FORTY: Die To Be Reborn 2017
FORTY is a spiritual memoir about turning forty, dying to the personal self in order to be reborn into one’s true nature, and a brief swim in Source. Over the course of my 40th year, I learned Source (God, Creation, whatever your name for it) is not an abstract thought, but a lifestyle and ever-replenishing experience of the river of beauty and ecstatic joy that is in and around all of us. The first months of FORTY document a gradual breaking apart of the crust of my human identity. Then the fun stuff starts around Christmas, naturally, accompanied by joy, love, light and beauty.
The personal mind is no place to live. There is another way, another life. And it is beyond beautiful.
FAR FROM BROKEN: A Mother Unhorses Evil
FAR FROM BROKEN is a memoir about the abuse of our infants, coming to terms with the existence of evil, and the healing power of nature and family.~
What is true: Our precious newborn twins, Grace and Kalvin, slept in the nursery adjoining our bedroom in Park City, Utah. With ten swift steps, I could be at their door. I could have stopped it, had I known.
What is also true: Behind that door, the nurse we hired to help us care for our infants a few nights a week, a thirty-one year old woman with superb credentials, extensive experience with multiples, a ten-year veteran at a premier Salt Lake children’s hospital, purposefully and grievously injured our children.
Worse, Kalvin and Grace were not the first infants she had abused. Six months before coming to work for us, the nurse had broken the bones of two-week old twins in Belgium before fleeing the country in the middle of the night to avoid prosecution.
The resulting ordeals, including our twins’ treatment and recovery, the woman’s arrest and protracted criminal trial (and the ensuing legal and media circus), and the journey to heal our psychological and spiritual wounds—which for me was companioned by a reining horse named Woody—form the armature of FAR FROM BROKEN. The memoir is also a touching extended eulogy for my grandmother whose fierce resilience and wisdom guided me through the trauma.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIVING: Stories, Lessons & Letters
A series of twenty-five personal narrative stories followed by a letter to Kalvin and Grace reflecting a life lesson learned from the experience. Topics include fear, pity, abundance versus scarcity, true listening, pity parties, travel, spiritual teachers, waiting to get married, loving trees, expectations, hockey lessons and love.