Unitarian Universalist Retired Ministers and Partners Association presents its 2024 Creative Sageing Award to Carole Martignacco
Former teacher and religious educator Carole Martignacco retired from parish ministry in 2019, after over two decades serving congregations in Minnesota, Quebec, and Vermont. During her Canadian ministry, she served as President and Vice President of UUMOC and on the CUC Board; she also designed and conducted training workshops for lay chaplains all across Canada. During her ministry she published The Everything Seed (Tricycle Press 2006), a contemporary origin myth, as well as a meditation manual Open to the Spirit (AuthorHouse 2018) based on her weekly interfaith newspaper column. Since retiring she heeds her own counsel to reclaim an earlier version of herself as poet and artist, continuing to expand her creative life as a writer in myriad ways:
- Exploring reprint possibilities for The Everything Seed in English, Spanish and French, in softcover and as an e-book;
- Publishing her first full-length poetry collection entitled A Bowl of Orange Suns (Shoreline Press, QC 2021);
- Founding the Fundy Bay Writers in New Brunswick, offering regular poetry readings and twice-monthly online writing workshops;
- Teaching writing and other workshops, both in person and online;
- Creating and editing Eco Lyrics of Love and Lament, an anthology published in cooperation with the local Sunbury Shores arts center;
- Serving on the executive board of Haiku Canada;
- Publishing Teasing the Times (Yarrow Press, QC May 2023), a collection of 100 haiku. She writes a daily haiku as spiritual practice;
- Creating and editing Porch to Porch, a maritime haiku anthology;
- Continuing to write a weekly column with interfaith colleagues for the Record newspaper in Sherbrooke, QC (since 2014);
- Leading interfaith retreats and designing e-book meditation manuals in the spirit of her first one, Open to the Spirit: The Soul’s Alphabet;
- Leading worship from time to time, often on Zoom — “a modern miracle”;
- Offering Labyrinth retreats and earth-based events at a local church;
- Launching a new project focused on grief following the death of her husband David Turner in May 2024, employing the 5-line Japanese tanka poetic form.
Deeply committed to improving her craft, Carole maintains a list of projects above her computer, including a memoir in poetry of her years as a single parent, work on five e-books based on her “Open to the Spirit” newspaper column, distilling decades of sermons to a series of one-pagers, and continuing to build a wider community of artistic collaborators. She loves to encourage others’ creativity.
Carole is passionate about claiming this stage of life as richly fulfilling.
“One way I’ve found to keep energy from lagging in these truly ‘golden’ playful years is to go with the flow. I have more creative projects than I can ever hope to complete.” Creativity brings a perpetual renewal of wonder, joy and awe, which serves as her own fountain of youth. She stands by Bob Dylan’s adage, “The purpose of art is to stop time.”
Carole’s wide-ranging creative endeavors writing, publishing and teaching, as well as her passion for drawing people into creative community, inspire us all to follow her lead in keeping creative energy flowing. We are pleased to honor her with UURMaPA’s 2024 Creative Sageing Award.
Presented by her UURMaPA colleagues
at the Fall Conference, October 23, 2024