The Mourning After is obviously about reincarnation. I used to try to keep that a secret since the narrator takes a long time figuring that out. But what the heck; it’s all over the ads, and detailed on the back of the book, so I guess I can tell a few friends now anyway, huh? Three companions are caught up, through many cultures and lifetimes, in an entwined cycle of harsh tragedy and wondrous love.  They fight desperately to destroy the one without losing the other.

The book I am beginning now, Ailana’s Gardens, takes place in one lifetime, centering around healers and healing. When I ask unseen guides what it’s about generally, though, I keep getting stuff like, “There is so much pain in the world. The trick may be to find why this particular suffering is yours; why it came to you. Find what lies beneath it. You are not here to run away, but to find deeper truths it may carry within it. What are you now ready for? What may you finally be able to let go of? How are you ready to grow? And the most important question; As you heal, can you help others in the process?”

Today, the concept that greeted me was, “Suffering offers itself to us as a process of birth. Only by finding the stillness in the chaos, the light in our own darkness, can we unfold what we are here for, and how to work miracles as we set about making a difference in the world”.

I keep flashing on that scene from The Robe, where Richard Burton’s troubled Roman centurion character searches out an early Christian who had been crippled until she’d met Jesus. The Master had gone in and spent private time with her and healed her. Burton finds the girl, but sees she’s still lame. She tells him how miserable she had been, but now she radiates such peace and joy that her Light changes everyone near her.

She sees that she is more than her legs. She is thrilled to feel love again, to be alive and helping others.