"Patricia Burke's stories convey deep psychological/spiritual truths poetically and lovingly. She takes the reader into the realm of myth and fairy tale easily, naturally. They illustrate the key teachings of the Pathwork very imaginatively."
--Judith Saly, editor of Creating Union and The Pathwork of Self-Transformation

"Patricia Burke has written an enchanting collection of powerful stories with healing metaphors on almost every page. Breathe Deeply! is enlightened reading."
--Charles L. Whitfield, M.D., author of Memory and Abuse and Healing the Child Within and
Barbara Harris Whitfield, author of Spiritual Awakenings

"Reading Breathe Deeply! is like opening a treasure chest full of jewels. These are stories that can help us remember who we really are and return us to what really matters. Patricia Burke invites us to enter these worlds with eyes wide open to the beautiful, yet terrifying paradox of life... to worlds where joy and sorrow live side by side, where freedom is discovered by going through the gateway of fear, where light is born of darkness. These are stories that can help us remember who we really are and return us to what really matters."
--Joseph Jastrab, author of Sacred Manhood, Sacred Earth

"The finely crafted stories in BREATHE DEEPLY nourish and sustain my faith in the healing power of metaphor."
--Camilla Bayliss, Ph. D

"I have given Breathe Deeply! to the members of my extended family. I think your book can help provide a connecting thread for us all. It's really nice for families to have a new mythology that is more appropriate for the times. Breathe Deeply ! is that new mythology."
--Lydia Kitfield, founder of the Institute for Biodynamic Shelter, Edgecomb, ME

"This is a wonderful book! I've shared it with others and other therapists as well. Thanks so much!"
--Liz Ward, Bucksport, ME

It's a journey we all face sooner or later-- the journey inward. And in so doing, if we persist in going deeper into our psyches, we invariably encounter aspects of ourselves we'd rather not look at-- that in many cases we have have spent a lifetime trying to forget.

Imagine, now, instead of being alone, facing the pain of childhood trauma and unmet needs, you had magical creatures to guide you through a mystical place beyond time and space, to help you remember who you really are.

It wouldn't be so scary, would it?

That's just the gift Maine author Patricia Burke has given us, with her latest book, Breathe Deeply! Healing Stories for the Soul. Here is a collection of 14 stories written in the time-honored tradition of the fairy tale. And as with the best of that genre, the stories are entertaining, uplifting and a delight to read.

Burke's tales, born of her own experience, transport us effortlessly into another realm where monsters of darkness live side by side with winged beings of beauty and light. And don't such images serve nicely to describe the way it often seems, inside our heads?

Most of Burke's child-heros, both human and otherwise, inhabit worlds of duality and separation. Born into innocence and wholeness, they become lost and sink into despair. But invariably they discover that there's a spark inside of them that has never left them, even as they face the worst of their feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.

Several of these stories explore the devastating and lasting effects that emotional and physical abuse can have on a child. In an especially touching tale called The Great Wise Dolphin, a young dolphin named Jewel becomes engulfed by the cruel Jinjara, a "Menacing stranger" who "has his way with her." The Jinjara threatens her family if she tells, and so she repeats over and over, "I must not tell. I must not tell." After many such encounters with the Jinjara, Jewel learns to leave her body, but by doing so deactivates her sonar and becomes alienated from the pod.

With this tale and others, Burke offers us keys to open the long-locked doors of our psyche dipping back into childhood to show how lasting can be the effects of childhood traumatic events. The only solution, Burke shows us again and again , is to be a hero-- to go back and revisit the source of pain in order to reawaken our life force.

These are stories at once simple and profound-- yet packaged gently, softly, in such a way to rekindle hope that if these childlike heros can do it, so can we.