Already Home

I started writing my second book the day after I finished my first book.  My terror was palpable.  I fully imagined I would never write again if I stopped.

I find that remarkable— I just kept writing.  I was not able to give myself a day of celebration or relief or closure.  Oh, well.  That happened, as my friend Terry says.

This was probably 500 years ago, in 2008.  

It’s a blur, this-book writing thing:

• How long did each book take?  
• How did I face that blank computer screen?
• Did I have a concept, a plan for each one?  (I must have, right?)
• What did I think I was actually doing?  
• What was I actually doing?

I do remember feeling more purged, that a deeper dive was being called for in this second book.  The first book, Recovering My Voice, seemed to be about things I had already processed.  My second book, Already Home, Stories of a Seeker, seemed to offer me and call from me the processing of untouched and unintegrated situations.

And I never—NEVER read my writing after I send it out into the universe, into your in-boxes, in the case of my books, into my editor’s arms.

NEVER.

And I never—NEVER—talk about my books.  Never once.  I certainly have never written about my books or the process of writing them.  This is a first.

You all out there, you are good for me….thank you!

I’ve been ticked and engaged by the idea, by my idea, of reading your stories from my books, dear friends.  So, as I peruse this second book, Already Home, I am chuckling.

And chuckling some more.  

I appreciate and believe in the title.  We are—we are already home. We strive and strive and try and push and shove.  To get spiritual.  To get yogic.  To get happy.   To get love.  To get money.  To get safe.  To get, to get….fill in your blank.

And we are already there.

It’s a great cosmic joke.

Here’s part of my favorite chapter, Shopping with the Guru, from Already Home.

It’s complicated to explain the guru, Amrit Desai, and his role in our lives in those ashram days. It’s complicated to explain the ashram.  It’s like a language that doesn’t quite translate.  I am willing to try.  Those of us who love Kripalu, who call it our hearts’ home, and those of us who have not even visited, to all of us, I want you to know the shoulders upon which the organization as we now know it stands. 

It stands on the shoulders of the ashram.

Here’s Part One of this chapter, Shopping with the Guru.

Enjoy.

Listen Here.

~~~

To celebrate the freedom of this July 4th, to honor and respect all that we have been given through this time of such trial and confusion and transition, here is clearly, hands down, my favorite song.

A hymn, a blessing, a plea, a hope, a longing.  George says it for me: