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The Solitude of Self

In Kate Bolick’s new book Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own, the author credits five writers who helped awaken her to the glories of the solitary life: Neith Boyce, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edith Wharton and Maeve Brennan.

Some of these writers lived during a time when choosing to remain unmarried was an unconventional lifestyle, and the solitary life was possible for only a select few women who could somehow obtain an education and earn a decent living—or who had their own means.

Interview with a Pioneering Scientist: Dr. Sarina Grosswald

Dr. Grosswald has a doctorate in education, is an expert in cognitive learning, and president of SJ Grosswald and Associates, a consulting firm in medical education in Arlington, Virginia. She is a leading authority on

Kids Need Meditation Too: What Children Say About the Transcendental Meditation Technique

There was a time during second grade, when I didn’t want to go to school. Not because I was a poor student or didn’t like to study. I actually loved school. The problem was that we had just moved to a new neighborhood where two girls my age lived—only they made it crystal clear that they didn’t want to be friends with me.

Even though the situation was resolved and the three of us became friends by the end of the year, I see now that I was under a lot of stress during that time. My family had actually moved twice in two years—once to a rental home and then to our permanent, brand-new home in a different school district. I was a sensitive kid and being ostracised was hard on me. So I reacted by getting sick a lot, or in at least one instance, pretending to have a stomach ache, just to avoid the whole situation.

Writing With and Within an Awareness of Silence

Anyone can write. When we write we spill the mind onto the page—we see the mind, we see our thoughts. This seeing makes us the see-er of our thoughts. There are our thoughts on the

Living From Your Heart: Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum Shares Her Passion for Women’s Heart Health

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that there is a shift in medicine taking place—not only because patients are demanding more natural, preventive approaches, but because a new generation of doctors is leading the way.

No one embodies this new paradigm of medicine more than Suzanne Steinbaum in her incredibly readable book Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum’s Heart Book: Every Woman’s Guide to a Heart-Healthy Life. As an MD, a cardiologist, the Director of Women and Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, and a spokesperson for the American Heart Association’s Go Red Women campaign—Dr. Steinbaum has the credentials. And because she speaks with the authentic voice of experience about how to live a healthy life—in her book, on her website and blog, as a columnist for Huffington Post, as a featured guest on 20/20, Good Morning America, and major networks, and as the host of her TV show, Focus OnHealth—women are listening.

Turning Fear Into Love: A Mother Tells Her Story

When you meet someone as happy and radiant as Flavia Finnegan, wife, mother and career woman, it’s hard to imagine that she ever felt fear or trauma. Yet traumatic events can happen to anyone.

Flavia, now 40, grew up in Brazil and as part of her undergraduate work as an international business major, she spent a year studying in Stockholm. “I felt safe and protected there,” she says. “I loved learning in a completely new environment, experiencing different food and colors and weather. I felt blessed to have those experiences.”

Feminine Nature?

Within ourself, in our own consciousness, we can enliven what is sometimes called the creative, nourishing, feminine aspect of nature. But what does it mean? How do we experience it? What does it do for

A Writer’s Perspective: An Interview with Sasha Parmasad

Sasha Kamini Parmasad, an educator, visual artist, and award-winning writer, is the daughter of a Trinidadian historian-poet-songwriter and a lawyer who devoted many years of their lives to the struggle for social justice. Sasha began composing poetry at age five and began performing her father’s Indian folk songs, poems, folktales, and calypsos before thousands in her native country from age six.

Her novel, Ink and Sugar, placed third in the national First Words Literary Contest for South Asian American Writers (2003) and her poetry placed first in the annual Poetry International Competition (2008). Her collection of poems titled No Poem: A Divine Rising will be published this year (2015).

Flawless

In the March 24 NY Times magazine section there was an article by Parul Sehgal called “How ‘Flawless’ Became a Feminine Declaration”. Most of the article is dedicated to the current uses of the word,

Cultural Harmony through Women and the Five Fundamentals

Last fall at a local college campus, the laughter from a group of diverse students caught my attention. They were from various cultural backgrounds: Hispanic, African American, Asian, European/Caucasian. A young man approached them—large, ebony, with intellectual-looking glasses—and was greeted with surprise and a high five by a skateboarding-toting Hispanic student. They exclaimed that they remembered each other from middle school. I watched as a young Caucasian woman shyly approached the students and was welcomed with quiet greetings. An atmosphere of lively friendliness and harmony radiated throughout the whole area.

I thought— what a refreshing counterpoint to today’s clashes between various cultures in our society!