Our Age Now course just wrapped, with participants ranging from 30 to 75. What an amazing group! 😍
After our sessions, about half of us stayed on the calls as there was so many rich conversations to dig into.
Thank you to everyone who showed up for this exploration, including the parts that were unfamiliar or uncomfortable. It was a joy to move through it together to reclaim our age !
A waitlist for the next cohort (April 2028) is already open on my website if you’re curious. See waitlist link in bio!
Let’s continue to change unnecessry age suffering to age liberation!
Missing from the photo some delightful folks: @jenmurk10@asamusictherapy@grazielatanaka , Lise Well, and Barb Backer.
#weareallaging #antiageist #somaticexperiencing
When: Sundays in April 2026 (5, 12, 19, 26 April)
Time: 1:00–3:00 PM ET (10:00 AM PT / 6:00 PM GMT)
Where: Online via Zoom
Commitment: 4 weeks of live practice, education, and community connection.
Register in bio! Age Now is a somatic exploration of life in our bodies across the entire arc of our existence. Moving beyond cultural narratives of youth supremacy, this radical course invites us to dismantle ageist myths and reclaim age pride through embodied practice.
Over four weeks, we will transition from disorganized, constricted age-confusion to steadier, more expansive age-compassion—shifting from intellectual understanding to lived wisdom. We’ll celebrate the body as a continuous, unfolding archive of experience, moving through time and space into the now. We are all ageing together.
When: Sundays in April 2026 (5, 12, 19, 26 April)
Time: 1:00–3:00 PM ET (10:00 AM PT / 6:00 PM GMT)
Where: Online via Zoom
Commitment: 4 weeks of live practice, education, and community connection.
What to Expect: Each session includes three guided somatic practices, dedicated time for personal reflection/writing, small-group breakouts, and a large-group “harvest” to share collective wisdom.
Price:
Early Bird: $120 (pay by 23 March)
Regular: $155 (pay 24 March – 5 April)
There is a limited number of scholarships available for BIPOC and trans women
How to pay:
📍Canadian participants: e-transfer to [email protected]
📍International participants: PayPal to [email protected]
📍US residents: Venmo to @Ryan -Backer
Artwork by @swoonhq from ‘Submerged Motherlands’ at the Brooklyn Museum in 2014. I’ve always appreciated her depictions of olders. Reading this excerpt from an interview with her it is obvious why they are so good:
“I started painting when I was 10 years old. My childhood had been extremely unstable up till that point, but now suddenly there was a period of tranquility, and my mom took me to a painting class. It was kind of a Bob Ross style follow-along painting class and I was the only child in a room full of elderly retirees, but they adopted me, and I loved it! The positive feedback and care I got in that class, and the joy I saw on people’s faces when I took the paintings home somehow filled a very deep need that I had, coming from the unstable place I did, and from that moment on art became the central pillar of my life.”
My dharmette “It’s about time” is now available on YouTube. It is a talk I gave at Queer Sangha about our relationship to time.
Here I am quoting Japanese Buddhist Dōgen: “Open your eyes and let’s see time from a different angle! When you see your life from the broad view of time, you see that your life is not something separate from time—your life is time.”
It is twinkle time! ✨Meditation and dharma talk with @rypatback (& @trustsomeoneoverthirty )✨
it’s about time⏳🕰️⌚️
This Wed 1/29 7pm ET online, link in bio, pm for pw
Ryan ‘twinkle’ Backer is a Queer Sangha organizer, currently finishing up their tenth year as a serious. meditator. and student of Buddhism.
They spend a lot of time on time, uncovering why we don’t always like travelling through it, and how to soften that dislike.
At this week’s Queer Sangha, timing is everything.
Everyone, everywhere is aging. We’re all in this together!
Go back to part 1 if you missed it!
#agequeer #screwageism #undoageism #queerage #changingageing #changingaging #agepositive #antiageist #antiageismactavist
People have some misconceptions about my work. Watch this to find out what they are!
Stay tuned for my response in part 2 📡
#agequeer #screwageism #undoageism #queerage #ageism #agepositive #antiageist #antiageism #changingageing #changingaging
I am trying out reels for the first time! You are invited to Intergenerational Power Mon, Jan 13th, 2025, 6-8
How often do you think about your age vs. how often do you talk about it? Aging is a universal experience, yet it’s not always an open topic of discussion across different age groups. This interactive online workshop invites participants of all ages to explore our perspectives and assumptions around aging- this process we are all going through. Awesome shirt by @lovestruckprints and my background is @soft.jewels.studio #intergenerationalpower #agequeer #changingageing #changingaging #screwageism #undoageism #queerage
New workshop and zine out! 🎉
Links to both in my bio
Intergenerational Power
Mon, Jan 13th, 2025, 6-8
How often do you think about your age vs. how often do you talk about it? Aging is a universal experience, yet it's not always an open topic of discussion across different age groups. This interactive online workshop invites participants of all ages to explore our perspectives and assumptions around aging- this process we are all going through.
Peeling Sticky Labels
Why claim allegiance to a completely heterogeneous group of individuals born within the same 15-20 year timespan?
#intergenerationalpower #agequeer #changingageing #changingaging #screwageism #undoageism #queerage
I am super excited to be interviewed by the @recaa.montreal team at the B/OLD conference next week! Link in the bio “Respectfully yours, RECAA” podcast
May 9, 2024, 3pm to 4pm et
Podcast recording – Event in English
Hybrid
Members of Respecting Elders: Communities Against Abuse (RECAA) have been a powerful activist voice against older adult mistreatment for decades. Join the live recording of their inaugural podcast “Respectfully Yours, RECAA”. In this episode, RECAA members interview anti-ageism activist Ryan Backer, a public speaker and co-founder of Old School, an online space dedicated to raising awareness of ageism and promoting age equity. Ryan will discuss their experience at the forefront of age activism in the last 10 years.
I am excited to be a part of the IFA Global Café series! In conversation with Ryan Backer on “The power of conversation to dismantling ageism.“
9 June 2023 07:00 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time (US and Canada) link in the bio
