Keynote Speaker, David Oldfield

David Oldfield is the founder of The Farther On Project, an intensive rite of passage to help older people grow into their elderhood with joy and dignity. He has spent the last forty years designing transformational experiences and creative toolboxes to help people through the major threshold times in the life cycle: adolescence, midlife, retirement, and the final threshold of death. As a life-long student of imagination, David draws upon the timeless, yet often forgotten wisdom of mythology, folklore, storytelling and community rituals to focus and frame these modern pursuits.

He is the author of several books including Winnowing, a personal journal used by older adults to extract the unique wisdom and meaning they have gained from living long, rich lives. David has also designed the Four Seasons of Creativity for Elders, a year-long series of workshops that guide older people in telling their life stories through a variety of creative media: life mapping, journal writing, constructing Legacy Boxes full of personal artifacts and memorabilia, and life mask making.