OLDER, WISER, FIERCER:
In gratitude for 100% Five Star Reviews on Amazon and Rave Reviews Placed Elsewhere
–Carol Orsborn, Ph.D.
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5.0 out of 5 stars: A Basket of Insight and Wisdom on Aging
Older, Wiser, Fiercer gets that aging is neither fairytale nor curse, but instead a parable, journey and ultimate awakening. Filled with short, easy-to-digest subjects on all the relevant topics of age, the author catalogs the changing landscape of aging in ways that make it worth living. Work your way slowly and reverently through this timely book and you will find the transformational gems of your own enlightenment. Older, Wiser, Fiercer is a gift basket of insight and wisdom.
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5.0 out of 5 stars: A Treasure of a Book!
Pamela Enders:
It is impossible to read this book quietly. I kept jumping out of my seat, shouting, “Yes! Exactly!” It is as if Carol Orsborn managed to get access to my old brain and discovered all the thoughts, feelings and contradictions that exist there (many I didn’t even know I had!) and then – exposed them in her beautiful book – Older, Wiser, Fiercer.: The Wisdom Collection
What a relief it is to find someone whose words mirror what we “seniors” experience – the highs and lows of aging, the paradox of feeling more confident and powerful and yet acknowledging the increasing fragility of our bodies.
I had never really thought of aging as being one big paradox but now I do and it is a brilliant way to capture this stage of life. This is a book that must be savored and shared. I can envision creating an evening with friends where we each read a passage and reflect on its wisdom. Wine would be part of such an event because it would also be a celebration – of ourselves and we would definitely offer a toast to Carol Orsborn in gratitude for this important book.
I started highlighting whole passages in the book with the intent of sharing them but realized I was highlighting the entire book! Fortunately, Carol provides a lovely summary at the end of each chapter and I am including two here in the hope it will inspire others to buy this book:
“Aging is a time full of irony. We find ourselves brimming with unexpected passion, but frequently lack the energy to see things through. We experience ourselves to be at the peak of our knowledge and abilities, only to realize that we are masters of a world that no longer exists. At times we are full of purpose; other times we wonder what it has all been for. We did not anticipate facing a new threshold this late in life, feeling more alive than ever. The irony nearly breaks us, as we leapfrog through the mystery of age one paradox at a time.”
― from “Older, Wiser, Fiercer: The Wisdom Collection”
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5.0 out of 5 stars: A Must Read
Carol Orsborn invites the reader to gently lovingly consciously age. Beautifully written with honesty and integrity by a woman who is traveling a path to wholeness.
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5.0 out of 5 stars: In the journey of aging, a spiritual book to help you “get your fierce on”
Dr. Carol Orsborn has been a thought leader and inspired author for over forty years. Many of her books articulate personal and practical aspects of aging, while helping inquiring minds understand and explore all aspects of our lives as we leave the middle years behind.
Making meaning out of the perils and promises of aging in difficult times, she found encouragement and profound insights through the wisdom of elders from a wide spectrum of eras and traditions: Florida Scott-Maxwell, Joan Chittister, Parker J. Palmer, Ram Dass, Richard Rohr, James Hollis, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and many more.
In Older, Wiser, Fiercer, Dr. Orsborn clears new pathways that aging generations can follow: to find meaning and opportunities in the encore phase of life—to live fully with beauty, earnestness, and heightened purpose. She shares these insights within the context of her own experiences, reinterpreting and augmenting lessons learned from the masters of aging well.
She also gently speaks to the next generation coming into the concluding stage of life, proposing practical and accessible ways to thrive today with honesty, passion and grace. Hailed as a classic in the conscious aging genre, this fierce book of essays serves as both a teacher and personal coach concerning how to nurture the nuances of spiritual growth.
Older, Wiser, Fiercer: The Wisdom Collection is the culmination of years of scholarship, conscious living, advocacy, and practical understanding of the demands and opportunities associated with becoming an elder. This readable revelation of a book helped me learn how we can grow more courageously into a new season of life. I will return to it often for sage advice and spiritual support… and “to get my fierce on.”
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5.0 out of 5 stars: Masterpiece on Aging
For an enlightening perspective on our later years, turn to Carol Orsborn’s latest masterpiece. A chronicler of and for the Boomer generation, Osborn has woven together a series of mini-essays about aging. As she candidly and engagingly recounts the ups and downs of her own journey of becoming “older, wiser, fiercer,” she brings upbeat truths to the spectrum of issues that confront us as grey hairs sprout. This is a must-have for anyone (everyone, really) who is, or will be aging.
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5.0 out of 5 stars: The Elder Wisdom We Need Now
Carol’s newest book is a collection of meditations on the full truth about aging — its perils and its possibilities. Or, as she puts it, “at once grieving and celebrating.” Her voice resonates with depth, poetry, and self-awareness, as she details the nuances of life inching toward 70 and beyond. A sample: “At long last, we run out of options, panting across the boundary to this new land, inhabited by a handful of others like us: old, brave souls who are struggling to become not only older and wiser, but fiercer. To be old and awake is to be granted fresh sight, informed by humility, perspective and compassion — for self and for others.” We are the Elders we have been searching for. And we are deeply needed now.
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REVIEWS PLACED ELSEWHERE
Judith Helburn: A Gentle, Hopeful Conversation
Orsborn invites us to join her on her journey towards aging consciously. Her observations ring true covering both her trials as well as her triumphs or, as she writes, “revealing an experience of aging that is at once heartbreaking and disturbing, piercing, joyful and alive.” She writes of the paradox of longing for solitude while not wanting to become invisible, of being awake, self-aware informed by humility, perspective and compassion and less willing to bend towards what others desire. Our perspective changes as we become more authentic, Orsborn writes, from one of narrow interests to those which are much broader.
This journey is not always smooth sailing. We spiral coming back to some of the difficulties/shadows we had hoped we had overcome—this time, with luck and perhaps work, from a higher vantage. And, of course, we look in the mirror and know we are not as we were physically ten, twenty or thirty years ago. Some of Orsborn’s musings, her conversations with her journal, will resonate, and some will not. We all move towards the gift of added years at our own speed.
Older, Wiser, Fiercer is a gentle, hopeful conversation which should help anyone who is struggling with the issues and feelings of growing older. Our time on this planet is limited. Carol Orsborn’s hope in publishing this book, is that we use it well.
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Harry R. Moody: An Unbelievable Privilege
Like all the great voyagers, Carol Orsborn has brought back to us, not a story of her travels, but a gift which can belong to us if only we summon the courage to follow in her footsteps. Indeed, it is not about comparison or competition at all. In the words of Jalal ad-Din Rumi: “Inside the Great Mystery that is, we don’t really own anything. What is this competition we feel then, before we go, one at a time, through the same gate?” Carol Orsborn has written a remarkable classic, a worthy addition to the growing body of conscious aging literature. It is an unbelievable privilege to engage with what she’s given here to me and to the world.
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Robert L. Weber: Work of Art
Reading Carol’s newest collection will inspire you to grow into your authentic self. In his Introduction to Carol’s latest work, our friend Rick Moody refers to the notion of ”spaete Werke”, recognizing that what the elder artists disclosed through paint, writers like Carol Orsborn disclose to us through words. I couldn’t agree more. Like docents who open our eyes to the beauty of art, she opens our eyes to the beauty of artful aging. I can think of no more apt way to mark the publication of Older, Wiser, Fiercer than with this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt: “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”
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Carol Orsborn can be reached at Carol@fiercewithage.com.
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