TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE BOOK:
October 2024 update: I’ve been playing with the following two titles for this book I wrote, and these days I think I’m leaning towards the former. Do you have a preference? Please let me know in the comments below.
The Rising of the Divine Feminine and the Buddhist Monks Across the Road: A Memoir
Becoming Friends with the Buddhist Monks Across the Road: a Memoir of Reclaiming the Divine Feminine
by Camilla Sanderson
What is the story in THE BOOK?
This spiritual literary memoir, about a Manhattan couple who disappears into the nether regions of New Hampshire, and learns about life and love from a group of Thai Forest Buddhist monks, is perhaps where WINTERING: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May (Riverhead Books/Random House in 2020) meets THE ACCIDENTAL BUDDHIST: Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still by Dinty Moore (Algonquin Books, 1997) with a little of THE ROAD FROM COORAIN by Jill Ker Conway (Knopf/Random House in 1989.)
Jamie was the Executive Director of systems architecture at JP Morgan, I was V.P. of subsidiary rights at Penguin Young Readers, and when hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc—a 100 mile walk around the massif that straddles parts of France, Italy and Switzerland—Jamie experienced his first symptoms of a debilitating illness.
In the wake of his diagnosis and treatment of a malignant tumor above his heart, we escaped our high-stress New York City lives to take a sabbatical in TreeTops, a decades-old log-cabin in the woods of Southern New Hampshire.
Serendipitously, I was led to study world religions in a local interfaith seminary program. Then, just as we considered moving back to city-living, a group of Thai Forest Buddhist monks moved in across the road.
I grew up in a counter-culture family in Australia, in a home built by my parents that was only accessible by water. Jamie’s American upbringing had been more conventional. But developing friendships with the Buddhist monks across the road, made us both reckon with the cost of buying into the overarching culture’s demand for high productivity and endless consumerism.
The memoir is a counter-narrative to the dominant patriarchal culture, for readers who are longing for a balance between being and doing; yin and yang; feminine and masculine; all of which are simply energies that exist within us all. The patriarchal hierarchies in our culture have suppressed the Divine Feminine for too long and it is time to alchemically transform those old wounds into personal and spiritual growth, and manifest into being a planet in harmonic balance.
More and more people are waking up to the fact that when we do not live our lives in balance with the energies of the Divine Feminine and the Sacred Masculine, energies that indigenous faith traditions have honored since time immemorial — Mother Earth and Father Sky, Brother Sun and Sister Moon — we become unbalanced and we pay the price of stress, so often leading to illness in body, mind, emotions, and spirit.
Through re-claiming the divine feminine, we bring back the balance; offering a spiritual response to our present ecological crisis.
Author’s Note:
I have serialized the below chapters of the BOOK here on Substack. If a chapter is not linked below, it means it has not yet been revealed — the only narrative thread you will need to wait to read until the book is published in physical form, is the love story of how and when Jamie and I met in 1989.
When I first began writing this Substack in September 2022, chapters were free to all subscribers. But then I released chapters to read for free until one month after publication, at which point they are moved behind the paywall. If you like what you’re reading and want to start from the beginning, I urge you to buy a subscription to keep reading — perhaps you can think of it as though you’re buying me a coffee to support this art and craft of creative non-fiction writing.
To make sure you don’t miss anything, I invite you to subscribe.
Copyright © 2023 by Camilla Sanderson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or reprinted without the author’s written permission.
PART ONE: Crisis Transmutation
PART ONE shares the spiritual gifts inherent in two journeys. A braided narrative tells the story of Jamie’s journey through cancer, and Camilla’s journey through interfaith seminary.
Chapter 1. New York City, October 2010
Chapter 2. New Hampshire, April 2012 (One and a Half Years Later)
Chapter 3. Before the ER, September 2010
Chapter 4. New York Presbyterial Hospital, October 2010
Chapter 5. Circle Leadership, New Hampshire, September, 2012
Chapter 6. New York City, October 2010, Biopsy Surgery
Chapter 7. Sadhana, New Hampshire, October 2012
Chapter 8. New York City, October 2010, Waiting for Diagnosis
Chapter 9. Courage, New Hampshire, October 2012
Chapter 10. The Nature of Life is a Terminal Diagnosis
Chapter 11. Treasures, New Hampshire, December 2012
Chapter 12. New York City, November 2010, Diagnosis
Chapter 13. INNER CRITIC, New Hampshire, March 2013
Chapter 14. New York City, November 2010, Choices
Chapter 15. The Bhagavad Gita, New Hampshire, April 2013:
Chapter 16. New York City, Chemotherapy
Chapter 17. The Bhagavad Gita and Healing, New Hampshire, May 2013
Chapter 18. New York City, December 2010, Chemo Crisis
Chapter 19. The Dance of Will and Surrender, New Hampshire, June 2013
Chapter 20. New York City, 2011, Chemo Completion
Chapter 21. Ordination, New Hampshire, 2014
PART TWO: Growing Up
PART TWO braids two coming-of-age narratives: Camilla growing up in a home accessible only by water in Pittwater, Australia; and Jamie and Camilla young adulting in New York City.
Chapter 22. Pittwater, Australia 1978-1988
Chapter 23. New York City, November 1990
Chapter 24. Lovett Bay: North, South, West, East
Chapter 25. TreeTops, New Hampshire, December 1990
Chapter 26. Pittwater, Father, and Freedom
Chapter 28. Pittwater and Sailing
Chapter 29: A “Real Job” in New York City
Chapter 31: Ideal Boss, New York City, 1995
Chapter 33: Moving Back to Sydney, 1998
Chapter 34: Dark Night of the Soul, Sydney, 1999
Chapter 35: The Mother Wound and Inner Authority
Chapter 36: New York City Again
PART THREE: Lotus Friendships
PART THREE is a braided narrative of Lotus friendships: using the Lotus metaphor to show that we grow and blossom because of our muck, not in spite of it.
One narrative braid tells the story of a Thai Forest Buddhist monastery taking root across the road from TreeTops — our decades-old log cabin in New Hampshire — and developing a Lotus friendship with a 36-year old monk; the other braid tells Camilla and Jamie’s creation story – the blossoming of a lotus love story🥰
Chapter 38. Temple Forest Monastery, 2013
Chapter 39.
Chapter 40: Meditation and Dhamma Talks
Chapter 41.
Chapter 42: Becoming Friends with an American Buddhist Monk
Chapter 43.
Chapter 44: Presence, Conscious Awareness, and Sexual Energy
Chapter 45.
Chapter 46: Buddhist Monks and Nuns
Chapter 47.
Chapter 49: TreeTops, February 2018 (including an Epilogue)
For your title, I have always believed the first idea is the best.
I do love your writing Camilla, and prefer the newer title. More approachable, friendly? I'm not a writer at all, so just going by how the titles feel to me. ♥️