About this title: Anne Morrow Lindbergh's GIFT FROM THE SEA is a wonderful gem--a treasure in the sand, to use her own metaphor--that has been in print since the 1950s. The wife of Charles Lindbergh (the first man to fly across the Atlantic ocean), whose baby was kidnapped in the famous "Lindbergh Baby" case of 1932, Anne was something of a modern-woman prototype. Charles's copilot and navigator on many pioneering air trips, she wrote several books about their adventures. This is the most popular of all her writings, however. A treatise on self-discovery written during a long beach vacation, GIFT FROM THE SEA ...
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Date Published: 1991
ISBN-13:9780679406839ISBN:0679406832
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 132 p. Previous Owner's Inscription. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780394557434ISBN:0394557433
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. Previous Owner's Inscription. read more
"First written in 1955, this book was written on a brief solo vacation by the author. Amazingly the author used the imagery of shells as a symbol of the different stages in a woman's life. The author composed some meditations for the various stages of life: youth, aging, love, marriage, solitude, peace and contentment. Especially memorable was a section of "simplifying one's life", and to take to to reconcile our personal needs without feeling guilty about doing something for us.
For those of you who are not familiar with this lovely book, the author was a mother, and wife to pilot Charles Lindbergh. Although the book was first written some 55 years ago, the message is still important to today's modern woman It is important to finds personal fulfillment in life. You must find the right balance and inner peace within yourself, before you can share those qualities with others.
This little gem of a book should be read by every woman trying who tires to do everything for everyone. This is my second time reading this book. Highly Recommended"
"Some books are so good that my own words feel inadequate to do them justice. Gift from the Sea is one of those books. Lindbergh's writing is so rich, her thoughts so clear, her images so powerful, that my own words pale in comparison.
Gift from the Sea is comprised of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's musings on her life, prompted by shells she finds during a private retreat on an island. Each shell she selects describes a certain phase of life. The 50th anniversary edition that I read had an afterword by Lindbergh, written on the 20th anniversary of the book's publication. In the afterword, Lindbergh expresses surprise that writings that started as a way for her to work through her own feelings had found such a broad audience not only when the book was published, but decades hence. I wonder if she would be surprised to know that 50 years after the book's publication, her book still touches and moves, even for someone like me who was born shortly before her book turned 20.
Gift from the Sea is a quiet book. I read one chapter each day. I often intersperse non-fiction reading with fiction reading. Normally, this is because non-fiction books are unable to hold my attention. But I read Gift from the Sea slowly in order to savor it. I wanted to let each chapter sit in my mind. I wanted to ponder the images instead of moving quickly through them. I wanted to make this book last because it was so beautiful.
I have a feeling I'll read Gift from the Sea again. It is, indeed, a gift."
"I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Her writing is soothing, enlightening, and full of wisdom and beauty.
Some of my favorite quotes: Woman's life today is tending more and more toward the state William James describes so well in the German word, "Zerrissenheit--torn-to-pieces-hood." She cannot live perpetually in "Zerrissenheit." She will be shattered into a thousand pieces. On the contrary, she must consciously encourage those pursuits which oppose the centrifugal forces of today. Quiet time alone, contemplation, prayer, music, a centering life proceeding from oneself. It need not be an enormous project or a great work. But it should be something of one's own."
"It is fear, I think, that makes one cling nostalgically to the last moment or clutch greedily towards the next. Fear destroys 'the winged life.'...When the heart is flooded with love there is no room in it for fear, for doubt, for hesitation. And it is this lack of fear that makes for the dance. When each partner loves so completely that he has forgotten to ask himself whether or not he is loved in return; when he only knows that he loves and is moving to its music--then, and then only, are two people able to dance perfectly in tune to the same rhythm."
"The present is passed over in the race for the future...The here, the now, and the individual, have always been the special concern of the saint, the artist, the poet, and--from time immemorial--the woman. In the small circle of the home she has never quite forgotten the particular uniqueness of each member of the family; the spontaneity of now; the vividness of here. This is the basic substance of life.""
"I remember seeing this book upon my mother's shelf when I was a child. The title intrigued me, I always wanted to find pictures of the sea inside and I wondered what sort of gift the sea could give. There weren't any pictures and the text didn't interest me, so I would always put it back a little disappointed.
Now that I am a woman and a mother, I found great wisdom in the text and I know now the gifts that the sea gave to Lindbergh, intangible and yet so vibrant and applicable. The sea and a few small precious beach treasures help her to look deeper into herself, to find what she can do to make her life a more simple and profound thing. She wants to be able to move with the flow of life, like the tide, ever willing to change and adapt, willing to let something new become the norm until some other new stage comes along.
Her writing is more than lyrical, it is profound and effortless. She sets the struggles in our lives out on a blank slate and reconciles them with the necessity of living in the here and now seeing those struggles in the context of a greater purpose. I loved her discussions of the ebb and flow of marriage and other relationships and how desperately important it is for each individual to find time alone to ponder and reflect, to fill up our wells once again so that, especially as mothers, we have enough to give to those around us that need us. And with that thought, I will end this with a quote:
Now, instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter, and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone."
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