At one of our first workshops on becoming guardians of future generations, someone said, "All we really have to do is awaken the sleeping guardians within us."

The person who said this was not asleep in any sense of the word, and she was in a circle of wide-awake people who had been drawn to this workshop by a combination of curiosity, commitment, and hope. Still, something waits within us to be stirred. An archetype? A knowledge? An imagination?

I am beginning to think that everyone already knows how to be a guardian; it is just a matter of awakening sleeping knowledge. Modify that: Everyone knows how to learn to be a guardian of future generations. Training is needed, but the training course and the teachers, the required knowledge and principles, the steps of certification and recognition become clear when we awaken the sleeping guardians within us.

This is especially true of the personal kind of guardianship, which is where most of us will begin. But it may also apply to the legal and communal dimensions of guardianship.

To flesh out the idea of future generation guardianship, we need the collective wisdom of these individual guardians within. This site is a collection point for that wisdom. I am about to start a new How To book in the Living Library because that wisdom is starting to gather… but meanwhile, what follows is a group exercise in awakening the guardian, with thanks to Joanna Macy. Try it and let us know what you learn.

1.    Brainstorm things you love and would like to protect, restore, and pass on to future generations. Be very specific. A specific tree. A particular neighborhood. An animal species. A river. A language. … Write the lists where everyone can see. Do this for a few minutes, until the list is impossibly long and rich and thrilling.

2.    It is helpful to have a leader for this next part. Gather in groups of 3 or 4. Close your eyes and journey 20 years into the future. You can travel together on a sound--an AHHHH tone is good, sustained for a few minutes. When you end the sounding, you will be 20 years in the future. You may be your present age, your age in 20 years, or a younger person.

Imagine now that you are a guardian of a particular thing. What are you guardian of? You are walking somewhere. Where are you walking? Is it near your protectorate? In it? Around it? In any case, you are thinking about your protectorate. You are a guardian! You walk with the knowledge of that role, of who you are as a guardian. You carry yourself with pride and confidence, knowing that you are a guardian.

What do you do as a guardian? What are your tasks, your activities, your responsibilities?

You are remembering how you came to be a guardian. Think back and remember your training as a guardian. How did you learn what you need to know in order to be a guardian of this particular thing? Who were your teachers? How did you find them? Was there a formal training, did you teach yourself, or was it some combination?

Remember further back. What made you decide to be a guardian in the first place? How did you choose this protectorate -- or did it choose you? And how did that happen? Remember where it all started for you and what drew you in.

You carry in your pocket a little book that contains information you need to know as a guardian. What is in that little book?

Notice that somewhere on your person you are wearing a symbol that marks you as a guardian. What is that symbol? Where and how are you wearing it?

Remember the ceremony in which you received that symbol. What else took place in that ceremony? Who was there?

How are you supported as a guardian--financially, socially, spiritually? How do you meet with other guardians? What do you do together?

3.    Staying in that future time, open your eyes and speak to each other in your small groups about
 
•    What you are guardians of.
•    How you have been trained; the contents of the little book.
•    The symbols, support, ceremonies of guardianship.

Report back to the full group and to this blog or nancy@sehn.org!