Inspiration

My life is steeped in inspiration - wise women, island living, backyard nature, poetry, books, blogs, news stories - to name only a few. So many things fill me with wonder, inspire my thinking and writing, and guide my life as a human being.

Here are just a few.

Wisdom Lines: A season of growth, not diminishment

I did not come to this stage of life with a map - only questions, dreams, and the quiet hope that more was still possible. With each passing year, I am convinced that aging is far less about loss than it is about growth.

This is not an ending, but a beginning: a chance to choose, to grow, and to live a full life. This is a time rich with possibilities.

This 28-page guided journal shares six insights from Ageless Possibilities, reflections of my journey and an invitation to shape your own.

Inspiration

Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currencies and Flourishing As We Age

Book cover of 'Women Rowing North' by Mary Pipher, featuring illustrations of women and a river scene.

  • Mary Pipher’s book was the inspiration for the name of my workshop series. When I asked Mary if I could use the book name she said she would be honoured, adding, “I want everything I know to be shared with others”.  

  • What keeps a marriage evolving and thriving, especially in the final season of life? Authors Carol and Jay Casbon deliver stories of partnerships gleaned from the hard-won wisdom of elder couples who have learned to do love differently than previous generations. The book includes a reader’s guide with nearly 200 questions and practices that create a safe space for reflection and conversations among couples or small groups.

Book cover titled "Side by Side" by Caryl and Jay Casbon, featuring an illustration of two colorful owls touching beaks against a blue background with the subtitle "the sacred art of couples aging with wisdom & love".

Side by Side: The sacred art of couples aging with wisdom and love

  • I first discovered Margaret Renkl, through this book. Written during a period of grief, the book is presented through a narrative arch of family stories, interspersed with nature stories from her backyard. I now read her New York Times opinion column regularly, and have added her book The Comfort of Crows to my bookshelf.

Cover of the book titled 'Late Migrations' by Margaret Renkl, featuring a silhouette of a woman's head filled with various plants, animals, and birds on a yellow background.

Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss

  • In my early fifties, I attended my first - but not last - retreat at the Center for Courage and Renewal. It was there that I was introduced to the work of Parker J. Palmer, an author, educator, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change. His books and essays have become a guiding light for me, especially this book.

Cover of a book titled 'On the Brink of Everything' by Parker J. Palmer. The background features a serene beach scene at sunset with calm waves and a pastel-colored sky.

On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old

Snippets of Wisdom

Why do I read and collect quotes? They offer new insights and different perspectives. They provide a context for feelings deep inside of me that I find difficult put into words. They introduce me to new ideas, concepts, or ways of being. They reveal emotions. They help me realize I am not alone.

❞

  • May Sarton. As We Are Now.

    The problem is that old age is not interesting until one gets there, a foreign country with an unknown language to the young, and even the middle-aged.

  • Joan Chittister. The Gift of Years.

    The burden of regret is that, unless we come to understand the value of the choices we made in the past, we may fail to see the gifts they have brought us. The blessing of regret is clear — it brings us, if we are willing to face it head on, to the point of being present to this new time of life in an entirely new way. It urges us on to continue becoming.

  • Florida Scott-Maxwell. The Measure of Your Days.

    You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done…you are fierce with reality.

  • Margaret Mead

    There is no more creative force in the world than a menopausal woman with zest.

  • Mary Oliver. What Can I Say.

    The song you heard singing as a child is singing still.

  • Jean Kwok. Searching for Sylvie Lee.

    The years had begun to reveal the truth of her face, as they did to all of us.

  • Anne Lamott. On Aging.

    I have an organic life finally, not the one people imagined for me or tried to get me to have or the life someone else might celebrate as a successful one. I have the life I dreamed of. I have become the woman I hardly dared imagine I could be.

  • Grace Paley

    Perhaps the greatest perplexity of aging is how to fill with gentleness the void between who we feel we are on the inside and who our culture tells us is staring back from that mirror.

  • Mary Pipher. The Joy of Being A Woman in Her Seventies.

    There is a sweetness to 50-year-old friendships that can’t be described in language…Lucky women are connected to a rich web of women friends.

  • Marilyn French

    I am no longer driven. I no longer imagine that I can do much to help bring about the millennium of the humane ideal, or that I can change anything at all. I have relinquished my painful freight. I am free. I am permitted to enjoy myself. I have noticed that my laugh has changed, is more spontaneous, deeper.

  • May Sarton. At Seventy: A Journal.

    One thing is certain, and I have always known it—the joys of my life have nothing to do with age. They do not change. Flowers, the morning and evening light, music, poetry, silence, the goldfinches darting about…

  • Parker J.Palmer. On the Brink of Everything.

    Welcome to the brink of everything. It takes a lifetime to get here, but the stunning view of past, present, and future—and the bracing breeze in your face—make it worth the trip.