The Place of Knowing: A Spiritual Autobiography - Hardcover

Thayne, Emma Lou Warner

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101 ratings by Goodreads

9781450285261: The Place of Knowing: A Spiritual Autobiography

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1450285260 ISBN 13: 9781450285261

Publisher: Iuniverse Inc, 2011

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Things happen. Early in the world you travel into them. One day you rise without prayer in a far camp and silently hurry away. Having slept under stars and still breathing the greyed fire, who would take time to suppose this the middle of a lifetime?
-Emma Lou Warner Thayne

"In view of the terrifying event with which it begins, it is a wonderful surprise to find the tremendous joy behind this book. It is everywhere suffused with Emma Lou Thayne's astonishing energy and capacity for love. She has found many lives inside herself, and teaches us to rejoice in that."
-Henry Taylor, Pulitzer Prize winner

"I think this book is Emma Lou's tour de force ... I couldn't put it down. Her 'voice' and spirit and visual poetic nature reached my heart and spirit, as if apart from my mind. The depth of her spirituality and belief in the goodness of people inspire me."
-Stephen R. Covey, author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

"In her poetry or prose, Emma Lou has the ability to make us laugh and likewise to cry-but always the unique ability to make us understand life a little better."
-Olene S. Walker, first woman governor of Utah

Knowing is a process, not an arrival. The Place of Knowing: A Spiritual Autobiography celebrates the spiritual-both seen and unseen-through the life of acclaimed writer and devout Mormon Emma Lou Warner Thayne.

In this insightful, eloquently written memoir, Emma Lou-author of thirteen books of poetry, essays, and fiction-shares poignant personal anecdotes that begin with a terrifying near-death experience when, without warning, a six-pound iron rod smashed through a car windshield into her face. As she narrates her journey through her recovery process, she reflects on previous life experiences-from the daily to the sublime. Through both example and insight, she shares adventures while offering a calming presence for those who may fear death, yearn to know how to celebrate life, and crave direction on how to access the wonders of the divine.

For anyone who has wondered about life after death or who desires a better understanding of his or her divine self, The Place of Knowing will inspire spiritual seekers everywhere to reach out in friendship to others and to embrace new experiences- ultimately discovering themselves in the process.

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About the Author:

Emma Lou Warner Thayne has an abiding faith in things seen and unseen. Her spiritual autobiography moves from the fishbowl of her sequestered childhood to an ocean of expansion across the Globe.

Descended from pioneers, she has pioneered her own way. She was the first and only woman on two corporate boards--a major daily newspaper and a regional telephone company--while teaching English and being the first woman tennis coach at the flagship university in her state. Brigham Young University awarded her the David O. McKAy Humanities Award in 1978 and the University of Utah awarded her an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 2000.

Much honored and anthologized writer of thirteen books of poetry, essays, columns, articles, fiction, and the hymn, "Where Can I Turn for Peace?", she lives in Salt Lake City with her husband of 59 years. They have five daughters and sons-in-law, eighteen grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. Emma Lou can frequently be found playing tennis.

Review:

As Emma Lou Warner Thayne sat chatting away in the passenger seat of her son-in-law's car, a six-pound iron rod going at freeway speed suddenly smashed through the windshield and into her face. Police and the medical team said Thayne should not have survived the freak accident. Yet throughout the ordeal, she thought she hadn't even lost consciousness. In truth, she had actually found consciousness.

In The Place of Knowing: A Spiritual Autobiography, Thayne--a gifted writer and beloved Mormon poet from Salt Lake City--deftly orders her near-death experience, making it the root system that feeds a majestic tree of memoir. New Age/self-help sections of bookstores are filled with tomes describing near-death experiences. Thayne's writing is deeply nuanced and much more complex than the standard "I walked toward the light, and it was good" treatment of a pending afterlife. She weaves her poetry throughout the pages and analyzes how she has remained a faithful and practicing Mormon while nurturing her urge toward mysticism and the holistic life (quite edgy places for traditional followers of the LDS Church to dabble).

Thayne writes of the near compulsion she has for getting away alone to write, to think, to simply be. One of the greatest stressors for contemporary Mormon women is their desire to live their church's teachings by serving others (most notably their families). Thayne has felt the anxiety of constantly "doing" as much as any Mormon wife and mother yet has managed to live well in both the chaotic and still places. This memoir is one of carefully balanced beauty--as Thayne tells it, "the small glories that outwit the disasters." She writes as if she might live forever. By moving, always, toward the place of knowing, she will.

--Holly Mullen, longtime journalist; former editor of the Salt Lake City Weekly

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