I have had the experience common to many women, of needing to define myself and to find my self-esteem as a person, not simply as somebody's wife or mother.

I don't think of compassion as sympathy but rather as empathy. An understanding of how people are feeling, which often translates into action.

It is important to learn from other women. We have a lot to offer and to learn from each other out of our separate and common experience. The sisterhood (including the boilers - the old chooks!) is important to me. The dialogue between women is a rich field, but change does not come without a lot of reading, asking, listening, risk taking and hard work.

I have had the experience common to many women, of needing to define myself and to find my self-esteem as a person, not simply as somebody's wife or mother.

Women who have had more opportunity to develop their own strengths and talents, or who are quite satisfied and content in a traditional role, unfortunately don't always understand that many women aren't satisfied or content.

Wisdom is partly innate and partly developed and practised. It's about a lot more than just knowledge: experience, involvement, communication, interaction with people. Wisdom is a way of being.

Beautifully Bleak. I likened the hills encircling Canberra to the sea. They, like the sea, could be a sunny beguiling blue, or deep and inky. They could be distant and mysterious, or beautifully bleak as the wind tore across the plains from their snowy peaks. The hills were ever changing like the sea.