Slow Love for Swans Island The story Dominique Browning tells in her book Slow Love has become iconic. In 2007 she was given four days notice that House and Garden, the magazine she had edited for 13 years, was folding, and that she was no longer employed. Slow Love is the story of how she came to understand that this forced transition was a gift. Exiled from Manhattan she began to garden on the coast of Rhode Island, and to see her life through new eyes. “I was tired of clenching my fists around hope. Finally I let go. In return I found peace. And gratitude.” We have been inspired and fascinated with her journey, what she calls falling “open to the miracle of this world”. Dominique recently spent some time in midcoast Maine where she was “reminded of this Slow Love idea: Create!” We were one of those creative enterprises she visited and were happy to receive her at the Swans Island studio. Her description of her time here was typically gracious. Our approach for the past 20 years has been the same: do things right, slowly and with love, and the rest will somehow fall into place. Dominique has articulated this thought in a personal and universal way in Slow Love.
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