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The Seven Cycles of Life: Seeking Healing, Connection and Justice in Anishinaabe Teachings
From John Borrows, a pioneering legal scholar, educator and member of the Chippewas of the Nawash First Nation, comes a heartfelt book of transformative wisdom on how to achieve the loving life and deep and lasting connections we all yearn for.
John Borrows, who grew up on a farm in southern Ontario, was the first in his family to go to university. When his own daughter was leaving home, he began to write her letters about how to create a fulfilling path through life, drawing on his own experience and learning. Those letters have grown into this captivating memoir and meditation, which deeply engages with the natural world, treaty law and the Anishinaabe teachings about the Seven Cycles of Life that Borrows learned from his elders.
The seven cycles—the Good Life, the Fast Life, the Wondering Life, the Truth Life, the Planning Life, the Doing Life and the Elder Life—describe life's stages, but they aren’t linear; Borrows describes them as swirling together, from childhood to old age, revealing the most complex aspects of existence and the most perennial questions about how to live. His storytelling helps us recognize these seven cycles in our own lives, revealing beauty and meaning in both the mundane and the profound.
Borrows also offers us precious ways to connect with each other and ourselves and to broaden our sense of community to the natural world. He reminds us not to sit comfortably with what we think we know, but to embrace the reality that we are not perfect, and that others are not perfect. If we truly understand human imperfection, he writes, communication and love can flow.
The Seven Cycles of Life is a profound expression of wisdom from an extraordinary man that guides you toward a deeper understanding of how to live with intention, compassion and harmony—simultaneously warming your soul and challenging you to be more than you are.
John Borrows, who grew up on a farm in southern Ontario, was the first in his family to go to university. When his own daughter was leaving home, he began to write her letters about how to create a fulfilling path through life, drawing on his own experience and learning. Those letters have grown into this captivating memoir and meditation, which deeply engages with the natural world, treaty law and the Anishinaabe teachings about the Seven Cycles of Life that Borrows learned from his elders.
The seven cycles—the Good Life, the Fast Life, the Wondering Life, the Truth Life, the Planning Life, the Doing Life and the Elder Life—describe life's stages, but they aren’t linear; Borrows describes them as swirling together, from childhood to old age, revealing the most complex aspects of existence and the most perennial questions about how to live. His storytelling helps us recognize these seven cycles in our own lives, revealing beauty and meaning in both the mundane and the profound.
Borrows also offers us precious ways to connect with each other and ourselves and to broaden our sense of community to the natural world. He reminds us not to sit comfortably with what we think we know, but to embrace the reality that we are not perfect, and that others are not perfect. If we truly understand human imperfection, he writes, communication and love can flow.
The Seven Cycles of Life is a profound expression of wisdom from an extraordinary man that guides you toward a deeper understanding of how to live with intention, compassion and harmony—simultaneously warming your soul and challenging you to be more than you are.
352 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 26, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
This book unfolds as both a personal memoir and a reflection on Anishinaabe wisdom. While each cycle is described as representing a life stage, much like the writing itself, it is by no means a linear projection. There are points where the writer’s Christian faith blurred the messaging for me. However, while it was not the story I was expecting, it remains a worthwhile exploration of perspective from an Indigenous author speaking their lived truth.
August 5, 2026
A beautifully written book based on Indigenous teachings. Short essays and stories leaning into grief, spirituality, governance, parenthood. I would go as far as to say it should be a must read for every settler slash Canadian.
September 18, 2026
3.5 ⭐️
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews