A Sacred Summer: Healing a fractured childhood through bringing old stories to light. in Bloomington, MN

On the day after my 13th birthday, my mother died. The day my mother died everything changed. And I mean everything. Within the space of four weeks, the home we'd lived in was packed up and sold, and after flying 2,000 kilometres south from the wide, open countryside to the complexities of city suburbia, my little sister and I were sent to live with different parts of the family. Oh, and I started high school. All in all, it was an abrupt, tearing, tearful parting. It felt like a door slammed on that chapter of my life... Hermetically sealed, never fully integrated into the following chapters. I pined for the lands of my childhood for years, but I never went back. It was on my 'to-do' list all right, but what scars would going back re-open? Would stifled grief, all black and ugly, come pouring out? Would going back liberate my ghosts, or unveil new ones? I wanted the answers to these questions... But, honestly, I was scared... Then, when I was 26, my estranged father died unexpectedly. Death changed everything again. But this time I was an adult, this time I was the conscious leader of my own adventures. Opening the potential Pandora's Box of my past became really, really important. Being loudly reminded of the fact you will be dead one day has a tendency to shake your priorities up a tad! It was time to go where the pain was and heal it, once and for all. This is the day-by-day story of the summer of 2012/2013, my 'Sacred Summer'. I went back, I finally went back... And it was one of the most intense journeys of my life... ***The sequel to my first book '100 Days of Morning' (Which chronicled the 100 days of 'radical, loving change' directly following my father's unexpected death in mid 2012.), this second book Living Book 'A Sacred Summer' is both a continuation of the first and a stand alone story in its own right. My style is a mash-up of Bridget-Jones'-Diary-meets-Eckhart-Tolle-meets-Rumi. It's 'everyday life' flavoured liberally with irreverent spirituality, sprinkled with kernels of deep truth and knowing, and spread decadently with lashings of love! Given that I'm a passionate foodie and can't seem to avoid the food metaphors, let me say this - These words, these stories, will feed you well. Yes, my friend, they will feed you well!