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Call Ami at 415 840 6719

Call Ami at 415 840 6719

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    • Home
    • About
    • Services
    • Prana
    • Why Ashram?
    • Workshops
    • Blog
    • Media
    • Eldership Academy Interns
      • Eldership Academy
      • Clinical Internship
      • Who Are the Interns?
      • Research
      • Resources
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
  • Prana
  • Why Ashram?
  • Workshops
  • Blog
  • Media
  • Eldership Academy Interns
    • Eldership Academy
    • Clinical Internship
    • Who Are the Interns?
    • Research
    • Resources

an elder community serving our wisdom keepers

an elder community serving our wisdom keepersan elder community serving our wisdom keepersan elder community serving our wisdom keepers

Mary Oliver

 If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. 

And much can never be redeemed. 

Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. 

Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. 

Joy is not made to be a crumb. 

Don't Hesitate.

Zen Caregiving Program Graduation ceremony photos

Video Library

Welcome to Listen To Your Elders! Vol. 1: Food

It’s all about food!  In this episode elders share original songs, skits, poems, and thoughts.  We ask the question, what does our food preferences say about our way of life?

Welcome to Listen To Your Elders! Vol. 2: Elders on Nature

In Episode 2 of Listen to your Elders the actors share the importance of appreciating and protecting the natural world and all of its treasures. 

Welcome to Listen To Your Elders! Vol. 3: Love in all of its forms.

Romantic love, love for friends, and love for love’s sake.  In this episode the elders share valuable wisdom on how to make loving relationships last. 

Elder Ashram Musical

Residents participate in an original musical.

Role to Soul

A discussion guided by Nader Shabahangi, inspired by Connie Zweig's book, "The Inner Work of Age". 

The Elder Ashram Experience Explained

A short introduction to the experience of living within the Elder Ashram.

African Music Ensemble Performance

An example of the kind of entertainment experienced at Elder Ashram.

The poetics of Aging

A Grassroots Gathering

Elder Ashram, which grew out of AgeSong Institute, collaborated with leading Bay Area universities and organizations to organize a four-day get-together for people interested in exploring the beauty and depth of life at any stage and  age. The conference mission is to counter the mainstream understanding  of aging as decline and/or disease with a more expansive, humanistic,  and creative vision and approach. Click the button below to visit the website containing the distillation of the conference.

Link to website

Articles

Navigating the Transition into Caregiving

Storytelling Helps Hospital Staff Discover The Person Within The Patient

Storytelling Helps Hospital Staff Discover The Person Within The Patient

Personal transformation is usually an experience we actively seek out - not one that hunts us down. 

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Storytelling Helps Hospital Staff Discover The Person Within The Patient

Storytelling Helps Hospital Staff Discover The Person Within The Patient

Storytelling Helps Hospital Staff Discover The Person Within The Patient

"It gives you a much better understanding about the entirety of their life and how to help them make a decision," says Dr. Jim Maloney, a VA surgeon who performed Bob Hall's lung transplant in 2013.

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Poetics of Aging and Dementia

Storytelling Helps Hospital Staff Discover The Person Within The Patient

Poetics of Aging and Dementia

A core tenet of humanistic psychology and philosophy is the belief that human life is intrinsically significant. This meaningfulness extends to all we do and are in life.

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Our Earth, Our Elders

More Encounters of the Real Kind

Poetics of Aging and Dementia

Our earth – our world and home – needs elders. It needs to know who elders are and what they do. It needs the wisdom they afford us, the teaching they can give us.  

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More Encounters of the Real Kind

More Encounters of the Real Kind

More Encounters of the Real Kind

Encounters of a Real Kind are exactly that: deep, life-changing meetings between human beings. A program of the Elder Ashram Gero-Wellness training for psychology and social work interns places graduate and post-graduate students in an eldercare community. 

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Kindness as Avenue to Awe

More Encounters of the Real Kind

More Encounters of the Real Kind

What would happen if schools focused on kindness and gratitude before achievement and academics? This is a question that Andy Smallman not only entertained, but also acted upon. 

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The Five Mindfulness Trainings

The Five Mindfulness Trainings

The Five Mindfulness Trainings

The Five Mindfulness Trainings represent the Buddhist vision for a global spirituality and ethic.

The Five Mindfulness Trainings represent the Buddhist vision for a global spirituality and ethic.


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Site Content

Seasons of the Soul

Seasons of the Soul

 Nature was Hesse’s first and foremost teacher: the garden, the forest, animals. An appreciation of, a devotion to, a never-tiring observation and contemplation of natural life inspired Hesse’s writing on every page. The young boy already fled the narrow streets of Calw to explore a less structured, less regimented, much freer playground for his limitless curiosity and imagination. 

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Affect the Heart

Seasons of the Soul

  A century ago, the scientist Karl Pearson was studying cemetery headstones when he noticed something peculiar: Husbands and wives often died within a year of one another. Though not widely appreciated at the time, studies now show that stress and despair can significantly influence health, especially that of the heart.  


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Health, illness and frailty in old age: a phenomenological exploration

 

The aim of this paper is to subject the clinical classification of frailty to scrutiny through exploring, via a phenomenological lens, the lived experiences of older people who meet the objective, or clinical, criteria of frailty.

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Co-creating Environments: Empowering Elders and Strengthening Communities through Design

Co-creating Environments: Empowering Elders and Strengthening Communities through Design

 Working with elders around the world has taught me that those living in grass huts in Africa with children at their feet are often happier than people in assisted-living homes with a chandelier over their heads.  

My work in design consultancy and in fifteen years of running a nonprofit, Ibasho, that aims to co-create socially integrated and sustainable communities that value their elders has allowed me to learn much about how architects and designers can contribute to helping people live a good life in late life.

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Diversity in Senior Living Communities

Co-creating Environments: Empowering Elders and Strengthening Communities through Design

Diversity in Senior Living Communities

 As the United States overall population becomes increasingly more diverse, there is no time like the present for Life Plan Communities

to begin to identify and address both perceptions and realities of their own resident and leadership diversity mix. As best practices

evolve, there may be a growing opportunity for senior living communities to serve older Americans in their areas more inclusively, possibly achieving higher census by enriching their offerings and evolving their internal cultures.

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Don't Waste Your Suffering

Co-creating Environments: Empowering Elders and Strengthening Communities through Design

Diversity in Senior Living Communities

  

The famous German-language poet Rainer Maria Rilke said “Don’t waste your suffering.”  If you took away his demons, he insisted, you also took away his angels. He wanted both. He wanted to be seen as a three-dimensional being, full and complete, with all his parts accepted unconditionally. Pain and suffering were not his enemies. Instead, they helped define him. Rilke would have looked curiously upon our modern age. Pain relievers. Opioids.  Alcohol. Marijuana.  These are all popular substances used to deaden pain, something needed by far too many in a world of dissociation and distraction. 

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