These poems come sometimes in the middle of the night while I’m barely awake, other times in meditation, while riding my road bicycle or when I sit down to my writing practice. They are the sacred gifts of my odyssey back to wholeness from a debilitating nervous breakdown in 1992. The poems are presented within the framework of the heroine’s journey. Initiatory, shamanic, mystical by nature, this is a soul journey of the wounded healer. The heroine recognizes her depression as an invitation from her subconscious self to go back through her pain. She sees she has a choice to shed her attachment to victim and to reclaim her fullness or remain immobilized by fear. Leaving everything she knows behind, the heroine descends into the underworld, facing the deep feelings she most wants to avoid, alone. She meets each buried past trauma, experiencing death, dismemberment, and complete ego annihilation. While her identification with victim-hood dies, her wholeness reveals, intimately unveiling her true identity. Her original Self, her joyful untouched essence becomes available for embodiment, breaking the spell cast by physical, emotional and mental memories of past trauma. She ascends from the underworld with gifts, bringing new wisdom and new understanding back to her community, to share, teach and guide others in their quest for Truth. These poems invite you to trust turning your gaze within, offering comfort, reassurance, inspiration, encouragement and a lay of the land from a sister on the journey. I hope you find them a blessing on your worthy heart. Read Less