March 14-20

The honor of being an Indralaya Elder was bestowed upon three prominent members of the community this past weekend. Helen Bee, John Levey and Linda Jo Pym joined six others who have received this recognition in the past.

Elders are those who are recognized for their capacity to transform accumulated life experience into wisdom and insight that can be shared with others. In choosing these three outstanding individuals to represent the qualities of being an elder in the Indralaya community, the Board of Directors expresses its respect and admiration for their many contributions to camp life over the years.

Linda Jo Pym & John Levey

Linda Jo, John and Helen have collectively served camp in almost every possible capacity: program leader, crew boss, pot washer, pie maker, head cook, resident manager, camp manager, and on. In addition, each has served as chair of the Board of Directors and their combined service on the Board accumulates to nearly sixty years. Perhaps most importantly, they have, each and every one, given fully of themselves in service to Indralaya.

Helen Bee

Each has been presented with a signed certificate that states the following:

“In recognition of your lifelong involvement, abiding commitment, unyielding devotion and wise counsel, we, the undersigned members of the Board of Directors of the Orcas Island Foundation, do hereby, and with great love and respect, confer upon you the status of Indralaya Elder, with all the privileges and honors attendant therein”

In receiving this honor, these three join a select group to be so named by the Board of Directors. John Abbenhouse, Dorothy Abbenhouse, Austin Bee, Phoebe Bee, John Roberts and Marjorie Toren are the others who have been named as Indralaya Elders in years past.

“ … elders serve a higher purpose as well as a deeper order. Elders lead by remembering back further than others as well as by seeing more clearly ahead. Elders serve as ‘seers’ who can see behind and beyond the politics of the day and perceive the needs of the future .... In becoming wise old souls, the elders more firmly know and more clearly hold the inner sense of meaning and purpose that first surfaced during their youth.”

Michael Meade, “Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of the Soul”

UNSEEN BUDS

Walt Whitman

Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well,

Under the snow and ice, under the darkness, in every square or cubic inch,

Germinal, exquisite, in delicate lace, microscopic, unborn

Like babes in wombs, latent, folded, compact, sleeping;

Billions of billions, and trillions of trillions of them waiting,

(On earth and in the sea--the universe--the stars there in the heavens)

Urging slowly, surely forward, forming endless,

And waiting ever more, forever more behind.