Published: Oct. 8, 2021
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[The text below included an incorrect email address when it was published the first time. The address below should now be correct.]
At 90, two years ago, Marybeth Webster published her memoir, Tasting Awe: My One Life. I have just read this book and feel as though I have journeyed with someone through many lives.
Marybeth is an artist, activist, mother, educator, traveler, survivor, lover, student, “peace pilgrim,” seeker, Quaker, art therapist, facilitator of workshops, founder of community projects, “better angel” and more.
With her first husband and children, she lived for several years in Costa Rica and Honduras, then in Hawaii, until there was a dramatic and painful end to that relationship and she opened herself to new possibilities and paths.
The impetus for her year-long “peace pilgrimage” was a young grandson’s fear of the world’s disintegration by a nuclear bomb or destruction of the environment. Marybeth
happened to come across a workshop on “Despair and Empowerment” and took this notion on her travels in a mini-motorhome throughout the United States to engage individuals and communities in discussion and activism. She developed a slide show with interviews from the pilgrimage and showed that in many locations, including New Zealand and Australia.
Later, she felt led to move to Arizona, near Douglas in Cochise County, to see how she might work with border issues. We can read here how she came to found, fund, and foster the community project called DouglaPrieta Works / DouglaPrieta Trabaja (which has received some support from Intermountain Yearly Meeting and Pima Meeting over the years). Now Marybeth lives in Oregon, always engaging with a new community.
Tasting Awe is a frank personal memoir, amply illustrated with bright collages, significant examples of Marybeth’s way of translating spiritual and earthly connections.
If you would like to order a copy, please contact Marybeth at: marybwebs[AT]gmail[DOT]com
from Judy Ray, Pima Friends Meeting (9/27/2021)