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Chrappa's book sits somewhere between memoir, spiritual guide, and call to action for women seeking to reclaim their inner authority. The author traces her journey through three locations of Manhattan, Peru, and New Mexico, with each place serving as the backdrop for different phases of her transformation. As a somatic therapist, healer, and writer, she brings a deep respect for the body to her spiritual exploration, blending ancient wisdom with personal experience. Each location offers something specific to her growth. New York's intensity fosters ego dissolution, Peru's ceremonies offer direct mystical experiences, and New Mexico's open landscape facilitates integration. This geographic approach feels refreshingly honest about how transformation isn't a one-size-fits-all process, and different phases of growth need different conditions to flourish.
The book opens with a coca leaf reading in the Peruvian highlands, where shaman Don Andreas predicts her path as a writer. This moment establishes Chrappa's approach of surrendering to external guidance rather than forcing narrative control, staying open to uncertainty as a teacher. Chrappa's time in Peru studying indigenous medicine is handled with genuine respect and humility. The Andes serve as both literal and symbolic high ground in her journey toward clarity. She describes plant medicine ceremonies as sacred portals that reveal wounds Western healing approaches have only touched the surface of. In Peru, she learns to move beyond fear while holding space for ancestral pain, feminine suppression, and personal grief. The indigenous healers aren't presented as saviors but as mirrors, emphasizing balance with nature, trust in intuition, and spirit embodied in the physical.
There's a refreshing absence of the Western tendency to romanticize indigenous practices. Chrappa shows genuine respect for traditions that have sustained communities for generations. Her central message is that fear serves as a teacher. She presents fear as a pathway to deeper understanding and presence, encouraging readers to work with it rather than against it. This perspective is particularly relevant for women, whose fears often intertwine with social conditioning, trauma, and enforced silence. It's a radical reframing in a culture that constantly tells us to be fearless. Instead, Chrappa suggests we might become more powerful by learning to sit with our fears.
The final section, set in New Mexico's high desert, explores how mystical experiences are integrated into daily life. Chrappa examines the challenge of maintaining visionary consciousness within ordinary reality, tackling the problem of spiritual bypass through practical wisdom gained from her journey. Her background as a physiotherapist infuses her spiritual analysis with body-based understanding. She recognizes that enlightenment requires cellular reprogramming alongside conceptual shifts. Her descriptions of how trauma lodges in tissue and how ceremonial work can release generational patterns demonstrate a sophisticated grasp of embodied spirituality. This grounding in physical reality prevents the book from floating off into abstract spiritual concepts that sound profound but offer little practical application.
The writing moves between personal narrative, reflection, and spiritual insight, which may feel disorienting if one expects a traditional self-help structure. Once one adjusts to the rhythm, it feels appropriate for a book focused on presence and inner experience. It aims to remind people of their inherent wholeness, working from the assumption that they already have what they need within them. This book won't appeal to everyone. But for women facing burnout or questioning what they've been taught about power, purpose, and healing, it may serve as a mirror, a map, or a lifeline. The book succeeds by refusing to sanitize transformation, offering instead a detailed look at consciousness restructuring that honors both the terror and ecstasy of authentic spiritual development.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review
A 2025 Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize Short List book