Written by Priya

Following on from our book presentations at orientation day 2, I felt inspired to read this book. Karan, a fellow intern, spoke about this book and its storyteller narrative. I felt like this writing style would be attractive to me as I often enjoy reading books which are more informal in nature, and in this case I was correct. This book so far has been a gloriously easy read. It follows the author, Dr Rachel Remen, as she reminisces in her life stories and as she remembers her Grandfathers legacy.

I don’t tend to buy many books first hand for a few reasons; environmentally I feel sort of guilty if I were to buy a book new whilst knowing there is a preloved copy with the same story out there looking for a home and also secondly, through buying secondhand books you get to in a way connect with the previous owner. I was pleasantly surprised when I received my copy of this book in the post because all along the margins and on the inside cover there were lovely little handwritten scribbles. At the start there was this note on the first page saying “Kathy, with all our blessings! -Scott and Melanie”. There was also a little section called “Pages of Importance” in which they, i’m assuming this was Scott and Melanie, wrote out a few passage references which they liked most. I love these and cannot wait until I reach these sections! Will they be equally as important when I read them? In fact I thought the passage on page 6 which they flagged was beautiful. I’m going to share some passages and sections which I really liked and what I would include in my pages of importance xx

• A blessing is not something that one person gives another. A blessing is a moment of meeting, a certain kind of relationship in which both people involved remember and acknowledge their true nature and worth, and strengthen what is whole in one another.
  page 6
  
  
• As life becomes colder and somehow harder, we struggle to create places of safety for ourselves and those we love through our learning, our skills, our income. We build places of security in our homes and our offices and even our cars. These places separate us from one another. Perhaps our only place of refuge is in the goodness in each other.
  page 10
  
  
• We can bless others only when we feel blessed ourselves. Blessing life may be more about learning how to celebrate life than learning how to fix life
  page 18
  
  
• Grieving is not about forgetting. Grieving allows us to heal, to remember with love rather than pain. It is a sorting process. One by one you let go of things that are gone and you mourn for them. One by one you take hold of the things that have become a part of who you are and build again.,l;l
  page 38

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