Peggy Thayer died suddenly on Jan. 5 at her home in Island Grove, two days after her 56th birthday. She lived there with her partner, Sandy, of 22 years. She was dearly loved and cherished by her partner, her parents, her siblings, friends and by her ever enlarging Island community.

Peggy was the first born to Roger and Jane Thayer of Sengekontacket in Oak Bluffs. In her youth she was a curly blonde joy, who loved school and was always scholastically tops in her class. Peggy was a “quester,” seeking answers for herself to the essence of life and her role. She described herself as an artist and student. Yes, she was an inspired artist, a lifelong student and a creative thinker, seeking her own sense of the spiritual life. “I look at the object, I begin to find the colors. Sometimes I even talk to the colors . . . gradually, as the process continues, I begin to become the object . . . feel what the object feels like, being itself,” she said. Many will remember her yearly Art of Healing shows which she conceived and presented here on the Island.

Leaving the halls of Clark University, where she was encouraged to go after high school in Maryland, she responded to her own call for artistic expression at Goddard College, finding her own healing in the freedom of her visual art. She asked, “What is the spiritual nature of being creative?” Her path always led her to seek learning; she received a master’s degree in consciousness studies at JFK University in San Francisco and a Ph.D. in East-West psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. In her own words: “My creative process involves bringing into form an unseen feeling, idea, insight. The way in which the idea will manifest is not always known ahead of time. It is a process of forming that this ‘something’ takes shape. In painting, it is an interplay between myself and the object I am portraying . . . I am the brush, the paint, the stroke, the cliff . . . I am connected to the earth and the unseen, the source.”

Peg was the office administrator for the Unitarian-Universalist Society of Martha’s Vineyard, where she was co-facilitator of mindfulness (Buddhist) meditation.

Most recently through an online, interactive 12-week course titled Anti-Oppression, Pastoral Care, and Aging, led by a Unitarian-Universalist pastor in California, Peg found social significance in the spiritual faith.

She was center director for transpersonal and consciousness studies at Akamai University in Hawaii. She has published two books which are still in print, one titled The Experience of Being Creative as a Spiritual Practice; the other titled Elderescence: The Gift of Longevity, which she authored with her mother. This winter, with joy and intent, she had embarked on the journey of being a teacher for the ACE program on the Island.

Though at times it was hard, she always had a resolve to follow her dreams. She loved the Island and most recently expressed happiness with her life. We have to believe that in death she has found her spiritual home.

Her friend wrote: “Peggy told me just recently that she had attained a goal of living without resistance and it was for her, exquisite. From here she experienced the world with pristine clarity and utter acceptance.”

Survivors include her partner, Sandy; her parents, Jane and Roger; her brother, David, a physics professor at the University of Wyoming; her younger sister, Cyndy, a legal clerk for the U.S. Department of Justice in Cleveland, Ohio; a nephew, David 2nd, of New York city; and Laurie, her longest dear friend, Providence, R.I.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent in Peg’s name to the Featherstone Center for the Arts, 30 Featherstone Lane, P.O. Box 1145, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557 Oak Bluffs.

A memorial gathering will be announced in early spring.