Season of the Body: Essays

"The body knows a language the mind never wholly masters." In this remarkable debut collection—essentially a memoir in essay form—Brenda Miller creates an autobiography that locates her body as its central reference point. Single and unable to bear children of her own, Miller details a life in relationship to the extended human family, a journey that traverses realms physical, emotional, and spiritual.

From her training in massage and reflexology, to her volunteer work in a hospital’s infant ward, Miller remains a constant seeker and humble teacher. Raised in a suburban Jewish household in the sixties, Miller grows up to find herself sitting in meditation for hours at a time, both bemused and intrigued by Buddhist precepts. Or she engages in her own ironic brand of mindfulness while caring for two little girls or attending the birth of her godson. She brings us to Portugal, Syria, Israel, and the deserts of southern Utah, but these are no mere travelogues: they become, instead, maps by which to navigate the intricate maze of our lives. These personal essays vary from the lyric to the narrative to the humorous, but always we warm to Miller’s authentic voice as she explores personal joys and heartbreaks within a larger domain.

Organically shaped, never forced, these award-winning essays arrive with the pleasant snap of physical detail and leave with unforgettable insights on birth, prayer, and human resilience. Nurturing, yet uncommonly honest, Season of the Body articulates the unspoken losses, the desires held deep in the mute chambers of the heart.