill (with Stephen Levine) and Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service (with Mirabai Bush).

Ram Dass’ newest book published this month is Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying. Begun as an exploration of his own aging, the work was interrupted by his stroke in 1996 — a stroke which left him with partial paralysis and expressive aphasia. The after effects of the stoke have made it necessary to focus much of his attention on his physical recovery through an extensive program of rehabilitative therapies and on using the experience of his stroke to explore more deeply the spiritual dimensions of suffering and the nature of the aging process.

We are most pleased to welcome Ram Dass to our Council of Honored Elders.

Helen Matthews Lewis — Helen Lewis tells a story about her recent visit to a small town in Alaska. Recalling a local worker’s saying, “We no longer have elders, we just have old folks,” she remarks that this is a very sad commentary on the growing isolation alienation and impoverishment of older people in many rural communities which are made disposable by the new global economy. Helen said this reminded her of the importance of Earth Elders and the need for “Seniors” of the world to reclaim their positions as Elders, to help save the land and the people.

Helen Lewis, Ph.D., is an educator, writer, filmmaker and activist who has lived and worked most of her life in Southern Appalachia.

Much of her work has put her at the center of many of the social movements related to coal field issues: mine health and safety, environmental damage from strip mining, severance taxes, corporate control and destruction of communities related to toxic poisoning of land, air and water by local divisions of the multinational proto-chemical industry.

Dr. Lewis has taught at colleges and university in the region including the University of Virginia (Wise), Berea College, Appalachian State University, East Tennessee State University and University of Tennessee. (She notes she was also fired from a couple of these for “nurturing radical student.”)

She worked for 14 years with the Highlander Research and Education Center with grassroots groups around environmental and community revitalization issues. She worked with Appalshop, a Kentucky-based media center in developing films on Appalachian history and social problems. She is a much-respected author of numerous articles and books. Dr. Lewis has her masters degree in sociology from the University of Virginia and her doctorate from the University of Kentucky. She was recently awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Wake Forest University.

Now semi-retired and living in the mountains of North Georgia with two cats, Helen describes her life this way: “I am now a gardener with beans, corn, okra, squash and tomatoes flourishing, but I continue to do workshops on collaborative community research and teach and lecture. I do travel, for fun but also to make connections with people doing grassroots community work. I believe that changing the global economy will result from the combined efforts of such communities coming together.”

She goes on to point out, “Earth Elders has a most important role to play in networking elders to help save the planet. The global economy and the resultant destruction of soil, air, water, forest, minerals must be controlled and refocused to provide a future for generations to come. As elders we must speak out, and use our energy to work for a sustainable global economy. Earth Elders can help us do that.”

David Brower (Deceased) — From boyhood on, David Brower loved the rugged outdoors and was an avid hiker, fisherman and mountain climber. For more than sixty years, he led the important battles for conservation.

He joined the Sierra Club in 1933 and served as its first executive director from 1952 to 1969, overseeing the growth of the organization from 2,000 to 77,000 members. In 1969 he founded Friends of the Earth. He then created the League of Conservation Voters and fostered FOE organizations around the world.

David Brower helped create many of our favorite national parks and seashores, including Kings Canyon, the North Cascades, the Redwoods, Great Basin; Alaska, Cape Cod, Fire Island, Point Reyes; and the Olympic rainforest.

His activism addressed two critical questions: 1) what kind of growth must we have? and 2) what kind can we no longer afford? These questions led him to play a major role in keeping dams out of Dinosaur National Monument, the Yukon, and the Grand Canyon, and in establishing the National Wilderness Preservation System.

In 1982, to bring groups together to achieve environmental and social justice and promote peace on, and with, the earth, Brower founded Earth Island Institute, the Brower Fund, and the biennial Fate and Hope of the Earth Conference. In 1994, he co-founded the Ecological Council of the Americas as a network focusing on problems of the environment and economic integration.

David Brower edited, designed or secured co-publishers for more than fifty books for the Sierra Club and for Friends of the Earth. His 1993 book, In Wildness is the Preservation of the World, was judged one of the ten most beautiful books in the work.

In 1995, Brower warned of the global environmental crisis in his book (written with Steve Chapple) Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run. A revised edition of this book, which was printed on tree-free paper, was published for Earth Day 2000.

Brower’s autobiography is published in two volumes: For Earth’s Sake: The Life and Times of David Brower and Work In Progress. A video documentary of his life was produced in 1991 and a revised version aired on PBS in 1997.

In 1998, David Brower was awarded the Blue Planet Prize, the richest environmental prize in the world, by the Asahi Glass Foundation of Japan. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times — in 1978, 1979 and 1998 (jointly with Professor Paul Ehrlich).

President Jimmy Carter said of David Brower: he has “been the path breaker, not given to easy answers or ruinous compromises…a man of great insight who caries deeply for his world.”

David Ross Brower died on November 5, 2002, at his home in Berkeley, CA, at age 88.

Cecelia Hurwich — Returning to graduate school at 59, Dr. Cecelia Hurwich received her Ph.D. at age 70 in life-span developmental psychology specializing in the later years. Dr. Hurwich’s deep involvement in the field of women and healthy aging marks her as one of the outspoken figures on Vital Older Women. In 1995, Dr. Hurwich was selected as Delegate from California to the White House Conference on Aging. In her late 70s, Dr. Cecelia Hurwich traveled to the Hunza in the Himalayas to interview Muslim women in remote villages to study their health & longevity.

Currently Dr. Hurwich lectures and gives nationwide seminars on “Creative Aging,” “Vitality and Aging: A Personal and Global Approach” and “The Vital Need to Care for our Planet.” As a researcher, author, and environmental activist she appears on TV, conducts programs for professional organizations, health facilities, and universities around the world. Wisdom from 80 years well lived has resulted in Dr. Hurwich’s current work on Vitality in Aging which focuses on a new vision of aging as a creative process and the unique opportunities that are offered by our global society and the sustainability of all life on planet earth.

In her late 40s, Dr. Hurwich became an ardent backpacker, hiker and outdoors woman and continues to hike and enjoy the wilderness into her 80s. Her passion for wilderness protection and environmental health urged her to network with conservationists and ecologists on treks and travel in Australia, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Mexico and India. Indicative of her diverse environmental interests and passions is her dedication to the following organizations: Board of Great Old Broads for the Wilderness; Board of ARKAY Foundation (funds health and environmental programs); Advisory Council Sierra Club Foundation; Advisory Board Yosemite Restoration Trust; Numerous Yosemite Advocacy Groups; Active in Society of Women Geographers, Earthjustice and League of Conservation Voters.

Endorsement

An organization such as Earth Elders which honors and celebrates our aging and our connection to the earth has my top vote and devotion. To leave the earth a better place is our ultimate goal.