91-year-old Agnes Østvand publishes her debut book – memories of a long and challenging, but also enterprising life. A life of emotionally cold marriages. A life as the occupier of the first women’s house in Denmark. A life of struggle for the cause of women and for the conditions of oppressed and battered women. Life as a spiritual seeker that takes her around the world and so far into herself that she can see both meaning and new direction.
Red stockings, occupiers and start-ups of the first women’s house in Denmark are just some of the ingredients in Agnes Østvand’s 91-year-long and eventful life today. In her memoir Three Lives in One, Agnes Østvand (b. 1931) tells the present and honest story about this and her other long life, which falls into place in three intense parts.
The first part is Agnes’ traumatic childhood with a manipulative mother as well as her time in orphanages and private care. This part of the book is also about the lovers of youth and self-doubt after growing up without loving parental care. It’s about emotionally abandoned men and becoming a mother in an icy marriage. It is also about the gender norms of the ’60s and the oppression of women in the labour market, which arouses the rebellion in Agnes.
In the second part of the book, Agnes becomes a red stocking and part of the women’s movement of the 70s. She occupies a house in Copenhagen and moves into a collective. Then moves to Jutland, where she signs up for the newly opened centre for battered women to fight actively and persistently for women’s rights.
Three Lives in One is also about experiences with UFOs, about starting a newspaper in Vejle and about trips to Nepal, Assisi and Findhorn – and having to get over a son’s suicide.
The spiritual opens up for Agnes in the third part of life, where healing, astrology and dream interpretation as well as the encounter with and courses of her spiritual teacher, Bob Moore, occupy her.
But most of all, the book is about looking yourself in the eye with courage and honesty at 90. About taking on inner demons, psychic wounds and a life that was harder than most others. About forgiveness. And about landing in a place that makes sense deep into the soul.
Agnes Østvand currently lives in Silkeborg, where she has spent the past few years writing her memoir, which was published on 31 August 2022 by Forlaget Ignatius.
The author is happy to be available for interviews about the book and his life.
Author: Agnes Østvand
Title: Three lives in one
Publisher: Ignatius Publishers
Price: 239 kr.
Buy the book: Send an email to agnesostvand@gmail.com
Sitting in current is a personal process that touches into very deep and personal layers. At the same time, you are currently part of a larger healing and development process. At the same time, you receive and contribute to the healing. The challenge and key word for many people in this process is trust. Trusting that this invisible spiritual energy is there for us and working with us in the way that is best for each individual at the given time.
/Eva høffding