One of my favorite activities is going to B&N, grabbing a book off the new book shelf, and settling down in the cafe with a chai (officially banned by my doctors due to heart palpitations, the tall size seems to keep me under the caffeine limit that sends me to the ER). Today I found Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd (Secret Life of Bees) and her daughter Ann. It is the story of their journey together to Greece, with Sue approaching 50 and menopause and Ann wondering what to do with her life after college. They are both journeying within and without, and the wonder of the book is the revealing of that which is typically not seen and not spoken. It is an intimate portrait of two lives, at different stages, going through similar processes as they search for wholeness. It makes me wonder at the universality of the quest for wholeness. What is it that impels us to reach beyond? Where does the small voice that says "um, something is not working here" come from?
In my own life, as well as my budding coaching practice, I am seeing instances of people who have outwardly very secure lives, who are in the process of throwing it all over because there is something that simply cannot be tolerated anymore. What magnificent and terrifying power that small voice has, that can cause us to leave jobs and relationships, that sometimes makes us willing to walk through hell in order that we can come to a point of greater alignment... perhaps the need is simply to be able to rest more comfortably in ourselves.
While Traveling with Pomegranates would seem to be a book for women, for mothers and daughters, I suspect that on some level the search for wholeness presented here will resonate with anyone paying attention to their journey.
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