Taking a Bath in the Milky Way
Through the motif of water, Barbara Gates's forthcoming book moves from blame and anger to a wider and kinder mind, in flow with life: an inner alchemy inseparable from the great shifts of war and peace in the world around us.
Tonle'​​ Sap, lake in Cambodia
Beginning with the context of World War II, during which Gates was conceived, and her own wars against others and herself, she introduces a yearning for harmony. She takes refuge in water, which ripples through this memoir in a series of stories—in tubs, ponds, a waterfall, and the sea. With divorced parents—an agnostic Jewish mother and atheistic Protestant father—and a warring family, in bathing she finds peace and a backdoor to the life of the spirit.
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The teachings Gates finds in water are informed by her five decades of meditation and thirty plus years editing the Buddhist journal Inquiring Mind.
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La Grande Baignoire - Pierre Bonnard
… the only thing separating the newborn baby’s first bath from the
cleansing of the corpse is life, fragile as a paper screen.
​— Shikitei Sanba, Bathhouse of the Floating World
Central Park Reservoir, New York City
San Francisco Bay, Point Isabel, Richmond, California
Check back for updates on publication.
Multnomah Falls, Oregon
Stream through Panther Meadow, Mount Shasta, California
Pacific Ocean, San Francisco
Pond in Monet's Gardens, Giverny, France