ABOUT THE BOOK
For a woman, life is full! For the first fifty years, we hardly take a breath. We look around and see so much to be done, and we do. Our lives are doing lives. Our goals are to accomplish, achieve, and succeed. When the to-do list is completed, we are satisfied. As one list is finished, however, another begins. Such is the never-ending cycle.
When I approached fifty years old, my life was wife, mother, and homemaker with a professional career in Boston—all very visible positions. My world was filled with people, relationships, and activity. My life was nonstop busy.
Along the way, little by little, I also began living an inner life. It has been my refuge—my secret world—and it has been alive and well for decades. It is the part of me that balanced and renewed and introduced me to the numerous paths I would later follow.
My first book, Beginning to End, is a public expression of my work in early childhood education. It is the me that I presented to the world.
The Way of the Elegant Spirit is its opposite. It is my inner life that I kept for myself. One outer world—the other inner—and these two worlds have peacefully coexisted for much of my life. They have been parallel lives. One restores and replenishes me to do the other with great energy and purpose. They have balanced and completed me as a woman. They have often worked hand in hand. When I’ve needed inspiration to work out a problem in my outer life, I turn inward to find the solution. Doing this, and living this way, has never disappointed me.
Along my journey, I uncovered many lessons for living my life, completely. They appeared one after the other and always when I was ready for more. I also discovered the practices I needed to help me nurture this new life growing within. Everything fit together perfectly.
