Book Club: Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Gift from the Sea was published in 1955 by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Although more than six decades old, it feels just as relevant today as it did before. Lindbergh examines what it means to be a woman, particularly a mother, in an ever changing social and political landscape. She explores a woman’s growth through various ‘gifts from the sea’: Channeled Welk, Moon Shell, Double Sunrise, Oyster Bed, Argonauta, A Few Shells.
Here are a few of my favorite passages:
“I find that there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious.”
“…to prove ourselves the equal of man, we have, naturally enough perhaps been drawn into competing with him in his outward activities, to the neglect of our own inner springs. Why have we been seduced into abandoning this tireless inner strength of woman for temporal outer strength of man?”
“For there is no one and only…just one and only moments”
“And what is actual is actual only for one time and only for one place”
“When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment…We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity…The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not n demanding or expecting not in hoping, even.”
This is a beautifully written book that can be easily read in the span of a weekend. I highly recommend it for any women at any stage of life. Lindbergh reminds us to turn inward and embrace the gift of each moment, not holding on or possessing, but cherishing these one and only moments.
Read this book here.
For more reading recommendations, check out my current Reading List.
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