Through all these changes my social and political views have remained astoundingly steadfast. I have been true to the principles of nonviolence, deve… - Joan Baez

(If you could speak to your younger self, what would you tell her?) Take it easy. Take a break. Relax a little.

My personal life has also been complicated-and public-though I am beginning to find more of a sense of peace and self-acceptance than I ever thought possible. Once I wanted to be married and have heaps of kids scrambling around me, licking cake mix off eggbeaters and riding Saint Bernards through the kitchen while I cooked stew over an open fire. Alas, those images bore no relation to my areas of competence, and since my marriage to David Harris dissolved in January of 1974 I have lived mainly alone, with occasional romantic interludes, the best of which are magical and splendidly impractical.

I tend more towards Buddhist and Native American thought. For me, the spirits are quite real.