My life is a little crazy at the moment. In little over two weeks, I've flown from Greece to France, and now I'm in London. I might be crazy, trying to fit so much into too little time but I'm handling it and feeling good. How can I not feel this way when I am surrounded by those I love and who love me?
Sometimes my heart beats too quickly. It's as if the world is spinning faster and faster, not giving me time to catch my breath, but I do pause to be present for those I love. I am trying to become the person I want to be, an older woman, alone, desiring, craving more wine, lively discourses and visual stimuli, and going for it. As Mary Oliver writes "You only have to let the soft animal of your body/ love what it loves".
Marlene Schiwy's new book is, like all her books, beautifully written. Her prose elegant, fluid and transparent. After nearly forty years of designing workshops for women, she has fine-tuned her passion into art. She takes her reader from conception to aftermath. She is generous with detail, giving away what some might consider secret, including numerous resources, citations and exercises. She does not promise monetary riches. She states quite clearly that it is her heart and soul that have been enriched.
Although I do not intend to create workshops, I would encourage anyone who has ever taken a workshop with Marlene or any writer, artist, musician - anyone who wants to make of her life a soulful journey - to read this book. I align it with Louise DeSalvo's book "The Art of Slow Writing". Both books go beyond description about creating workshops and writing to show and tell another way to live one's life in this crazy sorrowful fast-paced world.
Schiwy is an extraordinary person. In the preface, she says “more than anything else, offering workshops has kept me honest”. At present, a film is being edited about her hand-crafted life.