Here Comes the Sun
A Journey to Adoption in 8 Chakras
Published on 30. June 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-1-61172-021-1 (ISBN)
Description
A YOGA MEMOIR At thirty, Californian Leza Lowitz is single and traveling the world, which suits her just fine. Coming of age in Berkeley, California, during the sexual and feminist revolutions of the 1970s, she learned that marriage and family could wait. Or could they? When Leza moves to Japan and meets the man of her dreams, her heart opens in ways she never thought possible. But she's still an outsider, and home is far away. Rather than struggle to fit in, she opens a yoga studio and makes a home for others. Then, at forty-four, Leza and her Japanese husband seek to adopt--in a country where bloodlines are paramount and family ties are almost feudal in their cultural importance. She travels to India to work on herself and back to California to deal with her past. Something is still not complete until she learns that when you give a little love to a child, you get the whole world in return. This inspiring memoir reflects the author's deep connection to yoga that allows her to realize that infertile does not mean inconceivable. Through teaching, meditation, and community, she transcends her struggles and embraces the joys of adoption and motherhood.
Leza Lowitz lives in Tokyo with her husband, the writer Shogo Oketani, and their ten-year-old son. She has edited and published over seventeen books, many on Japan, and has run her own yoga studio in Tokyo for a decade. She travels throughout Japan and Asia to teach yoga and write. Her debut YA novel, Jet Black and the Ninja Wind, won the 2013--2014 Asian/Pacific American Award in Young Adult Literature.
Leza Lowitz lives in Tokyo with her husband, the writer Shogo Oketani, and their ten-year-old son. She has edited and published over seventeen books, many on Japan, and has run her own yoga studio in Tokyo for a decade. She travels throughout Japan and Asia to teach yoga and write. Her debut YA novel, Jet Black and the Ninja Wind, won the 2013--2014 Asian/Pacific American Award in Young Adult Literature.
Reviews / Votes
"A new Eat, Pray, Love"--Graceful Passages "This is a story about forging family across dividing oceans, cultures, and self-doubts, but ultimately, "Here Comes the Sun proves that love is not bound by blood. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in that which connects us, holds us together, and makes us family."--MC Yogi "Here Comes The Sun is a wise and absorbing narrative of a nonconformist life. Leza Lowitz writes with spirit and clear vision. I admire the book as I admire the life." - Leonard Gardner, author of Fat City "A forthright, articulate account of adaptation and adoption, managing the qualities of pain and join, stumbling block and resolution, to become a family... Courage and craft reveal with keen insight deeply private moments, crises, and triumphs, and give them universal relevance."--Eugene Tarshis, the Pacific Rim Review of Books A SPIRITUAL CLASSIC. Here Comes the Sun is a powerful message of hope for everyone facing challenges in their lives -- and who doesn't face any challenge? The author invites readers to go out of themselves to embrace others, for it is in our encounter with others that we discover who we are. When we muster the courage to face the world, we discover the beautiful home within our hearts. This is a book that will inspire, enrich, entertain, and help millions of readers on their search for meaning.--Romuald Dzemo, Youdreamawake.com "In Lowitz's quest for harmony and beauty--the story of a mother, told by a poet through the self-examination of a yogi--she discovers that where there is fear there can be no love, and where there is a victim there can be no enlightenment. I fell in love with everyone in this memoir of a woman wanting to be loved and to love. This is an intimate, brilliant, beautiful offering."--Sharon Gannon, Jivamukti Yoga "The story of how this American Samurai's kept her tender heart open in the face of continued obstacles will inspire every yogi who has ever forgotten to take refuge in their practice. Full of beauty and joy and truth and goodness and courage, this is a love story and a yoga page-turner."--Cyndi Lee, author, May I Be Happy: A Memoir of Love, Yoga, and Changing My Mind "Here Comes The Sun is completely captivating. Leza Lowitz offers many gifts in this very personal narrative, including absolute candor about her journey to create a family in Japan against great odds. Lowitz writes with verve and insight and shows us what it's like to forge a full and glorious life in another country, though not without trials that test her remarkable spirit. I truly relished every page."--Elizabeth McKenzie, author of Stop That Girl and The Portable Veblen "We think we know where babies come from, but do we know how a mother is born? Here Comes the Sun is a wise and compelling story of becoming a mother by opening your heart. Warm, luminous and healing."--Karen Maezen Miller, author of Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood "A poignant, inspirational and moving 'Made in Japan' love story that demonstrates the power of persistence and never giving up on your dreams."--Wendy Tokunaga, author of Love in Translation "In this beautiful and moving memoir, Leza Lowitz captures the ache we all have for love, and how the purest search can take us to unexpected corners of the earth. Her story had so much for women of our age to relate to, and I cheered as I read of her search for a child--the spirit of the child she karmically knew was out there waiting for her, a spirit which did not give up--and neither did she. I loved the romance, and her depiction of a couple's life lived across two countries, and the founding of her yoga studio--Lowitz is a pioneer. As I read, I re-examined my own life, and I finished her beautiful book determined to try to live with the same spirit of honesty, and with a goal toward meeting the demands the outer and inner worlds place upon us. I was deeply moved by Lowitz's effort to continue to search for so many different kinds of truths."--Marie Mutsuki Mockett, author of Where the Dead Pause and the Japanese Say Good-Bye "Lowitz's adoption of Japan's mothering customs, coupled with values from her own Jewish background, make Here Comes The Sun a wise, fascinating, and deeply intelligent read. "--Liane Wakabayashi, writer & creator of The Genesis Way: Making Art Through Intuition "Japan is a country where the cherished old ways are being shaken and sifted. Instead of blind obedience to social mores, young people are now asking "Why?" Yet releasing outdated social mores will result in a weakening of society and individuals if there is nothing to put in their place. Leza Lowitz and her husband Shogo offer something: the impetus of heartfelt desire and the personal courage to carry it through. An inspiring story to all, Japanese and otherwise, who contemplate "bucking the system" -- teaching us that love and joy are our companions on that hard road."--Rebecca Otowa, author of At Home in Japan: A Foreign Woman's Journey of Discovery "Before reading Leza Lowitz's memoir Here Comes The Sun, I knew nothing about yoga. But her engaging writing hooked me: Now, I'm intrigued. What I do know about is adoption. And the story of how Leza opened her heart to become mother to her son touched me deeply."--Jessica O'Dwyer, author of Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir "This is a book about opening--opening the body, the mind, the heart. Opening to possibility. To wonder. To forgiveness. To love. The sunlight Leza Lowitz creates in these pages is like a smile that glints deep inside the ribcage, then spreads and spreads until it can't help but radiate out of every cell."--Gayle Brandeis, author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write Here Comes the Sun is about self-realization. The overwhelming emotion one feels while reading is joy. The struggles, the set-backs and disappointments are no match for the undercurrent of hope which remains with Lowitz throughout her story...Unfailingly optimistic."--Kyoto Journal (August 2015, Sophelia Lee) "Reading Here Comes the Sun is like a breath of fresh beach air: clean, invigorating and hopeful as the horizon.--The Japan Times Fueled by Lowitz's deep connection to the yoga process, Here Comes the Sun offers a warm story not of idealistic new age thinking; but of a life in transition, and how this succeeds in transforming other lives in the process of pursuing motherhood--D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review "Here Comes the Sun conveys how with persistence, perseverance and patience, seemingly impossible hurdles in Japan can be overcome."--JQ MagazineMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Berkeley CA
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Weight
355 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-61172-021-1 (9781611720211)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Leza Lowitz is an accidental global citizen--bicultural mother, modern yogini, and multi-genre author of over seventeen books. She has received the APALA Award in Young Adult Literature, the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission Award, the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Poetry, a Translation Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a California Arts Council Individual Fellowship in Poetry, a National Endowment for the Humanities Independent Scholar Fellowship, and the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. Her books Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By and Jet Black & The Ninja Wind are amazon best-sellers. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Yoga Journal, Yoga International, Shambhala Sun, The Best Buddhist Writing, The Huffington Post, and The Japan Times. Up from the Sea, her Young Adult novel in verse about Japan's March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, will be published by Crown Books for Young Readers in 2016.