Category: Long Life Mary Oliver

Dear Friend, What a joy it’s been to visit with Mary Oliver. She, like Ocean Vuong, Kurt Vonnegut, Virginia Woolf, and select others, always makes me feel like I’ve come home again. I think this final part of Long Life might have been my favorite, since it was the most personal and intimate. While each…

Part Two of Oliver’s Long Life is titled, “Wordsworth’s Mountain,” which also happens to be the title of the first chapter in this part of the book. She begins again with the act of observing the world, something I’m beginning to suspect will always be her entry point, and perhaps her primary gift or teaching…

Dear Friend, The first part of Mary Oliver’s Long Life is titled, “Flow.” Its sub-sections include “Flow,” “Habits, Differences, and the Light That Abides,” “Poem: Can You Imagine?” and “Three Histories and a Hummingbird.” But, what is flow, according to Oliver? I’m still not sure I know. My best guess is that what flow means…

Dear Friend, Today, we begin our contemplative reading of Mary Oliver’s Long Life: Essays and Other Writings. I’m a huge fan of Oliver’s poetry, so I’m looking forward to venturing into her prose writing as well. Why Contemplative Reading? Contemplative reading asks us not just what we’re learning about the book in our hands (or ears),…