Welcome to My Memoir Page

 Please scroll downward to see the material on the Second Edition.

This is my personal story, my spiritual journey, the story of my life, and David's and our childrens' over the past 47 years.  The painting of Maharishi on the cover was done by my husband, David Orme-Johnson.

"Written with compelling language and a warm, honest personal voice, each chapter is touching and filled with knowledge. It's a riveting read." --Linda Egenes, co-author of The Ramayana: A New Retelling of Valmiki's Ancient Epic--Complete and Comprehensive.

“I’m really enjoying her book,” said Professor Steve Nolle of Maharishi University of Management. “Her stories are wonderful. It’s a problem because I should be doing other things, but I just can’t put her book down. I tell myself, ‘Just one more story.’ It’s full of wisdom and humor, it’s honest and true, and it’s a good lesson on how to live your life.”

You can link to a radio interview: BigBlendRadio

You can buy the book in different  ways:

The book is now available in Fairfield, Iowa at the Raj Herbery, and at Revelations book and coffee shop for $24.95 plus Iowa Sales Tax.  And from me personally. Just email or call.

Gifting: I am usually in Florida for the winter and I will be delighted to mail a book to you or your friends. Just email me (go to the Contact Page) and I will send a signed copy (dedicated also, if you like) to the person indicated. The mails do slow down around Christmas time so please take that into account. I recently sent a book to Hawaii and insured it for a little over $2 and it got there almost immediately! 

The book is also available on line. See below

Details

***1) Order directly from me (I prefer this) if you live in the US. I will send it to you by media mail in a padded envelope. $24.95 plus $2.00 S&H. Go to the Contact Page or email me at rhodaoj at earthlink.net. Please ask if you would like the book signed or dedicated to someone. You can use PayPal if you like or pay by personal check.

2) order in the usual way from Amazon. Click here to go directly to my book on the AmazonUS  site.  You can also save shipping costs if you belong to Amazon Prime.

The book is also available on Amazon Canada, UK, and most other European countries. One lady from South Africa ordered hers from  Amazon.co.uk and had it shipped quickly to her. 

3) The book is also available on Kindle  on Amazon in the US, Canada, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, England, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand, Netherlands, and India. It costs $9.99 or the equivalent in local currency. It has 48 photos in it and those that were in color are reproduced in color! It also has active hyperlinks if your device can support those. 

Libraries: The book is also available at the Fairfield library, although there is a waiting list, and there are five copies circulating at the MUM Library. If you can do it, please request your local library to buy the book. You can give them the Amazon information or they can write directly to me and I will send them a book and an invoice. I would really appreciate this!

Book Clubs: A book club in Tallahassee read my book and although several of the members were not yet meditators, they all enjoyed the story. I have written an Appendix with a list of abbreviations, a paragraph on what is TM, a paragraph on who is Maharishi, and a brief glossary. 

Second Edition: The second edition corrects the typos my readers have found, and a few factual mistakes, and deals with a few sensitive issues. It also includes a page on TM, a page on Maharishi, a list of abbreviations, and a brief glossary, all in the new Appendix.

If you  don't have access to Amazon , email me and I will explore options to mail it directly to you. Here are a few highlights from the book:

Maharishi invited us to Switzerland and we spent four years travelling with him and working on materials for the TM movement. At one point Maharishi went to pay a visit to MIU and invited us along. I hadn't seen my mother in some time and asked if she could join us at MIU for a few days. Maharishi readily agreed and insisted that a TM teacher from Cleveland escort her to Fairfield. My mother had visited us in Switzerland earlier and loved to be with Maharishi and she eagerly came. Here is a photo I recently discovered in a conference room at MIU (now called Maharishi University of Management, MUM). That is my Mom sitting against the wall with her purse on her lap. Jerry Jarvis is standing just in front of her. I am along the wall to the right, dressed in black and white.

Speaking of my Mom, here is a poem I wrote years later about a memory of one of her trips to Switzerland.

Sweet Mystery

"Oh," I sighed, complaining to my husband,
"She manages to visit at the busiest of times."
"Let her be with her grandkids," he counseled,
"And set up lunch with all your friends at work.
She'll be pleased," he added, neatly eliminating himself.

"Tell me," she queried, as we lingered at the table,
my mostly single friends and my widowed mom.
"What do you girls think of love and marriage?"
They looked at each other and flushed, then each one
confessed a desire to fall in love and marry some day soon.

"What do you think, with all your knowledge?" one asked.
She smiled from somewhere deep inside her memories
and whispered, "ah, sweet mystery." Then her eyes
looked through us to a meadow near her village in Ukraine
that had bloomed with flowers some sixty years before.

"I was nine or ten, I think, when an older girl
took me with her into the fields around our shtetl.
She was tall and very pretty and somewhat nervous,
although I didn't mark it at the time, so flattered was I
by her attentions, so proud that she had chosen me.

"A young man appeared suddenly and took her hands,
and bent to kiss her on the mouth, and drow her close.
She flushed and quivered in his arms but did not try to leave.
Startled by the gestures and emotion, I gasped aloud,
and poised myself to leave and run back home.

"He saw me then and tried to send me off
with an irritated wave and several angry words.
She turned around against his chest and held my eyes,
and silently pleaded with me not to go,
desperate to have me there, yet not too close.

"I drew away a little and tried not to watch
as they murmured to each other and pressed together.
His hands dropped to her hips and she rose against him,
and I heard his rough breathing as they kissed,
and felt his hot breath in my heart and soul.

"The tall grasses waved around my ears.
A sloughing sound came through the trees,
or from their sighs, or from my own, perhaps.
The air was thick with pollen and with the urgency
to create new life out of winter's near retreat.

"We walked back in silence. She blushed
and asked me not to tell and thanked me with a hug
for staying by her side in those green and blooming meadows.
Angry, excited, yet moved beyond mere words, I nodded.

"The mystery of it all, you know, the power and the glory
had me in their grip, though I did not yet67 understand
what happens between a woman and a man,
and why she wanted me along, and how I knew to stay."
She paused and looked upon the group and smiled.

It's my turn now to let my eyes unfocus,
to peer through memories and dreams,
and see my mother as a person, a child, an old soul,
who stood once in a meadow in Ukraine and encountered Love
and saw His power through young and innocent eyes.

The only other published part of my memoirs is a chapter in a recent book.

George Ellis interviewed me for his book Symphony of Silence and I recounted my first times with Maharishi and my introduction into the very foreign world of the Guru, the ashram, and world wide travel. What an adventure! 

Click here to see an interview with George

Do you remember any stories about me or my kids during those days in Switzerland? I would love to hear about them. Please send them to me.
Thanks!