Intergenerational at Shambhala

Intergenerational at Shambhala: story and what is next?

At the Shambhala Summer Institute, June ’08, people were invited to join a conversation around the next steps for the intergenerational work in Shambhala. It started with people trying to put the story together…

Meg Wheatley remembered that at the first Institute people were wondering: Where is the youth? At the last dinner, the kitchen and serving staff said they had enjoyed the conversations. Then they noticed: they were young!

Different pieces made something happen: the work of Berkana, the Pioneers of Change, David Isaac and Juanita Brown wanting to open space for more young people, Toke Møller hosting a module together with Marianne Knuth…

Claudia Chender told she was one of the 10 young people – sponsored by Fetzer – to talk and think about how to attract more young people and how to make it relevant. The answer was kind of obvious: You just have to invite them! At some point there was some confrontation: Where are the young people on the faculty and on the board? leading to: What kind of openness was needed? For Shambhala there was also a tread of local interest (Nova Scotia in Canada): how to keep the youth here, instead that they would leave the province?

The second year there were no additional resources, but Sera Thompson told us, there was a sense of “It had to happen!”

Some voices spoke about the painful design process when young and old faculty members were in the same hosting team. Tim Merry named it as “cracking a pattern of behavior that wasn’t even us, but it shifted something in the bigger field”. And instead of the little experiment that was planned, 100 people showed up! Which turned out to be a critical factor for the finances of the Summer Institute that year!

The process went from How? to: Just do it! to: We need it. to: Working together.

The Global Village Square, tried out a few time at the Institute, is now traveling to other places and gatherings. The learning is that something can start in a single place and spread through conversations.

In the mean time the original team dissolved and there are no special funds anymore… so we were all invited to look at the question: What would a intergenerational approach need to be, need to look like for the Summer Institute? keeping in mind the big overall question of: What time is it in the world?

For myself I was impressed when I saw that the majority of the participants was above 50. I had a question all the time: what is asked from me in a intergenerational collaboration? I think I am open for young people, but is this really true? I guess I need to be in a hosting team, in a real collaboration to experience this.

Here follow some question raised in the final circle:

Isn’t this a kind of cultural neurosis that we have to think and talk about intergenerational collaboration? In indigenous cultures this is just natural…

Are we baby-boomers aware that when our generation dies, there will be a vacuum; and that we are not the centre of the attention?

What about the generation that is older than us?

What if we are just ancestors for others and that it is time for us to take up that role?

Where does ‘youth’ end anyway?

Isn’t it time to invite youth into the boardrooms?

Isn’t it time to intentionally invite all generations all the time and normalize it?