Praise for Beneath All Appearances
Beneath All Appearances is a call for us to turn toward our hearts and lean into the truth that all of us will experience throughout our lives—losing everything we have ever loved and known. While this beautiful book full of poetry, musings, medicine, art, elemental energy, and more emerged from the pain of a parent in relation to the loss of a child, it is a book for anyone who has a grieving heart. This book is a stunning and potent offering that many will benefit from as they seek to heal their hearts and spirits.
— Michelle C. Johnson, author of Finding Refuge and We Heal Together
I have followed the art of Rashani Réa for nearly 20 years, and felt it, tasted its textures, fallen into its wells of sacred darkness, which bravely nourish us with the wisdom beyond hope, beyond despair. This book is a masterpiece of openings, portals to that beauty which does not deny death, but tenderly embraces its terrible gift. The words of the poets are so deftly wedded to these breathing collages, they take us deeper into silent reverence for life. These women, skilled in the graceful art of grief, are gentle but powerful guides, working in us that alchemy through which, in the words of the great Wallace Stevens, “death is the mother of beauty.” This, then, is not so much a book but a tool, well-worn by loss, honed to usefulness by the beaten heart of love. Use it.
— Alfred K. LaMotte, poet, interfaith chaplain, author of Wounded Bud: Poems for Meditation, Savor Eternity One Moment at a Time and The Nectar of This Breath
In the darkest days of grief, let this luminous collection of word and image by Rashani Réa, Lynn Moore, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Damascena Tanis envelope you with its tenderness, courage and profound compassion. These four wise women, deeply schooled by tragedy, model how loss can become an alchemical initiation of soul-making that opens us to being more deeply connected with life and one another. Let this book be your guide in the transformation from feeling shattered to being broken open, awakened to the intense beauty, hope and love still to be found in the world and in the innermost recesses of your own heart.
— Kayleen Asbo, composer, poet, spiritual director and founder of Mythica
