this soft body

From the author of the light between the trees and hold her, but let her go comes an inspiring and compelling collection of poems and writings focused on the inward journey and personal transformation.

this soft body invites readers to find their way by looking within, embracing grief as the gateway to opening the heart and as the guide for continued healing. In what she describes as her most intimate collection thus far, Alysia's third book includes pieces written during some of the most challenging and poignant moments of her life in recent years on her path of healing and self-discovery-through the loss of a parent, complex family dynamics, and the deconstructing/reconstructing phases of her faith and spirituality. The collection is divided into three sections entitled "dissolve," "remember," and "embody," exploring topics like death and re-birth, the alchemical process, embodiment, the divine feminine, loss, mythology, paradox, relationships, and the intersection between spirituality and matter.

Alysia writes, "There is something extraordinary that takes place for each of us as we approach the years of mid-life. At this stage, most of us have lived long enough to say we've experienced some significant heartbreaks. From this point, we can allow our hearts to harden and become more rigid as we age, bypassing our past and our regrets... or we can choose a different path, doing the necessary work of unearthing our traumas, old beliefs, and the things from the first half of life that we inherently know will bring some upheaval in our current situations and relationships. The way of healing and self-discovery is anything but neat, tidy, and linear. And the more we heal, the more we see the process as life-long and cyclical, like the patterns revealed in nature. The inward journey is a mirror to this life-death-rebirth process. This is the work of unbecoming while simultaneously becoming more our true selves and more alive while here in this human body."