Irish and Scottish mythology tells of the cailleach, the Old Woman of the World, creator goddess of the land who made, shaped, and protects the land and the wild things on it. As autumn approaches for us in the southern hemisphere and the light begins to fade the cailleach begins to awaken. She is the old woman. “If to be elder is to cailleach, then to be elder is to above all be a fierce protector of the land, guardian of its balance” (Sharron Blackie, If Women Rose Rooted).
I sat on a psychology examination panel today, the preparation for which included reading a fantastic and highly recommended article ‘Mana Whenua, Mana Moana, Mana Tinana, Mana Mōmona’ (Gillon, Le Grice, Webber, & McIntosh, 2022) discussing a Maori understanding of bodies and fatness from the whenua, the moana, and whakapapa. “Papatūānuku is generative and expansive… She is the whenua, the land, our life source, the first wahine body…. there is a celebration of curves, creases, movement, and expansion of her body” (p.4).
Indigenous ways of knowing and being from around the world have much in common and much to teach us about leadership, relationship, and custodianship of the whenua and the natural world to which we belong.
Leadership, eldership, autumn, myths and fairy tales, belonging to place, kaitiakitanga, responsibility …
As we move through autumn into the stillness of winter, what more can you do to fiercely protect the land as leaders? psychologists? coaches? elders?
BREAKGLASS COACHING 