READ TWO EXCERPTS "The stories we live are our greatest teachers.  In this gift of a book, Kira Higgs shows us how ordinary moments in every day light our way."

Words are often elusive when it comes to matters of the spirit. Perhaps it’s best that way. Trying to describe spiritual inspiration or encounters with the divine tends to diminish them. Some even say that a mystical experience, by definition, defies description.

I don’t disagree.

At the same time, I think we would do well to try to talk more about it. To listen to more voices—not just those of the anointed, the scholars, and the spiritual celebrities with book deals and massive social media followings, but also those of ordinary people on a path, making their way, discovering mysteries of who they are, gaining glimpses of the cosmos across the moments of their life. The more that people of different cultures, different countries, and different spiritual traditions speak up about their personal and shared experiences, the more we all stand to learn from the living spiritual traditions that blanket the earth. Especially if we can discuss our experiences with words that guide us into the same tent rather than segregate and separate. We’re in need of voices that can build bridges and help us understand how we each taste and feel the world.

When I started writing a book in the summer of 2020, I didn’t have all this in mind. The world was four months into a pandemic. My husband and I were following instructions from our governor in Washington state. We were sheltering in place. My husband was antsy and eager to get on with a trip to Japan so he could officially launch his retirement travel. My work as an independent consultant had slowed. I figured I’d take advantage of the pause in the economy to enjoy quiet desk time. I was an experienced writer, having published articles, Op-Eds, and blog posts, and I looked forward to the new challenge of creating a book. I’d take a run at describing the techniques I used with organizational clients to unlock ideas and develop strategy. So, I began writing.

On day two, the wind blew out of the sails. This was not the book that wanted to be written. I sat at the computer surrounded by abject silence. Penning a business book had seemed like such a natural next step. By mapping my methods, I’d have something to share with up-and-coming leaders who couldn’t afford to hire me. Virtually anyone would be able to access the gems of my personal knowledge base.

This book wanted to be something quite different. Disguised as prose, it quickly evolved into an offering, an ode to the spiritual tradition I consider my true home. The point of writing wasn’t complicated. The guidance was clear.

Talk about your spiritual journey.

Reveal how you traversed chasms, by choice, not waiting for calamity to strike.

Include others—the sages and contemporary journeyers—who know a thing or two about entering the unknown.

Focus on a tiny audience. People who dare. Who thrive on the fire of aspiration and the voltage of higher realms.

Don’t write about seeking.

Share the story of what it’s like to find what you sought.

Offer them the gold.

Tom Brady, according to interviews and lore, treats his body like a temple. I don’t go that far, but I have a version. Purified water is nonnegotiable, organic produce fills my grocery cart, and my protein sources often don’t include red meat. Exercise is vital—to build stamina and give me an outlet when I’m emotionally charged.

When I was stressed out by one of my corporate jobs, I integrated massage into my regime. Again, not daily like Brady. I went every other week. Until my masseuse tipped me off.

“If you did yoga, you wouldn’t need massage.”

I was lying face down on Albert’s table as he kneaded out my back. He was a tall, hulking figure with thick dark hair and long, muscular fingers. He saw clients in his home. His other income stream was as a yoga instructor at a swanky athletic club in Portland.

I didn’t care for the tip and barely mumbled “Hmmm.” I liked the passive feeling of being cared for, of someone else taking responsibility for how I felt for three hours a month. Yoga sounded like work. Albert let the idea go. Until the next visit, and then the next. Given his dual occupation, he had the cred to make such an assertion. At the very least, it was worth considering.

At the time, I ran communications for a national insurance company. Tony, my peer in investor relations, proposed that my team oversee production of the annual report. I took it as a vote of confidence and agreed, despite never having done one. After all, if the accountability belonged to my department, we’d figure it out.

Early in the project Tony began showing signs of doubt, questioning almost every step and every deliverable. Advancing the project was painstaking, not because of the work itself, but because of our incompatible styles. My team was creative, Tony was analytical. We were fluid, he was methodical. While the learning curve was predictable, managing Tony’s ever-growing concern was not. If at any moment the ship wasn’t battened down—or didn’t appear to be battened down—his temples tensed and his voice tightened. He viewed the report, rightly so, as a tool for strong positioning among investors and analysts. He raised the idea, midstream, of having an outside firm take over. It took a toll on the team lead, and eventually on me. I spent more time reassuring him we could get the job done than actually doing it.

Late nights piled up as we toiled through concepting, drafting, editing, reviewing and revising the report. The final product left a positive impression with Wall Street analysts who mattered. My team, however, had residual bruises. Recovery didn’t come from my usual outlets—cycling, weightlifting, gardening. It came, unexpectedly, in an aerobics room that doubled as a yoga studio, three blocks from the office.

One Tuesday evening at 6:40 p.m., I walked away from the project to take my first yoga class. In loose sweats, I claimed the far corner of the dimly lit studio, as far from the instructor as possible. He was a slight man of few words; his style was to show, not tell. We started with breath, lying on our backs, arms to our sides, observing our chests as they rose and fell. After about ten minutes, he demonstrated how to elongate our bodies on the mat by drawing our head, neck, and shoulders in one direction, hips in the other. I kept waiting for him to take us into the poses plastered across magazine covers: down dog, warrior II, standing prayer. He never went there. The whole evening was spent in some form of recline or floor stretch.

As I followed his lead, the jabber in my mind grew quieter. The weight of my body really did sink into the floor. Halfway through the session, I moaned aloud. The sound escaped before I could catch it. I glanced around, embarrassed, but it seemed no one had noticed. By the end of class, my meridians had been wrung out like a soaking-wet towel. Finally, full relaxation and a mind at complete rest without slumbering.

The next week, I went back. And the next. The instructor never discussed technique or meditation. He just kept moving us into twists, folds, and stretches that released whatever we were carrying. And I kept moaning as inconspicuously as possible. I’d always viewed yoga as too passive, too slow for my driven nature. Were these quiet evenings allowing me to connect with a part of myself that ambition hid from view?

A few months later, I tried a weekend class at a gym closer to home. Jen, a fit woman in her thirties with short dark hair, spoke with clarity and precision and floated through the room offering barely there adjustments when she spotted potential injury. Her class became my Saturday ritual. Word was, she was the best. We watched her belly grow as she taught through her pregnancy nearly to term. She eventually went on maternity leave, and the sub didn’t hold a candle to her. That’s when I realized I’d been learning from a master.

Once again, it was direct experience, not someone’s word for it, that won me over. The most charming Indian yogi in the world couldn’t have convinced me that yoga would change my life. That I’d come to lust after altered states of body and mind.

Three years after Albert first suggested I do yoga, I canceled my standing massage appointments and migrated to four- to six-week intervals. I might never get better at crow pose—I’m comically imbalanced—but I can rock a modified forearm stand against the wall. Nowadays I return to yoga at least twice a week to prevent what I call energetic constipation. Otherwise, I end up with fitful sleep, weaker concentration, mild uneasiness, and growing malaise.

One evening, having missed a few days of yoga, I was charged up and needed to decompress. The refrigerator and the TV were awfully tempting, but I knew neither would give me the relief I craved. So, I rolled out my mat and got down on all fours to arch, bend and follow a sequence I enjoy. When I reached warrior II, my vagus nerve released. The din of tension was replaced by a silent internal hum. I let out a few long moans. As loud as I wanted.