The Six Arts of Confucius: Lessons for Later Life
Earlier this week I wrote about attending the Confucius Festival. It was a fascinating experience, but for me it didn’t feel quite enough. Later, looking back at one of the photographs I’d taken, a poster listing the Six Arts of Confucius, I realised I wanted to know more. Some of the arts made sense straight […]
Finding Calm at the Confucius Festival
This week I found myself at the Confucius Festival in Gloucester. I hadn’t planned to write about it, but the experience stayed with me. There was food, conversation, drumming, even a puzzle involving numbers – yet what lingered most were the lessons about community and responsibility between generations. I thought I’d share a little of […]
Rethinking Later Life Living: Could University-Based Communities Work in the UK?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we might reimagine where, and how, we live in later life. A recent article I read sparked this reflection: could university-based retirement communities (UBRCs), which are becoming popular in the U.S., offer something similar here in the UK? Or do we need to think differently, finding more […]
Living in a Maasai Village, part 1
Back from living with a Maasai tribe, and ‘off grid for over 2 weeks. I’m home and in a state of wonder, and tiredness for what I have experienced. I have travelled extensively around the world for over 17 years, but never before have I had such a deep connection and such a sense of […]
What is your (non-financial) legacy
Many people think legacy is meant for those who have a lot of money and are known as philanthropists. Or they are people such as Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa, activists and saints doing important work. But we can all leave a legacy. Whilst we are likely to leave money to family and other […]
A personal story – Birthday Reflection
This video tells you about how I spent my 65th birthday
Celebrations of a ‘big birthday’
On 29th August I’ll be 65. This was the age men got their state pension and, as female, I should have had mine for 5 years. But things changed and I’ll now get mine in a year. Recently I’ve been thinking on birthdays and how to mark them. For my 50th I had 3 big […]
Life endings and death … Life is full of endings …
Life is full of endings – the end of a day, end of a book, end of a period of study, end of a relationship, and the end of life. When I reflect on retirement, I also consider the related areas of ageing and dying. Spending time in the natural world we notice this clearly […]