Instructions for Living

About Instructions for Living

Soak up award-winning poet Mary Oliver’s musings on living a fulfilling life with this beautifully illustrated deck of fifty cards meant to uplift and inspire wonder.

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Mary Oliver touched countless readers with her tender, accessible poetry, expressing her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Her verses deftly wove close observations of nature with an evergreen state of wonder. She regarded the outdoors with awe, encouraging readers to step outside and breathe in nature’s glory.

This deck of fifty inspirational quotes, all pulled from Oliver’s oeuvre, offer bite-sized pieces of life advice—from simple directives like “as long as you are dancing, you can break the rules,” to the entirety of her ode to interpretations of heaven, “Yellow.” “Come to the pond,” she implores, “and live your life.” Pull a card each morning for daily reflection or display a card on the included stand, returning again and again to the simple insight of Oliver’s words.

With delightful nature drawings alongside Oliver’s celebrated verses, Instructions for Living provides readers an intimate opportunity to engage with Mary Oliver’s inspiring words, day after day.