Becoming Forest: A Story of Deep Belonging
Becoming Forest opens with Aishling—the young Irish woman at the heart of this story—as she visits her grandmother in California following her grandfather’s death. Aishling finds her grandfather’s journal and reads about a trip he made to India years ago to visit the original Bodhi Tree, the place where the Buddha found enlightenment.

 

At the end of the journal, she finds a letter addressed to her from her grandfather asking for her help passing along his message of “deep security” to her generation as they deal with the climate crisis and the uncertain future ahead. Aishling goes to India to follow in her grandfather’s path to find a way of responding to his request. There she meets and falls in love with a young Buddhist monk, who is also on a quest. As they walk together along the roads of India, they gather unexpected and invaluable insights from each other and come closer to the answers they both seek.

 

Thirty years later, Aishling’s daughter Tara is visiting her in Ireland. Tara is grieving the death of her father and also the destruction of the forests from drought and fire. She is also searching for a way to heal the burnout she and her friends are experiencing while working to combat climate change. Becoming Forest weaves together threads of Native American and Celtic spirituality with Buddhist understanding and connection to the natural world, creating a tapestry which holds both the despair and awakening of Aishling
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Becoming Forest: A Story of Deep Belonging
Becoming Forest opens with Aishling—the young Irish woman at the heart of this story—as she visits her grandmother in California following her grandfather’s death. Aishling finds her grandfather’s journal and reads about a trip he made to India years ago to visit the original Bodhi Tree, the place where the Buddha found enlightenment.

 

At the end of the journal, she finds a letter addressed to her from her grandfather asking for her help passing along his message of “deep security” to her generation as they deal with the climate crisis and the uncertain future ahead. Aishling goes to India to follow in her grandfather’s path to find a way of responding to his request. There she meets and falls in love with a young Buddhist monk, who is also on a quest. As they walk together along the roads of India, they gather unexpected and invaluable insights from each other and come closer to the answers they both seek.

 

Thirty years later, Aishling’s daughter Tara is visiting her in Ireland. Tara is grieving the death of her father and also the destruction of the forests from drought and fire. She is also searching for a way to heal the burnout she and her friends are experiencing while working to combat climate change. Becoming Forest weaves together threads of Native American and Celtic spirituality with Buddhist understanding and connection to the natural world, creating a tapestry which holds both the despair and awakening of Aishling
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Becoming Forest: A Story of Deep Belonging

Becoming Forest: A Story of Deep Belonging

Becoming Forest: A Story of Deep Belonging

Becoming Forest: A Story of Deep Belonging

Hardcover

$21.99 
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Overview

Becoming Forest opens with Aishling—the young Irish woman at the heart of this story—as she visits her grandmother in California following her grandfather’s death. Aishling finds her grandfather’s journal and reads about a trip he made to India years ago to visit the original Bodhi Tree, the place where the Buddha found enlightenment.

 

At the end of the journal, she finds a letter addressed to her from her grandfather asking for her help passing along his message of “deep security” to her generation as they deal with the climate crisis and the uncertain future ahead. Aishling goes to India to follow in her grandfather’s path to find a way of responding to his request. There she meets and falls in love with a young Buddhist monk, who is also on a quest. As they walk together along the roads of India, they gather unexpected and invaluable insights from each other and come closer to the answers they both seek.

 

Thirty years later, Aishling’s daughter Tara is visiting her in Ireland. Tara is grieving the death of her father and also the destruction of the forests from drought and fire. She is also searching for a way to heal the burnout she and her friends are experiencing while working to combat climate change. Becoming Forest weaves together threads of Native American and Celtic spirituality with Buddhist understanding and connection to the natural world, creating a tapestry which holds both the despair and awakening of Aishling

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781632261045
Publisher: Easton Studio Press, LLC
Publication date: 10/03/2023
Pages: 248
Product dimensions: 5.70(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Michael Kearney has worked as a palliative care and hospice physician for forty years, sitting at the bedsides of people who are seriously ill and dying. He has published three books, Mortally WoundedStories of Soul Pain, Death, and Healing, which was a bestseller in Ireland; A Place of Healing: Working with Nature and Soul at the End of Life; and The Nest in the Stream, a nature-based spiritual memoir. Becoming Forest is his first novel.

Michael Kearney lives in Santa Barbara, California, with his wife, Radhule, and their four-legged friends Lucy and Kitty. 


 Tess Leak made the drawings for Becoming Forest. She is an artist and musician living and working in West Cork, Ireland. She is a graduate of both the BA in Visual Art on Sherkin Island and The Curious School of Puppetry in London, cocurator of the Museum of Song project, and a cellist with The Vespertine Quintet. She is part of the Irish Hospice Foundation's Compassionate Culture Network and works with groups in hospitals and community settings on projects incorporating music, nature, conversation, and poetry.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Foreword

 

2021

Chapter 1: Forest

Chapter 2: The Gift

Chapter 3: The Buddha and The Bodhi Tree

Chapter 4: A Conversation with Greta

Chapter 5: Muir Woods

 

2023

Chapter 6: Bodhgaya

Chapter 7: The Bodhi Tree

Chapter 8: Dorje

Chapter 9: On the Road

Chapter 10: Under the Banyan Tree

Chapter 11: On the Road Again

Chapter 12: Vulture Peak

 

2053

Chapter 13: Forest

Chapter 14: Headland

Chapter 15: Back at the Cottage

Chapter 16: Full Moon

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