Product Description
by Willow Harth (Author)
"If you thought you knew all about Elvis, prepare to be astonished." Diane Wolkstein, Author of "The First Love Stories: From Isis and Osiris to Tristan and Iseult" and Contributing Editor to Parabola "There is something wholly original, almost magical about 'My Summer With Elvis'" Editor, Scribner Publishing Harth's memoir, My Summer With Elvis-Spiritual Teachings From The King, repeatedly surprises as it chronicles this unlikely romance-she's nearly fifty and he's dead. On a sultry Sunday early in June, Willow Harth's love affair with Elvis begins. As she sits silently in Quaker meeting, Elvis in all his spangled glory appears. Despite her resistance, in his ecstatic embrace the earth moves and the heavens speak. Elvis seems an unlikely teacher, but as he reaches out his hand to her, she reaches back. Dancing with Elvis in their nightly trysts, she finds a rapture that permeates each waking moment. He becomes her constant inner companion whether she's spending long hours reading every Elvis book she can find, or introducing her skeptical friends to "Elvis yoga." Even when the sleazy details of Elvis's life gradually overwhelm her delight, love ripens into compassion. Through Elvis, she discovers both a spiritual path where body and soul meet and greet, and the love that love's one's neighbor as oneself. "Elvis," she writes, "puts Saturday night and Sunday morning in the same time zone." For readers of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth Gilbert, and for Elvis fans everywhere. Willow Harth is an artist and therapist living in Madison, Wisconsin. Cover photograph by Paul Thoresen, PhD Cover computer graphics by Marcia Schenkel
Author Biography
Willow Harth, BA, MA, MS University of Wisconsin, is a former fourth grade teacher and radio show host. She is an artist and therapist and has been a partner at Omega Psychology Center in Madison, Wisconsin since 1990. She calls what she does Inward Bound: a thrilling, disillusioning, loving and creative adventure into oneself and back into the world. The real journey of discovery is not about new lands, but new eyes. "I try (not always successfully) to approach the delicate work of relating to another person depth-to-depth with excitement and humility. The excitement comes from being with someone on a quest for wholeness and wellbeing. The humility arises because, although I am steeped in psychotherapeutic tools from cognitive behavioral therapy and the science of emotional intelligence to Buddhist meditation and the tarot, I hesitate to straightjacket anyone in "one size fits all" answers. My intention is to allow healing modalities to arise spontaneously as we explore inner and outer worlds together. The presence I hope permeates the air we breathe is that of the contemporary Jewish mystic, Martin Buber. "Everyone waits shyly and expectantly for the 'YES' from another. For it is from one person to another that the heavenly bread of self-being is passed."
