Gift From the Sea

I am currently reading this book, Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She is the wife of Charles Lindbergh. This book's copyright date is 1955! My aunt gave me this book because she said I just had to read it! I have discovered that even though it was written in 1955 that it still translate to year 2008. The book was written by Anne after she spent some solitary time on an island. She compares many of the items that she found along the beach, shells in particular, to the way we feel as women. What I really noticed is that Anne went to this island because her day to day life of being a wife and a mother drained who she was as a person. She realized that in order to bring that balance back she needed to go and be alone to revive her inner person. As her weeks ended on the island she rediscovered herself and all that she had to offer to this world. Here is what she says about the moon shell:

"Moon shell, who named you? Some intuitive woman I like to think. I shall give you another name-island shell. I cannot live forever on my island. But I can take you back to my desk in Connecticut. You will sit there and fasten your single eye upon me. You will make me think, with your smooth circles winding inward to the tiny core, of the island I lived on for a few weekes. You will say to me "solitude." You will remind me that I must try to be alone for part of each year, even a week, or a few days; and for part of each day, even for an hour or a few minutes in order to keep my core, my center, my island quality. You will remind me that unless I keep the island quality intact somewhere within me, I will have little to give my husband, my children, my friends or the world at large. You will remind me that woman must be still as the axis of a wheel in the midst of her activities; that she must be the pioneer in achieving this stillness, not only for her own salvation, but for the salvation of family life, of society, perhaps even of our civilization."

What have you done lately to achieve solidarity in your life? How do you find your center core, like the center of a Moon Shell?