Old Father Time is the anti-Santa that we still believe in. Worshipping at the fountain of youth we turn away from ageing in ourselves and others. We reluctantly back into our 60s looking the wrong way, hating the Bogeyman of Death.

In lusting after our lost youth we throw our present away. Our experience, which is drawn in our faces in lines and wrinkles, some of us even try to erase, smooth out, and so deny our reality. What then happens to our wisdom, if we have any?

I wonder what would happen if we turned around and faced the Bogeyman? If we had millions of pensioners who were alive and kicking – not kicking like babies, or teenagers, or young people; but like older people – elders. Alive with dignity and wisdom, a resource of knowledge and experience distilled into an elixir, not of eternal youth, but of eldership. An elixir that would warm all our hearts, that would fire us with gentle energy to take our rightful place in the world. Millions of wise people – in every town and every city, on every corner, all over the place. What a resource!

Of course, we’re not all wise, there’s work to be done to distil this elixir. We need to recognise and stimulate our aliveness, our curiosity, our love of life, and finally, turn towards the mysteries that await us and find the ways to welcome the Bogeyman into our lives right now. I believe that what appears to be dark, apparently morbid and dangerous when we have our backs to it, is actually very different – full of creative possibilities for us to unfold. This is the source of the elixir of an eldership where we can drink in our wisdom, and distil our experience, and use it for the good of all.

And do you doubt, even for a moment, that our world needs this eldership, this source of guidance? Do you doubt that our leaders, our business people, our activists, our young, need this? Who can advise them better than us? We need to show what we can do, what value we hold, the precious gifts we bear. If we sit and wait for them to come to us, we’ll be missing the opportunity, sitting like a wallflower waiting to be asked to dance. No, I’d rather get out there and boogie. Will you join me on the floor?

Philip's email: