Sing a Silver Song

Hello and welcome to the ninth edition of The Ferocity Letter, a softly fierce Sunday note for visionary women—and everyone who supports them.

My mission is to empower you to trust your intuition and communicate with presence, clarity, and resonance.

Every other week, I share field notes, practices, and words from women.

This week’s letter is about sovereignty, voice, and the quiet power of love.

My parents were married beneath oak trees in Salem, Oregon, in the warmth of early August 1973. A music box with a boy and girl on a carousel going around and around was playing the tune, “Love Makes the World Go ‘Round.”

I have always thought these lyrics speak to a higher truth about the nature of our universe: “High in some silent sky, love sings a silver song, making the Earth whirl softly, love makes the world go ‘round.”

I no longer think of ‘silver’ as a casual word in that song. Silver is associated with soft power—the kind we wield when we are in concert with the world. Silver is a sign of collective wisdom. It reflects light. It is the color our hair turns when we age.

I had mine colored this week, a ritual that means more at age 50 than it did at 40.

Women are beautiful whether we color our hair or not, of course. It’s a personal choice, like the clothing we choose to wear or the attitude we choose to inhabit. We all ought to be able to express ourselves in whatever way makes us feel strong, beautiful, confident, creative, capable, joyful, or however else we want to feel.

I was born brunette and as I age, more silver is appearing mixed with the brown, especially around my temples. I choose not to cover my grays entirely, but I do get a twice-yearly blend with a blonder shade. It creates the illusion that my hair is lighter where the sun hits it, and you can’t easily tell the difference between which strands are silver and which are light brown or blonde. They all look a little lighter.

Who knows what I’ll be doing with my hair at 60. My friend who owns the coffee house here on Orcas Island has the most stunning long silver hair I’ve ever seen. I absolutely love it.

At the salon, a woman in her early 30s was in the chair next to me getting her brown hair trimmed while my stylist was finishing me up. As I went to pay, I overheard the woman tell her stylist, “I’ve been finding a few gray hairs! My first ones!”

Her stylist congratulated her and warned, “Don’t you pluck them out!”

The young woman gasped, “Oh, I would never.”

It’s a tiny salon, and we were the only four people in the room so I couldn’t help but softly blurt out the first thing that came into my mind.

“Those are strands of sovereignty.”

I surprised myself with this description, but it felt right. And it led to a conversation in which I shared that my strength coach, Amanda, who trains women in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond, calls this our Queen Era. Queen because we are not ready to be crones yet, but we’ve outgrown the maiden and mother personas.

We are sovereign.

We all agreed what our country needs now is to be led by a circle of sovereign grandmothers. “Matriarchy is going to be better for men, too,” said the stylist. “They’ll live longer and be happier.”

I said goodbye as we all cheered for women remaking the world, and the little bells on the door jingled as I closed it behind me.

Our sovereignty is made clear by how we express authority over our own lives. It is how we do our hair, how we move through the world, where we choose to place our attention and time and money, and perhaps most importantly, how we use our voice.

In the last few weeks I have had some wonderful conversations with women who are communicating with great love and great power—and teaching us all how to do it better.

As I sit here to write, it is Valentine’s Day and I am in awe. I am looking around my life and wondering, how on earth did I manifest this growing network of powerful women who lead with love? Keep it coming, universe! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I want to share four of these women with you right now because they are each teaching us how to better sing our silver songs with love and power. Their work is worth your time.

• Samara Bay is the author of Permission to Speak: How to Change What Power Sounds Like1 and I am delighted to call her a new friend. She helps Hollywood movie stars integrate good acting with good accents, and she coaches rising leaders speak in a voice they recognize as their own to truly make waves. I had the honor of listening to an early practice version of a powerful talk Samara will soon give at TEDx Culver City on February 26. The details are not mine to share, but friends, I was in tears. Go read her book and watch for her TED talk.

• Katherine (Katie) Dudtschak has written a forthcoming book, Sincerely, Katherine. Life, Gender, Inclusivity, and Leadership for the Future.2 Meeting her felt like kinship. Katie is one of Canada’s most recognized corporate executives. She achieved success at the highest levels, yet something essential was missing. At 50, she made the courageous decision to affirm her true self, coming out in front of 80,000 colleagues, as an act of leadership. I had the good luck and honor of reading her book in advance. It releases March 31—part memoir, part call to action for humanity—and it resounds. She gives us the keys to unlock human potential by understanding and honoring the entire spectrum of human uniqueness, and by leading with love. Go pre-order Sincerely, Katherine., and prepare to be transformed.

• Tara Mohr is the author of Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create and Lead.3 I’m participating in her six-month Playing Big course and receiving so much. This week’s lesson was about communicating with power and one takeaway was the recognition that when we can hold both our warmth (love, care, understanding) and our competence (professionalism, strength, authority) at the same time, we are communicating with true power. I recommend her book, and her course, to anyone interested.

• Ashley Mac Isaac-Butler is a grounded guide for women moving through inner change, transition and becoming. We were introduced last summer, and I finally had a chance this week to participate in one of her unique quarterly virtual offerings, The Threshold. It is a live, guided, hour-long pause to listen inward to what is arising in life at this moment. She holds space beautifully and her subtle energetic approach is warm and healing. If you are looking for this kind of quiet, spirit-level support, go visit her.

Beyond the salons, stages, books, and spirit work, this same silver sovereignty and power is visible in graver arenas.

The news here in the U.S. this week included multiple Epstein survivors being in the audience together at a House Judiciary Committee hearing where Attorney General Pam Bondi was called to testify on Capitol Hill4.

The courage and tenacity of their presence are as powerful an example of ferocity as I’ve seen, and it stirred something in my heart. You can feel courage by watching others be courageous. Banding together, they are speaking truth to power with a deep, directed, transformative energy that is neither reckless nor hostile, but rooted in purpose, clarity and care. It is the power to disrupt what harms, protect what matters, and shape what comes next. It is fierce love.

They want what we all want. A world where children—all children—are safe from the kind of harm that was done to them.

On another front, I have been moved to tears by people in Minneapolis who are singing out ICE, and singing in care for their immigrant neighbors, chanting, “They belong to us, we belong to them. Every one, oh every one, oh every one of these people are ours and we are theirs.”5

When we communicate from love like this, people pay attention.

Samara writes in her book that speaking up requires the courage to “reject the old conceit of a chasm between speaker and audience at all,” and instead engage in a dialogue of what matters to us, what we share, and what we want in common. “It’s saying, ‘Let’s care about things together’.”

Love is strong. It brings light and reveals truth. It is what makes the world go around, in every sense of the phrase.

And something shifts when we speak from our wise hearts.

1. Notice Your Silver.
   What wisdom is showing up at your temples—metaphorically or literally?

2. Choose Power.
   In your next meeting, conversation, or post, ask yourself: What would it sound like to hold warmth (love, care, understanding) and competence (professionalism, strength, authority) at the same time?

3. Care Out Loud.
   Say one thing this week that makes it clear you care about what they care about.

4. Honor the Becoming.
   The next time you notice a new strand of sovereignty in yourself—aging, grief, anger, intuition, experience, wisdom, love—honor it. This is your authority making itself known.

When women trust their ferocity, they remake the world.

Thank you for reading The Ferocity Letter.

I write these words to encourage and empower you—and because I need them, too.

May we remember that love makes the world go ‘round—and fierce love changes it.

Until next time, trust your ferocity.

— Laura

P.S. Nominations for the 2026 Fortune Most Powerful Women list are due February 25.

P.P.S. My friend Megan at Catalyst sent me this stone, and it arrived today with a beautiful note, and I teared up again! I’m calling it “The Ferocity Stone” and keeping it on my desk where I’ll see it every day. Thank you, Megan.

Laura Lowery is an advisor to visionary women. A communications strategist, writer, and founder of Light Advisors—she partners with purpose-driven leaders at threshold moments to give voice to your vision, elevate your presence, and empower you to communicate with clarity and resonance. Learn more: lightadvisors.co