Aama in America: A Pilgrimage of the Heart - Softcover

Coburn, Broughton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385474180 ISBN 13: 9780385474184

Publisher: Anchor, 1996

Synopsis

Vishnu Maya, called Aama (Mother) by everyone in her tiny Nepalese village, was living high in the Himalayas when she befriended American Peace Corps worker Broughton Coburn in 1974. In 1988, Aama came to visit him—on a trip prescribed by village priests as a way for the eighty-four-year-old, four-foot-eight woman to earn merit by making a difficult journey late in life. 

Aama in Americais a vivid chronicle of what became a twenty-five-state, coast-to-coast adventure. Guided by the perpetual curiosity and deeply spiritual orientation of their ingenious, unpredictable travel companion, Coburn and his fiancée gradually began to view their country from an entirely new perspective. "Beneath the uniform, commercial, man-made epidermis of our country," Coburn writes, "Aama found a culture and landscape that was alive and sacred, and she steered us toward it."

Aama in America is on one level an offbeat American travelogue. But on another it is a profound exploration of beliefs, values, and lost spirituality, a rediscovery of the spiritual that lies beneath the surface of America, and a singular account of the meeting of two widely divergent cultures.

About this title

From the Publisher:

The alternately rollicking and profound account of an eighty-four-year-old Himalayan woman's first journen across America--and of the insights she offered her American companions into their country and themselves. Fifteen years after he first met Aama, Broughton Coburn returned to her remote village with his future wife, Didi, and an invitation for Aama to join them on a trip to America. At eighty-four, Aama believed she had become a burden to her grandchildren and therefore welcomed the chance to visit her "adopted son's" country. For Coburn, this was a way to introduce Aama to relatives and friends back home; but for Aama the trip represented something more--a pilgrimage that had been prescribed for her by village priests, an opportunity to gain merit by undertaking a strenuous journey during the final stage of her life. Aama in America is a vivid chronicle of what became a twenty-five-state, coast-to-coast adventure. Guided by the perpetual curiosity and deeply spiritual orientation of their ingenious, unpredictable travel coffipanion, Cobum and Didi gradually began to view their country from an entirely new perspective. The more they experienced Aama's unclouded vision of America the more they realized they were not simply traveling twelve thousand miles throughout the United States--they were undertaking an emotional and philosophical odyssey toward a greater understanding of their culture, their country, and themselves. Aama in America is on one level an offbeat American travelogue. But on another it is a profound exploration of beliefs, values, and lost spirituality, a rediscovery of the spiritual that lies beneath the surface of America, and a singular account of the meeting of two widely divergent cultures.

About the Author:

Broughton Coburn, author or editor of seven books, including two national bestsellers, has worked in environmental conservation and development projects in the Himalayas for more than two of the past three decades. In addition, he has directed projects for the World Bank, World Wildlife Fund, and American Himalayan Foundation.

About this edition

• Publisher: Anchor
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0385474180
• ISBN 13: 9780385474184
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320