2019 Symposium Schedule of Events

Saint_John's On The Lake Spirituality and Aging Symposium
Creative Age: Imagination. Insight. Wisdom.
March 10-14, 2019

7:30 p.m. Organ Concert & Welcome Reception Le Son Glorieux - Music for the Organ...

7:30 p.m.

Organ Concert & Welcome Reception

Le Son Glorieux Music for the Organ

  • Simone Gheller, Ph.D. – St. Jerome, Oconomowoc
  • Sheri Masiakowski, Dean – American Guild of Organists
  • Larry Wheelock, Organist – Plymouth Church, Milwaukee

 

9:00 a.m.
Registration and Coffee


9:15 a.m.
Hard-Hat Tour of Saint John’s On The Lake


10:15 a.m.
Welcome 


10:30 a.m. -12:00 p.m.
Opening Lecture (1.5 CEH)
LATER-LIFE CREATIVITY: THE BEST IS YET TO BE
Speaker:  Harry R. Moody, Ph.D. 
Distinguished Visiting Professor, Fielding Graduate University
Santa Barbara, CA

About The Speaker

HARRY R. MOODY, PH.D.

Retired VP and Director of Academic Affairs AARP, Washington, DC

Dr. Moody’s recent book, The Five Stages of the Soul, interweaves psychology, religion, myth, and literature, and charts the passages of countless individuals across the country who have journeyed the path of spiritual awakening common to almost all of us. It has been translated into seven languages worldwide. His monthly newsletter, “Human Values in Aging,” reaches 10,000 subscribers. In 2011, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society on Aging.

About the Lecture

LATER-LIFE CREATIVITY: THE BEST IS YET TO BE

Dr. Moody looks at later-life creativity through examples of great artists whose creativity unfolded in diverse ways in their later years; from Donatello and Michelangelo, to Louise NeveIson and Georgia O'Keefe. The later-life creativity of visual artists gives convincing evidence that creative productivity can unfold in new ways later in life, offering insights into ideas of individuation, ego-integrity, and self-transcendence.

At the close of this session the participant will be able to:

  • Value the potential of creativity later in life, including application of concepts such as habituation, crystallized and fluid intelligence, and individuation
  • Describe how the unfolding of creativity is linked to key psychological principles such as ego-integrity and gero-transcendence
  • Compare and contrast gerontological insights from writers including Lars Tornstam, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, James Hillman, and Ram Dass

12:00 p.m.
Lunch
Please join us for lunch and table discussions about today’s topic.


12:45-2:30 p.m.
Lecture (1.5 CEH)
CONNECT TO THE CREATIVE HEART FOR A LIFE OF PASSION, MEANING AND COMMUNITY

Speaker:  Stuart Kandell, Ph.D.
Founder, Stagebridge, Oakland, CA
Founding Board member, National Center for Creative Aging, Washington, DC

About the Speaker

STUART KANDELL, PH.D.

Global Pioneer of Creative Aging, Berlin, Germany

Dr. Kandell is nationally known as a “global pioneer of creative aging”and led  Stagebridge, the nation’s premiere performing arts company of older adults which he founded in 1978. It remains a thriving example of how to make theatre and storytelling an opportunity to bridge generations through arts. In 2002, he pioneered the National Center for Creative Aging, a network of individuals and organizations who catalyze creative expression among older people. He is currently based in Berlin, Germany and is globally interviewing older artists.

 

About the Lecture

CONNECT TO THE CREATIVE HEART FOR A LIFE OF PASSION, MEANING AND COMMUNITY

How do you want to live the rest of your life? What is the role of creative activity in leading a fulfilled life? How does the creative process (risk taking, transformation, and sharing something with an audience) provide a reason to get up in the morning? Stuart Kandell draws on a lifetime of working with older adults in the arts. He will share stories of older artists from around the world and how art influences their lives: Late bloomers, who took a painting class at 60 and now at 75 have a new career; and lifelong artists, who have been dancing for 80 years.

At the close of this session the participant will be able to:

  • Assess creative passion and the role it plays in one's life
  • Describe how the creative process impacts the lives of older adults
  • Identify the range of creative activity among older adults
  • Advance knowledge of creative aging around the world
  • Motivate expanded creative activity in one's life and the lives of older adults

2:30 p.m.
Break


3:00-4:30 p.m.
Lecture (1.5 CEH)
HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE

Speaker:  John Leland
Reporter, New York Times
New York, NY

About the Speaker

JOHN LELAND

Reporter for The New York Times, New York, NY

When Leland set out to meet members of America’s fastest-growing age group on behalf of the Times, he expected to hear about loneliness, loss and declining health. Instead, what he learned upended most notions of aging, revealing that the late stages of life are unexpectedly rich, and the elderly are incomparably wise. His latest book, Happiness is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old (2018) is his reflection on how to “live better” from those who have mastered the art.

About the Lecture

HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE!

What's the secret to living a fuller, more content life? For John Leland, an award-winning New York Times reporter and author of the New York Times bestseller Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year among the Oldest Old, the answer came from an unexpected place: From the lives of six people age 85 and up. He expected them to educate him in the hardships of old age. Instead, they taught him lessons of resilience, gratitude, purpose and perspective that apply to people of any age. All had lost something – spouses, mobility, their keen eyesight or hearing. But none had lost everything. And they defined their lives by the things they could still do, not by what they had lost. Sociologists call this the “paradox of aging”: as much as our culture obsesses over youth, older people are more content with their lives than young adults. They’re less stressed, less afraid of death, better able to manage whatever difficulties come their way – even when their lives are very, very hard. The good news about old age is that there is good news. And the better news is that we can all learn from our elders’ wisdom and experience. Whatever your age, it’s not too late to learn to think like an old person.

At the close of this session the participant will be able to:

  • Explain the paradoxical aspects of aging
  • List the losses and difficulties of longevity as well as its unique lessons
  • Identify how to “think like an old person”
  • Value the lessons of resilience, purpose and perspective – the wisdom of aging creatively

4:30 p.m.
Speakeasy – Creativity and Conversations

An opportunity for casual, creative and engaging conversation with presenters and attendees with light snacks and beverages.


7:00 p.m.
Gallery Event
MOWA On The Lake

Peter Dahlke, Assemblage Sculptor

Milwaukee Jazz Legends
Wisconsin Conservatory of Music

 

9:00 a.m. Registration and Coffee 9:15 a.m. Hard-Hat Tour of Saint John’s On The Lake...
8:30 a.m. Morning Spiritual Practices Choose one for the day: Reflect - Lectio Divina: Nourishing the Divine...

8:30 a.m.
Morning Spiritual Practices
Choose one for the day:

Reflect – Lectio Divina: Nourishing the Divine
Speaker:  Cathy Melesky Dante
Speaker:  Steve Molvarec, SJ

Return – Sacred Sounds: Awakening the Eternal Within

Create – Imagination Made Visible
Speaker:  Jessica Hewitt

Observe – Visual Strategies: Seeing with the Eye of the Heart
Speaker:  Hope Torrents

About the Speakers

 

CATHY MELESKY DANTE
Spiritual Director

Melesky Dante is a spiritual director in private practice, where she accompanies people of varied beliefs. She also accompanies people on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, helping them to deepen their relationship with our loving, transformative God. In addition, she is a member of the retreat team at the Jesuit Center Retreat House in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and teaches as part of the St. Clare Center at Cardinal Stritch University. She is a frequent guest lecturer for the “Aged to Perfection” course held at Saint John’s and sponsored by UWM.

 


 

 

STEVE MOLVAREC, SJ

Molvarec is a Jesuit (a Roman Catholic order of priests and brothers) who teaches in the department of History at Marquette University. His research interests include the practice of silence and solitude for medieval monks and nuns. In addition to teaching and writing, he works with retreats and spiritual direction/accompaniment on campus. As a Jesuit, in addition to academic life, he has spent time as a hospital chaplain, living in a L’Arche community, and working with homeless people in Chicago and Detroit.

 


 

 

JESSICA HEWITT

Hewitt is a Life Streams Specialist for the care neighborhoods at Saint_John's On The Lake. She earned a BFA in Visual Art with an emphasis in Painting and Drawing, and a minor in Art History and Criticism, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Additionally, she studied Renaissance painting and art history and the Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, served as a docent at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, and interned at the Museum of Wisconsin Art.

 


 

 

HOPE TORRENTS

Torrents is passionate about the intersections between art and health care. She provides important skills that benefit and empower people to be their own health care advocates. Hope is the Director of the Fine Art of Health Care program, at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami. She has created an inter-professional program for graduate students, residents and in-service professionals, using art interpretation, to hone important clinical skills like communication, visual literacy, and collaboration, to develop more effective health care providers.

 

 


10:00-11:45 a.m.
Lecture (3.5 CEH including afternoon session)
READING OUR LIVES: THE POETICS OF GROWING OLD
Speaker:  William L. Randall, Ph.D.
Professor, Gerontology, St. Thomas University
New Brunswick, Canada

About the Speaker

WILLIAM L. RANDALL, PH.D.
Professor of Gerontology, St. Thomas University, New Brunswick, Canada

Dr. Randall is a leading authority on the subject of narrative in relation to aging, community building, and care. His work shows how narrative psychology is integral to everyday life. In The Narrative Complexity of Ordinary Life: Tales from the Coffee Shop and The Stories We Are: An Essay on Self-Creation, he writes that we function as narrative psychologists by continually storying our lives in memory and imagination. In doing so, he draws on a variety of fields: psychology, psychotherapy, theology, philosophy, feminist theory, and literary theory.

About the Lecture

READING OUR LIVES:  THE POETICS OF GROWING OLD

Aging is not only a biological process, but a biographical one as well. Yet, this aspect of aging is largely overlooked by mainstream gerontology, which implicitly perceives aging as a problem (medical, societal) to be solved. Narrative Gerontology, however, invites a more positive portrayal of aging, taking as its starting point that telling, writing, and reflecting on our life stories is a key developmental task in later life, essential to exploring our unique legacy of wisdom, and key to truly growing old and not just getting old. This presentation will lay out core concepts in a narrative approach to aging e.g., narrative development, narrative challenges, and narrative resilience, and various reasons and strategies for practicing "narrative care" with older adults.

At the close of this session the participant will be able to:

  • Develop a critical interdisciplinary perspective on the psychology of aging
  • Link concepts of consciousness, meaning and wisdom with spirituality and narrative identity
  • Draw on the emerging field of narrative gerontology to bring reminiscence and life-review into the center of gerontological inquiry

12:00 p.m.
Lunch

Please join us for lunch and table discussions about today’s topic.


1:00-2:30 p.m.
Lecture Continued
READING OUR LIVES: THE POETICS OF GROWING OLD
Speaker:  William L. Randall, Ph.D.

About the Speaker

WILLIAM L. RANDALL, PH.D.
Professor of Gerontology, St. Thomas University, New Brunswick, Canada

Dr. Randall is a leading authority on the subject of narrative in relation to aging, community building, and care. His work shows how narrative psychology is integral to everyday life. In The Narrative Complexity of Ordinary Life: Tales from the Coffee Shop and The Stories We Are: An Essay on Self-Creation, he writes that we function as narrative psychologists by continually storying our lives in memory and imagination. In doing so, he draws on a variety of fields: psychology, psychotherapy, theology, philosophy, feminist theory, and literary theory.

About the Lecture

READING OUR LIVES:  THE POETICS OF GROWING OLD

Aging is not only a biological process, but a biographical one as well. Yet, this aspect of aging is largely overlooked by mainstream gerontology, which implicitly perceives aging as a problem (medical, societal) to be solved. Narrative Gerontology, however, invites a more positive portrayal of aging, taking as its starting point that telling, writing, and reflecting on our life stories is a key developmental task in later life, essential to exploring our unique legacy of wisdom, and key to truly growing old and not just getting old. This presentation will lay out core concepts in a narrative approach to aging e.g., narrative development, narrative challenges, and narrative resilience, and various reasons and strategies for practicing "narrative care" with older adults.

At the close of this session the participant will be able to:

  • Develop a critical interdisciplinary perspective on the psychology of aging
  • Link concepts of consciousness, meaning and wisdom with spirituality and narrative identity
  • Draw on the emerging field of narrative gerontology to bring reminiscence and life-review into the center of gerontological inquiry

2:30 p.m.
Break


3:00-4:30 p.m.
Lecture (1.5 CEH)
THE JOY OF CREATIVE AGING:  IMAGINATION, INSIGHT AND WISDOM

Speaker:  Barbara Ann Holmes, Ph.D.
President Emerita, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities
St. Paul, MN

About the Speaker

BARBARA ANN HOLMES, PH.D.
President, United Theological School, St. Paul, MN

Dr. Holmes works at the intersection of ethics, spirituality, mysticism, cosmology and African American religious culture. Her research, from oral and written accounts and church records, details ways in which contemplative experience are built into African American collective worship as well as the legacy of African monasticism, spiritual exemplars, and worship. An accomplished attorney, she is author of Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black ChurchRace and the Cosmos and A Private Woman in Public Spaces: Barbara Jordan’s Speeches on Ethics, Public Religion, and Law.

About the Lecture

THE JOY OF CREATIVE AGING:  IMAGINATION, INSIGHT AND WISDOM

Based on her acclaimed book, Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church, Dr. Holmes suggests that ensconced within the framework of vibrant religious practices are tangible reminders that our lives are communal liturgies and poetic excursions into the unknown. We respond to a deeply interdependent and responsive universe through shared experiences. This means that despite signs of social fragmentation, we still have communities of care that lend meaning to our lives. We still have stories to share that bless the young, comfort the aging and honor the ancestors.

"Joy Unspeakable is both Fire and Cloud
the unlikely merger of trance and high tech lives. . .
Joy Unspeakable is a symphony of incongruities
Of faces aglow and hearts on fire
and the wonder of surviving together."

At the close of this session the participant will be able to:

  • Demonstrate a working knowledge of current research regarding "aging" as a joyful and creative phase of life, enhanced by interdependence, art and contemplation
  • Assess new dimensions of "community" as a metaphysical and generative source of inspiration, solace and reflection during aging
  • Examine personal integrative spiritual practices and sustaining communal contributions, as conduits to a wider reality that includes the mystery of transition

 


4:30 p.m.
Speakeasy – Creativity and Conversations

An opportunity for casual, creative and engaging conversation with presenters and attendees with light snacks and beverages.


7:00 p.m.
Theater Event and Reception
Tuesday’s with Morrie:  An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson

-a play by Mitch Albom
with Matt Daniels and Robert Spencer
In Tandem Theatre, Milwaukee, WI

8:30 a.m.
Morning Spiritual Practices
Choose one for the day:

Reflect – Lectio Divina: Nourishing the Divine
Speaker:  Cathy Melesky Dante
Speaker:  Steve Molvarec, SJ

Return – Sacred Sounds: Awakening the Eternal Within

Create – Imagination Made Visible
Speaker:  Jessica Hewitt

Observe – Visual Strategies: Seeing with the Eye of the Heart
Speaker:  Hope Torrents

About the Speakers

 

CATHY MELESKY DANTE
Spiritual Director

Melesky Dante is a spiritual director in private practice, where she accompanies people of varied beliefs. She also accompanies people on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, helping them to deepen their relationship with our loving, transformative God. In addition, she is a member of the retreat team at the Jesuit Center Retreat House in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and teaches as part of the St. Clare Center at Cardinal Stritch University. She is a frequent guest lecturer for the “Aged to Perfection” course held at Saint John’s and sponsored by UWM.

 


 

 

STEVE MOLVAREC, SJ

Molvarec is a Jesuit (a Roman Catholic order of priests and brothers) who teaches in the department of History at Marquette University. His research interests include the practice of silence and solitude for medieval monks and nuns. In addition to teaching and writing, he works with retreats and spiritual direction/accompaniment on campus. As a Jesuit, in addition to academic life, he has spent time as a hospital chaplain, living in a L’Arche community, and working with homeless people in Chicago and Detroit.

 


 

 

JESSICA HEWITT

Hewitt is a Life Streams Specialist for the care neighborhoods at Saint_John's On The Lake. She earned a BFA in Visual Art with an emphasis in Painting and Drawing, and a minor in Art History and Criticism, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Additionally, she studied Renaissance painting and art history and the Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, served as a docent at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, and interned at the Museum of Wisconsin Art.

 


 

 

HOPE TORRENTS

Torrents is passionate about the intersections between art and health care. She provides important skills that benefit and empower people to be their own health care advocates. Hope is the Director of the Fine Art of Health Care program, at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami. She has created an inter-professional program for graduate students, residents and in-service professionals, using art interpretation, to hone important clinical skills like communication, visual literacy, and collaboration, to develop more effective health care providers.

 


9:45 a.m. -12:00 p.m.
Lecture (3.5 CEH including afternoon session)
WHAT AGING MEN WANT:  MEN IN THE PRESENCE OF THE SACRED 

Speaker:  John C. Robinson, Ph.D.
Psychologist
Seattle, WA

About the Speaker

JOHN C. ROBINSON, PH.D.
Psychologist, Seattle, WA

Dr. Robinson is a clinical psychologist and holds a second doctorate in ministry. He is intentional in the integration process of psychotherapy with the universal search for meaning, wholeness and transcendence. He asserts the importance of creativity and spirituality of aging, healing and growth. His major works include But Where Is God: Psychotherapy and the Religious Search; Finding Heaven Here; The Divine Human: Final Transformation of Sacred Aging. He leads talks and conducts workshops at conscious aging conferences nationwide.

About the Lecture

WHAT AGING MEN WANT:  MEN IN THE PRESENCE OF THE SACRED (part 1)

WHAT AGING MEN WANT:  THE ODYSSEY AS A PARABLE OF MALE AGING (part 2)

Dr. Robinson describes the developmental tasks, gifts and meaning of homecoming in the male aging process. Two decades ago Robert Bly published Iron John, a fairy tale for midlife men in search of a more authentic life. This same army of 38 million men now marches into retirement years unprepared for what aging really entails across the upcoming twenty-five years of unprecedented longevity gifted by science and medicine. Boomers believe that they will conquer age with exercise, attitude, and nutrition. As their problems and defeats multiply, however, aging men now discover that they are lost once again in an unknown land, longing for another great story to guide them home. Robinson says: “I have found that story.”

At the close of this sessions the participant will be able to:

  • Recall Homer's great and timeless myth of male aging
  • Examine and critique the "Happily Ever After" fantasy of male aging
  • Appreciate the nature and costs of the "War of Adult Life" men pursue across the decades
  • Review the psychological and spiritual growth tasks men confront on their long journey home to love
  • (for men) Share and integrate this material into personal and shared male life experience
  • (for women) Understand the struggles men encounter in the aging experience

12:00 p.m.
Lunch

Please join us for lunch and table discussions about today’s topic.


1:00-2:30 p.m.
Lecture Continued

WHAT AGING MEN WANT:  THE ODYSSEY AS A PARABLE OF MALE AGING 
Speaker:  John C. Robinson, Ph.D.

About the Speaker

JOHN C. ROBINSON, PH.D.
Psychologist, Seattle, WA

Dr. Robinson is a clinical psychologist and holds a second doctorate in ministry. He is intentional in the integration process of psychotherapy with the universal search for meaning, wholeness and transcendence. He asserts the importance of creativity and spirituality of aging, healing and growth. His major works include But Where Is God: Psychotherapy and the Religious Search; Finding Heaven Here; The Divine Human: Final Transformation of Sacred Aging. He leads talks and conducts workshops at conscious aging conferences nationwide.

About the Lecture

WHAT AGING MEN WANT:  MEN IN THE PRESENCE OF THE SACRED (part 1)

WHAT AGING MEN WANT:  THE ODYSSEY AS A PARABLE OF MALE AGING (part 2)

Dr. Robinson describes the developmental tasks, gifts and meaning of homecoming in the male aging process. Two decades ago Robert Bly published Iron John, a fairy tale for midlife men in search of a more authentic life. This same army of 38 million men now marches into retirement years unprepared for what aging really entails across the upcoming twenty-five years of unprecedented longevity gifted by science and medicine. Boomers believe that they will conquer age with exercise, attitude, and nutrition. As their problems and defeats multiply, however, aging men now discover that they are lost once again in an unknown land, longing for another great story to guide them home. Robinson says: “I have found that story.”

At the close of this sessions the participant will be able to:

  • Recall Homer's great and timeless myth of male aging
  • Examine and critique the "Happily Ever After" fantasy of male aging
  • Appreciate the nature and costs of the "War of Adult Life" men pursue across the decades
  • Review the psychological and spiritual growth tasks men confront on their long journey home to love
  • (for men) Share and integrate this material into personal and shared male life experience
  • (for women) Understand the struggles men encounter in the aging experience

2:30
Break


3:00-4:30 p.m.
Lecture (1.5 CEH)
CARE OF THE AGING SOUL

Speaker:  Thomas Moore, Ph.D.
Author, Ageless Soul: The Lifelong Journey toward Meaning and Joy
Jaffrey, NH

About the Speaker

THOMAS MOORE, PH.D.
Author: Care of the Soul and Ageless Soul: the Lifelong Journey toward Meaning and Joy

Dr. Moore, world-renowned author of The Care of the Soul, is a pioneer explorer of the sacred art of soulful living, sacredness of the ordinary and lifelong journey toward meaning and joy. He explores the dilemma of many today who are either bewildered by the array of spiritual choices, or dulled by materialism of Western culture. Author also of Ageless Soul and The Care of the Soul in Medicine, he offers a new vision of how seekers can fashion their own connection to the sacred out of materials of ancient faiths and everyday life.

About the Lecture

CARE OF THE AGING SOUL

Spirituality is complete and good for humans only if it is joined to the deep soul. Soul is highly individual. Some older people want to follow their traditions, which is best done with some updating. Others might prefer a natural spirituality that includes contemplative walking, personal prayer, family rituals, and a practice of art. Older people benefit from a dreamier way of being: Less heroic, less rationalistic and highly intuitive. This, too, enriches the spiritual life. Loneliness, sickness and anger may be part of growing older, but they can be converted into positive experiences. Sexuality, too, takes new forms. The main task is to age all life long in a positive way, becoming a unique, creative person.

At the close of this session the participant will be able to

  • Describe how soul differs from spirit and how the two richly intersect
  • Demonstrate how to use both tradition and imagination in creating a senior spirituality
  • Remember that night dreams and a “dreamier” everyday life help adjust to older years
  • Explain how a soulful life deepens and enhances aging

4:30 p.m.
Speakeasy – Creativity and Conversations

An opportunity for casual, creative and engaging conversation with presenters and attendees with light snacks and beverages.


7:00 p.m.
Dance Concert and Reception
Ko-Thi Dance Company

  • Ferne Yangyeittie Caulker-Bronson – Founder and Artistic / Executive Director Professor, African Dance Performance and Choreography, UW-Milwaukee.
8:30 a.m. Morning Spiritual Practices Choose one for the day: Reflect - Lectio Divina: Nourishing the Divine...
9:30 a.m.-11:00 a.m. Lecture (1.5 CEH) MUSIC, MEANING AND AGING Speaker:  Nina Kraus, Ph.D. Hugh...

9:30 a.m.-11:00 a.m.
Lecture (1.5 CEH)
MUSIC, MEANING AND AGING

Speaker:  Nina Kraus, Ph.D.
Hugh Knowles Professor, Neurobiology & Physiology, Feinberg School of Medicine
Northwestern University
Evanston, lL

About the Speaker

NINA KRAUS, PH.D
Head of brainvolts, Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

Dr. Kraus is a scientist, inventor, and musician who studies the biology of auditory learning. Her groundbreaking research brings together the worlds of neuroscience and health care to strengthen our knowledge of how structured engagement with music can heal, rejuvenate and improve well-being. She was one of the first to demonstrate, through a series of innovative studies involving thousands of research participants, that making music can actually change our brains from birth to age 90.

About the Lecture

MUSIC, MEANING AND AGING

Aging compromises everyday communication skills, including working memory and the ability to decipher speech in real-world situations. These challenges are attributed to a combination of declines in cognitive skills, neural processing in the auditory system, and hearing loss. A number of strategies have been proposed to remediate these age-related communication challenges, including amplification and cognitive brain training. One of the best is music. With life-long music experience, we see enhancements in listening and memory skills and observe coincident changes in neural function. We have also discovered that experience early in life, e.g. music training in childhood, strengthens auditory processing in the older adult long after music lessons have ceased. These results point to specific neural signatures behind the aging process; reveal neural mechanisms associated with music training; and provide evidence that music provides one possible route to “healthy aging.”

At the close of this session the participant will be able to:

  • Explain the value of an objective measure for assessment and response to intervention
  • Identify the biological signatures of the aging brain
  • Describe how both ongoing and legacy music training benefit the aging brain

11:00
Art for Life: Table-top Exhibits, Discussion and Art Display


11:00
Lecture (1.0 CEH)

ART INTERPRETATION AND HEALTH
Speaker:  Hope Torrents
Director, Fine Art of Health Care, Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Miami, FL

About the Speaker

HOPE TORRENTS
Director of Fine Art of Health Care  |  Lowe Art Museum, Miami, Florida

Torrents, known for her work in educational pedagogy with medical students, is passionate about the intersections between art and health care. She provides important skills that benefit and empower people to be their own health care advocates. Hope is the Director of the Fine Art of Health Care program, at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She has created an inter-professional program for graduate students, residents and in-service professionals, using art interpretation, to hone important clinical skills like communication, visual literacy, and collaboration, to develop more effective health care providers.

About the Lecture

ART INTERPRETATION AND HEALTH

Hope Torrents uses art interpretation to hone important clinical skills in communication, visual literacy, and collaboration, with the goal of developing more effective health care providers. Her own experience as a patient advocate has taken her in new directions. Workshop participants will acquire tools for being their own agents and practice a form of mindfulness with art. In addition to engaging in rich conversations about works of art, participants will facilitate discussions and use their creative writing skills.

At the close of this session, the participant will be able to:

  • Demonstrate improved situational awareness and empathy as a care provider
  • Practice visual thinking strategies
  • List practical tools for mindfulness in professional and personal setting
  • Engage in thoughtful conversations regarding works of art

12:00 p.m.
Lunch

Please join us for lunch and table discussions about today’s topic.


1:00-2:30 p.m.
Lecture (1.5 CEH)
BRAVE BEYOND WORDS — WE ENTER THIS WORLD AS THE GENESIS OF A STORY AND CONTINUE TO GROW IT AS OUR GIFT TO THE WORLD.
Speaker:  Joy Harjo, M.F.A.
Professor
English and American lndian Studies, University of lllinois at Urbana-Champaign
Urbana-Champaign, lL

About the Speaker

JOY HARJO, M.F.A.
Poet, Storyteller, Musician, Memoirist, Playwright, and Activist

Throughout Harjo’s extraordinary career, she has expanded the American language, culture, and soul. A Creek Indian and student of First Nation history, she is rooted in both the natural world—especially the landscape of the American southwest— and the world of the spirit. Incorporating native traditions of prayer and myth into a powerfully contemporary idiom as illustrated in Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, Crazy Brave, and She Had Some Horses. Harjo’s justice-seeking art transforms aging, bitterness and trauma to beauty, wholeness, and healing.

About the Lecture

BRAVE BEYOND WORDS — WE ENTER THIS WORLD AS THE GENESIS OF A STORY AND CONTINUE TO GROW IT AS OUR GIFT TO THE WORLD.

For Joy Harjo, writing is a vulnerable, even dangerous, act. “Fear has been one of my greatest teachers,” she insists. As she speaks, she exposes the parts of her life some might strive to conceal—the hurt caused by her abusive stepfather and the challenge of being “other,” as well as her later struggles of heartbreak and single motherhood. Born in Oklahoma of uprooted tribes, oil money and hard times, the fire spirit of her mother and water spirit of her father, she had to navigate the dualities of her life. At once self-assured and faltering, she deeply loved those whom she also feared.

In telling her own story, both the beautiful and the broken parts, Harjo has become an icon of the feminist movement and a voice for Native peoples. “I was not brave.” she says. “I was entrusted with carrying voices, songs, and stories to grow and release into the world, to be of assistance and inspiration. These were my responsibility.”

Harjo honors this responsibility. In her own words, she melds memories, dream visions, myths, and stories from along her journey to find her creative voice and fulfill her destiny.

At the close of this session participant will be able to:

  • Explore the duality of life: faltering and self-assured, distant but a part of the whole
  • Acknowledge the nobility of women, native peoples and the old in the shared journey of living
  • Probe the personal poetic imagination and its political impact

2:30 p.m.
Break


3:00-4:30 p.m.
Lecture (1.5 CEH)
THE SPIRITUAL DISTORTIONS OF AGING IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY: THE PAIN OF GROWING OLDER IN A SOCIETY THAT PROMOTES SELFISHNESS AND MATERIALISM
Speaker:  Rabbi Michael Lerner, Ph.D.
Beyt Tikkun
Berkeley, CA

About the Speaker

RABBI MICHAEL LERNER, PH.D.
Editor: Tikkun and Author: Spirit Matters, Berkeley, CA

Rabbi Lerner is the country’s preeminent liberal Jewish intellectual and editor of “Tikkun,” perhaps the most respected intellectual/cultural magazine in the Jewish world. Rabbi Lerner’s Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation is potentially one of the most important Jewish books of our times, in the great tradition of the works of Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel. Spirit Matters: Global Healing and the Wisdom of the Soul is a blueprint for the return of spiritual meaning to contemporary life.

About the Lecture

THE SPIRITUAL DISTORTIONS OF AGING IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY: THE PAIN OF GROWING OLDER IN A SOCIETY THAT PROMOTES SELFISHNESS AND MATERIALISM

Aging has always had its difficult challenges as our bodies decline. Yet spiritually-oriented societies have also taken great strides to honor Elders and provide support systems that have provided a sense of purpose and meaning to life. When those are harder to access in the contemporary world, many Elders are faced with a set of spiritual crises with which few professionals are trained to deal. Rabbi Michael Lerner will address some of the steps that professionals and a caring community can take.

This lecture will allow the participant to:

  • Recognize when a patient or client is facing a spiritual crisis that s/he cannot yet identify as such
  • Determine whether a crisis can best be dealt with by the helping professions, by spiritual or religious personnel or requires larger social change
  • Assess what changes are needed in American society in order to support healthy aging
  • Explain the role of helping professionals and the larger community in transforming a materialistic and self-oriented society to “The Caring Society—Caring For Each Other and Caring for the Earth”
  • Describe how to respond to those who believe that social transformation is not an appropriate goal for professional practice.

4:30 p.m.
Speakeasy
Speakeasy – Creativity and Conversations

An opportunity for casual, creative and engaging conversation with presenters and attendees with light snacks and beverages.


7:30 p.m.
Concert and Reception
Missa Tango
A mass by Martin Palmeri

  • Master Singers of Milwaukee
  • Eduardo Garcia Novelli, Artistic Director