I was really excited about the insight this book offers about the later stages of life and some of the characterizations we see about this in folklore and other stories. I found it very compelling until it slipped into a long, sort of meandering tirade invalidating trans women. Stating that trans rights are human rights and in the same breath asserting that they essentially cannot be considered women is weird and gross. Maybe I’m the wrong age, maybe the author and I are too many generations separated, maybe our realities and understanding of the universe is too different, but this book did not work for me.

Heather will offer an experiential workshop on dance movement medicine for the embodied elder. All movement at your own pace and interpretation.In her trademark mythopoetic style of writing sharing deeply researched folk legends from our very own British Isles, and with a wild and deep attachment to these lands she inhabits, this book will remind you of just how powerful and transformative this midlife journey we are in truly is.

As much as I thought this would be an interesting feminist book about empowerment in your older age, this author does not seem at all connected to my same reality. It doesn’t even seem to be feminist, just a woman’s book talking about their own experience and interpretations of the world. The author fits the narrative they tell to their reality and comfort level, not all the women archetypes or myths to show other ways of being. I love this book. It’s mind-blowing in the most profound and exhilarating sense. This is an anthem for all we could be. It’s an essential book for this, the most critical of recent times. I sincerely hope every woman who can read is given one, and has the time and the space to read it.’ Manda Scott, author of the best-selling ‘Boudica’ series and ‘Into the Fire’

Manda Scott has spent a lifetime combining spirituality, creativity and activism. From her earliest novels, through the Boudica series and beyond, her writing has always had a subtext, available to those who wanted to access it. Since the early years of the new millennium, she has taught shamanic dreaming, always with a focus of action out in the world: ‘What do you want of me?’ is the core question – and in her personal experience, has always led to deeper connection to the web of life combined with more concrete action in the world. It seems entirely fitting that Anne Baring, at the grand age of 91, should be the inaugural guest teacher for our Hagitude program. Anne is one of the great pioneers in the work of reclaiming the divine feminine. I’m honestly amazed that someone who speaks out against the patriarchy and who values women’s spaces and who sees how truly marginalized women are cannot see the how her perceived threat - by THE most marginalized segment of society - mirrors the way men under patriarchy are threatened by the women they oppress.