CURRENT CAROL ORSBORN BOOK CLUB SELECTION
Adapting a combination book club and support group model, The Spiritual Aging Study and Support Group (SASS) on Substack is currently working our way through my most popular book Older, Wiser, Fiercer. The first post of the weekly Study Guide is Weekly Sass: The Paradox of Age. Subscribe and subsequent posts will be emailed to you directly or can be found in the Spiritual Aging archives on Substack. Each post stands on its own so you can choose whether to start with this week’s post or go back to the beginning.
Each post has its own chat thread where members engage in conversation about the subject matter of that day’s Study Guide.
In December, we will move on to my forthcoming book Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life. (Inner Traditions, December, ‘24.)
To join in on Substack, follow the Stay Connected link on the CarolOrsborn.com home page: HERE
ON-GOING VIRTUAL BOOK CLUB SELECTION
Angelica’s Last Breath by Carol Orsborn
Angelica’s Last Breath, a novel by Carol Orsborn, tells the story of a celebrated self-help guru, facing a mortal illness. Inspired by Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, the book inspires us to ask whether it could be possible to make peace with not only our death, but our past, present and future earlier than one’s last breath— with time to spare?
To Read About the Book, click HERE
To Read an Excerpt of the Book, click HERE
To Access the Reader’s Guide, click HERE
To access the Online Conversation about the Book, click HERE
Please support our local independent book stores, and to order your book club books from Parnassus Books, click HERE
CLASSICS IN THE FIELD OF CONSCIOUS AGING
On the Brink of Everything by Parker J. Palmer
Visionary educator and octegenarian Parker J. Palmer has just published his tenth book On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old.
“Age brings diminishments, but more than a few come with benefits. I’ve lost the capacity for multitasking, but I’ve discovered the joy of doing one thing at a time. My thinking has slowed down a bit, but experience has made it deeper and richer. I’m done with big and complex projects, but more aware of the loveliness of simple things: a talk with a friend, a walk in the woods, sunsets and sunrises, a night of good sleep.”
To access the online conversation, click HERE
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The Grace in Aging by Kathleen Dowling Singh
Kathleen Dowling Singh’s The Grace in Aging: Awaken As You Grow Older. Singh, of blessed memory, is a Dharma practitioner and psychotherapist, who understands how and why we fall for letting our wounds define us. Then she’s written a whole book about what can come next, if we’re willing to do the courageous work of truth-telling, humility, forgiveness and radical leaps of faith that true spirituality asks of us. It is, as Dowling puts it, a matter of awakening—even from the dream of our own serious and well-intentioned introspection.
To access the online conversation, click HERE
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Living Between Worlds, Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times by Dr. James Hollis.
This important and timely book guides us to consider just how did we get to this crossroads in history? And will we make it through―individually and as a species? Dr. Hollis points the way to grow large enough to contain what threatens to destroy us. James Hollis, Ph. D. is Executive Director of the Jung Center of Houston, TX, a practicing Jungian Analyst and author of eleven books including the classics Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up and What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life.
To access the online conversation, click HERE
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John C. Robinson’s Mystical Activism: Transforming a World in Crisis. Covid-19 is but a wake-up call for sweeping social, political and spiritual changes as our generation of elders are being called to a radical transformation of consciousness.
To access the online conversation, Click HERE
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Still Here by Ram Dass.
Beloved spiritual teacher Ram Dass’ stroke forced him to face his worst fears. But while there were painful losses, there were also unexpected gifts. In Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying he teaches that the greatest blessing was the wearing away of the effects of his Ego—the attachment to how others perceived him, to expectations about what kind of life he deserved, even to what we had thought was the meaning of life, itself.
As Ram Dass describes it: “Behind the machinations of our brilliant, undependable minds is an essence that is not conditional, a being that aging does not alter, to which nothing can be added, from which nothing is taken away…This is not an abstract concept; it is as real as the breath moving in and out of your body, and real as the spirit that animates you. The greater your mindfulness, the more you will come to know this truth, and to rest in it when painful thoughts threaten to hide it from view.” (p. 49.)
To access the online conversation, click HERE
Please support our local independent book stores, and to order your book club books from Parnassus Books, click HERE
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Prisms: Reflections on this Journey We Call Life by James Hollis
“Late essays” about the second half of life by James Hollis, Ph. D., leading Jungian Analyst and author of sixteen books including the classics Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up and What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life. This culminating work suggests that instead of being driven by the search for happiness, one asks the seminal question: “What wants to enter the world through me?
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ADDITIONAL BOOK SUGGESTIONS POSTED IN OUR ARCHIVES
Journal of a Solitude, May Sarton
Are You Still Listening? 1969 Stories and Essays, Brent Green and 8 authors including Carol Orsborn
The Three Secrets of Aging, John C. Robinson
The Gift of Years, Joan Chittister
The December Project, Sara Davidson
Living an Examined Life, James Hollis
The Spirituality of Age, Robert L. Weber and Carol Orsborn
Upstream Mary Oliver
The Force of Character, James Hillman
Aging: An Apprenticeship by Nan Narboe
