Tasting the Moon

Book excerpt: This is the story of a "no holds barred" pathway through life-from the author's eccentric childhood, through the tumult of the 1960's, to the ashram of Adi Da Samraj, the spiritual teacher she encountered in the 70's. With disarming and raw candor, Meg Fortune McDonnell recounts the ego-deaths and transformations she went through as she followed her unorthodox teacher around the globe-and to uncharted spiritual dimensions not located on the map. To connect her riveting confessions to current events, McDonnell draws on references from "Vanity Fair" to "The Buddhist Bible" and Alanis Morisette to Ramana Maharshi, deftly tracing the recent epoch of our collective spiritual quest along with her personal adventures. The three decades McDonnell spent under the tutelage of her enigmatic teacher were filled with sometimes hair-raising, sometimes hilarious, ultimately uplifting explorations of everything, including: what vampires tell us about the taboo against the spirit and what it really means to be "sexually liberated," healing debilitating Oedipal wounds and thawing the icy character that freezes out love, uncovering new gender roles and empowering female strengths, dancing as tribal prayer for world peace, recurring and mysterious synchronicities, what true beauty is-in art, friends, & avatars, and blessing meant for everyone. A fascinating life, masterfully told.