I’m devouring it.  My friend Amy Pearson and I are so excited about this juicy tome of magical magicalness that we’re throwing a party in four dimensions.

If you live in Portland, come join us in person!  If you live anywhere else, join us on the great wide internet!  We’ll be broadcasting a live stream (that means video that you can watch online) of the party itself, as well as having a Twitter party. Everyone who joins us virtually will be automatically entered to win some seriously bad-ass prizes.  (A course for approval addicts, a free reading with an expert astrologer, Shiny Object School, 21-day Business e-course, Queen Sweep DIY, and more.)  Not to mention that you might get to see us twirl people and bend spoons. (Don’t let that scare you.  Oh, all right, maybe just a little.)

To get the scoop on the festivities, go HERE to watch a little video we made.  You’ll want to sign up there whether you’re planning to join us in person or virtually.

Sometimes people ask me what the big deal is about Martha Beck.  I think they’re worried that I’m part of some weird cult.  It is sort of embarrassing sometimes to get so excited about my mentor that I actually start bouncing.  But if this is a cult, it’s the most joyful, open, non-clutchy cult I’ve ever been part of.  There’s a pretty good story behind how I encountered her books, and I wrote it up for everyone who joins the book party.  Here’s a snippet from that story:

***

For some weird reason, I really didn’t want to read Expecting Adam.  People kept handing it to me, bringing it up, mentioning it to me.  And I got more and more irritated.  I didn’t care who Martha Beck was!  I didn’t even watch Oprah!  I wasn’t interested in childbirth, Down syndrome, or Harvard!

And yet there it was.

The copy my friend handed me.

Sitting on my nightstand, blinking at me….

Picture me reading it late at night curled up on the icy tile of my bathroom, sobbing so hard I had to stuff my fist in my mouth to keep the keening sound down.  Picture me throwing it across the room, furious that it had awoken such pain in me.

Not because it’s a sad story.  Not because I’d ever been through a difficult pregnancy or had a child with Down syndrome.

But because it plucked such a chord of longing in me that I almost couldn’t bear it.

I’d stuffed my longings down for years.  I’d loyally plodded through the wretched marriage, the deadening and humiliating job, the faithful service to a religion I had come to loathe.  And I intended to keep doing it, dammit!  It was the Right Thing To Do.

Until Martha came along with her story that brazenly declared that gritted teeth and white knuckles were not the only way to live.  Until she spoke of a connection with a spiritual world so sweet that suddenly I was five years old again, standing out in a garden and believing that I could hear the flowers singing to me.  (They sang gold, if you were wondering, but I had renounced such pagan trysts like the good Christian girl I was trying to be.)

I was seriously pissed.  There was no room in my carefully locked down life for such a wild hunger.

***

To read what happened next, sign up for our book party over here.  Once you’re signed up, you’ll receive my story by email, as well as Amy’s first encounter with Martha.  And, naturally, you’ll receive all the book party deets.

*Post-edit*  The book party is finished, but the book is awesome.