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The Branches of
Mentoring, the Roots of Elders
offers orientation and training in the core ideas and purposes of mentoring. The
word 'mentor' refers to 'lived knowledge,' it comes from an old myth in which
Mentor acts as guide and teacher using inspired ideas and a keen knowledge of
survival.
The mentoring process involves passing on living skills and essential arts for
surviving traumatic experiences and the challenges of contemporary life. Through
The Branches of Mentoring, the Roots of Elders people can discover and
clarify what they have to offer in the way of teaching, guiding and mentoring
others.
Each mentoring situation depicts a story in which both mentor and youth find
their own way and even exchange places on occasion. Mentoring involves stories
longing to be heard and waiting to be told. For, mentoring is the way the story
of culture is fashioned, exchanged, learned and reinvented.
While mentoring naturally involves the youth of a community, it also extends to
re-imagining meaningful roles for elders. The role of the mentor can be seen as
a bridge which invites youth more fully into life and which prepares 'olders' to
become elders.
The Branches of Mentoring, the Roots of Elders benefits teachers,
mentors, parents, artists, social activists; those who work with youth and value
community.
Mosaic Multicultural
Foundation
4218 1/2 SW Alaska, Suite H
Seattle, WA 98116
(206) 935-3665 (voice)
(206) 935-3612 (fax)
info@mosaicvoices.org
www.mosaicvoices.org
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“There are two things I try to achieve in teaching myth to youth. First of
all, I hope their imagination gets caught, and they have an experience of
mythological thinking… that’s the ‘aha,’ the mythical awakening to the world
of meaning, which young people are seeking.
Secondly, I hope they connect to something symbolic and meaningful in
themselves and get a sense that they are a part of a big story. That they
are carrying a story, and if they live that story out they will be connected
to the culture and the cosmos. So, I am looking for ‘wow, I get it!’ and to
have that become personal.
Mythic sense is what’s missing. It’s the antidote to literalism. It’s the
extension and deepening of psychological work. Myth recreates the communal
and connections to the invisible realms. As the Irish used to say, ‘What’s
wrong in this world can only be healed by the Other World. And what’s wrong
in the Other World can only be healed by this world.’ If you bring myth into
a situation in an honest way, you are doing something that benefits both
worlds. Myth helps young people in particular because they are trying to
find out who they are. And, they are mythic by nature. To be mythic is to
participate in the nobility of the soul.”
Michael Meade – excerpted from Teachers of Myth by Maren Hansen
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