A week more of summer, and then the new year.





I've always felt inside that autumn should be the first season, but I’ve dismissed the feeling as school-year conditioning or the product of my love for Yom Kippur.





Fiona Robyn’s new book, A Year of Questions: How To Slow Down and Fall in Love with Life, helped me understand what I may have sensed all along at some level. The seasons model a soul’s progression, and the soul’s journey starts in something like an autumn.





Fiona’s book is like that: it’s full of realizations that seem to come from within me and not from her. Fiona is a therapist, and her book is good therapy.





We prepare in autumn. We clear space, we start to take care of ourselves, and we let ourselves become curious. Curiosity helps us find out who we are, Fiona concludes. Winter is the hard side of transformation, when we learn solitude and face our fears. Spring puts self-discovery into action. We take risks based on what we’ve learned about ourselves. Summer is life at its fullest. We learn to slow down and to live in the present.





Each of the book's seasons has three monthly themes and thirteen weekly emphases. A week may be a tribute to a disc jockey who selects music he really wants to share or a story about gifts of a meal and flowers that reminded her of how easy it is to reach out to others. Each week has questions for reflection, suggestions for activities, and thought-provoking quotes.





Fiona is a poet as well as a therapist, and A Year of Questions mixes a poet’s delight in language, story, and irony with a good therapist’s sympathy, guidance, and light touch.





Fiona’s language moves from the general to the gentle, from the abstract to the image that captures an idea for both the head and the heart. I’ve skipped to week 43 (I think she understands readers who ignore her chronological format). For that week, Fiona introduces us to Dave, who has been gardening for 63 years. Dave has never made much money, and almost no one understands what skill and labor is required for him to maintain the private gardens for his employers. But she concludes:





He works because he loves to. Because he’s still learning. Because he has high standards and takes pride in seeing the results. Because a robin has recently taken to perching on his wheelbarrow and getting a free ride.





Fiona’s writing is at once grounded, imaginative, humorous, gentle, and gracious. She’s never above her reader. She’s open about her own struggles, but she’s never self-deprecating. Even her acknowledgements are a work of art and examples of real gratitude. Her book’s presentation and writing style is as peaceful and joyous as its content.

I eagerly awaited arrival of my copy of Fiona's book - and I was not disappointed. I have been a subscriber to Fiona's newsletter for some time and value her clear and thought-provoking style of writing.



I am dipping into her book whenever I have a moment for reflection, and I will be buying a copy for my niece in New Zealand for Christmas - at her request after she read my review in my newsletter.



Thank you Fiona!

A few days ago I bought Fiona's book, A Year of Questions. I've been dipping into it regularly over the past few days, and I'm really enjoying it.

Fiona writes humourously, and authoritatively, with a personal touch.

I thoroughly recommend it.

Fiona Robyn's new book “A Year of Questions: how to slow down and fall in love with life”, promises to be a great read for those who appreciate a sympathetic companion on the road to intentional awareness.

I have enjoyed Fiona's sharp eye for the overlooked and missed treasures of each day regularly recorded on her ”a small stone” blog. Fiona has the enviable ability to capture salient feelings, insights, and humour in a few choice words. Her gentle encouragement to face the complexities of being who you are is a happy antidote to the many voices trying to convince you to be someone you're not. Her friendly voice and cheerful enthusiasm are infectious.

I also like Fiona's honesty, and she starts her book the way I wish all books started, with a clear outline of what to expect from, and how best to use, the book. She wonders aloud about her reader, and through this wondering I felt included. What a thing to be included right from the start of a book. She gives her credentials, and answers the “why should you listen to me” question. Have you ever wondered, “Is this author's advice coming from an academic understanding, personal experience, or both?” Fiona tells you right from the start. Like a good writer should, she has ingested whole years of words, ideas, observations, and poetic turns of phrase, from countless books, and synthesised it all into accessible prose, studded with observations from her daily life. The beauty of literature married to the experiential.

Each selection starts with an anecdote or experience from Fiona's life, followed by some questions and a suggestion for the week, and a couple of choice quotes. The questions are not the sorts that have yes or no answers, they are the kind that make you look into space while your inner eye probes the neural web of your heart, coaxing out answers that you want to find. There are themes that run through the book such as simplicity, the importance of reflective thinking, and making friends with the difficult bits of you.

As part of the age-old and newly discovered wisdom of adequacy, Fiona appears to believe that her reader has the answers to the questions she put forth. Think how nice it would be to spend a year with a fellow traveler like that!