Registration for the 2024 EROP™ for All is full, but a waitlist is open.
First offered in 2018, the Elders’ Rites of Passage® centers around a five-day intensive retreat that serves those beginning or already on the eldering journey. Eldering like all of life, has its own seasons, beginning with the most socially active and energetic eldering years, through the release of roles and responsibilities, the lifting of the eye to a broader more distant horizon, and the dawning of the Holy Fool within.
The EROP™ retreat holds all these seasons of the Elder, tending to each in turn. Thus for some the EROP™ retreat serves as an entrance into the journey, and for others it is a deepening of work that has been ongoing for a long time. Using ceremony, story, time in nature, council, and image, participants are invited to harvest all that has been, sit with death, practice deep listening to the cries of the world, and discern to whom they are called to elder in their final chapter.
It is an encounter with life and death that is uncontainable, and calls one deeper into their own story as well as The Great Stories.
After the EROP™ retreat one finds they have been ushered into a community of Elders, who have gone before, and are welcomed into a council of elders in which the work began can continue. In the end, how each Elder chooses to bless the world is as varied as their fingerprints, but one thing in common is that one cannot elder alone- there are no solo journeys into the sunset, eldering is a communal experience.
“Elder” by definition is a relational word, naming a sacred connection and responsibility on behalf of others. On whose behalf are you being called to elder? It is not (only) for or from one’s own self that the call comes. The call is on the lips of descendants, in the dreams from the ancestors–even the more-than-human world is crying out for men and women to rise up as Elders: to give, live, die, laugh, & bless on behalf of all that is…
Want to learn the history of who is behind the EROP™ retreat and it's sources? Check out the About Page
The Elders' Rites of Passage®
Are you feeling drawn to leave the conversation you’ve been holding with life and begin a new one? Are the maps that define your life stale, tired, and you feel called to (again) go beyond the boundaries into the wild? Are you ready to let go of old roles and patterns that seem to hold you back from what you feel in your heart you are to be about? Do your concerns and values increasingly reflect the needs of the whole world, not the familial, tribal, national, or even human? Are you seeing more beauty everywhere, and finding more laughter in what used to bring only despair? Are you moving beyond dualism and appreciating the cosmic union that undergirds all? Are you increasingly more concerned for your great grandchildren than if your retirement savings will last? Are you tired of people "knowing" you for what you do for a living? Has the impulse to fight, protect, secure, grow, started to fade and the desire to give, love, and play grown?
These and more are good questions to engage. If needed, we will help you in discerning the timing of this for you.
The EROP™ retreat is not another event to attend. It is a decision that for many comes out of a sense that they are ready for to release an old way of life and begin entering a new era in their maturation. Discern what your gut is saying, read, pray, listen, discuss this shift and call with friends both young and old.
Am I Ready?
Cathedral Meadow at Ekone Ranch: Image Credit Ekone Ranch
Ekone Ranch
Site of the 2024 EROP™ events
401 Ekone Rd,
Goldendale, WA 98620
EROP™ Contacts
Ned Abenroth
206-228-6900
erop@illumanofwa.org
Image credit Ekone Ranch & Shonie Schlotzhauer
Contacts
erop@illumanofwa.org
3554 Ryan Dr.
San Diego CA 92025
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