I sit in the Round House, not above them, not apart, just here. Among them. Part of the circle. The floor beneath me is cool earth, smoothed by bare feet and stories. The smoke rises slowly through the opening above—fire-prayers offered to indifferent stars.
They told me my role is to “hold space.” Sounded poetic when I first heard it. Mysterious. Noble, even. But also… terrifying. What if I drop it? Hold it too tightly? What if the very space I’m meant to hold slips through my fingers like water?
Here I am—somewhere in the middle—getting older by the season. Not old in the way I imagined as a boy, but I’ve stopped running against the wind. Started listening more. Not just to words, but to the silences between them. That quiet shift when the heart leans forward.
They call me an Elder now. I’m doing my best to wear that word, though it sits awkwardly on my shoulders. Like a borrowed coat I haven’t grown into. Some days I wear it loosely, half-laughed into place. Other days, I forget it until someone looks at me with that strange expectation—like I might hold some secret knowledge. Truth is, I probably don’t. And I’m learning that’s okay.
What I’ve come to understand: Elder isn’t a badge you earn or a throne you claim. It’s more like a slow ripening. A way of being that matures in you—not through knowing, but through not knowing, and staying anyway. Through showing up. Through witnessing someone else’s becoming without reshaping it into your image.
An Elder isn’t the voice cutting through noise, but the one waiting for noise to settle. Presence, not performance. A grounded “yes” that needs no explanation.
Wisdom arrives quietly, barefoot and weather-stained. Born from heartbreak and humility, from years of watching and getting it wrong and loving it anyway. It lives in face-lines and speech-pauses. Not always beautiful, but always real.
Not long ago, I was just Udo—the guy with more questions than plans, wild dreams and wilder detours. A man who thought falling was failure until he discovered how often we rise because we’ve fallen.
Now I sit with younger men beside me, their eyes bright with unasked questions. I don’t have their answers. But I can offer my listening. My being. My weathered silence.
Maybe that’s enough. Because eldering isn’t about knowing what to say—it’s knowing when to say nothing at all. Just breathing beside them. Just holding space.
Trusting that in the sacred hush between heartbeats, something beyond words is speaking. And like the rock, I’m learning not to speak over the wind, but to feel its shape.
By Udo Cosgrave, Elder, Journey to Manhood camps