Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life

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Mary will lead a class on the Ancient Irish Keen focusing on its history and context as well as sharing examples. It may be the first time CBC or BBC book recommendation and interviews have let me down. Hagatude is almost in it’s entirety a memoir of their menopause and post-menopausal life. Did I need to know about their husband’s midlife crisis, NO. Did I really need so much information about their cancer, NO. Not more than as a transition point that made them face their own mortality and thus an intro into the next elder woman archetype. For women who feel separated from their true feminine self, this is a rallying cry to rediscover those ancient roots and be part of the life force again .’ cygnus review In her trademark mythopoetic style of writing sharing deeply researched folk legends from our very own British Isles, and with a wild and deep attachment to these lands she inhabits, this book will remind you of just how powerful and transformative this midlife journey we are in truly is. Women have long been told to “know our place”. This powerful and inspiring exploration of the female relationship with landscape turns the diktat around, showing us what may be gained from doing just that.’ Melissa Harrison, author of the Costa-shortlisted ‘At Hawthorn Time’

Maybe I’m the wrong age, maybe the author and I are too many generations separated, maybe our realities and understanding of the universe is too different, but this book did not work for me. Heather will offer an experiential workshop on dance movement medicine for the embodied elder. All movement at your own pace and interpretation.It is heartening to read a progressive view of the women’s movement and one that links with care for the Earth and all living beings. This book is very well recommended.’ GREENSPIRIT MAGAZINE Her passion for teaching and leading springs from her own experience with dance and embodied awakening as a path to health and wholeness. As a young woman dance was crucial in her journey of surviving and integrating lessons from drug addiction, anxiety, depression and loss. As an elder she is committed to creating spaces where movement and music facilitate greater resilience, resource and vitality. She inducts a felt sense of permission and deep presence, inviting each woman to claim her unique engagement with the dance of life. I was born in the north-east of England, a Celt through and through: my family and ancestry is both Scottish and Irish, and I was raised on an imaginatively rich diet of Irish myth, poetry, music and history. After studying psychology, I spent several years as an academic neuroscientist/ psychologist specialising in the field of anxiety and panic, and working at the Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris and the Institute of Neurology in London. After a few twists and turns, including some unwise years advising a tobacco company on smoking and health and safer cigarettes, and the acquisition of a master’s degree in Creative Writing, I moved to a croft in the north-west Highlands of Scotland. There I returned to my roots, in practice as a therapist specialising in narrative psychology, myth- and storytelling, as well as in other creative imagination techniques and clinical hypnotherapy. My passion during those years was, and still is, creating transformation in individuals and groups.

THE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED NEW BOOK BY THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING IF WOMEN ROSE ROOTED , EMPOWERING WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF LIFE. It is elegantly written and seems to be well researched and supported in some places. Other places it’s very diary entry, literary review with no clear thesis. I was all set to recommend this. The early chapters where the author discusses elder archetypes, reclaiming the wise woman archetype and no longer accepting the modern patriarchal attempts to invalidate and dehumanize women past child bearing years, especially those women who never gave birth to children, were great. They were interesting and empowering, although it does help to be a Jungian scholar for a good portion of her text (I am not). As well as writing five books of fiction and nonfiction, including the bestselling If Women Rose Rooted and her latest, Hagitude, her writing has appeared in anthologies, collections and in several international media outlets – among them the Guardian, the Irish Times, and the Scotsman. Her books have been translated into several languages, and she has been interviewed by the BBC, US public radio and other broadcasters on her areas of expertise. Her awards include the Roger Deakin Award, and a Creative Scotland Writer’s Award. Her next book, Wise Women: Myths and folklore in celebration of older women will be published by Virago in 2024.

Stella Duffy is completing a doctorate training in Existential Psychotherapy and her research is in the embodied experience of postmenopause. As well as her private psychotherapy practice, Stella has worked in NHS cancer psychological support, hospice bereavement support, and is currently working with a low-cost community mental health service. Alongside her therapy work, Stella is an award-winning writer of seventeen novels, over seventy short stories and fifteen plays and worked in theatre for over thirty-five years as an actor, director, facilitator and improvisor. She was awarded the OBE for services to the Arts in 2016 and has been active in equalities and inclusion work in arts and LGBTQ+ communities for many decades. She is also a yoga teacher, leading regular workshops in yoga for writing. My first novel The Long Delirious Burning Blue was described by The Independent on Sunday as ‘Hugely potent. A tribute to the art of storytelling that is itself an affecting and inspiring story’ and by The Scotsman as ‘… powerful (reminiscent of The English Patient), filmic, and achieving the kind of symmetry that novels often aspire to, but rarely reach.’ 'If Women Rose Rooted', a nonfiction book about women, Celtic myth, place and belonging was published in 2016, 'The Enchanted Life' in 2018, and 'Foxfire, Wolfskin and other stories of shapeshifting women' in September 2019.. I am a longtime appreciator of Sharon’s work and have taken her classes and seminars. Until this book I would have said that I didn’t feel much of a divide; her ideas have excited and validated me. My husband David Knowles and I founded literary publisher Two Ravens Press (now under new ownership) in 2006, and in 2012 launched EarthLines Magazine, a full-colour print publication for writing about nature, place and the environment.