My latest book Airing Out the Fairy Tale is my journey to connection, connection with myself, my work, and others. The thread is my trek in the Everest region of Nepal in 1993.  At forty-three, I was entering menopause and dealing with a change in course. My sons who were then fifteen and nineteen were feeling grown, and my husband was in a mid-life “crisis” of his own. After nearly dying trying to reach the top of Kala Patthar at over 18,000 feet, I turned forty-four at Tengboche, a monastery at 13,000 feet.  My focus had been on family, friends and volunteer work and now there was a need and desire for change.  This is my journey to connect with myself and the girl/woman I was before I leaned in to protect what came from my womb.

I wrote the above in 2019 and now it’s 2021. Life on the planet has changed. My motivations have changed. My sense of being in and contributing to this world has changed. I’m going to go back in and rework the book, make it more applicable to what we’ve all experienced in this last year. My sense is we’ve each sharpened our probe of urgency and our need to connect our inner nature with all that surrounds. How wide can our circle be? How much can we absorb and include as we reach to understand the life, history, ancestry, perception, and experience of another whether animal, plant, or rock.

May we open and weave a wand of enchantment as we circle round and round.