Pagan teacher and author of "Slow Time," Waverly Fitzgerald talks about rethinking her relationship

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 1/28/8 | David Ian Miller

[SmithL]

Lately it seems that many of us are living as if we are over-caffeinated hamsters on well-greased exercise wheels.

We run and run as fast as we can and still don't manage to arrive at our destinations. At the end of the day there are still a slew of chores undone on the to-do list. We struggle to find time to savor the company of our loved ones, enjoy life and relax. Our physical, emotional and spiritual needs often are abandoned due to the demands of modern life.

Spiritual teacher and author Waverly Fitzgerald believes we'd all benefit by changing our ideas and relationships with time. In her new book, "Slow Time," Fitzgerald, who has written for Beliefnet and Sage Woman magazine, provides exercises and ideas intended to inspire people to align themselves with nature's natural rhythms — night and day, the monthly lunar cycle and the yearly solar round — rather than living their lives to the frenzied beat of industrial time.

I spoke with Fitzgerald, 56, about the benefits of living in harmony with seasonal cycles, her own struggles with the tyranny of the to-do list and the universality of nature/time centered celebrations in the world's religious traditions. She lives in Seattle.

How did you get interested in slow time?

I'm one of those people who always has more things to do than I have time to do them in. I'm a writer, so I have all these creative projects I'm trying to complete, and I was getting frustrated about not getting things done. So I started looking at all the time management books and tools that existed — and I found that no matter how ardently I implemented those ideas, it still wasn't getting me more time.

[SmithL]

- Waverly Fitzgerald

[onedoug]

Not guilty!