This is Ken Wilber's most personal book. In it he tells the story of his relationship with Treya, who became his wife four months after they met. Ten days after the wedding, she was diagnosed with a breast cancer of the fiercest kind. This is revealed to us by page thirty, the remaining three hundred and eighty pages recount the five years leading up to Treya's death.
Needless to say, there was no time to mess about in this relationship. The permanent shadow of death threw Ken and Treya quickly into the depths of their most dark and luminous recesses. In these depths there is an incredibly strong bond between two great souls, who happen to be a man and a woman.
They therefore had to deal with gender issues: her dependency, her breast being removed, the impossibility of her having a child, his decision to stop working in order to support her, his emotional withdrawal, his drinking, and his violence. These are milestones strewn along a path that took them through a radical transformation.
My emotions followed their journey. My hope rose with theirs, my anger and despair rushed out as the disease was recurring, my heart opened when Treya's beautiful sprit rose as her body was decaying.
Ken's account is intertwined with Treya's diary. Her will to heal, the power of her love of life, and, in the end, her death have been carrying me and made my little daily ailments seem so petty.
Ken adds some of his key teachings which come alive illustrated by his experience during these five years. He challenges strongly New Age beliefs about how one makes oneself sick, and, fortified by his experience, he gives advice to people who find themselves in the role of supporting another. When I closed this book I was sobbing very profoundly, and I knew I had read the most beautiful book I will read in my life.
Christiane Champendal
Copyright © Achilles Heel Collective
